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Andrzej Wajda
Biography
Andrzej Wajda (March 6, 1926 – October 9, 2016) was a Polish film director. Recipient of an honorary Oscar, he was possibly the most prominent member of the unofficial "Polish Film School" (active circa 1955 to 1963). He was known especially for a trilogy of war films: A Generation (1954), Kanał (1956) and Ashes and Diamonds (1958).
Four of his movies were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film: The Promised Land (1975), The Maids of Wilko (1979), Man of Iron (1981), and Katyń (2007).
He passed away in 2016 at the age of 90.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Andrzej Wajda, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Wanqiu Huang
Biography
Huang Wanqiu died of illness on March 4, 2023 at the age of 80. Huang Wanqiu was a famous performing artist in China and a national first-class top actor. She was a director of the Chinese Dramatists Association, a member of the Chinese Film Association, a director of the Chinese National Vocal Music Research Association, a director of the Guangxi China International Cultural Exchange Center, to name a few positions she had. Huang Wanqiu started her career in performing arts at the age of thirteen, engaged in the stage art of Gui Opera.
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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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Aurelio De Laurentiis
Biography
Aurelio De Laurentiis (born 24 May 1949) is an Italian film producer. He owns the film production company Filmauro and the Italian football club Napoli (of which he is also chairman).
He is the nephew of film producer Dino De Laurentiis and first cousin once removed of chef Giada De Laurentiis.
De Laurentiis serves on the board of directors of the National Italian American Foundation. In 1995, he was a member of the jury at the 19th Moscow International Film Festival.
After Napoli went bankrupt in 2004 and were relegated to Serie C1, the third division of Italian football, De Laurentiis bought the club with the ambition of bringing them back up the divisions whilst ensuring financial stability. After two promotions in three years, Napoli were back in Serie A. They spent the first few years in mid-table, and in the 2010–11 season qualified for the UEFA Champions League. Napoli spent the 2010s competing at the top of the table and in European football. The club won the Serie A under his ownership in the 2022–23 and 2024–25 seasons.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Aurelio De Laurentiis, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Howard Johnson
Biography
Howard Lewis Johnson (born August 7, 1941) in Montgomery, Alabama, is an American jazz musician known mainly for his work on tuba and baritone saxophone, although he also plays the bass clarinet, trumpet, and other reed instruments. Johnson has accompanied George Gruntz extensively. As a leader, he released three albums during the 1990s for Verve Records, the first Arrival, a tribute to Pharoah Sanders. In 1981 he performed at the Woodstock Jazz Festival, held in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Creative Music Studio. In 1984, he appeared as part of the Gil Evans Orchestra, accompanying Jaco Pastorius at the Live Under The Sky Festival in Japan. He had a minor role in the 1983 film, Eddie and the Cruisers as Wendell's replacement. He has also appeared in episodes of Matlock and Hill Street Blues. Johnson famously accompanied James Taylor in a performance of Jelly Man Kelly on Sesame Street in 1983, and also on tin whistle when Taylor sings to Oscar The Grouch. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
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Nick Ronan
Biography
Nick Ronan is an award-winning actor, writer, and filmmaker. As a multi-hyphenate storyteller, his versatility as an artist has taken him from immersive theater to regional tours, independent film, and television. A theatrically trained actor and a student of Linklater, Nick graduated from Emerson College with a B.A. double major in Acting and Film.
Nick's breakout performance on stage in "Danny and the Deep Blue Sea" hailed as a "tour de force" (The Theater Mirror) earned him a nomination for Best Actor from the Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE Awards). He has appeared in three Tennessee Williams World Premieres, originating roles in "The Remarkable Rooming House of Madam Le Monde", "Aimez-Vous Ionesco?" and "American Gothic."
On screen, Nick has worked with Oscar and Emmy Award-Winning directors such as Chris Long ("Suspicion" on Apple TV+) and Guillermo Navarro ("Godfather of Harlem," Epix). For his role as Gabe in the Sci-Fi Thriller "BLUE FiRE," which he also wrote and directed, Nick has received three Best Actor nominations along with the film's multiple accolades. Most recently joining the cast of "PowerBook III: Raising Kanan" as FBI Agent Mckenna, Nick can soon be seen in Season 3 on Starz!
Nick has trained with some of NYC's most renowned acting coaches, including Austin Pendleton, Bob Krakower (Master Class), Ted Sluberski, Lee Brock (Master Class), and at The Barrow Group and Upright Citizens Brigade.
As a filmmaker, Nick's short films have screened across the U.S. and internationally. A recipient of the Director's Circle Award (Poppy Jasper Int'l Film Festival) for his period war romance "The Secret Nobody Knows," he is the founder and Creative Director of A Night of Fireflies Productions, a boutique production company based in NYC. Nick's two feature screenplays are currently in development.
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Chris Holt
Biography
Christopher Holt is a Peabody Award-winning and three-time BAFTA-nominated British Writer, Director and Producer. He has worked in 30 countries across five continents on stories that have appeared on the BBC, Netflix, Channel 4, Channel 5, Vice, Showtime, Discovery+ and National Geographic. "The Devil on Trial", an investigation into truth behind the infamous 'Devil Made me Do It' murder trail and the exorcism of David Glatzel in Brookfield, Connecticut in 1989, is his latest feature documentary.
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Gaston Rébuffat
Biography
Gaston Rébuffat, born May 7, 1921, in Marseille and died May 31, 1985, in Bobigny, was a French mountaineer, notably a member of the 1950 French expedition to Annapurna, a high-mountain guide, writer, and filmmaker.
