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Harry 'Snub' Pollard
Biography
Snub Pollard (9 November 1889 – 19 January 1962) was an Australian-born vaudevillian, who became a silent film comedian in Hollywood, popular in the 1920s.
Born Harold Fraser, in Melbourne, Australia on 9 November 1889, he began performing with Pollard's Lilliputian Opera Company at a young age. Like many of the actors in the popular juvenile company, he adopted Pollard as his stage name. The company ran several highly successful professional children's troupes that traveled Australia and New Zealand in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
In 1908, Harry Pollard joined the company tour to North America. After the completion of the tour, he returned to the US. By 1915 he was regularly appearing in uncredited roles in movies, for example Charles Epting notes that Pollard can clearly be seen in Chaplin's 1915 short By the Sea. In later years, Pollard claimed Hal Roach had discovered him while he was performing on stage in Los Angeles.
Pollard played supporting roles in the early films of Harold Lloyd and Bebe Daniels. The long-faced Pollard sported a Kaiser Wilhelm mustache turned upside-down; this became his trademark. Lloyd's producer, Hal Roach, gave Pollard his own starring series of one- and two-reel shorts. The most famous is 1923's It's a Gift, in which he plays an inventor of many Rube Goldberg-like contraptions, including a car that runs by magnet power.
In early 1923, shortly after his second marriage, Pollard returned with his wife Elizabeth to see his relations in Australia. His visit attracted considerable attention, and he appeared again in several theatres to speak about the motion picture business. On his return to the US, he left Roach and joined the low-budget Weiss Brothers studio in 1926. There he co-starred with Marvin Loback as a poor man's version of Laurel and Hardy, copying that team's plots and gags.
In later years, Pollard claimed the Great Depression wiped out his investments, and he had been unable to "adjust to the talkies." However, in the 1930s, he played small parts in talking comedies, and was featured as comic relief in "B" westerns. Pollard's silent-comedy credentials guaranteed him work in slapstick revivals. He appeared with other film veterans in Hollywood Cavalcade (1939), The Perils of Pauline (1947), and Man of a Thousand Faces (1957). He also appeared regularly as a supporting player in Columbia Pictures' two-reel comedies of the mid-1940s.
Forsaking his familiar mustache in his later years, he landed much steadier work in films as a mostly uncredited bit player. He played incidental roles in scores of Hollywood features and shorts, almost always as a mousy, nondescript fellow, usually with no dialogue.
Snub Pollard died of cancer on 19 January 1962, aged 72, after nearly 50 years in the movie business. His interment was at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills).
For his contributions to motion pictures, Pollard has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6415½ Hollywood Boulevard.
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Tomas Boykin
Biography
Born and raised in the "City of Brotherly Love," Philadelphia, PA; Tomas Boykin was born to a musician father and a stay at home mom. It could be said that the trajectory of Boykin's career as a creative was set early in childhood. He was encouraged to act in plays as early as the 3rd grade. "I was fortunate in that I had a few teachers in the Philly public school system who were also creatives and pretty active in the Philadelphia theatre scene when I was coming up. With my parents also encouraging me to express myself through the arts, performing in school plays seemed like a natural segue." By the end of his college career, which by the way was pre-law with a major in criminal justice, Boykin's resume included "A Chorus Line," "Pippin," "Finians Rainbow," "Oklahoma" and "The Little Foxes" as well as many other musical productions. Boykin trained and performed professionally in both Philly and NYC where he acted in all kinds of productions including children's theatre, community theatre, theatre in the park, dinner theatre, regional tours, national tours in addition to numerous Off Broadway productions.
