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William Bakewell
Biography
William Bakewell (May 2, 1908 – April 15, 1993), also known as Billy Bakewell, was an American actor, who achieved his greatest fame as one of the premiere juvenile performers of the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Bakewell, educated at Los Angeles Harvard Military School, began his film career as an extra in the silent movie Fighting Blood (1924), and went on to appear in some 170 films and television shows. He had supporting roles at the end of the silent era and reached the peak of his career around 1930. He is perhaps best remembered for playing German soldier Albert Kropp in the film classic All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), and Rodney Jordan, Joan Crawford's brother, in Dance, Fools, Dance (1931). He also co-starred in Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929) with Winnie Lightner and Lilyan Tashman. In 1933, he contributed to the founding of the Screen Actors Guild, and was member 44 of the original 50. He never achieved stardom after the Depression years, although he became familiar in dozens of films, including his short appearance as a mounted soldier in Gone with the Wind (1939) whom Scarlett O'Hara asks when the Yankee soldiers are coming to Atlanta.
During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army with the rank of second lieutenant. He was stationed at the 73rd Evacuation Hospital and at the Radio Section of the Special Service Division as the Post Intelligence Officer. He also worked under the department that handled distribution of recorded programs to overseas station circuits.
He starred in the Columbia Pictures serial Hop Harrigan (1946), where he played a top Air Corps pilot. He also portrayed Major Tobias Norton and a Keelboat Race Master of Ceremonies in the phenomenally popular Disney series Davy Crockett (1954-1955).
In the 1960s, he guest starred in numerous situation comedy television series, including Guestward, Ho!, Pete and Gladys, Bringing Up Buddy, The Tab Hunter Show, Mister Ed, Leave It to Beaver, The Jack Benny Program, Petticoat Junction , and Hazel. He also was cast in episodes of Peter Gunn, Sea Hunt, Wagon Train, The Roaring 20s, The Virginian, Arrest and Trial, and 87th Precinct He played the Virginia statesman George Wythe in the episode "George Mason" in the 1965 NBC documentary series, Profiles in Courage. He made his last film in 1975.
For four decades, Bakewell served on the board of Motion Picture and Television Fund. He died on April 15, 1993 of leukemia at the age of 84.
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Yas Ali Nasir
Biography
Yas Ali Al-Naser, born in Baghdad in 1921, was a pioneering figure in Iraqi cinema. In the early 1950s, he produced the first authentic Iraqi film without foreign elements, following it with four more films. He began his artistic journey in theater and later ventured into filmmaking, starring in movies like "Layla in Iraq." In 1955, he co-founded "Dunya Al-Fann Films Company," contributing to films such as "Fitan and Hasan." His cinematic legacy includes works like "Dr. Hasan" and "Al-Bahithun," showcasing his significant role in shaping Iraqi cinema.
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Buck Owens
Biography
Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. (August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006), known professionally as Buck Owens, was an American musician, singer, songwriter, and band leader. He was the lead singer for Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, which had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music chart. He pioneered what came to be called the Bakersfield sound, named in honor of Bakersfield, California, Owens's adopted home and the city from which he drew inspiration for what he preferred to call "American music".
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Lisandro Alonso
Biography
Lisandro Alonso is an Argentine film director and screenwriter. In a style that blends the traditions of documentary and narrative film, Alonso focuses on solitary individuals as a lens through which to explore loneliness.
Alonso has directed five feature-length films, all of which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, and two short films. These films have been shown in cinemas, film libraries, international film festivals, and museums. His feature film Jauja (2014) won a FIPRESCI Prize at the 67th annual Cannes Film Festival. In 2014, the Film Society of Lincoln Center named Alonso as its Filmmaker in Residence.
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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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Max Amann
Biography
Max Amann (24 November 1891 – 30 March 1957) was a high-ranking member of the Nazi Party, a German politician, businessman and art collector, including of looted art. He was the first business manager of the Nazi Party and later became the head of Eher Verlag ('Eher Publishing'), the official Nazi Party publishing house. He was also the Reichsleiter for the press. After the war ended, Amann was arrested by U.S. military occupation authorities. A denazification court deemed him a Hauptschuldiger ('Major Offender'). Amann was sentenced to ten years in a labour camp and stripped of his property, pension rights, and virtually all of his fortune.
Amann was released from custody in 1953, and died in poverty in Munich four years later.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Max Amann, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Daniel Lavoie
Biography
Daniel Lavoie (born Joseph-Hubert-Gérald Lavoie on March 17, 1949) is a Canadian musician, actor, and singer best known for his song "Ils s'aiment" and the role of Frollo in musical Notre-Dame de Paris. He releases albums and performs on stage in Canada and France and tours in Canada and Europe.
Daniel Lavoie was born in Dunrea, Manitoba on March 17, 1949. He is bilingual in English and French, since his family was part of a small French-speaking community in the predominantly anglophone province. He is the eldest of six children. His father was a shopkeeper and his mother a housewife. Daniel took piano lessons with nuns as a little boy and continued his musical education in a French-language Jesuit boarding school, Collège de St-Boniface (now Université de Saint-Boniface), in St. Boniface neighborhood of Winnipeg, Manitoba.
