Trending
Popular people
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
Read more
Michael Oppenheimer
Biography
Michael Oppenheimer (born February 28, 1946) is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, the Department of Geosciences, and the High Meadows Environmental Institute at Princeton University. He is the director of the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment (C-PREE) at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and Faculty Associate of the Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences Program and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies.
Oppenheimer has played a leading role at the interface of science and public policy including influencing the development of the acid rain provisions of the US Clean Air Act. He co-organized a series of activities that prefigured the emergence of climate change as a top international concern and influenced the development of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. He directed climate and air pollution activities at the Environmental Defense Fund when that NGO’s science-based and incentive-based approach to climate change was reflected in the language of the Kyoto Protocol. Oppenheimer has played a significant role within the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), serving as Contributing Author, Lead Author, or Coordinating Lead Author on each assessment report since IPCC’s first report, as well as two special reports. Oppenheimer also serves as a Review Editor on the Sixth Assessment Report.
Read more
Antonia Franceschi
Biography
Antonia Franceschi moved to Michigan and started ballet there at age 4. She moved to New York City at age 8 to study ballet with Margaret Craske. This tiny blonde went to ballet class and discovered a talent for flight. For years she kept her dancing secret from her school and neighborhood friends. She won a place at the High School of Performing Arts to study acting, which launched her into the movies Grease and Fame. She performed in Natalia Makarova's season on Broadway and joined New York City Ballet, where she danced for twelve years. Then she moved to London where she was guest artist with several choreographers, wrote and performed "Up From The Waste" in the West End, made some fine art films, and choreographed ballets for Ballet Black among other companies.
Read more
Brantley Gilbert
Biography
Brantley Keith Gilbert (born January 20, 1985) is an American country rock singer, songwriter and record producer from Jefferson, Georgia. He was originally signed to Colt Ford's label, Average Joes Entertainment, where he released Modern Day Prodigal Son and Halfway to Heaven. He is now signed to the Valory division of Big Machine Records where he has released five studio albums—a deluxe edition of Halfway to Heaven, Just as I Am, The Devil Don't Sleep, Fire & Brimstone, So Help Me God, and 14 country chart entries, four of which have gone to number one. He also co-wrote (with Colt Ford) and originally recorded Jason Aldean's singles "My Kinda Party" and "Dirt Road Anthem."
Read more
Iskra Yossiffova
Biography
Iskra Yosifova (1954-2005) was born in Cherven Bryag. In 1972-1973 she studied sociology at the Institute of Economics in Sofia but in 1978 graduated Cinema and TV Directing at the Krastyo Sarafov Higher Institute of Theatre Art (VITIZ) as it was called until 1995, in the class of Georgi Dyulgerov and Hristo Hristov. She made her debut with the film Voyage (1980) which she co-directed with Malina Petrova. She has made two more feature films – Love therapy (1986) and Cruel and innocent (1989).
She has also made a number of documentaries, some awarded nationally and internationally. Her film The wall (1988) about John Lennon was to turn into a symbol of rebellion against any conformism.
Read more
Mary Marquet
Biography
Mary Marquet (born Micheline Marguerite Delphine Marquet; 14 April 1895 – 29 August 1979) was a French stage and film actress.
Marquet came from a family of artists: her parents were actors, an aunt was a star dancer at the Paris Opera, and another was an official at the Comédie-Française. She entered the National Superior Conservatory of Dramatic Art in 1913 and studied under Paul Mounet. She failed her final exams, but was immediately engaged in the company of Sarah Bernhardt, who was a great friend of the family. She went on play alongside her in The Eugene Morand cathedral.
She became established with her role in L'Aiglon by Edmond Rostand, whose mistress she became from 1915 to his death in 1918. She made her film debut in 1914 in a silent film, Les Frères ennemis, which was never finished. Her first major film role was in Sappho, produced by Léonce Perret in 1932. After World War I, she joined the Comédie-Française in 1923 where she stayed for over twenty years, before moving to the boulevard Theatre.
During the World War II, throughout the occupation, she sought the protection of German officers to protect her son who had told her of his intention to join the Resistance. The response was his arrest and deportation to Buchenwald concentration camp where he died aged 21. This was possibly the cause of her problems at the time of the Liberation when, due to her alleged relations with the enemy, Marquet was arrested and sent to Drancy and then to Fresnes. She was later released for lack of evidence.
