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Shoji Tabuchi

Biography

Born in Ishikawa in southwestern Japan, Shoji Tabuchi discovered the violin at the age of 7. Encouraged by his mother to study the instrument, Shoji would listen to American gospel and country music to find inspiration. When he got word of Roy Acuff was coming to perform in Osaka, Tabuchi went to the concert and was allowed to meet Acuff backstage. Impressed by the passion and skill, Acuff suggested Tabuchi should make his way to Nashville one day and give him a call should be find himself there. As fate would have it, Shoji landed in Nashville a few years later, and Acuff gave the man a chance to perform in front of an audience. Tabuchi's success would eventually bring him to Branson, Missouri in 1980, where he has developed a loyal fan base and his own theatre where he performs his signature musical shows.
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Fernand Gravey

Biography

Fernand Gravey (25 December 1905 in Ixelles (Belgium) – 2 November 1970 in Paris, France), also known as Fernand Gravet in the United States, was the son of actors Georges Mertens and Fernande Depernay, who appeared in silent films produced by pioneer Belge Cinéma Film (a subsidiary of Pathé). Gravey started performing at age five under his father's direction. Before World War I, he received an education in Britain and could speak both French and English fluently, something which became useful in his movie roles. During the war, Gravey served in the British Merchant Marine Corp. In 1936, he married the French actress Jane Renouardt, who was 15 years his senior. They remained together until his death on 2 November 1970 of a heart-attack. Jane died on 3 February 1972. They had no children. Gravey performed in four films in 1913 and 1914 (as Fernand Mertens), but his first film of importance was L'Amour Chante, released in 1930. In 1933, he made Bitter Sweet, his first English language movie, which became more famous in its 1940 incarnation with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. In 1937, after several more French and British movies, Gravey went to Hollywood, where the spelling of his last name was altered to Gravet, and he became the focus of a rather extensive Hollywood publicity campaign (instructing moviegoers to pronounce his name properly: "Rhymes with Gravy"). Unfortunately for Gravey, he was offered only standard parts, the type of Gallic-lover roles that Louis Jourdan played in the 1950s and 1960s. The first two films he made in Hollywood were for Warner Brothers: The King and the Chorus Girl (1937), with Joan Blondell and Jane Wyman, and Fools for Scandal (1938), with Carole Lombard and Ralph Bellamy. Gravey then signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and was cast as Johann Strauss in the expensive biopic The Great Waltz, with Luise Rainer and Miliza Korjus. MGM next planned to star Gravey in a film version of Rafael Sabatini's adventure novel Scaramouche, but instead he returned to France just before the Nazi occupation began. Although he had agreed to appear in German-approved French films, Gravey was an underminer of the invaders as a member of the French Secret Army and the Foreign Legion. At the end of the war, Gravey was considered a war hero, and continued to be featured in French productions such as La Ronde (with Danielle Darrieux), and Royal Affairs in Versailles (1954). Among his last English language performances were How to Steal a Million (1966), Guns for San Sebastian (1968) and The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969), in which he played the police inspector. Source: Article "Fernand Gravey" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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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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Joe DeRita

Biography

​From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.   Joe DeRita (July 12, 1909 – July 3, 1993), born Joseph Wardell, was an American comedian who is best known as Curly-Joe DeRita, the "sixth" member of the Three Stooges. DeRita was born into a show-business family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wardell's father was a stage technician, his mother a professional stage dancer, and the three often acted on stage together from his early childhood. Taking his mother's maiden name, DeRita (Portuguese), the actor joined the burlesque circuit during the 1920s, gaining fame as a comedian. During World War II, DeRita joined the USO, performing through Britain and France with such celebrities as Bing Crosby and Randolph Scott. Description above from the Wikipedia article Joe DeRita, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Karina Lombard

Biography

Born in Tahiti, Karina moved to Spain at an early age. After attending a number of boarding schools and living throughout Europe where she became fluent in Spanish, English, Italian, French, and German, Karina relocated to New York where she began modeling, dancing and acting. She has appeared on stage in "Uncle Vanya", "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", "Summer and Smoke", "M. Butterfly", "Joan of Arc", "Betrayal" and "Danny and the Deep Blue Sea". Lombard has been seen in many high profile films including The Firm (1993) with Tom Cruise, and played Brad Pitt's wife in Legends of the Fall (1994). Her screen credits also include Last Man Standing (1996) with Bruce Willis, Wide Sargasso Sea (1993) and Big Kiss (2004). Also, "The L Word" (2004), "The 4400" (2004), "Rescue Me" (2004) and Jo's Boy (2011) (in theaters 2011). In addition to her acting talent, Karina has proved to be an accomplished musician and writer. She is a citizen of the world, both US and EU.
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Vasiliy Livanov

Biography

Born in Moscow in an acting family. Honored Artist of the RSFSR (11/27/1981). People's Artist of the RSFSR (04/18/1988). His grandfather, Nikolai Livanov (stage name Izvolsky), was an actor at first in provincial, then metropolitan theaters. Father, Boris Nikolaevich Livanov (1904-1972), is an outstanding actor who played about 40 roles in the Art Theater and 30 in the cinema. Frequent guests in the house of the Livanovs were Kachalov, Pasternak, Dovzhenko, Cherkasov, Tarkhanov, Konchalovsky. He studied at the men's school number 170, then, from 1950 to 1954 - at the Moscow secondary art school. After graduating from art school, he entered the B.V.Schukin Theater School. In addition to mastering the intricacies of acting, he tried his hand at directing - he put Yuri Olesha (thesis) on the studio stage of “Three Fat Men” and designed the performance himself. The music for the play was written by Gennady Gladkov, a classmate and schoolmate, and in the future, a wonderful composer, co-author of V. B. Livanov for many works in film, theater and animation.
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Rudolph Schildkraut

