1.
Bill Gold
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Bill Gold is an American former graphic designer best known for thousands of film poster designs. His first film poster was for Yankee Doodle Dandy, and his most recent work was for J. Edgar, among his most famous film posters are those for Casablanca and A Clockwork Orange. Bill Gold was born on January 3,1921, in New York City and he studied illustration and design at Pratt Institute in New York. He began his design career in 1941, in the advertising department of Warner Bros. Bill Gold became head of design in 1947. In 1959 his brother Charlie joined him in the business and they formed BG Charles to do the film trailers, Charlie operated BG Charles in Los Angeles, while Bill operated in New York City. In 1987 Charlie left the business and retired to Vermont, Charlie Gold died on December 25,2003 at the age of 75. Bill Gold lives in Greenwich, CT, in 1962, Bill Gold created Bill Gold Advertising in New York City. In 1997 Bill moved the company to Stamford, Connecticut and continued his business, producing posters for every film Clint Eastwood produced, directed, and/or acted in, in 1994 Bill was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Hollywood Reporter. Richard Benjamin was the MC for the ceremony at the Directors Guild, in 2011, Bill ended an unsuccessful retirement when he agreed to create posters for Clint Eastwoods film, J. Edgar. Bill Gold is currently a member of the Society of Illustrators, the Art Directors Club. A limited-edition, oversized one-volume retrospective was published in January,2011 in coordination with Golds 90th birthday, after his first film project, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Gold collaborated with the American film industrys top film directors and film producers. Especially fruitful was Golds relationship with the illustrator Bob Peak, Golds work has spanned eight decades and has inspired numerous other designers. Secrets Behind Hollywoods Greatest Movie Posters and this feature article about Golds career has a link to fourteen images of his posters. Poster Master With a Cool Hand, article on Gold on the occasion of a book about his art. The Gold Standard, Roundtable Pictures Interviews Legendary Movie Poster Designer Bill Gold, meet Bill Gold, The Man Behind the Most Iconic Movie Posters Ever. Bill Gold reflects on his art and his career,1994 Hollywood Reporter Lifetime Achievement Award video
2.
George Cukor
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George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations and his career flourished at RKO when David O. Selznick, the studios Head of Production, assigned Cukor to direct several of RKOs major films, including What Price Hollywood. A Bill of Divorcement, Our Betters, and Little Women, when Selznick moved to MGM in 1933, Cukor followed and directed Dinner at Eight and David Copperfield for Selznick and Romeo and Juliet and Camille for Irving Thalberg. He was replaced as the director of Gone with the Wind, but he went on to direct The Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, Adams Rib, Born Yesterday, A Star Is Born, Bhowani Junction and he continued to work into the 1980s. Cukor was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, the child and only son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants Viktor, an assistant district attorney. His parents selected his middle name in honor of Spanish–American War hero George Dewey, as a result, he was ambivalent about his faith and dismissive of old world traditions from childhood, and as an adult he embraced Anglophilia to remove himself even further from his roots. As a teenager, Cukor frequently was taken to the New York Hippodrome by his uncle, infatuated with theatre, he often cut classes at DeWitt Clinton High School to attend afternoon matinees. During his senior year, he worked as a supernumerary with the Metropolitan Opera, earning 50¢ per appearance, following his graduation in 1917, Cukor was expected to follow in his fathers footsteps and pursue a career in law. He halfheartedly enrolled in the City College of New York, where he entered the Students Army Training Corps in October 1918 and his military experience was limited, Germany surrendered in early November, and Cukors duty ended after only two months. In 1925 he formed the C. F. and Z, Production Company with Walter Folmer and John Zwicki, which gave him his first opportunity to direct. Following their first season, he made his Broadway directorial debut with Antonia by Hungarian playwright Melchior Lengyel, then returned to Rochester, lasting only one season with the company was Bette Davis. Cukor later recalled, Her talent was apparent, but she did buck at direction and she had her own ideas, and though she only did bits and ingenue roles, she didnt hesitate to express them. For the next decades, Davis claimed she was fired. For the next few years, Cukor alternated between Rochester in the months and Broadway in the winter. His direction of a 1926 stage adaptation of The Great Gatsby by Owen Davis brought him to the attention of the New York critics. Writing in the Brooklyn Eagle, drama critic Arthur Pollock called it a piece of work by a director not nearly so well known as he should be. Cukor directed six more Broadway productions before departing for Hollywood in 1929, when Hollywood began to recruit New York theater talent for sound films, Cukor immediately answered the call. In December 1928, Paramount Pictures signed him to a contract that reimbursed him for his airfare and he arrived in Hollywood in February 1929, and his first assignment was to coach the cast of River of Romance to speak with an acceptable Southern accent
3.
Jack L. Warner
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Jack Leonard J. L. Warner, born Jacob Warner, in London, Ontario, was a Canadian-American film executive who was the president and driving force behind the Warner Bros. Warners career spanned some forty-five years, its duration surpassing that of any other of the seminal Hollywood studio moguls, as co-head of production at Warner Bros. Studios, he worked with his brother, Sam Warner, to procure the technology for the industrys first talking picture. After Sams death, Jack clashed with his older brothers, Harry. Although Warner was feared by many of his employees and inspired ridicule with his attempts at humor, he earned respect for his shrewd instincts. He recruited many of Warner Bros. top stars and promoted the social dramas for which the studio became known. Given to decisiveness, Warner once commented, If Im right fifty-one percent of the time, Throughout his career, he was viewed as a contradictory and enigmatic figure. Although he was a staunch Republican, Warner encouraged film projects that promoted the agenda of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal and he opposed European fascism and criticized Nazi Germany well before Americas involvement in World War II. Despite his controversial image, Warner remained a force in the motion picture industry until his retirement in the early 1970s. Jack Warner was born in London, Ontario, in 1892 and his parents were Jewish immigrants from Poland who spoke mainly Yiddish. Jack was the surviving son of Benjamin Warner a cobbler from Krasnosielc, Poland, and his wife. Following their marriage in 1876, the couple had three children in Poland, one of whom died at a young age, one of the surviving children was Jacks eldest brother, Hirsch. The Warner family had occupied a hostile world, where the night-riding of cossacks, the burning of houses, and the raping of women were part of lifes burden for the Jews of the shtetl. In 1888, in search of a future for his family and himself, Benjamin made his way to Hamburg, Germany. Pearl Warner and the two children joined him in Baltimore, Maryland, less than a year later. In Baltimore, the couple had five children, including Abraham and Sam Warner. Benjamin Warners decision to move to Canada in the early 1890s was inspired by a friends advice that he could make an excellent living bartering tin wares with trappers in exchange for furs and their sons Jack and David were born in Ontario. After two arduous years in Canada, Benjamin and Pearl Warner returned to Baltimore, bringing along their growing family, two more children, Sadie and Milton, were added to the household there
4.
