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Roland Orzabal
Biography
Roland Orzabal (born 22 August 1961) is a British musician, songwriter and record producer. He is known mainly as a co-founding member of Tears for Fears, of which he is the main songwriter and joint vocalist, but he has also achieved success as a producer of other artists. In 2014, Orzabal published his first novel.
Orzabal met Curt Smith while both were in their early teens in Bath, Somerset. In the late-1970s, they formed a mod music group, Graduate, along with three other members. Following the release of their debut album, Acting My Age, the group disbanded and Orzabal and Smith went on to form Tears for Fears, a new wave/synthpop outfit directly inspired by the writings of the American psychologist Arthur Janov.
After a decade of major international success, Orzabal and Smith had an acrimonious split in the early 1990s. Although Orzabal continued to work as Tears for Fears after he and Smith parted ways, the subsequent TFF albums Elemental (1993) and Raoul and the Kings of Spain (1995) are effectively solo works by him in all but name. Elemental was a success being certified as Gold status in the US and Silver in the UK, while Raoul took a more artistic direction but garnered less chart success. In April 2001 he released his first proper solo album, Tomcats Screaming Outside, under his own name.Orzabal and Smith had reconciled by that point and were working on a new Tears for Fears album together (2004's Everybody Loves a Happy Ending). As a songwriter, Orzabal is a two-time Ivor Novello Award winner. His first award was in 1986 for "Songwriter of the Year" following the huge success of Tears For Fears' second album Songs from the Big Chair for which Orzabal wrote or co-wrote all of the tracks. In addition to co-producing most of Tears for Fears' records, Orzabal also co-produced Oleta Adams' successful album Circle of One (1990), following on from Adams' collaboration on the 1989 Tears for Fears album The Seeds of Love. The album reached No. 1 in the UK and No. 20 in the US, and featured her transatlantic top ten hit "Get Here". Orzabal also co-wrote the lead track "Rhythm of Life" for the album, which was originally intended for The Seeds of Love. As well as playing guitar and singing backing vocals on the track, he also appeared in the song's accompanying promo video.
In 1999, Orzabal co-produced the Icelandic singer-songwriter Emiliana Torrini's acclaimed album Love in the Time of Science, along with Tears for Fears associate Alan Griffiths. The pair also wrote two tracks for the album. Orzabal's talents as a songwriter were recognised again after Michael Andrews and Gary Jules recorded the song "Mad World" for the film soundtrack Donnie Darko in 2001.[5] Their version was released as a single in 2003 and became the Christmas number one single in the UK that year, ultimately becoming the year's biggest selling single. The song was originally composed by Orzabal and was Tears for Fears' first hit single in 1982. In 2004, the song won Orzabal his second Ivor Novello Award, as the songwriter of the Best Selling UK Single of 2003.
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Zack Duhame
Biography
Zack Duhame was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. Having the luxury of being a second generation Hollywood stuntman, Zack’s knowledge began with his first job at the ripe age of four. He got that job by crying in the audition… This is how he gets most jobs. He spent his early years acting, starring in several movies and TV shows. Since then, he has had the privilege of being surrounded by those he grew up emulating…
Zack has worked alongside famed action stars Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis and Mark Wahlberg as well as legendary directors Clint Eastwood, JJ Abrams and Ron Howard to name a few. In addition to winning 2 SAG awards, Zack was honored with the 2014 Taurus World Stunt Award and is a member of the elite stunt group BrandX. As a young and diversified stuntman, his transition into designing action has proven a seamless integration of fresh creativity and hardened experience.
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Douglas Haig
Biography
Douglas Patrick Haig (March 9, 1920 – February 1, 2011) was an American child actor appearing in films in the 1920s and 1930s. His career began at age two in silent films and (unlike many silent film actors) continued into sound films ("talkies"). From 1928 onward he appeared in at least 14 films. As a small child he was placid and pleasant-looking. In a scholarly review of Attorney for the Defense, a 1932 sound film, his performance is described as very annoying. The high point of Haig's career as a film actor came in 1935, with a starring role in Man's Best Friend (1935). Before this he had appeared in both feature films and shorts such as The Family Group (1928), Sins of the Fathers (1928 lost silent film, of which only excerpts survive at the UCLA Film and Television Archives. Betrayal(1929, a silent film with talking sequences, synchronized music and sound effects), and Welcome Danger (1929). In Man's Best Friend (1935), he starred in the lead role of Jed Strong, a boy who has a fine dog and an abusive father who wants to kill the dog. In 1986, TV Guide described this film as a "simple, unpretentious story of a little mountain boy and his pet police dog."
