Trending
Popular people
Poison Ivy
Biography
Kristy Marlana Wallace, known as Poison Ivy or Poison Ivy Rorschach, is a guitarist, songwriter, arranger, producer, and occasional vocalist who co-founded the American rockabilly band The Cramps.
Ivy was born as Kristy Wallace in San Bernardino, California, and raised near Sacramento. In 1972, while attending Sacramento State College, Wallace met future Cramps singer Lux Interior.
In 1974, they moved first to Interior's hometown of Akron, Ohio, and then to New York City. In 1976, as part of the emerging punk rock scene, they began performing as the Cramps. They quickly gained a reputation for their unusual, rockabilly-inspired music and wild live performances. The Cramps, with Ivy, Lux, and various other guitarists, drummers, and bassists, continued to release records and perform live until the fall of 2006, enjoying some commercial success (mainly in Europe) and acquiring a strong cult following worldwide.
Throughout The Cramps' career Ivy co-wrote all of the group's original songs with Lux Interior, and provided the arrangements for songs they covered. She produced or co-produced several of their albums and singles, sang on the songs "Kizmiaz" and "Get Off the Road," and played theremin on later records.
Songs written by Ivy and Interior and performed by other artists include "Human Fly" (which is based on "Do the Fly" performed and written by Ray Gentry/Rovin' Gamblers [1961], modified by The Cramps [calling it "Human Fly", 1978], but without credit to the original) (Sinful Lilly, Crestfallen, The Dead Brothers, Nouvelle Vague, Supernaut, Hanni El Khatib, Los Esquizitos [a Mexican garage band] covered Human Fly as El Moscardón); "New Kind of Kick" (The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Drones, Muse, Tinfed); and "Thee Most Exalted Potentate of Love" (Queens of the Stone Age).
Early on, Ivy used a clear plexiglass Dan Armstrong guitar, then the unusual Canadian-made Bill Lewis guitar heard on the first few Cramps recordings. From 1985 forward, she mostly used a 1958 Gretsch 6120 hollow-body. She used Fender Pro Reverb amplifiers onstage, and smaller Valco and Allen amps in the studio.
Ivy and Lux were married for 37 years, until his death on February 4, 2009. She lives in Glendale, California.
Read more
Lux Interior
Biography
Erick Lee Purkhiser, better known by the stage name Lux Interior, was an American singer and a founding member of the psychobilly band The Cramps from 1972 until his death in 2009 at age 62.
Born in Akron, Ohio, he grew up in its nearby suburb of Stow and graduated from Stow High School.
He met his partner Kristy Wallace, better known as Poison Ivy, in Sacramento in 1972, when he and a friend picked her up while she was hitchhiking. The couple founded the band after they moved from California to Ohio in 1973, and then to New York in 1975, where they soon became part of the flourishing punk scene.
Lux Interior's name came "from an old car commercial", after he previously flirted with the names Vip Vop and Raven Beauty, while his wife's name change was inspired by "a vision she received in a dream". The couple called their musical style psychobilly, a word that appears in the lyrics of Johnny Cash's song, "One Piece at a Time", and gothabilly. The band later said that they were just using the phrases as "carny terms to drum up business."
Interior was known for a frenetic and provocative stage show that included high heels, near-nudity and sexually suggestive movements. His speciality was the microphone blow job, where he could get the entire head of an SM-58 microphone into his mouth. The Cramps gave their last show in November 2006.
In 2002 Lux Interior voiced a character on the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Party Pooper Pants" – the lead singer of an all-bird rock band called the Bird Brains, performing "Underwater Sun", written and composed by Stephen Hillenburg and Peter Strauss. Tom Kenny, who voices SpongeBob, attended his memorial ceremony in 2009.
Interior was also a painter (mainly in his college years) and visual artist. In particular he was a 3D camera collector and enthusiast who used his collection to create artworks and collages.
Lux Interior died at 4:30 a.m. on February 4, 2009, at Glendale Memorial Hospital in California. The cause of death was aortic dissection. He was survived by his wife Ivy and two brothers, Michael Purkhiser and Ronald "Skip" Purkhiser, as well as a son from a previous marriage. The memorial service for Lux was held on February 21 at the Windmill Chapel of the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine. Lux's brother Michael also provided insight into his relationship with Lux in a newspaper article.
Read more
Marcello Pagliero
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Marcello Pagliero (15 January 1907 – 18 October 1980) was an Italian film director, actor, and screenwriter.
Pagliero was born in London and died in Paris. He is perhaps best known for his performance in the Roberto Rossellini film Rome, Open City (1945).
He moved to France in 1947, and continued to work in film until 1960 and in French television after that.
In 1949, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay an as a co-writer for the Rossellini film Paisà.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Marcello Pagliero, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Read more
Hans Dreier
Biography
Hans Dreier was a German motion picture art director. He was Paramount Pictures' supervising art director from 1927 until his retirement in 1950.
Hans Dreier was born in Bremen, Germany in 1885. After studying architecture in Munich, Germany, Dreier worked as imperial supervising architect of the German Cameroon. During World War I, he served in the German Lancers.
He began his career in German film in 1919 as an assistant designer at UFA Studios. At the urging of German director Ernst Lubitsch, Dreier relocated to Hollywood in 1923 to work at Paramount Pictures. His first Hollywood film was Forbidden Paradise, directed by Lubitsch and starring Pola Negri. Dreier worked as Paramount's supervising art director from 1927 until his retirement in 1950.
