1.
Orson Welles
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George Orson Welles was an American actor, director, writer, and producer who worked in theatre, radio, and film. In 1937 he and John Houseman founded the Mercury Theatre, an independent repertory company that presented a series of productions on Broadway through 1941. It reportedly caused widespread panic when listeners thought that an invasion by extraterrestrial beings was actually occurring, although some contemporary sources claim these reports of panic were mostly false and overstated, they rocketed Welles to notoriety. His first film was Citizen Kane, which he co-wrote, produced, directed, Welles was an outsider to the studio system and directed only 13 full-length films in his career. He has been praised as the ultimate auteur, Welles followed up Citizen Kane with critically acclaimed films including The Magnificent Ambersons in 1942 and Touch of Evil in 1958. Although these three are his most acclaimed films, critics have argued other works of his, such as The Lady from Shanghai and Chimes at Midnight, are underappreciated. Known for his voice, Welles was an actor in radio and film, a Shakespearean stage actor. George Orson Welles was born May 6,1915, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, son of Richard Head Welles and he was named after his paternal great-grandfather, influential Kenosha attorney Orson S. Head, and his brother George Head. Despite his familys affluence, Welles encountered hardship in childhood and his parents separated and moved to Chicago in 1919. His father, who made a fortune as the inventor of a bicycle lamp, became an alcoholic. Beatrice died of hepatitis in a Chicago hospital May 10,1924, the Gordon String Quartet, which had made its first appearance at her home in 1921, played at Beatrices funeral. After his mothers death Welles ceased pursuing music and it was decided that he would spend the summer with the Watson family at a private art colony in Wyoming, New York, established by Lydia Avery Coonley Ward. There he played and became friends with the children of the Aga Khan, Welles briefly attended public school before his alcoholic father left business altogether and took him along on his travels to Jamaica and the Far East. When they returned they settled in a hotel in Grand Detour, Illinois, when the hotel burned down, Welles and his father took to the road again. During the three years that Orson lived with his father, some observers wondered who took care of whom, in some ways, he was never really a young boy, you know, said Roger Hill, who became Welless teacher and lifelong friend. Welles briefly attended school in Madison, Wisconsin, enrolled in the fourth grade. At Todd School, Welles came under the influence of Roger Hill, Hill provided Welles with an ad hoc educational environment that proved invaluable to his creative experience, allowing Welles to concentrate on subjects that interested him. Welles performed and staged theatrical experiments and productions there, Todd provided Welles with many valuable experiences, wrote critic Richard France
2.
James Mason
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James Neville Mason was an English actor. He was nominated for three Academy Awards and three Golden Globes, Mason was born in Huddersfield, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, to Mabel Hattersley and John Mason. His father was a textile merchant. He was educated at Marlborough College, and earned a first in architecture at Peterhouse, Mason had no formal training in acting and initially embarked upon it for fun. After Cambridge he made his debut in Aldershot in The Rascal in 1931. He joined The Old Vic theatre in London under the guidance of Tyrone Guthrie, in 1933 Alexander Korda gave Mason a small role in The Private Life of Don Juan but sacked him three days into shooting. From 1935-38, he starred in many British quota quickies, Mason became hugely popular for his brooding anti-heroes in the Gainsborough series of melodramas of the 1940s, including The Man in Grey and The Wicked Lady. He also starred with Deborah Kerr and Robert Newton in Hatters Castle and he then took the lead role in the popular The Seventh Veil, which set box office records in post-war Britain and raised him to international stardom. He followed it with a role as a mortally wounded IRA bank robber on the run in Odd Man Out and his first Hollywood film, exhibitors voted him the most popular star in Britain in each year between 1944 and 1947. They also thought he was the most popular star in 1946. He was the most popular star in Canada in 1948. Masons languid but impassioned vocal talent enabled him to play a villain as easily as his good looks assisted him as a leading man. His roles include Brutus in Julius Caesar, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in The Desert Fox, The Story of Rommel and The Desert Rats, in the 1950s, Mason was host of Lux Video Theatre on CBS television. In 1963 he settled in Switzerland, and embarked on a transatlantic career, one of his last roles, that of corrupt lawyer Ed Concannon in The Verdict, earned him his third and final Oscar nomination. Mason had been a neighbour and friend of the comedian. Having completed playing the role in Dr. This was to be Masons final screen performance, in the late 1970s, Mason became a mentor to up-and-coming actor Sam Neill. Mason was a lover of animals, particularly cats
3.