In 1967, Daniel Lavoie won the CBC's competition for singer-songwriters, in the television program, "Jeunesse Oblige". Soon after that he began touring Quebec's music clubs with groups (Spectre, then Dieu de l'amour vous aime). At that time he changed his name from Gérald to Daniel. In 1973 Daniel Lavoie recorded his first single, "Marie connue", and in 1974, his second, "S'endormir pour une rose". His first album A court terme (1975) had moderate success. One of the songs from this albums, "J'ai quitté mon île" became especially popular in France and also in Portugal and Brazil. In 2009 "J'ai quitté mon île" was selected by CBC Radio listeners among the top 49 Canadian songs in all genres that best defined the country's image for Barack Obama, to be presented to him on an iPod for his inauguration. The second album, Berceuse pour un Lion (1977) was well received in Quebec and contained several hits ("Dans le temps des animaux", "La Vérité sur la vérité", "Berceuse pour un lion"), but it was the third album, Nirvana bleu (1979) that brought Daniel Lavoie true recognition in Quebec. He toured all over Quebec and also performed in France (Théâtre Montparnasse in Paris in 1980). His popularity as a live performer was growing. In 1980 he received his first Félix Award for the best male singer of the year. Many more were to follow. In 1981, Daniel Lavoie released his first English-language album Cravings as well as his fourth French-language album Aigre doux.
The year 1984 was a turning point in Daniel Lavoie's career with the release of his album Tension Attention (European title Ils s'aiment). One of the songs from this album, "Ils s'aiment" became especially popular and its single sold 2 million copies. It has been translated into several languages and covered by dozens of performers, among them Ana Belén ("Ellos se aman", in Spanish), Richard Cocciante (in Italian and Spanish), Diane Dufresne (in French), Paulo Gonzo ("Ridiculous Love", in English), Ramses Shaffy ("Regenboog", in Dutch). "Ils s'aiment" and "Tension Attention" brought Daniel Lavoie multiple awards both in Quebec and in France. The same year Daniel created his solo concert show Hôtel des rêves which he presented both in Quebec and in Europe. ...
Source: Article "Daniel Lavoie" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Lizzy Connolly
Biography
Lizzy is a prolific theatre actor, with performances that include CABARET in Paris playing 'Sally Bowles', ON THE TOWN at Regent’s Park, SWEET CHARITY at the Donmar Warehouse, TWILIGHT ZONE at the Almeida Theatre, ONCE IN A LIFETIME at the Young Vic, INDECENT PROPOSAL at Southwark Playhouse and OKLAHOMA at the BBC proms, being in the original casts of DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS and MRS HENDERSON PRESENTS in the West End.
On screen, Lizzy will next be seen in CRIMINAL RECORD on Apple TV. Other screen work includes DOCUMENTARY NOW, BBC's THE CANTERVILLE GHOST, film THE FESTIVAL, PLEBS, CALL THE MIDWIFE and playing Ellie Goulding in THE WINDSORS.
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Lalo Schifrin
Biography
Lalo Schifrin (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈlalo ˈʃifɾin]; born Boris Claudio Schifrin; June 21, 1932 – June 26, 2025) was an Argentine-American pianist, composer, arranger and conductor. He was best known for his large body of film and television scores, which incorporate jazz and Latin American musical elements alongside traditional orchestration.
Schifrin's best known compositions include the themes from Mission: Impossible (1966) and Mannix (1967), as well as the scores to Cool Hand Luke (1967), Bullitt (1968), THX 1138 (1971), Enter the Dragon (1973), The Four Musketeers (1974), Voyage of the Damned (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), The Amityville Horror (1979) and the Rush Hour trilogy (1998–2007). Schifrin was also noted for collaborations with Clint Eastwood from the late 1960s to the 1980s, particularly the Dirty Harry film series. He composed the Paramount Pictures fanfare used from 1976 to 2004.
Schifrin was a five-time Grammy Award winner; he was nominated for six Academy Awards and four Emmy Awards. In 2019, he received an Honorary Academy Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in recognition of his successful career.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Lalo Schifrin, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Zalman King
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zalman King (born Zalman King Lefkowitz; May 23, 1942 – February 3, 2012) was an American film director, writer, actor and producer. His films are known for incorporating sexuality, and are often categorized as erotica.
He was born Zalman Lefkovitz in Trenton, New Jersey, U.S. As a young man in 1963 he played a gang member on Alfred Hitchcock Presents ("Memo from Purgatory" written by Harlan Ellison) with James Caan and Walter Koenig. In 1967 he played the outlaw Muley in "Muley", an episode of the TV show Gunsmoke. His character shoots Marshall Matt Dillon as part of a plan to rob the Dodge City Bank, but as he and his gang are waiting for Dillon to recover (so they can try again to kill him), Muley falls in love with one of the girls at the Long Branch Saloon, which thwarts the plan.
From September 1970 until May 1971, King played attorney Aaron Silverman on the drama The Young Lawyers, broadcast on the ABC television network. King later contributed a unique delivery to Trip with the Teacher (1975), portraying the psychopathic Al, a narcoleptic murdering motorbiker.
King has directed several commercially successful films, including Two Moon Junction (1988), Wild Orchid (1990), and Red Shoe Diaries (1992), which became a long-running television series for Showtime network. It spawned many sequels. He is perhaps best known for his collaboration with director Adrian Lyne on the film 9½ Weeks which starred Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke. He produced (and usually directed) the television series and film ChromiumBlue.com and Showtime series Body Language. He appeared in Lee Grant's directorial debut feature film Tell Me a Riddle.
Other work as director includes the 1995 film Delta of Venus based on the book by Anaïs Nin and starring Audie England. The film about an American girl living in Paris in 1939 is in many ways reminiscent of European art house films where erotica forms a centerpiece to a plot which is nevertheless about greater issues.
He is married to writer/producer Patricia Louisianna Knop. They have collaborated on many projects, such as writing Wild Orchid, Delta of Venus and 9½ Weeks as well as many episodes of Red Shoe Diaries. They have two daughters, Chloe King and Gillian Lefkowitz.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Zalman King, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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