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Jancis Robinson
Biography
Jancis Mary Robinson OBE, ComMA, MW (born 22 April 1950) is a British wine critic, journalist and wine writer. She currently writes a weekly column for the Financial Times, and writes for her website JancisRobinson.com, updated daily. She provided advice for the wine cellar of Queen Elizabeth II.
Robinson was born in Carlisle, Cumbria, studied mathematics and philosophy at St Anne's College, University of Oxford, and worked in marketing for Thomson Holidays.
Robinson started her wine writing career on 1 December 1975 when she became assistant editor for the trade magazine Wine & Spirit. In 1984, she became the first person outside the wine trade to become a Master of Wine. From 1995 until she resigned in 2010 she served as British Airways' wine consultant, and supervised the BA Concorde cellar luxury selection.
As a wine writer, she has become one of the world's leading writers of educational and encyclopedic material on wine and was described by Decanter as "the most respected wine critic and journalist in the world". The Oxford Companion to Wine, edited by Robinson, is widely considered to be the most comprehensive wine encyclopedia in the world. The first edition was published in 1994, and took five years to write after she was signed on as editor in 1988. In addition, The World Atlas of Wine by Hugh Johnson and Robinson is one of the world's leading wine atlases.
In 1995, Robinson appeared in a 10-episode wine course on BBC 2 television. This series was later reissued on DVD. A book titled Jancis Robinson's Wine Course was written to accompany the series and has gone through several editions. In 2015 she launched an online wine course, "Mastering Wine – Shortcuts to Success" on udemy. In 2022 she launched "An Understanding of Wine", an exclusive online course for BBC Maestro.
She has an honorary doctorate from the Open University, and was made an OBE in 2003, among numerous other awards for her writing. Her accolades include multiple Glenfiddich Awards and André Simon Memorial Awards, and a selection as the Decanter "1999 Woman of the Year". In 2016, she was made an Officier de l'Ordre du Mérite Agricole, was given the German VDP association's highest honour and won for fourth James Beard Award in the US.
Following a difference of opinion with Robert Parker over the 2003 vintage of Château Pavie, the following media coverage frequently described a "war of words" between the two critics. Less dramatic than the predominant press view, Robinson and Parker as of 2008 had a cordial relationship.
In 2012, Allen Lane (Penguin) in the UK and Ecco in the US published a 1,200-page book called Wine Grapes co-authored by Robinson with Julia Harding MW and Jose Vouillamoz which won every major wine book award. The book provides comprehensive details on 1,368 vine varieties and won six major wine book awards.
In 2018, Jancis appeared in the film SOMM 3 to taste some of the world's finest wines and discuss the Judgment of Paris (wine) with some of the world's most respected wine figures including the late Steven Spurrier (wine merchant).
Robinson is married to the food writer Nick Lander, author of The Art of the Restaurateur; they have three children, Julia, William and Rose.
Source: Article "Jancis Robinson" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Andréas Voutsinas
Biography
Andreas Voutsinas (22 August 1930 – 8 June 2010) was a Greek actor and theatre director. In the English-speaking world, he was best known for his roles in three Mel Brooks films, The Producers (1967), The Twelve Chairs (1970) and History of the World, Part I (1981).
Voutsinas was born on 22 August 1930 in Khartoum, since there was a sizeable community of Greek settlers in Sudan at the time. His parents came from the island of Cephalonia, Greece. They set up a pasta factory in the Anglo-Egyptian colony, "reputedly supplying spaghetti to Italian forces" during the Fascist invasion of Abyssinia. After the collapse of the business during WWII, Voutsinas moved with his mother to Athens, Greece. His father returned 2 years later.
Voutsinas studied acting and costume design at the The Old Vic Τheatre School and drama and song at the Webber Douglas Academy in London, and, in 1957, joined the Actors Studio.
Voutsinas directed more than 130 performances of classical and contemporary repertoire in London, Paris, New York, Canada and Greece. He worked as an actor and director on Broadway and acted in films by Jules Dassin and Luc Besson.
Voutsinas, a life member of The Actors Studio since 1957, spent many years working in summer stock theater and as an assistant to Studio co-founder Elia Kazan, before he met Jane Fonda, with whom he got involved and whom he cast in the leading part in The Fun Couple, his Broadway directorial debut in 1963.
