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Leonid Kinskey
Biography
Leonid Kinskey (April 18, 1903 – September 8, 1998) was a Russian-born movie and television actor who enjoyed a long career. Kinskey is best known for his role as Sascha in the film Casablanca (1942).
Kinskey was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. He fled the Russian Revolution and acted on stage in Europe and South America before arriving in New York City in 1921. He joined the road production of Al Jolson's musical Wonder Bar, before making his first film appearance, in the 1932 Trouble in Paradise. His looks and accent helped him land supporting roles in numerous movies, including Duck Soup and Nothing Sacred, and on television, well into the 1960s. It is said that he got perhaps his best-known role, Sascha in Casablanca, because he was a drinking buddy of star Humphrey Bogart. Kinskey was in the pilot episode for Hogan's Heroes, but turned down a regular role in the series because he thought the subject matter was being taken too lightly.
Kinskey was married three times. His second wife was actress Iphigenie Castiglioni, to whom he remained married until her death in 1963. He was married to Tina York from 1983 to his death. He died of complications of a stroke in Fountain Hills, Arizona, at the age of 95.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Leonid Kinskey, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Trine Dyrholm
Biography
Trine Dyrholm (born April 15, 1972) is a Danish actress, singer and songwriter. Dyrholm received national recognition when she placed third in the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix as a 14-year-old singer. Four years later, she again achieved national recognition when she won the Bodil Award for Best Actress in her debut film: the teenage romance Springflod. Dyrholm has won the Bodil Award for Best Actress five times and a Bodil award for Best Supporting Actress twice as well as six Robert Awards in her acting career.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Trine Dyrholm, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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John Qualen
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Qualen (born Johan Mandt Kvalen, December 8, 1899 – September 12, 1987) was a Canadian-American character actor of Norwegian heritage who specialized in Scandinavian roles.
Qualen was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, the son of immigrants from Norway; his father was a Lutheran minister and changed the family's original surname, "Kvalen", to "Qualen" – though some sources give Oleson, later Oleson Kvalen as Qualen's earlier surnames. His father's ministering meant many moves and John was 20 when he graduated from Elgin High School in 1920. Though he was awarded a scholarship to Northwestern University after he won an oratory contest he never attended college. In a Milwaukee Journal interview he said he needed to start working and did so with the Chattaqua Circuit. Eventually reaching Broadway, he gained his big break as the Swedish janitor in Elmer Rice's Street Scene. His movie career began when he recreated the role in the film version. This was followed by his appearance in John Ford's Arrowsmith (1931) which began a more than thirty year membership in the director's "stock company", with important supporting roles in The Searchers (1956), Two Rode Together (1961), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and Cheyenne Autumn (1964).
Appearing in well over one hundred films, and acting extensively on television into the 1970s, Qualen performed many of his roles with various accents, usually Scandinavian, often intended for comic effect. Three of his more memorable roles showcase his versatility. Qualen assumed a Midwestern dialect as Muley, who recounts the destruction of his farm by the bank in Ford's The Grapes of Wrath (1940), and as the confused killer Earl Williams in Howard Hawks' classic comedy His Girl Friday (also 1940). As Berger, the jewelry-selling Norwegian resistance member in Michael Curtiz' Casablanca (1942), he essayed a light Scandinavian accent, but put on a thicker Mediterranean accent as the homeward-bound fisherman Locota in William Wellman's The High and the Mighty (1954)
Qualen was treasurer of The Authors Club and historian of The Masquers, Hollywood's social group for actors.
John Qualen was blind in his later years. He died of heart failure in 1987 in Torrance, California, and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale. He was survived by his three daughters.
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Alan Moore
Biography
Alan Moore (born 18 November 1953) is an English writer known primarily for his work in comic books including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, The Ballad of Halo Jones and From Hell.Frequently described as the best graphic novel writer in history, he has been widely recognized by his peers and by critics. He has occasionally used such pseudonyms as Curt Vile, Jill de Ray, and Translucia Baboon; also, reprints of some of his work have been credited to The Original Writer when Moore requested that his name be removed.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Alan Moore, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Sean Connery
Biography
Sir Thomas Sean Connery (August 25, 1930 - October 31, 2020) was a Scottish actor and producer who 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, it was announced that Connery had died at the age of 90.
