1.
Alan Arkin
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Alan Wolf Arkin is an American actor, director, musician, and singer. He has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor twice for his performances in The Russians Are Coming and he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Little Miss Sunshine and received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his performance in Argo. Arkin was born Alan Wolf Arkin in Brooklyn, New York City] on March 26,1934, Arkin, a painter and writer, and his wife, Beatrice, a teacher. He was raised in a Jewish family with no emphasis on religion and his grandparents were immigrants from Ukraine, Russia, and Germany. His parents moved to Los Angeles when Alan was 11, during the 1950s Red Scare, Arkins parents were accused of being Communists, and his father was fired when he refused to answer questions about his political ideology. David Arkin challenged the dismissal, but he was vindicated only after his death, Arkin attended Los Angeles City College from 1951 to 1953. With two friends, he formed the music group The Tarriers, in which Arkin sang. It reached #4 on the Billboard magazine chart the year as Harry Belafontes better-known hit version. The group appeared in the 1957 Calypso-exploitation film Calypso Heat Wave, singing Banana Boat Song, from 1958 to 1968, Arkin performed and recorded with the childrens folk group, The Baby Sitters. He also performed the role of Dr. Pangloss in a staging of Leonard Bernsteins operetta Candide, alongside Madeline Kahns Cunegonde. Arkin was an member of the Second City comedy troupe in the 1960s. Arkin is one of six actors to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his first screen appearance. Two years later, he was nominated, for The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. In 1968, he appeared in the role of Inspector Clouseau after Peter Sellers disassociated himself from the role. His portrayal of Dr. Oatman, a scared and emotionally conflicted psychiatrist treating John Cusacks hit man character Martin Q, Blank in Grosse Point Blank was also well received. At 72 years old, Arkin was the sixth oldest winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, on Broadway, Arkin starred in Enter Laughing and Luv. He also directed The Sunshine Boys, among others, in 1969, Arkins directorial debut was a 12-minute childrens film titled People Soup, starring his sons Adam and Matthew Arkin. His most acclaimed directorial effort is Little Murders, released in 1971, the film opened to a lukewarm review by Roger Greenspan, and a more positive one by Vincent Canby in the New York Times
2.
Sidney Lumet
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Sidney Arthur Lumet was an American director, producer and screenwriter with over 50 films to his credit. He was nominated for the Academy Award as Best Director for 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, and The Verdict. The Encyclopedia of Hollywood states that Lumet was one of the most prolific filmmakers of the modern era and he was noted by Turner Classic Movies for his strong direction of actors, vigorous storytelling and the social realism in his best work. Film critic Roger Ebert described him as having one of the finest craftsmen. Lumet was also known as an director, having worked with the best of them during his career. Sean Connery, who acted in five of his films, considered him one of his directors. A member of the cohort of New Yorks Actors Studio, Lumet began his directorial career in Off-Broadway productions. His first movie was typical of his best work, a well-acted, tightly written, as a result of directing 12 Angry Men, he was also responsible for leading the first wave of directors who made a successful transition from TV to movies. In 2005, Lumet received an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement for his brilliant services to screenwriters, performers, two years later, he concluded his career with the acclaimed drama Before the Devil Knows Youre Dead. A few months after Lumets death in April 2011, a celebration of his work was held at New Yorks Lincoln Center with the appearance of numerous speakers. In 2015, Nancy Buirski directed By Sidney Lumet, a documentary about his career, Lumet was born in Philadelphia to parents of Jewish descent. He studied theater acting at the Professional Childrens School of New York, Lumets parents, Baruch and Eugenia Lumet, were both veterans of the Yiddish theatre. His father, who was an actor, director, producer and writer, was a Polish Jewish emigrant to the United States who was born in Warsaw, Lumets mother, who was a dancer, died when he was a child. He made his debut on radio at age four and stage debut at the Yiddish Art Theatre at age five. As a child he appeared in many Broadway plays, including 1935s Dead End. In 1935, aged 11, he appeared in a Henry Lynn short film, Papirossen, the film was shown in a theatrical play with the same title, based on a hit song, Papirosn. The play and short film appeared in the Bronx McKinley Square Theatre, in 1939, he made his only feature-length film appearance, at age 15, in. One Third of a Nation. In 1939, World War II interrupted his acting career
3.
