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Sharon Farrell
Biography
Sharon Farrell (born Sharon Forsmoe; December 24, 1940 – May 15, 2023) was an American television and film actress, and dancer. Originally beginning her career as a ballerina with the American Ballet Theatre company, Farrell made her film debut in 1959 in Kiss Her Goodbye, followed by roles in 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962), A Lovely Way to Die (1968), and the neo-noir Marlowe (1969). She worked prolifically in television, including recurring parts in the series Saints and Sinners (1962), Dr. Kildare (1965), and Hawaii Five-O (1980).
Farrell was born in Sioux City, Iowa, to Hazel Ruth (née Huffman) and Darrel LaValle Forsmoe. She was of Norwegian descent, and was raised with sister, Dale Candice, in a Lutheran family. During her childhood, Farrell studied ballet and was involved in the theater department during high school. Farrell toured with the American Ballet Theatre Company as a dancer, which brought her to New York City.
In New York, Farrell began her acting career in the theater, appearing in productions of "The Crucible" and "A View from the Bridge". She made her film debut in 1959 in Kiss Her Goodbye, and went on to appear in a number of films in the 1960s, including 40 Pounds of Trouble, A Lovely Way to Die, and Marlowe.
Farrell's television career began in the early 1960s, with appearances in such series as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Gunsmoke, and Dr. Kildare. She had a recurring role on the soap opera Saints and Sinners from 1962 to 1963, and starred in the short-lived series The Last Ride of the Dalton Gang in 1967. In 1980, she joined the cast of Hawaii Five-O, playing the role of Lori Wilson for two seasons.
Farrell was also active in the horror genre, appearing in the films It's Alive (1974) and Night of the Comet (1984). She continued to work in television and film throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and her final film appearance was in the 2000 comedy Can't Buy Me Love.
In addition to her acting career, Farrell was also a dancer and choreographer. She taught dance at the University of California, Los Angeles, and was a member of the board of directors of the American Ballet Theatre.
Farrell was married five times, to Andrew Prine, Ron DeBlasio, Steve Salkin, and Dale Trevillion. She had one son, Chance Boyer, from her marriage to Prine.
Farrell died on May 15, 2023, at the age of 82, from natural causes. She was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California.
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Phil Solomon
Biography
Phil Solomon was an internationally recognized filmmaker and educator who taught both film history/aesthetics and film production at University of Colorado Boulder from 1991 until his death in 2019. Solomon’s work has been screened in every major venue for experimental film throughout the U.S. and Europe, including 3 Cineprobes (one-man shows) at the Museum of Modern Art and two Whitney Biennials. His films have won 10 first prize awards at major international film festivals for experimental film (including six Juror’s Awards from the Black Maria Film and Video Festival). His films reside in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Massachusetts College of Art, Binghamton University, Hampshire College, The Chicago Art Institute, San Francisco State University, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and the Oberhausen Film Collection. Solomon collaborated on three films with his colleague and friend, Stan Brakhage, who named Solomon’s Remains to be Seen on his Top Ten Films of All Time for Sight and Sound.
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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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Chuck Yeager
Biography
Retired Brigadier General Charles Elwood Yeager (February 13, 1923 - December 7, 2020) was a former United States Air Force officer, flying ace, and record-setting test pilot. In 1947, he became the first pilot in history confirmed to have exceeded the speed of sound in level flight. Yeager shot down at least 11 enemy aircraft, mostly flying a P-51 Mustang, on the Western Front during WWII. After the war, he went on to become a test pilot during a time of major investment and rapid technological development of aircraft in the late 1940s and the 1950s. Flying the Bell X-1, a small experimental rocket-powered aircraft, Yeager became the first human to officially break the sound barrier (exceeding Mach 1), on October 14, 1947. He continued to test pilot a variety of aircraft and set many subsequent aviation records.
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Eugène Fromentin
Biography
Eugène Samuel Auguste Fromentin, born October 24, 1820 in La Rochelle (Charente-Maritime), where he died August 27, 1876, is a French painter and writer. He is one of the major representatives of orientalist painting. He is the son of Pierre-Samuel-Toussaint Fromentin-Dupeux (1786-1867), doctor and amateur painter, and Françoise-Jenny Billotte (1797-1867).
After a brilliant schooling, Eugène Fromentin went to Paris in November 1839 where he obtained a law degree at the beginning of 1843. His father then gave him authorization to enter the studio of the painter Jean-Charles Rémond which he soon left for that of the landscaper Louis-Nicolas Cabat.
