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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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Chester Lauck

Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Chester "Chet" Lauck (February 9, 1902 – February 21, 1980) was a comic actor who played the character of Lum Edwards on the classic American radio comedy Lum and Abner. Chester Lauck was born in Alleene, Arkansas and raised in Mena, Arkansas. He graduated from Mena High School in 1920. In Mena, Chet met his future comedy partner Norris Goff. Though both began as blackface comics, they soon found success on local station KTHS with a recurring hillbilly skit, leading to a network series, recorded in Chicago, Illinois, in 1931. In addition to starring as storekeeper Lum (full name Columbus Edwards, with surname usually pronounced "Eddards"), Lauck also played several other recurring characters, including Cedric Weehunt, Grandpappy Spears, and Snake Hogan. He reprised his radio role, opposite Goff, in seven motion pictures between 1940 and 1956. Lauck adopted grey hair and a moustache on-camera, to better match the picture most audiences would have of his radio character. In his later years, Lauck recorded new introductions for commercial cassette releases of the series and for syndication. For a brief time during the 1950s he bought and upgraded a ranch fifteen miles west of Las Vegas, later bought by Howard Hughes. It was turned into Spring Mountain Ranch State Park. On August 27, 1957, he appeared as a guest challenger on To Tell the Truth. He died on February 21, 1980, aged 78, and was buried in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Chester Lauck is a member of the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame.
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Corinne Calvet

Biography

Corinne Calvet (April 30, 1925 – June 23, 2001), born Corinne Dibos, was a French actress who appeared mostly in American films. Calvet made her debut in French radio, stage plays and cinema in the 1940s before being brought to Hollywood in the 1940s by producer Hal B. Wallis. He cast her in Rope of Sand (1949) opposite Burt Lancaster and Paul Henreid. In the 1950s, Calvet appeared in a string of films, usually playing French characters, opposite such leading men as Danny Kaye (On the Riviera), Joseph Cotten (Peking Express), Dan Dailey (When Willie Comes Marching Home), James Cagney (What Price Glory?), James Stewart (The Far Country), Alan Ladd (Thunder in the East), Tony Curtis (So This Is Paris) and twice with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis (My Friend Irma Goes West and Sailor Beware). She made a rare television appearance on the Colgate Comedy Hour with Donald O'Connor on February 3, 1952, televised nationwide by NBC. Upset with her treatment in Hollywood, in 1960 Calvet "decided to return to France to make her headquarters." She continued to act in Italian and French productions as well as making appearances on American television series (Hart to Hart and General Hospital), with occasional roles in films. Her last film was The Sword and the Sorcerer in 1982. In her memoir, entitled Has Corinne Been a Good Girl? (1983), she stated that the roles she played for Hollywood studios never challenged her acting ability. In 1958, referring to being cast as a French temptress, she told an interviewer, "If I had come to Hollywood as a dramatic actress, I never would have been Corinne Calvet, and you never would have been sitting here talking to me." Description above from the Wikipedia article Corinne Calvet licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Guy Ritchie

Biography

Guy Stuart Ritchie (born 10 September 1968) is an English film director, producer, writer, and businessman. Ritchie left school at age 15 and worked entry-level jobs in the film industry before going on to direct television commercials. In 1995, he directed a short film, The Hard Case, followed by the crime comedy, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), his feature-length directorial debut. He soon gained recognition with his second film, Snatch (2000), which also found critical and commercial success. Following Snatch, Ritchie directed Swept Away (2002), a critically panned box-office bomb starring Madonna, to whom Ritchie was married between 2000 and 2008. He went on to direct Revolver (2005) and RocknRolla (2008), which were less successful and received mixed audience reviews. In 2009 and 2011, he directed two box-office hits, Sherlock Holmes and its sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, respectively. The former was nominated for Academy Awards in Best Original Score and Best Art Direction. His other directed motion pictures are The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015), which is a remake of a 1960 spy series, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017) and the live-action adaptation of Disney's Aladdin (2019). Aladdin earned more than $1 billion worldwide, becoming one of the highest-grossing films in 2019, and the 34th highest-grossing film of all-time during its theatrical run. In 2020, he returned to crime comedy with The Gentlemen (2019), which was mostly well received and a commercial success. In 2021, he directed Jason Statham in the action film, Wrath of Man.
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Clive Oppenheimer

Biography

Clive Oppenheimer is a professor of volcanology at the University of Cambridge, with wide interests spanning volcanic processes, hazards and impacts, geoarchaeology, and cultural heritage. He has participated in over 30 film and TV productions in assorted roles, including as narrator, presenter, cinematographer, and director. He made 13 research trips to Antarctica. He received the Leif Erikson Award for a lifetime achievement in exploration in 2018, and the Royal Geographical Society’s Murchison Award for publications enhancing the understanding of volcanic processes and impacts in 2005. He is the author of 'Eruptions That Shook the World', which inspired 'Into the Inferno' (2016), his prior film with Werner Herzog.
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Sydney Walker