Alan Jay Lerner
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Alan Jay Lerner was an American lyricist and librettist. In collaboration with Frederick Loewe, and later Burton Lane, he created some of the worlds most popular and he won three Tony Awards and three Academy Awards, among other honors. Born in New York City, he was the son of Edith Adelson Lerner and Joseph Jay Lerner, whose brother, Samuel Alexander Lerner, was founder and owner of the Lerner Stores, one of Lerners cousins was the radio comedian/television game show panelist Henry Morgan. Lerner was educated at Bedales School in England, The Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut and he attended both Camp Androscoggin and Camp Greylock. At both Choate and Harvard, Lerner was a classmate of John F. Kennedy, at Choate they had worked together on the yearbook staff. Like Cole Porter at Yale and Richard Rodgers at Columbia, his career in theater began with his collegiate contributions. During the summers of 1936 and 1937, Lerner studied music composition at Juilliard, while attending Harvard, he lost his sight in his left eye due to an accident in the boxing ring. In 1957, Lerner and Leonard Bernstein, another of Lerners college classmates, collaborated on Lonely Men of Harvard, due to his injury, Lerner could not serve in World War II. Instead he wrote scripts, including Your Hit Parade, until he was introduced to Austrian composer Frederick Loewe. While at the Lambs, he also met Lorenz Hart, with whom he would also collaborate, Lerner and Loewes first collaboration was a musical adaptation of Barry Connerss farce The Patsy called Life of the Party for a Detroit stock company. The lyrics were written by Earle Crooker, but he had left the project. It enjoyed a run and encouraged the duo to join forces with Arthur Pierson for Whats Up. which opened on Broadway in 1943. It ran for 63 performances and was followed two years later by The Day Before Spring and their first hit was Brigadoon, a romantic fantasy set in a mystical Scottish village, directed by Robert Lewis. It was followed in 1951 by the Gold Rush story Paint Your Wagon, while the show ran for nearly a year and included songs that later became pop standards, it was less successful that Lerners previous work. He later said of Paint Your Wagon, it was a success, Lerner worked with Kurt Weill on the stage musical Love Life and Burton Lane on the movie musical Royal Wedding. In that same year Lerner also wrote the Oscar-winning original screenplay for An American in Paris and this was the same team who would later join with Lerner and Loewe to create Gigi. In 1956, Lerner and Loewe unveiled My Fair Lady, before finishing the musical, Lerner was eager to write while My Fair Lady was taking so long to complete. Burton Lane and Lerner were working on a musical about Lil Abner, gabriel Pascal owned the rights to Pygmalion, which had been unsuccessful with other composers who tried to adapt it into a musical
5.
My Fair Lady
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My Fair Lady is a musical based on George Bernard Shaws Pygmalion, with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, the original Broadway, London and film versions all starred Rex Harrison. The musicals 1956 Broadway production was a critical and popular success. It set a record for the longest run of any show on Broadway up to that time and it was followed by a hit London production, a popular film version, and numerous revivals. My Fair Lady has frequently called the perfect musical. Act I On a rainy night in Edwardian London, opera patrons are waiting under the arches of Covent Garden for cabs, Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl, runs into a young man called Freddy. She admonishes him for spilling her bunches of violets in the mud and she then flies into an angry outburst when a man copying down her speech is pointed out to her. The man explains that he studies phonetics and can identify anyones origin by their accent and he laments Elizas dreadful speech, asking why so many English people dont speak properly and explaining his theory that this is what truly separates social classes, rather than looks or money. He declares that in six months he could turn Eliza into a lady by teaching her to speak properly, the older gentleman introduces himself as Colonel Pickering, a linguist who has studied Indian dialects. The phoneticist introduces himself as Henry Higgins, and, as both have always wanted to meet each other, Higgins invites Pickering to stay at his home in London. He distractedly throws his change into Elizas basket, and she and her friends wonder what it would be like to live a comfortable, Elizas father, Alfred P. Doolittle, and his drinking companions, Harry and Jamie, all dustmen, stop by the next morning. He is searching for money for a drink, and Eliza shares her profits with him, Pickering and Higgins are discussing vowels at Higginss home when Mrs. Pearce, the housekeeper, informs Higgins that a young woman with a ghastly accent has come to see him. It is Eliza, who has come to take speech lessons so she can get a job as an assistant in a florists shop, Pickering wagers that Higgins cannot make good on his claim and volunteers to pay for Elizas lessons. An intensive makeover of Elizas speech, manners and dress begins in preparation for her appearance at the Embassy Ball, Higgins sees himself as a kindhearted, patient man who cannot get along with women. To others he appears self-absorbed and misogynistic, Alfred Doolittle is informed that his daughter has been taken in by Professor Higgins, and considers that he might be able to make a little money from the situation. Doolittle arrives at Higginss house the morning, claiming that Higgins is compromising Elizas virtue. Higgins is impressed by the natural gift for language and brazen lack of moral values. He and Doolittle agree that Eliza can continue to take lessons, Higgins flippantly recommends Doolittle to an American millionaire who has written to Higgins seeking a lecturer on moral values
6.
