1.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
2.
Academy Award for Best Actress
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The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is given in honor of an actress who has delivered a performance in a leading role while working within the film industry. The 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held in 1929 with Janet Gaynor receiving the award for her roles in 7th Heaven, Street Angel, and Sunrise. Currently, nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the branch of AMPAS. In the first three years of the awards, actresses were nominated as the best in their categories, at that time, all of their work during the qualifying period was listed after the award. The following year, this unwieldy and confusing system was replaced by the current system in which an actress is nominated for a performance in a single film. Starting with the 9th ceremony held in 1937, the category was officially limited to five nominations per year, one actress has been nominated posthumously, Jeanne Eagels. Only three film characters have been nominated more than once in this category, elizabeth I of England, Leslie Crosbie in The Letter, and Esther Blodgett in A Star is Born. Six women on the list have received an Honorary Academy Award for their acting, they are Greta Garbo, Barbara Stanwyck, Mary Pickford, Deborah Kerr, Gena Rowlands, since its inception, the award has been given to 74 actresses. Katharine Hepburn has won the most awards in this category, with four Oscars, meryl Streep, who has a total of 20 Oscar nominations, has been nominated in this category on 16 occasions, resulting in two awards. As of the 2017 ceremony, Emma Stone is the most recent winner in category for her role as Mia Dolan in La La Land. In the following table, the years are listed as per Academy convention, and generally correspond to the year of release in Los Angeles County. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months from August 1 to July 31, for the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1,1932 to December 31,1933
3.
Vivien Leigh
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Vivien Leigh was a British stage and film actress. She also won a Tony Award for her work in the Broadway musical version of Tovarich, after her drama school education, Leigh appeared in small roles in four films in 1935 and progressed to the role of heroine in Fire Over England. Lauded for her beauty, Leigh felt that her physical attributes sometimes prevented her from being seriously as an actress. Despite her fame as an actress, Leigh was primarily a stage performer. Later in life, she performed as an actress in a few films. At the time, the public strongly identified Leigh with her second husband Laurence Olivier, Leigh and Olivier starred together in many stage productions, with Olivier often directing, and in three films. Although her career had periods of inactivity, in 1999 the American Film Institute ranked Leigh as the 16th greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema. Leigh was born Vivian Mary Hartley on 5 November 1913 in British India on the campus of St. Pauls School and she was the only child of Ernest Richard Hartley, an English broker, and his wife, Gertrude Mary Frances. Her father was born in Scotland in 1882, while her mother, Ernest and Gertrude Hartley were married in 1912 in Kensington, London. In 1917, Ernest Hartley was transferred to Bangalore as an officer in the Indian Cavalry, while Gertrude, at the age of three, young Vivian made her first stage appearance for her mothers amateur theatre group, reciting Little Bo Peep. At the age of six, Vivian was sent by her mother to the Convent of the Sacred Heart then situated in Roehampton, southwest London, from Loreto Convent, Darjeeling. One of her friends there was future actress Maureen OSullivan, two years her senior, to whom Vivian expressed her desire to become a great actress, the family returned to Britain in 1931. She attended A Connecticut Yankee, one of OSullivans films playing in Londons West End, shortly after, her father enrolled Vivian at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Vivian met Herbert Leigh Holman, known as Leigh Holman, a barrister 13 years her senior, on 12 October 1933 in London, she gave birth to a daughter, Suzanne, later Mrs. Robin Farrington. Leighs friends suggested she take a role as a schoolgirl in the film Things Are Looking Up. She engaged an agent, John Gliddon, who believed that Vivian Holman was not a name for an actress. After rejecting his many suggestions, she took Vivian Leigh as her professional name, Gliddon recommended her to Alexander Korda as a possible film actress, but Korda rejected her as lacking potential. She was cast in the play The Mask of Virtue, directed by Sidney Carroll in 1935 and received excellent reviews, followed by interviews, John Betjeman, the future Poet Laureate, described her as the essence of English girlhood
4.