He made contributions to nearly 500 films during his lengthy career, including many films directed by Joseph Von Sternberg and Ernst Lubitsch, as well as the film It's a Gift (1934) starring W. C. Fields. He was nominated for Academy Awards for his art direction on 23 occasions. He won Academy Awards for Best Art Direction (Color) for Frenchman's Creek (1944) and Samson and Delilah (1950). He also won the award for Art Direction (Black and White) for Sunset Boulevard (1950).
Read more
Barbara Laage
Biography
Barbara Laage (30 July 1920 – 21 May 1988) was a French film actress who flourished in the 1950s.
After fleeing Paris with her family during the German occupation in World War II , Laage returned to the city after the war and began her acting career in the Paris theater district of Montparnasse.
Her first move to Hollywood was arranged by theatrical agent William Morris , founder of the William Morris Agency. She is one of several Hollywood stars of the era who would frequent the Chateau Marmont.
She was the first choice for the lead role in the Orson Welles film The Lady from Shanghai , though the part was eventually awarded to Rita Hayworth.
Read more
Philippe de Chérisey
Biography
Philippe Louis Henri Marie de Chérisey, 9th marquess de Chérisey (13 February 1923 – 17 July 1985) was a French writer, radio humorist, surrealist and supporting actor (using the stage name Amédée).
He is best known for his creation of fake parchments published in the 1967 book L'Or de Rennes by Gérard de Sède, as part of his involvement in the Priory of Sion hoax between 1962-1983.
Coming from a wealthy family in the Lorraine, de Chérisey decided to become an actor against his family's wishes. He enrolled in the René Simon drama school in 1946 where he started his actor's training, and his most notable film appearance was in Jeux interdits in 1952. He was known as a bon viveur, regularly enjoyed wine and frequented public libraries where his natural curiosity made him follow up anything that took his fancy.
Philippe de Chérisey was a follower of the surrealist movement. He claimed acquaintance with Eugene Ionesco and was like him a member of the College of Pataphysics, although - like his membership of Oulipo - there is no evidence that he was actively involved. His desire to subvert the norms of culture, or in other words, create an alternate reality that became more real than reality itself, was done within the context of the Priory of Sion and to promote the claim that Pierre Plantard was the direct descendant of Dagobert II. He considered himself a satirist from his days in French radio, and continued this persona within the theme of the Priory of Sion calling himself a prankster. The best known example of this is his esoteric novella Circuit (originally written in 1968, but not actually deposited within the Bibliothèque nationale de France until 1971).
Read more
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.
Read more
Shôzô Ichiyama
Biography
Shozo Ichiyama (born 1963), also known as Shozo Ichikawa, is a Japanese film producer. He has worked on films by directors such as Hou Hsiao-hsien and Jia Zhangke.
Born in 1963 in Shinnanyo City, Yamaguchi Prefecture (now Shunan City). After graduating from Yamaguchi Prefectural Tokuyama High School, he graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo. In 1987, he joined Shochiku. In 1998, he left Shochiku to join T-Mark. In 2000, he launched Tokyo FILMeX. In 2008, he produced Song of Sichuan, directed by Jia Zhangke. He has been the programming director of the Tokyo International Film Festival since April 2021. From 2024, he will be a professor in the Film Production Department at the Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts.
In 2019, he received the 37th Kawakita Award.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Shozo Ichiyama, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Read more
Mike Judge
Biography
Michael Craig Judge (born October 17, 1962) is an American actor, animator, writer, producer, and director. He is best known for creating the animated television series Beavis and Butt-Head (1993–1997, 2011, 2022–present). He also co-created the television series King of the Hill (1997–2010, 2025-present), The Goode Family (2009), Silicon Valley (2014–2019), Common Side Effects (2025- ), and Mike Judge Presents: Tales from the Tour Bus (2017–2018). He wrote and directed the films Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996), Office Space (1999), Idiocracy (2006), and Extract (2009), and co-wrote the screenplay to Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe (2022).
Judge was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He graduated from the University of California, San Diego, where he studied physics. After losing interest in a career in science, Judge focused on animation and short films. His animated short Frog Baseball was developed into the successful MTV series Beavis and Butt-Head and the spin-off series Daria (with which Judge had no involvement).
In 1995, Judge and former Simpsons writer Greg Daniels developed King of the Hill, which debuted on Fox in 1997 and quickly became popular with critics and audiences. It ran for 13 seasons and became one of the longest-running American animated series. During the show run, Judge took time off to write and direct Office Space, Idiocracy and Extract. As King of the Hill ended, Judge created his third show, ABC's The Goode Family, which received mixed reviews and was cancelled after 13 episodes. After a four-year hiatus, he created his fourth show, the live-action Silicon Valley for HBO, which has received critical acclaim. In 2017, Judge's fourth animated series, the music-themed Tales from the Tour Bus, premiered on Cinemax to acclaim.
Judge has won a Primetime Emmy Award, two Annie Awards for King of the Hill, two Critics' Choice Television Awards, and two Satellite Awards for Silicon Valley.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Mike Judge, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Read more
Jesco White
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jesco White, the "Dancing Outlaw", (born July 30, 1956) is an American mountain dancer and entertainer. He is best known as the subject of three American documentary films that detail his desire to follow in his famous father's footsteps, while trying to overcome depression, drug addiction, and the poverty that afflicts rural Appalachia. He is a member of the White family.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Jesco White, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Read more