In 1846, without the knowledge of his family, he visited Algeria with two friends and was thus able to fill his notebooks with sketches of the landscapes and inhabitants of North Africa, thereby joining the movement of Orientalism. Like Théophile Gautier, he had been fascinated by Prosper Marilhat's submissions to the Paris Salon of 1844. Fromentin sent three paintings to the Salon of 1847, accepted unanimously: Farm near La Rochelle, Mosque near Algiers and the Gorges de la Chiffa, then five paintings at the Salon of 1849, including a second version of Women of Algiers. He then obtained a second class award. Fromentin exhibited eleven paintings at the Salon of 1850, as well as in 1857, then participated regularly between 1859 (year of his 1st class medal) and 1869, as well as in 1872 and 1876. At the end of 1852, he carried out with Marie Cavellet Beaumont, married on May 18 of the same year, the second of her three trips to Algeria: an archaeological mission provided her with the opportunity to deepen her careful study of Algerian landscapes and customs. His notes allowed him, on his return, to give his paintings realistic accuracy. From a certain point of view, his works were as much a contribution to ethnology as pure works of art.
In 1854, his travelogue A summer in the Sahara appeared in the Revue de Paris from June to December, which led to him being elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Belles-Lettres, Sciences and Arts of La Rochelle. In 1856, encouraged by rave reviews, he undertook the writing of A Year in the Sahel which was first published by L'Artiste, entitling its first part "Algiers, fragments of a travel journal" in 1857. La Revue des deux Mondes resumed publication from November to December 1858 under the title A year in the Sahel, diary of an absentee. Inspired by the great impossible love of his adolescence for a married neighbor, Dominique, published for the first time in the Revue des Deux Mondes from April 15 to May 15, 1862 and dedicated to George Sand, is, among the autobiographical novels of his century, one of the most remarkable. Fromentin, who did not see himself as a writer, would not publish any other work.
However, he presented his candidacy to the French Academy, but failed on June 8, 1876 by 12 votes against 21 for Charles Blanc. After an illness of a few days, he died in his country house, in Saint-Maurice, a suburb of La Rochelle, on August 27 of that same year. He rests in the Saint-Maurice cemetery, close to his family and not far from Jenny Léocadie Chessé married Béraud (1817-1844), the young woman who inspired Dominique.
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Tom Noonan
Biography
Tom Noonan (born April 12, 1951) is an American actor, director, and screenwriter. He is best known for his roles as Francis Dolarhyde in Manhunter (1986), Frankenstein's Monster in The Monster Squad (1987), Cain in RoboCop 2 (1990), The Ripper in Last Action Hero (1993), Sammy Barnathan in Synecdoche, New York (2008), Reverend Nathaniel in Hell on Wheels (2011–2014), the Pallid Man in 12 Monkeys (2015–2018) and as the voice of everyone but the two main characters in Anomalisa (2015).
Noonan is also a writer and director of theatre and film. His debut feature film What Happened Was (1994) won the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Tom Noonan, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Vince Clarke
Biography
Vincent John Martin (born 3 July 1960), known professionally as Vince Clarke, is an English synth-pop musician and songwriter. Clarke has been the main composer and musician of the band Erasure since its inception in 1985, and was previously the main songwriter for several groups, including Depeche Mode, Yazoo, and the Assembly. In Erasure, he is known for his deadpan and low-key onstage demeanour, often remaining motionless over his keyboard, in sharp contrast to lead vocalist Andy Bell's animated and hyperactive frontman antics.
Erasure have recorded over 200 songs and have sold over 28 million albums worldwide. Clarke was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020 as a member of Depeche Mode.
Vincent John Martin was born on 3 July 1960 in South Woodford, Essex; he later moved to Basildon, Essex. He initially studied the violin and then the piano. Clarke's early musical influences included Sparks, Paul Simon, and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), who inspired his interest in electronic music. Clarke also cites electronic influences such as the Human League, Daniel Miller and Fad Gadget.
In December 2013, Clarke listed his "13 LPs that mean the most to him" for The Quietus: Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon (1973): Kraftwerk – Computer World (1981); The Human League – Travelogue (1980); Simon & Garfunkel – Bookends (1968); T. Rex – Electric Warrior (1971); David Bowie – "Heroes" (1977); The Eagles – Hotel California (1976); OMD – Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (1980); Philip Glass – Glassworks (1982); Genesis – A Trick of the Tail (1976); Michael Jackson – Dangerous (1991); The Sex Pistols – Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (1977); Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV (1971).
In the late 1970s, Clarke and schoolmate Andy Fletcher formed a short-lived band called No Romance in China, with Clarke on vocals and guitar and Fletcher on bass guitar. In 1979, Clarke played guitar in the Plan, an Ultravox-influenced band, with friends Robert Marlow and Paul Langwith.