Audrey Hepburn
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Audrey Hepburn was a British actress, model, dancer and humanitarian. Recognized as a film and fashion icon, Hepburn was active during Hollywoods Golden Age and she was ranked by the American Film Institute as the third-greatest female screen legend in Golden Age Hollywood and was inducted into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. Born in Ixelles, a district of Brussels, Hepburn spent her childhood between Belgium, England and the Netherlands, following minor appearances in several films, Hepburn starred in the 1951 Broadway play Gigi after being spotted by French novelist Colette, on whose work the play was based. She shot to stardom for playing the role in Roman Holiday, for which she was the first actress to win an Academy Award, a Golden Globe. The same year Hepburn won a Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play for her performance in Ondine, Hepburn won a record three BAFTA Awards for Best British Actress in a Leading Role. In recognition of her career, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from BAFTA. DeMille Award, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award and the Special Tony Award and she remains one of the few people who have won Academy, Emmy, Grammy and Tony Awards. Hepburn appeared in films as her life went on, devoting much of her later life to UNICEF. She had contributed to the organisation since 1954, then worked in some of the poorest communities of Africa, South America and she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in December 1992. A month later, Hepburn died of cancer at her home in Switzerland at the age of 63. Hepburn was born Audrey Kathleen Ruston or Edda Kathleen Hepburn-Ruston on 4 May 1929 at number 48 Rue Keyenveld in Ixelles and her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, was a British subject born in Auschitz, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary. He was the son of Victor John George Ruston, of British and Austrian descent and Anna Wels, Hepburns mother, Ella van Heemstra, was a Dutch baroness. At age nineteen, Ella had married Jonkheer Hendrik Gustaaf Adolf Quarles van Ufford, an oil based in Batavia, Dutch East Indies. They had two sons, Jonkheer Arnoud Robert Alexander Quarles van Ufford and Jonkheer Ian Edgar Bruce Quarles van Ufford, Hepburns parents were married in Batavia in September 1926. At the time, Ruston worked for a company, but soon after the marriage, the couple relocated to Europe. After a year in London, they moved to Brussels, where he had assigned to open a branch office. After three years spent travelling between Brussels, Arnhem, The Hague and London, the family settled to the suburban Brussels municipality of Linkebeek in 1932, Hepburns early childhood was sheltered and privileged. In the mid-1930s, Hepburns parents recruited and collected donations for the British Union of Fascists, Joseph left the family abruptly in 1935, which Hepburn later professed was the most traumatic event of my life
5.
Roman Holiday
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Roman Holiday is a 1953 American romantic comedy film directed and produced by William Wyler. It stars Gregory Peck as a reporter and Audrey Hepburn as a royal princess out to see Rome on her own, Hepburn won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance, the screenplay and costume design also won. It was written by John Dighton and Dalton Trumbo, though with Trumbo on the Hollywood blacklist, he did not receive a credit, instead, Trumbos credit was reinstated when the film was released on DVD in 2003. On December 19,2011, full credit for Trumbos work was restored, blacklisted director Bernard Vorhaus worked on the film as an assistant director under a pseudonym. It was shot at the Cinecittà studios and on location around Rome during the Hollywood on the Tiber era, the film was screened in the 14th Venice film festival within the official program. In 1999, Roman Holiday was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically and her doctor gives her a sedative to calm her and help her sleep, but she secretly leaves her countrys embassy. The sedative eventually makes her fall asleep on a bench, where Joe Bradley, not recognizing her, he offers her money so she can take a taxi home, but a woozy Anya Smith refuses to cooperate. Joe finally decides, for sake, to let her spend the night in his apartment. He is amused by her manner, but less so when she appropriates his bed. He transfers her to a couch, the next morning, Joe, having already slept through the interview Princess Ann was scheduled to give, hurries off to work, leaving her still asleep. When his editor, Mr. Hennessy, asks why Joe is late, Joe lies, Joe makes up details of the alleged interview until Hennessy informs him that the event had been canceled because the princess had suddenly fallen ill. Joe sees a picture of her and realizes who is in his apartment. Immediately seeing an opportunity, Joe proposes getting an exclusive interview, Hennessy, not knowing the circumstances, agrees to the deal and offers $5,000 if the interview is all Joe claims it will be, but bets Joe $500 that he will not succeed. Joe hurries home and, hiding the fact that he is a reporter and he also surreptitiously calls his photographer friend, Irving Radovich, to tag along to secretly take pictures. However, Ann declines Joes offer and leaves, Ann, enjoying her freedom, explores an outdoor market, buys a pair of shoes, and, on a whim, gets her long hair cut short. Joe follows and accidentally meets her on the Spanish Steps and this time he convinces her to spend the day with him. They see the sights, including the Mouth of Truth, a carved in marble which is said to bite off the hands of liars. When Joe shouts in pain and pulls his hand out of the mouth
6.
