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Norman Abbott

Biography

Norman Abbott (July 11, 1922 – July 9, 2016) was an American vaudevillian, actor, producer and television director. Abbott was born in New York City, where his uncle, comedian Bud Abbott, and his mother raised him. His early experience in entertainment was as a vaudeville performer, including summers working the 'borscht circuit" in resorts in the Catskill Mountains of New York. In the early 1940s, he and Pat Costello (brother of Lou Costello) worked as stand-ins for the better-known act during filming of Who Done It? (1942).[3] During World War II, Abbott served as a member of the original United States Navy SEALs team. After the war, Abbott became a dialog director on the Abbott and Costello films and was mentored by the team's director, Charles T. Barton. Abbott later directed episodes of The Jack Benny Program, Leave It to Beaver, Get Smart, The Munsters, Welcome Back, Kotter, Dennis the Menace, and Sanford and Son. Abbott's obituary in The Hollywood Reporter described him as "the brainchild behind the Broadway sensation Sugar Babies, the comeback vehicle for Mickey Rooney in the late 1970s". He conceived the idea of a Broadway musical based on burlesque after inheriting his uncle's "treasure trove of burlesque material, including written gags, props, music and posters".[4] Despite his having originated the concept, Abbott was fired as director of the show after two weeks of rehearsing.
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Helle Faber

Biography

Helle Faber graduated from The Danish School of Journalism in 1991. She is been a producer since 2003. In 2010 she founded the Danish production company Made in Copenhagen. She has produced a large number of documentary films for the international market. Among them the award winning films Putin’s Kiss, Dark Side of Chocolate, Shanghai Space and Enemies of Happiness, which received the Silver Wolf Award at IDFA 2006, the World Cinema Prize at Sundance 2007 & the Cinema for Peace in Berlin 2008.
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Paul Tripp

Biography

Paul Tripp was born on NYC's Lower East Side on February 20, 1911. Originally he wanted to be an actor and singer in grand operas, but he had to lower his sights and perform in comic operas at local functions instead. He went to college and studied education. He graduated with a Master of Education degree. When he was unable to find any teaching jobs, he worked as a performer, scriptwriter and producer in legitimate theater, radio, nightclubs, vaudeville and burlesque. After a stint in the US Navy Signal Corps during WWII, Tripp returned to NYC, where he and his wife Ruth Enders Tripp did volunteer work for "Christian Dora House" settlement project. There the pair engaged the children in original plays that would utilize their imagination. This unique concept of teaching kids through music, stories, acting and discovery came to the attention of a talent agency. The agency heads were looking for someone to host a new children's TV show. Impressed with their educational concept, the agency heads took the show to CBS TV producer Irving Pincus, who bought the show and Mr. I. Magination (1949) debuted on the CBS TV network on Sunday night, April 24, 1949. Writing, producing and hosting the show, Paul Tripp and his wife got a child actor and/ or child actress to recreate the lives of famous persons or had them perform in the Tripp's own variations of popular fairy tales. Often "Mr. I." (Mr. Tripp) and his cast of regulars: Simon Oakland, Joe Silver, Ted Tiller and Richard Boone interviewed guest inventors who showcased the latest devices created to help mankind. Mr. I. Magination (1949) moved to Saturday mornings in l951, where it remained on air until the series was cancelled on Saturday morning, June 28, 1952. On Saturday morning, June 5, 1954, Paul & Ruth Tripp succeeded Allen Ludden as the second hosts/performers and instructors of CBS TV's kids TV news magazine On the Carousel (1955). The Tripps and Ted Tiller engaged their viewers in craft making, hobbies, songs, dramatizations, stories and interviews with guest performers, personalities and high school scientists and musicians. On the Carousel (1955) won the 1956 NYC Emmy award for "Best Children's Educational TV Show". Tripp compared a Saturday Night Magic TV Show for a family audience. He performed magic tricks with the top illusionists of the day. It's Magic (1952) was seen Saturday nights on the CBS TV Network from Saturday July 31, 1955 to Saturday, September 4, 1955. Tripp succeeded Ginger McManus as the second host/performer of WOR TV Ch. 9 NYC's: "Looney Tunes Show" weekday evenings from Monday, January 12, 1959 to Friday, July 10, 1959. Following his departure from the station, Tripp left NYC for Hollywood, California to play character parts in TV dramas and sitcoms. He made two memorable guest appearances on CBS TV's Perry Mason (1957) as a villain and as an unfaithful boyfriend of "Sally Rogers" on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961).
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Rhonda Smith

