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

Dame Valerie Adams

Biography

Dame Valerie Kasanita Adams is a retired New Zealand shot putter. She is a four-time World champion, four-time World Indoor champion, two-time Olympic, three-time Commonwealth Games champion and twice IAAF Continental Cup winner. She has a personal best throw of 21.24 metres outdoors and 20.54 m indoors. These marks are Oceanian, Commonwealth and New Zealand national records. She also holds the Oceanian junior record (18.93 m) and the Oceanian youth record (17.54 m), as well as the World Championships record, World Indoor Championships record and Commonwealth Games record.
Read more

Mohammad-Reza Lotfi

Biography

Mohammad-Reza Lotfi (Persian: محمدرضا لطفی‎; 1 January 1947 – 2 May 2014) was an Iranian classical musician renowned for his mastery of the tar and setar. He collaborated with singers such as Mohammad-Rezā Shajarian, Hengameh Akhavanو Shahram Nazeri and Alireza Shahmohammadi. Encouraged by his older brother, he learned to play the Târ and showed his talent by winning the first prize in Iran's Young Musicians Festival in 1964. The following year, he started his studies at the Persian National Music Conservatory in Tehran under Habibollah Salehi and Master Ali Akbar Shahnazi. He was a tar player for the Fine Arts Administration Orchestra (Saba Orchestra) under the direction of Hossein Dehlavi. Some of his other eminent teachers were Abdollah Davami, from whom he learned the Radif, and Master Sa'id Hormozi, who taught him the setar. While attending the College of Fine Arts at Tehran University, Lotfi became the student of Master Nour-Ali Boroumand. He also worked at the Center for the Preservation and Propagation of Traditional Persian Music, both as a soloist and a conductor. His other accomplishments were teaching at the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents, researching folk music for National Radio and Television, and appearing at the Shiraz Arts Festival. After graduating in 1973, Lotfi joined the faculty of Fine Arts at Tehran University. He continued his collaboration with Radio and Television and co-founded the Shayda Ensemble. Between 1978 and 1980, Lotfi became the Head of the School of Music at Tehran University. He served as the director of the Center for the Preservation and Propagation of Traditional Persian Music and the "Chavosh" Center. In 1984 Lotfi was invited by Fondazione Cini to participate in a seminar and perform concerts in Italy where he resided for two years. He lived in the United States from 1986 until his death and performed widely throughout Asia, Europe, and North America. A prolific musician, he made numerous recordings both as a solo artist and with celebrated Iranian musicians such as, Mohammad Reza Shajarian, Shahram Nazeri, Hossein Alizadeh, and Parviz Meshkatian. Lotfi is one of the greatest contemporary masters of the tar and setar. He is among the major figures who, in the past twenty years, have revolutionized the Persian traditional (classical) music. His innovative approach of combining the classical with folk elements, both in terms of music and technique, has injected a new vitality into a very old tradition. His original creativity and the deep-rooted emotional quality of his playing have made him the father of a new aesthetics in Persian music. Mohammad Reza Lotfi died on 2 May 2014 (age of 67) suffering from cancer. According to Hamid Dabashi, Lotfi's death marked "a crucial turning point in the history of classical Persian music and its spectacular rise and fall as a performing public art."
Read more

Wang Ping

Biography

Ping Wang is a Chinese film director and actress. She is considered to be the first female director in the People's Republic of China. Leftist womens' liberation became a major influence early in her life and she was a long time supporter of the communist revolution. Her work was financially supported by the state, which provided her with significant access to filmic resources, allowing her to learn the techniques of filmmaking through practice and experiment with film form. She became a respected and influential director. Because gender equality was a significant part of the Communist Party’s plan for economic reform, the following two decades would see a rise in the number of female directors in China.
Read more

