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Swatilekha Sengupta
Biography
Swatilekha Sengupta (née Chatterjee; 22 May 1950 – 16 June 2021) was a Bengali actress. She had received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for her contribution to Indian theatre as an actor.
Swatilekha started her career in theater in Allahabad in the early 1970s, acting in productions under the direction of A.C. Banerjee. She also received guidance from B.V. Karanth, Tapas Sen, and Khaled Chowdhury. Then she moved to Kolkata and joined the theater group Nandikar in 1978. In Nandikar she worked under the direction of Rudraprasad Sengupta, whom she went on to marry.
She was also the lead female protagonist in Ghare Baire, a 1985 film by Satyajit Ray, against Victor Banerjee and Soumitra Chatterjee. This film was based upon a novel of the same name Ghare Baire written by the famous Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore. She has also acted in films like Chauranga,Bela Seshe, Dharmajuddha and Bela Shuru.
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Julie Walters
Biography
Dame Julia Mary Walters DBE (born February 22, 1950), known professionally as Julie Walters, is an English actress, author, and comedian. She is the recipient of four British Academy Television Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, two International Emmy Awards, a BAFTA Fellowship, and a Golden Globe. Walters has been nominated twice for an Academy Award: once for Best Actress and once for Best Supporting Actress.
Walters rose to prominence playing the title role in Educating Rita (1983), a role which she originated in West End theatre. She has appeared in a number of films, including Personal Services (1987), Stepping Out (1991), Sister My Sister (1994), Billy Elliot (2000), the Harry Potter series (2001–2011) as Molly Weasley, Calendar Girls (2003), Wah-Wah (2005), Driving Lessons (2006), Becoming Jane (2007), Mamma Mia! (2008) and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018), Brave (2012), Paddington (2014) and its 2017 sequel, Brooklyn (2015), Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017), and Mary Poppins Returns (2018). On stage, she won a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress for the 2001 production of All My Sons.
On television, Walters collaborated with Victoria Wood; they appeared together on several television shows, including Wood and Walters (1981), Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV (1985–1987), Pat and Margaret (1994), and Dinnerladies (1998–2000). She has won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress four times, more than any other actress, for My Beautiful Son (2001), Murder (2002), The Canterbury Tales (2003), and her portrayal of Mo Mowlam in Mo (2010). Walters and Helen Mirren are the only actresses to have won this award three consecutive times, and Walters is tied with Judi Dench for the most nominations in the category with seven. In 2006, the British public voted Walters fourth in ITV's poll of TV's 50 Greatest Stars as part of ITV's 50th anniversary celebrations. She starred in A Short Stay in Switzerland (2009), which won her an International Emmy for Best Actress. Walters was made a Dame (DBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to drama.
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Ayman Zeidan
Biography
Ayman Ghaleb Shukri Zidane or Ayman Zidane, a Syrian actor, director, producer, writer, and presenter.
He was born on September 1, 1956 in the city of Al-Rahiba (located 50 km northeast of Damascus). He is the older brother of actors Shadi Zidane and Wael Zidane. He joined the Institute of Dramatic Arts in Syria when he was 22 years old. After graduating, he participated in several plays, both as an actor and as a director, and gave much of his creativity to the National Theater.
He traveled to Germany to take a course in theater directing in Berlin. Several years later, he became the director of the traveling theater and decided to try his hand at standing in front of a television camera for the first time in 1983 when director Mamoun Al-Bunni gave him a role in the series (Women Without Wings). Director Muhammad Malas also gave him an important role in the film (Dreams of the City), which won the Cannes Film Festival Award in 1984. It was his first opportunity in front of the cinema cameras, and he continued to work after that.
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Dutch Schultz
Biography
Dutch Schultz (born Arthur Simon Flegenheimer; August 6, 1901 – October 24, 1935) was an American mobster based in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s. He made his fortune in organized crime-related activities, including bootlegging and the numbers racket. Schultz's rackets were weakened by two tax evasion trials led by United States Attorney Thomas Dewey, and also threatened by fellow mobster 'Lucky' Luciano.
