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Hong Huifang
Biography
Hong Hui Fang started acting after completing her drama training course. Over the years, she has made viewers sit up and take note of her impeccable acting skills. This dedicated artiste constantly seeks out new ways to improve herself.
Hui Fang’s defining role in her career was that of a conniving and gullible samsui woman in 1986’s Samsui Women. It was that breakthrough that pushed Hui Fang to the pinnacle of her career.
Hui Fang further outshone the field in Star Awards ‘97 where she picked up the Best Supporting Actress award for her role in Price Of Peace. Her convincing portrayal of a housewife being gang raped by Japanese soldiers spurred an onslaught of sympathies from viewers. Since then, she has clinched one challenging role after another. In 1999, Hui Fang was invited by Singapore's most popular filmmaker and actor Jack Neo to perform in his movie - That One Not Enough.
Hui Fang was seen in the dramas such as Reach For The Skies, Babies On Board, While You Were Away and Hello From The Other Side.
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Merle Dandridge
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Merle Dandridge is a Japanese-American actress who was born in Okinawa, Japan. Dandridge is primarily a stage actress, but has had several roles in television. She has gained a wider audience as the voice of Alyx Vance in the award-winning action game Half-Life 2 and its sequels, Episode One, Episode Two.
Her father was an African-American US serviceman from Memphis and her mother was a local Okinawan of Korean and Japanese descent. As well as Okinawa, Dandridge has lived in Sacramento, California, at Beale Air Force Base, and later at Offutt Air Force Base (home to the then-Strategic Air Command) in Bellevue, Nebraska, where she spent the majority of her childhood. She attended Papillion La Vista High School and participated in the play production class and theater department there.
She then attended the Theatre Conservatory at Roosevelt University (currently called the Chicago College of Performing Arts) with a scholarship that she earned at the International Thespian Festival.
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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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Stéphane Brizé
Biography
Stéphane Brizé is a French film director, producer, screenwriter and actor.
Stéphane Brizé was born on 18 October 1966 in Rennes, France. He attended a University Institutes of Technology and moved to Paris, where he started his career in theater and television, before moving on to short films and feature films. His 2015 film The Measure of a Man was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.
Source: Article "Stéphane Brizé" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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James McGowan
Biography
James Robert McGowan was born on May 30, 1960, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. James is the youngest of three sons of Johnny McGowan a former light heavyweight boxer from Northern England. James grew up on the West Island in Montreal. He graduated from Concordia University with a B.A. in Communications. After graduation he took a job as a copy writer at an advertising agency rather than pursue an acting career as he did not believe he could make a living acting. He then took in the audio-visual department of McGill University. While there he got in touch with a friend who was directing plays at the Montreal university expecting to pursue acting as a hobby. He started out slowly doing student plays at the William Shatner Building. He loved it so much he decided to pursue it as a profession. It wasn't easy breaking into television in Toronto given his age (36) at the time as he was going up against other actors with lengthier resumes. It was hard at first to get auditions. He started out with guest spots in television shows such as the La Femme Nikita, Mutant-X, Falcon Beach, and Rent-a-Goalie. James also had minor roles in movies such as The Perfect Man with Heather Locklear, The Prince and Me with Julie Stiles, and Silent Night with Linda Hamilton. He has had success with two successful television ads. The first ad was entitled Doctor's Appointment and addressed the serious problem of erectile dysfunction. The ad was run continuously throughout the 2001 NHL Finals. The second ad was entitled The Deal and was for Verizon Wireless. One of his first big parts was a role in the TV movie 10,000 Black Men Named George. The 2002 film helped James find more work but he did not find substantial work until he auditioned for the CBC drama The Border. He had sent in an audition tape but had not heard back. He went to Winnipeg to film a guest part on the TV series Falcon Beach. While he was in Winnipeg, his agent contacted him and told him the show's casting directors wanted to meet with him. A second day of callbacks was added and he was able to return to Toronto in time. No one had heard of James but according to Peter Raymont, the co-creator of the show, James brought just the right degree of intelligence, compassion and authority to the character. While the producers were sure that James was right for the part, the network wasn't so sure. One of his biggest credits to that point was playing the goon in the Verizon Wireless commercial. His peers obviously approve of the portrayal. James received a Gemini nomination as outstanding actor in a drama. - IMDb Mini Biography