In 1980, after the Plan dissolved, Clarke and Fletcher formed Composition of Sound, and were soon joined by Martin Gore. Clarke provided vocals until lead vocalist Dave Gahan joined the band, which was renamed Depeche Mode. At that time he adopted the stage name Vince Clarke, by which he is currently known. The band initially adopted a slick synthesised electropop sound, which produced the studio album Speak & Spell and the Clarke-penned singles "Dreaming of Me", "New Life", and "Just Can't Get Enough" in 1981. ...
Source: Article "Vince Clarke" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Alain Barrière
Biography
Alain Barrière (born Alain Bellec; 18 November 1935 – 18 December 2019) was a French singer, who was active from the 1950s until his death and was known for participating in the Eurovision Song Contest 1963.
After growing up in a small town on the coast of Brittany, in 1955 Barrière enrolled in the École nationale supérieure d'arts et métiers in Angers. As a student he bought a guitar and started to write songs. After graduating in engineering in 1960, he moved to Paris to take up employment, and started to perform in the evenings at small clubs around the capital. He won a song contest in 1961 with the self-penned song "Cathy"; his style was chanson-based with no concession to the burgeoning yé-yé scene, but nonetheless he was soon signed to a recording contract and started to release singles regularly, enabling him to give up his job and make at least a modest living from music.
In 1963, Barrière's song "Elle était si jolie" ("She Was So Pretty") was chosen as the French representative in the eighth Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 23 March in London. "Elle était si jolie" finished fifth of 16 entries.
"Elle était si jolie" turned out to be by far the biggest seller of Barrière's career to that point. He released his first album, Ma vie, in 1964 and the title-track became a hit. In 1965 he was offered, and accepted, a leading role in a heist thriller, Pas de panique, alongside Pierre Brasseur. This would be his only venture into acting, but his singing career reached its peak in the latter part of the decade with a string of hits making him one of France's biggest stars and a sell-out live attraction. His most famous success is the song "Mon Vieux".
Barrière had gained a reputation for being uncompromising and at times difficult to work with. In the early 1970s he left his record company to set up his own label. He kept his fanbase, which ensured his records and concerts continued to provide a good living, despite his being overlooked by sections of the French broadcast media. "Tu t'en vas", a 1975 duet with fellow Eurovision veteran Noëlle Cordier, topped the French chart, and was the third biggest-selling single of the year in Switzerland.
Barrière married in 1975, and he and his wife opened a nightclub-restaurant in a converted castle in Brittany. Although it proved a successful and popular venue, Barrière soon found himself facing severe tax problems as a result of dubious advice. In 1977 he took his family to the United States, where they remained for four years.
After returning to France, Barrière made several comeback attempts, to little avail. After another period spent overseas, this time in Quebec, the family were back in Brittany when Barrière's career was unexpectedly rejuvenated by the 1997 release of a CD containing remastered versions of his old hits, which proved to be a money-spinner. Shortly afterwards, Barrière released an album of new material, which also sold well.
He published an autobiography in 2006 and continued to release both retrospective and newly recorded albums.
Barrière died of cardiac arrest on 18 December 2019 at the age of 84.
Source: Article "Alain Barrière" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Susan Wojcicki
Biography
Susan Diane Wojcicki (/wʊˈtʃɪtski/ wuu-CHITS-kee; born July 5, 1968) is a Polish-American business executive who is the CEO of YouTube. She has been in the tech industry for over 20 years.
Wojcicki was involved in the founding of Google, and became Google's first marketing manager in 1999. She later led the company's online advertising business and was put in charge of Google's original video service. After observing the success of YouTube, Wojcicki proposed the acquisition of YouTube by Google in 2006, and has served as CEO of YouTube since 2014.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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Jonathan Sand
Biography
In a school play at the end of the 90s, Jonathan Sand played the composer Johann Sebastian Bach and has since followed his passion for the performing arts. In order to express himself on stage, he attended Sollentuna Fria gymnasium's Aesthetic program in theater from 2008–2011. In 2017, he attended a beginner training course at Kulturama led by Michael Hamory, which helped him develop his acting skills.
He continued his acting training with Catarina "Cacki" Westerlund in the fall of the same year and as a result was cast as the demon in the Gröna Lund horror attraction Motel Hell/o. It was the first time he professionally performed on stage. His first professional on-camera appearance as an actor was in 2019 when he appeared as an extra in Season 2 of Before We Die. In 2022, he enrolled in another theater course at Kulturama, this time focused on the Meisner technique, as well as two courses led by Lukas Loughran at Cinemantrix: a beginner's course in film acting and its subsequent advanced course.
As a freelance actor, he has appeared in over 50 productions, including short films, TV series such as 'Sommaren med släkten', 'Toppen' and the feature film 'A Day and a Half'.
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