1.
Performing arts
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Performing arts are a form of art in which artists use their voices and/or their bodies, often in relation to other objects, to convey artistic expression. It is different from visual arts, which is when artists use paint/canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects, performing arts include several disciplines, each performed in front of a live audience. Artists who participate in performing arts in front of an audience are called performers, examples of these include actors, comedians, dancers, magicians, circus artists, musicians, and singers. Performing arts are supported by workers in related fields, such as songwriting, choreography. A performer who excels in acting, singing, and dancing is commonly referred to as a triple threat, well-known examples of historical triple threat artists include Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and Judy Garland. Performers often adapt their appearance, such as costumes and stage makeup, stage lighting. Performing arts may include dance, music, opera, theatre and musical theatre, magic, illusion, mime, spoken word, puppetry, circus arts, performance art, recitation and public speaking. There is also a form of fine art, in which the artists perform their work live to an audience. Most performance art also involves some form of art, perhaps in the creation of props. Dance was often referred to as an art during the Modern dance era. Theatre is the branch of performing arts, concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience, using a combination of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound, any one or more of these elements is performing arts. In addition to the standard narrative style of plays. In the context of performing arts, dance generally refers to movement, typically rhythmic and to music. Definitions of what constitutes dance are dependent on social, cultural, aesthetic artistic and moral constraints and range from functional movement to codified, in dance, the connection between the two concepts is stronger than in some other arts, and neither can exist without the other. Choreography is the art of making dances, and the person who practices this art is called a choreographer, music is an art form which combines pitch, rhythm, and dynamic in order to create sound. It can be performed using a variety of instruments and styles and is divided into genres, as an art form, music can occur in live or recorded formats, and can be planned or improvised. Starting in the 6th century BC, the Classical period of performing art began in Greece and these poets wrote plays which, in some cases, incorporated dance. The Hellenistic period began the use of comedy
2.
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
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The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D. C. The Center, which opened September 8,1971, is a multi-dimensional facility, both an enduring memorial to John F. Now in its 45th season, the Center presents the greatest examples of music, dance and theater, supports artists in the creation of new work and it is both the nations public memorial to President John F. Kennedy and the national center for the performing arts. Its activities include educational and outreach initiatives, almost entirely funded through sales and gifts from individuals, corporations. The building, designed by architect Edward Durell Stone, was constructed by Philadelphia contractor John McShain and it receives annual federal funding to pay for its maintenance and operation. The Library of Congress added an auditorium, but it had restrictions on its use. A congressional resolution in 1938 called for construction of a building which shall be known as the National Cultural Center near Judiciary Square. In 1950, the idea for a national theater resurfaced when U. S, representative Arthur George Klein of New York introduced a bill to authorize funds to plan and build a cultural center. The bill included provisions that the center would prohibit any discrimination of cast or audience, in 1955, the Stanford Research Institute was commissioned to select a site and provide design suggestions for the center. From 1955 to 1958, Congress debated the idea amid much controversy and this was the first time in history that the federal government helped finance a structure dedicated to the performing arts. The legislation required a portion of the costs, estimated at $10–25 million, Edward Durell Stone was selected as architect for the project in June 1959. He presented preliminary designs to the Presidents Music Committee in October 1959, along with estimated costs of $50 million, by November 1959, estimated costs had escalated to $61 million. The National Cultural Center was renamed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1964, the National Cultural Center Board of Trustees, a group Eisenhower established January 29,1959, led fundraising. Fundraising efforts were not successful, with only $13,425 raised in the first three years, President John F. Kennedy was interested in bringing culture to the nations capital, and provided leadership and support for the project. In 1961, President Kennedy asked Roger L. Stevens to help develop the National Cultural Center, Stevens recruited First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy as Honorary Chairman of the Center, and former First Lady Mamie Eisenhower as co-chairman. The total cost of construction was $70 million, Congress allocated $43 million for construction costs, including $23 million as an outright grant and the other $20 million in bonds. Donations also comprised a significant portion of funding, including $5 million from the Ford Foundation, other major donors included J. Willard Marriott, Marjorie Merriweather Post, John D. Rockefeller III, and Robert W. Woodruff, as well as many corporate donors. Foreign countries provided gifts to the Kennedy Center, including a gift of 3,700 tons of Carrara marble from Italy from the Italian government, President Lyndon B. Johnson dug the ceremonial first-shovel of earth at the groundbreaking for the Kennedy Center December 2,1964
3.