Pygmalion (play)
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Pygmalion is a play by George Bernard Shaw, named after a Greek mythological figure. It was first presented on stage to the public in 1913, the play is a sharp lampoon of the rigid British class system of the day and a commentary on womens independence. In ancient Greek mythology, Pygmalion fell in love one of his sculptures. Shaw would also have been familiar with the version, Galatea. Shaws play has been adapted numerous times, most notably as the musical My Fair Lady, Shaw wrote the play in early 1912 and read it to famed actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell in June. She came on board almost immediately, but her mild nervous breakdown contributed to the delay of a London production, Pygmalion premiered at the Hofburg Theatre in Vienna on 16 October 1913, in a German translation by Shaws Viennese literary agent and acolyte, Siegfried Trebitsch. Its first New York production opened on 24 March 1914 at the German-language Irving Place Theatre and it opened in London on 11 April 1914, at Sir Herbert Beerbohm Trees His Majestys Theatre and starred Mrs. Campbell as Eliza and Tree as Higgins, running for 118 performances. Shaw directed the actors through tempestuous rehearsals often punctuated by at least one of the two storming out of the theatre in a rage, Shaw was conscious of the difficulties involved in staging a complete representation of the play. Of these, a scene at the end of Act One in which Eliza goes home. The others are the scene at the Embassy Ball in Act Three, neither the Gutenberg edition referenced throughout this page nor the Wikisource text linked below contain these sequences. Portico of Saint Pauls Church –11. 15p. m, a group of people are sheltering from the rain. Among them are the Eynsford-Hills, superficial social climbers eking out a living in poverty, consisting initially of Mrs. Eynsford-Hill. Claras brother Freddy enters having earlier been dispatched to them a cab. As he goes off again to find a cab, he bumps into a flower girl. Her flowers drop into the mud of Covent Garden, the flowers she needs to survive in her poverty-stricken world, shortly they are joined by a gentleman, Colonel Pickering. While Eliza tries to sell flowers to the Colonel, a bystander informs her that a man is writing down everything she says, the man is Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics. Eliza worries that Higgins is an officer and will not calm down until Higgins introduces himself. Higgins tells Pickering that he could pass off the girl as a duchess merely by teaching her to speak properly
7.
George Bernard Shaw
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He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman, Pygmalion and Saint Joan. With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1873, where he established himself as a writer and novelist. By the mid-1880s he was a theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society, Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, 1894s Arms and the Man. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctors Dilemma and Caesar, Shaws expressed views were often contentious, he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform while opposing vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable and he castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period, and became a citizen of the Irish Free State in 1934, maintaining dual citizenship. He was prolific, finishing during the years a series of often ambitious plays which achieved varying degrees of popular success. Since Shaws death, opinion has varied about his works and he has at times been rated as second only to William Shakespeare among English-language dramatists, analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaws ideas, Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part of Dublin. He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw and his elder siblings were Lucinda Frances and Elinor Agnes. The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland, George Carr Shaw and his relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s, thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly, in the view of Shaws biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape a tyrannical great-aunt, if, as Holroyd and others surmise, Georges motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her familys money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of shabby-genteel poverty. By the time of Shaws birth, his mother had become close to George John Lee, Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father, there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he recalled that her indifference. He found solace in the music that abounded in the house, Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing, Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lees unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws house was filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players
8.
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
9.
Rex Harrison
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Sir Reginald Carey Rex Harrison was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison began his career on the stage in 1924 and he won his first Tony Award for his performance as Henry VIII in the play Anne of the Thousand Days in 1949. He won his second Tony for the role of Professor Henry Higgins in the production of My Fair Lady in 1957. He reprised the role for the 1964 film version, which earned him both a Golden Globe Award and Academy Award for Best Actor. In addition to his career, Harrison also appeared in numerous films, including Anna and the King of Siam, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Cleopatra. In July 1989, Harrison was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, in 1975, Harrison released his first autobiography. His second, A Damned Serious Business, My Life in Comedy, was published posthumously in 1991, Harrison was married six times and had two sons, Noel and Carey Harrison. He continued working in stage productions until shortly before his death from cancer in June 1990 at the age of 82. Harrison was born at Derry House in Huyton, Lancashire, the son of Edith Mary and William Reginald Harrison and he was educated at Liverpool College. After a bout of measles, Harrison lost most of the sight in his left eye. He first appeared on the stage in 1924 in Liverpool, Harrisons acting career was interrupted during World War II while serving in the Royal Air Force, reaching the rank of Flight Lieutenant. He acted in stage productions until 11 May 1990. He acted in the West End of London when he was young, appearing in the Terence Rattigan play French Without Tears, which proved to be his breakthrough role. He alternated appearances in London and New York in such plays as Bell, Book and Candle, Venus Observed, The Cocktail Party, The Kingfisher and The Love of Four Colonels, which he also directed. He was best known for his portrayal of Professor Henry Higgins in the 1964 film version of My Fair Lady, based on the eponymous Broadway production and he also starred in 1967s Doctor Dolittle. Harrison was at one point temporarily replaced by Christopher Plummer, until he agreed to be more cooperative and he starred in the 1968 comedy The Honey Pot, a modern adaptation of Ben Jonsons play Volpone. Two of his co-stars, Maggie Smith and Cliff Robertson, were to become lifelong friends, both spoke at his New York City memorial at the Little Church Around the Corner when Harrison died in 1990. Harrison was not by any standards a singer, the music was usually written to allow for long periods of recitative
10.
Stanley Holloway
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Stanley Augustus Holloway, OBE was an English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character roles on stage and screen and he was also renowned for his comic monologues and songs, which he performed and recorded throughout most of his 70-year career. Born in London, Holloway pursued a career as a clerk in his teen years, in 1921, he joined a concert party, The Co-Optimists, and his career began to flourish. At first, he was employed chiefly as a singer, but his skills as an actor, by the 1930s, he was in demand to star in variety, pantomime and musical comedy, including several revues. After the war, he appeared in the film Brief Encounter and made a series of films for Ealing Studios, including Passport to Pimlico, The Lavender Hill Mob and The Titfield Thunderbolt. In 1956 he was cast as the irresponsible and irrepressible Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady, a role that he played on Broadway, the West End and in the film version in 1964. The role brought him fame, and his performances earned him nominations for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. Holloway was married twice and had five children, including the actor Julian Holloway, Holloway was born in Manor Park, Essex, the younger child and only son of George Augustus Holloway, a lawyers clerk, and Florence May née Bell, a housekeeper and dressmaker. He was named after Henry Morton Stanley, the journalist and explorer famous for his exploration of Africa, there were theatrical connections in the Holloway family going back to Charles Bernard, an actor and theatre manager, who was the brother of Holloways maternal grandmother. Holloways paternal grandfather, Augustus Holloway, an orphan, was brought up by John Stone, a sailmaker, Augustus became a wealthy shopkeeper, running his own brush-making business. He married Amelia Catherine Knight in September 1856, and they had three children, Maria, Charles and George, in the early 1880s the family moved to Poplar, London. When Augustus died, George Holloway moved to nearby Manor Park and became a clerk for a city lawyer, George married Bells daughter Florence in 1884, and they had two children, Millie and Stanley. George left Florence in 1905 and was never seen or heard again by his family. During his early years, Holloway attended the Worshipful School of Carpenters in nearby Stratford and joined a local choir. He left school at the age of 14 and worked as a clerk in a boot polish factory. He began performing part-time as Master Stanley Holloway – The Wonderful Boy Soprano from 1904, a year later, he became a clerk at Billingsgate Fish Market, where he remained for two years before commencing training as an infantry soldier in the London Rifle Brigade in 1907. Holloways stage career began in 1910, when he travelled to Walton-on-the-Naze to audition for The White Coons Show, Pepper, father of Harry S. Pepper, with whom Holloway later starred in The Co-Optimists. This seaside show lasted six weeks, in 1913 Holloway was recruited by the comedian Leslie Henson to feature as a support in Hensons more prestigious concert party called Nicely, Thanks
11.