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Juan Forch
Biography
The Chilean director, author and photographer Juan Forch was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1948. He studied journalism at the Universidad de Chile. While still a student, he worked as a photojournalist for Ramona magazine and joined the ChileFilms company as a scriptwriter and director for short documentaries. In 1972, he also co-wrote with Lucho Abarca the well-known study, Viaje por la juventud (A Journey through Youth, Quimantú publishing house), about the subculture youth scene in Chile. After the military coup in Chile in 1973 and a short detention, he immigrated to East Germany via Mexico. After working at the camera manufacturer, Dresden Pentacon, he joined the DEFA Studio for Animation Films in Dresden and learned the craft of animation. Between 1975 and 1978, Forch made several animation and documentary films drawing on his Chilean background and his artistic and political experiences in exile. The photo collages Chile lebt (1976) and Keiner kann die Revolution aufhalten (1976), the latter in collaboration with media artist Lutz Dammbeck, proclaim a hope for victory of progressive forces over the Pinochet dictatorship. The collage Chile (1975) by Forch and Jörg Herrmann reveals the USA as the backer of the military coup in Chile on September 11, 1973. The trick collage Hitlerpinochet (1975) by Forch and Herrmann draws similarities between political slogans used by Adolf Hitler and Augusto Pinochet. In 1976, Forch and Rolf Hofmann, filmed Chilean students in Dresden while drawing a mural in honor of former President Salvador Allende (Brigada - Ein Beitrag zur Solidarität anläßlich der 16. Arbeiterfestspiele 1976 in Dresden). The cut-out animation film Neutronenfrieden? (1977) offers a warning against a nuclear war instigated by the USA. Forch creates a visually and colorfully powerful epic about the life of the Indigenous Mapuche community in the cut-out film Lautaro (1977), his most comprehensive work at the Dresden studio. Moreover, the animation film Rosaura (1978) by Forch and Lothar Barke atmospherically translates a poem by Juan Forch into images. In 1978, Forch returned to Chile and created short commercials. Parallel to that, he worked on Chilean and foreign documentaries about the political situation in Chile, as well as developing his own productions on the Chilean art scene in the 1980s. In 1988, he was involved in the political NO campaign that helped crumble the Pinochet regime. Director Pablo Larrain narrates the history of this campaign in his feature film NO (2012). This film was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards and screened at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival where it won the 2012 C.I.C.A.E. Award. Forch was also associate producer for the thriller Johnny cien pesos (1993, dir. Gustavo Graef Marino) that was selected as the Chilean entry for the 2013 Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. After the NO Campaign in Chile, Forch has worked as a consultant on electoral campaign issues and political communication in several Latin American countries. Since 2000, Forch has written several novels, as well as poetry and short stories. He has also had his work featured in galleries and film festivals. Juan Forch currently lives in the southern part of Chile.
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Butterfly McQueen
Biography
Thelma "Butterfly" McQueen was an American actress. Originally a dancer, McQueen first appeared in film in 1939 as Prissy, Scarlett O'Hara's maid, in the film Gone with the Wind. She was unable to attend the movie's premiere because it was held at a whites-only theater. Often typecast as a maid, she said: "I didn't mind playing a maid the first time, because I thought that was how you got into the business. But after I did the same thing over and over, I resented it. I didn't mind being funny, but I didn't like being stupid.] She continued as an actress in film in the 1940s, and then moved to television acting in the 1950s. McQueen was appearing on the Broadway stage in the comedy What a Life in 1938 when she was spotted by Kay Brown, talent scout for David O. Selznick, then in pre-production for Gone With the Wind (eventually released in 1939). Brown recommended that McQueen audition for the film. After Selznick saw her screen test, he never considered anyone else and McQueen was cast in the role that would become her most identifiable – "Prissy", a simple-minded house maid. She uttered the famous words: "Oh, Miss Scarlett! I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies!" Her distinctive, high-pitched voice was noted by a critic who described it as "the itsy-little voice fading over the far horizon of comprehension". While the role is well known to audiences, McQueen did not enjoy playing the part and felt it was demeaning to African-Americans.
