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Vanity
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Denise Katrina Matthews (born January 4, 1959), better known as Vanity, but sometimes credited as Denise Matthews-Smith or D.D. Winters, is a Canadian-born Christian preacher and a former singer, songwriter, dancer, actress, and model from the 1980s until the early mid-90s. She was the lead singer for the female trio Vanity 6, which recorded the 1982 R&B hit "Nasty Girl".
Description above from the Wikipedia article Vanity(performer), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Amelda Brown
Biography
Amelda Brown is a British actress of stage, film, and television. She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating in 1980, and became known for her work in fringe theatre.
She played leading roles in the premieres of Caryl Churchill's Fen (1983) and A Mouthful of Birds (1986) as well as appearing in leading roles in revivals of Churchill's Light Shining in Buckinghamshire at the Royal National Theatre (1996) and Heart's Desire at the Orange Tree Theatre (2016). Her other stage roles have included Lady Macbeth for the Royal National Theatre's 1989 US tour of Macbeth; Maudlin in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside at Shakespeare's Globe in 1997; and Gibb in the 2014 world premiere of Tim Crouch's Adler and Gibb at the Royal Court theatre.
Amongst her television roles are Brenda Parkin in Backup, Mrs. Roach in Soldier Soldier, Pauline Cook in A Touch of Frost, and Sue Barnes in Peak Practice, and she has also appeared in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Morse, The Bill, Lovejoy, Holby City, The Story of Tracy Beaker, and Doctors.
In 2009, she appeared in the film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as Mrs. Cole. Her other film work includes Fanny in Little Dorrit (1987), and the small roles of Hope in Hope and Glory (1987) and the Visitor in Sister My Sister (1994). (wikipedia)
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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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Brenda McDonald
Biography
Brenda McDonald (born Brenda Olive Nicholls; February 12, 1931 – November 23, 2024) was a Canadian actress. Born in London, Brenda moved to Canada at 21, settling first in Toronto, then in Vancouver, where she met her first husband, Thomas Guy, and had four children with him.
She graduated from UBC with a teaching degree in 1977, soon after Thomas had died of a heart attack. She taught English, French and Drama for nine years before quitting to follow her dream of acting. Her career spanned 33 years. She performed on stage, in film, and in training and educational videos, as well as doing voice-over work. She was also very active in community theatre with North Vancouver Community Players and United Players in Jericho.
Her first film gig of note was as a body double for Katharine Hepburn, and over the years she shared the set with many of the greats: Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Anthony Quinn, Paul Hogan and many others. She worked on many Vancouver-shot series, including X-Files, Stargate: Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica, Supernatural, and the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. She is known by many for a single line delivered while playing the nun in Elf: “But the children love the books!”
Brenda had an active personal life: she remarried twice, surviving all of her husbands, had 11 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. She maintained her independence by keeping her driving licence until she was 92, played saxophone, attended art classes, walked every day, and she was a passionate fan of Vancouver Canucks.
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Bea Benaderet
Biography
Beatrice "Bea" Benaderet was an American actress born in New York City and raised in San Francisco, California. She appeared in a wide variety of television work, which included a starring role in the 1960s television series Petticoat Junction and Green Acres as Shady Rest Hotel owner Kate Bradley, supporting roles as Blanche Morton in The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show and as the voice of Betty Rubble during the first four seasons of The Flintstones, and in The Beverly Hillbillies as Pearl Bodine. She did a great deal of voice work in Warner Bros. animated cartoons of the 1940s/50s.
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Doug Marcaida
Biography
Doug Marcaida is a martial artist, edged weapons specialist, and knife designer born in the Philippines, who calls Upstate New York home. Doug’s interest in martial arts began at the age of 8, but he did not begin formally training in the arts until he was 16. At age 25 he discovered his love for Filipino Martial Arts, and the rest is history.
A US military veteran, who served in the US Air Force for 8 years, and then pursued a career as a Respiratory Therapist for 20 years, all the while teaching and honing his skills as a Filipino martial artist. In addition to developing his own style of Filipino Martial Arts, called Marcaida Kali, Doug has traveled all over the United States and the world, teaching first responders and military personnel the foundations of his beloved art. All of this life experience has led Doug to his core belief: It’s not about how many you hurt, it’s about how many you protect. This motto eventually evolved into Doug’s popular catchphrase “It will K.E.Al” ( Keep Everyone Alive).
Doug is now featured as a judge on the History Channel’s Forged in Fire and as well as Desafio Sobre Fuego: Latin America.
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Jowita Budnik
Biography
Jowita Budnik (née Miondlikowska; born 28 November 1973) is a Polish actress. Budnik was born in Warsaw and studied at the University of Warsaw. She made her film debut in 1985 at the age of 11 in Radosław Piwowarski's Kochankowie mojej mamy ("My Mom's Lovers"). She has appeared in such films as Papusza, Plac Zbawiciela and Jeziorak as well as the television series M jak miłość and W labiryncie. In 2017, she received Best Actress Award at the Chicago International Film Festival for her role in the film Birds Are Singing in Kigali (2017).