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David Butler
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Butler (December 17, 1894 – June 14, 1979) was an American actor, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and television director.
Butler was born in San Francisco, California. His mother was an actress and his father was a theater stage manager. His first acting roles were playing extras in stage plays. He later appeared in two D. W. Griffith films, The Girl Who Stayed Home and The Greatest Thing in Life. He also appeared in the 1927 Academy-Award winning film 7th Heaven.
The same year, Butler made his directorial debut with High School Hero, a comedy for Fox. During Butler's nine-year tenure at Fox, he directed over thirty films, including four Shirley Temple vehicles. Butler's last film for Fox, Kentucky, won Walter Brennan an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Butler worked with Bing Crosby in Road to Morocco and If I Had My Way. He directed many films starring Doris Day, among them It's a Great Feeling, Tea for Two, By the Light of the Silvery Moon, Lullaby of Broadway, April in Paris, and Calamity Jane.
During the late '50s and 1960s, Butler directed primarily television episodes, mainly for Leave It to Beaver and Wagon Train.
For his contributions to the film industry, Butler was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 with a motion pictures star located at 6561 Hollywood Boulevard.
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Susan Tyrrell
Biography
Susan Tyrrell (born Susan Jillian Creamer; March 18, 1945 – June 16, 2012) was an American character actress. Tyrrell's career began in theater in New York City in the 1960s in Broadway and off Broadway productions. Her first film was Shoot Out (1971). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Oma in John Huston's Fat City (1972).
In 1978, Tyrrell received the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Andy Warhol's Bad (1977). Her New York Times obituary described her as "a whiskey-voiced character actress (with) talent for playing the downtrodden, outré, and grotesque."
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Joel Silver
Biography
Joel Silver (born July 14, 1952) is an American film producer, known for action films like Lethal Weapon and Die Hard. He is owner of Silver Pictures and co-founder of Dark Castle Entertainment.
He began his career at Lawrence Gordon Productions, where he eventually became president of motion pictures for the company. He earned his first screen credit as the associate producer on The Warriors and, with Gordon, produced 48 Hrs.,Streets of Fire and Brewster's Millions. In 1985, he formed Silver Pictures and produced successful action films such as Commando (1985), the Lethal Weapon franchise, the first two films of the Die Hard series and the The Matrix franchise of action films.
He appears on-screen at the beginning of Who Framed Roger Rabbit as Raoul J. Raoul, the director of the animated short Something's Cookin. He directed "Split Personality", (1992), an episode of the HBO horror anthology, Tales from the Crypt.
He currently runs two production companies, Silver Pictures and Dark Castle Entertainment co-owned by Robert Zemeckis. Along with Jared Kass, Silver was co-creator of the sport of Ultimate.
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Craig Horner
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Craig Horner (born 24 January 1983) is an Australian actor and musician who first appeared in the Australian television program Cybergirl. He is best known for his role as Richard Cypher on the television series Legend of the Seeker.
Horner discovered a love for acting after appearing in school productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Maids. In addition to performing, Horner has been active as a musician, playing the guitar and writing music. He was a member of the band "Earth For Now" (called "Unstable Conditions" in 2011) who played their first show in Hollywood, California, starting the set with "Howl at the Moon". Horner and bandmate Steve Matsumura announced their departure from the band on 2 February 2012. He published two songs on iTunes, "Avoid" and "Say What You Mean" under the name "Ithaca". Horner enjoys playing soccer, volleyball, tennis, swimming, skiing, snowboarding, and kayaking. Craig went to St Peters Lutheran College in Indooroopilly, Brisbane, Australia. After graduating, he pursued acting.
Horner has appeared in various TV programs since 2001: as Jackson in "Cybergirl"; as Jesse Spencer's brother in "Swimming Upstream;" as a reporter on "Totally Wild," and starred as Caleb in the U.S.'s "Monarch Cove". In 2008, Horner joined the cast of the Australian children's drama television series Blue Water High, portraying surfer Garry Miller and then Ash Dove in the series H2O: Just Add Water. He starred as Richard Cypher in Legend of the Seeker, the syndicated television adaptation of Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth book series.