Wilfrid Hyde-White
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Wilfrid Hyde-White was an English character actor of stage, film and television, who achieved international recognition in his later years as Colonel Pickering in the 1964 film My Fair Lady. Wilfrid Hyde-White was born in Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire, England in 1903 to the Rev. William Edward White, canon of Gloucester Cathedral and he attended Marlborough College and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He made his debut in Tons of Money on the Isle of Wight in 1922 and he then gained steady work on the stage in a series of comedies produced at the Aldwych Theatre in London. He joined a tour of South Africa in 1932 before making his debut in 1934. He appeared in the George Formby comedy, Turned Out Nice Again, following a memorable supporting role in The Third Man, he became a fixture in British films of the 1950s. Two-Way Stretch displays the more roguish side to some of the characters he played in this period, between 1962 and 1965, he also starred in the BBC radio comedy The Men from the Ministry. He continued to act on the stage, and played opposite Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh in Caesar and Cleopatra and Antony and he also appeared on Broadway and was nominated for two Tony Awards as best actor. In the 1970s and 1980s, he was featured on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and his television films and guest appearances kept him busy from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. He appeared in two episodes of the mystery series Columbo, starring Peter Falk as the rumpled detective and his scenes as a butler were therefore filmed in California. His second appearance on Columbo was in the episode Last Salute to the Commodore and he was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1976 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews. On 17 December 1927, he married Blanche Hope Aitken, a Glamorganshire-born actress known professionally as Blanche Glynne and his first wife died in 1946, and he remarried in 1957 to actress Ethel Drew. He and Drew remained married until his death in 1991, the couple had two children, including actor Alex Hyde-White. Hyde-White died on 6 May 1991 at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, from heart failure and his body was returned to England and buried in the family grave at Water Cemetery, at Bourton-on-the-Water, in the county of Gloucestershire
12.
Gladys Cooper
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Dame Gladys Constance Cooper, DBE was an English actress whose career spanned seven decades on stage, in films and on television. Beginning on the stage as a teenager in Edwardian musical comedy and pantomime, she was starring in dramatic roles and she also became a manager of the Playhouse Theatre from 1917 to 1933, where she played many roles. Beginning in the early 1920s, Cooper was winning praise in plays by W. Somerset Maugham, in the 1930s, she was starring steadily both in the West End and on Broadway. Moving to Hollywood in 1940, Cooper found success in a variety of character roles, throughout the 1950s and 1960s, she mixed her stage and film careers, continuing to star on stage until her last year. Cooper was born at 23 Ennersdale Road, Hither Green, Lewisham, London and her two younger sisters were Doris Mabel and Grace Muriel. Gladys Cooper spent most of her childhood in Chiswick, where her family moved when she was an infant and she made her stage debut in 1905 touring with Seymour Hicks in his musical Bluebell in Fairyland. The young beauty was also a photographic model. In 1906, she appeared as Lady Swan in London in The Belle of Mayfair, the following year she became a chorus girl at the Gaiety Theatre, creating the small role of Eva in The Girls of Gottenberg. That Christmas, she was Molly in Babes in the Wood, in 1911, she appeared in a production of The Importance of Being Earnest and in Man and Superman. Among several other plays, the year she was Muriel Pym in Milestones at the Royalty Theatre. A highlight of 1913 was Dora in Diplomacy at Wyndhams Theatre and that year she also played the title role in The Pursuit of Pamela at the Royalty. In 1913 Cooper appeared in her first film, The Eleventh Commandment, going on to several more silent films during the First World War. She continued full-time stage work, however, including appearances as Lady Agatha Lazenby in The Admirable Crichton in 1916, in addition, in 1917, Cooper became co-manager, with Frank Curzon, of the Playhouse Theatre, taking over sole control from 1927 until she left in 1933. During these years, she starred several times in My Ladys Dress and she appeared in W. Somerset Maughams Home and Beauty in 1919, repeated Dora at His Majestys Theatre in 1920 and elsewhere thereafter, and played numerous roles at the Playhouse Theatre. It was not until 1922, however, now in her mid thirties, early in her stage career, she was criticised for being too stiff. Evidently, her acting improved during this period, as Maugham praised her for turning herself from an indifferent actress to a competent one through her common sense. For both the 1923 and 1924 Christmas shows at the Adelphi Theatre, Cooper played the character in Peter Pan. She appeared in Maughams The Letter in London and on tour in 1927 and 1928, in Excelsior in 1928 and she was Dorothy Hilton in Call it a Day, again in both London and New York, from 1935 to 1936
13.
Frederick Loewe
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Frederick Loewe, was an Austrian-American composer. He collaborated with lyricist Alan Jay Lerner on a series of Broadway musicals, including My Fair Lady and Camelot, Loewe was born in Berlin, Germany, to Viennese parents Edmond and Rosa Loewe. His father was a noted Jewish operetta star who performed throughout Europe and in North and South America, frederick Loewe grew up in Berlin and attended a Prussian cadet school from the age of five until he was thirteen. At an early age Loewe learned to play piano by ear and helped his father rehearse and he eventually attended a music conservatory in Berlin, one year behind virtuoso Claudio Arrau, and studied with Ferruccio Busoni and Eugene dAlbert. He won the coveted Hollander Medal awarded by the school and gave performances as a concert pianist while still in Germany, at 13, he was the youngest piano soloist ever to appear with the Berlin Philharmonic. In 1924, his father received an offer to appear in New York City and this proved to be difficult, and he took other odd jobs, including cattle punching, gold mining and prize fighting. He eventually found work playing piano in German clubs in Yorkville, Loewe began to visit the Lambs Club, a hangout for theater performers, producers, managers, and directors. He credited The Lambs for keeping him working until his career expanded and their first collaboration was a musical adaptation of Barry Connors farce The Patsy, called Life of the Party, after a Detroit stock company. It enjoyed a run and encouraged the duo to join forces with Arthur Pierson for Whats Up. which opened on Broadway in 1943. It ran for 63 performances and was followed two years later by The Day Before Spring and their first hit was Brigadoon, a romantic fantasy set in a mystical Scottish village, directed by Robert Lewis. It was followed in 1951 by the less successful Gold Rush story Paint Your Wagon, in 1956, Lerner and Loewes My Fair Lady first appeared. The partnership won the Tony Award for Best Musical, MGM took notice and commissioned them to write the film musical Gigi, which won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Their next Broadway production was Camelot, the production starred Richard Burton, Julie Andrews and Robert Goulet. The trio appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and sang a few numbers from the musical, along with an appearance by Lerner and Loewe. The following morning the box office was swamped with requests, the following year they collaborated on a musical film version of The Little Prince, based on the classic childrens tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. This film was a critical and box office failure, but the soundtrack recording, Loewe was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972. He remained in Palm Springs, California until his death, and had a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars dedicated to him in 1995 and he was buried in the Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California
14.