Geraldine Fitzgerald
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Geraldine Mary Fitzgerald was an Irish-American actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Fitzgerald was born in Greystones, County Wicklow, south of Dublin, the daughter of Edith Catherine and Edward Martin FitzGerald and her father was Roman Catholic and her mother a Protestant who converted to Catholicism. She studied painting at the Dublin School of Art, inspired by her aunt, actress Shelagh Richards, Fitzgerald began her acting career in 1932 at Dublins famed Gate Theatre. Her great-niece is actress Tara Fitzgerald, after two seasons there she moved to London, where she found success in British films including The Mill on the Floss, The Turn of the Tide and Cafe Mascot. Fitzgeralds success led her to New York and the Broadway stage in 1938 and she made her American debut opposite Orson Welles in the Mercury Theatre production of Heartbreak House. She was seen by Hollywood producer Hal B, wallis, who signed her to a contract with Warner Bros. She lost the role of Brigid OShaughnessy, the villainess of The Maltese Falcon, Fitzgerald became a U. S. citizen during World War II in a display of solidarity with her adopted country. In 1946, shortly after completing work on Three Strangers, she left Hollywood to return to New York City where she married her second husband Stuart Scheftel, a grandson of Isidor Straus. She returned to Britain to film So Evil My Love, receiving strong reviews for her performance as an alcoholic adultress and she became a naturalised United States citizen on April 18,1955. The 1950s provided her with few opportunities in film, but in the 1960s she asserted herself as a character actress. Among her successful films of this period were Ten North Frederick, The Pawnbroker and her later films included The Mango Tree, and Harry and Tonto, in one scene opposite Art Carney. In the comedy Arthur, she portrayed Dudley Moores wealthy and eccentric grandmother, Fitzgerald would appear in a Rodney Dangerfield comedy, Easy Money, the horror film Poltergeist II, The Other Side, and the comedy sequel Arthur 2, On the Rocks. Fitzgerald began to act more often on stage and won acclaim for her performance in the 1971 revival of Long Days Journey Into Night. She achieved success as a director, in 1982 she became one of the first women to receive a Tony Award nomination for Best Direction of a Play. She appeared frequently on television as well, in series as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Robert Montgomery Presents, Naked City, St. Elsewhere, The Golden Girls. She was a regular in the short-lived 1965 CBS serial Our Private World, in 1983, she portrayed Rose Kennedy in the mini-series Kennedy with Martin Sheen, and co-starred as Joanne Woodwards mother in the 1985 Alzheimers drama Do You Remember Love. In 1986, she starred alongside Tuesday Weld and River Phoenix in Circle of Violence about domestic elder abuse, in 1987, she played one of the title roles in the TV sitcom pilot Mabel and Max, produced by Barbra Streisand. She received an Emmy Award nomination for a guest role playing Anna in The Golden Girls Mothers Day episode in 1988 and she won a Daytime Emmy Award as Best Actress for her appearance in the episode Rodeo Red and the Runaways on NBC Special Treat
4.
Michael Gambon
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Sir Michael John Gambon CBE is an Irish-born English actor who has worked in theatre, television and film. He has won four BAFTA TV Awards and three Olivier Awards, Gambon was born in Cabra, Dublin, during World War II. His father, Edward Gambon, was an engineer, and his mother and his father decided to seek work in the rebuilding of London, and so the family moved to Mornington Crescent in north London, when Gambon was five. His father had him made a British citizen, a decision that would later allow Gambon to receive a substantive, rather than honorary, knighthood, brought up as a strict Roman Catholic, he attended St Aloysius Boys School in Somers Town and served at the altar. He then moved to St Aloysius College in Hornsey Lane, Highgate, London and he later moved to North End, Kent, and attended Crayford Secondary School, before leaving with no qualifications at fifteen. He then gained an apprenticeship with Vickers Armstrong as a toolmaker, by the time he was 21, he was a qualified engineer. He kept the job for a year, acquiring a fascination and passion for collecting antique guns, clocks, watches. At age 24, Gambon wrote a letter to Micheál Mac Liammóir and it was accompanied by a CV describing a rich and wholly imaginary theatre career – and he was taken on. Gambon made his professional stage début in the Gate Theatre Dublins 1962 production of Othello, playing Second Gentleman, followed by a European tour. Gambon, along with Robert Stephens, Derek