1.
Wimbledon, London
–
Wimbledon had a population of 68,187 in 2011 which includes the electoral wards of Abbey, Dundonald, Hillside, Trinity, Village, Raynes Park and Wimbledon Park. It is home to the Wimbledon Tennis Championships and New Wimbledon Theatre, Wimbledon has been inhabited since at least the Iron Age when the hill fort on Wimbledon Common is thought to have been constructed. In 1087 when the Domesday Book was compiled, Wimbledon was part of the manor of Mortlake, the village developed with a stable rural population coexisting alongside nobility and wealthy merchants from the city. The location of the station shifted the focus of the subsequent growth away from the original village centre. Since 2005, the north and west of the Borough has been represented in Westminster by Stephen Hammond, the eastern and southern of the Borough are represented by Siobhain McDonagh, a Labour MP. It has established minority groups, among the most prominent are British Asians, British Ghanaians, Wimbledon has been inhabited since at least the Iron Age when the hill fort on Wimbledon Common, the second-largest in London, is thought to have been constructed. The original nucleus of Wimbledon was at the top of the close to the common – the area now known locally as the village. The village is referred to as Wimbedounyng in a signed by King Edgar the Peaceful in 967. The name Wimbledon means Wynnmans hill, with the element of the name being the Old English dun. At the time the Domesday Book was compiled, Wimbledon was part of the manor of Mortlake, the ownership of the manor of Wimbledon changed hands many times during its history. The manor was held by the church until 1398 when Thomas Arundel, the manor was confiscated and became crown property. The manor remained crown property until the reign of Henry VIII when it was granted briefly to Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, until Cromwell was executed in 1540 and the land was again confiscated. The manor was held by Henry VIIIs last wife and widow Catherine Parr until her death in 1548 when it again reverted to the monarch. In the 1550s, Henrys daughter, Mary I, granted the manor to Cardinal Reginald Pole who held it until his death in 1558 when it again become royal property. Marys sister, Elizabeth I held the property until 1574 when she gave the house to Christopher Hatton who sold it in the same year to Sir Thomas Cecil. The lands of the manor were given to the Cecil family in 1588, the Cecil family retained the manor for fifty years before it was bought by Charles I in 1638 for his Queen, Henrietta Maria. On his death in 1677 the manor was sold on again to the Lord High Treasurer, Thomas Osborne, the Osborne family sold the manor to Sir Theodore Janssen in 1712. Janssen, a director of the South Sea Company, began a new house to replace the Cecil-built manor house but, due to the collapse of the company
2.
London
–
London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
3.
British people
–
British people, or Britons, are the citizens of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown dependencies, and their descendants. British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, which can be acquired, for instance, although early assertions of being British date from the Late Middle Ages, the creation of the united Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 triggered a sense of British national identity. The notion of Britishness was forged during the Napoleonic Wars between Britain and the First French Empire, and developed further during the Victorian era, because of longstanding ethno-sectarian divisions, British identity in Northern Ireland is controversial, but it is held with strong conviction by unionists. Modern Britons are descended mainly from the ethnic groups that settled in the British Isles in and before the 11th century, Prehistoric, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse. The British are a diverse, multi-national and multicultural society, with regional accents, expressions. Although none of his own writings remain, writers during the time of the Roman Empire made much reference to them, the group included Ireland, which was referred to as Ierne inhabited by the different race of Hiberni, and Britain as insula Albionum, island of the Albions. The term Pritani may have reached Pytheas from the Gauls, who used it as their term for the inhabitants of the islands. Greek and Roman writers, in the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, name the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland as the Priteni, the origin of the Latin word Britanni. It has been suggested that name derives from a Gaulish description translated as people of the forms. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a name for the British Isles. However, the term Britannia persisted as the Latin name for the island, during the Middle Ages, and particularly in the Tudor period, the term British was used to refer to the Welsh people and Cornish people. At that time, it was the held belief that these were the remaining descendants of the ancient Britons. This notion was supported by such as the Historia Regum Britanniae. Wales and Cornwall, and north, i. e. Cumbria, Strathclyde and this legendary Celtic history of Great Britain is known as the Matter of Britain. The indigenous people of the British Isles have a combination of Celtic, Norse, Anglo-Saxon, oppenheimer continues that the majority of the people of the British Isles share genetic commonalities with the Basques, ranging from highs of 90% in Wales to lows of 66% in East Anglia. Oppenheimers opinion is that. by far the majority of male gene types in the British Isles derive from Iberia, ranging from a low of 59% in Fakenham, Norfolk to highs of 96% in Llangefni, north Wales. The English had been unified under a single state in 937 by King Athelstan of Wessex after the Battle of Brunanburh. However, historian Simon Schama suggested that it was Edward I of England who was responsible for provoking the peoples of Britain into an awareness of their nationhood in the 13th century
4.
Photographer
–
A photographer is a person who makes photographs. As in other arts, the definitions of amateur and professional are not entirely categorical, a professional photographer is likely to take photographs to make money, by salary or through the display, sale or use of those photographs. An amateur photographer may take photographs for pleasure and to record an event, emotion, place, as a person without a monetary motivation. A professional photographer may be an employee, for example of a newspaper, or may contract to cover a planned event such as a wedding or graduation. Others, including paparazzi and fine art photographers, are freelancers, first making a picture, some workers, such as crime scene detectives, estate agents, journalists and scientists, make photographs as part of other work. Photographers who produce moving rather than still pictures are often called cinematographers, videographers or camera operators, an amateur may make considerable sums entering work in contests for prize money or through occasional inclusion of their work in magazines or the archive of a photo agency. The term professional may also imply preparation, for example, by academic study, Photographers are also categorized based on the subjects they photograph. Some photographers explore subjects typical of such as landscape, still life. The exclusive right of photographers to copy and use their products is protected by copyright, countless industries purchase photographs for use in publications and on products. This is usually referred to as usage fee and is used to distinguish from production fees, an additional contract and royalty would apply for each additional use of the photograph. The contract may be for one year, or other duration. The photographer usually charges a royalty as well as a one-time fee, the contract may be for non-exclusive use of the photograph or for exclusive use of the photograph. The contract can also stipulate that the photographer is entitled to audit the company for determination of royalty payments. A royalty is also based on the size at which the photo will be used in a magazine or book. Photos taken by a photographer working on assignment are often work for hire belonging to the company or publication unless stipulated otherwise by contract. There are major companies who have maintained catalogues of stock photography and images for decades, such as Getty Images, commercial photographers may also promote their work to advertising and editorial art buyers via printed and online marketing vehicles. Many people upload their photographs to social networking websites and other websites and those interested in legal precision may explicitly release them to the public domain or under a free content license. Some sites, including Wikimedia Commons, are punctilious about licenses, the dictionary definition of photographer at Wiktionary Media related to Photographers at Wikimedia Commons
5.
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
–
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, a West End theatre, is a Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane, the building is the most recent in a line of four theatres which were built at the same location, the earliest of which dated back to 1663, making it the oldest theatre site in London still in use. According to the author Peter Thomson, for its first two centuries, Drury Lane could reasonably have claimed to be Londons leading theatre. For most of time, it was one of a handful of patent theatres. The first theatre on the site was built at the behest of Thomas Killigrew in the early 1660s, when theatres were allowed to reopen during the English Restoration. Initially known as Theatre Royal in Bridges Street, the proprietors hired a number of prominent actors who performed at the theatre on a regular basis, including Nell Gwyn. In 1672 the theatre caught fire and Killigrew built a theatre on the same plot, renamed the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. This building lasted nearly 120 years, under the leaderships of Colley Cibber, David Garrick and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, in 1791, under Sheridans management, the building was demolished to make way for a larger theatre which opened in 1794. This new Drury Lane survived for 15 years before burning down in 1809, the building that stands today opened in 1812. It has been the residency of a number of known actors including, Edmund Kean, comedian Dan Leno. From the Second World War, the theatre has primarily hosted long runs of musicals and my Fair Lady, 42nd Street and Miss Saigon, the theatres longest-running show. The theatre is owned by the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, soon after, Charles issued Letters Patent to two parties licensing the formation of new acting companies. One of these went to Thomas Killigrew, whose company became known as the Kings Company, the new playhouse, architect unknown, opened on 7 May 1663 and was known from the placement of the entrance as the Theatre Royal in Bridges Street. It went by names as well, including the Kings Playhouse. The building was a wooden structure,112 feet long and 59 feet wide. Set well back from the streets, the theatre was accessed by narrow passages between surrounding buildings. The King himself frequently attended the productions, as did Samuel Pepys. The day after the Theatre Royal opened, Pepys attended a performance of Francis Beaumont, performances usually began at 3 pm to take advantage of the daylight, the main floor for the audience, the pit, had no roof in order to let in the light
6.
Marc Bolan
–
Marc Bolan was an English singer-songwriter, musician, guitarist, and poet. He was best known as the singer of the glam rock band T. Rex. Bolan was one of the first pioneers of the rock movement of the 1970s. He died at age 29 in a car accident in September 1977, Bolan grew up in Stoke Newington Common, in the borough of Hackney, east London, the son of Phyllis Winifred and Simeon Feld, a lorry driver. His father was an Ashkenazi Jew of Russian/Polish extraction, later moving to Wimbledon, southwest London, he fell in love with the rock and roll of Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, Arthur Crudup and Chuck Berry and hung around coffee bars such as the 2is in Soho. He was a pupil at Northwold Primary School, Upper Clapton and he appeared as an extra in an episode of the television show Orlando, dressed as a mod. At the age of nine, Bolan was given his first guitar, while at school, he played guitar in Susie and the Hula Hoops, a trio whose vocalist was a 12-year-old Helen Shapiro. During lunch breaks at school, he would play his guitar in the playground to an audience of friends. At 15, he was expelled from school for bad behaviour and he briefly joined a modelling agency and became a John Temple Boy, appearing in a clothing catalogue for the menswear store. He was a model for the suits in their catalogues as well as for cardboard cut-outs to be displayed in shop windows, town magazine featured him as an early example of the mod movement in a photo spread with two other models. This recording is now regarded as possibly the very first known track that the young Mark had put to professional studio tape, There are, however, claims that Marc’s very first recording was with Joe Meek. This is based on a scratchy anonymous acetate disc discovered by the Joe Meek fan club and this recording, a song called Mrs Jones, is thought to date from 1963. Mark Feld then changed his stage-name to Toby Tyler when he met and moved in with child actor Allan Warren, who became his second manager. This encounter afforded Bolan a lifeline to the heart of show business, Bolan at this time liked to appear in boho-chic, wearing a corduroy peaked cap similar to his current source of inspiration, Bob Dylan. A series of photographs was commissioned with photographer Michael McGrath, although he recalls that Bolan left no impression on him at the time, Warren also hired a recording studio and had Bolans first acetates cut. Two tracks were released, the Bob Dylan song Blowin in the Wind. A version of Betty Everetts Youre No Good was later submitted to EMI for a test screening but was turned down, a year or so later, Bolans mother pushed into Kirchs office and shouted at him that he had done nothing for her son. She demanded he tear up the contract and willingly he complied, the tapes of the first two tracks produced during the Toby Tyler recording session vanished for over 25 years before resurfacing in 1991 and selling for nearly $8,000
7.