Schultz asked the Commission, the governing body of the American Mafia, for permission to kill Dewey, in an attempt to avert his conviction. They refused. When Schultz disobeyed them and made an attempt to kill Dewey, the Commission ordered his murder in 1935. Schultz was shot at a restaurant in Newark, New Jersey, and died the next day.
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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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Rolf de Heer
Biography
Rolf de Heer (born 4 May 1951; Heemskerk, North Holland) is a Australian film director. De Heer was born in Heemskerk in the Netherlands but migrated to Sydney when he was eight years old. He attended the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in Sydney. His company is called Vertigo Productions and is based in Adelaide. De Heer primarily makes alternative or arthouse films. According to the jacket notes of the videotape, de Heer holds the honor of co-producing and directing the only motion picture, Dingo, in which the jazz legend Miles Davis appears as an actor. Miles Davis collaborated with Michel Legrand on the score. He is the subject of the book Dutch Tilt, Aussie Auteur: The Films of Rolf de Heer (First edition – Saarbrücken, Germany: VDM, 2009. Second edition – Ebook: Starrs via Smashwords.com, 2013) by Dr D. Bruno Starrs. A comprehensive study of his films to date, Dancing to His Song: the Singular Cinema of Rolf de Heer by film critic Jane Freebury, is published in ebook and print (Currency Press & Currency House, 2015).
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Olga Fedori
Biography
Fedori was born in Ukraine, where she studied international relations and law at Donetsk National University. During her first year of university, she participated in a study abroad program in Neosho County, Kansas, studying at Neosho County Community College (NCCC). After finishing her first year at NCCC, Fedori transferred to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. While a Harvard student, Fedori performed at the American Repertory Theater and other theaters in Boston. Fedori graduated from Harvard in 2004, and began working in Off-Broadway productions in New York City. In addition to her acting career, Fedori also performed as the frontwoman of the band ICIA in London from 2006 to 2008.
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Sandy Whitelaw
Biography
Alexander "Sandy" Whitelaw (28 April 1930 – 20 February 2015) was a British actor, producer, director and subtitler.
Whitelaw was born in London and educated in Switzerland, the UK and the United States. He represented Britain as a skier in the 1956 Olympics.
Whitelaw's film career began when he worked as an assistant to the producer David O. Selznick on the 1957 film A Farewell to Arms. He also worked for the production company Hecht-Lancaster. He went on to work for United Artists in a number of capacities, including as head of production for UA Europe.
At this time he was based in London and worked on films including Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris (1972), Federico Fellini’s Roma (1972) and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Decameron (1971). He directed two films: Lifespan (1974), which starred Klaus Kinski, and Vicious Circles (1997), which starred Ben Gazzara. He acted in a number of films including The American Friend (1977), Broken English (1981) and The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005).
Whitelaw began to work as a subtitler in the 1970s in Paris. It was the producer Pierre Cottrell who suggested that he subtitle Jean Eustache's film Mes petites amoureuses. He continued to work as a subtitler for four decades.
Whitelaw provided English subtitles for more than 1,000 films over a period of several decades. He once called it "like getting paid to do crosswords". One of the more challenging jobs he took on was the subtitling, with Stephen O'Shea, of Mathieu Kassovitz's 1995 film La Haine. Their subtitles for this film received considerable critical attention.
Source: Article "Sandy Whitelaw" from Wikipedia in english, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Andrew Marshall
Biography
Andrew Paul Marshall (born 27 August 1954) is a British comedy screenwriter, most noted for the domestic sitcom 2point4 children. He was also the inspiration for Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Although he had also previously adapted stories for Agatha Christie's Poirot, in 2002 he made a further move into writing "straight" drama, with the fantasy horror series Strange. He has also written several screenplays.