Biography

Sydney Walker was an American character actor of stage and screen and voice artist, with a career that spanned over five decades. He is most known for Prelude to a Kiss (elderly man Meg Ryan's character switches bodies with), and as the bus driver on Mrs. Doubtfire. Walker made his Broadway debut as the Archbishop of Canterbury in the famous 1960 production of Jean Anouilh's "Beckett," which starred Laurence Olivier and Anthony Quinn. He subsequently appeared in 22 Broadway productions from 1960 to 1973. Walker made his movie debut in the Kirk Douglas movie A Lovely Way to Die (1968) and played the doctor in Love Story (1970). He made five appearances on the CBS Radio Mystery Theater in 1974. His last film was Getting Even with Dad (1994), but his most famous movie role came two years earlier in the film adaptation of Prelude to a Kiss (1992), in which he reprized the role of the Old Man he had assayed in the 1988 Berkeley Repertory production of the Craig Lucas play.
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Silvano Tranquilli

Biography

Silvano Tranquilli (23 August 1925 – 10 May 1997) was an Italian stage, television and film actor. Born in Rome, Silvano Tranquilli attended theater lessons at the Sharoff Academy, and started his stage activity with the theatrical companies of Salvo Randone and Vittorio Gassman. In 1959 he made his television debut, and later acted in more than 100 television productions, achieving his main success with the TV-series I ragazzi di padre Tobia. In the early 1960s he also started a prolific film career as character actor. He died in Rome, at 71, shortly after his theatrical comeback with the company Stabile del Giallo. Source: Article "Silvano Tranquilli" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Caitríona Balfe

Biography

Caitríona Mary Balfe (/kəˈtriːnə ˈbælf/; born 4 October 1979) is an Irish actress, producer, and former fashion model. She is best known for her starring role as Claire Fraser in the Starz historical drama series Outlander, for which she received a British Academy Scotland Award, an Irish Film and Television Award, two People's Choice Awards, and three Saturn Awards. She also earned nominations for two Critics' Choice Television Awards and four Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Television Series – Drama. At age eighteen, while studying Drama at the Dublin Institute of Technology, Balfe was offered work as a fashion model in Paris. She was featured both in advertising campaigns and on runways for such brands as Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Roberto Cavalli, Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, Bottega Veneta, Oscar de la Renta and many others over ten years before refocusing on acting. She had leading roles in the web series The Beauty Inside (2012) and H+: The Digital Series (2012–2013), and appeared in the films Super 8 (2011), Now You See Me (2013), Escape Plan (2013), Money Monster (2016), Ford v Ferrari (2019), and Belfast (2021). Description above from the Wikipedia article Caitríona Balfe, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Ben Schwartz

Biography

Ben Schwartz is an American comedian. A member of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, he got his start in comedy by faxing jokes to Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update and the Late Show with David Letterman. He has portrayed characters in two NBC shows, Undercovers and Parks and Recreation, made guest appearances in comedy sketches for CollegeHumor, and starred in the 2011 film Peep World. He has also been hired to write a remake of the 1991 comedy Soapdish. In addition, Schwartz has penned two books. Schwartz was nominated for the 2009 Emmy for Outstanding Writing For A Variety, Music Or Comedy Special for coauthoring Hugh Jackman's opening number for the 81st Academy Awards. He lives in The Bronx, New York.
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Nico Toffoli

Biography

​ Actor, Writer, Director Lover of the Unusual and of the introspective Analysis ​While he graduated in Economics in 1995 at "La Sapienza" in Rome, and lasted as an EE.II Officer and International Corporate Controller, he began working with artistic performances in the best Dance Clubs in Italy and abroad. After the debut at Teatro in 1998 and on TV ("Barbecue", "Sarabanda Wrestling", "Commissario Rex") since 2002, obtains roles some of the major international productions, collaborating with great directors including Rob Mashall, Ron Howard, and Pupi Avati.  Member of SACT since 2008 and of the ISA "International Screenwriter Association" since 2012.  Author of "Legio Corpvs" in 2008. Michael Margotta "Actors Center" artistic training. Producer of "The Hidden Side of things" in 2015. Co-organizer of the "Pietrasanta Film Festival". Passionate about Anthroposophy.  Founder and President of the FOTONICA Cultural Association in 2017. In 2018 President of the "Rieti and Sabina Film Festival". In 2019 Founder and president of the "Ostia International Film Festival" and of the Special Sections "SuperheroLine" and "Ostia nel Cinema". Owner of the production company "Iperfire Production". Author of: "The Wizard Hunter: The Hunt for the Crowley Evangelion", "Black Bishop", "Vanishing Balances: Mafia vs. Yakuza", "Legio Corpvs: The Fire Dragon's Followers", "Equinox", "After the Fall".
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