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Kirk Fox

Biography

Kirk Fox (born August 26, 1969) is an American actor, screenwriter, and stand-up comedian. On screen, he is best known for his recurring roles as Sewage Joe in Parks and Recreation, Kenny Boy in Reservation Dogs, and Pat McCurdy in Jury Duty. He has also appeared in numerous films including Wyatt Earp (1994), The Postman (1997), The Patriot (2000), and Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008). Fox was previously married to director/actress Alison Eastwood from 1999 to 2000 and has been married to Jaren Boczan since 2017.
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Julian Firth

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Julian Firth (born 8 January 1961) is an English actor, best known for his roles as troubled inmate Davis in the cinematic version of the film Scum and as Brother Jerome in the long-running television series Cadfael. Firth has enjoyed a consistent acting career in the theatre and has appeared in numerous television productions, including Jeeves and Wooster, The Bill, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and Margaret. He also appeared in the video of the 1982 hit single Pass the Dutchie by Musical Youth, in which he appears as a pompous prosecuting barrister. In 1984, he was cast alongside Rob Lowe in Oxford Blues as Lowe's Oriel College roommate and confidant, providing inside information. In 2011 he appeared in the television film The Suspicions of Mr Whicher for ITV. He also appeared in the drama The Queen in 2006, as Blair's aide. In 2017, Firth joined the cast of the HBO series Game of Thrones in Eastwatch, an episode of Season 7 as Archmaester Sandhu. Firth grew up in Bristol, attending Elmlea Primary School, Clifton College, and Bristol Grammar School.
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Tim Holt

Biography

Tim Holt (February 5, 1918 – February 15, 1973) was a popular American film actor of the 1940s and early 1950s, appearing in forty-six "B" westerns released by RKO Pictures. Born in Beverly Hills to actor Jack Holt and his wife Margaret, he spent much of his childhood on set with his father, whose career began in 1914 during the silent pictures era and appeared mostly in westerns. Holt was signed to his first acting contract at the age of 17 by producer Walter Wanger who loaned him to RKO late that year. When that contract expired, RKO signed him to a seven-year contract and quickly put him to work, with Holt appearing in 24 westerns over the first three years for the studio to secure their permission for him to enlist during WWII. In 1943, he joined the Army Air Corps and became a distinguished B-17 and B-29 pilot in the Pacific Theatre, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and Purple Heart for bullet wounds he received while flying over Tokyo on the very last day of the war that ended in a crash landing. Once he had recovered, he returned to RKO to honor the remaining time of his contract, raising his total appearances with them to 46. In a career spanning more than four decades, he is best remembered for his leading role in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) and co-starring in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) alongside Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston—the latter becoming enshrined in 1997 as No. 30 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years…100 Movies" list.
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Lokesh Kanagaraj

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Lokesh Kanagaraj is an Indian film director who primarily works in Tamil cinema. He began his career in cinema by directing one of the four segments in the anthology film Aviyal (2016). Over time , Lokesh has carved a niche for himself in Indian cinema through a string of extremely successful action and crime thrillers including Maanagaram (2017), Kaithi (2019), Master (2021) , Vikram (2022) and Leo (2023). Lokesh's films are oriented around the hyperlink crime cinema subgenre where most of the story takes place during nighttime, with Lokesh citing Quentin Tarantino as a major inspiration for his style of filmmaking. His films are known for depicting the dark underbelly of metropolitan cities through multiple grey characters, with the nexus between the police force and organized crime syndicates being a key feature. Lokesh is also credited with the creation of LCU (Lokesh Cinematic Universe) where his films Kaithi (2019), Vikram (2022), and Leo (2023) share interrelated subplots, themes and characters.
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Ophélie Winter