In the 1950s, she turned to poetry recital, while continuing her career in theater on the boulevards. She worked for ORTF in the Maigret episodes of Les Cinq Dernières Minutes and Les Saintes Chéries and in the television adaptation of Lucien Leuwen, the novel by Stendhal.
Parallel to her acting career, as an antiquarian she ran a stand for many years at the Swiss Village, an important antique market in Paris where she demonstrated her skills as a saleswoman, mixing theatrical memorabilia with commercial interests.
Among her most successful parts in over forty films, were her roles in, Landru in 1962, Claude Chabrol, La Grande Vadrouille in 1966 by Gérard Oury, and Casanova in 1975 by Federico Fellini. After these three minor parts she played important roles in La vie de château (1966) the mother of Philippe Noiret and the stepmother of Catherine Deneuve and the Le malin plaisir (1975) with Claude Jade and Anny Duperey.
Mary Marquet and Victor Francen on their wedding day in 1934.
Her first lover was Edmond Rostand around 1915, living together for three years. In 1920 she married Maurice Escande, the future director of the house of Molière, ending in divorce in 1921, before meeting Firmin Gémier, the director of the new Théâtre National Populaire, who was still married but whose wife was barren. In 1922, Marquet gave birth to their son.
Before the death of Gémier in 1933, Marquet became the mistress of the president of the then Council, André Tardieu, in a semi-official liaison. Having broken up with Tardieu, she married Victor Francen. The couple separated after seven years together. Marquet died of heart attack at the age of 84 in her apartment in the Rue Carpeaux, She is buried in Montmartre Cemetery.
Source: Article "Mary Marquet" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Read more
Alain Boublil
Biography
Alain Boublil (born 5 March 1941) is a French musical theatre lyricist and librettist, best known for his collaborations with the composer Claude-Michel Schönberg for musicals on Broadway and London's West End. These include La Révolution Française (1973), Les Misérables (1980), Miss Saigon (1989), Martin Guerre (1996), The Pirate Queen (2006), and Marguerite (2008).
Boublil was born in Tunisia, to a Sephardic Jewish family. Boublil's first musical, La Révolution Française, was the first-ever staged French rock opera. It was conceived by Boublil in 1973 after he watched the premiere of Jesus Christ Superstar in New York. The composer was Claude-Michel Schönberg, with whom Boublil has since collaborated on a number of successful projects, including Les Misérables and Miss Saigon. Les Misérables first opened in Paris in 1980.
On 8 October 1985, an English-language production of Les Misérables produced by Cameron Mackintosh and directed by Trevor Nunn and John Caird premiered in London at The Royal Shakespeare Company's Barbican Theatre. The show transferred to the West End's Palace Theatre on 4 December 1985. It is the longest-running musical in West End history.
Productions based on the Nunn/Mackintosh staging of Les Misérables have been staged all over the world, including a second French production which opened in Paris in 1991. Worldwide, Les Misérables has been seen by over 50 million people, with a total box office gross of over $1.8 billion.
Miss Saigon opened in London on 20 September 1989 where it played for 10 consecutive successful years at the Drury Lane Theatre. It spawned two US touring companies, a Toronto production and has been seen by more than 13.2 million people in North America for a gross of $612 million.
With Javier Arroyuelo and Rafael Lopez Sanchez, Boublil worked on the French translation of The Rocky Horror Show for its French premiere in 1975.
Alain and Daniel Boublil created Abbacadabra, a French children's musical based on songs from the pop group ABBA, for French television in 1983.
Martin Guerre reached the West End in 1996 and won the 1997 Olivier Award for Best Musical. Productions on tour in the UK and the US, and Europe followed, but the show failed to repeat the success of its two predecessors.
Boublil has also written the play Le Journal d'Adam et Eve, based on two short stories by Mark Twain. It premiered in Paris in 1994 at Le Petit Montparnasse.
He has worked on the stage adaptation of Jacques Demy's Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, together with composer Michel Legrand, that opened at Le Palais des Congrès in 2003.
Boublil and Schönberg's The Pirate Queen—a musical about the 16th century Irish pirate, chieftain and adventuress Grace O'Malley—debuted at Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre in fall 2006. It then moved to Broadway, where it closed in 2007. The musical starred Stephanie J. Block as Grace, and Hadley Fraser as Tiernan. ...
Source: Article "Alain Boublil" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Read more
Elvira Popescu
Biography
Elvira Popescu (10 May 1894 – 11 December 1993) was a Romanian-French stage and film actress and theatre director. During the 1930s and 1940s, she starred in a number of French comedy films.