Alan Bennett
–
Alan Bennett is a British playwright, screenwriter, actor and author. He was born in Leeds and attended Oxford University where he studied history and he stayed to teach and research medieval history at the university for several years. His collaboration as writer and performer with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook in the satirical revue Beyond the Fringe at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival brought him instant fame. He gave up academia, and turned to writing full-time, his first stage play Forty Years On being produced in 1968, Bennett was born in Armley in Leeds. The youngest son of a butcher, Walter, and his wife Lilian Mary, Bennett attended Christ Church, Upper Armley, Church of England School. He learned Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists during his service before applying for a scholarship at Oxford University. He was accepted by Exeter College, Oxford, from which he graduated with a degree in history. While at Oxford he performed comedy with a number of successful actors in the Oxford Revue. He was to remain at the university for several years, where he researched and taught Medieval History, in August 1960 Bennett, along with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook, achieved instant fame by appearing at the Edinburgh Festival in the satirical revue Beyond the Fringe. After the festival, the show continued in London and New York and he also appeared in My Father Knew Lloyd George. His highly regarded television comedy sketch series On the Margin was unfortunately erased, however, in 2014 it was announced that copies of the entire series had been found. Bennetts first stage play Forty Years On, directed by Patrick Garland, was produced in 1968, many television, stage and radio plays followed, with screenplays, short stories, novellas, a large body of non-fictional prose, and broadcasting and many appearances as an actor. Bennetts distinctive, expressive voice and the humour and evident humanity of his writing have made his readings of his work very popular. Bennetts readings of the Winnie the Pooh stories are widely enjoyed. Many of Bennetts characters are unfortunate and downtrodden, life has brought them to an impasse or else passed them by. In many cases they have met with disappointment in the realm of sex and intimate relationships, largely through tentativeness and a failure to connect with others. Despite a long history both the National Theatre and the BBC - Bennett never writes on commission, declaring I dont work on commission. If people dont want it then its too bad, Bennett is both unsparing and compassionate in laying bare his characters frailties
8.
John Gielgud
–
Sir Arthur John Gielgud OM CH was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trio of actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. A member of the Terry family theatrical dynasty, he gained his first paid acting work as a member of his cousin Phyllis Neilson-Terrys company in 1922. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art he worked in repertory theatre, during the 1930s Gielgud was a stage star in the West End and on Broadway, appearing in new works and classics. He began a career as a director, and set up his own company at the Queens Theatre. He was regarded by many as the finest Hamlet of his era, in the 1950s Gielgud feared that his career was threatened when he was convicted and fined for a homosexual offence, but his colleagues and the public supported him loyally. From the late 1960s he found new plays that suited him, by authors including Alan Bennett, David Storey, during the first half of his career, Gielgud did not take the cinema seriously. Though he made his first film in 1924, and had successes with The Good Companions and Julius Caesar, Gielgud appeared in more than sixty films between Becket, for which he received his first Academy Award nomination, and Elizabeth. As the acid-tongued Hobson in Arthur he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and his film work further earned him a Golden Globe Award and two BAFTAs. Although largely indifferent to awards, Gielgud had the distinction of winning an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy. He was famous from the start of his career for his voice and he broadcast more than a hundred radio and television dramas, between 1929 and 1994, and made commercial recordings of many plays, including ten of Shakespeares. Among his honours, he was knighted in 1953 and the Gielgud Theatre was named after him, from 1977 to 1989, he was president of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Gielgud was born in South Kensington, London, the third of the four children and youngest of three sons of Frank Henry Gielgud and his second wife, Kate Terry-Gielgud, née Terry-Lewis. The two elder boys were Lewis, who became an official of the Red Cross and UNESCO. On his fathers side, Gielgud was of Lithuanian and Polish descent, the surname derives from Gelgaudiškis, a village in Lithuania. The Counts Gielgud had owned the Gielgudziszki Castle on the River Niemen, jan Gielgud took refuge in England with his family, one of his grandchildren was Frank Gielgud, whose maternal grandmother was a famous Polish actress, Aniela Aszpergerowa. Frank married into a family with wide theatrical connections, Frank had no theatrical ambitions and worked all his life as a stockbroker in the City of London. In 1912, aged eight, Gielgud went to Hillside preparatory school in Surrey as his brothers had done
9.
West End of London
–
Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross. The West End covers much of the boroughs of Westminster and Camden, while the City of London, or the Square Mile, is the main business and financial district in London, the West End is the main commercial and entertainment centre of the city. It is one of the most expensive locations in the world in which to rent office space and it was also close to the royal seat of power at Westminster, and is largely contained within the City of Westminster. Developed in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, it was built as a series of palaces, expensive town houses, fashionable shops. The areas closest to the City around Holborn, Seven Dials, as the West End is a term used colloquially by Londoners and is not an official geographical or municipal definition, its exact constituent parts are up for debate. The Edgware Road to the north-west and the Victoria Embankment to the south-east were also covered by the document but were treated as adjacent areas to the West End. According to Ed Glinerts West End Chronicles the districts falling within the West End are Mayfair, Soho, Covent Garden, Fitzrovia, one of the local government wards within the City of Westminster is called West End. This covers a area that defined by Glinert, Mayfair, Soho. The population of this ward at the 2011 Census was 10,575, the New West End Company is a business improvement district and runs services including street cleaning and security on Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street. NWEC also runs the Red Caps service, the West End is laid out with many notable public squares and circuses, the latter being the original name for roundabouts in London. London West End Things to do General overview of what to do in the West End
10.
Apollo Theatre
–
The Apollo Theatre is a Grade II listed West End theatre, on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster, in central London. The only complete theatre design of architect Lewin Sharp, the Apollo was specifically designed for theatre and named after the Greek god of the arts. It was constructed by builder Walter Wallis of plain London brick in keeping with the neighbouring streets, the structure encloses a four-level auditorium, with three cantilevered balconies and a first-floor central loggia, decorated in the Louis XIV Style by Hubert van Hooydonk. In keeping with then European style, each level has its own foyer, owing to the death of Queen Victoria the previous month, it became the first London theatre to be completed in the Edwardian period. The capacity on the night,21 February 1901, was 893. The capacity today is 775 seats, with the balcony on the 3rd tier considered the steepest in London, owing to a relatively unsuccessful opening, impresario Tom B. Davis took a lease on the building, and hence management of operations, from 1902. The theatre was renovated by Ernest Schaufelberg in 1932, with a private foyer, Prince Littler took control of the theatre in 1944. Stoll Moss Group purchased the theatre in 1975, selling it to Andrew Lloyd Webbers Really Useful Group, nica Burns and Max Weitzenhoffer purchased the theatre and several others in 2005, creating Nimax Theatres, which still owns the theatre. It brought down a lighting rig and a section of balcony, there were 720 people in the audience at the time. The incident was preceded by heavy rain, the emergency services responded with 25 ambulance crews, an air ambulance rapid response team,8 fire engines with more than 50 firefighters, and the Metropolitan Police. Casualties were taken to the foyers of the adjacent Gielgud and Queens theatres, the London Ambulance Service later stated that they had treated 76 injured people, with 58 taken to four London hospitals, some on commandeered buses. Guys and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust said 34 adults and 5 children were treated in accident. The venue reopened on 26 March 2014, with an adaptation of Let the Right One In produced by the National Theatre of Scotland. The owners were able to reopen the theatre by sealing the fourth level and balcony with a temporary floor, the opening caused a public uproar, with a selected audience for the first performance, on Thursday 21 February 1901, and the first public performance scheduled for 22 February. The Times refused to review the private opening, instead waiting until the first public production on the following day, the opening production was the American musical comedy The Belle of Bohemia, which survived for 72 performances—17 more than it had accomplished when produced on Broadway. The production was followed by John Martin-Harveys season, including A Cigarette Makers Romance and The Only Way, george Edwardes produced a series of successful Edwardian musical comedies, including Kitty Grey, Three Little Maids and The Girl from Kays. Between 1908 and 1912 the theatre hosted H. G. Pelissiers The Follies, after this it staged a variety of works, including seasons of plays by Charles Hawtrey in 1913,1914 and 1924, and Harold Brighouses Hobsons Choice in 1916. Inside the Lines by Earl Derr Biggers ran for 421 performances in 1917, gilbert Dayles What Would a Gentleman Do
11.
Mickey Deans
–
Mickey Deans was an American musician and entrepreneur, and the fifth and last husband of actress Judy Garland. Born Michael DeVinko in Garfield, New Jersey on September 24,1934 and he grew up in a musical family, playing the piano and accordion. My parents encouraged him to be a musician, recalls his sister and he was very talented and played popular music in clubs in the fifties and sixties. He played the piano at Jillys, a Manhattan nightclub, later working as the manager of the popular discothèque Arthur, in 1966, according to Deans book Weep No More, My Lady, he met actress and singer Judy Garland at her hotel in New York. A mutual friend of theirs asked Deans to deliver a package of stimulant tablets to Garland, Deans recalled that she seemed cordial but disoriented. Because Garlands two youngest children were present, Deans felt it appropriate to himself as a doctor. After three years of intermittent dating, Deans proposed and they were married on March 15,1969, Deans worked to promote Garlands career toward the end of her life, but found it impossible to control her excessive use of prescription drugs. Deans discovered Garland dead on the morning of June 22,1969, although many obituaries at the time stated Garland was found on the floor of their bathroom, Deans stated that he found her seated on the toilet. The coroners autopsy later determined she died from an accidental, incautious overdose of barbiturates, following Garlands death, Deans co-authored Weep No More, My Lady, a biography of Garland written with Ann Pinchot. The book includes autobiographical elements of Deans pre-Garland life and their time together, the book was published in 1972 by Hawthorn Books with paperback editions issued by Pyramid Books. Deans later moved to Cleveland, Ohio and became a producer of fundraising events. In 1985, he bought the Franklin Castle, a historic stone mansion on Franklin Boulevard in Clevelands Ohio City for $93,000 and had it restored. Deans donated a feather boa that had belonged to Garland to a charity auction and he then placed the highest bid in order to maintain ownership of it. After selling Franklin Castle in 1999, Deans lived in Northfield, Deans died of congestive heart failure in Cleveland, Ohio on July 11,2003 at the age of 68. Rather than being interred with Garland at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York, his body was cremated, Deans son died just a few months later
12.
