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Joe De Santis

Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Joseph Vito DeSantis (June 15, 1909 - August 30, 1989) was an American radio, television, movie and theatrical actor and sculptor. Joe De Santis was born Joseph Vito Marcello De Santis to Italian immigrant parents in New York City. De Santis played in numerous films; the high point of his career came in 1962 with A Cold Wind in August. He was also featured in I Want to Live! and The Brotherhood. With the advent of television, Joe became known as a skilled character actor who could play convincing dialect characters, mugs, suave heavies and emotional leads. He was active in such early television series as Playhouse 90, Studio One, Sheriff of Cochise, and he appeared regularly on the programs of Red Buttons, Martha Raye and Sid Caesar shows. In addition to many single performances on other series like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Joe had a recurring presence in such shows as The Untouchables, 77 Sunset Strip, Perry Mason, Mission: Impossible, and in the westerns such as Sugarfoot, Daniel Boone, Gunsmoke, Sara, and Bonanza. De Santis retired to Provo, Utah in 1978 to be close to family, and resided there until his death in 1989. He died in 1989 at the age of eighty of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
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Maxim Gorky

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Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (1868–1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (Russian: Максим Горький), was a Russian writer and political activist. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an author, he travelled widely across the Russian Empire changing jobs frequently, experiences which would later influence his writing. Gorky's most famous works are a short story collection 'Sketches and Stories' (1899), plays 'The Philistines' (1901), 'The Lower Depths' (1902) and 'Children of the Sun' (1905), poem 'The Song of the Stormy Petrel' (1901), autobiographical trilogy 'My Childhood', 'In the World', 'My Universities' (1913–1923), and novel 'Mother' (1906). Though Gorky himself judged some of these works as failures, most are now seen as masterpieces. Some of his less-known post-revolutionary works such as the cycles 'Fragments from My Diary' (1924) and 'Stories of 1922–1924' (1925), and novels 'The Artamonov Business' (1925) and 'The Life of Klim Samgin' (1925–1936), Gorky himself was more proud of; the latter is considered Gorky's masterpiece and sometimes being viewed by critics as a modernist work. Unlike his pre-revolutionary writings (known for their "anti-psychologism"), these differ with an ambivalent portrayal of the Russian Revolution and "unmodern interest to human psychology" (as noted by D. S. Mirsky).
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Raka

Biography

Raka is an Indian Film director and Choreographer who mainly works is Bollywood films alongside working in Punjabi, Marathi, Tamil films as choreographer. He made his directional debut with the film Happy Hardy and Heer. He started his career as a background dancer, then he worked as an assistant choreographer for Bosco and Ahmed Khan. In 2007, worked as an main assistant choreographer in the film Salaam-e-Ishq: A Tribute to Love. In 2012, he begun to work as an independent choreographer. He worked as main choreographer in the mainstream Bollywood films like Karle Pyaar Karle, Nil Battey Sannata, Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, Laila Majnu etc. While working as choreographer in the film Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, seeing his ability, he was offered to direct the film Happy Hardy and Heer starring Himesh Reshammiya and Sonia Mann, which was released in January 2020.[2] The film received mostly positive reviews from critics.
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Sean Connery

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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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Shruti

Biography

Girija (born 18 September 1975), known by her screen name Shruti, is an Indian actress, television personality and politician. As an actress, she is known for her work in Kannada cinema and has appeared in over 100 films. She is currently serving as chief secretary of Bharatiya Janata Party's women's wing in its Karnataka cadre. In addition to Kannada, Shruti has appeared in a handful Tamil and Malayalam films. She was among the leading actresses in Kannada cinema during the 1990s and has won three Karnataka State Film Awards and four Filmfare Awards South in her career spanning over 25 years. She is known for performance in films such as Gauri Ganesha (1991), Aagatha (1995), Kalki (1996), Gowdru (2004), Akka Thangi (2008) and Puttakkana Highway (2011). She is sister of actor Sharan. In 2016, she won the third season of the reality television show Bigg Boss Kannada. Shruti joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2008. She was made the chairperson of the Karnataka Women and Child Development Corporation before being removed in 2009. In 2013, she joined the Karnataka Janata Paksha which eventually merged in 2014 with the BJP.
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Mary Johnson

Biography

Mary Johnson, born Carlsson, was a Swedish international actress. She made her acting debut as a teenager in 1910. Her first appearance in a film was three years later in "Mannekängen/The Model" (1913) where she met Karl Gerhard Johnson. That film directed by Mauritz Ztiller was never finished. Karl Gerhard Johnson and Mary Carlsson married the same year. She was later married to the Norwegian actor Einar Rød (1920-1931), and the well known German actor Rudolf Klein-Rogge( 1932-1955). Mary Johnson made about 40 feature films during her artistically active years 1913 to 1931.
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Park Nou-sik

Biography

Park Nou-sik (February 4, 1930 – April 3, 1995) was a South Korean actor. Park was born in Suncheon, South Jeolla province, Korea in 1930. Park graduated from Suncheon School of Education. Park debuted as an actor in 1956 by starring in Gyeoktoe (격퇴) directed by Lee Gang-cheon. Park had starred in hundreds of films and established his career as an action film star. In the 1970s, Park started directing. Wikipedia contributors. "Park No-sik." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 3 Aug. 2021. Web. 2 Dec. 2021.
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Dennis Dugan