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Madeleine Lebeau
Biography
Madeleine LeBeau, was a French actress who played Humphrey Bogart’s jilted mistress Yvonne, in “Casablanca,” In “Casablanca,” LeBeau gets teary-eyed when “La Marseillaise” is played and shouts “Viva la France!” She was among several cast members who were actually refugees from the German occupation. Her life echoed the film: After she made her screen debut in French film “Girls in Distress” in 1939, LeBeau and her husband, actor Marcel Dalio, fled Paris for Portugal. They were said to have received transit visas that allowed them to enter Spain and then Portugal before continuing on towards Chile. They were stranded in Mexico when their visas turned out to be forgeries and were able to enter the United States with temporary Canadian passports.
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Michelle Fairley
Biography
Michelle Fairley (born 11 July 1963) is an actress from Northern Ireland. She is best known for playing Catelyn Stark in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011–2013). She has since appeared in the USA Network series Suits (2013), the Fox series 24: Live Another Day (2014), the RTÉ miniseries Rebellion (2016), the science fiction series The Feed (2019), and the Sky Atlantic crime drama Gangs of London (2020–).
Fairley was born in Coleraine to parents Brian and Teresa Fairley, the second eldest of six children. Her father was a popular publican, owner of Fairley's Bar and several off-licences, in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, but Fairley remembers both Catholics and Protestants frequenting the pub.
Fairley appeared in a number of British television shows, including The Bill, Holby City and Casualty. Some of her earlier roles were as Cathy Michaels on ITV1's Inspector Morse in the episode titled "The Way Through The Woods" and as Nancy Phelan in Lovejoy in the episode 9 of Season 3 titled "Smoke Your Nose".
She took over the role of Mrs. Granger from Heather Bleasdale (who had played Mrs. Granger in Chamber of Secrets) in the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows films. From 2011 to 2013, Fairley starred as Catelyn Stark (née Tully) in the first three seasons of the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones, replacing Jennifer Ehle who played the character in the original, unaired, pilot episode.
Fairley joined the cast of the USA Network series Suits for its third season, playing the recurring role of Dr. Ava Hessington, a chemical engineer and oil CEO accused of bribery, and after that, accused for murder. She played Margot Al-Harazi in 24: Live Another Day on Fox. Her film roles included The Invisible Woman (2013) and In the Heart of the Sea (2015). In 2014, Fairley was cast as Margaret Langston in the ABC TV Series Resurrection (2014-2015).
In 2017, it was announced Fairley would appear in a revival of Jim Cartwright's play Road at the Royal Court Theatre In 2018, she played Cassius in Julius Caesar at the Bridge Theatre, alongside David Calder, David Morrissey and Ben Whishaw. In 2019, Fairley led the Virgin Media and Amazon Prime science fiction series The Feed as Meredith Hatfield. As of June 2020, Fairley stars as Marian Wallace in the Sky Atlantic crime drama Gangs of London. She starred as Millie in the 2021 film Nobody Has To Know alongside Bouli Lanners. In 2023, Fairley starred as Princess Augusta in Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story on Netflix. She also contributed to The Gone a TVNZ and RTE coproduction.
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AnnaLynne McCord
Biography
AnnaLynne McCord (born July 16, 1987) is an American actress. Known for playing a range of vixen-type roles, McCord first gained prominence in 2007 as the scheming Eden Lord on the FX television series Nip/Tuck, and as the pampered Loren Wakefield on the MyNetworkTV telenovela American Heiress. In film, she has appeared in the action feature Transporter 2, as well as the thriller Day of the Dead. In 2008, she was the second actor to be cast in the CW series 90210, portraying antiheroine Naomi Clark. Initially, the part of Clark was conceived as a supporting role. By the end of the first season, however, various media outlets had begun referring to McCord as the series' lead.
Apart from acting, she has also contributed to charities in her free time, and has been labeled by the Look to the Stars organization as "one of the strongest young female philanthropists standing up in Hollywood and fighting for the charities she believes in." In 2009, McCord was nominated for a Teen Choice Award, and received the Hollywood Life Young Hollywood Superstar of Tomorrow award. For the role of Naomi Clark, she won a Breakthrough of the Year Award in the category of "Breakthrough Standout Performance" in 2010.