Judy Garland
–
Judy Garland was an American singer, actress, and vaudevillian. Garland began performing in vaudeville with her two sisters and was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. She made more than two films with MGM, including nine with Mickey Rooney. Garlands most famous role was as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and her other roles at MGM included Meet Me in St. Louis, The Harvey Girls and Easter Parade. After 15 years, she was released from the studio and made record-breaking concert appearances, a recording career. Film appearances became fewer in her years, but included two Academy Award nominated performances in A Star Is Born and Judgment at Nuremberg. Garland received a Golden Globe Award, a Juvenile Academy Award, and a Special Tony Award, deMille Award for lifetime achievement in the film industry. She was the first woman to win a Grammy for Album of the Year for her recording of Judy at Carnegie Hall. In 1997, Garland was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, several of her recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 1999, the American Film Institute placed her among the 10 greatest female stars of classic American cinema, from an early age Garland struggled in her personal life. The pressures of adolescent stardom sent her to a psychiatrist at age eighteen and her self-image was influenced by film executives who said she was unattractive and manipulated her on-screen physical appearance. She was plagued by instability, often owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. She married five times, with her first four marriages ending in divorce and she also had a long battle with drugs and alcohol, which ultimately led to her death from a barbiturate overdose at the age of 47. Garland was born Frances Ethel Gumm on June 10,1922, in Grand Rapids and she was the youngest child of Ethel Marion and Francis Avent Frank Gumm. Her parents were vaudevillians who settled in Grand Rapids to run a theater that featured vaudeville acts. She was of English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry, named after both of her parents and baptized at a local Episcopal church, baby shared her familys flair for song and dance. The Gumm Sisters performed there for the few years, accompanied by their mother on piano. The family relocated to Lancaster, California, in June 1926, Frank purchased and operated another theater in Lancaster, and Ethel began managing her daughters and working to get them into motion pictures
13.
Minnie's Boys
–
Minnies Boys is a musical with a book by Arthur Marx and Robert Fisher, music by Larry Grossman, and lyrics by Hal Hackady. It provides a look at the early days of the Marx Brothers and their relationship with their mother. The scores one standout tune was Mama, a Rainbow, which was recorded by Steve Lawrence, an original cast album was released by a somewhat obscure label, Project 3. During its brief run, Groucho did help promote the musical by appearing on the Dick Cavett Show with the five actors who portrayed the Marx boys in the show. Minnies Boys at the Internet Broadway Database Roger Ebert interviews Groucho Marx about Minnies Boys
14.
British royal family
–
The British royal family comprises the monarch of the United Kingdom and her close relations. There is no legal or formal definition of who is or is not a member of the British royal family. Different terms may be applied to the same or similar group of relatives of the monarch in his or her role as sovereign of any of the other Commonwealth realms, for example, in Canada, the family is known as the Canadian royal family. Some members of the family have official residences named as the places from which announcements are made in the Court Circular about official engagements they have carried out. The state duties and staff of some members of the family are funded from a parliamentary annuity. Since 1917, when King George V changed the name of the house from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, members of the royal family belong, either by birth or by marriage. In 2014, the family were regarded as British cultural icons. Today, they often perform ceremonial and social duties throughout the United Kingdom, in the other countries of the Commonwealth royalty do not serve as Counsellors of State, although they may perform ceremonial and social duties on behalf of individual states or the organisation. Wives of the said enjoy their husbands precedence, and husbands of princesses are unofficially but habitually placed with their wives as well and she did not alter the relative precedence of other born-princesses, such as the daughters of her younger sons. The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Monarchy and they Serve the Queen, A New and Authoritative Account of the Royal Household. The Lives of the Kings & Queens of England, symbol and Privilege, The Ritual Context of British Royalty. Britains Royal Families, The Complete Genealogy, Royal Family is a celebrated and reverential BBC documentary made by Richard Cawston to accompany the investiture of the current Prince of Wales. The documentary is frequently responsible for the greater press intrusion into the royal familys private life since its first broadcast. Official website of the royal family Official YouTube Channel House of Windsor Family Tree, archived from the original on 2010-12-02
15.
Duke
–
A duke or duchess can either be a monarch ruling over a duchy or a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch. During the Middle Ages the title signified first among the Germanic monarchies, Dukes were the rulers of the provinces and the superiors of the counts in the cities and later, in the feudal monarchies, the highest-ranking peers of the king. During the 19th century many of the smaller German and Italian states were ruled by Dukes or Grand Dukes, but at present, with the exception of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, there are no dukes ruling as monarchs. Duke remains the highest hereditary title in Portugal, Spain, in Sweden, members of the Royal Family are given a personal dukedom at birth. The Pope, as a sovereign, has also, though rarely. In some realms the relative status of duke and prince, as borne by the nobility rather than by members of reigning dynasties, varied—e. g. in Italy. A woman who holds in her own right the title to such duchy or dukedom, Queen Elizabeth II, however, is known by tradition as Duke of Normandy in the Channel Islands and Duke of Lancaster in Lancashire. A duchy is the territory or geopolitical entity ruled by a duke, a dukedom is the title or status of a duke, a rank in the present or past nobility, and is not necessarily attached to a duchy. A few examples exist today, The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is a independent state and its head. In Scotland the male heir apparent to the British crown is always the Duke of Rothesay as well, the Channel Islands are two of the three remaining Crown Dependencies, the last vestiges of the lands of the Duchy of Normandy. The Islanders in their loyal toast will say La Reine, notre Duc, however, the Channel Islands, part of the lost Duchy, remained a self-governing possession of the English Crown. While the islands today retain autonomy in government, they owe allegiance to The Queen in her role as Duke of Normandy. During the Middle Ages, after Roman power in Western Europe collapsed, in 1332, Robert of Taranto succeeded his father, Philip. John took the style of Duke of Durazzo, in 1368, Durazzo fell to Karl Thopia, who was recognized by Venice as Prince of Albania. The Visigoths retained the Roman divisions of their kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula and they were the most powerful landowners and, along with the bishops, elected the king, usually from their own midst. They were the commanders and in this capacity often acted independently from the king. The army was structured decimally with the highest unit, the thiufa, the cities were commanded by counts, who were in turn answerable to the dukes, who called up the thiufae when necessary. When the Lombards entered Italy, the Latin chroniclers called their war leaders duces in the old fashion and these leaders eventually became the provincial rulers, each with a recognized seat of government
16.
Angus Montagu, 12th Duke of Manchester
–
Angus Charles Drogo Montagu, 12th Duke of Manchester was a British hereditary peer. Until he inherited the dukedom in 1985, he was known by the title of Lord Angus Montagu. Angus grew up in Britain, Ceylon and Kenya, after serving the Royal Marines, he settled in Australia and had a number of jobs. During middle age, he suffered financial hardship and fell victim to a number of confidence tricks for which he took the blame. He was known for his friendly and outgoing personality, and his few speeches in the House of Lords were viewed positively. Angus was born on 9 October 1938 as the son of Alexander Montagu, 10th Duke of Manchester, and Nell Vere Stead, and was the younger brother of Sidney Montagu, 11th Duke of Manchester. He was born in the seat of Kimbolton Castle near Bedford but moved frequently during childhood, including spending time in Singapore. He did not enjoy his time there, later saying the nuns werent very pleasant people, in 1950, he joined his father in Kenya for a short period after Kimbolton was sold. He had a relationship with his mother, who enjoyed looking after young children. After trying the local school in Keyna, but was bullied and stopped going and he was subsequently educated at Traddur Housea, a Welsh prep school and Gordonstoun School, Moray, Scotland, returning each summer to Kenya to spend time with his family. He left school in 1956 without any qualifications and began service in the Royal Marines and he was the only public-school educated man on the ship and did not get on well with his fellow recruits. Upon discharge, he had jobs in the oil industry and in tourist-related activities across the United States and he moved to Australia in 1959 and was variously employed as a clothes salesman, a barman, and a crocodile wrestler. He later spent time in Canada and by 1968 had moved into a bedsit in Bedford, England, near Kimbolton. As a hereditary peer, the Duke was able to take a seat in the House of Lords and made his speech there on 25 November 1991. Though the speech was only three long, it was praised for its brevity and succinctness by other peers, including Viscount Tonypandy. He also raised questions about redundancies in the Armed Forces with the Leader of the House of Lords, the Duke was good friends with celebrity photographer Allan Warren. Together, they established the Dukes Trust, a charity for children in need, towards the end of his life, the Duke set up the company Unique Tours, to show American tourists places such as Stratford Upon Avon. He found that customers liked meeting a genuine English peer, the 10th Dukes business venture in Kenya failed, reducing the family estate from millions to £70,000
17.
Wikimedia Commons
–
Wikimedia Commons is an online repository of free-use images, sound, and other media files. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation, the repository contains over 38 million media files. In July 2013, the number of edits on Commons reached 100,000,000, the project was proposed by Erik Möller in March 2004 and launched on September 7,2004. The expression educational is to be according to its broad meaning of providing knowledge. Wikimedia Commons itself does not allow fair use or uploads under non-free licenses, for this reason, Wikimedia Commons always hosts freely licensed media and deletes copyright violations. The default language for Commons is English, but registered users can customize their interface to use any other user interface translations. Many content pages, in particular policy pages and portals, have also translated into various languages. Files on Wikimedia Commons are categorized using MediaWikis category system, in addition, they are often collected on individual topical gallery pages. While the project was proposed to also contain free text files. In 2012, BuzzFeed described Wikimedia Commons as littered with dicks, in 2010, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger reported Wikimedia Commons to the FBI for hosting sexualized images of children known as lolicon. Wales responded to the backlash from the Commons community by voluntarily relinquishing some site privileges, over time, additional functionality has been developed to interface Wikimedia Commons with the other Wikimedia projects. Specialized uploading tools and scripts such as Commonist have been created to simplify the process of uploading large numbers of files. In order to free content photos uploaded to Flickr, users can participate in a defunct collaborative external review process. The site has three mechanisms for recognizing quality works, one is known as Featured pictures, where works are nominated and other community members vote to accept or reject the nomination. This process began in November 2004, another process known as Quality images began in June 2006, and has a simpler nomination process comparable to Featured pictures. Quality images only accepts works created by Wikimedia users, whereas Featured pictures additionally accepts nominations of works by third parties such as NASA, the three mentioned processes select a slight part from the total number of files. However, Commons collects files of all quality levels, from the most professional level across simple documental, files with specific defects can be tagged for improvement and warning or even proposed for deletion but there exists no process of systematic rating of all files. The site held its inaugural Picture of the Year competition, for 2006, all images that were made a Featured picture during 2006 were eligible, and voted on by eligible Wikimedia users during two rounds of voting
18.