Deborah Kerr
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Deborah Kerr CBE was a Scottish film, theatre and television actress. She was also a winner of the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. Kerr was nominated six times for the Academy Award for Best Actress and she spent the first three years of her life in the nearby town of Helensburgh, where her parents lived with Deborahs grandparents in a house on West King Street. Kerr had a brother, Edmund, who became a journalist. He was killed in a road incident in 2004. Kerr was educated at the independent Northumberland House School, Henleaze in Bristol, Kerr originally trained as a ballet dancer, first appearing on stage at Sadlers Wells in 1938. After changing careers, she found success as an actress. Her first acting teacher was her aunt, Phyllis Smale, who ran the Hicks-Smale Drama School in Bristol and she adopted the name Deborah Kerr on becoming a film actress. Kerrs first stage appearance was at Weston-super-Mare in 1937, as Harlequin in the mime play Harlequin and she then went to the Sadlers Wells ballet school and in 1938 made her début in the corps de ballet in Prometheus. In 1943, aged 21, Kerr made her West End début as Ellie Dunn in a revival of Heartbreak House at the Cambridge Theatre, stealing attention from such as Edith Evans. She has the gift, wrote critic Beverley Baxter, of thinking her lines. The process of development from a romantic, silly girl to a hard, after her first London success in 1943, she toured England and Scotland in Heartbreak House. Near the end of the Second World War, she also toured Holland, France, and Belgium for ENSA as Mrs Manningham in Angel Street, and Britain in Gaslight. Having established herself as an actress in the meantime, she made her Broadway debut in 1953, appearing in Robert Andersons Tea and Sympathy. Kerr repeated her role along with her stage partner John Kerr in Vincente Minnellis film adaptation of the drama, in 1955, Kerr won the Sarah Siddons Award for her performance in Chicago during a national tour of the play. After her Broadway début in 1953, she toured the United States with Tea, in 1975, she returned to Broadway, creating the role of Nancy in Edward Albees Pulitzer Prize-winning play Seascape. In 1977, she came back to the West End, playing the role in a production of George Bernard Shaws Candida. I dont mean to belittle acting but Im like a child when Im out there performing—shocking the grownups, enchanting them and its an unbelievable terror, a kind of masochistic madness
7.