Manhattan
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Manhattan is the most densely populated borough of New York City, its economic and administrative center, and the citys historical birthplace. The borough is coextensive with New York County, founded on November 1,1683, Manhattan is often described as the cultural and financial capital of the world and hosts the United Nations Headquarters. Many multinational media conglomerates are based in the borough and it is historically documented to have been purchased by Dutch colonists from Native Americans in 1626 for 60 guilders which equals US$1062 today. New York County is the United States second-smallest county by land area, on business days, the influx of commuters increases that number to over 3.9 million, or more than 170,000 people per square mile. Manhattan has the third-largest population of New York Citys five boroughs, after Brooklyn and Queens, the City of New York was founded at the southern tip of Manhattan, and the borough houses New York City Hall, the seat of the citys government. The name Manhattan derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, a 1610 map depicts the name as Manna-hata, twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River. The word Manhattan has been translated as island of hills from the Lenape language. The United States Postal Service prefers that mail addressed to Manhattan use New York, NY rather than Manhattan, the area that is now Manhattan was long inhabited by the Lenape Native Americans. In 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano – sailing in service of King Francis I of France – was the first European to visit the area that would become New York City. It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company, a permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624 with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on the citadel of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, later called New Amsterdam, the 1625 establishment of Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is recognized as the birth of New York City. In 1846, New York historian John Romeyn Brodhead converted the figure of Fl 60 to US$23, variable-rate myth being a contradiction in terms, the purchase price remains forever frozen at twenty-four dollars, as Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace remarked in their history of New York. Sixty guilders in 1626 was valued at approximately $1,000 in 2006, based on the price of silver, Straight Dope author Cecil Adams calculated an equivalent of $72 in 1992. In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director General of the colony, New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2,1653. In 1664, the English conquered New Netherland and renamed it New York after the English Duke of York and Albany, the Dutch Republic regained it in August 1673 with a fleet of 21 ships, renaming the city New Orange. Manhattan was at the heart of the New York Campaign, a series of battles in the early American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army was forced to abandon Manhattan after the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16,1776. The city, greatly damaged by the Great Fire of New York during the campaign, became the British political, British occupation lasted until November 25,1783, when George Washington returned to Manhattan, as the last British forces left the city
4.
Law & Order
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Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It originally aired on NBC and, in syndication, on cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13,1990, and completed its 20th, at the time of its cancellation, Law & Order was the longest-running crime drama on American primetime television. Its record of 20 seasons is a tie with Gunsmoke for the longest-running live-action scripted American prime-time series with ongoing characters, although it has fewer episodes than Gunsmoke, Law & Order ranks as the longest-running hour-long primetime TV series. Gunsmoke, for its first six seasons, was originally a half-hour program, plots are often based on real cases that recently made headlines, although the motivation for the crime and the perpetrator may be different. The show has been noted for its revolving cast over the years, the success of the series has led to the creation of additional shows, making Law & Order a franchise, with also a television film, several video games, and international adaptations of the series. It has won and has been nominated for awards over the years. On May 14,2010, NBC announced that it had canceled Law & Order, in July 2010, however, he indicated that those attempts had failed and declared that the series had now moved to the history books. However, in February 2015, rumors started that NBC was planning to bring the back for 10 episodes. In May 2015, former star Sam Waterston announced to The Hollywood Reporter that he supports and would join a revival of Law & Order, saying, Youre darn right. Creator Dick Wolf has expressed wanting to use a L&O revival to do a ripped from the headlines story-line surrounding the trial of Robert Durst. Everybody who knows me knows its something I want to do, he continued, at the 2015 Television Critics Association summer press tour, Wolf noted everyone wants a revival, It is a question of. Most of the involved are very successful in their careers. To try to get everything in sequence is more difficult than it looks on the outside. I would love to do it if we can make it work, in 1988, Dick Wolf developed a concept for a new television series that would depict a relatively optimistic picture of the American criminal justice system. He initially toyed with the idea of calling it Night & Day, the first half of each episode would follow two detectives and their commanding officer as they investigate a violent crime. The second half of the episode would follow the District Attorneys Office, through this, Law & Order would be able to investigate some of the larger issues of the day by focusing on stories that were based on real cases making headlines. Wolf took the idea to then-president of Universal Television Kerry McCluggage, who pointed out the similarity to a 1963 series titled Arrest and Trial, which lasted one season
5.