Having done quite a few short films in New York many of which were avant-garde and experimental, but nonetheless thoroughly enjoyable collaborations, a pivotal move to Los Angeles via the Actors Equity Association's (LORT) lottery seemed logical. However, Boykin's long career as an "actor on the boards" continued with award winning performances in Sheri Bailey's theatrical adaptation of Nella Larsen's novel "Passing" where he originated the role of Albert Brickhouse at LA's historic Towne Street Theatre in 1997/98 and a decade later playing the role of Crooks in John Steinbeck's classic "Of Mice and Men" at Theatre Banshee in Burbank, CA. Ever the ascending, journeyman actor, Boykin's onscreen credits include his feature film debut in 1999's "Among Thieves," "Haunting of Winchester House," 20th Century Fox's riveting religious drama "I Am," "Voodoo Possession," "Lazarus Rising," "Junkie," the multi-award winning anti-apartheid thriller "Elegy for a Revolutionary," Rob Zombie's "3 From Hell" and 2022's "The Munsters." Boykin's most recent feature film credit is the critically acclaimed SXSW2024 standout "Dead Mail." TV credits include Fox Networks "Lucky Chance," NBC's "Parenthood" and ABC's "How To Get Away with Murder."
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Cyril Hanouna
Biography
Cyril Valéry Isaac Hanouna (born 23 September 1974 in Paris) is a French radio and television presenter, writer, author, columnist, producer, singer and occasional actor and comedian of Tunisian origins. He is best known for hosting the popular French TV show Touche Pas à Mon Poste.
Hanouna was born into a Jewish family, he is the son of a general practitioner and a saleswoman who arrived in France from Tunis in 1969. He first studied to become a doctor like his father. After having difficulties in high school, he decided to study management to become a chartered accountant, but he later gave up his studies.
Hanouna made his television debut in 1999 on the television channel Comédie+ where he wrote the lyrics for the trailers. Hanouna became a television presenter in 2002 when he co-hosted the third series of La Grosse Émission alongside comedian duo Kad et Olivier. In February 2002 he was approached by RTL Radio and he hosted a radio show called Planet Arthur alongside Manu Levy and Valérie Bénaïm. In 2003 he hosted the morning show Morning Live on M6.
Since 2008 Hanouna has been associated with the Eurovision Song Contest. At the 2008 Contest, he presented the French tele-votes, and then provided the French commentary for the 2009 and 2010 Contests alongside Julien Courbet and Stéphane Bern.
Currently, he is a host on Europe 1, and on television with Touche Pas à Mon Poste (up to 2012 on France 4), before moving with the whole TV show team to D8 since the new channel was launched on 7 October. The channel also bought the rights for Nouvelle Star, the French version of the Pop Idol Series, and Hanouna became the host of the show.
In 2011, he acted in the third installment of La Vérité si je mens!.
Nowadays he is the producer of his own entertainment company, H2O Production, where he works on some of the most popular TV shows of C8 (as D8 was renamed). He is also active on almost all channels which are owned by Vincent Bolloré (Direct 8, Direct Star and Canal+). In 2015 Bolloré spent 250 million Euros to keep Hanouna on his team.
In 2019, he proposed a television show which he would co-host with a French politician to address the concerns of French citizens, a reaction to the yellow vests movement.
Cyril Hanouna has often received satirical awards from Gérards de la Télévision: Industrial Mistake Award 2007, Worst Presenter 2013 and 2014, The Presenter Who Doesn't Need Drugs 2016. In February 2016, he was drawn by Charlie Hebdo as a mosquito sucking out children's brains. ...
Source: Article "Cyril Hanouna" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Barbara Bedford
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Barbara Bedford (born Violet May Rose; July 19, 1903 – October 25, 1981) was an American actress who appeared in dozens of silent movies. Her career declined after the introduction of sound, but she continued to appear in small roles until 1945.
After high school she set out for Hollywood. She had written many fan letters to actor William S. Hart, and he helped her get a small role in his 1920 movie The Cradle of Courage. While working as an extra that same year on The White Circle, she was noticed by fellow cast member John Gilbert, who recommended her to director Maurice Tourneur. Tourneur cast her alongside Gilbert in Deep Waters. Tourneur also cast her in The Last of the Mohicans, where she was the love interest for Alan Roscoe, whom she later married in real life.
