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Mehrave Sharifinia
Biography
Mehrave Sharifinia is an actress who was born in 1981 in Tehran, Iran. She started her career in cinema and starred in “Thief of Dolls” directed by Mohammadreza Honarmand in 1989. Her most notable activities are “Wander about me” by Ghazaleh Soltani, “Look at Me” by Shahram Asadi, “Ekhrajiha 2” by Masoud Dehnamaki and series such as “Kimia” by Javad Afshar, “Day of Regret” by Sirous Moghaddam, “Ashpaz Bashi” by Mohammadreza Honarmand and “Ghalbe Yakhi” directed by Mohammadhossein Latifi.
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Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
Biography
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian writer. A prominent Soviet dissident, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, in particular the Gulag system.
Solzhenitsyn was born into a family that defied the Soviet anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and remained devout members of the Russian Orthodox Church. However, Solzhenitsyn lost his faith in Christianity, became an atheist, and embraced Marxism–Leninism. While serving as a captain in the Red Army during World War II, Solzhenitsyn was arrested by SMERSH and sentenced to eight years in the Gulag and then internal exile for criticizing Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in a private letter. As a result of his experience in prison and the camps, he gradually became a philosophically minded Eastern Orthodox Christian.
As a result of the Khrushchev Thaw, Solzhenitsyn was released and exonerated. He pursued writing novels about repression in the Soviet Union and his experiences. He published his first novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in 1962, with approval from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, which was an account of Stalinist repressions. Solzhenitsyn's last work to be published in the Soviet Union was Matryona's Place in 1963. Following the removal of Khrushchev from power, the Soviet authorities attempted to discourage Solzhenitsyn from continuing to write. He continued to work on further novels and their publication in other countries including Cancer Ward in 1966, In the First Circle in 1968, August 1914 in 1971, and The Gulag Archipelago in 1973, the publication of which outraged the Soviet authorities. In 1974 Solzhenitsyn lost his Soviet citizenship and was flown to West Germany. In 1976, he moved with his family to the United States, where he continued to write. In 1990, shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, his citizenship was restored, and four years later he returned to Russia, where he remained until his death in 2008.
He was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature", and The Gulag Archipelago was a highly influential work that "amounted to a head-on challenge to the Soviet state", and sold tens of millions of copies.
Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk (now in Stavropol Krai, Russia). His father, Isaakiy Semyonovich Solzhenitsyn, was of Russian descent and his mother, Taisiya Zakharovna (née Shcherbak), was of Ukrainian descent. Taisiya's father had risen from humble beginnings to become a wealthy landowner, acquiring a large estate in the Kuban region in the northern foothills of the Caucasus and during World War I, Taisiya had gone to Moscow to study. While there she met and married Isaakiy, a young officer in the Imperial Russian Army of Cossack origin and fellow native of the Caucasus region. The family background of his parents is vividly brought to life in the opening chapters of August 1914, and in the later Red Wheel novels. ...
Source: Article "Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Gabriella Hall
Biography
Gabriella Hall (born Laura Rosa Saldivar November 11, 1966) is a model and actress from Los Angeles is best known for her appearances in Cinemax TV shows and movies such as Erotic Confessions and Beverly Hills Bordello. To date, she has appeared in over 58 TV shows and movies. She has posed for Playboy magazine and appeared in one of their videos, Playboy: Girls of the Internet (as Gabriella Skye).
Hall was born in Los Angeles but grew up on the beaches of Northern California. She auditioned for fashion print work on a whim as a way to pay for veterinarian school. Her fashion print work led to runway modeling in Europe before she returned to California.
Hall had always been fascinated with movies from when she was a little girl with Rita Hayworth being her favorite actress at the time. Her first major role was in a movie called Centerfold (later renamed Naked Ambition). After that, she would go on to appear in 18 features over the next two years. It was her appearance in the Nicolas Roeg drama, Full Body Massage, (as the younger flashback of Mimi Rogers' character, Nina) that drew the attention of film producers such as Curtis Hansen, and kept her steadily employed in a variety of movies.
Recently, she has gotten into producing her own movies with Jacqueline Hyde (2005).
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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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David Maysles
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Albert (born November 26, 1926, Boston, Massachusetts) and David Maysles (rhymes with "hazels", born 10 January 1932, Boston, Massachusetts) were a documentary filmmaking team whose cinéma vérité works include Salesman (1968), Gimme Shelter (1970) and Grey Gardens (1976). Their 1964 film on The Beatles forms the backbone of the DVD, The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit. Several Maysles films document art projects by Christo and Jeanne-Claude over a three-decade period, from 1974 when Christo's Valley Curtain was nominated for an Academy Award to 2005 when The Gates headlined New York's Tribeca Film Festival.
David Maysles, the younger brother, died of a stroke on January 3, 1987, in New York. Albert Maysles graduated in 1949 with a BA from Syracuse University and later earned a masters degree at Boston University. Albert has continued to make films on his own since his brother's death. Jean-Luc Godard once called Albert Maysles "the best American cameraman". In 2005 Maysles was given a lifetime achievement award at the Czech film festival AFO (Academia Film Olomouc). He is working on his own autobiographical documentary.
In 2005 he founded the Maysles Institute, a nonprofit organization that provides training and apprenticeships to underprivileged individuals. Albert is a patron of Shooting People, a filmmakers' community.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Albert and David Maysles, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Élisabeth Badinter
Biography
Élisabeth Badinter (née Bleustein-Blanchet; 5 March 1944) is a French philosopher, author and historian.