Reach for the Sky
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Reach for the Sky is a 1956 British biographical film about aviator Douglas Bader, based on the 1954 biography of the same name by Paul Brickhill. The film stars Kenneth More and was directed by Lewis Gilbert and it won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film of 1956. The films composer John Addison was Baders brother-in-law, in 1928, Douglas Bader joins the Royal Air Force as a cadet. In 1930, he is chosen to be among the pilots for an aerial exhibition, later, although his flight commander has explicitly banned low level aerobatics, he is goaded into it by a disparaging remark by a civilian pilot. Mr Joyce, surgeon at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, has to both legs to save Baders life. During his convalescence, he receives encouragement from Nurse Brace, upon his discharge from the hospital, he sets out to master prosthetic legs. At a stop for tea, he meets waitress Thelma Edwards. Once he can walk on his own, he starts courting her, despite his undiminished skills, he is refused flying duties simply because there are no regulations covering his situation. Offered a desk job instead, he leaves the RAF and works unhappily in an office, as the Second World War starts, Bader talks himself back into the RAF. He is soon given command of a squadron comprising mostly dispirited Canadians who had fought in France, improving morale and brazenly circumventing normal channels to obtain badly needed equipment, he makes the squadron operational again. They fight effectively in the Battle of Britain, Bader is then put in charge of a new, larger formation of five squadrons. Later, he is posted to RAF Tangmere and promoted to wing commander, in 1941, Bader has to bail out over France. He is caught, escapes, and is recaptured and he then makes such a nuisance of himself to his jailers, he is repeatedly moved from one POW camp to another, finally ending up in Colditz Castle. He is liberated after four years of captivity, the war ends before Bader can have one last fling in the Far East. To depict the various Royal Air Force bases realistically, principal filming took place in Surrey at RAF Kenley, studio work was completed at Pinewood Studios. Available wartime combat aircraft including Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire fighters were arranged to take on the aerial scenes. Richard Burton was the first choice for the lead but he dropped out when he was offered the lead in Alexander the Great at what Gilbert describes as three or four times the salary, Kenneth More was cast instead at a fee of £25,000. Producer Daniel Angel recalled, My wife said to me, Kenneth More is Douglas Bader and he was a good actor, but, looking back, I dont think he was all that versatile and he wasnt physically a very attractive man
8.
Hermione Baddeley
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Hermione Youlanda Ruby Clinton-Baddeley, known as Hermione Baddeley, was an English character actress of theatre, film and television. She typically played brash, vulgar characters, often referred to as brassy or blowsy and she found her milieu in revue, in which she played from the 1930s to the 1950s, co-starring several times with Hermione Gingold. Baddeley was born in Broseley, Shropshire, England and she is a descendent of British American Revolutionary War General Sir Henry Clinton. Her elder sister, Angela Baddeley, was also an actress and her half-brother, Very Rev William Baddeley, was a Church of England priest who became Rural Dean of Westminster. She also had a stage career. She had a professional relationship with Sir Noël Coward, appearing in many of his plays throughout the 1940s and 1950s. The most successful was her teaming with Hermione Gingold in Cowards comedy Fallen Angels and she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Simone Signorets best friend in Jack Claytons Room at the Top. With just 2 minutes and 32 seconds, hers is the shortest role to be nominated for an Academy Award, in 1960 she played prostitute Doll Tearsheet in the BBCs series of Shakespeare history plays An Age of Kings, acting alongside her sister Angela as Mistress Quickly. In 1963, she was nominated for Broadways Tony Award as Best Actress for The Milk Train Doesnt Stop Here Anymore and she was known to American audiences for roles in Bewitched, Little House on the Prairie, Camp Runamuck and Maude. Toward the end of her career, Baddeley was also a sought-after voice-over actress, including roles in The Aristocats, in 1928 Baddeley married the Hon. David Francis Tennant. She arrived an hour late for the wedding, having misremembered the time booked for the ceremony and they rented Teffont Evias Manor, which became known for their boisterous parties. She had a daughter Pauline Tennant on 16 February 1927 and they divorced in 1937 but remained good friends until his death. In 1940 Baddeley married Major J. H. Dozey Willis and she also had a relationship with the actor Laurence Harvey, a man 22 years her junior. Although Harvey proposed marriage to her, Baddeley thought the age difference was too great, Harvey left Baddeley in 1951 for actress Margaret Leighton. Baddeley was known for her devotion to animals and she dedicated her autobiography, The Unsinkable Hermione Baddeley, to her pet dog. She continued to work in film and television until shortly before the end of her life and she died following a series of strokes on 19 August 1986, aged 79, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. She was survived by two children, Pauline Tennant and David, from her first marriage and she was interred in St Mary and St Melor Parish Church in Amesbury, Wiltshire
9.