Kerry Washington
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Kerry Marisa Washington is an American actress. She has also starred in the independent films Our Song, The Dead Girl, Mother and Child, in 2016, she portrayed Anita Hill in the HBO television film Confirmation and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or a Movie. In April 2014, Time magazine included Washington in its annual Time 100 list, Washington was born in the Bronx, New York City, the daughter of Valerie, a professor and educational consultant, and Earl Washington, a real estate broker. Her fathers family is of African American origin, having migrated from South Carolina to Brooklyn, through her mother, she is a cousin of the former U. S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. Youth Theater teen group and attended the Spence School in Manhattan from her pre-teen years until graduating high school in 1994. At age 13, she was taken to watch Nelson Mandela speak at Yankee Stadium upon his release from prison and she attended George Washington University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1998 with a double major in anthropology and sociology. She also studied at Michael Howard Studios in New York City, in April 2016, Washington confirmed that, in the 1990s in New York, she learned to dance from Jennifer Lopez. During her appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, she told host Jimmy Fallon that Ive been taking dance for a long time, but, then she left to move to Los Angeles and be on the TV show In Living Color. So, yes, I learned to dance from JLo, Washington got her Screen Actors Guild card as a requirement for a commercial that she starred in. Washington made her debut in the ABC telefilm Magical Make-Over. She was in the cast of the 1996 PBS sketch comedy-style educational series Standard Deviants, and she appeared in the short 3D and she went on to appear in several movies, including Save the Last Dance and The Human Stain. In 2004, she played the lead in Spike Lees She Hate Me. After 2004, she held parts in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Little Man, I Think I Love My Wife, and as a wife of 1970s Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the UK historical drama The Last King of Scotland. Washington has also appeared in the role of Chelina Hall on the ABC television series Boston Legal. Washington narrated the acclaimed documentary about the New Orleans-based teenage TBC Brass Band. She also appears in Maxwells Bad Habits video, in 2010, she made her Broadway debut in David Mamets Race, alongside James Spader, David Alan Grier, and Richard Thomas. She also appeared in Tyler Perrys 2010 film For Colored Girls, in October 2011, it was confirmed that she would star in Quentin Tarantinos film Django Unchained, which was released in 2012 and received widespread critical acclaim. She was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts, in 2013, Washington ranked No.2 in People magazines 100 Most Beautiful people and was named Woman of the Year by Glamour magazine
6.