Born in Lowestoft, Marshall attended Fen Park School and then Lowestoft Grammar School, and afterwards Borough Road College where he studied mathematics and psychology. Around the same time, he worked regularly on Radio 4's Week Ending, together with David Renwick, Douglas Adams, Alistair Beaton, John Lloyd, Simon Brett and others. Shortly afterwards he began writing The Burkiss Way with David Renwick and John Mason (who later dropped out to go to acting school). Renwick and Marshall remained scriptwriting partners for many years.
Brought by Humphrey Barclay to London Weekend Television, originally to repeat his 'nursery slopes comedy' Do Not Adjust Your Set with End of Part One, Marshall and Renwick went on to write a series of television satires, including Whoops Apocalypse, Hot Metal and If You See God, Tell Him — the latter originally for Channel 4, but postponed for several years when the channel refused to let them direct it, and finally ending up at the BBC later.
They also experimented with a type of neo-Vaudeville style in The Steam Video Company for Thames Television, ultimately ending up at the BBC, writing, with Alexei Sayle, Alexei Sayle's Stuff. Along the way they also wrote the screenplay for a film version of Whoops Apocalypse and adapted Tom Sharpe's novel Wilt for a film of the same title.
After a tentative and unsuccessful attempt at solo writing with Sob Sisters at Central Television, Marshall found long-lasting success BBC One's 2point4 children, adding to it Health and Efficiency and later, Dad. He also found time to adapt Alexei Sayle's short story "Lose Weight, Ask Me How" for the series Spinechillers, in which Sayle also starred.
Having also contributed to Agatha Christie's Poirot on ITV, he next wrote drama with the telefantasy series Strange for Saturday nights on BBC One. However, due to scheduling issues, a one-year gap between the pilot episode and the series and the BBC's decision not to repeat the pilot before the series began, the series failed to find a large audience in its Saturday night slot and was not recommissioned for a second run.
For many years Marshall avoided publicity of any kind, explaining that "it's very bad for you" and cited his major influences as "Alfred Hitchcock and Walt Disney... which explains a lot." In 2005, he had a small cameo appearance on-screen in an episode of David Renwick's comedy-drama Love Soup on BBC One, alongside Renwick himself, as members of a sitcom script-writing team. He also appeared as a member of the critics panel on several editions of BBC 7's "Serious About Comedy" in 2006–7.
He later began a new collaboration with Rob Grant, producing directing and writing the Radio 4 Series "The Quanderhorn Xperimentations" - and also the novel version published by Gollancz. He and Rob Grant launched a Radio 4 sketch Series "The Nether Regions" as writer/performers in October 2019.
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Paul Englishby
Biography
Paul Englishby is a prolific, versatile and award-winning composer for film, television, theatre, the concert hall and dance. His recent scores include the film Now And Then, made to announce the release of the last Beatles Record; the 5 star critically acclaimed Cymbeline or the RSC; Lang Lang Plays Disney for Disney+; Vocal and Jazz arrangements for Good Grief, written and starring Dan Levy or Netflix and 1940s Big Band charts for Masters of the Air starring Austin Butler, produced by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman. Richard III for the RSC; The Canterville Ghost for BBC Studios; Jack Absolute Flies Again for the National Theatre; BAFTA winning TV film Together directed by Stephen Daldry; Imminent for Birmingham Royal Ballet, and They All Came Down To Montreux, the forthcoming documentary series directed by Oliver Murray. His best-known work includes: his thrillingly tense score for the BBC’s Luther (BAFTA-nominated soundtrack); box office and critical hit The Inheritance, directed by Stephen Daldry (London and Broadway - Tony Nominated Score); EMMY Award-winning music for David Hare’s Page Eight; his beautiful, lyrical music for-Oscar nominated An Education, starring Carey Mulligan (for which Paul received an ASCAP Award); and his many, varied and vivid scores for the Royal Shakespeare Company, with whom Paul is an Associate Artist
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