Sabrina (1954 film)
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Sabrina is a 1954 American romantic comedy film directed by Billy Wilder, adapted for the screen by Wilder, Samuel A. Taylor, and Ernest Lehman from Taylors play Sabrina Fair. It stars Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, and William Holden and this was Wilders last film released by Paramount Pictures, ending a 12-year business relationship with Wilder and the company. The film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2002, Sabrina Fairchild is the young daughter of the Larrabee familys chauffeur, Thomas, and she has been in love with David Larrabee all her life. David is an oft-married, idle playboy, crazy for women, who has never noticed Sabrina, much to her, distraught, she leaves her father a suicide note and tries to kill herself by carbon monoxide poisoning. She fails when Davids workaholic older brother, Linus intervenes, Sabrina then attends culinary school in Paris called Mount Douglas, and after 2 years she returns home as an attractive and sophisticated woman. David, after initially not recognizing her, is drawn to her. Linus sees this and fears that Davids imminent marriage to Elizabeth Tyson may be endangered, if the engagement is broken, it would ruin a profitable opportunity on a great corporate merger between Larrabee Industries and Elizabeths very wealthy fathers business. Linus confronts David about his irresponsibility to the family, the business, and Elizabeth, Linus then tries to distract Sabrina from David by drawing her affections to himself. He succeeds, but in the falls in love with her. Linus reveals his maneuver to Sabrina, leaving her disillusioned about him, Sabrina agrees to leave and never come back, and Linus arranges for her to return to Paris by ship the next day. The next morning, Linus has second thoughts and decides to send David to Paris with Sabrina and this means calling off Davids wedding with Elizabeth and the big Tyson deal, and he schedules a meeting of the Larrabee board to announce this. However, David shows up at the meeting and declares that hes decided to marry Elizabeth after all, as a result, Linus finally recognizes his own feelings for Sabrina. He rushes off to join her on the ship, and they sail away together to Paris, fontanel Marcel Hillaire as The Professor, Sabrinas culinary instructor Ellen Corby as Miss McCardle, Linus secretary Francis X. Bushman as Mr. During production of the film, Hepburn and Holden entered into a brief, Bogart had originally wanted his wife Lauren Bacall to be cast as Sabrina, and complained that Hepburn required too many takes to get her dialogue right and pointed out her inexperience. His behavior towards Hepburn, however, was better than his behavior towards members of the cast. Bogart was very unhappy during the filming, convinced that he was wrong for this kind of film, mad at not being Wilders first choice. But Wilders offbeat casting produced a performance that critics generally considered successful, Bogart later apologized to Wilder for his behavior on-set, citing problems in his personal life. Wilder began shooting before the script was finished, and Lehman was writing all day to complete it, eventually, he would finish a scene in the morning, deliver it during lunch, and filming of it would begin in the afternoon
10.
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951 film)
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A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1951 American drama film, adapted from Tennessee Williamss Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 play of the same name. The Broadway production and cast was converted to film with minor changes. True to the play, the film is both lyrical and gritty, with complex and contradictory characters, chief among these was Blanche Dubois, who has become a legendary and iconic figure in film history. Tennessee Williams collaborated with Oscar Saul and Elia Kazan on the screenplay, Kazan, who directed the Broadway stage production, also directed the black and white film. Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden were all cast in their original Broadway roles. Although Jessica Tandy originated the role of Blanche DuBois on Broadway, Vivien Leigh, upon release of the film, Marlon Brando, virtually unknown at the time of the play’s casting, rose to prominence as a major Hollywood movie star. In 1999, A Streetcar Named Desire was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. Under mysterious circumstances, Blanche DuBois, a high school teacher, leaves her home in Auriol, Mississippi to travel to New Orleans to live with her sister. Blanche and Stella are all that remain of an old aristocratic family, Blanche discloses that the family estate, Belle Reve, has been lost to creditors, and that she wants to stay with Stella and Stanley for a while. Blanche seems lost and broke, with nowhere to go, Stella welcomes her with an open heart. From the start, Blanche and Stanley are wary of each other, Blanche has a soft-spoken manner, Stanley is rough and loud. His mere presence seems to threaten her, while her behavior and she is especially adroit at patronizing and criticizing Stella from the start. When interrogated about her past, struggling to be polite, Blanche says that she was married and widowed at a young age and she says that she has taken a leave of absence from her job due to her nerves. To satisfy Stanleys skepticism about the loss of the estate, Blanche hands over her papers pertaining to Belle Reve, but Stanley grabs at some of her private papers that she is holding back, and they cascade to the floor. Weeping, she gathers them all back, saying that they are poems from her dead husband and he defends himself by saying that he was just looking out for his family, and then announces that Stella is going to have a baby. Soon after her arrival, Stanley has a night with his friends where Blanche meets Mitch. His courteous manner sets him apart from Stanleys other friends and they like each other right away. This is the start of their romance, Stanley explodes in a drunken rage, striking Stella, and sending his friends running, while Blanche and Stella flee to the upstairs neighbor, Eunice
11.