Jacobi and Frank Finlay, was hired as one of the to be renowned and played any number of small roles, appearing on cast lists as Mike Gambon. The company initially performed at the Old Vic, their first production being Hamlet, directed by Olivier and starring Peter OToole. Gambon played for four years in many NT productions, including named roles in The Recruiting Officer and The Royal Hunt of the Sun, working with directors William Gaskill, after three years at the Old Vic, Olivier advised Gambon to gain experience in provincial rep. In 1967, he left the NT for the Birmingham Repertory Company, Gambon was suggested for the role of James Bond in On Her Majestys Secret Service, although he was dismissed for being even less known than George Lazenby who was cast. His rise to fame began in 1974 when Eric Thompson cast him as the vet in Alan Ayckbourns The Norman Conquests at Greenwich. A speedy transfer to the West End established him as a actor, squatting at a crowded dining table on a tiny chair. He is also one of the few actors to have mastered the demands of the vast Olivier Theatre, as Simon Callow once said, Gambons iron lungs and overwhelming charisma are able to command a sort of operatic full-throatedness which triumphs over hard walls and long distances. This was to him in good stead in John Dexters masterly staging of The Life of Galileo in 1980. Hall called him unsentimental, dangerous and immensely powerful, and The Sunday Times called his performance a decisive step in the direction of great tragedy, Great acting, while fellow actors paid him the rare compliment of applauding him in the dressing room on the first night
5.
Dublin
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Dublin is the capital and largest city of Ireland. Dublin is in the province of Leinster on Irelands east coast, the city has an urban area population of 1,345,402. The population of the Greater Dublin Area, as of 2016, was 1,904,806 people, founded as a Viking settlement, the Kingdom of Dublin became Irelands principal city following the Norman invasion. The city expanded rapidly from the 17th century and was briefly the second largest city in the British Empire before the Acts of Union in 1800, following the partition of Ireland in 1922, Dublin became the capital of the Irish Free State, later renamed Ireland. Dublin is administered by a City Council, the city is listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network as a global city, with a ranking of Alpha-, which places it amongst the top thirty cities in the world. It is a historical and contemporary centre for education, the arts, administration, economy, the name Dublin comes from the Irish word Dubhlinn, early Classical Irish Dubhlind/Duibhlind, dubh /d̪uβ/, alt. /d̪uw/, alt /d̪u, / meaning black, dark, and lind /lʲiɲ pool and this tidal pool was located where the River Poddle entered the Liffey, on the site of the castle gardens at the rear of Dublin Castle. In Modern Irish the name is Duibhlinn, and Irish rhymes from Dublin County show that in Dublin Leinster Irish it was pronounced Duílinn /d̪ˠi, other localities in Ireland also bear the name Duibhlinn, variously anglicized as Devlin, Divlin and Difflin. Historically, scribes using the Gaelic script wrote bh with a dot over the b and those without knowledge of Irish omitted the dot, spelling the name as Dublin. Variations on the name are found in traditionally Irish-speaking areas of Scotland, such as An Linne Dhubh. It is now thought that the Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical settlement known as Duibhlinn, beginning in the 9th and 10th century, there were two settlements where the modern city stands. Baile Átha Cliath, meaning town of the ford, is the common name for the city in modern Irish. Áth Cliath is a name referring to a fording point of the River Liffey near Father Mathew Bridge. Baile Átha Cliath was an early Christian monastery, believed to have been in the area of Aungier Street, there are other towns of the same name, such as Àth Cliath in East Ayrshire, Scotland, which is Anglicised as Hurlford. Although the area of Dublin Bay has been inhabited by humans since prehistoric times and he called the settlement Eblana polis. It is now thought that the Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical settlement known as Duibhlinn, beginning in the 9th and 10th century, there were two settlements where the modern city stands. The subsequent Scandinavian settlement centred on the River Poddle, a tributary of the Liffey in an area now known as Wood Quay, the Dubhlinn was a small lake used to moor ships, the Poddle connected the lake with the Liffey. This lake was covered during the early 18th century as the city grew, the Dubhlinn lay where the Castle Garden is now located, opposite the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle
6.
