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Georges Méliès

Biography

Georges Méliès (December 8, 1861 - January 21, 1938), full name Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès, was a French illusionist and filmmaker famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema. One of the first filmmakers to use multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, tracking shots, dissolves, and hand-painted color in his work, Méliès pioneered effects that would define cinematic special effects for decades to come.  A prolific innovator in the use of special effects, Méliès accidentally discovered the substitution stop trick in 1896, a method of creating seamless disappearing and/or appearing effects used throughout both films and television for decades to come.  Because of his ability to seemingly manipulate and transform reality through cinematography, Méliès is sometimes referred to as the first "Cinemagician". Two of his best-known films are A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Impossible Voyage (1904). Both stories involve strange, surreal voyages, somewhat in the style of Jules Verne, and are considered among the most important early science fiction films, though their approach is closer to fantasy. Méliès was also an early pioneer of horror cinema, which can be traced back to his Le Manoir du diable (1896).   In early 1909 Méliès stopped making films to protest Thomas Edison's Motion Pictures Parents Company monopoly, and presided over the first meeting of the International Filmmakers Congress in Paris.  Further financial hardships created by his opposition to Edison and diminishing influence, Méliès disappeared from public life. By the mid-1920s he made a meager living as a candy and toy salesma in Paris, with the assistance of funds collected by other filmmakers.  Although he was recognized for his contributions in cinema, Méliès spent most of his later years in poverty before being accepted into La Maison du Retraite du Cinéma, the film industry's retirement home in Orly.  
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Sean Connery

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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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Erik Estrada

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Henry Enrique "Erik" Estrada (born March 16, 1949) is an American actor, voice actor, and police officer known for his co-starring lead role in the police drama television series CHiPs, which ran from 1977 to 1983. He later became known for his work in Spanish-language telenovelas, his appearances in reality television shows and infomercials and as a regular voice on the Adult Swim series Sealab 2021 as well as the movie Cool Cat Saves The Kids. He is of Puerto Ricon descent. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Ken Loach

Biography

Kenneth Charles Loach (born 17 June 1936; Nuneaton) is a British film director, screenwriter and producer. His socially critical directing style is evident in his film treatment of social issues such as poverty (Poor Cow, 1967), homelessness (Cathy Come Home, 1966), and labour rights (Riff-Raff, 1991, and The Navigators, 2001). Kenneth Charles Loach was born on 17 June 1936 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, the son of Vivien (née Hamlin) and John Loach. He attended King Edward VI Grammar School and at the age of 19 went to serve in the Royal Air Force. He read law at St Peter's College, Oxford and graduated with a third-class degree. As a member of the Oxford University Experimental Theatre Club he directed an open-air production of Bartholomew Fair for the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford, in 1959 (when he also took the role of the shady horse-dealer Dan Jordan Knockem). After Oxford, he began a career in the dramatic arts. Loach's film Kes (1969) was voted the seventh greatest British film of the 20th century in a poll by the British Film Institute. Two of his films, The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) and I, Daniel Blake (2016), received the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, making him one of only nine filmmakers to win the award twice.
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Gustavo Cerati

Biography

Gustavo Adrián Cerati was an Argentine singer-songwriter, composer and producer, considered one of the most important and influential figures of Ibero-American rock. Cerati along with his band Soda Stereo, were one of the most popular and influential rock and pop groups of the 1980s and '90s. Cerati was the recipient of many awards throughout his career including various Grammys, MTV awards, as well as the MTV (Latin America) Legend Award with Soda Stereo, the first of its kind. On 15 May 2010, Cerati suffered a massive stroke in Caracas following a concert; the stroke left him in a coma, and four years later, on 4 September 2014, Cerati died of cardiac arrest in Buenos Aires aged 55. He and his band had intended to go to a show-after-party at the rock club Moulin Rouge, located on Francisco Solano López Avenue in the Sabana Grande area of Caracas but his symptoms started developing backstage, right after his last performance concluded.
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Dylan Neal

Biography

​Dylan Jeremy Neal (born October 8, 1969) is a Canadian/American actor. He is known for his roles as Dylan Shaw on the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful, Doug Witter on Dawson's Creek, Detective Mike Celluci in the supernatural series Blood Ties, and Aaron Jacobs on Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Additionally, Neal took on the role of Corey in Aaron Spelling's short lived drama, Pacific Palisades and detective Alexander Black in the film The Traveler (2010). From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  
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Kane Mahon