George W. Bush
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George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009. He was also the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000 and he is the eldest son of Barbara and George H. W. Bush. After graduating from Yale University in 1968 and Harvard Business School in 1975, Bush married Laura Welch in 1977 and ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives shortly thereafter. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team before defeating Ann Richards in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election and he is the second president to assume the nations highest office after his father, following the lead of John Quincy Adams. He is also a brother of Jeb Bush, a former Governor of Florida who was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in the 2016 presidential election, the September 11 terrorist attacks occurred eight months into Bushs first term as president. Bush responded with what became known as the Bush Doctrine, launching a War on Terror, a military campaign that included the war in Afghanistan in 2001. He also promoted policies on the economy, health care, education, Social Security reform and his tenure included national debates on immigration, Social Security, electronic surveillance, and torture. In the 2004 Presidential race, Bush defeated Democratic Senator John Kerry in another close election. After his re-election, Bush received increasingly heated criticism from across the spectrum for his handling of the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina. Amid this criticism, the Democratic Party regained control of Congress in the 2006 elections, Bush left office in 2009, returning to Texas where he purchased a home in Crawford. He wrote a memoir, Decision Points and his presidential library was opened in 2013. His presidency has been ranked among the worst in historians polls published in the late 2000s and 2010s. George Walker Bush was born on July 6,1946, at Grace-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut, as the first child of George Herbert Walker Bush and his wife, the former Barbara Pierce. He was raised in Midland and Houston, Texas, with four siblings, Jeb, Neil, Marvin, another younger sister, Robin, died from leukemia at the age of three in 1953. His grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a U. S and his father, George H. W. Bush, was Ronald Reagans Vice President from 1981 to 1989 and the 41st U. S. President from 1989 to 1993. Bush has English and some German ancestry, along with more distant Dutch, Welsh, Irish, French, Bush attended public schools in Midland, Texas, until the family moved to Houston after he had completed seventh grade. He then spent two years at The Kinkaid School, a school in Houston. Bush attended high school at Phillips Academy, a school in Andover, Massachusetts
4.
Steven Spielberg
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Steven Allan Spielberg, KBE, OMRI is an American director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the pioneers of the New Hollywood era. He is also one of the co-founders of DreamWorks Studios, in a career spanning more than four decades, Spielbergs films have spanned many themes and genres. His other films include Jurassic Park, A. I, artificial Intelligence, and War of the Worlds. Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindlers List and Saving Private Ryan, three of Spielbergs films—Jaws, E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Jurassic Park—achieved box office records, originated and came to epitomize the blockbuster film. The unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $9 billion worldwide and his personal net worth is estimated to be more than $3 billion. Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to an Orthodox Jewish family and his mother, Leah Posner, was a restaurateur and concert pianist, and his father, Arnold Spielberg, was an electrical engineer involved in the development of computers. His paternal grandparents were immigrants from Ukraine who settled in Cincinnati in the first decade of the 1900s, in 1950, his family moved to Haddon Township, New Jersey when his father took a job with RCA. Three years later, the moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Spielberg attended Hebrew school from 1953 to 1957, in classes taught by Rabbi Albert L. Lewis, as a child, Spielberg faced difficulty reconciling being an Orthodox Jew with the perception of him by other children he played with. It isnt something I enjoy admitting, he said, but when I was seven, eight, nine years old, God forgive me. I was embarrassed by the perception of my parents Jewish practices. I was never really ashamed to be Jewish, but I was uneasy at times, Spielberg also said he suffered from acts of anti-Semitic prejudice and bullying, In high school, I got smacked and kicked around. His first home movie was of a wreck involving his toy Lionel trains. Throughout his early teens, and after entering school, Spielberg continued to make amateur 8 mm adventure films. In 1958, he became a Boy Scout and fulfilled a requirement for the merit badge by making a nine-minute 8 mm film entitled The Last Gunfight. Years later, Spielberg recalled to an interviewer, My dads still-camera was broken. He said yes, and I got an idea to do a Western, I made it and got my merit badge
5.
