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Sean Connery

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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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Kevin Willmott

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Kevin Willmott (born August 31, 1959) is an American film director and screenwriter, and professor of film at the University of Kansas. He is known for work focusing on black issues including writing and directing Ninth Street, C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America, and Bunker Hill. His The Only Good Indian (2009) was a feature film about Native American children at an Indian boarding school and the forced assimilation that took place. In Jayhawkers (2014), he followed the life of Wilt Chamberlain, Phog Allen and the 1956 Kansas Jayhawks basketball team. Willmott has collaborated with Spike Lee, with whom he shared an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for BlacKkKlansman. The two again collaborated in writing Da 5 Bloods, released worldwide digitally on June 12, 2020.
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Paul Claudel

Biography

Paul Claudel (6 August 1868 – 23 February 1955) was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism. He was born in Villeneuve-sur-Fère (Aisne), into a family of farmers and government officials. His father, Louis-Prosper, dealt in mortgages and bank transactions. His mother, the former Louise Cerveaux, came from a Champagne family of Catholic farmers and priests. Having spent his first years in Champagne, he studied at the lycée of Bar-le-Duc and at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in 1881, when his parents moved to Paris. An unbeliever in his teenage years, Claudel experienced a conversion at age 18 on Christmas Day 1886 while listening to a choir sing Vespers in the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris: "In an instant, my heart was touched, and I believed." He remained an active Catholic for the rest of his life. In addition, he discovered Arthur Rimbaud's book of poetry Illuminations. He worked towards "the revelation through poetry, both lyrical and dramatic, of the grand design of creation". Claudel studied at the Paris Institute of Political Studies. The young Claudel considered entering a monastery, but instead had a career in the French diplomatic service, in which he served from 1893 to 1936. Claudel was first vice-consul in New York (April 1893), and later in Boston (December 1893). He was French consul in China during the period 1895 to 1909, with time in Shanghai (June 1895). On a break in 1900, he spent time at Ligugé Abbey, but his proposed entry to the Benedictine Order was postponed. Claudel returned to China as vice-consul in Fuzhou (October 1900). He had a further break in France in 1905–6, when he married. He was one of a group of writers enjoying the support and patronage of Philippe Berthelot of the Foreign Ministry, who became a close friend; others were Jean Giraudoux, Paul Morand and Saint-John Perse. Because of his position in the Diplomatic Service, at the beginning of his career Claudel published either anonymously or under a pseudonym, "since permission to publish was needed from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs". For that reason, Claudel remained rather obscure as an author to 1909, unwilling to ask permission to publish under his own name because the permission might not be granted. In that year, the founding group of the Nouvelle Revue Française (NRF), and in particular his friend André Gide, were keen to recognise his work. Claudel sent them, for the first issue, the poem Hymne du Sacre-Sacrement, to fulsome praise from Gide, and it was published under his name. He had not sought permission to publish, and there was a furore in which he was criticised. Attacks based on his religious views were in February also affecting the production of one of his plays. Berthelot's advice was to ignore the critics. The affair began a long collaboration of the NRF with Claudel. Claudel also wrote extensively about China, with a definitive version of his Connaissance de l'Est published in 1914 by Georges Crès and Victor Segalen. In his final posting to China, he was consul in Tianjin (1906–1909). ... Source: Article "Paul Claudel" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Xana Tang

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Xana Tang is a Chinese-Vietnamese actor who was born in New Zealand. She studied at the Auckland University of Technology and holds Bachelor degree in Communication Studies. Xana Tang made her screen breakthrough at sixteen years old as 'Spit' in director Michael Bennett's award-winning feature film Matariki. Following this, she was cast as a lead in Thedownlowconcept's Greyhound racing television comedy Hounds. The show went on to win Best Television Comedy Series at the 2012 New Zealand Film and Television Awards. Her notable screen roles since include; The Almighty Johnsons, Power Rangers, and Cherry, a major supporting role, in both seasons of the television drama Filthy Rich. In 2017, Xana made her Australian screen debut when she was cast in the highly anticipated Australian comedy series - The Letdown. Xana speaks fluent English and Cantonese and studied Mandarin for five years.
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Jesse Heiman

Biography

Jesse Wayne Heiman (born May 23, 1978) is an American actor and comedian, best known for his uncredited work as an extra in a wide variety of films and television shows and for appearing with Bar Refaeli and Danica Patrick in a Go Daddy commercial at Super Bowl XLVII, in which Refaeli, a supermodel, and Heiman share a graphic french kiss. On April 11, 2011 Jesse appeared as a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno alongside Jamie Foxx. Despite his age, he still portrays teenagers and young adults as an extra. As a play on the Go Daddy commercial, singer Michael Bublé cast Heiman in the opening scene of his video "It's a Beautiful Day" where Bublé walks in on Jaime Pressly, who plays his significant other in the comical video, and Heiman sharing a kiss, to which Bublé responds by singing the song. Description above from the Wikipedia article Jesse Heiman, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Natalie Britton

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Natalie has played Catherine alongside Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson and Jim Broadbent in “Perrier’s Bounty” and Susan Sanders in Noel Clarkes “4.3.2.1”. Her TV credits include “NCIS:LA” opposite Chris O’Donnell and she is appeared in a lead role of Detective Robinson in “A Date to Die For” on Lifetime. Her stage credits include various professional Shakespeare productions, Elsie Mandelspiegel in “The Time of Your Life” at the Finborough Theatre and Janice Keating in the world premiere of “Corktown ’57” at The Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles.
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