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Mr. T

Biography

Mr. T (born Laurence Tureaud May 21, 1952) is an American actor known for his roles as B. A. Baracus in the 1980s television series The A-Team, as boxer Clubber Lang in the 1982 film Rocky III, and for his appearances as a professional wrestler. Mr. T is known for his trademark African Mandinka warrior hairstyle, his gold jewelry, and his tough-guy image. In 2006 he starred in the reality show I Pity the Fool, shown on TV Land, the title of which comes from his catchphrase from the film Rocky III. Description above from the Wikipedia article Mr. T, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.​
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Ben Van Meter

Biography

Ben Van Meter began making films and light shows in the mid-1960s in San Francisco and soon became a leading figure in Bay Area-underground filmmaking. His films, especially S.F. Trips Festival, An Opening (1966) and the epic Acid Mantra or Rebirth of a Nation (1968), are compelling attempts to visually and sonically inscribe psychedelia, as experience and philosophy, in the medium of film. Van Meter’s films were unavailable for many years, but their ongoing restoration by the Academy Film Archive and their inclusion in the de Young Museum’s 2017 exhibition, The Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock ‘n’ Roll, has gained them a new audience.
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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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Daniel Padilla

Biography

Daniel John Ford Padilla (born April 26, 1995) is a Filipino actor and recording artist. He is the son of actors Rommel Padilla and actress-singer Carla Ford (screen name: Karla Estrada) and the nephew of action star Robin Padilla and BB Gandanghari. He made his television debut with a supporting role in soap opera Gimik 2010 (2010), before landing the lead role in Growing Up (2011). He made his feature film debut in a supporting role in 2012 before starring in the films: She's Dating the Gangster (2014), Crazy Beautiful You (2015), Barcelona: A Love Untold (2016) and Can't Help Falling in Love.
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Monty Sopp

Biography

Monty Kip Sopp is an American professional wrestler better known by his ring name Billy Gunn and for his appearances in World Wrestling Federation/World Wrestling Entertainment, from 1993 to 2004, as well as in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling from 2005 to 2009. He is currently signed to WWE, working as a trainer in its developmental territory NXT Wrestling. Primarily a tag team wrestler throughout his first tenure with the WWF/E, Gunn formed World Tag Team Championship-winning teams with Bart Gunn as The Smokin' Gunns, Road Dogg as the New Age Outlaws, and Chuck Palumbo as the eponymous Billy and Chuck to a total of ten champion reigns in the WWE. He is also a one time Intercontinental Champion, a two time Hardcore Champion, and the 1999 King of the Ring.
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Bruce Conner

Biography

Bruce Conner (November 18, 1933 - July 7, 2008) was an American artist renowned for his work in film, drawing, sculpture, painting, collage, and photography, among other disciplines. He first attracted public attention in the 1950s with his nylon-shrouded assemblages—complex sculptures of found objects such as women's stockings, costume jewelry, bicycle wheels, and broken dolls, often combined with collaged or painted surfaces. Simultaneously during the late 1950s, he began making short movies in a singular style that has since established him as one of the most important figures in postwar independent filmmaking. He used an innovative technique that can best be seen in his first film, "A MOVIE" (1958), which was created by piecing together scraps of B-movies, newsreels, novelty shorts, and other preexisting footage. His subsequent films are most often fast-paced collages of found and new footage, and he was among the first to use pop music for film sound tracks. His films have inspired generations of filmmakers and are now considered to be the precursors of the music video genre.
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Matt Shakman