Emma Booth

Biography

Emma Booth (born c. 1981) is an Australian model-turned-actress. Coming from Perth in Western Australia, the former teen model and TV star has recently achieved international stardom with a main role in the film Introducing the Dwights opposite Brenda Blethyn. Frequently referred to as the "next big thing" from Australia after Clubland (North American title of Introducing the Dwights) was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, many talent agencies solicited her for roles in upcoming films. As a result, in 2008 she appeared in the horror film Blood Creek to be directed by Joel Schumacher. She will also be appearing in Hippie Hippie Shake with Cillian Murphy and Sienna Miller, an account of the Schoolkids OZ obscenity trials in Great Britain. Currently, she is working on the film The Wrong Girl, an Australian true-life drama about a teen who had been raped by a notorious Sydney gang and her four-year struggle for justice, written by award-winning screenwriter Nicholas Hammond and directed by Michael Jenkins.
Read more

Ali El Haggar

Biography

Egyptian singer, composer, and actor born in Giza in 1954. He was born to a musical family and was taught by his father musician Ibrahim El Haggar. He studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts. He has sung with many Arab and international artists. He has appeared in many works including the TV series One Thousand and One Nights, One Hour Left, and the plays Where Can I Get Humans?, and The Three Musketeers. He's also known for singing the opening and end credits of numerous TV series, including Al-Halawany Gate, and The Fortune and the Progeny.
Read more

Verity Branco

Biography

Verity was born in the small New England town of Westport, Massachusetts and is of Portuguese and Italian decent. She received her Master's in Fine Arts Degree in Acting from The University of Texas at Austin. She is the two time recipient of The Austin Critic's Table Award for her stage work. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress by the North Eastern Film Festival for her portrayal of "Maysie," in the indie darling, "Sunny in the Dark." After launching her unapologetic YouTube Channel "The Foodie Girls," Verity was picked up by the Food Channel and listed in Glamour Magazine as one of the "Top 10 Funniest Ladies to Follow." Most recently Verity was nominated for a Beyond Bechtel Playwright Award for the world premiere of her play, SpiritWheel: a peek inside the cult of spin, a parody on the trendy indoor cycling studio, SoulCycle.
Read more

David Koepp

Biography

David Koepp  (born June 9, 1963) is an American screenwriter and director. He has written or co-written the screenplays for more than thirty films, including Apartment Zero, Bad Influence, Death Becomes Her, Carlito’s Way, Jurassic Park, The Paper, Mission: Impossible, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Snake Eyes, Panic Room, Spider-Man, War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Angels & Demons, Inferno, and Kimi. As a director, his work includes the films The Trigger Effect, Stir of Echoes, Secret Window, Ghost Town, Premium Rush, and You Should Have Left. He was born in Pewaukee, Wisconsin and graduated from UCLA’s film school in 1986. He lives in New York City with his wife and children.
Read more

Dick Rivers

Biography

Hervé Forneri (24 April 1945 – 24 April 2019), known professionally as Dick Rivers, was a French singer and actor who began performing in the early 1960s. He was an important figure in introducing rock and roll music in France. He was an admirer of Elvis Presley, who influenced both his singing and looks. His stage name came from the character, Deke Rivers, that Presley played in his second film, Loving You (1957). Rivers was born in Nice, France. He started his music career in 1960 as the lead singer of the band Les Chats Sauvages, cutting his first record on his fifteenth birthday. In 1961, the British music magazine NME reported that a Rivers concert with his group Les Chats Sauvages at the Palais des Sports de Paris, whilst headlining with Vince Taylor, had turned into a full-scale riot. Rivers left Les Chats Sauvages in 1962 to pursue a solo career. His last album, Rivers, was released in 2014. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 2019, from cancer, on his 74th birthday. Source: Article "Dick Rivers" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Read more

Jane Wyman

Biography

Jane Wyman (born Sarah Jane Mayfield; January 5, 1917 – September 10, 2007) was an American singer, dancer, and character actress of film and television. She began her film career in the 1930s, and was a prolific performer for two decades. She received an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Johnny Belinda (1948), and later achieved success during the 1980s for her leading role in the television series Falcon Crest. Wyman was the first wife of Ronald Reagan. They married in 1940 and divorced in 1948, before Reagan ran for public office. She is the only person to have won an Oscar and married a future President of the United States. Description above from the Wikipedia article Jane Wyman, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Read more