Frank Dunlop (director)
–
Frank Dunlop is a British theatre director. Dunlop was born in Leeds, England to Charles Norman Dunlop and he was educated at Beauchamp College, read English at University College London where he is now a Fellow, and studied with Michel Saint-Denis at the Old Vic theatre school in London. Dunlop was appointed CBE in 1977 and received the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and he made his West End debut at the Adelphi Theatre in 1960 with a production of The Bishops Bonfire. He took over the helm at the Nottingham Playhouse from 1961–1964, including the season of the newly built theatre in 1963. In 1966 he founded The Pop Theatre Company at the Edinburgh Festival, with productions of The Winters Tale, Dunlop also produced the theatrical production of Oblomov, based on the novel by Russian writer Ivan Goncharov. The play opened at Londons Lyric Theatre on 6 October 1964, and starred Spike Milligan as Oblomov, and Joan Greenwood as his wife Olga. The play ran for a five weeks at the Lyric, before being retitled Son of Oblomov and moved to the Comedy Theatre in Londons West End. While at the National, then located at the Old Vic, back in England he directed Rookery Nook for the Birmingham Rep and the Theatre Royal Haymarket, and returning to New York the following year he directed Camelot starring Richard Burton. Dunlop ran the Edinburgh Festival for eight triumphant years from 1984−1991
19.
Zena Walker
–
Zena Walker was an English actress in film, theatre and television. Walker was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, the daughter of George Walker, a grocer and she attended St. Martins School in Solihull and then went on to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She starred in an adaptation of A. J and her most memorable performance is considered that of a mother in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, a black comedy by Peter Nichols, adapted from his stage play, about a handicapped child. For her performance in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg on Broadway and she was a memorable Ophelia opposite Paul Scofield in the lead role of Hamlet, and appeared as Her Ladyship in the film version of Ronald Harwoods play The Dresser. Between 1970 and 1972 she appeared in the television series Man at the Top as Susan Lampton and her first two husbands were actors, Robert Urquhart and later Julian Holloway. Her third husband was John French, a theatrical agent and she died in 2003 in Brockenhurst, Hampshire, aged 69, from undisclosed causes. Her last role was as the messenger in Oedipus
20.
Philip Lowrie
–
He reappeared in the Street, playing the same character, in 2011. Lowrie is the son of Philip Lowrie, a foreman in a paper mill, Lowrie had a stammer so attended elocution lessons at Miss Athertons Elocution. When he left school, his mother managed to save enough money to pay his fees at Rada where he studied for three years. In addition to his Coronation Street role, Lowrie also did the voiceover and auditions for the popular Channel 4 quiz show Fifteen to One. He was a performer on Victoria Woods television shows, All Day Breakfast, The Mall, Pat and Margaret, Live In Your Own Room, Wed Like To Apologise, As Seen On TV and Wood. Other television appearances include, Andy Capp, Crown Court, War and Peace, East Lynne, The Cuckoo Waltz, The Liver Birds, Galloping Galaxies, Philip Lowrie at the Internet Movie Database
21.
Nosegay
–
A nosegay, tussie-mussie, or posy is a small flower bouquet, typically given as a gift. They have existed in form since at least medieval times. Doilies are traditionally used to bind the stems in these arrangements, alternatively, posy holders, available in a variety of shapes and materials, enable the wearing of these arrangements at the waist, in the hair, or secured with a brooch. The term nosegay arose in fifteenth-century Middle English as a combination of nose, so a nosegay was an ornament that appeals to the nose or nostril. The term tussie-mussie comes from the reign of Queen Victoria, when the small bouquets became a fashion accessory. Typically, tussie-mussies include floral symbolism from the language of flowers, sachet Floristry Floral Design Ring a Ring o Roses
22.
Gloria Swanson
–
Gloria May Josephine Swanson was an American actress and producer best known for her role as Norma Desmond, a reclusive silent film star, in the critically acclaimed 1950 film Sunset Boulevard. Swanson was also a star in the silent film era as both an actress and an icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. She starred in dozens of silent films and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the Best Actress category and she also produced her own films, including Sadie Thompson and The Love of Sunya. In 1929, Swanson transitioned to talkies with The Trespasser, personal problems and changing tastes saw her popularity wane during the 1930s when she moved into theater, and later television. Gloria May Josephine Swanson was born in a house in Chicago in 1899 to Adelaide and Joseph Theodore Swanson. Her father was from a strict Lutheran Swedish American family, and her mother was of German, French, and Polish ancestry. Because of her fathers attachment to the U. S. Army, the family moved frequently and Swanson ended up spending most of her childhood in Puerto Rico and she also spent time in Key West, Florida. After a few months as a working with others like Charlie Chaplin. Her parents would soon separate and she and her mother moved to California, Swanson made her film debut in 1914 as an extra in The Song of Soul for Essanay. She reportedly asked to be in the movie just for fun, Essanay hired her to feature in several movies, including His New Job, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin. Swanson auditioned for the female role in Swanson moved to California in 1916 to appear in Mack Sennetts Keystone comedies opposite Bobby Vernon. With their great chemistry, the pair became popular. Director Charley Chase recalled that she was frightened to death of Vernons dangerous stunts, conquering her fears, however, she often cooperated with Vernon. Surviving films in which appear together include The Danger Girl, The Sultans Wife. In 1919 she signed with Paramount Pictures and worked often with Cecil B. DeMille, who turned her into a lead in such films as Dont Change Your Husband, Male and Female with the famous scene posing as the Lions Bride with a real lion. Something to Think About, and The Affairs of Anatol, in the space of two years, Swanson rocketed to stardom and was one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood. She later appeared in a series of films directed by Sam Wood and she starred in Beyond the Rocks with her longtime friend Rudolph Valentino
23.
Donald Pleasence
–
Donald Henry Pleasence, OBE was an English film, television, and stage actor. His most notable roles include psychiatrist Dr. Pleasence was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England, the son of Alice and Thomas Stanley Pleasence. He was brought up as a strict Methodist in the village of Grimoldby. He received his education at Crosby Junior School, Scunthorpe and Ecclesfield Grammar School, in Sheffield. He served as aircraft wireless-operator with No.166 Squadron in Bomber Command, at the wars end in 1945 he was liberated from captivity and returned to England, being discharged from the R. A. F. in 1946. Returning to acting post-war Pleasence resumed working in theatre companies in Birmingham. In the 1950s Pleasences stage work included performing as Willie Mossop in a 1952 production of Hobsons Choice at the Arts Theatre, in 1960 Pleasence won acclaim as the tramp in Harold Pinters The Caretaker at the Arts Theatre, a part he would again play in a 1990 revival. Other stage work in the 1960s included Anouilhs Poor Bitos and Robert Shaws The Man in the Glass Booth, Pleasences later stage work included performing in a double bill of Pinter plays, The Basement and Tea Party, at the Duchess Theatre in 1970. Pleasence made his debut in I Want to Be a Doctor in 1946. In 1954 he received acclaim as Parsons in a BBC adaptation of George Orwells novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The adaptation was by Nigel Kneale and also starred Peter Cushing, Pleasence played Prince John in several episodes of the ITV series The Adventures of Robin Hood. He appeared twice with Patrick McGoohan in the British spy series, Danger Man, in episodes Position of Trust and Find and Return. Pleasences first appearance in America was in an episode of The Twilight Zone, in 1963, he appeared in an episode of The Outer Limits entitled The Man With the Power. He also guest starred in The fugitive in 1966, titled With Strings Attached In 1973 Pleasence played a sympathetic murderer in an episode of Columbo entitled Any Old Port in a Storm. He also portrayed a murderer captured by Mrs. Columbo in Murder is a Parlour Game, in 1978, he played a scout, Sam Purchas in an adaptation of James A. Micheners Centennial. Pleasence starred as the Reverend Septimus Harding in the BBCs 1982 TV series The Barchester Chronicles, in this series has daughter Angela Pleasence played his onscreen daughter Susan. He hosted the 1981 Halloween episode of Saturday Night Live with music guest Fear, in 1986, Pleasence joined Ronald Lacey and Polly Jo Pleasence for the television thriller Into the Darkness. Pleasence made his debut with The Beachcomber
24.
Alec Guinness
–
Sir Alec Guinness CH CBE was an English actor. After an early career on the stage, he was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including The Ladykillers and he is also known for his portrayal of Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucass original Star Wars trilogy, receiving a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He also won a BAFTA Award, Golden Globe and a Tony Award, in 1959, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, the Academy Honorary Award for lifetime achievement in 1980, Guinness was born at 155 Lauderdale Mansions South, Lauderdale Road, Maida Vale, as Alec Guinness de Cuffe. His mothers maiden name was Agnes Cuff and she was born 8 December 1890 to Edward Cuff and Mary Ann Benfield. On Guinnesss birth certificate, the space for the name shows Agnes de Cuffe. The space for the name says Alec Guinness. The column for name and surname of father is blank, the identity of Guinnesss father has never been officially confirmed. From 1875, under English law, when the birth of a child was registered. Guinness himself believed that his father was a Scottish banker, Andrew Geddes, Geddes occasionally visited Guinness and his mother, posing as an uncle. Guinnesss mother later had a marriage to a British soldier who had survived the Irish War of Independence. His behaviour was erratic or even violent. Guinness first worked writing advertising copy and he appeared at the Albery Theatre in 1936 at the age of 22, playing the role of Osric in John Gielguds successful production of Hamlet. Also in 1936, Guinness signed on with the Old Vic, in 1939, he took over for Michael Redgrave as Charleston in a road-show production of Robert Ardreys Thunder Rock. An early influence from afar was Stan Laurel, whom Guinness admired, Guinness continued playing Shakespearean roles throughout his career. In 1937, he played Aumerle in Richard II and Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice under the direction of John Gielgud and he starred in a 1938 production of Hamlet which won him acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1939, he adapted Great Expectations for the stage, playing Herbert Pocket, one of its viewers was a young British film editor, David Lean, who would later have Guinness reprise his role in Leans 1946 film adaptation of the play. Guinness served in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in the Second World War, initially as a seaman in 1941 and he commanded a landing craft at the Allied invasion of Sicily, and later ferried supplies and agents to the Yugoslav partisans in the eastern Mediterranean theatre
25.
