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Goundamani
Biography
Goundamani (born Subramani Karuppaiya) is an Indian film actor and comedian. He is better known for his comic duo partnership in Tamil films with fellow actor Senthil. His real name "Mani" got the "Counter" prefix for his ability to give counter on the spot and off the script on stage and during shooting which eventually evolved into Goundamani as per Bhagyaraj who was writing scripts and title credits for Bharathiraja in his early days during the movie 16 Vayathinile.
While performing roles of a solo comedian in films, he often co-starred with Senthil to form a comedy duo. The pair was described as "Tamil cinema's Laurel and Hardy" and have performed slapstick humour in several Tamil films since the mid-1980s until the early 2000s. After recuperating from diabetes and respiratory illnesses during the late 2000s, he is about to feature in Vaaimai and also play the lead role in 49-O, which began productions in 2013. It is being directed by debutant Arokiadoss, a former assistant of Gautham Vasudev Menon.
The Film 49-O was released on 17 September 2015 and most of the critics gave positive reviews.
He had a successful career that spanned over three decade thanks to his timing and ability to reinvent himself from comedian to character artiste to villain to second hero to comedic duo.
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Jaque Catelain
Biography
Jaque Catelain was a French actor who came to prominence in silent films of the 1920s, and who continued acting in films and on stage until the 1950s. He also wrote and directed two silent films himself and was a capable artist and musician. He had a close association with the director Marcel L'Herbier.
He was born as Jacques Guérin-Castelain in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. His father was then the mayor and also moved in literary and theatrical circles, which allowed the young Jacques to encounter many famous names in his childhood. He showed early enthusiasm for the arts and music, and at the age of 16 he entered the Académie Julian in Paris to study fine arts. With the outbreak of war in the following year, he changed direction and chose to study acting at the Conservatoire, enrolling in the class of Paul Mounet, before being mobilised into the artillery.
In 1914 Catelain met Marcel L'Herbier, then a writer and critic, who became a major influence on his life and career, and with whom he formed a lifelong friendship. When L'Herbier began directing films in 1917, Catelain became his leading man of choice and starred in twelve of his silent films, starting with Le Torrent, and they made Catelain into a leading star who was in demand to appear in foreign films as well as in productions of other French directors. In 1925 he was offered a seven-year contract by MGM to work in America, but he turned this down.
Jaque Catelain's activities in this period extended beyond acting. When Marcel L'Herbier set up his own production company Cinégraphic in 1922, its first project became Le Marchand de plaisirs which Catelain directed as well as acting a double role in it. In the following year he wrote and directed La Galerie des monstres (1923/24). Both films were successful enough to cover their costs. He devised controversial make-up for some of the actors in L'Inhumaine, and his artistic skills were put to further use in two set designs for L'Argent. As a pianist he would sometimes step in to provide improvised accompaniment for previews of L'Herbier's films.
Catelain successfully made the transition from silent to sound films, starring in L'Herbier's L'Enfant de l'amour (1929), but during the 1930s he took fewer leading film roles and started to act in the theatre. In February 1933 he married Suzanne Vial, a friend since childhood who had become a production assistant to L'Herbier in the 1920s and continued working with him until 1944. Soon afterwards in 1933/1934 he was employed by the daily newspaper Le Journal to go to Hollywood to carry out a series of interviews with leading personalities such as Chaplin, Stroheim and Sternberg.
In May 1940, Catelain left France for a four-month theatrical tour of South America, but within a month France was occupied by the Germans and his absence lasted for six years. In Buenos Aires he became so ill with pneumonia that he was given the last rites, but he recovered and went to Canada for the next three years for work in the theatre and propaganda broadcasts. In 1943 he was invited to Hollywood and remained there for a further three years. He returned to Paris in 1946, and resumed an occasional career in films, appearing in minor roles in three of Jean Renoir's films in the 1950s. In 1950, he published a biography and appreciation of the work of Marcel L'Herbier.
Catelain died in Paris in 1965.
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Arturo Ripstein
Biography
Arturo Ripstein y Rosen (born December 13, 1943) is a Mexican film director.
Ripstein got his break into movies working as an uncredited assistant director for Luis Buñuel. In 1965, he directed his first feature, Tiempo de Morir. Written by Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez, it began a tradition of making independent films written by high-profile Latin-American authors. His 1981 film Seduction was entered into the 12th Moscow International Film Festival. His 1989 film Love Lies was entered into the 16th Moscow International Film Festival. In 1997 Ripstein won the National Prize of Arts and Sciences, the second filmmaker after Buñuel to do so. Some of Ripstein's films, especially the earlier ones, "highlighted characters beset by futile compulsions to escape [their]destinies". Many of his films are shot in tawdry interiors, with bleak brown color schemes, and seedy pathetic characters who manage to achieve a hint of pathos and dignity. Asi Es la Vida, according to Jonathan Crow, "boldly reworks the ancient Greek drama Medea, employing a dizzying array of flashbacks and Brechtian devices". Deep Crimson, according to the New York Times, is "a ferociously anti-romantic portrait of an obese nurse and a seedy small-time gigolo whose bungling scheme to swindle a succession of lonely women out of their life savings turns into a killing spree."