Dolly Parton
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After achieving success as a songwriter for others, Dolly Parton made her album debut in 1967, with her album Hello, Im Dolly. However, in the new millennium, Parton achieved commercial success again and has released albums on independent labels since 2000, including albums on her own label, Parton is the most honored female country performer of all time. Achieving 25 RIAA certified Gold, Platinum, and Multi-Platinum awards, she has had 25 songs reach No.1 on the Billboard country music charts, a record for a female artist. She has 41 career top 10 country albums, a record for any artist, all-inclusive sales of singles, albums, hits collections, and digital downloads during her career have topped 100 million worldwide. Parton has received 46 Grammy nominations, in 1999, Parton was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. She has composed over 3,000 songs, notably I Will Always Love You, Jolene, Coat of Many Colors and she is also one of the few to have received at least one nomination from the Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, Tony Awards, and Emmy Awards. As an actress, she starred in such as 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Rhinestone. Parton was born in Sevier County, Tennessee, the fourth of 12 children of Robert Lee Parton, a farmer and construction worker, Partons middle name comes from her maternal great-great grandmother, Rebecca Whitted. She has described her family as being dirt poor, Partons father paid the doctor who helped deliver her with a bag of oatmeal. She outlined her familys poverty in her early songs Coat of Many Colors and they lived in a rustic, one-room cabin in Locust Ridge, just north of the Greenbrier Valley of the Great Smoky Mountains, a predominantly Pentecostal area. Music played an important role in her early life and she was brought up in the Church of God, the church her grandfather, Jake Robert Owens pastored. Her earliest public performances were in the church, beginning at age six, at seven, she started playing a homemade guitar. When she was eight years old, her uncle bought her first real guitar, Parton began performing as a child, singing on local radio and television programs in the East Tennessee area. By ten, she was appearing on The Cas Walker Show on both WIVK Radio and WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee, the day after she graduated from high school in 1964, she moved to Nashville. Her songs were recorded by other artists during this period, including Kitty Wells. She signed with Monument Records in 1965, at 19, where she was pitched as a bubblegum pop singer. She released a string of singles, but the one that charted, Happy, Happy Birthday Baby. Although she expressed a desire to record country material, Monument resisted, after her composition, Put It Off Until Tomorrow, as recorded by Bill Phillips, went to number six on the country chart in 1966, the label relented and allowed her to record country
6.
Zubin Mehta
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Zubin Mehta is an Indian conductor of Western classical music. He is the Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Mehta is also the chief conductor of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino festival. Mehta was born into a Parsi family in Bombay, India, while in school, Mehta was taught to play the piano by Joseph de Lima, who was his first piano teacher. Mehta initially intended to study medicine, but eventually became a student in Vienna at the age of 18. Also at the academy along with Mehta were conductor Claudio Abbado. Mehtas first marriage was to Canadian soprano Carmen Lasky in 1958 and they have a son, Mervon, and a daughter, Zarina. Two years after the divorce, Carmen married Mehtas brother, Zarin Mehta, in July 1969, Mehta married Nancy Kovack, an American former film and television actress. Mehta, a permanent resident of the United States, retains his Indian citizenship, in 1958, Mehta made his conducting debut in Vienna. The same year he won the International Conducting Competition in Liverpool and was appointed assistant conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Mehta soon rose to the rank of chief conductor when he was made Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in 1960, a post he held until 1967. In 1978 Mehta became the Music Director and Principal Conductor of the New York Philharmonic and remained there until his resignation in 1991, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra appointed Mehta its Music Advisor in 1969, Music Director in 1977, and made him its Music Director for Life in 1981. Since 1985, Mehta has been conductor of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence. Additionally, from 1998 until 2006, Mehta was Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Munich Philharmonic named him its Honorary Conductor. Since 2005, Mehta has been the conductor of the Palau de les Arts. Mehta conducted the Vienna New Years Concert in 1990,1995,1998,2007 and 2015 and he has also made a recording of Indian instrumentalist Ravi Shankars Sitar Concerto No. 2, with Shankar and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, in between those appearances he conducted the historic 1992 production of Tosca in which each act took place in the actual setting and at the actual time specified in the score. This production starred Catherine Malfitano in the role, Plácido Domingo as Cavaradossi. On 29 August 1999, he conducted Mahler Symphony No,2, at the vicinity of Buchenwald concentration camp in the German city of Weimar, with both the Bavarian State Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, sitting alongside each other. The making of this production was chronicled in a documentary called The Turandot Project which Mehta narrated, on 26 December 2005, the first anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami, Mehta and the Bavarian State Orchestra performed for the first time in Chennai at the Madras Music Academy
7.