Biography

Kane Mahon is a Canadian Academy-nominated actor and one of the most promising stars in the country. His diverse body of work continues to grow with some of most respected names in the entertainment industry. His two major projects at the moment include the Angelina Jolie-produced feature animation The Breadwinner, directed by Nora Twomey, which opens to industry acclaim at TIFF this year as well as Amazon's new Original Series Patriot, which sees Kane step into the recurring role of Mikham Candahar alongside stars such as Terry O'Quinn, Kurtwood Smith, Gil Bellows and many others. An extremely versatile actor, he is known for completely immersing himself in each character he plays. Recognition for his talent includes nominations for Best Actor at the Vancouver Web Festival, Best Leading Male at the Rio Web Festival, and Best Performance at the Canadian Screen Awards. After he earned his high school diploma in literature, Mahon decided to study Diplomacy and return to Afghanistan. However after finishing university with a Masters in International Relations, already in Canada, he reached a crossroad in his life and instead of following his political aspirations he decided to pursue his long-awaited dream of carving out a career in the art of storytelling. Mahon is fluent in English, Russian and Dari. In his spare time, he writes, directs, and produces, as well translates children's books. He is also an amateur astrophotographer.
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Dolores Schmidinger

Biography

Dolores Schmidinger kam schon als Kind mit Operetten in Berührung, da ihr Vater in den 1950er Jahren als Opern- und Operettensänger tätig war, u. a. an der Wiener Volksoper. Sie begann während ihrer Lehre zur Kosmetikerin eine Ausbildung an der Schauspielschule Krauss. Ihre Karriere an Wiener Bühnen startete sie mit 17 Jahren in Wiener Kellertheatern. In der Saison 1964/65 stellte sie in Bronners Kabarett Theater am Kärntnertor ihr Talent unter Beweis und überraschte ihre männlichen Kollegen mit ihrem komödiantischen Talent. Dies ebnete ihr den Weg zu zahlreichen Kabarett-Sendungen im Fernsehen. Die Schmidinger engagiert sich neben ihrem Beruf als Künstlerin gegen Gewalt und Ausländerfeindlichkeit sowie für die AIDS-Hilfe, u. a. als Modell für eine Plakatkampagne mit dem Titel Sei so lieb. Dabei wurden die Darsteller nackt abgelichtet. Ihre Erfahrungen mit Bulimie hat sie in ihrem Buch Raus damit! verarbeitet. Description above from the Wikipedia article Dolores Schmidinger, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Jean-Paul Salomé

Biography

Jean-Paul Salomé, born in 1960, is a French director and screenwriter. After studying cinema at the Sorbonne Censier, he worked as an assistant in the shooting of films, notably in 1981 in the film Les Uns et les Autres by Claude Lelouch. Then he made two short films which were documentaries: L'Heure d'aimer in 1983 and La petite Commission in 1984. In 1991, he made his first feature film for television: Crimes et jardins for which he also wrote the scenario. He then directed other feature films, including Les Femmes de l'ombre with Sophie Marceau, released in 2008. In January 2013, he was elected president of UniFrance Films.
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Jackie Condon

Biography

From Wikipedia John Michael "Jackie" Condon (March 25, 1918 – October 13, 1977) was an American child actor who was a regular in the Our Gang short series from 1922 until 1929, during the Pathé silent era. Condon was born in March 1918 in Los Angeles, California. In 1919, he began his acting career by appearing in the film Jinx. By 1922, he appeared in many silent films and later starred in the Our Gang comedies as "Jackie". When he joined the gang in 1921, he was the little tag-along toddler of the gang who was usually put off by the older children but anxious to be part of the action that the older members take place in. As he grew older, his character developed into the all-American member of cast. He left the series in 1928. Condon was part of the first original gang that was well known to audiences that watched "Our Gang". He appeared in all of the sixty-six Pathé silent comedies and twelve of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer silent comedies before leaving the series. By the time of his departure, Condon had appeared in seventy-eight of the shorts over a seven year term. After he left Our Gang, Condon went back to public school and graduated in 1936. He tried to return to acting during the 1950s, without much success. He later worked at Rockwell International with fellow Our Gang alumni and co-star Joe Cobb. In 1977, Condon died at age 59 from cancer. He was cremated, and his ashes were scattered.
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