In 1925 she appeared opposite Hart in his final film, Tumbleweeds, a key western of the silent period. She starred in the 1926 silent film Old Loves and New and in Mockery with Lon Chaney the following year.
When her career declined after the switch to sound, she signed with MGM in 1936 to play bit and extra parts. Her last known film appearance was in 1945.
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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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Bradley Thomas
Biography
Bradley Thomas (born November 30, 1965) is an American film and television producer. Thomas is the co-founder of Imperative Entertainment, a studio specializing in the development, production, and financing of original and branded entertainment across all platforms focusing on film, television, and documentaries. Imperative Entertainment films include The Square (Palme d'Or at the 2017 Festival de Cannes), All the Money in the World, and The Mule. Imperative Entertainment also produced the 2023 Academy Award nominated film Killers of the Flower Moon which stars Leonardo DiCaprio.
Thomas has produced films with Peter and Bobby Farrelly such as Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary, Me Myself and Irene, Shallow Hal, Hall Pass, and also co-produced Triangle of Sadness. and Black Bird for Apple TV.
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Dany Carrel
Biography
Yvonne Suzanne Chazelles de Chaxel, better known as Dany Carrel, (born 20 September 1932 or 20 September 1935) is a French actress. She was born in Vietnam - then French Indochina - to French father Aimé Chazelles de Chaxel and his Vietnamese mistress, Kim. She gradually retired starting from the eighties due to two bouts of cancer. In 2021, she was hospitalized for three weeks after contracting COVID-19.
Source: Article "Dany Carrel" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Gabrielle Rose
Biography
Gabrielle Rose (born 1954) is a Canadian actress. She has an extensive resume that include multiple nominations for Genie Awards and Gemini Awards. She has worked with director Atom Egoyan on many films including Where the Truth Lies, The Sweet Hereafter, Speaking Parts, Family Viewing and The Adjuster and director Bruce Sweeney on the film Excited, for which she won the Leo Award for Best Supporting Performance by a Female in a Feature Length Drama. Other appearances include the films In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, The Five Senses and On the Other Hand, Death and recurring roles in such TV shows as Rising Damp, Dark Angel and Robson Arms. She has also done voice work for the Heritage Minute segment about the Terrace massacre.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Gabrielle Rose, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
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Greg Travis
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Greg Travis is a well recognised actor who has appeared in over 40 feature films and internationally recognised stand-up comedian. Based in the U.S. he created the comedy character David Sleaze, The Punk Magician, in which he puts on a punk rock-style wig and does a variety of bad magic tricks using audience participation. This routine appeared on "Rodney Dangerfield's HBO Specials" and quickly became a classic.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Greg Travis, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Paméla Ravassard
Biography
Après le Conservatoire d’Art Dramatique de Franche-Comté, Pamela Ravassard débute sa carrière de comédienne à Besançon. Elle entre ensuite au conservatoire du 14e arrondissement et au Cours Florent où elle intègre la Classe Libre en 2004. Avec la Compagnie de quat’sous, elle participe depuis 2005 à de nombreuses lectures publiques, et, en 2007, elle interprète Donna Aspasia au théâtre Mouffetard dans La Guerre de Goldoni, mise en scène d’Henri Dalem. Au cinéma, on l’a vue dans Enragé de Lionel Fouquet et dans Vivre ! d’Yvon Marciano, elle collabore aussi régulièrement avec Jean-Pierre Mocky. Après avoir mis en scène Le Jeu du Pendu de Pierre-Michel Tremblay en 2005, elle devient l’assistante de Marcel Bozonnet pour Tartuffe à la Comédie Française. En 2007, elle assiste Jean-Pierre Garnier sur Roberto Zucco de Koltès. En 2013, elle assiste Volodia Serre lors de la création d’Oblomov à la Comédie Française, avec Guillaume Gallienne dans le rôle éponyme.
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