Biography

Matt Shakman is an American film, television, and theatre director and former child actor. Shakman was born and raised in Ventura, California. His Jewish father and Catholic mother maintained a "relatively secular household," their interfaith marriage being a source of conflict with Shakman's Jewish paternal grandmother. After acting as a child, starting with commercials and landing a series regular role on Just the Ten of Us, he stepped away to attend The Thacher School in Ojai. Shakman went on to attend Yale University, where he graduated with an art history and theatre double major. It was at Yale that Shakman became interested in theatre, going on to direct a number of stage productions. As a child actor, Shakman played Graham "J.R." Lubbock, Jr., in the Growing Pains spin-off series Just the Ten of Us (1988–1990). His other television acting credits include The Facts of Life, Highway to Heaven, Diff'rent Strokes, Night Court, Good Morning, Miss Bliss, and Webster. He also appeared in the films A Night at the Magic Castle (1988) and Meet the Hollowheads (1989). Shakman is the founder and artistic director of the Black Dahlia Theatre (BDT) in Los Angeles, which was named one of "a dozen young American companies you need to know" by American Theatre Magazine. Since 2002, Shakman has mostly been directing for television. Among his credits are Succession, Mad Men, Six Feet Under, The Boys, The Great, House M.D., Fargo, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (also executive producer). In August of 2017, Shakman was appointed as the new artistic director of the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. Description above from the Wikipedia article Matt Shakman, licenced under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Willard Van Dyke

Biography

Willard Van Dyke (December 5, 1906 – January 23, 1986) was an American filmmaker, photographer, arts administrator, teacher, and former director of the film department at the Museum of Modern Art. Van Dyke went to the University of California, dropping out for a time to avoid taking an ROTC course. Van Dyke died in January 23, 1986 of a heart attack on his way to Cambridge, Mass., where he was named Laureate Artist in Residence at Harvard. He was 79 years old. Van Dyke is survived by his second wife, the former Barbara Millikin, of New York; a daughter, Alison Van Dyke, of Ithaca, N.Y.; three sons, Peter of New York City; Murray of Santa Fe and Neil of Stowe, Vt., and six grandchildren. Description above from the Wikipedia article Willard Van Dyke, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.​
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Larry Gottheim

Biography

Born in 1936, Larry Gottheim taught himself 16mm filmmaking in the 1960s and became one of America's leading avant-garde filmmakers. From his late-1960s series of sublime 'single-shot' films to the dense sound/image constructs of the mid-1970s and after, his cinema is the cinema of presence, of observation, and of deep conscious engagement. While addressing genres of landscape, diary and assemblage filmmaking, Gottheim's work properly stands alone in its intensive investigations of the paradoxes between direct, sensual experience in collision with complex structures of repetition, anticipation and memory. Gottheim developed the Department of Cinema in Binghamton, N.Y. and taught there for more than three decades. This extremely influential department attracted the most talented artists, academics, and filmmakers of the day including Ken Jacobs, Hollis Frampton, Peter Kubelka, and Ernie Gehr among many others. In the 1990's Gottheim has also served for a brief time as director of the Filmmaker's Co-op in New York. Gottheim's films are in the collections of museums and archives throughout the world, and a program of his restored early films premiered at the 2005 New York Film Festival.
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Ute Aurand

Biography

Ute Aurand was born in 1957 in Frankfurt/Main, and grew up in Berlin. She is a teacher and curator, and a devoted 16mm filmmaker since 1980. She studied filmmaking at the Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademie Berlin (dffb) during the years 1979-1985. Since 1985 she began to produce her own films. In 1987 she founded "Ute Aurand Filmproduktion". During 1990-95, she presented the series "Filmarbeiterinnen-Abend" at the Arsenal cinema, Berlin, featuring films made by women, mostly experimental. In 1995-96, organised "Sie zum Beispiel" (Her, for Example) at the Arsenal and Babylon cinemas, in which 12 women filmmakers /artists selected and presented a personal selection of films by other women filmmakers. In 1997, she co-founded the group FilmSamstag (Film Saturday) together with Renate Sami and Theo Thiesmeier, later joined by Bärbel Freund, Karl Heil, Milena Gierke and Johannes Beringer, to present a monthly film programme in Kino Filmkunsthaus Babylon Mitte until 2007. Since 1981 curated film programs e.g. "Lichtgedichte/Light Poems", "Hyacinths" and "Poetinnen mit der Kamera/Women Poets with the Camera" and monographic programs of films by Marie Menken, Margaret Tait and Utako Koguchi. In 1991 she worked on the research project and book „Frauen machen Geschichte – 25 Jahre Studentinnen an der dffb“ (Women make History-25 Years of Women Students at the dffb), together with Maria Lang.
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