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Margarita Nazarova

Biography

Артистка цирка, дрессировщица тигров. Заслуженная артистка РСФСР (15.10.1958). Народная артистка РСФСР (1969). Детство прошло в городе Пушкине Ленинградской области. Отец её был лесником, а мать — учительницей. В Даугавпилс Назаровы переехали в начале 1940-х, а во время войны 15-летнюю Маргариту угнали на работу в Германию.  В школе она изучала немецкий язык, поэтому более-менее могла общаться с немцами. Однажды хозяин сказал служанке, что она очень пластичная, очень хорошо двигается, поэтому он постарается определить её в кабаре. Вскоре так и сделал. У Маргариты Назаровой началась жизнь ночной танцовщицы. Однажды девушки подготовились к выступлению и вдруг на улице услышали автоматные очереди и в кабаре ворвались русские солдаты.  В 1945 году Назарова вернулась на родину. В том же году в Риге она устроилась в "Цирк на сцене" с акробатическим этюдом. Первый фильм — "Случай в тайге" (1953) — массовка. На съёмках этого фильма она познакомилась с дрессировщиком Константином Константиновским, который вскоре стал её мужем. В 1954 году Назарова стала работать помощницей у дрессировщиков Бориса Эдера и своего мужа Константина Константиновского. Во время съёмок фильма "Укротительница тигров" известная актриса Людмила Касаткина наотрез отказалась сниматься в клетке с хищниками. В качестве её дублёрши выступила тогда Маргарита Назарова. А в фильме "Полосатый рейс" она уже сама стала исполнительницей одной из главных ролей.  В последние годы жила в Нижнем Новгороде. 25 октября 2005 года она скончалась в бедности и одиночестве в своей нижегородской квартире. Похоронена на Нагорном кладбище Нижнего Новгорода (Кстовский район Нижегородской области, близ села Федяково).
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Victoria Beckham

Biography

Victoria Caroline Beckham (née Adams; born 17 April 1974) is an English singer, fashion designer and businesswoman. In the late 1990s, Beckham rose to fame with the all-female pop group Spice Girls and was dubbed Posh Spice by the July 1996 issue of the British pop music magazine Top of the Pops. Since the Spice Girls split, she has had a solo pop music career, scoring four UK Top 10 singles. Her first single to be released, "Out of Your Mind", reached Number 2 in the UK Singles Chart and is her highest chart entry to date. During her solo career, she has been signed to Virgin Records and Telstar Records. Beckham has found more success as an internationally recognised and photographed style icon. Her career in fashion includes designing a line of jeans for Rock & Republic and later designing her own denim brand, dVb Style. Beckham has brought out her own range of sunglasses and fragrance, entitled Intimately Beckham, which has been released in the UK and the US. In association with the Japanese store Samantha Thavasa and Shiatzy Chen, she has produced a range of handbags and jewellery. In addition, Beckham has released two best-selling books; one her autobiography, the other a fashion guide. In her television ventures, Beckham has participated in five official documentaries and reality shows about her, including Being Victoria Beckham, The Real Beckhams, and Victoria Beckham: Coming to America. She has since made a cameo appearance in an episode of American TV series Ugly Betty, and been a guest judge on Project Runway, Germany's Next Topmodel, and American Idol. She is married to David Beckham and they have four children. As of 2009, the couple's joint wealth is estimated at £125 million. Description above from the Wikipedia article Victoria Beckham, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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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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Pooja Ruparel

Biography

Pooja Ruparel is an Indian actress who appears in Bollywood movies and TV series. She is well known for her iconic role as "Chutki" in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, one of India's most successful films. She has also acted in a number of plays, apart from being a stand-up comedian and a singer. Pooja Ruparel started appearing in Bollywood movies as a child artist in 1993. She first appeared in King Uncle starring Jackie Shroff and Shah Rukh Khan, and gained nationwide popularity through her role as "Chutki" in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Pooja has also acted in a number of movies and TV series ever since, including Amit Sahani Ki List, X: Past Is Present, 24 (Indian TV series) and Zabaan Sambhalke.
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Ivry Gitlis