Dick Cheney
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Richard Bruce Dick Cheney is an American politician and businessman who was the 46th Vice President of the United States from 2001 to 2009, under President George W. Bush. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Cheney was primarily raised in Sumner, Nebraska and he attended Yale and then the University of Wyoming, at the latter of which he earned a BA and an MA in Political Science. Cheney was selected to be the Secretary of Defense during the Presidency of George H. W. Bush, during his time in the Department of Defense, Cheney oversaw the 1991 Operation Desert Storm, among other actions. Out of office during the Clinton administration, Cheney was the Chairman, in July 2000, Cheney was chosen by presumptive Republican Presidential nominee George W. Bush as his running mate in the 2000 Presidential election. They defeated their Democratic opponents, incumbent Vice President Al Gore, in 2004 Cheney was reelected to his second term as Vice President, defeating Senator John Kerrys running mate, Senator John Edwards. He was a proponent of Operation Iraqi Freedom and defender of the Administrations anti-terrorism record. He became at odds with President Bushs position against same-sex marriage in 2004 and he has been cited as the most powerful Vice President in American history. At the same time he has been among the least favored politicians in the history of the United States, Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, the son of Marjorie Lorraine and Richard Herbert Cheney. He is of predominantly English, as well as Welsh, Irish, although not a direct descendant, he is collaterally related to Benjamin Pierce Cheney, the early American expressman. His father was a soil conservation agent for the U. S. Department of Agriculture and his mother was a star in the 1930s. He attended Calvert Elementary School before his family moved to Casper, Wyoming and he attended Yale University, but by his own account had problems adjusting to the college, and failed out twice. Among the influential teachers from his days in New Haven was Professor H. Bradford Westerfield and he later attended the University of Wyoming, where he earned both a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in political science. He subsequently started, but did not finish, doctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, in November 1962, at the age of 21, Cheney was convicted of driving while intoxicated. He was arrested for DWI again the following year, Cheney said that the arrests made him think about where I was and where I was headed. I was headed down a bad road if I continued on that course, in 1964, he married Lynne Vincent, his high school sweetheart, whom he had met at age 14. When Cheney became eligible for the draft, during the Vietnam War, he applied for, initially, Cheney was not drafted due to his marriage to Lynne Cheney. When the draft was expanded to include married men without children and he applied for his fifth exemption on January 19,1966, when his wife was about 10 weeks pregnant. He was granted 3-A status, the exemption, which excluded men with children or dependent parents
8.
CBS
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CBS is an American commercial broadcast television network that is a flagship property of CBS Corporation. The company is headquartered at the CBS Building in New York City with major facilities and operations in New York City. CBS is sometimes referred to as the Eye Network, in reference to the iconic logo. It has also called the Tiffany Network, alluding to the perceived high quality of CBS programming during the tenure of William S. Paley. It can also refer to some of CBSs first demonstrations of color television, the network has its origins in United Independent Broadcasters Inc. a collection of 16 radio stations that was purchased by Paley in 1928 and renamed the Columbia Broadcasting System. Under Paleys guidance, CBS would first become one of the largest radio networks in the United States, in 1974, CBS dropped its former full name and became known simply as CBS, Inc. In 2000, CBS came under the control of Viacom, which was formed as a spin-off of CBS in 1971, CBS Corporation is controlled by Sumner Redstone through National Amusements, which also controls the current Viacom. The television network has more than 240 owned-and-operated and affiliated stations throughout the United States. The origins of CBS date back to January 27,1927, Columbia Phonographic went on the air on September 18,1927, with a presentation by the Howard Barlow Orchestra from flagship station WOR in Newark, New Jersey, and fifteen affiliates. Operational costs were steep, particularly the payments to AT&T for use of its land lines, in early 1928 Judson sold the network to brothers Isaac and Leon Levy, owners of the networks Philadelphia affiliate WCAU, and their partner Jerome Louchenheim. With the record out of the picture, Paley quickly streamlined the corporate name to Columbia Broadcasting System. He believed in the power of advertising since his familys La Palina cigars had doubled their sales after young William convinced his elders to advertise on radio. By September 1928, Paley bought out the Louchenheim share of CBS, during Louchenheims brief regime, Columbia paid $410,000 to A. H. Grebes Atlantic Broadcasting Company for a small Brooklyn station, WABC, which would become the networks flagship station. WABC was quickly upgraded, and the relocated to 860 kHz. The physical plant was relocated also – to Steinway Hall on West 57th Street in Manhattan, by the turn of 1929, the network could boast to sponsors of having 47 affiliates. Paley moved right away to put his network on a financial footing. In the fall of 1928, he entered talks with Adolph Zukor of Paramount Pictures. The deal came to fruition in September 1929, Paramount acquired 49% of CBS in return for a block of its stock worth $3.8 million at the time
