Trending
Popular people
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
Read more
Joshua Mikel
Biography
Joshua Mikel is an actor, playwright, and music video director from Conyers, GA, and a graduate of Florida State University's Theatre and Creative Writing programs. While at FSU, he worked closely with their acclaimed film school as an actor and storyboard artist for dozens of student shorts. During his undergraduate years and following graduation, he toured the U.S. extensively as a founding member and drummer for the indie rock band Look Mexico. After parting ways with the band in 2010, he returned to his home state to pursue a career in film and television. He is a six time published playwright known particularly for his theatre for young audiences works, "The Monster Hunters," and "Good Good Trouble on Bad Bad Island." As a music video director, he has created and animated videos for the acts Against Me!, Waxahatchee, Jake Bugg, Neon Trees, American Authors, and Fake Problems. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia where he is represented by J. Pervis Talent.
Read more
Illinois Jacquet
Biography
Jean-Baptiste "Illinois" Jacquet (October 30, 1922 – July 22, 2004) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, best remembered for his solo on "Flying Home", critically recognized as the first R&B saxophone solo.
Although he was a pioneer of the honking tenor saxophone that became a regular feature of jazz playing and a hallmark of early rock and roll, Jacquet was a skilled and melodic improviser, both on up-tempo tunes and ballads. He doubled on the bassoon, one of only a few jazz musicians to use the instrument.
Jacquet's parents were Creoles of color, named Marguerite Trahan and Gilbert Jacquet, When he was an infant, his family moved from Louisiana to Houston, Texas, and he was raised there as one of six siblings. His father was a part-time bandleader. As a child he performed in his father's band, primarily on the alto saxophone. His older brother Russell Jacquet played trumpet and his other brother Linton played drums.
At 15, Jacquet began playing with the Milton Larkin Orchestra, a Houston-area dance band. In 1939, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he met Nat King Cole. Jacquet would sit in with the trio on occasion. In 1940, Cole introduced Jacquet to Lionel Hampton who had returned to California and was putting together a big band. Hampton wanted to hire Jacquet, but asked the young Jacquet to switch to tenor saxophone.
In 1942, at age 19, Jacquet soloed on the Hampton Orchestra's recording of "Flying Home", one of the first times a honking tenor sax was heard on record. The record became a hit. The song immediately became the climax for the live shows and Jacquet became exhausted from having to "bring down the house" every night. The solo was built to weave in and out of the arrangement and continued to be played by every saxophone player who followed Jacquet in the band, including Arnett Cobb and Dexter Gordon, who achieved almost as much attention as Jacquet in playing it. It is one of the few jazz solos to have been memorized and played very much the same way by everyone who played the song. He left the Hampton band in 1943 and joined Cab Calloway's Orchestra.
Jacquet appeared with Calloway's band in Lena Horne's movie Stormy Weather (1943). In the earlier years of Jacquet's career, his brother Linton Jacquet managed him on the chitlin circuit Linton's daughter, Brenda Jacquet-Ross, sang in jazz venues in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1990s to early 2000s, with a band called the Mondo Players.
In 1944, Jacquet returned to California and started a small band with his brother Russell and a young Charles Mingus. It was at this time that he appeared in the Academy Award-nominated short film Jammin' the Blues with Lester Young. He also appeared at the first Jazz at the Philharmonic concert. In 1946, he moved to New York City, and joined the Count Basie orchestra, replacing Lester Young.
In 1952, Jacquet co-wrote "Just When We're Falling in Love" (Jacquet (m), Sir Charles Thompson (m), S. K. "Bob" Russell (l)). Jacquet continued to perform (mostly in Europe) in small groups through the 1960s and 1970s. He led the Illinois Jacquet Big Band from 1981 until his death. ...
Source: Article "Illinois Jacquet" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Read more
Laurice Guillen
Biography
Laurice Guillen (born January 31, 1947) is a Filipino actress and director.
Guillen studied at St. Theresa's College, Cebu City, before working on a Masters in Mass Communication at Ateneo de Manila University, followed by a television production course under Nestor Torre, in 1967. She then began work as an actress, starring in productions of Mrs. Warren's Profession, before crossing over to film and television work, playing a seductress in Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang, and Corazon Aquino in the drama A Dangerous Life, In 2009 she accepted a role in the indie film Karera, her first role in an independent production. Other credits include in the film Sister Stella L and Moral.