Roger Moore
–
Sir Roger George Moore KBE is an English actor. He is best known for playing the British secret agent James Bond in seven films between 1973 and 1985 and Simon Templar in The Saint between 1962 and 1969. Roger Moore was born on 14 October 1927 in Stockwell, London and he is the only child of Lillian Lily, a housewife, and George Alfred Moore, a policeman. His mother was born in Calcutta, India, of English origin and he attended Battersea Grammar School, but was evacuated to Holsworthy, Devon, during World War II. He was then educated at Dr Challoners Grammar School in Amersham and he then attended the College of the Venerable Bede at the University of Durham, but did not graduate. At 18, shortly after the end of World War II, on 21 September 1946, he was commissioned into the Royal Army Service Corps as a second lieutenant. He was given the service number 372394 and he eventually became a captain, commanding a small depot in West Germany. He later looked after entertainers for the forces passing through Hamburg. At RADA, Moore was a classmate of his future Bond costar Lois Maxwell, Moore chose to leave RADA after six months in order to seek paid employment as an actor. His film idol was Stewart Granger, at the age of 17, Moore appeared as an extra in the film Caesar and Cleopatra, meeting his idol on the set. Later Moore and Granger were both in The Wild Geese, though they had no scenes together, other actors in that show included Clive Morton and Betty Ann Davies. Although Moore signed a contract with MGM in 1954, the films that followed were not successes and, in his own words. He appeared in Interrupted Melody—billed third under Glenn Ford and Eleanor Parker—a biographical movie about an opera singers recovery from polio and that same year, he played a supporting role in The Kings Thief starring Ann Blyth, Edmund Purdom, David Niven and George Sanders. In the 1956 film Diane, Moore was billed again, this time under Lana Turner and Pedro Armendariz in a 16th-century period piece set in France with Moore playing Prince Henri. Moore was released from his MGM contract after two years following the critical and commercial failure of Diane. After that, he spent a few years mainly doing one-shot parts in television series and he signed another long-term contract to a studio, this time to Warner Bros. His starring role in The Miracle, a version of the play Das Mirakel for Warner Bros. showcasing Carroll Baker as a nun, had turned down by Dirk Bogarde. Eventually, Moore made his name in television, shot mainly in England at Elstree Studios and Buckinghamshire, some of the show was also filmed in California due to a partnership with Columbia Studios Screen Gems
26.
George Cukor
–
George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations and his career flourished at RKO when David O. Selznick, the studios Head of Production, assigned Cukor to direct several of RKOs major films, including What Price Hollywood. A Bill of Divorcement, Our Betters, and Little Women, when Selznick moved to MGM in 1933, Cukor followed and directed Dinner at Eight and David Copperfield for Selznick and Romeo and Juliet and Camille for Irving Thalberg. He was replaced as the director of Gone with the Wind, but he went on to direct The Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, Adams Rib, Born Yesterday, A Star Is Born, Bhowani Junction and he continued to work into the 1980s. Cukor was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, the child and only son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants Viktor, an assistant district attorney. His parents selected his middle name in honor of Spanish–American War hero George Dewey, as a result, he was ambivalent about his faith and dismissive of old world traditions from childhood, and as an adult he embraced Anglophilia to remove himself even further from his roots. As a teenager, Cukor frequently was taken to the New York Hippodrome by his uncle, infatuated with theatre, he often cut classes at DeWitt Clinton High School to attend afternoon matinees. During his senior year, he worked as a supernumerary with the Metropolitan Opera, earning 50¢ per appearance, following his graduation in 1917, Cukor was expected to follow in his fathers footsteps and pursue a career in law. He halfheartedly enrolled in the City College of New York, where he entered the Students Army Training Corps in October 1918 and his military experience was limited, Germany surrendered in early November, and Cukors duty ended after only two months. In 1925 he formed the C. F. and Z, Production Company with Walter Folmer and John Zwicki, which gave him his first opportunity to direct. Following their first season, he made his Broadway directorial debut with Antonia by Hungarian playwright Melchior Lengyel, then returned to Rochester, lasting only one season with the company was Bette Davis. Cukor later recalled, Her talent was apparent, but she did buck at direction and she had her own ideas, and though she only did bits and ingenue roles, she didnt hesitate to express them. For the next decades, Davis claimed she was fired. For the next few years, Cukor alternated between Rochester in the months and Broadway in the winter. His direction of a 1926 stage adaptation of The Great Gatsby by Owen Davis brought him to the attention of the New York critics. Writing in the Brooklyn Eagle, drama critic Arthur Pollock called it a piece of work by a director not nearly so well known as he should be. Cukor directed six more Broadway productions before departing for Hollywood in 1929, when Hollywood began to recruit New York theater talent for sound films, Cukor immediately answered the call. In December 1928, Paramount Pictures signed him to a contract that reimbursed him for his airfare and he arrived in Hollywood in February 1929, and his first assignment was to coach the cast of River of Romance to speak with an acceptable Southern accent
27.
Cary Grant
–
Cary Grant was a British-American actor, known as one of classic Hollywoods definitive leading men. He began a career in Hollywood in the early 1930s, and became known for his accent, debonair demeanor. He became an American citizen in 1942, Born in Horfield, Bristol, Grant became attracted to theatre at a young age, and began performing with a troupe known as The Penders from the age of six. After attending Bishop Road Primary School and Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol, he toured the country as a stage performer and he established a name for himself in vaudeville in the 1920s and toured the United States before moving to Hollywood in the early 1930s. Along with the later Arsenic and Old Lace and I Was a Male War Bride, having established himself as a major Hollywood star, he was nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Actor, for Penny Serenade and None but the Lonely Heart. In the 1940s and 1950s, Grant forged a relationship with the director Alfred Hitchcock, appearing in films such as Suspicion, Notorious, To Catch a Thief. Hitchcock admired Grant and considered him to have been the actor that he had ever loved working with. His comic timing and delivery made Grant what Premiere magazine considers to have quite simply. Grant was married five times, three of his marriages were elopements with actresses—Virginia Cherrill, Betsy Drake and Dyan Cannon and he has one daughter with Cannon, Jennifer Grant. After his retirement from acting in 1966, Grant pursued numerous business interests, representing cosmetics firm Fabergé. He was presented with an Honorary Oscar by his friend Frank Sinatra at the 42nd Academy Awards in 1970, in 1999, the American Film Institute named Grant the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema, after Humphrey Bogart. Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18,1904 at 15 Hughenden Road in the northern Bristol suburb of Horfield and he was the second child of Elias James Leach and Elsie Maria Leach. Elias, the son of a potter, worked as a tailors presser at a factory, while Elsie. Grants elder brother, John William Elias Leach, died of tuberculous meningitis, Grant considered himself to have been partly Jewish. He had an upbringing, his father was an alcoholic. Wanting the best for her son, Elsie taught Grant song and dance when he was four and she would occasionally take him to the cinema where he enjoyed the performances of Charlie Chaplin, Chester Conklin, Fatty Arbuckle, Ford Sterling, Mack Swain and Broncho Billy Anderson. Grant entered education when he was four-and-a-half and was sent to the Bishop Road Primary School, Bristol, another biographer, Geoffrey Wansell, notes that Elsie blamed herself bitterly for the death of Grants older brother John, and never recovered from it. Grant later acknowledged that his experiences with his fiercely independent mother affected his relationships with women later in life
28.
Liberace
–
Władziu Valentino Liberace, mononymously known as Liberace, was an American pianist, singer, and actor. A child prodigy and the son of immigrants, Liberace enjoyed a career spanning four decades of concerts, recordings, television, motion pictures. At the height of his fame, from the 1950s to the 1970s, Liberace was the entertainer in the world, with established residencies in Las Vegas. Liberace embraced a lifestyle of flamboyant excess both on and off stage, acquiring the sobriquet Mr. Showmanship, Liberace was born in West Allis, Wisconsin. His father, Salvatore Liberace, was an immigrant from Formia and his mother, Frances Zuchowska, was of Polish descent. Liberace was born with a caul, which in some cultures is considered indicative of genius, good luck and he had a twin, who died at birth. Liberaces father played the French horn in bands and movie theaters, while Sam encouraged music in his family, his wife, Frances, believed music lessons and a record player to be unaffordable luxuries. Liberace later stated, My dads love and respect for music created in him a determination to give as his legacy to the world. Liberace began playing the piano at age four, while Sam took his children to concerts to further expose them to music, he was also a taskmaster demanding high standards from the children in both practice and performance. Liberaces prodigious talent was evident from his early years, by age seven, he was capable of memorizing difficult pieces. He studied the technique of the Polish pianist Ignacy Paderewski, at age eight, he met Paderewski backstage after a concert at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee. I was intoxicated by the joy I got from the great virtuosos playing and my dreams were filled with fantasies of following his footsteps…Inspired and fired with ambition, I began to practice with a fervor that made my previous interest in the piano look like neglect. Paderewski later became a family friend, the Depression was financially hard on the Liberace family. Liberace concentrated on his playing with the help of music teacher Florence Kelly. He gained experience playing music in theaters, on local radio, for dancing classes, for clubs. In 1934, he played piano with a school group called The Mixers. Liberace also performed in cabarets and strip clubs, though Sam and Frances did not approve, their son was earning a tidy living during hard times. For a while, Liberace adopted the stage name Walter Busterkeys and he also showed an interest in draftsmanship, design, and painting, and became a fastidious dresser and follower of fashion
29.