Cable television
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This contrasts with broadcast television, in which the television signal is transmitted over the air by radio waves and received by a television antenna attached to the television. FM radio programming, high-speed Internet, telephone services, and similar non-television services may also be provided through these cables, analog television was standard in the 20th century, but since the 2000s, cable systems have been upgraded to digital cable operation. A cable channel is a television network available via cable television, alternative terms include non-broadcast channel or programming service, the latter being mainly used in legal contexts. Examples of cable/satellite channels/cable networks available in many countries are HBO, MTV, Cartoon Network, E. Eurosport, the abbreviation CATV is often used for cable television. It originally stood for Community Access Television or Community Antenna Television, in areas where over-the-air TV reception was limited by distance from transmitters or mountainous terrain, large community antennas were constructed, and cable was run from them to individual homes. The origins of cable broadcasting for radio are even older as radio programming was distributed by cable in some European cities as far back as 1924, Cable television has gone through a series of steps of evolution in the United States and Canada. Particularly in Canada, communities with their own signals were fertile cable markets, as viewers wanted to receive American signals. Early systems carried only a maximum of seven channels, using 2,4,5 or 6,7,9,11 and 13, as the equipment was unable to confine the signal discreetly within the assigned channel bandwidth. The reason 4 and 5 along with 6 and 7 could be used together was because of the 4 MHz gap between 4 and 5 and the nearly 90 MHz gap between 6 and 7. Even though eight channels are listed, in systems that maximized 7 channels. As equipment improved, all channels could be utilized, except where a local VHF television station broadcast. Local broadcast channels were not usable for signals deemed to be priority, later, the cable operators began to carry FM radio stations, and encouraged subscribers to connect their FM stereo sets to cable. Before stereo and bilingual TV sound became common, Pay-TV channel sound was added to the FM stereo cable line-ups, about this time, operators expanded beyond the 12-channel dial to use the midband and superband VHF channels adjacent to the high band 7-13 of North American television frequencies. Some operators as in Cornwall, Ontario, used a dual distribution network with Channels 2-13 on each of the two cables, during the 1980s, United States regulations not unlike public, educational, and government access created the beginning of cable-originated live television programming. These stations evolved partially into todays over-the-air digital subchannels, where a main broadcast TV station e. g, many live local programs with local interests were subsequently created all over the United States in most major television markets in the early 1980s. This evolved into todays many cable-only broadcasts of diverse programming, including cable-only produced television movies and miniseries, Cable specialty channels, starting with channels oriented to show movies and large sporting or performance events, diversified further, and narrowcasting became common. By the late 1980s, cable-only signals outnumbered broadcast signals on cable systems, by the mid-1980s in Canada, cable operators were allowed by the regulator to enter into distribution contracts with cable networks on their own. By the 1990s, tiers became common, with customers able to subscribe to different tiers to obtain different selections of additional channels above the basic selection, by subscribing to additional tiers, customers could get specialty channels, movie channels, and foreign channels
7.
Judy Reyes
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Judy Reyes is an American television actress, best known for her roles as Carla Espinosa on the NBC/ABC sitcom Scrubs, and as Zoila Diaz in the Lifetime comedy-drama Devious Maids. Reyes was born in The Bronx, New York to Dominican immigrants and has three sisters, including a sister named Joselin, who played a paramedic on Law & Order. Reyes grew up on Bainbridge Avenue, from the age of 13 to the age of 25-26 and she attended Hunter College in Manhattan, where she began her acting career. In the early 1990s, Reyes began her career with guest starring roles in number of shows, including Law & Order, NYPD Blue. She also had a role in Oz as Tina Rivera. She is best known for her portrayal of nurse Carla Espinosa on the NBC comedy Scrubs from 2001 to 2009. She has starred in a number of made for television movies, primarily for Lifetime network, including Little Girl Lost, The Delimar Vera Story, and The Pregnancy Project. After leaving Scrubs, Reyes guest-starred in several shows, including Castle, Medium, Off the Map, in 2011 she starred as a mother dealing with the return into her life of her estranged husband after his stint in prison in the independent drama Gun Hill Road. The film is set in Reyes native Bronx, and its title refers to a street that intersects Bainbridge Avenue on which Reyes herself grew up. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, Reyes also had small supporting roles in several films, including Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God. Be Back by Five, Bringing Out the Dead, Washington Heights, in 2012, Reyes was cast as series regular Zoila Diaz, the senior maid, in the ABC comedy-drama pilot Devious Maids, created by Marc Cherry. On May 14,2012, the series was not picked up by ABC, the series premiered June 23,2013. The Devious Maids finale episode aired on August 8,2016, Reyes was married to writer/director Edwin M. Figueroa for 11 years before they divorced. Reyes and her boyfriend George Valencia have a daughter, Leila Rey Valencia, judy Reyes at the Internet Movie Database
8.
