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Orson Welles

Biography

George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985), best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio. Noted for his innovative dramatic productions as well as his distinctive voice and personality, Welles is widely acknowledged as one of the most accomplished dramatic artists of the twentieth century, especially for his significant and influential early work—despite his notoriously contentious relationship with Hollywood. His distinctive directorial style featured layered, nonlinear narrative forms, innovative uses of lighting such as chiaroscuro, unique camera angles, sound techniques borrowed from radio, deep focus shots, and long takes. Welles's long career in film is noted for his struggle for artistic control in the face of pressure from studios. Many of his films were heavily edited and others left unreleased. He has been praised as a major creative force and as "the ultimate auteur." After directing a number of high-profile theatrical productions in his early twenties, including an innovative adaptation of Macbeth and The Cradle Will Rock, Welles found national and international fame as the director and narrator of a 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds performed for the radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was reported to have caused widespread panic when listeners thought that an invasion by extraterrestrial beings was occurring. Although these reports of panic were mostly false and overstated, they rocketed Welles to instant notoriety. Citizen Kane (1941), his first film with RKO, in which he starred in the role of Charles Foster Kane, is often considered the greatest film ever made. Several of his other films, including The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Lady from Shanghai (1947), Touch of Evil (1958), Chimes at Midnight (1965), and F for Fake (1974), are also widely considered to be masterpieces. In 2002, he was voted the greatest film director of all time in two separate British Film Institute polls among directors and critics, and a wide survey of critical consensus, best-of lists, and historical retrospectives calls him the most acclaimed director of all time. Andrew Sarris in his influential book of film criticism The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929–1968 included him in the "pantheon" of the 14 greatest film directors who had worked in the United States. Well known for his baritone voice, Welles was also an extremely well regarded actor and was voted number 16 in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list of the greatest American film actors of all time. He was also a celebrated Shakespearean stage actor and an accomplished magician, starring in troop variety shows in the war years.
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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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Sean Tracey

Biography

Sean Tracey was born in California on July 18,1970. He began his music career in elementary school, playing the trumpet throughout his academic career. When he moved to Juneau, AK, he taught himself to play the guitar and harmonica. He played with the "Panhandle Crabgrass Revival Band" in Juneau for many years and won an award which enabled him to put out his own CD "Sean Tracey/Trouble". Sean plays with "The Austin Steamers" in Austin, TX (July 2014). The band has traveled over much of the Texas area and played several gigs in Alaska. - IMDb Mini Biography
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Vivien Leigh

Biography

Vivien Leigh (born Vivian Mary Hartley, and also known as Lady Olivier after 1947; 5 November 1913 – 8 July 1967) was an English stage and film actress. She won two Academy Awards for Best Actress, for her iconic performances as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she had also played on stage in London's West End in 1949. She also won a Tony Award for her work in the Broadway musical version of Tovarich (1963). After completing her drama school education, Leigh appeared in small roles in four films in 1935 and progressed to the role of heroine in Fire Over England (1937). Lauded for her beauty, Leigh felt that her physical attributes sometimes prevented her from being taken seriously as an actress. Despite her fame as a screen actress, Leigh was primarily a stage performer. During her 30-year career, she played roles ranging from the heroines of Noël Coward and George Bernard Shaw comedies to classic Shakespearean characters such as Ophelia, Cleopatra, Juliet, and Lady Macbeth. Later in life, she performed as a character actress in a few films. At the time, the public strongly identified Leigh with her second husband Laurence Olivier, who was her spouse from 1940 to 1960. Leigh and Olivier starred together in many stage productions, with Olivier often directing, and in three films. She earned a reputation for being difficult to work with, and for much of her adult life she suffered from bipolar disorder as well as recurrent bouts of chronic tuberculosis, which was first diagnosed in the mid-1940s and ultimately claimed her life at the age of 53. Although her career had periods of inactivity, in 1999 the American Film Institute ranked Leigh as the 16th greatest female movie star of classic Hollywood cinema. Description above from the Wikipedia article Vivien Leigh, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Vikram Chatterjee