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Leonard Bernstein
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Leonard Bernstein was an American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the US to receive worldwide acclaim, according to music critic Donal Henahan, he was one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history. Bernstein was the first conductor to give a series of lectures on classical music, starting in 1954. He was a skilled pianist, often conducting piano concertos from the keyboard, as a composer he wrote in many styles encompassing symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music and pieces for the piano. Many of his works are performed around the world, although none has matched the tremendous popular. He was born Louis Bernstein in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the son of Ukrainian-Jewish parents Jennie and Samuel Joseph Bernstein and he was not related to film composer Elmer Bernstein, but the two men were friends, and even shared a certain physical similarity. Within the world of music, they were distinguished from each other by the use of the nicknames Bernstein West. His family spent their summers at their home in Sharon. His grandmother insisted that his first name be Louis, but his parents called him Leonard. He officially changed his name to Leonard when he was fifteen, to his friends and many others he was simply known as Lenny. His father, Sam Bernstein, was a businessman and owner of a hair product store in downtown Lawrence, it is no longer standing on the corners of Amesbury, Sam initially opposed young Leonards interest in music. Despite this, the elder Bernstein took him to concerts in his teenage years. As a child, Bernstein attended the Garrison Grammar School and Boston Latin School, as a child he was very close to his younger sister Shirley, and would often play entire operas or Beethoven symphonies with her at the piano. He had a variety of teachers in his youth, including Helen Coates. After graduation from Boston Latin School in 1935, Bernstein attended Harvard University, one of his friends at Harvard was philosopher Donald Davidson, with whom he played piano four hands. Bernstein wrote and conducted the score for the production Davidson mounted of Aristophanes play The Birds in the original Greek. Bernstein reused some of this music in the ballet Fancy Free, during his time at Harvard he was briefly an accompanist for the Harvard Glee Club. Bernstein also mounted a student production of The Cradle Will Rock, Blitzstein, who heard about the production, subsequently became a friend and influence on Bernstein
10.
Caroline Kennedy
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Caroline Bouvier Kennedy is an American author, attorney, and diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Japan from 2013 to 2017. She is a prominent member of the Kennedy family and the surviving child of President John F. Kennedy. The following year, Caroline, her mother, and brother settled on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Kennedy graduated from Radcliffe College and worked at Manhattans Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she met her future husband, exhibit designer Edwin Schlossberg. She went on to receive a J. D. degree from Columbia Law School, most of Kennedys professional life has spanned law and politics, as well as education reform and charitable work. She has also acted as a spokesperson for her familys legacy, congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand ultimately replaced Clinton as the junior New York Senator. In 2013, President Obama appointed her as ambassador to Japan, Caroline Bouvier Kennedy was born on November 27,1957, at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan to John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy. A year before Carolines birth, her parents had a daughter named Arabella. Caroline had two brothers, John Jr. who was born just before her third birthday, and Patrick. Caroline lived with her parents in Georgetown, Washington, D. C. during the first three years of her life, when Caroline was three years old, the family moved to the White House when her father was sworn in as President of the United States. Caroline frequently attended kindergarten in classes that were organized by her mother, one such photo in a news article inspired singer-songwriter Neil Diamond to write his Top Ten hit song, Sweet Caroline—which he revealed when he performed it for her 50th birthday. As a small child, Caroline received numerous gifts from dignitaries, including a puppy from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, historians described Carolines childhood personality as a trifle remote and a bit shy at times yet remarkably unspoiled. Shes too young to realize all these luxuries, her grandmother, Rose Kennedy. She probably thinks its natural for children to go off in their own airplanes, but she is with her cousins, and some of them dance and swim better than she. They do not allow her to take special precedence and that evening, the children were brought back to the White House, and while Caroline was in her bed, Shaw broke the news to her. Shaw soon found out that Jacqueline had wanted to be the one to tell the children, on December 6, two weeks after the assassination, Jacqueline and the children moved out of the White House, back to Georgetown. Their new home became a popular tourist attraction and they moved from Washington to a penthouse apartment at 1040 Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan the following year. In 1967, Caroline christened the U. S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy in a widely publicized ceremony in Newport News, Virginia. Over that summer, Jacqueline took the children on a sentimental journey to Ireland
11.