The Pawnbroker (film)
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The Pawnbroker is a 1964 film directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Rod Steiger, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Brock Peters, Jaime Sánchez and Morgan Freeman in his feature film debut. It was adapted by Morton S. Fine and David Friedkin from the novel of the name by Edward Lewis Wallant. It was the first American film to deal with the Holocaust from the viewpoint of a survivor and it earned international acclaim for Steiger, launching his career as an A-list actor. The film was among the first American movies to feature nudity during the Production Code, although it was publicly announced to be a special exception, the controversy proved to be first of similar major challenges to the Code that ultimately led to its abandonment. In 2008, The Pawnbroker was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. With the rise of Adolf Hitler, Sol Nazerman, a German-Jewish university professor, was dragged to a camp along with his family. He saw his two children die and his wife raped by Nazi officers in the camp, now he operates a pawnshop in East Harlem, while living in an anonymous Long Island apartment. Numbed by his experiences, he has worked hard not to experience emotions, Nazerman is bitter and alienated, viewing the people around him as rejects, scum. He is shown interacting cynically as he bargains with the many desperate characters pawning their goods, Nazerman learns that Rodriguez, a racketeer who uses the pawnshop as a front, makes his money through prostitution. Nazerman recalls his wifes degradation and wants no part of it and this results in a clash with Rodriguez, who threatens to kill Nazerman. Meanwhile, Ortiz, his feelings hurt when Nazerman says that Ortiz means nothing to him, during the robbery, Nazerman refuses to hand over his money. Ortiz takes the gang members bullet intended for Nazerman and dies in Nazermans arms in the street. He received $50,000 for his performance, far lower than his usual rate, because he trusted Lumet, Lumet, who took over the film after Arthur Hiller was fired, initially had misgivings about Steiger being cast in the lead role. He felt that Steiger was a rather tasteless actor—awfully talented, Lumet preferred James Mason for the role, and comic Groucho Marx was among the actors who had wanted to play Nazerman. However, Steiger pleasantly surprised Lumet when he agreed with him during rehearsals on the repression of the characters feelings, Lumet felt that ultimately Steiger worked out fine. In a 1999 televised interview, actor Rod Steiger revealed an inspiration he took from a source of art. The scene in the film was in the last minutes of The Pawnbroker, the Pawnbroker tells the story of a man whose spiritual death in the concentration camps causes him to bury himself in the most dismal location that he can find, a slum in upper Manhattan. Lumet told the New York Times in an interview during the filming that and its outside Harlem, in housing projects, office buildings, even the Long Island suburbs, everywhere we show on the screen—that everything is conformist, sterile, dead
9.