Directing career
A protégé of Lino Brocka, Guillen began her first major work as a director with Init sa Magdamag. In 1984 she directed Salome, which was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival and described as "the kind of cinematic discovery that single-handedly justifies the festival's existence". Ipagpatawad Mo was also directed by Guillen, as was Dahil Mahal Kita: The Dolzura Cortez Story in 1993, before her retirement from filmmaking. Dedicating herself to the Marian movement, Guillen made pilgrimages to churches and cathedrals throughout the Philippines with her husband, believing that Mary had called on her to experience a spiritual renewal. By 1998 she was thinking about returning to filmmaking, and following a good reception of Ipagpatawad Mo by a group of priests, who encouraged her to back into filmmaking, along with an appearance on Kris Aquino's talk show, she did so.
Read more
Diego Masson
Biography
Diego Masson (born 21 June 1935) is a French conductor, composer, and percussionist.
The son of artist André Masson and brother of the singer and actor Luís Masson, Diego Masson was born in Tossa de Mar, Spain. He studied piano and composition at the Paris Conservatoire. Upon graduation, he joined the Domaine Musical as percussionist and began studying conducting with the group's director, Pierre Boulez. In 1966 he formed Musique Vivante, a group specializing in contemporary music which he still directs. Musique Vivante has introduced many important compositions by French and foreign composers, in particular the music of Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen. In 1969 Masson conducted the world première of Stockhausen's Stop, which is dedicated to him, and the group also took part in the premières of "Setz die Segel zur Sonne" from Aus den sieben Tagen and the 1972 version of Momente.
In addition to conducting specialist new-music groups like the Asko Ensemble, Xenakis Ensemble, the Composers Ensemble, Klangforum Wien, the London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Alternance, Ensemble Modern, and Musik Fabrik, he has worked with major orchestras including all the BBC Orchestras, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Collegium Academicum of Geneva, Helsinki Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra, the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, the New Zealand Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.
He is also an acclaimed conductor of opera and ballet. He was music director of the Ballet-Théâtre Contemporain of Amiens from its formation in 1968. In 1972 it moved to Angers, where it was combined with the opera company as the Théâtre Musical d'Angers under Masson's direction. He left in 1975 to become Music Director of Marseille Opera (until 1981) where, amongst other things, he conducted a Ring cycle. He has been guest conductor with opera companies including Opera North, Scottish Opera and the Aspen Festival. He co-conducted (with Patrick Bailey) the UK premiere of Luigi Nono's Prometeo at the Royal Festival Hall in London on 9 and 10 May 2008.
Masson has also worked extensively with youth orchestras: in the UK regularly at Trinity College of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music, and as guest conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Chetham's School of Music; in the US with the Juilliard Orchestra; and in Australia with the Australian Youth Orchestra. He held conducting masterclasses every year at Dartington International Summer School from 1983 to 2010.
His activities as a composer and arranger were mainly from the early part of his career and included film scores composed for Équivoque 1900 (1966), and two Louis Malle projects, the "William Wilson" segment of the Edgar Allan Poe triptych Histoires extraordinaires (1968), and Black Moon (1975), for which he adapted music by Wagner. He was music director for the latter, as well as for the 1996 French/German television Beethoven biopic La Musique de l'amour: Un amour inachevé.
Source: Article "Diego Masson" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Read more
Coffin Souza
Biography
Cesar Eduardo Almeida de Souza, or Coffin Souza, has been an actor, director, producer, makeup artist for videos and films since 1982. Born in June 1962 in Porto Alegre (RS) he has experience in super-8 and video and has participated in more than 15 feature films and dozens of shorts. He was also co-author (with Petter Baiestorf) of the book Manifesto Canibal (2004-Achiamé Editora) and has always had a great participation in the productions of Canibal Filmes (SC) and Fábulas Negras (ES).