Glenn Close
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Glenn Close is an American actress, singer and film producer. With an acting career spanning over 40 years, she has been acclaimed for her versatility and is widely regarded as one of the finest actresses of her generation. She has won three Emmy Awards, three Tony Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and has received six Academy Award nominations and she would later receive nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons, and Albert Nobbs. She starred as Eleanor of Aquitaine in the 2003 TV film The Lion in Winter, in 2005, she starred in the drama series The Shield. Then from 2007 to 2012, she starred as Patty Hewes in the FX drama series Damages and she has voiced the character of Mona Simpson in the animated sitcom The Simpsons since 1995. She returned to Broadway in November 2014, in a revival of Edward Albees A Delicate Balance. Her other films include Jagged Edge, Hamlet, Reversal of Fortune,101 Dalmatians, Paradise Road, Air Force One, Cookies Fortune, Heights, Guardians of the Galaxy and The Girl With All The Gifts. Close is a six-time Academy Award nominee, tying the record for being the actress with the most nominations never to have won, as of 2016, Close has more Oscar nominations without a win than any other living actor. In addition, she has been nominated for four Tonys, fourteen Emmys, thirteen Golden Globes and she has also won an Obie award and has been nominated for three Grammy Awards and a BAFTA. Close has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and has been inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame and she has two sisters, Tina and Jessie, and two brothers, Alexander and Tambu Misoki, whom Closes parents adopted while living in Africa. Close is also a second cousin once-removed of actress Brooke Shields, during her childhood, Close lived with her parents in a stone cottage on her maternal grandfathers estate in Greenwich. Although Close came from an affluent background, she stated that her family not to participate in WASP society. She would also avoid mentioning her birthplace whenever asked because she did not want people to think she was a dilettante who didnt have to work. When she was seven years old, her parents joined a cult group, Close described MRA as a group that dictated every aspect of her life, from the clothes that had to be worn to what they were allowed to say. In an interview Close stated that her desire to become an actress allowed her to break away from the cult, stating and they had their reasons for doing what they did, and I understand them. It had terrible effects on their kids, but that’s the way it is and we all try to survive, right. And I think what actually saved me more than anything was my desire to be an actress and she spent time in Switzerland when studying at St. Georges School in Switzerland. Close traveled for years in the mid-to-late 1960s with an MRA singing group called Up With People
12.
Stephen Colbert
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Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American comedian, television host, and author. Colbert has hosted The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, a television talk show on CBS. Colbert originally studied to be an actor, but became interested in improvisational theatre while attending Northwestern University. He wrote and performed on the short-lived Dana Carvey Show before collaborating with Sedaris and he gained considerable attention for his role on the latter as closeted gay history teacher Chuck Noblet. His work as a correspondent on Comedy Centrals news-parody series The Daily Show gained him wide recognition, in 2005, he left The Daily Show to host a spin-off series, The Colbert Report. The series became one of Comedy Centrals highest-rated series, earning Colbert an invitation to perform as featured entertainer at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner in 2006, Colbert has won nine Primetime Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and two Peabody Awards. Colbert was named one of Times 100 Most Influential People in 2006 and 2012 and his book, I Am America, was #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list in 2007. Colbert was born in Washington, D. C. the youngest of 11 children in a Catholic family and he grew up on James Island, South Carolina. Colbert and his siblings, in descending order by age, are James, Edward, Mary, William, Margo, Thomas, Jay, Elizabeth, Paul, Peter, stephens mother, Lorna Elizabeth Colbert, was a homemaker. In interviews, Colbert has described his parents as people who also strongly valued intellectualism and taught their children that it was possible to question the church. The emphasis his family placed on intelligence and his observation of negative stereotypes of Southerners led Colbert to train himself to suppress his Southern accent while he was quite young. While Colbert sometimes comedically claims his surname is French, he is of 15/16ths Irish ancestry, many of his ancestors emigrated from Ireland to North America in the 19th century before and during the Great Famine. He offered his children the option to pronounce the name whichever way they preferred, Stephen started using /koʊlˈbɛər/ later in life when he transferred to Northwestern University, taking advantage of the opportunity to reinvent himself in a new place where no one knew him. Ed responded /ˈkoʊlbərt/, to which Stephen jokingly replied, See you in Hell and they were en route to enroll the two boys at Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. Lorna Colbert relocated the family downtown to the urban environment of East Bay Street in Charleston. Colbert found the transition difficult and did not easily make new friends in his new neighborhood, Colbert later described himself during this time as detached, lacking a sense of importance regarding the things with which other children concerned themselves. He developed a love of science fiction and fantasy novels, especially the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, Colbert attended Charlestons Episcopal Porter-Gaud School, where he participated in several school plays and contributed to the school newspaper but was not highly motivated academically. During his adolescence, he briefly fronted A Shot in the Dark, when he was younger, he had hoped to study marine biology, but surgery intended to repair a severely perforated eardrum caused him inner ear damage
