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Maxime Le Forestier
Biography
Maxime Le Forestier (born 10 February 1949 as Bruno Le Forestier) is a French singer-songwriter.
Bruno Le Forestier was born on 10 February 1949 in Paris to father Robert Le Forestier and mother Genevieve (née Lili 1917—2010) who had lived in England. He had two older sisters, Annette (born 1943) and Catherine (born 1946).
His musical training started on the violin. He attended the Lycée Condorcet, where he studied literature.
In 1965, he formed a duo (Cat et Maxime) with his sister Catherine. Playing at cabaret venues on Paris' Left Bank, the pair met and formed a friendship with Georges Moustaki. They were amongst the first artists to cover a number of songs by Moustaki – including Ma Liberté and Ma Solitude. In 1968, Catherine joined Moustaki as a backing singer. Le Forestier began to focus on songwriting and composed Ballade pour un traître which was recorded and released by the French/Italian singer and actor, Serge Reggiani.
Le Forestier continued as part-time singer/songwriter during his military service (beginning 1969) with a parachute regiment (the inspiration for the song Parachutiste). He recorded two songs: Cœur de Pierre, Face de Lune, and La Petite Fugue.
His military service ending September 1970, Le Forestier refocused on his musical career. He developed a folksy style which was enormously popular in the 1970s and 1980s. He and his sister spent the summer of 1971 living in the Castro District of San Francisco at the invitation of his friend, Luc Alexandre. The experience, and meeting Allen Ginsberg, was the inspiration of a popular song, San Francisco.
His first album Mon Frère, released in 1973, contains several pieces that have entered French folklore, including the title song Mon frère, San Francisco, Comme un arbre and Education sentimentale. He toured extensively, both in France and abroad. In 1976, he toured in 14 cities in the USSR. Recently he has gained particular acclaim for his reworkings of the songs of Georges Brassens.
"San Francisco", one of his best known songs, begins with the line: "C'est une maison bleue adossée à la colline" (meaning "It's a blue house with its back to the hill"). In 1971, a young Le Forestier was living in a hippie commune, called "Hunga Dunga", in a blue house situated at 3841 18th Street in San Francisco. The anthemic song was written as a fond tribute to Le Forestier’s housemates and hippie friends, and the names mentioned in the song refer to real people. These include Phil Polizatto, who recalls with great affection Le Forestier’s stay in the blue house, in a critically acclaimed book entitled “Hunga Dunga: Confessions of an Unapologetic Hippie”. In the summer of 2011, the house was repainted from light green to its original blue, and a plaque dedicated to Le Forestier was unveiled by the French Consul, pointing to the cultural importance of the song in French popular culture.
Maxime Le Forestier has participated in Les Enfoirés, the annual concert to raise money for the charity Restaurants du Cœur, since 1995.
Source: Article "Maxime Le Forestier" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Sharada
Biography
Sharada (born Saraswati Devi; 25 June 1945) is an Indian actress and politician from Andhra Pradesh. She is the recipient of three National Awards. She has achieved success through Malayalam cinema, and Telugu cinema. She is also known as Urvasi Sharada because earlier the National Film Award for Best Actress was officially designated the Urvasi Award. She won two Filmfare Awards. Sharada has garnered the NTR National Award by the Government of Andhra Pradesh for her contributions to Indian cinema. Along with Monisha Unni, Shobhana, Meera Jasmine, Surabhi Lakshmi and Shobha, Sharada is one of six Malayalam actresses who have won the National Film Award for Best Actress.
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Giancarlo Esposito
Biography
Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito (born April 26, 1958) is an American actor. He is best known for portraying Gus Fring in the AMC crime drama series Breaking Bad (2009–2011) and the prequel series Better Call Saul (2017–2022). For this role he won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and earned three nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.
Esposito's other television roles include Federal Agent Mike Giardello in the NBC police drama series Homicide: Life on the Street (1998–1999), Sidney Glass / Magic Mirror in the ABC supernatural drama series Once Upon a Time (2011–2017), Tom Neville in the NBC science fiction series Revolution (2012–2014), Dr. Edward Ruskins in the Netflix comedy-drama series Dear White People (2017–present), Stan Edgar in the Amazon Prime Video superhero drama series The Boys (2019–present), and Moff Gideon in the Disney+ space western drama series The Mandalorian (2019–present), the lattermost of which earned him two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He also portrayed American Baptist pastor and politician Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in the TV series Godfather of Harlem (2019–present). Esposito also portrays Antón Castillo, the main antagonist of the video game Far Cry 6, released in 2021.
He is also known for his appearances in several Spike Lee films, such as School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo' Better Blues (1990), and Malcolm X (1992). Esposito's other major films include Taps (1981), King of New York (1990), Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991), Fresh (1994), The Usual Suspects (1995), Ali (2001), Last Holiday (2006), Gospel Hill (2008), Rabbit Hole (2010), Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015), The Jungle Book (2016), Money Monster (2016), Okja (2017), Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018), and Stargirl (2020).
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Laetitia Casta
Biography
Laetitia Marie Laure Casta (born 11 May 1978) is a French actress and model. Casta became a "Guess Girl" in 1993 and gained further recognition as a Victoria's Secret Angel from 1998 to 2000 and as a spokesperson for cosmetics company L'Oreal. She has appeared on over 100 covers of such popular magazines as Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Rolling Stone, Elle and Glamour, and modeled for designers like Yves Saint Laurent, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Chanel, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, J. Crew, Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Roberto Cavalli, Lolita Lempicka, and Vivienne Westwood. Casta became an established actress, appearing in the films Gainsbourg (A Heroic Life), Face and Blue Bicycle, as well as the play Ondine at the theatre Antoine.