Voutsinas later followed Fonda to Hollywood where he coached her in a number of movies. He then started working as a coach for many others, including Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. Following Fonda to Paris to coach her in Roger Vadim's Barbarella, he decided to found Le Theatre Des Cinquante, an acting workshop based on the principles of Lee Strasberg. Many famous French actors and actresses started attending his classes, and at the same time he successfully began directing plays for the French theatre.
In 1967, Voutsinas became the original Carmen Ghia after befriending Mel Brooks's wife, Anne Bancroft. She recommended him to Brooks and said Voutsinas would be perfect for the part. Voutsinas had a role in another Brooks feature, History of the World, Part I, playing the role of "Bernaise" in the French Revolution scenes.
It was not until the early 1980s that he eventually moved to his ancestral Greece, where he continued his career directing a wide range of repertoire from Tennessee Williams to Euripides, mainly for the State Theatre of Northern Greece in Thessaloniki. His productions were also staged during summer in the Athens Festival in Herodion, as well as in the Epidaurus Festival. He continued working between the two countries while he appeared in many French and Greek films, including Le Grand Bleu (1988) and Safe Sex (1999).
Andreas Voutsinas taught acting at the State Theatre of Northern Greece from 2002 to 2009.
After he suffered a stroke he founded his own drama school in Thessaloniki, the Higher Drama School Andreas Voutsinas.
He was married to Artemis Papastrati from 1953 to 1964, they had one son Marios Voutsinas, who became an artist. ...
Source: Article "Andreas Voutsinas" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
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Paris Dylan
Biography
Raised in Seattle, Paris Dylan (no, that's not a stage name) always had a knack for performing. You could find him involved in theater, running events, and front-manning a successful rock band. He graduated from the University of Washington as a Dean's List recipient and with a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication and Comparative Literature. He then worked and lived around the U.S. as a Self-Improvement Speaker alongside Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, Brian Tracy and others for Motivational Seminars. Abandoning his six-figure salary to pursue his dream of acting, he had much success very quickly and began starring in TV Programs, Theater Productions, National Commercials, and Films within his first year of acting and the credits continued to grow. Aside from print modeling, Paris also performs in a live improv comedy duo act with Hollywood-icon, Andy Dick and holds a number of hosting credits including American Idol, iHeartRadio, and his own talk show 'PARIS in LA' on iTunes, USTREAM, and LiveStream networks. In addition to racking up accolades like "Best Actor", Paris ventured to create his own content which proved to be a smart career move, as Directing/Writing/Producing garner more positive attention to the Paris Dylan brand. Lately starring in his own and others' films that have placed at a variety of festivals including Sundance, Paris Dylan continues to find consistency as a sought-after multi-talented working actor and filmmaker in the unpredictable world of Hollywood.
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Hank Azaria
Biography
Henry Albert "Hank" Azaria (born April 25, 1964) is an American actor and producer. He is known for voicing many characters in the long-running animated sitcom The Simpsons since 1989, including Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum, Superintendent Chalmers, Comic Book Guy, Snake Jailbird, Professor Frink, Kirk Van Houten, Duffman, and formerly Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Lou, Carl Carlson, among others. Azaria joined the show with little voice acting experience, but became a regular in its second season. For his work on the show, he has won four Primetime Emmy Awards.
Alongside his continued voice acting on The Simpsons, Azaria became more widely known through his live-action supporting appearances in films such as Quiz Show (1994), Heat, The Birdcage (1996) (for which he won a Screen Actors Guild Award) and Godzilla (1998). He has also appeared in numerous films including Mystery Men (1999), America's Sweethearts (2001), Shattered Glass (2003), Along Came Polly (2004), Run Fatboy Run (2007), Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) and The Smurfs (2011) and The Smurfs 2 (2013). Further voice roles include Anastasia (1997), for which he won an Annie Award.
His live-action television work includes recurring roles on the sitcoms Mad About You and Friends, as well as dramatic roles in the TV films Tuesdays With Morrie (1999) as writer Mitch Albom and Uprising (2001) as Jewish resistance leader Mordechai Anielewicz. For the former, Azaria received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. He starred in the title roles in the Showtime drama series Huff (2004–2006) and the IFC sitcom Brockmire (2017–2020). His recurring role on the drama Ray Donovan earned him a sixth Primetime Emmy Award in 2016.
Azaria made his Broadway debut as Lancelot in Spamalot, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. He returned to Broadway in 2007, playing David Sarnoff in The Farnsworth Invention.