Biography

Ophélie Kleerekoper-Winter (born 20 February 1974) is a French pop and R&B singer and actress. She is the daughter of Dutch singer David Alexandre Winter and French fashion model Catherine Fefeu. She rose to prominence in much of Europe after signing with EastWest Records in 1995 and released her hit song "Dieu m'a donné la foi" which reached number one on the French singles chart as well as other hits: "le feu qui m'attise", "Shame on U", "Elle Pleure"" and "Sache"". Winter was born in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine. Her father David Alexandre Winter was a Dutch pop singer who had some success during the 1970s, while her mother Catherine Fefeu was a French fashion model, who is now her agent. Her brother Michael is a singer and TV presenter. Her parents divorced when she was just two years old and she moved to Paris with her mother and brother, while her father left for the United States. In 1984, at the age of 10, she recorded her first song in France, La Chanson des Klaxons and three years later another song, Poil de Carotte, in French. At the age of 17, she was discovered by a modeling agent on the Champs-Élysées in Paris and after three years of modeling, she decided to become a singer and an actress. Ophélie Winter has released four studio albums starting in 1996, with her debut album, No Soucy!, which her brother collaborated on, Privacy, Explicit Lyrics and Résurrection. The singer Prince wrote her a song. It was announced at one point that Prince intended The Most Beautiful Girl In The World, to be recorded in multiple languages by local artists, but it is unknown how many of these recordings took place; one recording that was made was Le Garçon Le Plus Beau Dans L’Univers by French model and actress Ophélie Winter (intended for a single, Le Garçon Le Plus Beau Dans L’Univers), but this remains unreleased. Ophélie Winter was a featured model in a photoshoot with Prince/0)+> in 1995, holding his gold symbol guitar. In 2014, she participated in the fifth season of Danse avec les stars, the French version of Dancing with the Stars. She was partnered with professional dancer Christophe Licata. On October 10, 2014, they were eliminated finishing 10th out of 11 contestants. She currently resides in Paris making various TV appearances. Her look-alike puppet is in the French show "Les Guignols de l'info" (1988). Source: Article "Ophélie Winter" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Edward Teller

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Edward Teller (Hungarian: Teller Ede; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb" (see the Teller–Ulam design), although he did not care for the title, considering it to be in poor taste. Throughout his life, Teller was known both for his scientific ability and for his difficult interpersonal relations and volatile personality. Born in Hungary in 1908, Teller emigrated to the United States in the 1930s, one of the many so-called "Martians", a group of prominent Hungarian scientist émigrés. He made numerous contributions to nuclear and molecular physics, spectroscopy (in particular the Jahn–Teller and Renner–Teller effects), and surface physics. His extension of Enrico Fermi's theory of beta decay, in the form of Gamow–Teller transitions, provided an important stepping stone in its application, while the Jahn–Teller effect and the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) theory have retained their original formulation and are still mainstays in physics and chemistry. Teller also made contributions to Thomas–Fermi theory, the precursor of density functional theory, a standard modern tool in the quantum mechanical treatment of complex molecules. In 1953, along with Nicholas Metropolis, Arianna Rosenbluth, Marshall Rosenbluth, and his wife Augusta Teller, Teller co-authored a paper that is a standard starting point for the applications of the Monte Carlo method to statistical mechanics and the Markov chain Monte Carlo literature in Bayesian statistics. Teller was an early member of the Manhattan Project, charged with developing the first atomic bomb. He made a serious push to develop the first fusion-based weapons as well, but these were deferred until after World War II. He co-founded the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and was both its director and associate director for many years. After his controversial negative testimony in the Oppenheimer security hearing convened against his former Los Alamos Laboratory superior, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Teller was ostracized by much of the scientific community. Teller continued to find support from the U.S. government and military research establishment, particularly for his advocacy for nuclear energy development, a strong nuclear arsenal, and a vigorous nuclear testing program. In his later years, he became especially known for his advocacy of controversial technological solutions to both military and civilian problems, including a plan to excavate an artificial harbor in Alaska using thermonuclear explosive in what was called Project Chariot, and Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. Teller was a recipient of numerous awards, including the Enrico Fermi Award and Albert Einstein Award. He died on September 9, 2003, in Stanford, California, at 95.
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Július Vašek

Biography

Július Vašek (* December 29, 1926, Nové Zámky - † May 1, 2009, Bratislava) was a Slovak actor. After finishing acting at the Bratislava Conservatory in 1954, he made his debut with the film Wooden Village, which was an adaptation of František Heček's novel. He has acted in more than fifty films. He mostly portrayed negative characters - nervous or emotional types of men in borderline situations, e.g. as well as the characters of guardsmen, German soldiers and, paradoxically, partisans in films from the Second World War, where his acting skills were most evident. Unforgettable was his performance in the films Captain Dabač, Romance for flugelhorn and Pacho, Hybské zbojník. However, he was most famous for the character of Prašivec in Martin Hollé's film Copper Tower and especially Orlie Feather. In the 1970s, he was at the peak of his acting career. Undoubtedly, one of the most important tasks of his acting career is the portrayal of the mysterious character of Karol Neuman in the Czech film The Case of the Dead Man, in which he played the main role. He was also excellent in the character of Pančuch in the film Red Wine. He got his last chance in the Czech sci-fi film The Last Move.
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Ivor Novello