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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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Cliff Gorman
Biography
Cliff Gorman was an American stage and screen actor. He won an Obie award in 1968 for the stage presentation of The Boys in the Band, and went on to reprise his role in the 1970 film version.
Gorman and his wife cared for his fellow The Boys in the Band cast member Robert La Tourneaux in the last few months of his battle against AIDS, until La Tourneaux's death on June 3, 1986
Gorman died of leukemia in 2002, aged 65, although his final film, Kill the Poor, was not released until 2003. He was survived by his wife, Gayle Gorman.
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Gulliver McGrath
Biography
Gulliver William McGrath (born August 15, 1998) is an Australian child actor. McGrath played Charlie in the Australian crime series Rush. He also starred as the title character in the Melbourne Theatre Company production Poor Boy alongside Guy Pearce and Abi Tucker. Recently, McGrath portrayed David Collins in the 2012 feature film Dark Shadows, which earned him a 2013 Young Artist Award nomination as Best Supporting Young Actor in a Feature Film. He portrayed Tad Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (2012). Gulliver will be playing the teenage version of Jerry Hickfang in "The Voices". The Voices is currently filming. He was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia. He then moved to Birmingham, U.K, and was raised there. His mother, Heidi Chapman, is a neuroscientist, and his father, Craig, is an anaesthetist. He is the older brother of actors Zen and Winta McGrath.
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Sean Bean
Biography
Shaun Mark Bean (born 17 April 1959) is an English actor. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Bean made his professional debut in a theatre production of Romeo and Juliet in 1983. Retaining his Yorkshire accent, he first found mainstream success for his portrayal of Richard Sharpe in the ITV series Sharpe, which originally ran from 1993 to 1997.
Bean's film roles include Patriot Games (1992), GoldenEye (1995), Ronin (1998), Don't Say a Word (2001), The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003), Equilibrium (2002), National Treasure (2004), Troy (2004), Flightplan (2005), North Country (2005), The Island (2005), Silent Hill (2006), Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010), Black Death (2010), Jupiter Ascending (2015), and The Martian (2015).
His television roles include the BBC anthology series Accused, Broken, Game of Thrones, and the ITV historical drama series Henry VIII and Legends. As a voice actor, Bean has been featured in the video games The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Sid Meier's Civilization VI, and the feature films Wolfwalkers and Mummies among others. Bean has also been the main voice over for O2 and their adverts for over 20 years having originally taken the job in 2002.
In 2022, Bean won the British Academy Television Award as Leading Actor in Time, a BBC One drama.
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Harry Kim
Biography
Harry Kim was born and raised in New York City where he attended High School For The Performing Arts and prepared for a career as a classical trumpeter. After high school however, he relocated to Los Angeles and soon discovered the world of funk and jazz. After several years touring throughout the U.S. with various show groups, R&B revues and big hands, including the Harry James Big Band, he returned to Los Angeles to further his career.
Latin music took a front seat during the disco era, a time when live music was rarely featured in discotheques but was in strong demand by salsa audiences. It was at this time that he began working with artists such as Tito Puente and Celia Cruz, and also began honing his arranging skills by writing and performing on many disco productions.
Soon he joined Stevie Wonders Wonder Love which opened the doors of opportunity to perform and record with such artists as Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, The Four Tops, The Temptations, and Smokey Robinson. He was on stage for the Emmy Award winning 25th Anniversary of Motown performing with many of Motowns greatest stars. It was an evening highlighted by Michael Jackson's introduction of his now legendary moonwalk.
Since 2005 he has acted as horn section leader and arranger for the 2005-2013 seasons of American Idol. In the USA Harry was even televised twice in one day as he played the final week of the Oprah Show, airing in the afternoon, and the final week of American Idol, airing in the evening. Harry just completed a tour with the legendary French recording artist, Johnny Hallyday, on his final tour.
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Buck Houghton
Biography
Archible Ernest "Buck" Houghton Jr. is chiefly remembered as producer of The Twilight Zone (1959) during its first three seasons (more than a hundred episodes in total), his influence palpable in all facets of production, from script selection to renting production facilities, to casting, scoring and editing. Houghton had graduated from UCLA with majors in English and economics. He was at that time known as 'Arch'. The origin of his nickname 'Buck' may have been the result of buck teeth as a child. His career began in Hollywood as back stage help on films by Cecil B. DeMille, then as reader for Val Lewton and story editor to David O. Selznick. Via subsequent stints at Paramount's casting and budget departments, the Office of War Information (where he worked on short propaganda films) and four years as executive assistant at RKO, Houghton worked his way up to television producer by the early 1950's. He served as associate producer on an excellent early action series, Yancy Derringer (1958), which is, sadly, almost forgotten today. William Self, who preferred to remain in his executive position with CBS, offered Houghton the job of producing "The Twilight Zone" and Houghton enthusiastically accepted, having perused the first two scripts. He became popular with many of the directors, for example Douglas Heyes (usually put in charge of more character-driven assignments like "The Invaders"), who regarded him as the best producer he ever worked with. Most importantly, Houghton complemented the creative genius of Rod Serling by his expertise in all minutiae of production.
Houghton left "Twilight Zone" at the end of season three, having raised objections about extending the show to the -- as it turned out, much less suitable -- one-hour format. Few of his subsequent appointments proved entirely satisfactory: Houghton more often found his style cramped, clashing with stars he regarded as 'autocratic' (The Richard Boone Show (1963), Hawaii Five-O (1968)) or executive producers he disliked (Lost in Space (1965)). There were several more production credits to his name in the 80's -- mostly B-grade made-for-TV films -- before his retirement in 1994.
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