Gaston Rébuffat discovered climbing in the Calanques of Marseille. At sixteen, he joined the French Alpine Club (Haute-Provence section), where he discovered high-altitude mountaineering and met Henri Moulin, whom he considered his "big brother in mountaineering." He then explored the Alps and the Mont Blanc massif, which became his playground. In 1940, he joined Jeunesse et Montagne (Youth and Mountain), where he met Lionel Terray, who became his friend. It was at the "School, Youth, and Mountain" center in Valgaudemar that his passion for the mountains took deep root. He then moved to Chamonix, where he worked on his friend Lionel Terray's farm while waiting to be co-opted into the Chamonix Guides Company.
In 1942, Gaston Rébuffat earned his high-mountain guide certification despite his young age (21, while the required age was 23). He continued working as an instructor with the youth organization "Jeunesse et Montagne" (Youth and Mountain), and in 1944 became an instructor at the National School of Mountaineering (École Nationale d'Alpinisme) and the Military High Mountain School (École Militaire de Haute Montagne). In June 1945, he joined the prestigious Chamonix Guides Company under the tutelage of Alfred Couttet. He thus became the third "outsider" in the Company, after Roger Frison-Roche and Édouard Frendo, whereas traditionally, one had to be born in the valley to be admitted. A modest skier, he worked as a guide in the summer, but instead of being a ski instructor in the winter, he tried his hand at writing.
He participated in the first ascent of Annapurna in 1950 with, among others, Jean Couzy, Lionel Terray, Maurice Herzog, Louis Lachenal, Marcel Ichac, Marcel Schatz, Jacques Oudot, and Francis de Noyelle. This feat would remain a difficult chapter in his life. He did not reach the summit, but, along with Terray, he rescued Lachenal and Herzog, who were in distress. Like Lachenal, and unlike Herzog, he felt no patriotic or mystical mission in climbing this peak. Since the Himalayan Committee had contractually forbidden members of the expedition from writing accounts of their experience, only Maurice Herzog's "Annapurna Premier 8000" was authorized and declared the official account.
In 1958, he directed the film dedicated to the mountains for Walt Disney Pictures' "Third Man on the Mountain" (1959), filmed in Zermatt, Switzerland, at the foot of the Matterhorn. Primarily a resident of Chamonix, he was also a frequent visitor to Sainte-Maxime, the hometown of his wife, daughter of the architect René Darde. Author of numerous books on the mountains, some with an educational purpose, he worked to popularize mountaineering techniques and knowledge of the mountain environment among young people. Also a lecturer, Gaston Rébuffat introduced the world of high altitudes to regions throughout France through screenings as part of the "Connaissance du Monde" (Knowledge of the World) lecture series.
In 1984, he was made an Officer of the Legion of Honour, a year before his death from cancer on May 31, 1985. He is buried in the Chamonix-Mont-Blanc cemetery.
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Neelam Kothari
Biography
Neelam Kothari is a former Indian actress and an established jewellery designer.
After her early childhood in Hong Kong, her family moved to Bangkok and Neelam was holidaying in Mumbai and was approached by Ramesh Behl. She decided to give it a shot and did Jawaani in 1984 alongside Karan Shah (Tina Munim's nephew), but the film became a flop. She soldiered on ahead and became famous in 1986 in the film Ilzaam opposite another debutante Govinda. She went on to make a regular pairing with Govinda in movies such as Love 86 (1986), Khudgarz (1987), Hatya(1988), Taaqatwar (1989) and Do Qaidi (1989). She also Starred in the 1987 Hit film, Aag Hi Aag opposite Dharmendra and Chunkey Pandey and directed by Shibu Mitra. Since then she made many other movies in the late 1980s and early 1990s met with mixed success including Ek Ladka Ek Ladki starring opposite Salman Khan. She is also noted for her appearance in the 1998 movie Kuch Kuch Hota Hai where she appeared as herself in the movie playing a VJ. In 1999 she appeared in the multi-starrer family film Hum Saath-Saath Hain: We Stand United.
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Alphonse Boudard
Biography
Alphonse Boudard (17 December 1925 – 14 January 2000) was a French novelist and playwright. He won the 1977 Prix Renaudot for Les Combattants du petit bonheur. Boudard's 1995 novel Dying childhood was awarded and recognised by the French Academy with a Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française.
Boudard was born in Paris, an illegitimate child. He was brought up first by an adoptive family in the Loiret region of the center of France, then by his grand mother in the south of Paris. Boudard had a late career. As a teenager he was living in a country occupied by the German Army. He was wounded fighting for the French and he was awarded a military medal. His early adult life was spent in casual work, periods in jail and in a sanatorium recovering from tuberculosis. He experimented with writing, but it was not until he was 33 that he decided to be a full-time writer. He credits the writer Albert Paraz with inspiring this move.
His novels are characterised by the colloquial terms and slang that Boudard used to describe life in the 1940s. His works are autobiographical and he uses his periods in a sanatorium and in jail as a basis for his stories. His 1963 novel The Cherry and his 1972 story The Hospital are examples, as is his 1992 novel The amazing Mr Joseph which tells the story of a French spy who becomes a millionaire dealing on the black market during World War II (based on the real career of Joseph Joanovici).
Many of Boudard novels were adapted for French films and television.
Boudard had a wife and two sons. He died in Nice on 14 January 2000.
Source: Article "Alphonse Boudard" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
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