Biography

Ivry Gitlis (25 August 1922 – 24 December 2020) was an Israeli virtuoso violinist and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. He performed with the world's top orchestras, including the London Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Yitzhak-Meir (Isaac) Gitlis was born on 25 August 1922 in Haifa, Israel to Jewish parents, who emigrated in 1921 from Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukraine. Gitlis acquired his first violin when he was five years old and started lessons under Mme Velikovsky together with his friend Zvi Zeitlin. He then studied privately with Mira Ben-Ami, a pupil of Joseph Szigeti. When he was eight, she arranged for him to play for Bronisław Huberman, which prompted a fundraising campaign to allow him to study in France. In 1933, he arrived with his mother in Paris and started to take lessons with Marcel Chailley, husband of the pianist Céliny Chailley-Richez. Being very close to their family, he was introduced to George Enescu and Jacques Thibaud. In that period, he decided to change his birth name (Isaac) to Ivry. At 11, Gitlis (Jitlis) entered the Conservatoire de Paris in the class of Jules Boucherit, and graduated in 1935. In 1938–1940, his teachers included George Enescu and Jacques Thibaud in Paris and Carl Flesch in Spa, Belgium and later in London. In 1940, during World War II, he went to London where he first worked for two years in a war factory and was then assigned to the artists branch of the British Army. He gave numerous concerts for the Allied soldiers and in war factories. After the war he made his successful debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and subsequently played with the BBC and all other principal orchestras of Great Britain. In 1951, as suggested by his teacher Alice Pashkus, he participated in the Long-Thibaud Competition in Paris, where he took fifth place. During the preliminary stages of the competition, a rumor circulated that he had stolen a Stradivarius violin during the war, which caused a scandal on the day of the final. Six years after the fall of Hitler, being a Jew in France was still causing debate. In the same year, Gitlis made his debut in Paris, playing in a recital at the Salle Gaveau, sponsored by the music manager Marcel de Valmalète (9 July 1951). In the 1950s, he moved to the United States where he met Jascha Heifetz. There he made several tours, managed by Sol Hurok, including those conducted by Eugene Ormandy (Tchaikovsky, in Philadelphia) and George Szell (Sibelius, on 15,16 and 18 December 1955 in New York). Back in Europe, between 1954 and 1955, he recorded for the Vox label concertos by Berg (Violin Concerto "To the memory of an angel", coupled with "Chamber Concerto" -Vox PL 8660- which was awarded a "Grand Prix du Disque" in 1954), Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Stravinsky (Violin Concerto, coupled with "Duo Concertant") and with the conductor Jascha Horenstein, Bartók, Bruch and Sibelius. His recording of Bartók's 2nd Violin Concerto and Solo Violin Sonata -Vox PL 9020- received the "Best Record of the Year" award from the New York Herald Tribune in 1955. ... Source: Article "Ivry Gitlis" from Wikipedia in english, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Emma Appleton

Biography

Emma Jill Appleton was born and raised in the town of Witney, Oxfordshire, England and attended West Witney Primary School and then Wood Green School. Appleton began a modeling career as a teenager, which naturally progressed to acting in 2017 when an opportunity opened for the cast of the BBC Three series Clique where she played the role of Fay Brookstone for 6 episodes. Her next major role was playing Feef Symonds in six episodes of Channel 4’s spy thriller Traitors in 2019. Appleton landed a role as Princess Renfri, alongside Henry Cavill in the Netflix fantasy drama series The Witcher, created by Lauren Schmidt Hissrich adapted from The Witcher book series of Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski.
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Matthias Pintscher