She also played an uncredited bit part as a sales assistant in The Women (1939), filmed after Gone with the Wind but released before it. She also played Butterfly, Rochester's niece and Mary Livingstone's maid in the Jack Benny radio program for a time during World War II. She appeared in an uncredited role in Mildred Pierce (1945) (where she had a good amount of screen time) and played a supporting role in Duel in the Sun (1946). By 1947, she had grown tired of the ethnic stereotypes she was required to play and ended her film career.
During World War II, McQueen frequently appeared as a comedian on the Armed Forces Radio Service broadcast Jubilee. Many of these broadcasts are available on the Internet Archive.
From 1950 until 1952 she was featured in another racially stereotyped role on the television series Beulah. She played Beulah's friend Oriole, a character originated on radio by Ruby Dandridge, who would then take over the TV role from McQueen in 1952-53. In a lighter moment, she appeared in a 1969 episode of The Dating Game.
Offers for acting roles began to dry up around this time, and she devoted herself to other pursuits including political study. She received a bachelor's degree in political science from City College of New York in 1975.[1] McQueen played the character of Aunt Thelma, a fairy godmother, in the ABC Weekend Special episode "The Seven Wishes of Joanna Peabody" (1978) and the ABC Afterschool Special episode "Seven Wishes of a Rich Kid" (1979); her performance in the latter earned her a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Children's Programming. She had one more role of substance in the 1986 film The Mosquito Coast.
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Britney Spears
Biography
Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American singer. Often referred to as the "Princess of Pop", she is credited with influencing the revival of teen pop during the late 1990s and early 2000s. After appearing in stage productions and television series, Spears signed with Jive Records in 1997 at age fifteen. Her first two studio albums, ...Baby One More Time (1999) and Oops!... I Did It Again (2000), are among the best-selling albums of all time and made Spears the best-selling teenage artist of all time. With first-week sales of over 1.3 million copies, Oops!... I Did It Again held the record for the fastest-selling album by a female artist in the United States for fifteen years. Spears adopted a more mature and provocative style for her albums Britney (2001) and In the Zone (2003), and starred in the 2002 film Crossroads.
Spears was executive producer of her fifth studio album Blackout (2007), often referred to as her best work. Following a series of highly publicized personal problems, promotion for the album was limited, and Spears was involuntarily placed in a conservatorship. Since then, she released the chart-topping albums, Circus (2008) and Femme Fatale (2011), the latter of which became her most successful era of singles in the US charts. She embarked on a four-year concert residency, Britney: Piece of Me, at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas to promote her next two albums Britney Jean (2013) and Glory (2016). In 2019, Spears's legal battle over her conservatorship became more publicized and led to the establishment of the #FreeBritney movement. In 2021, the conservatorship was terminated following her public testimony in which she accused her management team and family of abuse.
Regarded as a pop icon, Spears has sold over 100 million records worldwide, including over 70 million in the United States, making her one of the world's best-selling music artists. She has achieved six number-one albums on the Billboard 200 and four number-one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100: "...Baby One More Time", "Womanizer", "3", and "Hold It Against Me". The "S&M" remix also topped the Billboard chart. Her singles "Oops!... I Did It Again", "Toxic", and "Scream & Shout" topped the charts in most countries. With "3" in 2009 and "Hold It Against Me" in 2011, Spears became the second artist after Mariah Carey in the Hot 100's history to debut at number one with two or more songs. Her heavily choreographed videos earned her the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. She has earned numerous other awards and accolades, including a Grammy Award, 15 Guinness World Records, six MTV Video Music Awards, seven Billboard Music Awards (including the Millennium Award), the inaugural Radio Disney Icon Award, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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Zerocalcare
Biography
Michele Rech (Italian: [miˈkɛːle ˈrɛk]; born 12 December 1983), known as Zerocalcare ([ˌdzɛrokalˈkaːre]), is an Italian cartoonist. His pen name, meaning "zero limescale", is based from a TV commercial jingle for a descaler product that came to his mind when he had to quickly come up with a Internet nickname.