Biography

American director, comedian, and actor Dennis Dugan started his acting career in 1972, appearing in the 1973 made for TV movie” The Girl Most Likely to...” He is well known for his frequent collaborations with comedic actor Adam Sandler. Dennis has also made a career as a television and film director, and appears in cameo parts in many of his films. Dugan has directed episodes of such television series as Moonlighting (was also a guest star in some episodes), Ally McBeal, and NYPD Blue.  Dugan's latest film was “Just Go With It”, which is his sixth film with Sandler. The film also starred Jennifer Aniston and Brooklyn Decker. Dugan married actress Joyce Van Patten in 1973 and divorced her fourteen years later. Now he is married to Sharon O'Connor and has a son named Kelly Dugan.
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Omar Khairat

Biography

Maestro ‘Omar Khairat is famous Egyptian composer, pianist, founder and conductor of "‘Omar Khairat Band". He was born in Cairo, raised in a family of musicians. His uncle is Abou-Bakr Khairat, the great Egyptian composer and architect, established the “Cairo Conservatoire” and enriched the Arab music with great symphonic pieces. Influenced by this legacy, ‘Omar Khairat discovered new musical dimensions in the emotions and memories of the Egyptian and Arab personality. He joined the Cairo Conservatoire in 1959, studied piano with Italian Maestro Vincenzo Carro and followed correspondence courses in music theory and composition with the Trinity College in England. ‘Omar Khairat shaped his musical identity as a professional independent composer achieving new musical visions characterized with deepness and richness. His debut performing in film music was “Leilet el-abd ‘ala Fatma i.e. The night of Fatma was arrested (1983)”. According to music experts and critics, ‘Omar Khairat's music bridges contemporary Arab music and Western music reflecting genuine maturity. Moreover, he is considered to be one of the most outstanding composers presenting successful works like “Al-‘arraafa wal-‘otour al-saahera i.e. The fortune-teller and the Magic Perfumes (1989)”, and the “Arab Rhapsody (1992)”. He also composed music for international events like the “National Feast of Oman (1993)”, the Inauguration Ceremony of “Bibliotheca Alexandrina (1996)”, “Carthage Festival”- Tunisia, “Operetta al-Sheikh Zaayed - Emirates (2000)”, “Panorama al-Abour” - Symphonic Poem - Cairo (1991), “Fine Arts Cycle - Spain (2004)”, “October Celebrations (2000)”, “Celebration of the Royal Jordan River Institution (2005)” , “Jarash Festival (2003), “Three Civilizations Celebration – Spain”, “Celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of the Egyptian Cinema” and many other. He regularly performed at the Cairo Opera House and all the Egyptian and Arab ceremonies during the last fifteen years. His repertoire includes more than fifty works for cinema and more than 20 in TV. ‘Omar Khairat received more than Arab and international awards such as; “Oman Award (1993)”, a Certificate of Merit and the Shield from the “7th Cairo International Song Festival (2001)”, the “Emirate Ministry of Media Award (2004)”, the “Royal Jordan River Institution Award (2005)”, Certificate of Merit and the Shield from the “Alexandria International Song Festival (2006)”, Certificate of Merit and the Shield from the “30th Cairo International Film Festival (2006)”. In 2008, he received the Middle East Music Award (MEMA). ‘Omar Khairat married actor Jala Fahmy nad they got divorced. He is now married to Mrs. Naglaa al-Ghannaam, he is the father of ‘Omar (junior) and Sherine and he is the grandfather of Adam.
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Tawfiq Saleh

Biography

The director of seven shorts and seven full-length feature films, Saleh graduated in 1949 in English literature and was trained in cinema in Paris until 1951. Tewfik Saleh's oeuvre is the only one in Egyptian cinema which may be considered purely "Third Worldist". All his films deal with social injustice, underdevelopment, political abuse and the class struggle. His first film, Darb al-mahabil (1955), co-written by Najeeb Mahfouz, was set in a popular neighborhood but represented a kind of allegory of greed and materialism, dismantling the opportunism of the alley's inhabitants who chase a mentally retarded homeless person after they learn he has won the lottery. It took Saleh another seven years to direct his Sira' al-abtal (1962), set during the cholera epidemic of the 1930s. It featured Shukri Sarhan as a leftist country doctor who battles not only against the disease, but also against the peasant's ignorance, the midwife's intrigues and the egocentric interests of the feudal landowner. Saleh's next films were produced by the General Film Organization. His Yaumiyat na'ib fi-l-aryaf (1968), taken from 'Taufiq al-Hakim"s novel, counts among the best adaptations. Yet he often came up against censorship and bureaucracy. Al-moutamarridoune (1968) and Al-sayyid bulti (1967) (in English: "Mister Fish"), both had to wait two years until their release. In the case of "Mister Fish", which deals with the struggle of working fishermen against a monopolist, the censor used a scene of two young women occupied with removing the hair from their legs to postpone the release of the film. Finally, in the early 70s, Saleh left the country. His Al-makhdu'un (1972), produced by the Syrian National Film Organization and adapted from Ghassan Kanafani's novel "Men Under the Sun", was one of the first Arab films to move away from a melodramatic approach to the Palestinian question and to express scepticism regarding regarding pan-Arab solidarity. Saleh's last feature Al-ayyam al-tawila (1980) was produced by the Iraqi Theatre and Film Organization, and presented _Saddam Hussein_ as a patriotic guerilla. Saleh, who had moved to Iraq in 1973 in order to teach cinema, returned to Egypt in the mid-1980s to teach at the Higher Film Institute.
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