Biography

Ivor Novello (born David Ivor Davies; 15 January 1893 – 6 March 1951) was a Welsh composer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century, on both screen and stage. He was born into a musical Cardiff family and his mother, Clara Novello Davies, was an internationally known singing teacher and choral conductor. As a child, Novello was a successful singer in various eisteddfodau throughout the country. He was educated privately in Cardiff and then in Gloucester and later won a scholarship to Magdalen College School in Oxford. The family moved to London in 1913 and here Novello's career flourished. In 1914, at the start of World War II, he wrote the words to his most popular song, "Keep the Home Fires Burning". Novello lived in a flat above the Strand Theatre, where he remained until his death in 1951. Since 1955 the internationally prestigious The Ivor Novello Awards ("The Ivors") for songwriting and composing are annually awarded by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA).
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Joan Castle

Biography

A native New Yorker, Joan Castle was attracted to the stage as a child, and the famous talent scout Gus Edwards became her agent in the 1920s. Although Hollywood beckoned in the 1930s, her true love was the stage, and she always gravitated back to Manhattan. In 1930 she was sent to Hollywood to audition for the first science-fiction musical, Just Imagine (1930). The part was eventually given to Maureen O'Sullivan, but Castle became a contract player for Fox Films and appeared in several features. Because of a major studio fire, her first Hollywood films are considered lost: Young Sinners (1931), Hush Money (1931), in which she played Joan Bennett's sister, and Mr. Lemon of Orange (1931), opposite "the world's funniest Swede," El Brendel. In New York she was co-star of several comedy shorts, such as Wrongorilla (1933), opposite Jack Haley, I Know Everybody and Everybody's Racket (1933), opposite Walter Winchell, and Here, Prince (1932) opposite Joe Penner. Her first big break was playing the female lead ("Billie 'Stonewall' Jackson") in the hit Broadway comedy "Sailor Beware" (Lyceum, 1933) produced by her friend H. Courtney Burr. With Burr she had seen the show many times, and happened to be in the theater the night Audrey Christie became ill. She stepped into the part and immediately established herself as a qualified actress. When Christie's contract expired, Castle assumed the role until the show closed in December 1934. In a touring company, she appeared opposite José Ferrer in "The Play's The Thing." During World War II she toured for eight months in the USO show "Nothing But The Truth." The tour, which she called "the happiest time of my career," took her to troops in South America, Africa and Egypt. When Hollywood beckoned again, it was Twentieth Century-Fox, where she had minor parts in a few films in the late 1930s. Her biggest role was playing "Vera Grant" opposite Allan Jones in the Universal feature Sing a Jingle (1944). Back in New York she replaced Effie Afton in the comic part "Violet Shelton" in "My Sister Eileen", opposite Shirley Booth. During the long run of the successful comedy she married the leading man, William Post Jr., who had also made a few films in Hollywood. The marriage ended in divorce. She subsequently was engaged to Neil Vanderbilt, but married English sea captain William Sitwell of the legendary Sitwell family. During her 18-year marriage to Sitwell they lived in the 11th-century Barmoor Castle in Lowick, Northumberland, and she occasionally appeared on Radio Eirann with the Abbey Players in Dublin. Date of Death 3 December 2009, New York City, New York  (respiratory failure)
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Gong Li

Biography

Gong Li is a Chinese-born Singaporean film actress. Gong first came into international prominence through close collaboration with Chinese director Zhang Yimou and is credited with helping bring Chinese cinema to Europe and the United States. She has twice been awarded the Golden Rooster and the Hundred Flowers Awards as well as the Berlinale Camera, Cannes Festival Trophy, National Board of Review, New York Film Critics Circle Award, and Volpi Cup. She married Singaporean businessman Ooi Hoe Soeng in 1996, and became a Singaporean citizen in 2008.
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