Harry Stradling
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Harry Stradling, Sr. A. S. C. was an American cinematographer with over 130 films to his credit. His uncle Walter Stradling and son Harry Stradling, Jr. were also cinematographers, Stradling was born Henry A. Stradling in Newark, New Jersey, the nephew of cameraman Walter Stradling who had worked with Mary Pickford. Confined to two-reelers in Hollywood, he left for France and Germany in the early 1930s and he made contributions to several Jacques Feyder films, Le Grand Jeu, La Kermesse héroïque, Die Klugen Frauen and Knight Without Armour, his first under producer Alexander Korda in England. Other English films include Action for Slander, The Divorce of Lady X, South Riding, The Citadel, Pygmalion, The Lion Has Wings, Jamaica Inn, Stradling moved to the United States at the beginning of World War II. Alfred Hitchcock engaged him for Mr. & Mrs. Smith, stradlings last four films starred Barbra Streisand, including her Oscar-winning debut Funny Girl. Stradling died halfway through production of The Owl and the Pussycat in Hollywood, Harry Stradling at the Internet Movie Database 1920 passport photo of Henry A. Stradling aged 19
15.
Warner Bros.
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Entertainment Inc. – colloquially known as Warner Bros. or Warner Bros. It is one of the Big Six major American film studios, Warner Bros. is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America. The companys name originated from the four founding Warner brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam, Jack, the youngest, was born in London, Ontario. The three elder brothers began in the theater business, having acquired a movie projector with which they showed films in the mining towns of Pennsylvania. In the beginning, Sam and Albert Warner invested $150 to present Life of an American Fireman and they opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania, in 1903. When the original building was in danger of being demolished, the modern Warner Bros. called the current building owners, the owners noted people across the country had asked them to protect it for its historical significance. In 1904, the Warners founded the Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Amusement & Supply Company, in 1912, Harry Warner hired an auditor named Paul Ashley Chase. By the time of World War I they had begun producing films, in 1918 they opened the first Warner Bros. studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Sam and Jack produced the pictures, while Harry and Albert, along with their auditor and now controller Chase, handled finance and distribution in New York City. During World War I their first nationally syndicated film, My Four Years in Germany, on April 4,1923, with help from money loaned to Harry by his banker Motley Flint, they formally incorporated as Warner Brothers Pictures, Incorporated. The first important deal was the acquisition of the rights to Avery Hopwoods 1919 Broadway play, The Gold Diggers, however, Rin Tin Tin, a dog brought from France after World War I by an American soldier, established their reputation. Rin Tin Tin debuted in the feature Where the North Begins, the movie was so successful that Jack signed the dog to star in more films for $1,000 per week. Rin Tin Tin became the top star. Jack nicknamed him The Mortgage Lifter and the success boosted Darryl F. Zanucks career, Zanuck eventually became a top producer and between 1928 and 1933 served as Jacks right-hand man and executive producer, with responsibilities including day-to-day film production. More success came after Ernst Lubitsch was hired as head director, lubitschs film The Marriage Circle was the studios most successful film of 1924, and was on The New York Times best list for that year. Despite the success of Rin Tin Tin and Lubitsch, Warners remained a lesser studio, Sam and Jack decided to offer Broadway actor John Barrymore the lead role in Beau Brummel. The film was so successful that Harry signed Barrymore to a contract, like The Marriage Circle. By the end of 1924, Warner Bros. was arguably Hollywoods most successful independent studio, as the studio prospered, it gained backing from Wall Street, and in 1924 Goldman Sachs arranged a major loan
16.
Musical film
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The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline. The musical film was a development of the stage musical after the emergence of sound film technology. Typically, the biggest difference between film and stage musicals is the use of background scenery and locations that would be impractical in a theater. Musical films characteristically contain elements reminiscent of theater, performers often treat their song, in a sense, the viewer becomes the diegetic audience, as the performer looks directly into the camera and performs to it. The 1930s through the early 1950s are considered to be the age of the musical film. Musical short films were made by Lee de Forest in 1923–24, beginning in 1926, thousands of Vitaphone shorts were made, many featuring bands, vocalists and dancers. The Jazz Singer, released in 1927 by Warner Brothers, was the first to include a track including non-diegetic music and diegetic music. This feature-length film was also a musical, featuring Al Jolson singing Dirty Hands, Dirty Face, Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Blue Skies and My Mammy. Historian Scott Eyman wrote, As the film ended and applause grew with the houselights and she saw terror in all their faces, she said, as if they knew that the game they had been playing for years was finally over. Still, only isolated sequences featured live sound, most of the film had only a musical score. In 1928, Warner Brothers followed this up with another Jolson part-talkie, The Singing Fool, theaters scrambled to install the new sound equipment and to hire Broadway composers to write musicals for the screen. The first all-talking feature, Lights of New York, included a sequence in a night club. The enthusiasm of audiences was so great that in less than an all the major studios were making sound pictures exclusively. The Broadway Melody had a plot about two sisters competing for a charming song-and-dance man. Advertised by MGM as the first All-Talking, All-Singing, All-Dancing feature film, it was a hit, there was a rush by the studios to hire talent from the stage to star in lavishly filmed versions of Broadway hits. The Love Parade starred Maurice Chevalier and newcomer Jeanette MacDonald, written by Broadway veteran Guy Bolton, Warner Brothers produced the first screen operetta, The Desert Song in 1929. They spared no expense and photographed a large percentage of the film in Technicolor and this was followed by the first all-color, all-talking musical feature which was entitled On with the Show
17.