Laurence Olivier
–
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM, was an English actor who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. He also worked in films throughout his career, playing more than fifty cinema roles, late in his career, he had considerable success in television roles. His family had no connections, but Oliviers father, a clergyman. After attending a school in London, Olivier learned his craft in a succession of acting jobs during the late 1920s. In 1930 he had his first important West End success in Noël Cowards Private Lives, in 1935 he played in a celebrated production of Romeo and Juliet alongside Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft, and by the end of the decade he was an established star. In the 1940s, together with Richardson and John Burrell, Olivier was the co-director of the Old Vic, there his most celebrated roles included Shakespeares Richard III and Sophocless Oedipus. From 1963 to 1973 he was the director of Britains National Theatre. His own parts there included the role in Othello and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. Among Oliviers films are Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, and a trilogy of Shakespeare films as actor-director, Henry V, Hamlet and his later films included Sleuth, Marathon Man, and The Boys from Brazil. His television appearances included an adaptation of The Moon and Sixpence, Long Days Journey into Night, Love Among the Ruins, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Brideshead Revisited, Oliviers honours included a knighthood, a life peerage and the Order of Merit. For his on-screen work he received four Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, five Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. The National Theatres largest auditorium is named in his honour, and he is commemorated in the Laurence Olivier Awards, given annually by the Society of London Theatre. He was married three times, to the actresses Jill Esmond from 1930 to 1940, Vivien Leigh from 1940 to 1960, Olivier was born in Dorking, Surrey, the youngest of the three children of the Revd Gerard Kerr Olivier and his wife Agnes Louise, née Crookenden. Their elder children were Sybille and Gerard Dacres Dickie and his great-great-grandfather was of French Huguenot descent, and Olivier came from a long line of Protestant clergymen. Gerard Olivier had begun a career as a schoolmaster, but in his thirties he discovered a strong religious vocation and was ordained as a priest of the Church of England and he practised extremely high church, ritualist Anglicanism and liked to be addressed as Father Olivier. This made him unacceptable to most Anglican congregations, and the church posts he was offered were temporary. This meant a nomadic existence, and for Laurences first few years, in 1912, when Olivier was five, his father secured a permanent appointment as assistant priest at St Saviours, Pimlico. He held the post for six years, and a family life was at last possible
30.
Peter Sellers
–
Peter Sellers, CBE was an English film actor, comedian and singer. Born in Portsmouth, Sellers made his debut at the Kings Theatre, Southsea. He began accompanying his parents in a variety act that toured the provincial theatres and he first worked as a drummer and toured around England as a member of the Entertainments National Service Association. He developed his mimicry and improvisational skills during a spell in Ralph Readers wartime Gang Show entertainment troupe, which toured Britain, after the war, Sellers made his radio debut in ShowTime, and eventually became a regular performer on various BBC radio shows. During the early 1950s, Sellers, along with Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine, took part in the radio series The Goon Show. Sellers began his career during the 1950s. Although the bulk of his work was comedic, often parodying characters of authority such as officers or policemen. Films demonstrating his artistic range include Im All Right Jack, Stanley Kubricks Lolita and Dr. Strangelove, Whats New, Casino Royale, The Party, Being There and the five films of the Pink Panther series. Satire and black humour were major features of many of his films and he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role twice, for Im All Right Jack and for the original Pink Panther film, The Pink Panther and was nominated as Best Actor three times. In 1980 he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his role in Being There, turner Classic Movies calls Sellers one of the most accomplished comic actors of the late 20th century. In his personal life, Sellers struggled with depression and insecurities, an enigmatic figure, he often claimed to have no identity outside the roles that he played. Sellers was married four times, and had three children from his first two marriages and he died as a result of a heart attack in 1980, aged 54. English filmmakers the Boulting brothers described Sellers as the greatest comic genius this country has produced since Charles Chaplin, Sellers was born on 8 September 1925, in Southsea, a suburb of Portsmouth. His parents were Yorkshire-born William Bill Sellers and Agnes Doreen Peg, both were variety entertainers, Peg was in the Ray Sisters troupe. Although christened Richard Henry, his parents called him Peter, after his elder stillborn brother, Peg Sellers was related to the pugilist Daniel Mendoza, whom Sellers greatly revered, and whose engraving later hung in his office. At one time Sellers planned to use Mendozas image for his companys logo. The family constantly toured, causing much upheaval and unhappiness in the young Sellerss life, Sellers maintained a very close relationship with his mother, which his friend Spike Milligan later considered unhealthy for a grown man. As an only child though, he spent much time alone, in 1935 the Sellers family moved to North London and settled in Muswell Hill
31.
David Niven
–
James David Graham Niven was an English actor and novelist. His many roles included Squadron Leader Peter Carter in A Matter of Life and Death, Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Separate Tables. Born in London, Niven attended Heatherdown Preparatory School and Stowe before gaining a place at the Royal Military College, after Sandhurst, he joined the British Army and was gazetted a second lieutenant in the Highland Light Infantry. Having developed an interest in acting, he left the Highland Light Infantry, travelled to Hollywood and he first appeared as an extra in the British film There Goes the Bride. From there, he hired an agent and had small parts in films from 1933 to 1935. This brought him to attention within the film industry and he was spotted by Samuel Goldwyn. Upon the outbreak of the Second World War, Niven returned to Britain and rejoined the army, Niven resumed his acting career after his demobilisation, and was voted the second-most popular British actor in the 1945 Popularity Poll of British film stars. He appeared in A Matter of Life and Death, The Bishops Wife, Niven appeared in nearly a hundred films, and many shows for television. He also began writing books, with commercial success. In 1982 he appeared in Blake Edwards final Pink Panther films Trail of the Pink Panther and Curse of the Pink Panther, James David Graham Niven was born in Belgrave Mansions, London, to William Edward Graham Niven and his wife, Henrietta Julia Niven. He was named David for his birth on St. Davids Day, Niven often claimed that he was born in Kirriemuir, in the Scottish county of Angus in 1909, but his birth certificate shows this was not the case. Henrietta was of French and British ancestry and she was born in Wales, the daughter of army officer William Degacher by his marriage to Julia Caroline Smith, the daughter of Lieutenant General James Webber Smith. Nivens grandfather William Degacher was killed in the Battle of Isandlwana, born William Hitchcock, he and his brother Henry had followed the lead of their father, Walter Henry Hitchcock, in assuming their mothers maiden name of Degacher in 1874. William Niven, Davids father, was of Scottish descent, his grandfather, David Graham Niven, was from St. Martins. William served in the Berkshire Yeomanry in the First World War and was killed during the Gallipoli Campaign on 21 August 1915 and he was buried in Green Hill Cemetery, Turkey, in the Special Memorial Section in Plot F.10. Nivens mother remarried, to Sir Thomas Comyn-Platt, in London in 1917, David Niven had three older siblings, Margaret Joyce Henry Degacher Grizel Rosemary Graham. English private schools at the time of Nivens boyhood were noted for their strict, Niven suffered many instances of corporal punishment owing to his inclination for pranks, which finally led to his expulsion from Heatherdown Preparatory School at the age of 10½. This ended his chances for Eton College, a significant blow to his family, thoughtful and kind, he addressed the boys by their first names, allowed them bicycles, and encouraged and nurtured their personal interests
32.
Claudio Arrau
–
He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century. Arrau was born in Chillán, Chile, the son of Carlos Arrau, an ophthalmologist who died when Claudio was only an old, and Lucrecia León Bravo de Villalba. He belonged to an old, prominent family of Southern Chile and his ancestor Lorenzo de Arrau, a Spanish engineer, was sent to Chile by King Carlos III of Spain. Through his great-grandmother, María del Carmen Daroch del Solar, Arrau was a descendant of the Campbells of Glenorchy, Arrau was raised as a Catholic, but gave it up in his late teens. Arrau was a prodigy and he could read music before he could read words. His mother was an amateur pianist and introduced him to the instrument, at the age of 4 he was reading Beethoven sonatas, and he gave his first concert a year later. When Arrau was 6 he auditioned in front of several congressmen and President Pedro Montt, at age 8 Arrau was sent on a ten-year-long grant from the Chilean government to study in Germany, travelling with his mother and sister Lucrecia. He was admitted to the Stern Conservatory of Berlin where he became a pupil of Martin Krause. At the age of 11 Arrau could play Liszts Transcendental Etudes, one of the most difficult works for piano, Arraus first recordings were made on Aeolian Duo-Art player piano music rolls. Krause died in his year of teaching Arrau, leaving the 15-year-old student devastated by the loss of his mentor. In 1935, Arrau gave a rendition of the entire keyboard works of Johann Sebastian Bach over 12 recitals. In 1936, Arrau gave a complete Mozart keyboard works over 5 recitals, in 1938, for the first time, Arrau gave the complete Beethoven piano sonatas and concertos in Mexico City. Arrau repeated this several times in his lifetime, including in New York and he became one of the leading authorities on Beethoven in the 20th century. In 1929, Arrau married lyric soprano Erika Burkewitch, a Latvian national, in 1949 their son Klaudio died in a Soviet prison camp in Bautzen, East Germany. In 1937, Arrau married mezzo-soprano Ruth Schneider, a German national and they had three children, Carmen, Mario and Christopher. In 1941 the Arrau family emigrated from Germany to the United States, eventually settling in New York City and he became a dual U. S. -Chilean citizen in 1979. Arrau died on June 9,1991, at the age of 88, in Mürzzuschlag, Austria and his remains were interred in his native city of Chillán, Chile. Daniel Barenboim said that Claudio Arrau had a sound with two aspects, first a thickness, full-bodied and orchestral, and second an utterly disembodied timbre
33.
Paul Scofield
–
David Paul Scofield CH CBE was an English actor of stage and screen who was known for his striking presence, distinctive voice, and for the clarity and effortless intensity of his delivery. Regarded as one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of all time and this, and his decision to put his family first, has meant that he has never been as well known outside the United Kingdom as some other actors. Outside his homeland, Scofield is best known for his Academy, Golden Globe, Scofield had originally played the same part on stage in the West End and in a Tony Award-winning performance on Broadway. Actress Helen Mirren, who appeared with Scofield in the 1989 film When the Whales Came, said of him and he has no sense of personal ambition. Hes one of our great, great actors, in 1990, actor and filmmaker Mel Gibson, who played Scofields son in Franco Zeffirellis Hamlet, compared the experience to being thrown into the ring with Mike Tyson. Paul Scofield was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, the son of Mary, when Scofield was a few weeks old, his family moved to Hurstpierpoint, Sussex, where his father served as the headmaster at the Hurstpierpoint Church of England School. Scofield told his biographer, Garry OConnor, that his upbringing was divided and his father was an Anglican and his mother a Roman Catholic. Baptised into his mothers faith, Scofield said, some days we were little Protestants and, on others and he added, A lack of direction in spiritual matters is still with me. Scofield recalls, I was a dunce at school, but at the age of twelve I went to Varndean School at Brighton where I discovered Shakespeare. They did one of his plays every year, and I lived just for that, in 1939, Scofield left school at the age of seventeen and began training at the Croydon Repertory Theatre. Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, Scofield arrived for an examination and was ruled unfit for service in the British Army. He later recalled, They found I had crossed toes, I was unable to wear boots. He played at the Old Rep in Birmingham, from there he went to the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford, where he starred in Walter Nugent Moncks 1947 revival of Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Also in 1947, Scofield appeared as Hamlet at the Royal National Theatre alongside a then unknown Claire Bloom as Ophelia, in her later book, Leaving a Dolls House, A Memoir, Bloom recalls that during the production she had a serious crush on Scofield. As Scofield was happily married and the father of a son, Bloom hoped only to be flirted with and taken some notice of. She later recalled, I could never make up my mind which of my two Hamlets I found the more devastating, the homosexual, charismatic Helpmann, or the charming. She was a very good Ophelia, in his memoir Threads of Time, director Peter Brook wrote about Scofields versatility, The door at the back of the set opened, and a small man entered. He was wearing a suit, steel-rimmed glasses and holding a suitcase
34.