Description above from the Wikipedia article Jowita Budnik, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Víctor Erice
Biography
Víctor Erice Aras (Spanish: [ˈbiɣtoɾ eˈɾiθe]; born 30 June 1940; Karrantza) is a Spanish film director. He is best known for his two feature fiction films, The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), which many regard as one of the greatest Spanish films ever made, and El Sur (1983).
Erice was born in Karrantza, Biscay. He studied law, political science, and economics at the University of Madrid. He also attended the Escuela Oficial de Cinematografia in 1963 to study film direction.
He wrote film criticism and reviews for the Spanish film journal Nuestro Cine, and made a series of short films before making his first feature film, The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), a critical portrait of 1940s rural Spain. Erice was among other filmmakers, such as Luis Buñuel, who lived in “such restricted societies as Franco’s Spain,” to take aim at the authoritarian rule in power. At the time his first film was released in 1973, Francisco Franco was still in power. One of the things The Spirit of the Beehive is known for is its use of symbolism to portray what life was like in Spain under Franco’s rule. Setting the movie in 1940, at the start of Franco’s rule, was a risk for Erice, given that the film “wasn't a propagandist effort in which stalwart Francoists won victories against evil, priest-massacring Republicans.” Ten years later, Erice wrote and directed El Sur (1983), based on a story from Adelaida García Morales, another highly regarded film, although the producer Elías Querejeta only allowed him to film the first two-thirds of the story. His third movie, The Quince Tree Sun (1992) is a documentary about painter Antonio López García. The film won the Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. In July 2022, thirty years after his last full-length film, a project for a new Erice film (Cerrar los ojos) supported by Pecado Films, Tándem Films, Nautilus as well as Canal Sur was revealed to be in development. The film premiered in the following year at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and was met with very positive reviews.
He was a member of the jury at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival in May. At the 2014 Locarno Film Festival, Erice was awarded with a Golden Leopard award for lifetime achievement.
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Monty Sopp
Biography
Monty Kip Sopp is an American professional wrestler better known by his ring name Billy Gunn and for his appearances in World Wrestling Federation/World Wrestling Entertainment, from 1993 to 2004, as well as in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling from 2005 to 2009. He is currently signed to WWE, working as a trainer in its developmental territory NXT Wrestling. Primarily a tag team wrestler throughout his first tenure with the WWF/E, Gunn formed World Tag Team Championship-winning teams with Bart Gunn as The Smokin' Gunns, Road Dogg as the New Age Outlaws, and Chuck Palumbo as the eponymous Billy and Chuck to a total of ten champion reigns in the WWE. He is also a one time Intercontinental Champion, a two time Hardcore Champion, and the 1999 King of the Ring.
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José Sarney
Biography
José Sarney de Araújo Costa (born José Ribamar Ferreira de Araújo Costa; 24 April 1930) is a Brazilian politician, lawyer, and writer who served as 31st president of Brazil from 1985 to 1990. He briefly served as the 20th vice president of Brazil for a month between April and May 1985.
Sarney was a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1955 until 1966 and of the Senate from 1971 until 1985. He was also the Governor of Maranhão from 1966 until 1970. During the Brazilian military dictatorship, Sarney affiliated himself with the government party, ARENA, becoming the president of the party in 1979. Sarney joined the dissenters, and was instrumental in the creation of the Liberal Front Party.
Sarney ran for Vice-President on the ticket of Tancredo Neves of PMDB, formerly the opposition party to the military government. Neves won the presidential election, but fell ill and died before taking office, and Sarney became President. He started out his term with great popularity, but public opinion shifted with the Brazilian debt crisis and the failure of Plano Cruzado to abate chronic inflation. His government is seen today as disastrous and clientelism was widespread having longlasting consequences for the Brazilian Republic post military dictatorship.
Following his presidency, Sarney resumed his senate career elected again in 1991 and serving until 2015. He also held the position of President of the Federal Senate three times following his presidency. At age 92, he is the oldest living former Brazilian president, and at the time of his retirement in 2015, had one of the longest congressional careers in Brazilian history.
Born in Pinheiro, Maranhão, as José Ribamar Ferreira de Araújo Costa, he was the son of Sarney de Araújo Costa, a wealthy land-owner and sugarcane producer, and Kiola Ferreira. His family has origins in Viseu in Portugal. He attended Colégio Marista and the Licéu Maranhense before attending the Federal University of Maranhão. In 1953, he graduated from the federal university receiving his bachelor's degree in law. After his graduation, he launched a postmodernist literary journal titled A Ilha.
In 1965 he legally adopted the name José Sarney de Araújo Costa, usually shortened to José Sarney, for electoral purposes. He was known as "Zé do Sarney", as in "José, son of Sarney". Sarney's father acquired the name after being born on a land owned by an Englishman named "Sir Ney".
Sarney started his political career in the 1950s after becoming a replacement deputy and later as a federal deputy in 1955. He was a member of the centre-right National Democratic Union (União Democrática Nacional—UDN), aligned with the progressive wing of the party. He strongly supported so-called "Revolution of 1964", a military coup that overthrew leftist President João Goulart in 1964. After the military coup, Sarney followed most of the UDN into the National Renewal Alliance (ARENA), the political party of the military government. He was elected governor of the state of Maranhão in 1966, serving until 1971. He was then elected to the Brazilian Senate and became ARENA's president. ...
Source: Article "José Sarney" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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