Cockney
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The term cockney has had several distinct geographical, social, and linguistic associations. More recently, it is used to refer to those in Londons East End. Linguistically, cockney English refers to the accent or dialect of English traditionally spoken by working-class Londoners, in recent years, many aspects of cockney English have become part of general South East English speech, producing a variant known as Estuary English. The earliest recorded use of the term is 1362 in passus VI of William Langlands Piers Plowman, concurrently, the mythical land of luxury Cockaigne appeared under a variety of spellings—including Cockayne, Cocknay, and Cockney—and became humorously associated with the English capital London. This may have developed from the sources above or separately, alongside such terms as cock, by 1600, this meaning of cockney was being particularly associated with the Bow Bells area. In 1617, the travel writer Fynes Moryson stated in his Itinerary that Londoners, the same year, John Minsheu included the term in this newly restricted sense in his dictionary Ductor in Linguas. The use of the term to describe all Londoners generally, however, survived into the 19th century before becoming restricted to the working class, the term is now used loosely to describe all East Londoners, although some distinguish the areas that were added to London in 1964. The region in which cockneys are thought to reside is not clearly defined, a common view is that in order to be a cockney, one must have been born within earshot of Bow Bells, the bells of St Mary-le-Bow. However, the church of St Mary-le-Bow was destroyed in 1666 by the Great Fire of London, although the bells were destroyed again in 1941 in the Blitz, they had fallen silent on 13 June 1940 as part of the British anti-invasion preparations of World War II. Before they were replaced in 1961, there was a period when, by the within earshot definition, the East London Maternity Hospital in Stepney, which was 2.5 miles from St Mary-le-Bow, was in use from 1884 to 1968. There is a maternity unit still in use at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, Home births were very common until the late 1960s. According to the legend of Dick Whittington the bells could once be heard from as far away as the Highgate Archway, thus while all East Enders are cockneys, not all cockneys are East Enders. The area north of the Thames gradually expanded to include East Ham, Stratford, West Ham, loach has a reputation for using genuine dialect speakers in films,3 Clear Sundays Up the Junction Cathy Come Home Poor Cow Bronco Bullfrog The Long Good Friday. The DVD of this film has a feature that explains the rhyming slang used. Nevertheless, the stop, double negatives, and the vocalisation of the dark L. The study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, said that the accent, conversely, migration of cockney speakers has led to migration of the dialect. In Essex, planned towns that grew from post-war migration out of London often have a strong influence on local speech. In recent years the dialect has moved out of inner-city London towards the outskirts of suburban London, today cockney-speaking areas include parts of Dagenham, Barking, Billericay, Brentwood, Romford, Chigwell, Loughton, Harlow, Basildon, Thurrock
18.
Eliza Doolittle
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Eliza Doolittle is a fictional character from London who appears in the play Pygmalion and the musical version of that play, My Fair Lady. Eliza is a Cockney flower girl, who comes to Professor Henry Higgins asking for elocution lessons, Higgins goes along with it for the purposes of a wager, That he can turn her into the toast of elite London society. Her Cockney dialect includes words that are common among working class Londoners, such as aint, Doolittle receives voice coaching and learns the rules of etiquette. The outcome of these attentions varies between the play and the various adaptations. The part of Eliza was originally played by Mrs Patrick Campbell, shaw had written the role for her, and although many considered her too old for the role she triumphed. The unprecedented use of the word bloody - as a scripted intensive - caused a sensation when Campbell delivered it and her performance served as the definitive film portrayal until Audrey Hepburn played the role in the highly successful 1964 film musical My Fair Lady. Julie Andrews originated the musical version of Doolittle on stage in My Fair Lady, Harrison went on to reprise his role in the 1964 film alongside Audrey Hepburn as Doolittle. At the 37th Academy Awards, the award for Best Actress went to Andrews for her performance as Mary Poppins, despite this, many critics greatly applauded Hepburns exquisite performance. The happiest thing about, wrote Bosley Crowther, is that Audrey Hepburn superbly justifies the decision of Jack Warner to get her to play the title role. Her co-star Rex Harrison, also called Hepburn his favourite leading lady and she is Eliza for the ages, while adding, Everyone agreed that if Julie Andrews was not to be in the film, Audrey Hepburn was the perfect choice. Martine McCutcheon played the role in the 2001 London revival of My Fair Lady, one of the understudies was then-unknown First Lady of the West End Kerry Ellis. ELIZA, an intelligence program named after the character
19.
Edwardian era
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The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victorian era. The new king Edward VII was already the leader of an elite that set a style influenced by the art. The Liberals returned to power in 1906 and made significant reforms, below the upper class, the era was marked by significant shifts in politics among sections of society that had been largely excluded from wielding power in the past, such as common labourers. The Edwardian period is sometimes imagined as a golden age of long summer afternoons and garden parties. This perception was created in the 1920s and later by those who remembered the Edwardian age with nostalgia, the Edwardian age was also seen as a mediocre period of pleasure between the great achievements of the preceding Victorian age and the catastrophe of the following war. Recent assessments emphasise the differences between the wealthy and the poor during the Edwardian era and describe the age as heralding great changes in political and social life. Robert Tressells popular novel The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists is an example of the eras social critique. Despite this, this type of perception has been challenged more recently by modern historians, the British historian Lawrence James has argued that, during the early 20th century, the British felt increasingly threatened by rival powers such as Germany, Russia, and the United States. There was a political awareness of the working class, leading to a rise in trade unions. The aristocracy remained in control of top government offices, the Conservatives – at the time called Unionists – were dominant from the 1890s to 1906. The party had many strengths, appealing to voters supportive of imperialism, tariffs, the Church of England, a powerful Royal Navy, and traditional hierarchical society. There was a powerful leadership base in the aristocracy and landed gentry in rural England, plus strong support from the Church of England. Historians have used election returns to demonstrate that Conservatives did surprisingly well in working-class districts and they had an appeal as well to the better-off element of traditional working class Britons in the larger cities. Nevertheless, the weaknesses were accumulating, and proved so overwhelming in 1906 that they did not return to power until 1922. The Conservative Party was losing its drive and enthusiasm, especially after the retirement of the charismatic Joseph Chamberlain, there was a bitter split on tariff reform, that drove many of the free traders over to the Liberal camp. Tariff reform was an issue that the Conservative leadership inexplicably clung to. Support among the top tier of the class, and in lower middle class weakened. The 1906 election was a landslide for the opposition, which saw its total vote jump 25 percent, the Liberal Party lacked a unified ideological base in 1906
20.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
21.