Biography

From Wikipedia Rudolph Schildkraut (April 27, 1862 - July 15, 1930) was an Austrian film and theatre actor. Schildkraut was born in Istanbul, in the Ottoman Empire, to a Jewish family. His parents ran a hotel. He grew up in Brăila, Romania. In Vienna, he received acting lessons from Friedrich Mitterwurzer. He debuted in the early 1880s in Sopro, his first solid role came in 1885 in Krems. In 1893 he moved to Vienna to an engagement at the newly opened Raimund Theater. In 1898 he moved to the Carl Theatre. Among other things, he played the character Wurm in Love and Intrigue. In 1900 he came to the German Theatre in Hamburg, 1905 to the German German Theatre in Berlin. There he became one of the most important actor in the theatre company players of Max Reinhardt. His Shylock, which he played in 1905 and 1913 in Reinhardt's productions of The Merchant of Venice was praised by Fritz Kortner as a "monument to the art of acting." Other major roles were the title role in King Lear (1908), Mephisto in Faust I (1909), Muley Hassan in Friedrich Schiller's Fiesco (1909), the grave-digger in Hamlet (1909) and Peter Bast in Knut Hamsun's From the devil fetched (1914). Schildkraut performed for the first time in the United States in 1910/11. Schildkraut was known as a film actor in the German Empire in the early silent era. He starred in several film dramas. His last European-made film was a biography of the German Zionism founder Theodor Herzl, in which he played Herb Schildt "The struggling Israel." In 1920 he moved permanently to America and made his debut the same year in New York City in the play Silent Forces. From 1922 he also played in the English language. In 1925 he founded his own Jewish theatre in The Bronx. In his last five years he appeared in several Hollywood productions. His most notable film, which raised his profile in America, was The King of Kings by Cecil B. DeMille in 1927 in which he played the High Priest Caiaphas. He was married to Erna (Weinstein), with whom he had a son, Joseph Schildkraut (1896–1964), who was also known as an actor. Schildkraut died at the age of 67 years of a heart attack, in Los Angeles. He is interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hollywood, CA. His son also died at the same age, also of a heart attack.
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Catherine Zeta-Jones

Biography

Catherine Zeta-Jones, CBE, (born 25 September 1969) is a Welsh actress. She began her career on stage at an early age. After starring in a number of United Kingdom and United States television films and small roles in films, she came to prominence with roles in Hollywood movies such as the 1998 action film The Mask of Zorro and the 1999 crime thriller film Entrapment. Her breakthrough role was in the 2000 film Traffic, for which she earned her first Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture. Zeta-Jones subsequently starred as Velma Kelly in the 2002 film adaptation of the musical Chicago, a critical and commercial success, and received an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Later, she appeared in the 2003 romantic comedy film Intolerable Cruelty and 2004 crime comedy film Ocean's Twelve. Zeta-Jones landed the lead female role in the 2005 sequel of the 1998 film, The Legend of Zorro. She also starred in the 2008 biopic romantic thriller Death Defying Acts. In 2010, she won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Desiree in A Little Night Music. Description above from the Wikipedia article Catherine Zeta-Jones, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Josué Maychi

Biography

Josué Maychi is a Mexican film, theater and television actor, known for his work in Malinche (2018) as Cuauhtémoc, Hernán (2019) as Potonchán and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) as Attuma. Maychi was born in Hopelchén, Campeche, Mexico, where he lived until he was 18 years old, and then emigrated to San Francisco de Campeche where he studied theater. He comes from a family of Mayan origin , which is why he is a native speaker of the Mayan language. He moved to Mexico City and graduated in 2011 with a degree in Administration, but almost at the same time she began a career in Theater, which has allowed her to participate in projects that have precisely contributed to making visible the situation that people from original towns. In 2015 the actor worked in the play 'El Molino de Maiz', which focuses on the visibility of Mayan women and later, in 2017 he participated in the play 'Andares' by Makuyeika Creativo Teatral and directed by Héctor Flores Komatsu, in where he met with actors from Chiapas, Morelos and Oaxaca and shared from their stories, the experience of their childhoods, life in their communities and how they face society. This work allowed them to tour theaters in China, New York, Chicago, Germany, Chile, France and Holland. He has participated in television projects such as Malinche (2018), Hernán (2019) and will make her film debut with the film Presencias (2021), directed by Luis Mandoki , and acting alongside Alberto Ammann and Yalitza Aparicio. As a playwright, he wrote Jats'uts sáastal Bello Amanecer (2014), collaborates in Andares (2017), Deer Walkers (2017), and Ch'e'en: peeking into the well; works in the Mayan language. He has also served as an advisor for theater projects in the Mayan language.
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Joe Gaminara

Biography

Joe Gaminara is an English actor, who started his career in films in 2014. He began with a short paper CNN Reporter Tom Ruggles in feature film Crystal Skulls. Then he won the role of Bryan in Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment directed by Valeri Milev and the sixth installment in the Wrong Turn film series. The film was released on DVD on October 21, 2014. Later that year, Joe, won the starring role in the short film Pearl, Eloe received the role of Dr. Oliver Knightley. - IMDb Mini Biography
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