He also starred alongside Michael J. Pagan in Gregory Dark's film, See No Evil.
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Sean Connery
Biography
Sir Thomas Sean Connery (August 25, 1930 – October 31, 2020) was a Scottish actor and producer who 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 31 October 2020, it was announced that Connery had died at the age of 90.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Sean Connery, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
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Mike Brewer
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Mike Brewer (born 28 August 1964) is a British car trader turned presenter of motoring television programmes. He currently presents Wheeler Dealers on Discovery Channel with Edd China.
These have included Driven on Channel 4, Deals on Wheels, Pulling Power, Wrecks To Riches, Auto Trader. With the exception of Driven and Pulling Power, all these shows have subsequently aired on the Discovery Channel.
He has appeared in a series called Revved Up in which cars are modified, and presents coverage of the British Rally Championship on Sky Sports. He has presented a show called Remote Madness, in which people with remote controlled mini cars, boats and helicopters compete in a multi challenge race.
In 2010, he changed direction and fronted a new Discovery Channel series Frontline Battle Machines, where he went to Afghanistan, and accompanied front line troops, showing how they use their motorised equipment.In 2009 Brewer claimed that his breath continuously smelled of Pickled onions, but his wife later denied this and said it was more like 'salt baked cod'.
In 2004, he won the Royal Television Society Midland Centre award for "Best In Vision Personality".
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Franz Antel
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Franz Antel (June 28, 1913 – August 11, 2007) was a veteran Austrian filmmaker.
Born in Vienna, Antel worked mainly as a film producer in the interwar years. After World War II, he began writing and directing films on a large scale. In the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s these were mainly comedies (romantic, slapstick, and/or musical) and K.u.k. films all of which, for Austrian and German TV stations alike, have been a staple of weekend afternoon programming ever since. In between there is quite a sober film about the Oberst (Colonel) Redl affair that shook the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy on the eve of World War I.
From the late 1960s, encouraged by the new opportunities in the film industry brought about by the sexual revolution, Antel gradually switched his main interest to soft porn and ribaldry. It was in particular his series of Wirtin ("hostess") films, directed under the pseudonym François Legrand, with which he tried to win international recognition. Titles included The Sweet Sins of Sexy Susan (1967), Sexy Susan Sins Again (1969), Wild, Willing & Sexy (1969) and Don't Tell Daddy (aka Naughty Nymphs in the U.S.A.) (1972).
Among the actors Antel worked with were Hans Moser, Paul Hörbiger, Oskar Werner, Curd Jürgens, Tony Curtis, Herbert Fux, Heinrich Schweiger, Arthur Kennedy, Carroll Baker, Edwige Fenech, George Hilton, Marisa Berenson, Britt Ekland, Andréa Ferréol.
1981 was a turning point in Antel's career when he adapted for the big screen a stage play by Ulrich Becher and Peter Preses. Set from the days of the Anschluss of 1938 until after the end of the war, Der Bockerer is about a Viennese butcher named Karl Bockerer (Karl Merkatz) whose common sense rather than intellect tells him to oppose the Nazis and who dares to show resistance just because he is never fully aware of the possible fateful consequences of his actions. While Bockerer and his wife survive the war unscathed, their son joins the SA but, after some internal intrigue, is sent to the front and killed.
Der Bockerer IV
The film's strong anti-fascist message, the moving dialogue, and performances by the crème de la crème of Austrian actors and actresses (Ida Krottendorf, Alfred Böhm, Heinz Marecek, Hans Holt, Dolores Schmidinger and many more) made Der Bockerer an unusually successful film and gave new impetus to Antel's career. He made three sequels, which follow the lives of the Bockerers well into the 1960s, each depicting a crucial historical event in Austria or one of its neighbouring countries:
Der Bockerer II (1996) is about the ten-year occupation (1945-1955) of Austria by the allied powers;
Der Bockerer III — Die Brücke von Andau (2000) is set at the time of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956; and, finally,
Der Bockerer IV — Der Prager Frühling (2003) deals with Dubček's Prague Spring of 1968.
Antel would recount an anecdote about himself describing how, in order to live up to his reputation as a womanizer, he used to carry a pair of high heels in his luggage which he then would occasionally place in the corridor in front of his hotel room – especially when he was travelling alone.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Franz Antel, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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