Director of more than 20 short films participated in the collection 13 Strange Stories (2015) with 12 other directors from the south of the country and also in his sequence, 13 Strange Stories 2 (2017) as an actor in the short film Cinco Cálices (by Rubens Mello and Julio Wong) .
An incorrigible lover of the Horror genre, Coffin Souza also runs the blogs She Demons Zine, about actresses in genre films and the Midnight Museum about genre cinema.
Read more
Mimi Rogers
Biography
Miriam 'Mimi' Rogers (née Spickler; born January 27, 1956) is an American actress and competitive poker player. Her notable film roles are Gung Ho (1986), Someone to Watch Over Me (1987), Desperate Hours (1990), and Full Body Massage (1995). She garnered the greatest acclaim of her career for her role in the religious drama The Rapture (1991), with critic Robin Wood declaring that she "gave one of the greatest performances in the history of the Hollywood cinema."
Rogers has since appeared in Reflections on a Crime (1994), The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), Lost in Space (1998), Ginger Snaps (2000), The Door in the Floor (2004), and For a Good Time, Call... (2012).
Her extensive work in television includes Paper Dolls (1984), Weapons of Mass Distraction (1997), The Loop (2006–2007), and recurring roles on The X-Files (1998–1999), Two and a Half Men (2011–2015), Wilfred (2014), Mad Men (2015), Bosch (2014–2021), and Bosch: Legacy (2022).
Read more
Russell Hicks
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Edward Russell Hicks (June 4, 1895 – June 1, 1957) was an American film actor.
Born in 1895 in Baltimore, Maryland, Hicks appeared in nearly 300 films between 1915 and 1956. His first appearance was an uncredited role in The Birth of a Nation (1915). He often appeared as a smooth-talking confidence man, as in the W.C. Fields film The Bank Dick (1940). Distinguished, suave and a consummate actor, Hicks played a variety of judges, corrupt officials, businessmen and attorneys, working in a variety of mediums almost until his death. Hicks appeared once in the syndicated western television series The Cisco Kid as an uncle of the Gail Davis character, whom he threatens to disinherit if she marries a known gangster.
He died in Los Angeles, California, from a heart attack.
Read more
Gwendoline Taylor
Biography
Gwendoline Taylor is an actress from New Zealand. She first appeared on screen in 2007 in Show of Hands, which was filmed in her hometown of New Plymouth. In 2008, Gwendoline moved to Auckland to study post-production at South Seas Film & Television School, where her tutors insisted that she belonged in front of the camera. In 2012, she was cast as Sibyl in Spartacus: War of the Damned, a television series on the Starz network. She has made a number of appearances in short films and on the series Go Girls. Her other film credits include a featured role as Emily in Sione's 2: Unfinished Business, the sequel to the NZ smash hit Sione's Wedding.
Read more
Celso Albelo
Biography
Celso Albelo was born in Santa Cruz, Tenerife, and
studied at the Conservatorio Superior de Musica in his hometown as well as at
the Escula Superior de Canto Reina Sofia in Madrid. He completed further
studies with Carlo Bergonzi. In 2006, he made his debut as Duca in Rigoletto in
Bussetto. A number of important debuts followed – he appeared in Pagliacci
in La Scala, in La sonnambula at the Royal Opera
House Covent Garden, in L´elisir d´amore at La Fenice in
Venice, sang in Rossini´sStabat Mater at the Rossini festival in
Pesaro. Further appearances lead the singer to places of great importance to
the operatic scene, such as Trieste, Genoa, Bologna, Madrid, Las Palmas,
Oviedo, Zurich, Baden-Baden, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Tokyo. He performed in operas
such as Don Pasquale, I puritani, Maria
Stuarda, Lucia di Lammermoor, La Juive, Rigoletto, Guillaume Tell, Lakmé,
Gianni Schicchi, La Fille du régiment. Celso Albelo received numerous
significant awards and prizes. As he is also a very popular concert singer, he
is a welcome guest star at international concerts. He made his debut in 2012 as
Nemorino at the Wiener Staatsoper and also sang Elvino (LaSonnambula) and the title role in Roberto Devereux. http://www.wiener-staatsoper.at/Content.Node/home/kuenstler/saengerinnen/Albelo.en.php
Read more