Rech was born in Cortona, Tuscany, Italy, to an Italian father from Rome and a French mother. He was raised in France and later in Rome (Rebibbia-Ponte Mammolo area), where he graduated at the Lycée français Chateaubriand. In 2003, at the age of 20, he began working as an illustrator for several newspapers. At the same time, he worked on a webcomic for Zuda Comics, the online division of DC Comics. In 2004 he created a comic about the 2001 G8 summit protests in which he took part.
He published his first graphic novel, The Armadillo Prophecy, in October 2011 and in November he created zerocalcare.it, a website where he published autobiographical comic strips. In September 2012, the blog won the Macchianera Award as 'Best draftsman-Cartoonist' and the Gran Guinigi Award at Lucca Comics for best short story with The Armadillo Prophecy.
In April 2016, his fourth graphic novel Kobane Calling: Greetings from Northern Syria was published. The work had been previously published in 'Internazionale' and focused on the conflict between the Kurds and the Islamic State. Kobane Calling won the Micheluzzi Award as best cartoon at Naples Comicon, 2017. The same year, he was invited to attend San Diego Comic Con following the English release of Kobane Calling, but only obtained his US Visa last minute, due to his travels to Rojava.
On September 2018 a live-action adaptation of The Armadillo Prophecy was released. In November, the MAXXI museum of Rome hosted an exhibition of his works, titled Zerocalcare: Scavare fossati, Nutrire coccodrilli, which lasted until March of 2019. The same month a theatrical adaptation of Kobane Calling debuted at Teatro del Giglio in Lucca, during the Lucca Comics & Games, and toured Italy as part of the 2019/2020 theatre season. In 2020 he gained further exposure thanks to his animated short series "Rebibbia Quarantine", broadcast on LA7 inside the variety show Propaganda Live during lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.
On December 2020 he announced that he would be creating an animated series for Netflix titled Tear Along the Dotted Line. The show premiered on 18 October 2021 at the Rome Film Festival. On 16 November, Ablaze Publishing announced that they would be releasing English translations of Zerocalcare's first three graphic novels, The Armadillo Prophecy (2011), Tentacles At My Throat (2012) and Forget My Name (2014). Tear Along the Dotted Line was released on Netflix on 17 November 2021 to positive reviews. A follow-up, titled This World Won't Tear Me Down, was released on 9 June 2023.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Zerocalcare, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Diane Tell
Biography
Diane Tell (born December 24, 1959) is a Canadian musician who was born in Quebec City, Quebec. She entered the Val d’Or conservatory at the age of six. She continued her studies at the Montréal conservatory and then at CEGEP Saint-Laurent and she wrote her first songs at the age of twelve. As one of Québec's pioneering female singer-songwriters, she proposed her personal repertoire over the course of her first four albums. She won six Félix prizes before the age of 25: breakout artist, best artist, best album, best song and, twice, songwriter of the year. Several of her songs have become SOCAN Classics and Si j’étais un homme was inducted in the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2017. She earned a MIDEM Award for her album Chimères and a Victoire Award for her album Faire à nouveau connaissance. In 1990, she was chosen by Plamondon, Berger and Savary to play a leading role in the musical La légende de Jimmy. Following that, she played the lead and composed the score for another musical, Marilyn Montreuil, written and stage directed by Jérôme Savary and the Théâtre National du Chaillot, in Paris. Over 300 performances of both shows were presented in France and Europe. Over the past 25 years, Tell has toured relentlessly, written, composed and recorded in Canada, France, the U.K. and Switzerland. In 2018, she produced her 15th studio album of original material in Montréal. As an independent artist, she owns the phonographic rights of her entire catalogue, manages her own publishing company, and produces and finances her albums herself. Also a photographer, she directs the majority of her music videos. Her YouTube channel gets 400,000 views per month on average. In her blog, Diane Cause Musique, she engages up-and-coming artists by explaining the inner workings of the music industry.
In May 2018, Tell was elected onto SOCAN's Board of Directors for a 3-year mandate. (The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) Re-elected in 2021 for a second mandate.
Paris, July 15, 2022. Madame Rima Abdul Malak, Minister of Culture, awarded Diane Tell, as part of the spring 2022 class, the rank of Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres, one of the main distinctions among the four ministerial orders of the French Republic.
Source: Article "Diane Tell" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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