Ireland
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Ireland is an island in the North Atlantic. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth. Politically, Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland, which covers five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, in 2011, the population of Ireland was about 6.4 million, ranking it the second-most populous island in Europe after Great Britain. Just under 4.6 million live in the Republic of Ireland, the islands geography comprises relatively low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain, with several navigable rivers extending inland. The island has lush vegetation, a product of its mild, thick woodlands covered the island until the Middle Ages. As of 2013, the amount of land that is wooded in Ireland is about 11% of the total, there are twenty-six extant mammal species native to Ireland. The Irish climate is moderate and classified as oceanic. As a result, winters are milder than expected for such a northerly area, however, summers are cooler than those in Continental Europe. Rainfall and cloud cover are abundant, the earliest evidence of human presence in Ireland is dated at 10,500 BC. Gaelic Ireland had emerged by the 1st century CE, the island was Christianised from the 5th century onward. Following the Norman invasion in the 12th century, England claimed sovereignty over Ireland, however, English rule did not extend over the whole island until the 16th–17th century Tudor conquest, which led to colonisation by settlers from Britain. In the 1690s, a system of Protestant English rule was designed to materially disadvantage the Catholic majority and Protestant dissenters, with the Acts of Union in 1801, Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland saw much civil unrest from the late 1960s until the 1990s and this subsided following a political agreement in 1998. In 1973 the Republic of Ireland joined the European Economic Community while the United Kingdom, Irish culture has had a significant influence on other cultures, especially in the fields of literature. Alongside mainstream Western culture, an indigenous culture exists, as expressed through Gaelic games, Irish music. The culture of the island shares many features with that of Great Britain, including the English language, and sports such as association football, rugby, horse racing. The name Ireland derives from Old Irish Eriu and this in turn derives from Proto-Celtic *Iveriu, which is also the source of Latin Hibernia. Iveriu derives from a root meaning fat, prosperous, during the last glacial period, and up until about 9000 years ago, most of Ireland was covered with ice, most of the time
7.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
8.
The Great Gatsby
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The story primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion and obsession for the beautiful former debutante Daisy Buchanan. Progress was slow, with Fitzgerald completing his first draft following a move to the French Riviera in 1924 and his editor, Maxwell Perkins, felt the book was vague and persuaded the author to revise over the next winter. First published by Scribners in April 1925, The Great Gatsby received mixed reviews and sold poorly, in its first year, Fitzgerald died in 1940, believing himself to be a failure and his work forgotten. However, the experienced a revival during World War II. Today, The Great Gatsby is widely considered to be a literary classic, in 1998, the Modern Library editorial board voted it the 20th centurys best American novel and second best English-language novel of the same time period. Set on the prosperous Long Island of 1922, The Great Gatsby provides a social history of America during the Roaring Twenties within its fictional narrative. Fitzgerald educates his readers about the society of the Roaring Twenties by placing a timeless. Fitzgeralds visits to Long Islands north shore and his experience attending parties at mansions inspired The Great Gatsbys setting, today, there are a number of theories as to which mansion was the inspiration for the book. One possibility is Lands End, a notable Gold Coast Mansion where Fitzgerald may have attended a party, many of the events in Fitzgeralds early life are reflected throughout The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald was a man from Minnesota, and like Nick, he was educated at an Ivy League school. Fitzgerald is also similar to Jay Gatsby, in that he fell in love while stationed far from home in the military, Fitzgerald became a second lieutenant, and was stationed at Camp Sheridan, in Montgomery, Alabama. There he met and fell in love with a wild seventeen-year-old beauty named Zelda Sayre, Zelda finally agreed to marry him, but her preference for wealth, fun, and leisure led her to delay their wedding until he could prove a success. Like Nick in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald found this new lifestyle seductive and exciting, in many ways, The Great Gatsby represents Fitzgeralds attempt to confront his conflicting feelings about the Jazz Age. Like Gatsby, Fitzgerald was driven by his love for a woman who symbolized everything he wanted, even as she led him toward everything he despised. In her book Careless People, Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby, based on her forensic search for clues, she asserts that the two victims in the Hall-Mills murder case inspired the characters who were murdered in The Great Gatsby. The main events of the novel take place in the summer of 1922, Nick Carraway, a Yale graduate and veteran of the Great War from the Midwest—who serves as the novels narrator—takes a job in New York as a bond salesman. Nick drives around the bay to East Egg for dinner at the home of his cousin, Daisy Fay Buchanan, and her husband, Tom and they introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, an attractive, cynical young golfer with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship. She reveals to Nick that Tom has a mistress, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the valley of ashes, not long after this revelation, Nick travels to New York City with Tom and Myrtle to an apartment Tom keeps for his affairs with Myrtle and others