Description above from the Wikipedia article AnnaLynne McCord, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Claude Rains
Biography
Claude Rains (9 November 1889 – 30 May 1967) was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 47 years; he later held American citizenship. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man (1933), a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and, perhaps his most famous performance, Captain Renault in Casablanca (1942).
Rains was born William Claude Rains in Camberwell, London on November 10, 1889. He grew up, according to his daughter, with "a very serious cockney accent and a speech impediment". His father was British stage actor Frederick Rains, and the young Rains made his stage debut at 11 in Nell of Old Drury.
His acting talents were recognised by Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, founder of The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Tree paid for the elocution lessons Rains needed in order to succeed as an actor. Later, Rains taught at the institution, teaching John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, among others.
Rains served in the First World War in the London Scottish Regiment, with fellow actors Basil Rathbone, Ronald Colman and Herbert Marshall. Rains was involved in a gas attack that left him nearly blind in one eye for the rest of his life. However, the war did aid his social advancement and, by its end, he had risen from the rank of Private to Captain.
Rains began his career in the London theatre, having a success in the title role of John Drinkwater's play Ulysses S. Grant, the follow-up to the playwright's major hit Abraham Lincoln, and traveled to Broadway in the late 1920s to act in leading roles in such plays as Shaw's The Apple Cart and in the dramatizations of The Constant Nymph, and Pearl S. Buck's novel The Good Earth, as a Chinese farmer.
Rains came relatively late to film acting and his first screen test was a failure, but his distinctive voice won him the title role in James Whale's The Invisible Man (1933) when someone accidentally overheard his screen test being played in the next room. Rains later credited director Michael Curtiz with teaching him the more understated requirements of film acting, or "what not to do in front of a camera".
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Ingrid Bergman
Biography
Ingrid Bergman (August 29, 1915 – August 29, 1982) was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films, television movies, and plays. With a career spanning five decades, she is often regarded as one of the most influential screen figures in cinematic history.
According to the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, upon her arrival in the U.S. Bergman quickly became "the ideal of American womanhood" and a contender for Hollywood's greatest leading actress. David O. Selznick once called her "the most completely conscientious actress" he had ever worked with. In 1999, the American Film Institute recognised Bergman as the fourth greatest female screen legend of Classic Hollywood Cinema.
She won numerous accolades, including three Academy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, four Golden Globe Awards, BAFTA Award and a Volpi Cup. She is one of only four actresses to have received at least three acting Academy Awards (only Katharine Hepburn has four).
Born in Stockholm to a Swedish father and a German mother, Bergman began her acting career in Swedish and German films. Her introduction to the U.S. audience came in the English-language remake of Intermezzo (1939). Known for her naturally luminous beauty, she starred in Casablanca (1942) as Ilsa Lund, her most famous role, opposite Humphrey Bogart. Bergman's notable performances in the 1940s include the dramas For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Gaslight (1944), The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), and Joan of Arc (1948), all of which earned her nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress; she won for Gaslight. She made three films with Alfred Hitchcock: Spellbound (1945), with Gregory Peck, Notorious (1946), opposite Cary Grant and Under Capricorn (1949), alongside Joseph Cotten.
In 1950, she starred in Roberto Rossellini's Stromboli, released after the revelation she was having an affair with Rossellini; that and her pregnancy prior to their marriage created a scandal in the U.S. that prompted her to remain in Europe for several years. During this time she starred in Rossellini's Europa '51 and Journey to Italy (1954), now critically acclaimed, the former of which won her the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. She had a successful return to working for a Hollywood studio in Anastasia (1956), winning her second Academy Award for Best Actress. Soon after, she co-starred with Grant in the romance Indiscreet (1958). In 1969, she starred in the acclaimed and highly successful film Cactus Flower. In later years, Bergman won her third Academy Award, this one for Best Supporting Actress, for her role in Murder on the Orient Express (1974). In 1978, she starred in Ingmar Bergman's (no relation) Swedish Autumn Sonata receiving her sixth Best Actress nomination. Bergman spoke five languages – Swedish, English, German, Italian and French – and acted in each.
In her final role, she portrayed the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the television miniseries A Woman Called Golda (1982) for which she posthumously won her second Emmy Award for Best Actress. In 1974, Bergman discovered she was suffering from breast cancer but continued to work until shortly before her death on her sixty-seventh birthday.
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