Biography

Conductor & Composer 22-23 Season The 2022-23 season is Matthias Pintscher’s final season as Music Director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the world’s foremost contemporary music ensemble, founded in 1980 by Pierre Boulez and winner of the 2022 Polar Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy, the equivalent of the “Nobel Prize” in music. In his most successful decade-long artistic leadership of EIC, Pintscher continued and expanded the cultivation of new work by emerging composers of the 21st century, alongside performances of iconic works by the pillars of the avant-garde of the 20th Century. In this, his valedictory season, Pintscher has a robust season of concerts in Paris including collaborations with the Conservatoire de Paris and IRCAM, operas-in-concert, and tours throughout Europe and the United States, including performances in Carnegie Hall and Walt Disney Concert Hall. As a conductor, Pintscher enjoys and maintains relationships with several of the world’s most distinguished orchestras, among them the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He is also Creative Partner for the Cincinnati Symphony, a title that began with the 2020-21 season during the COVID-19 pandemic, and appears with them several times each season as conductor on their regular subscription series, and as performer and creator on other series and specials, with the intent and effect of enlarging the footprint and understanding of what it means to be a symphony orchestra in the 21st century. As guest conductor in Europe, he makes debut appearances this season with the Wiener Symphoniker and Gürzenich Orchester of Cologne, and returns to the Royal Concertgebouw, BRSO, BBC Scottish SO, Barcelona Symphony, and Berlin’s Boulez Ensemble. In North America, he will make prominent debuts with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Kansas City Symphony, in addition to regular visits to Cincinnati Symphony, and repeat guest engagements with the Detroit Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and New World Symphony. Pintscher has also conducted several opera productions for the Berliner Staatsoper (Beat Furrer’s Violetter Schnee, Wagner’s Lohengrin), Wiener Staatsoper (Olga Neuwirth’s Orlando), and the Théatre du Châtelet in Paris. He returns to the Berliner Staatsoper in 2023 for Der Fliegende Holländer.Pintscher is well known as a composer, and his works appear frequently on the programs of major symphony orchestras throughout the world. In August 2021, he was the focus of the Suntory Hall Summer Festival – a weeklong celebration of his works with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra as well as a residency by the EIC with symphonic and chamber music performances. His third violin concerto, Assonanza, written for Leila Josefowicz, was premiered in January 2022 with the Cincinnati Symphony. Another 2021-22 world premiere was neharot, a co-commission of Suntory Hall, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Staatskapelle Dresden, where he was named Capell-Compositeur. In the 2016-17 season, he was the inaugural composer-in-residence of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and from 2014 to 2017, he was artist-in-residence at the Danish National Symphony Orchestra
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Peter-Jürgen Boock

Biography

Peter-Jürgen Boock moved out of his parents' house in his youth to live in a commune. He was sent to a reform school for drug possession, where he met the RAF founding members Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Astrid Proll. He became active in the RAF scene in 1975 and took part in their actions from 1977 onwards. Among other things, he was involved in the kidnapping of Hanns Martin Schleyer and the "Landshut" plane hostage-taking. Although he distanced himself from the RAF in the following years, he had to serve a prison sentence from 1981 to 1998. Today, Boock works as an author.
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Jacqueline Pagnol

Biography

Jacqueline Andrée Pagnol (née Bouvier; 6 October 1920 – 22 August 2016) was a French actress. She acted in many French films in the 1940s and 1950s. She was the wife of French author and filmmaker Marcel Pagnol. Jacqueline Bouvier was born on 6 October 1920. She grew up tending her aunt's goats in Camargue. She studied drama. She acted in many French films, six of which were directed by her husband. She has revealed that the main character in Manon des sources was based on her own childhood. She owned the copyright of Marcel Pagnol's work and approved all film adaptations. She met author and filmmaker Marcel Pagnol when she was twenty-three years old. They resided at Avenue Foch in Paris. Source: Article "Jacqueline Pagnol" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Mohamed Fawzi

Biography

Mohamed Fawzi (1918-1966) is one of the most famous Egyptian singers of the 20th century. He also worked as a music composer, actor and producer. Fawzy was born in 1918 in the village of Kafr Abu Gendy in the center of the Tanta Governorate and finished his schooling in Tanta ing in Tanta in 1931. His interest in music started while he was still in elementary school, during which time he began training with Mohamed El Kharbatly, who brought Fawzy along to sing at weddings and other celebrations. He was deeply influenced by the music of Om Kulthoum and Mohammed Abdel Wahab and would sing their songs for the people at Al Montazah Park in Alexandria and during the Mawlid of Said El Bedawi. Fawzy’s songs have been included in many films and performed by many of the great actors of his age including Mohammed Abdel Motelib, Leila Murad, Hoda Soltan (Fawzy’s sister) and others. He also composed the melody for the Algerian national anthem.
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