Biography

Vikram Chatterjee is a Bengali film actor. He made his big screen debut with a small role in Mainak Bhowmik's 2012 movie Bedroom and was immediately noticed. In the same year he acted in Bappaditya Bandopadhyay's Elar Char Adhyay based on Rabindranath Tagore's last novel Char Adhyay as a lead. Soon after he acted in Ami Aar Amar Girlfriends, Hoichoi, Britto and many other films and established himself as a lead in Bengali films. He has gained immense popularity from his daily soap Ichchenodi where he played the lead character, Anurag and enjoys a huge fan base, thanks to the success of the show. Vikram has earned a lot of accolades for his film "Shaheb Bibi Golaam", where the whole industry has taken notice of his brilliant portrayal of Zico. As described by Calcutta Times, he is "Tellyland's" hottest man and 5th among most desirable men in 2017.[2] Vikram has been the heartthrob for many in the recent years and has been loved for many of his performances especially in the recent past. His recent releases Khoj (2017 film) directed by Arko Ganguly and Meghnad Badh Rahasya directed by Anik Dutta of Bhooter Bhabishyat fame, have been critically acclaimed and successful at the box office as well.
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Marshall Napier

Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Marshall James Napier is a New Zealand actor. He is the father of actress Jessica Napier and the uncle of actor James Napier. Before becoming an actor, Napier worked variously as an art student, factory worker and truck driver. In 1988, he moved with his wife and two children, Reuben and Jessica, to Australia, to pursue a career in acting, and has worked in theatre, film, and television productions. In his 40's, he began writing plays. Description above from the Wikipedia article Marshall Napier, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.​
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Sara Davies

Biography

Sara Davies MBE is a British businesswoman, entrepreneur, and television personality. She is the founder and owner of Crafter's Companion, a company she started while a student at the University of York. In April 2019 it was announced that she would join the panel of the BBC television programme Dragons' Den for its seventeenth series. In 2021 Davies was appointed the North East Ambassador for Smart Works Newcastle, a charity supporting unemployed women into work through clothing and coaching.
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Keeley Hawes

Biography

Keeley Hawes (born 10 February 1976) is an English actress, born in London and educated at the Sylvia Young Theatre School. She began her career in a number of literary adaptations, including Our Mutual Friend (1998), Wives and Daughters (1999), Tipping the Velvet (2002), and The Canterbury Tales (2003). She portrayed Zoe Reynolds in the BBC espionage drama series Spooks from 2002 to 2004, followed by her co-lead performance as Alex Drake in Ashes to Ashes (2008–2010), for which she won a Glamour Award. She played leading roles in the 2010 revival of Upstairs, Downstairs, the limited series The Casual Vacancy (2015), The Missing (2016), and the ITV comedy-drama The Durrells (2016–2019). Hawes was nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for her performance in Jed Mercurio's police procedural Line of Duty as DI Lindsey Denton. She teamed again with Mercurio for the 2018 thriller Bodyguard in which she played Home Secretary Julia Montague. Hawes has also appeared in films, including Death at a Funeral (2007) and High-Rise (2015), and she provided the voice of Lara Croft in a series of Tomb Raider video games.
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Stephen Kramer Glickman

Biography

Stephen Kramer Glickman (born March 17, 1979) is a Canadian born American actor and stand-up comedian.Stephen Kramer Glickman is starring as a main role named "Gustavo Rocque" on the Nickelodeon television series, Big Time Rush. In 2007, he was cast as Shrek in Shrek the Musical, and played the part in the original Broadway workshops and readings, before Brian d'Arcy James was cast in 2008. Description above from the Wikipedia article Stephen Kramer Glickman  licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Mani Haghighi

Biography

Mani Haghighi (b.1969, Tehran) studied philosophy at McGill University, Montreal before returning to Iran to make films. His first feature, Abadan (2003) premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. His screenplay for Asghar Farhadi’s Fireworks Wednesday (2006, co-written with the director) won the Special Jury Prize at the Three Continents Festival, Nantes. His second feature film, Men at Work (Berlinale, Forum 2006) won the Best Screenplay Prize at the 2007 Asian Film Awards (Hong Kong) and the Best Screenplay Prize in the international section of the Fajr Film Festival (Tehran). Canaan (2008), based on a short story by Alice Munro, was followed by two documentary films on the works of the acclaimed Iranian director, Dariush Mehrjui: Hamoon’s Fans (2007), about the curious lives of six Iranians who are devoted fans of Mehrjui’s 1989 film, “Hamoon”, and Dariush Mehrjui: The Forty Year Report (2012), a feature length documentary about Mehrjui’s life and works. His fourth feature film, Modest Reception (Berlinale, Forum 2012), received the NETPAC Award at the Berlin Film Festival, the Free Spirit Award at the Warsaw Film Festival, the Best Actor and Best Actress prizes at the OSIAN’s Cinefan Festival in New Delhi as well as a few other international prizes. Haghighi has also acted in several films, including Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly (Berlinale, competition 2009) and Nima Javidi’s Melbourne (2014), as well as his own film, Modest Reception.
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