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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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Antony Hamilton
Biography
Antony Hamilton "Tony" Smith (4 May 1952 – 29 March 1995), known professionally as Antony Hamilton, was an English-born Australian actor, model, and dancer. Hamilton began his career as a ballet dancer with The Australian Ballet before becoming a model. He later transitioned into acting and won his first notable role in the 1984 television film Samson and Delilah. That same year, he took over the lead role in the series Cover Up after the death of the series' lead actor, Jon-Erik Hexum. One of Hamilton's best known roles was that of Max Harte, an agent in the 1988 revival of Mission: Impossible.
In March 1995, Hamilton died of AIDS-related pneumonia at the age of 42. -From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Mercedez Csampai
Biography
Mercedesz Csampai has been interested in theatre and music since her childhood. She was born in Budapast and both her parents are musicians: father Elemer Csampai - Hungarian violinist at the Budapest Opera House orchestra and mother Natalia Usmanova from Moscow - actress and opera singer at the Opera Vox in Stockholm. Her very first performance as a pianist Mercedesz made at the age of 5 in Stockholm, where she moved with the family in 1996. When she turned 7 - she took a part in the piano competition "Unga Pianister" (Young Pianists)- didn't win, but reached to the semifinals. She continued her musical education and graduated from Lilla Academy School. Now Mercedesz is studying at the Junior Academy of Music - Lilla Akademien. Besides the piano and violin she plays the recorder at the different medieval Festivals. Mercedesz speaks fluently several languages:English, Swedish, Russian, Hungarian. Her mother tongue is Russian,father - Hungarian. She has been speaking English and Swedish since she was 3,5 years old. She has French and Italian as an extra languages at the Academy. On summer 2007 Mercedesz Csampai studied and performed Shakespeare in London.
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Gabbi Tuft
Biography
Gabbi Alon Tuft is an American retired professional wrestler. Tuft is best known for her time with WWE under the ring name Tyler Reks. Tuft also competed in WWE's developmental territory Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), where she won the FCW Florida Heavyweight Championship once and the FCW Florida Tag Team Championship twice, once with Joe Hennig and once with Johnny Curtis. Since retiring from professional wrestling in 2014, Tuft works in marketing. She also launched a fitness website with several other wrestlers. Assigned male at birth, Gabbi Tuft publicly came out as a trans woman in February 2021.
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Huang Meiying
Biography
Huang Meiying was born in Shanghai in 1950. In 1979 he was an actor at Bayi Film Studio. In the mid-70s, he played various roles include "A Thousand Waters, Thousands of Mountains", "Long Road", "The Mountain under the Wind and Rain", "The Towering Kunlun", etc. In 1990, she played Wang Yaru in the TV series "Desire", and received widespread praise from the audience. In 2005, she won the Golden Rooster Award for Best Supporting Actress for her successful role as a mother in "Peacock." Huang Meiying's husband is the famous actor Jin Xin, and the two fell in love while shooting the film "Long Road".
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Françoise Prévost
Biography
Françoise Prévost (13 January 1930 – 30 November 1997) was a French actress, journalist and author. She was the daughter of writer Marcelle Auclair. She appeared in more than 70 films between 1949 and 1985.
Prévost was born and died in Paris, France. She made her film debut at 18, in Jean de la Lune. After several minor roles she emerged with the Nouvelle Vague, with roles of weight in films by Pierre Kast, Jean-Gabriel Albicocco and Jacques Rivette. Starting from 1960s she was also pretty active in the Italian cinema, starring in leading roles in dramas, comedies and genre films. In 1975 Prévost gained critical appreciation and commercial success as an author, with an autobiographical book about her struggle against an incurable disease, Ma vie en plus.
Source: Article "Françoise Prévost (actress)" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Bill Nye
Biography
William Sanford "Bill" Nye, popularly known as Bill Nye the Science Guy, is an American science educator, television presenter, and mechanical engineer. Scientist, comedian, teacher, and author, Bill Nye is best known as the host of the PBS children's science show Bill Nye the Science Guy (1993–1998), and for his many subsequent appearances in popular media as a science educator.
Currently, Nye is The Planetary Society’s CEO. It’s the world’s largest non-profit space interest group with members in 130 countries. Cofounded by Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray and Louis Friedman, the organization’s mission is to empower the world’s citizens to advance space science and exploration. Nye joined The Planetary Society as a Charter Member in 1980. Nye’s engineering and management experience enabled him to take the lead and play a hands-on role in making programs like LightSail® a success.
Nye earned a degree in mechanical engineering at Cornell University and spent over 20 years working as an engineer until he combined his dual love of science and comedy to create Bill Nye the Science Guy. As a student at Cornell University, he was introduced to the wonders of astronomy in a class taught by Professor Carl Sagan.
After graduating from Cornell University, Bill worked for the Boeing Corporation, Sundstrand Data Control (now Honeywell), and a few other engineering firms in the Seattle area. The U.S. Department of Justice also recruited Bill for his unique technical expertise and pedagogical skills.
From 1992 to 1998, Bill was the writer, producer and talent for the Emmy award-winning Bill Nye the Science Guy TV series co-produced by Buena Vista Television (Disney) and KCTS (Seattle public television).
His new series Bill Nye Saves The World debuted on Netflix in April 2017.
Bill has authored several books, including New York Times Bestseller “Undeniable,” “Unstoppable” and his latest, “Everything All at Once,” which released in July of 2017. In addition to leading The Planetary Society, he travels the world lecturing on the importance of science, space exploration, and inspiring generations of young people to change the world.
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