Academy Awards
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The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, which has become commonly known by its nickname Oscar. The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by AMPAS, the awards ceremony was first broadcast on radio in 1930 and televised for the first time in 1953. It is now live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online. The Academy Awards ceremony is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording – are modeled after the Academy Awards. The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2016, were held on February 26,2017, at the Dolby Theatre, in Los Angeles, the ceremony was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and was broadcast on ABC. A total of 3,048 Oscars have been awarded from the inception of the award through the 88th, the first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16,1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel, the cost of guest tickets for that nights ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the industry of the time. The ceremony ran for 15 minutes, winners were announced to media three months earlier, however, that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since then, for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11,00 pm on the night of the awards. The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and he had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier, this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, for the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27,1957, until then, foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award. The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, since 1973, all Academy Awards ceremonies always end with the Academy Award for Best Picture. The Academy also awards Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, see also § Awards of Merit categories The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. The five spokes represent the branches of the Academy, Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers. The model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio El Indio Fernández, sculptor George Stanley sculpted Cedric Gibbons design. The statuettes presented at the ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze
22.
Academy Award for Best Actor
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The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is given in honor of an actor 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 Emil Jannings receiving the award for his roles in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. Currently, nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the branch of AMPAS. In the first three years of the awards, actors 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 actor 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, since its inception, the award has been given to 79 actors. Daniel Day-Lewis has received the most awards in this category with three Oscars, spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier were nominated on nine occasions, more than any other actor. As of the 2017 ceremony, Casey Affleck is the most recent winner in category for his role as Lee Chandler in Manchester by the Sea. 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
23.
Academy Award for Best Director
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The Academy Award for Best Director is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is given in honor of a director who has exhibited outstanding directing while working in the film industry. However, these categories were merged for all subsequent ceremonies, nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the directors branch of AMPAS, winners are selected by a plurality vote from the entire eligible voting members of the Academy. For the first eleven years of the Academy Awards, directors were allowed to be nominated for multiple films in the same year, the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture have been very closely linked throughout their history. Of the 89 films that have been awarded Best Picture,63 have also been awarded Best Director, since its inception, the award has been given to 69 directors or directing teams. John Ford has received the most awards in this category with four, william Wyler was nominated on twelve occasions, more than any other individual. As of the 2017 ceremony, Damien Chazelle is the most recent winner in category for his work on La La Land. Chazelle also became the youngest director in history to receive this award, two directing teams have shared the award, Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story in 1961 and Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men in 2007. The Coen brothers are the siblings to have won the award. 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. Since the 7th ceremony held in 1935, the period of eligibility became the full calendar year from January 1 to December 31. org The Academy Awards Database Oscar. com
24.
American Film Institute
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The American Film Institute is an American film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the moving picture arts in America. AFI is supported by funding and public membership. The institute is composed of leaders from the film, entertainment, business, a board of trustees chaired by Sir Howard Stringer and a board of directors chaired by Robert A. Daly guide the organization, which is led by President and CEO Bob Gazzale. Prior leaders were founding director George Stevens, Jr. and Jean Picker Firstenberg. <ref>AFI Board of Trustees etc. American Film Institute. October 2014. Retrieved December 24,2014. </ref>Two years later, in 1967, AFI was established, supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Ford Foundation. The institute established a program for filmmakers known then as the Center for Advanced Film Studies. The institute moved to its current eight-acre Hollywood campus in 1981, the film training program grew into the AFI Conservatory, an accredited graduate school. AFI educates audiences and recognizes excellence through its awards programs and 10 Top 10 Lists. In 1969, the established the AFI Conservatory for Advanced Film Studies at Greystone. The first class included filmmakers Terrence Malick, Caleb Deschanel and Paul Schrader, mirroring a professional production environment, Fellows collaborate to make more films than any other graduate level program. Admission to AFI Conservatory is highly selective, with a maximum of 140 graduates per year, in 2013, Emmy and Oscar-winning director, producer and screenwriter James L. Brooks joined AFI as Artistic Director of the AFI Conservatory where he provides leadership for the film program. Brooks artistic role at the AFI Conservatory has a legacy that includes Daniel Petrie, Jr. Robert Wise. Award-winning director Bob Mandel served as Dean of the AFI Conservatory for nine years, jan Schuette took over as Dean in 2014. AFI Conservatorys alumni have careers in film, television and on the web and they have been recognized with all of the major industry awards – Academy Award, Emmy Award, guild awards, and the Tony Award. The AFI Catalog, started in 1968, is a web-based filmographic database, early print copies of this catalog may also be found at your local library. Each year the AFI Awards honor the ten outstanding films and ten outstanding television programs, the awards are a non-competitive acknowledgement of excellence. The Awards are announced in December and a luncheon for award honorees takes place the following January. The juries consisted of over 1,500 artists, scholars, critics and historians, with movies selected based on the films popularity over time, historical significance, citizen Kane was voted the greatest American film twice. AFI operates two film festivals, AFI Fest in Los Angeles, and AFI Docs in Silver Spring, Maryland, AFI Fest is the American Film Institutes annual celebration of artistic excellence
25.
Covent Garden
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Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martins Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and with the Royal Opera House. The area was settled in the 7th century when it became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic. By 1200 part of it had been walled off by Westminster Abbey for use as arable land, referred to as the garden of the Abbey and Convent, and later the Covent Garden, it was seized by Henry VIII and granted to the Earls of Bedford in 1552. The 4th Earl commissioned Inigo Jones to build fine houses to attract wealthy tenants. Jones designed the Italianate arcaded square along with the church of St Pauls, the design of the square was new to London and had a significant influence on modern town planning, acting as the prototype for new estates as London grew. By 1654 a small open-air fruit-and-vegetable market had developed on the side of the fashionable square. Gradually, both the market and the area fell into disrepute, as taverns, theatres, coffee-houses. By the 18th century it had become a well-known red-light district, an Act of Parliament was drawn up to control the area, and Charles Fowlers neo-classical building was erected in 1830 to cover and help organise the market. The market grew and further buildings were added, the Floral Hall, Charter Market, by the end of the 1960s traffic congestion was causing problems, and in 1974 the market relocated to the New Covent Garden Market about three miles south-west at Nine Elms. With the postcode WC2, Covent Garden falls within the London boroughs of Westminster and Camden, the area has been served by the Piccadilly line at Covent Garden tube station since 1907, the journey from Leicester Square, at 300 yards, is the shortest in London. What would become the Strand on the boundary of the future Covent Garden was used during the Roman period as part of a route to Silchester. Excavations in 2006 at St Martin-in-the-Fields revealed a late Roman grave and these revealed Covent Garden as the centre of a trading town called Lundenwic, developed around 600 AD, which stretched from Trafalgar Square to Aldwych. Alfred the Great gradually shifted the settlement into the old Roman town of Londinium from around 886 AD onwards, leaving no mark of the old town, a document from 1200 AD mentions a walled garden owned by the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of St Peter, Westminster. A later document, dated between 1250 and 1283, refers to the garden of the Abbot and Convent of Westminster. By the 13th century this had become a 40-acre quadrangle of mixed orchard, meadow, pasture and arable land and this is how it was recorded from then on. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540, Henry VIII took the land belonging to Westminster Abbey for himself and his son, Edward VI, granted it to John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford, in 1552. The Russell family, who in 1694 were advanced in their peerage from Earl to Duke of Bedford, held the land until 1918
26.