Georg Solti
–
Born in Budapest, he studied there with Béla Bartók, Leó Weiner and Ernő Dohnányi. In the 1930s, he was a répétiteur at the Hungarian State Opera and his career was interrupted by the rise of the Nazis, and being of Jewish background he fled the increasingly restrictive anti-semitic laws in 1938. After conducting a season of Russian ballet in London at the Royal Opera House he found refuge in Switzerland, prohibited from conducting there, he earned a living as a pianist. After the war, Solti was appointed director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich in 1946. In 1952 he moved to the Frankfurt Opera, where he remained in charge for nine years and he took West German citizenship in 1953. In 1961 he became director of the Covent Garden Opera Company. During his ten-year tenure, he introduced changes that raised standards to the highest international levels, under his musical directorship the status of the company was recognised with the grant of the title the Royal Opera. He became a British citizen in 1972, in 1969 Solti became music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a post he held for 22 years. He relinquished the position in 1991 and became the music director laureate. Known in his early years for the intensity of his music making and he recorded many works two or three times at various stages of his career, and was a prolific recording artist, making more than 250 recordings, including 45 complete opera sets. The most famous of his recordings is probably Deccas complete set of Wagners Der Ring des Nibelungen, Soltis Ring has twice been voted the greatest recording ever made, in polls for Gramophone magazine in 1999 and the BBCs Music Magazine in 2012. Solti was repeatedly honoured by the industry with awards throughout his career. Solti also received the Academy’s 1995 Lifetime Achievement Award, Solti was born György Stern on Maros utca, in the Hegyvidék district of the Buda side of Budapest. He was the younger of the two children of Móricz Stern and his wife Teréz, née Rosenbaum, both of whom were Jewish, in the aftermath of the First World War it became the accepted practice in Hungary for citizens with Germanic surnames to adopt Hungarian ones. The right wing regime of Admiral Horthy enacted a series of Hungarianisation laws, Mor Stern, a self-employed merchant, felt no need to change his surname, but thought it prudent to change that of his children. He renamed them after Solt, a town in central Hungary. His sons given name, György, was acceptably Hungarian and was not changed, Solti described his father as a kind, sweet man who trusted everyone. He shouldnt have, but he did, jews in Hungary were tremendously patriotic
35.
Peter Ustinov
–
He was a fixture on television talk shows and lecture circuits for much of his career. A respected intellectual and diplomat, he held academic posts and served as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF. He displayed a unique cultural versatility that has earned him the accolade of a Renaissance man. Miklós Rózsa, composer of the music for Quo Vadis and of numerous concert works, Ustinov was born Peter Alexander von Ustinov in London, England. His father, Jona von Ustinov, was of Russian, Polish Jewish, German, peters paternal grandfather was Plato von Ustinov, a Russian nobleman, and his grandmother was Magdalena Hall, of mixed Ethiopian-German-Jewish origin. Peters paternal great-great-grandparents were the German painter Eduard Zander and the Ethiopian aristocrat Court-Lady Isette-Werq in Gondar, ustinovs mother, Nadezhda Leontievna Benois, known as Nadia, was a painter and ballet designer of French, German, Italian, and Russian descent. Her father, Leon Benois, was an Imperial Russian architect, leons brother Alexandre Benois was a stage designer who worked with Stravinsky and Diaghilev. Their paternal ancestor Jules-César Benois was a chef who had left France for St. Petersburg during the French Revolution, Jona worked as a press officer at the German Embassy in London in the 1930s, and was a reporter for a German news agency. He was the controller of Wolfgang Gans zu Putlitz, an MI5 spy in the German embassy in London who furnished information on Hitlers intentions before the Second World War, Ustinov was educated at Westminster School and had a difficult childhood because of his parents constant fighting. One of his schoolmates was Rudolf von Ribbentrop, the eldest son of the Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. While at school, Ustinov considered anglicising his name to Peter Austin, after training as an actor in his late teens, along with early attempts at playwriting, he made his stage début in 1938 at the Players Theatre, becoming quickly established. He later wrote, I was not irresistibly drawn to the drama and it was an escape road from the dismal rat race of school. In 1939, he appeared in White Cargo at the Aylesbury Rep, Ustinov served as a private in the British Army during World War II, including time spent as batman to David Niven while writing the Niven film The Way Ahead. He also appeared in films, debuting in One of Our Aircraft Is Missing, in which he was required to deliver lines in English, Latin. In 1944 under the auspices of ENSA, he presented and performed the role of Sir Anthony Absolute, in Sheridans The Rivals, with Dame Edith Evans, after the war, he began writing, his first major success was with the play The Love of Four Colonels. He starred with Humphrey Bogart and Aldo Ray in Were No Angels and his career as a dramatist continued, his best-known play being Romanoff and Juliet. His film roles include Roman emperor Nero in Quo Vadis, Lentulus Batiatus in Spartacus, Captain Vere in Billy Budd, Ustinov voiced the anthropomorphic lions Prince John and King Richard in the 1973 Disney animated film Robin Hood. He also worked on films as writer and occasionally director, including The Way Ahead, School for Secrets, Hot Millions
36.
Sophia Loren
–
Sophia Loren is an Italian film actress. Encouraged to enroll in acting lessons after entering a beauty pageant and she appeared in several bit parts and minor roles in the early part of the decade, until her five-picture contract with Paramount in 1956 launched her international career. Notable film appearances around this time include The Pride and the Passion, Houseboat, after starting her family in the early 1970s, Loren spent less time on her acting career and chose to make only occasional film appearances. In later years, she has appeared in American films such as Grumpier Old Men, in 1995, she received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievements, one of such awards. In 1999, Loren was acknowledged as one of the top 25 female American Screen Legends in the American Film Institutes survey, AFIs 100 Years.100 Stars. Loren was born Sofia Villani Scicolone in the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome, Italy, the daughter of Romilda Villani and Riccardo Scicolone, Riccardo Scicolone refused to marry Villani, leaving the piano teacher and aspiring actress without support. Lorens parents had another child together, her sister Maria, in 1938, Loren has two younger paternal half-brothers, Giuliano and Giuseppe. Romilda, Sofia, and Maria lived with Lorens grandmother in Pozzuoli, during World War II, the harbour and munitions plant in Pozzuoli was a frequent bombing target of the Allies. During one raid, as Loren ran to the shelter, she was struck by shrapnel, after that, the family moved to Naples, where they were taken in by distant relatives. After the war, Loren and her returned to Pozzuoli. Lorens grandmother Luisa opened a pub in their room, selling homemade cherry liquor. Romilda Villani played the piano, Maria sang, and Loren waited on tables, the place was popular with the American GIs stationed nearby. When she was 14, Sofia entered a beauty pageant, Miss Italia 1950 and, later, she enrolled in acting class and was selected as an uncredited extra in Mervyn LeRoys film Quo Vadis, at the age of 15. In 1951, she appeared in Italian film Era lui. sì. sì. where she played an odalisque. She appeared in bit parts and minor roles in the early part of the decade. She began using her current stage name in La Favorita, the new name being a twist on the name of the Swedish actress Märta Torén and was suggested by Goffredo Lombardo or Carlo Ponti and her first starring role was in Aida, for which she received critical acclaim. After playing the role in Two Nights with Cleopatra, her breakthrough role was in The Gold of Naples
37.
Sammy Davis Jr.
–
Samuel George Sammy Davis Jr. was an American entertainer. Primarily a dancer and singer, he was also an actor of stage and screen, comedian, musician, at the age of 3, Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father and Will Mastin as the Will Mastin Trio, which toured nationally. After military service, Davis returned to the trio, Davis became an overnight sensation following a nightclub performance at Ciros after the 1951 Academy Awards. With the trio, he became a recording artist, in 1954, he lost his left eye in a car accident, and several years later, he converted to Judaism. Daviss film career began as a child in 1933, in 1960, he appeared in the Rat Pack film Oceans 11. After a starring role on Broadway in 1956s Mr Wonderful, he returned to the stage in 1964s Golden Boy, in 1966 he had his own TV variety show, titled The Sammy Davis Jr. Show. Daviss career slowed in the late 1960s, but he had a hit record with The Candy Man in 1972 and became a star in Las Vegas, earning him the nickname Mister Show Business. Davis was a victim of racism throughout his life, particularly during the pre-Civil Rights era, Davis had a complex relationship with the black community, and drew criticism after publicly supporting President Richard Nixon in 1972. One day on a course with Jack Benny, he was asked what his handicap was. This was to become a comment, recounted in his autobiography. After reuniting with Sinatra and Dean Martin in 1987, Davis toured with them and Liza Minnelli internationally and he died in debt to the Internal Revenue Service, and his estate was the subject of legal battles. Davis was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and he was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 1987, and in 2001, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. During his lifetime, Davis stated that his mother was Puerto Rican, as an infant, he was reared by his paternal grandmother. When he was 3 years old, his parents separated and his father, not wanting to lose custody of his son, took him on tour. Davis learned to dance from his father and his uncle Will Mastin, Davis joined the act as a child and they became the Will Mastin Trio. Throughout his career, Davis included the Will Mastin Trio in his billing, Mastin and his father shielded him from racism. Snubs were explained as jealousy, for instance, when Davis served in the United States Army during World War II, however, he was confronted by strong racial prejudice. He later said, Overnight the world looked different and it wasnt one color any more
38.