War and Peace (1956 film)
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The film, released by Paramount Pictures, was produced by Dino De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti with a music score by Nino Rota and cinematography by Jack Cardiff. The film stars Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda, and Mel Ferrer, along with Vittorio Gassman, Herbert Lom, John Mills and Anita Ekberg and it had Academy Awards nominations for Best Director, Best Cinematography, Color and Best Costume Design, Color. The film script had to condense the extensive original and it is primarily focused on Natasha, Pierre, and Andrei, their complex relationship and personal maturation on the backdrop of the historical events of the Napoleonic invasion. In Moscow, most of the scenes take place at the Rostov residence and this is a condensation of two scenes at the Rostov country estate, since in the novel Andrei, who by then is already Natashas fiancé, is not present at the hunt. There are no scenes in St. Petersburg, the relationship between Nicholas, Sonya and Maria is toned down. Historical figures retained are General Kutuzov and Napoleon, minor battles are omitted, while Napoleons crossing of the Berezina is added. The concept of the dialogue is retained, notably in regard to Natasha. Events of the epilogue are not included, nor are Tolstoys discourses about history, the film received mixed reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reports that 33% of 6 reviews were positive, with a rating of 4. 8/10
12.
Celia Johnson
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Dame Celia Elizabeth Johnson DBE was an English actress. She began her acting career in 1928, and subsequently achieved success in West End. She also appeared in films, including the romantic drama Brief Encounter. Much of her work was for television, and she continued performing in theatre for the rest of her life. She suffered a stroke and died soon after at the age of 73, born in Richmond, Surrey, and nicknamed Betty, Johnson was the second daughter of Robert and Ethel Johnson. Her first public performance was in 1916, when she played a role in a charity performance of King Cophetua and she attended St Pauls Girls School in London from 1919 until 1926, and played in the schools orchestra under Gustav Holst. She acted in productions, but had no other acting experience, when she was accepted to study at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1926. She later spent a term in Paris, studying under Pierre Fresnay at the Comédie Française and she later recalled her choice of an acting career with the comment, I thought Id rather like it. It was the only thing I was good at, and I thought it might be rather wicked. ”Her stage début, and first professional role, was as Sarah in George Bernard Shaws Major Barbara at the Theatre Royal, Huddersfield in 1928. She went to London the following year to take the place of Angela Baddeley in the part of Currita in A Hundred Years Old, in 1930 Johnson played in Cynara with Sir Gerald Du Maurier and Dame Gladys Cooper. She made her first trip to the United States the following year to star as Ophelia in a New York production of Hamlet. She returned to London, where she appeared in a number of productions, before establishing herself with a two-year run in The Wind. She married the journalist Peter Fleming in 1935, and in 1939 gave birth to their first child, during the Second World War, Johnson lived with her widowed sister and sister-in-law and helped care for their combined seven children. She appeared in In Which We Serve and This Happy Breed, Lean and Coward sought Johnson for the next production, Brief Encounter. I have found myself already planning how I should play bits, Johnson was awarded the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. After the war, Johnson concentrated on her life, which included two daughters born in 1946 and 1947 and her occasional acting work was secondary for the following decade. In 1952, she opened The Grass is Greener, in 1957 she acted with Ralph Richardson in The Flowering Cherry. As a member of Laurence Oliviers National Theatre Company, Johnson appeared in the plays The Master Builder with Olivier and Hay Fever, for her role in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, she received the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