Bailiff
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A bailiff is a manager, overseer or custodian, a legal officer to whom some degree of authority or jurisdiction is given. Bailiffs are of various kinds and their offices and duties vary greatly, another official sometimes referred to as a bailiff was the vogt, see Vogt and Vogt. In the Holy Roman Empire a similar function was performed by the Amtmann, Bailiff was the term used by the Normans for what the Saxons had called a reeve, the officer responsible for executing the decisions of a court. The duty of the bailiff would thus include serving summonses and orders, the district within which the bailiff operated was called his bailiwick, even to the present day. Bailiffs were outsiders and free men, that is, they were not usually from the bailiwick they were responsible for. Throughout Norman England, the Saxon and Norman populations gradually mixed, primarily then, bailiff referred to the officer executing the decisions of manorial courts, and the hundred courts. Likewise, in Scotland a bailie was the officer of a barony. With the introduction of Justices of the Peace, magistrates courts acquired their own bailiffs, historically, courts were not always concerned with legal matters, and often decided administrative matters for the area within their jurisdiction. A bailiff of a manor, therefore, would oversee the manors lands and buildings, collect its rents, manage its accounts. In the 19th century, the functions of courts were mostly replaced by the creation of elected local authorities. Nevertheless, the bailiff is retained as a title by the chief officers of various towns and the keepers of royal castles, such as the High Bailiff of Westminster. In Scotland, bailie now refers to an officer corresponding to an English alderman. The high court acquired the sheriffs, the county court the bailiffs, to avoid confusion with their underlings, the County Courts Act 1888 renamed bailifs as High Bailiffs. This act also formally acknowledged the High Bailiffs right to appoint under-bailiffs as he wished, the High Bailiff gradually became a purely ceremonial role, the courts clerk liaising with under-bailiffs directly. The Law of Distress Amendment Act 1888 enacts that no person may act as an under-bailiff to levy any distress for rent, unless he is authorized by a county court judge to act as an under-bailiff. The County Courts Act 1888 restricted the hours an under-bailiff could execute a possession warrant and it also limited the ability to bring a legal complaint against a bailiff, six days notice now had to be given. In the Channel Islands the bailiff is the first civil officer in each of the two bailiwicks and he is appointed by the Crown, and holds office until retirement. He presides as a judge in the court, and takes the opinions of the jurats, he also presides over the states
10.
Anna Deavere Smith
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Anna Deavere Smith is an American actress, playwright, and professor. She is currently the artist-in-residence at the Center for American Progress, Smith is widely known for her roles as National Security Advisor Dr. Nancy McNally in The West Wing, and as hospital administrator Gloria Akalitus in the Showtime series Nurse Jackie. She is a recipient of The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, one of the richest prizes in the American arts, with a remuneration of $300,000, and was named the Jefferson Lecturer for 2015. Smith was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of Anna Rosalind, a school principal. Smith is an alumna of the historic Western High School and she then studied acting at Beaver College, graduating in 1971. She received her M. F. A. in Acting from the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, for the role, Smith transformed herself into a Cajun voodoo woman, an indication of the actress transformational power that would manifest itself in her future work. Fires in the Mirror dealt with the 1991 Crown Heights riot, Twilight, both of these plays were constructed using material solely from interviews. House Arrest and Let Me Down Easy continued in this style, Let Me Down Easy, which explored the resiliency and vulnerability of the human body, debuted at the Long Wharf Theatre in January 2008. It was also performed at the American Repertory Theater in September and October 2008, a revised version of the show had its New York City premiere Off-Broadway at Second Stage Theatre in October 2009 and enjoyed favorable reviews and an extension into January 2010. It was also a program as part of PBSs Great Performances series on January 13,2012. She debuted her one-woman play, The Arizona Project in Phoenix, Arizona, as of July 2009, Smith is the artist-in-residence with the Center for American Progress and is developing a new show called The Americans, which documents change in Washington, D. C. Commissioned by Grace Cathedral and the Cockayne Fund, Smith wrote and performed the play, On Grace, the performances were accompanied by American cellist Joshua Roman. Smith has appeared in films, including Philadelphia, Dave, The American President, Rent. She had recurring roles on The Practice and as Dr. Nancy McNally on The West Wing, Smith also appeared as hospital administrator Gloria Akalitus in the Showtime dark comedy series Nurse Jackie, which premiered in June 2009. Early in her career, she appeared on the long running soap opera All My Children in the recurring role of Hazel the shampoo girl. In February 2014, Smith appeared as a mentor in Anna Deavere Smith, A YoungArts Masterclass, Smith teaches in the Department of Art & Public Policy at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. From 1990 to 2000, she was a professor in the department at Stanford University. She also teaches at NYU School of Law, in 2000, Smith published her first book, Talk to Me, Travels in Media and Politics