Valerian Wellesley, 8th Duke of Wellington
–
Brigadier Arthur Valerian Wellesley, 8th Duke of Wellington, KG, LVO, OBE, MC, styled Marquess of Douro between 1943 and 1972, was a senior British peer and a brigadier in the British Army. His main residence was Stratfield Saye House in Hampshire and he was a member of the House of Lords from 1972 until 1999, losing his seat by the House of Lords Act. Wellington was born in Rome, Italy, on 2 July 1915, the son of Gerald Wellesley, 7th Duke of Wellington and he was known by the courtesy title Marquess of Douro from 1943 when his father succeeded in the dukedom on the death of his nephew. He attended Eton before going up to New College, Oxford, Wellington was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Territorial Army in 1936, and was commissioned with the same rank in the British Army Reserve in 1939. In 1940, he was given a commission as a second lieutenant in the Royal Horse Guards Regiment. He received successive promotions to major in 1951, and to lieutenant colonel in 1954, seeing service in Cyprus between 1956 and 1958, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1958. He then moved to the Household Cavalry Regiment, which he began commanding in 1959 and he retired from the Army in 1968 and was granted the honorary rank of brigadier. Wellington was appointed the Colonel-in-Chief of the Duke of Wellingtons Regiment in 1974, after its absorption into the Yorkshire Regiment, he was appointed Deputy Colonel-in-Chief of the new regiment. He was also Deputy Colonel of The Blues and Royals and an Honorary Colonel of the 2nd Battalion, Wellington was involved in business as a Director of Massey Ferguson Holdings Ltd from 1967 to 1989 and of Motor Iberica SA from 1967 to 1999. He was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Hampshire on 18 April 1975, through his final year, the Duke continued to conduct public engagements, most recently at the Order of the Garter investiture,16 June 2014. Wellington was twice engaged to Lady Rose Paget, the daughter of Charles Paget, 6th Marquess of Anglesey, who eventually married the Hon. John Francis McLaren. On 28 January 1944 he married Diana Ruth McConnel, only daughter of Major-General Douglas McConnel CB, CBE, of Knockdolian, Colmonell, Ayr, at St. Georges Cathedral in Jerusalem. Lord Richard Gerald Wellesley, who lives on his grandfathers estate Knockdolian, he married Joanna Sumner on 14 July 1973. Natasha Doone Wellesley she married Tom Halliday on 20 October 2007 and they have one son, Samuel George Halliday Davinia Chloe Wellesley Lady Jane Wellesley Lord John Henry Wellesley he married Corinne Vaes, daughter of a Belgian diplomat, on 7 May 1977. They have two children, Gerald Valerian Wellesley Alexandrina Sofia Wellesley she married James Blunt on 6 September 2014, Lord James Christopher Douglas Wellesley he married Laura Wedge in 1994 and they were divorced in 2005. He remarried Emma Nethercott on 26 July 2005,2 July 1915 –16 September 1943, Valerian Wellesley, Esq. He was the 9th Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo of the Kingdom of Spain, in accordance with Spanish procedure, Lord Douro petitioned formal claim to the title with the Spanish authorities. King Juan Carlos of Spain, through his Minister, granted the succession of the dukedom to Douro on 21 May 2010, Wellington was appointed a Member of the Royal Victorian Order on 15 March 1952
39.
Constantine II of Greece
–
Constantine II was the last King of Greece, reigning from 1964 until the abolition of the Greek monarchy in 1973. He acceded as king following the death of his father King Paul in March 1964, later that year he married Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark with whom he eventually had five children. The coup was successful, leaving Constantine, as head of state, as a result, he reluctantly agreed to inaugurate the putschist government on the condition that it be made up largely of civilian ministers. On 13 December 1967, he was forced to flee the country and he formally remained the head of state in exile until 1 June 1973, when the junta abolished the monarchy. This abolition was confirmed after the fall of the junta by a plebiscite on 8 December 1974, Constantine, who was not allowed to return to Greece to campaign, accepted the results of the plebiscite. Constantine was born at Psychiko, a suburb in northern Athens, the nephew of King George II and his mother was Crown Princess Frederica, the former Princess Frederica of Hanover. Constantines older sister Sofia is the queen consort of Spain, while his younger sister. He was one year old when Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany invaded Greece and he returned to Greece with his family in 1946. King George died in 1947, and Constantines father became King Paul and he was educated at a preparatory school and later a boarding school where he was an above average student academically. A fellow student recalled him as, a good chap, a man with all the right instincts. He was at his best on the playing fields, Constantine served in all three armed services, attending the requisite military academies. He also attended the NATO Air Force Special Weapons School in Germany, as well as the University of Athens, in 1960, aged 20, he won an Olympic gold medal in sailing, which was the first Greek gold medal in sailing since the Stockholm 1912 Summer Olympics. He was also a swimmer and had a black belt in karate, with interests in squash, track events. In 1963 Constantine became a member of the International Olympic Committee and he resigned in 1974 because he was no longer a Greek resident, and was made an Honorary IOC Member. In March 1964, King Paul died of cancer, and the 23-year-old Constantine succeeded him as king, prior to this, Constantine had already been appointed as regent for his ailing father. King Pauls long-time prime minister Konstantinos Karamanlis regarded him partly responsible for his fall in 1963, however, due to his youth, he was also perceived as a promise of change. It was hoped that the new king and the new prime minister would be able to overcome past dissensions. Initially, relations between the king and Papandreou seemed good, but by 1965, they had deteriorated, the conservative establishment feared the rising influence of Papandreous left-leaning son Andreas, and the outbreak of the purported ASPIDA scandal seemed to confirm their suspicions
40.
Queen Anne-Marie of Greece
–
Queen Anne-Marie of Greece, RE is the wife of King Constantine II, who reigned from 1964 until 1973. Anne-Marie is the youngest daughter of King Frederick IX of Denmark and she is the youngest sister of the reigning Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and cousin of the reigning King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. The princess was baptised on 9 October 1946 in the Church of Holmen in Copenhagen, Princess Anne-Marie and her sisters grew up in apartments at Frederick VIIIIs Palace at Amalienborg in Copenhagen and in Fredensborg Palace in North Zealand. She spent summer holidays with the family in her parents summer residence at Gråsten Palace in Southern Jutland. On 20 April 1947, King Christian X died and Anne-Maries father ascended the throne as King Frederik IX, at the time of her fathers accession to the throne, only males could ascend the throne of Denmark. As Anne-Maries parents had no sons, it was assumed that her uncle Prince Knud would one day assume the throne, Anne-Maries elder sister Margrethe therefore became heir presumptive, and Princess Benedikte and Princess Anne-Marie became second and third in the line of succession. Anne-Marie was educated at N. Zahles School, a school in Copenhagen. In 1961 she attended the Chatelard School for Girls, an English boarding school outside Montreux in Switzerland, in 1963 and 1964 she attended the Institut Le Mesnil, a Swiss finishing school also in Montreux. They met a time in Denmark in 1961, when Constantine declared to his parents his intention to marry Anne-Marie. On 6 March 1964, King Paul died, and Constantine succeeded him as King of the Hellenes, in July 1964, the announcement of the engagement of Constantine and Anne-Marie raised the polite protests of the Left in Denmark. Anne-Marie and Constantine were married on 18 September 1964 in the Metropolis, the bride wore a Jørgen Bender design. Prior to the wedding, Anne-Marie converted from Lutheranism to the Greek Orthodox Church, Anne-Marie and her husband Constantine are third cousins, they share King Christian IX of Denmark as patrilineal great-great-grandfather. They also share Queen Victoria as a great-great-grandmother and they have five children, Princess Alexia, Crown Prince Pavlos, Prince Nikolaos, Princess Theodora and Prince Philippos. As Queen of Greece, Anne-Marie spent much of her working for a charitable foundation known as Her Majestys Fund which provided assistance to people in rural areas of Greece. In December 1967, Anne-Marie’s husband King Constantine attempted a counter-coup against the junta which had been sworn in by himself after a successful coup during the previous April. The counter-coup failed and Anne-Marie and her family had to flee to Italy, during the aftermath, Anne-Marie miscarried a child. The family lived for two months in the Greek embassy and then for the five years in a house in a suburb of Rome. In 1973 Anne-Marie moved with her family to England and they lived first in Chobham in Surrey
41.
Prince Michael of Kent
–
Prince Michael of Kent, GCVO CD is a paternal first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, being a grandson of King George V and Queen Mary. Prince Michael occasionally represents the Queen at some functions in Commonwealth realms outside the United Kingdom, otherwise, he manages his own consultancy business and undertakes various commercial work around the world. He has also presented some television documentaries on the families of Europe. He is named after Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia, the brother of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Since his mother was a cousin of Prince Philip, he is also a cousin to Prince Charles. Prince Michael was born on 4 July 1942, at Coppins, Iver, at the time of his birth Prince Michael was seventh in the line of succession to his uncle, King George VI. His mother was Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, Duchess of Kent, roosevelt, the Hereditary Princess of Greece, the wife of Paul of Greece, his first cousin-once-removed, the Duke of Gloucester, the Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven, and Lady Patricia Ramsay. Because of the war, newspaper reports did not identify the location of the christening, at the age of five, Prince Michael was a page boy at the wedding of his cousins, Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten. Educated at Sunningdale School and Eton College, Prince Michael entered the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, in January 1961, from where he was commissioned into the 11th Hussars, in 1963. He saw service in Germany, Hong Kong, and Cyprus, subsequent tours of duty, during a military career that spanned twenty years, included a number of appointments on the Defence Intelligence Staff. He retired from the Army with the rank of Major in 1981, in 1994, Prince Michael was made Honorary Commodore of the Royal Naval Reserve, and in 2002 he was made Honorary Air Commodore of RAF Benson. From 2009 to 2012 he was Regimental Colonel of the Honourable Artillery Company and has been, since 31 January 2012 and he is also Colonel-in-Chief of the Essex and Kent Scottish Regiment in Canada. He has performed duties in the Commonwealth realms other than the United Kingdom and has represented the Queen abroad. The Prince was given a grace and favour apartment at Kensington Palace upon his marriage in 1978, Prince Michael supports a large number of charities and organisations. Prince Michael manages his own business, and undertakes business throughout the world. He is also an interpreter of Russian. Prince Michael is an active Freemason and he is the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons, and Provincial Grand Master of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Middlesex. At the time of the marriage, Marie Christine von Reibnitz was not only a Roman Catholic, under the terms of the Act of Settlement 1701, Prince Michael forfeited his place in the line of succession to the throne through his marriage to a Roman Catholic
42.
International Standard Book Number
–
The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