Biography

Smith was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Her family moved to Montreal when she was a child. She and her three siblings were encouraged to play music and she began playing baritone horn, keyboards, guitar, and eventually electric bass. In addition to taking private classical training on upright bass, Smith attended McGill University in Montreal studying jazz performance. After gaining some experience in the local rock scene, she moved on to work with Canadian artists Claude Dubois, Daniel Lavoie, Robert Charlebois and James Blovin. She won a Juno award for "Best Contemporary Jazz Album", for her work with Jim Hillman and The Merlin Factor. While attending a music convention in Germany, Smith met Sheila E. and gave her a press kit after learning Prince was putting a new band together. Two months later, Prince called and Smith went to Paisley Park to record on the Emancipation album. Smith recorded and toured with Prince for almost 10 years. Other musicians she has worked with include Chaka Khan, Beyoncé, T.I., Erykah Badu, Lee Ritenour, Jeff Beck, and Terri Lyne Carrington. In 2000, she released her first solo record, Intellipop.
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Joaquim Dos Santos

Biography

Joaquim Dos Santos is a Portuguese-American television director of animated cartoons, best known for his directing work on Justice League Unlimited, Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. He was a storyboard artist for Justice League before being promoted in the show's renamed third season. He went on to direct half of the episodes of JLU alongside fellow DCAU director Dan Riba, including the final episode "Destroyer". He joined the staff of Avatar: The Last Airbender in the middle of the show's second season as a storyboard artist, and began directing episodes in the third season, including the last two parts of the four-part season finale. He also directed the mini-series G.I. Joe: Resolute. After that project, he moved back to Warner Bros. Animation, where he directed two DC Showcase short films: The Spectre (accompanying the Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths direct-to-video movie) and Jonah Hex (on Batman: Under the Red Hood). He is now working as an executive producer and co-showrunner on the animated series Voltron: Legendary Defender with Lauren Montgomery. Some fans have nicknamed him "Dr. Fight" because of his skill at choreographing fight sequences and action set pieces.
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LeRoy Prinz

Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia LeRoy Jerome Prinz (July 14, 1895 – September 15, 1983) was an American choreographer, director and producer, who was involved in the production of dozens of motion pictures, mainly for Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers, from 1929 through 1958, and also choreographed Broadway musicals. He was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Dance Direction in the 1930s, and won the Golden Globe in 1958. Among the films whose dances he choreographed were Show Boat (1936), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Rhapsody in Blue (1945), and South Pacific (1958). Prinz was married three times and had a son, LeRoy Prinz, Jr.
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Vanna White

Biography

Vanna Marie White (née Rosich; born February 18, 1957), is an American television personality and game-show hostess, best known as the co-host of the game show Wheel of Fortune, a position she has held since 1982. She began her career as a model while studying fashion, competing in Miss Georgia USA in 1978. In addition to her work on Wheel of Fortune, she has played minor characters or appeared as herself in many films and television series, and is the author of the 1987 autobiography Vanna Speaks. She also participates in real-estate investment, owns the yarn brand Vanna's Choice, and is a patron of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
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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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Leonid Kinskey

Biography

Leonid Kinskey (April 18, 1903 – September 8, 1998) was a Russian-born movie and television actor who enjoyed a long career. Kinskey is best known for his role as Sascha in the film Casablanca (1942). Kinskey was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. He fled the Russian Revolution and acted on stage in Europe and South America before arriving in New York City in 1921. He joined the road production of Al Jolson's musical Wonder Bar, before making his first film appearance, in the 1932 Trouble in Paradise. His looks and accent helped him land supporting roles in numerous movies, including Duck Soup and Nothing Sacred, and on television, well into the 1960s. It is said that he got perhaps his best-known role, Sascha in Casablanca, because he was a drinking buddy of star Humphrey Bogart. Kinskey was in the pilot episode for Hogan's Heroes, but turned down a regular role in the series because he thought the subject matter was being taken too lightly. Kinskey was married three times. His second wife was actress Iphigenie Castiglioni, to whom he remained married until her death in 1963. He was married to Tina York from 1983 to his death. He died of complications of a stroke in Fountain Hills, Arizona, at the age of 95. Description above from the Wikipedia article Leonid Kinskey, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Warren Frost

Biography

Warren Frost (June 5, 1925 – February 17, 2017) was an American actor. His work was mainly in theater, but he worked in films and television sporadically from 1958. He is known for television roles on Matlock and Seinfeld, and particularly as Doctor Hayward on Twin Peaks, a series co-created by his son Mark Frost. He has also appeared in television movies, such as Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990) and The Stand (1994). Description above from the Wikipedia article Warren Frost, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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