Born in Bucharest, Popescu studied drama at the Music and Drama Conservatory in her native city, under the guidance of Constantin Nottara and Aristizza Romanescu. In 1911 Grigore Brezeanu was making the first Romanian films to deal with fiction. He employed Popesco as well as other leading actors like Nottara and Romanescu. The first two films were called "Fatal Love" and "Spin a Yarn". No copies are known of these films. Popesco made her debut at the National Theatre Bucharest at age 16. In 1912, she played herself in the movie Independența României, directed by Aristide Demetriade.
In 1919 she became artistic director of the Excelsior Theatre. In 1921, Popescu started Teatrul Mic, which she managed in parallel with the Excelsior. In 1923, she starred in the movie Ţigăncuşa de la iatac, directed by Alfred Halm.
At the urging of Louis Verneuil, the French playwright, Popescu moved in 1924 to Paris. Under Verneuil's direction, she played the leading role in Ma Cousine de Varsovie, at the Théâtre Michel (1923). She also played in Tovaritch (1933), La Machine infernale (1954), Nina (1949), and La Mamma (1957). Later on, she was director of Théâtre de Paris (1956–1965), and Théâtre Marigny (1965–1978).[5] At age 84, she played again in La Mamma.
Elvira Popescu also played in movies, such as La Présidente (Fernand Rivers, 1938), Tricoche et Cacolet (Pierre Colombier, 1938), Ils étaient neuf célibataires (Sacha Guitry, 1939), Paradis perdu (Abel Gance, 1940), Austerlitz (Abel Gance, 1960),[6] and Purple Noon (René Clément, 1960).
Shortly after her debut in 1910, Popescu married comedian Aurel Athanasescu and they had a daughter named Tatiana. After a few years, she divorced, and married Ion Manolescu-Strunga, Minister of Industry and Commerce (who was to die in Sighet prison in the 1950s). Her third husband was Count Maximilien Sébastien Foy (born in Paris on 17 April 1900, died in Neuilly-sur-Seine on 11 November 1967).
She died in Paris at age 99, and was interred at Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Source: Article "Elvira Popescu" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Read more
Andres Gil Dominguez
Biography
Lawyer, graduated from the University of Buenos Aires. D. in Law from the University of Buenos Aires.
He works as a lawyer in the Constitutional Law Area. General Director of AGD Consultora. Associate Member of the Argentine Association of Constitutional Law, columnist of the newspaper "La Arena", Santa Rosa, La Pampa,
Correspondent Member of the Union of Jurists of Cuba and the Cuban Society of Constitutional and Administrative Law, member as researcher for the Argentine Republic of the project "The protection of rights in Latin America: the cases of Argentina, Costa Rica and Paraguay", University of Salamanca (Spain). He was also Distinguished Guest of the City of Quito (Ecuador), 2007.
Regular Assistant Professor of the subject Elements of Constitutional Law, School of Law and Social Sciences (UBA), Acting Professor of the subject Elements of Constitutional Law, School of Law (UBA), Regular Professor of the subject Constitutional Law of the Law School of the School of Economic and Legal Sciences of the National University of La Pampa, among others.
Professor of the Master in Latin American Studies of the University of Salamanca (Spain), professor of the Master in Family Law of the School of Law of the University of Buenos Aires and professor of the Doctorate of the School of Law of the University of Buenos Aires.
Read more
Tony Blankley
Biography
Anthony David Blankley (January 21, 1948 – January 7, 2012) was an American political analyst who gained fame as the press secretary for Newt Gingrich, the first Republican Speaker of the House in forty years, and as a regular panelist on The McLaughlin Group. He later became an Executive Vice President with Edelman public relations in Washington, D.C. He was a Visiting Senior Fellow in National-Security Communications at the Heritage Foundation, a weekly contributor to the nationally syndicated public radio program Left, Right & Center, the author of The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations? and American Grit: What It Will Take to Survive and Win in the 21st Century. He served as the editorial page editor for The Washington Times from 2002–2009.
Blankley was briefly a child actor appearing, most notably, as Rod Steiger's son in The Harder They Fall (1956). The movie was, as Blankley liked to joke, both his and his co-star Humphrey Bogart's last movie. He graduated from UCLA and Loyola Law School (Los Angeles), earning a J.D. He was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1972.
Read more