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Elizabeth Hartman
Biography
Mary Elizabeth Hartman (December 23, 1943 – June 10, 1987) was an American actress. She was best known for her performance in the 1965 film A Patch of Blue, playing a blind girl named Selina D'Arcy, opposite Sidney Poitier, a role for which she won the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama. The next year, she appeared in You're a Big Boy Now as Barbara Darling, for which she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Elizabeth Hartman, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Harry Gregson-Williams
Biography
Harry Gregson-Williams (born 13 December 1961) is a British composer, conductor, orchestrator, and record producer. He has composed music for video games, television and films including the Metal Gear series, Spy Game, Phone Booth, Man on Fire, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian, Déjà Vu, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Martian, Antz, The Tigger Movie, Chicken Run and its sequel, the Shrek franchise, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Flushed Away, Arthur Christmas, Early Man, and Catch-22. He is also the older brother of fellow composer Rupert Gregson-Williams.-Williams worked with several film directors such as Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Andrew Adamson, Ben Affleck, Joel Schumacher, Antoine Fuqua, Niki Caro, Nick Park, and Dan Ireland.
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Zbigniew Rybczyński
Biography
Zbigniew Rybczyński (Polish: [ˈzbiɡɲɛf rɨpˈt͡ʂɨj̃skʲi]; born 27 January 1949) is a Polish filmmaker, director, cinematographer, screenwriter, creator of experimental animated films, and multimedia artist who has won numerous prestigious industry awards both in the United States and internationally including the 1983 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for Tango.
He has taught cinematography and digital cinematography, and has worked as a researcher of blue and greenscreen compositing technology at Ultimatte Corporation. He is renowned for his innovative audiovisual techniques and for his pioneering experimentation in the field of new image technology.
In March 2009, Rybczyński returned to Poland. He took up residence in Wrocław, where he set up the Center for Audiovisual Technologies (CeTA) at the site of the city's historic Feature Film Studio. The center, which officially opened in January 2013, includes a state-of-the-art studio designed by Rybczyński for the production of multi-layer film images, and an institute for research into images and visual technologies.
After Rybczyński discovered and publicized corruption in CeTA, he was fired and subsequently declared the renunciation of his Polish citizenship.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Zbigniew Rybczyński, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Michał Tarkowski
Biography
Polish actor, screenwriter and director, co-creator (together with Janusz Weiss and Jacek Kleyff ) of the cabaret group Salon Niezależnych. He received a diploma at the Faculty of Architecture of the Warsaw University of Technology in 1974, and in 1979 he graduated from the Directing Department of the Polish National Film School in Łódź . In the 1970s, he co-founded the Independent Salon cabaret. Then he mainly took up film activities. He is known mainly for roles in such films as Man of Marble and Wodzirej .
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Joseph Stalin
Biography
Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin (real name Dzhugashvili) was born in Gori, Tiflis province, Russian Empire - a Soviet political, statesman, military and party figure, a Russian revolutionary. Actual leader of the USSR. General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (1922-1953). Marshal of the Soviet Union (1943), Generalissimo of the Soviet Union (1945). People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR (since July 19, 1941), Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and Chairman of the USSR State Defense Committee. He also held the following positions: From April 3, 1922 to February 10, 1934 - Secretary General, then - Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (from 1952 - CPSU), from December 19, 1930, after Vyacheslav Molotov took the post of Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR instead of Alexey Rykov. In 1912, at the suggestion of V.I. Lenin was included in the Central Committee of the RSDLP. At the same time, Joseph Dzhugashvili finally chose the pseudonym "Stalin" for himself. During the October Revolution, the Second All-Russian Congress was elected a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars. In 1922, at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), he was elected a member of the Orgburo and the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), as well as the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) (when Lenin was Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR). In 1930, after the weakening and death of Lenin, Stalin finally emerged victorious from the internal party struggle, becoming the leader of the state. Stalin was the actual founder of the totalitarian dictatorship in the USSR. In 1928-1929 he was the initiator of the transition from the course of the New Economic Policy (NEP) to the course of industrialization, collectivization and building a planned economy, and intensified the policy of the cultural revolution in the USSR.
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Dan Rather
Biography
Daniel Irvin Rather Jr. (born October 31, 1931) is an American journalist, commentator, and former national evening news anchor. He began his career in Texas, becoming a national name after his reporting saved thousands of lives during Hurricane Carla in September 1961. Rather spontaneously created the first radar weather report by overlaying a transparent map over a radar image of Hurricane Carla. In his first national broadcast, he helped initiate the successful evacuation of 350,000 people. He reported on some of the most significant events of the modern age, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Gulf War, 9/11, the Iraq War, and the war on terror.
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