She is best known for her philosophical treatises on feminism and women's role in society. She is an advocate of liberal feminism and women migrant workers' rights in France. Badinter is described as having a commitment to Enlightenment rationalism and universalism. She advocates for a "moderate feminism". A 2010 Marianne news magazine poll named her France's "most influential intellectual", primarily on the basis of her books on women's rights and motherhood.
Badinter is the largest shareholder of Publicis Groupe, a multinational advertising and public relations company, and the chairwoman of its supervisory board. She received these shares in an inheritance from her father, Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, who founded the company. According to Forbes, she is one of the wealthiest French citizens with a fortune of around US$1.8 billion in 2012.
Badinter was born in Boulogne-Billancourt to Sophie Vaillant and Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, founder of Publicis. Sophie Vaillant was the granddaughter of Édouard Vaillant, a French political leader and social activist. Elizabeth’s mother was raised as a Roman Catholic in a middle class upbringing, and later converted to Judaism following her marriage. She raised Élisabeth in the Jewish faith.
Elisabeth and her two sisters were raised by parents who believed in the equality of the sexes. She received her secondary education from L'école alsacienne, a private school in Paris. During adolescence, Badinter read Simone de Beauvoir's the Second Sex, which profoundly influenced her views, inspiring her pursuit of a doctorate in philosophy at Sorbonne University. She is a specialist in French history of the Age of Enlightenment.
After her studies, Badinter taught at the École Polytechnique. Her first book titled, L'Amour en plus, was published in 1980 and raises the question of whether maternal love is an exclusively natural instinct or a tendency reinforced in the cultural context, in which the behaviour of motherly affection is expected.
In her critical work, L'un est l'autre, published in 1987, Badinter reflects upon the complementarities of masculine and feminine traits in gendered identities and the conflicts that arise when these complementarities are subjected to oppression. Badinter concludes that a new era of gendered resemblances will lead to a change in gender identities and a revolution of moral values.
Her 2003 treatise, La fausse route, addresses misandry and victimisation of women by French contemporary feminists. "The systematic denial of women's power and violence, the constant portrayal of women as oppressed and therefore innocent is deepening the crevasses of a divided humanity: the victims of masculine oppression on one side and the almighty executioners on the other." She criticizes essentialists within the feminist movement, arguing that, "Man is not the enemy." ...
Source: Article "Élisabeth Badinter" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Carolyn Maloney
Biography
Carolyn Jane Maloney (née Bosher, February 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for New York's 12th congressional district from 2013 to 2023, and for New York's 14th congressional district from 1993 to 2013. The district includes most of Manhattan's East Side, Astoria and Long Island City in Queens, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, as well as Roosevelt Island. A member of the Democratic Party, Maloney ran for reelection in 2022 but lost the primary to 10th district incumbent Jerry Nadler after redistricting drew them both into the 12th district.
Maloney was the first woman to represent New York City's 7th Council district (where she was the first woman to give birth while in office). Maloney was also the first woman to chair the Joint Economic Committee. On October 17, 2019, she became the first woman to chair the House Committee on Oversight and Reform following the death of Elijah Cummings. On November 20, 2019, Maloney was formally chosen to succeed Cummings.
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Michelle Holmes
Biography
Michelle Holmes was born on January 1, 1967 in Rochdale as Corinne Michelle Cunliffe. She is an actress. She is best known for her breakout role as Sue in Alan Clarke's 1987 film Rita, Sue and Bob Too. She played Rovers barmaid Tina Fowler in Coronation Street from 1989-1990 and has followed this up with roles in two other major soaps, Emmerdale in 1995 and Hollyoaks from 2017-2018. Her other credits include Common as Muck (1994-1997), Goodnight Sweetheart (1993-1996), Merseybeat (2001-2003) and Above Suspicion (2009-2012). She was previously married to Mark O'Hanlon and performed in the pop group The Dunky Dobbers alongside fellow Lancashire actress Sue Devaney.
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Clive Wedderburn
Biography
Clive Wedderburn is an actor best known for his role as Police Constable Garry McCann in The Bill.[1][2][3][4]
He was born in Reading, Berkshire in 1967. In 1972 his parents moved to Birmingham, where he was to spend the next 13 years before moving to London to train as an actor at East 15 Acting School. He went on to enjoy a colourful acting career, performing on stage at the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Court Theatre.
He acted in the short-lived Silver Street, a daily radio soap broadcast on BBC Asian Network.
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Mia Lyhne
Biography
Lyhne er som skuespiller autodidakt efter flere forgæves forsøg på at blive optaget på Statens Teaterskole. Hun har en baggrund i teater- og sanggruppen på Vesterbro Ungdomsgård. Siden 1996 tilknyttet Teater Grob, hvor hun har medvirket i flere forestillinger. På Bellevue Teatret har Mia Lyhne 1995-2000 kunnet ses som Kamomilla i Folk og røvere i Kardemomme by. Har desuden arbejdet med radio, bl.a. som studievært i Børneradio og for Radioteatret. Hun spiller rollen som Mia i TV2 zulus "Klovn". Har også optrådt i "Krøniken". Hun blev for alvor landskendt i TV2-programmet Vild med dans, hvor hun vandt finalen med sin partner Thomas Evers Poulsen den 4. juni 2005. En musikgruppe ved navn M.I.A. Lyhne udgav i 2006 et nummer kaldet "Mia Lyhne", som var en form for hyldest til Mia Lyhne. Nummeret blev fremført live ved Zulu Awards 2007. Da der blev udskrevet folketingsvalg i 2007 meldte hun sig ind i Socialistisk Folkeparti og hun var med til Villy Søvndals tale på valgaftenen. I 2002 modtog hun en talentpris ved Årets Reumert for sin præstation i Udvidelsen af kampzonen på Det Kongelige Teater.
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