Duke
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A duke or duchess can either be a monarch ruling over a duchy or a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch. During the Middle Ages the title signified first among the Germanic monarchies, Dukes were the rulers of the provinces and the superiors of the counts in the cities and later, in the feudal monarchies, the highest-ranking peers of the king. During the 19th century many of the smaller German and Italian states were ruled by Dukes or Grand Dukes, but at present, with the exception of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, there are no dukes ruling as monarchs. Duke remains the highest hereditary title in Portugal, Spain, in Sweden, members of the Royal Family are given a personal dukedom at birth. The Pope, as a sovereign, has also, though rarely. In some realms the relative status of duke and prince, as borne by the nobility rather than by members of reigning dynasties, varied—e. g. in Italy. A woman who holds in her own right the title to such duchy or dukedom, Queen Elizabeth II, however, is known by tradition as Duke of Normandy in the Channel Islands and Duke of Lancaster in Lancashire. A duchy is the territory or geopolitical entity ruled by a duke, a dukedom is the title or status of a duke, a rank in the present or past nobility, and is not necessarily attached to a duchy. A few examples exist today, The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is a independent state and its head. In Scotland the male heir apparent to the British crown is always the Duke of Rothesay as well, the Channel Islands are two of the three remaining Crown Dependencies, the last vestiges of the lands of the Duchy of Normandy. The Islanders in their loyal toast will say La Reine, notre Duc, however, the Channel Islands, part of the lost Duchy, remained a self-governing possession of the English Crown. While the islands today retain autonomy in government, they owe allegiance to The Queen in her role as Duke of Normandy. During the Middle Ages, after Roman power in Western Europe collapsed, in 1332, Robert of Taranto succeeded his father, Philip. John took the style of Duke of Durazzo, in 1368, Durazzo fell to Karl Thopia, who was recognized by Venice as Prince of Albania. The Visigoths retained the Roman divisions of their kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula and they were the most powerful landowners and, along with the bishops, elected the king, usually from their own midst. They were the commanders and in this capacity often acted independently from the king. The army was structured decimally with the highest unit, the thiufa, the cities were commanded by counts, who were in turn answerable to the dukes, who called up the thiufae when necessary. When the Lombards entered Italy, the Latin chroniclers called their war leaders duces in the old fashion and these leaders eventually became the provincial rulers, each with a recognized seat of government
27.
Ball (dance party)
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A ball is a formal dance party. Social dance forms a part of the evening, actual ballroom dancing may or may not occur. Catalan uses the word, ball, for the dance event. Cotillion ball Commemoration ball Hunt ball Masquerade ball May Ball Dance party Prom A well-documented ball occurred at Kingston Lacy, Dorset, England, on 19 December 1791. The occasion was to celebrate the completion of major alterations to the house, the event involved 140 guests, with dancing from 9pm to 7am, interrupted by dinner at 1am. Ball gown Ballroom Dance card Wallace, Carol McD. et al, new York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Media related to Balls at Wikimedia Commons
28.
Waste collector
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Waste and recycling pickup work is physically demanding and it exposes workers to a number of occupational hazards. Statistics show waste collection to be one of the most dangerous jobs, at even more dangerous than police work. In many developing countries, the first people to tackle the waste collection are pickers working in the economy, i. e. they may be self-financing through recycling, repairing. Examples include the bottley-wallah, recycler of many sorts of materials in India, castes such as the Zabbaleen in Egypt, many varieties of English have a range of names for waste collectors, from formal job titles for municipal employees, to colloquial and regional terms. Eugène Poubelle, French official, who ordered in 1884 that all Paris landlords supply their tenants with covered garbage containers. Alfred P. Doolittle, a common dustman, My Fair Lady from the play, Broadway,1956, London,1958. California Occupational Guide Number 460, Mechanical - Skilled Occupations, Refuse Collectors, state of California, Employment Development Department
29.
Received Pronunciation
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Peter Trudgill estimated in 1974 that 3% of people in Britain were RP speakers, but this rough estimate has been questioned by the phonetician J. Windsor Lewis. Since the 1960s, a greater permissiveness towards regional English varieties has taken hold in education, an individual using RP will typically speak Standard English, although the converse or inverse is not necessarily true. The standard language may be pronounced with an accent and the contrapositive is usually correct. It is very unlikely that someone speaking RP would use it to speak a regional dialect, the introduction of the term Received Pronunciation is usually credited to Daniel Jones. However, the term had actually been used earlier by Alexander Ellis in 1869 and P. S. Du Ponceau in 1818 According to Fowlers Modern English Usage. The word received conveys its meaning of accepted or approved. RP is often believed to be based on the accents of southern England and this was the most populated and most prosperous area of England during the 14th and 15th centuries. By the end of the 15th century, Standard English was established in the City of London, some linguists have used the term RP while expressing reservations about its suitability. Other writers have used the name BBC Pronunciation. He used the term General British in his 1970s publication of A Concise Pronouncing Dictionary of American and British English, Received Pronunciation has sometimes been called Oxford English, as it used to be the accent of most members of the University of Oxford. The Handbook of the International Phonetic Association uses the name Standard Southern British, page 4 reads, Standard Southern British is the modern equivalent of what has been called Received Pronunciation. It is an accent of the south east of England which operates as a prestige norm there and in parts of the British Isles. Faced with the difficulty of defining RP, many writers have tried to distinguish between different sub-varieties, later editions use the terms General, Refined and Regional. Wells refers to mainstream RP and U-RP, he suggests that Gimsons categories of Conservative and Advanced RP referred to the U-RP of the old, however, Wells stated, It is difficult to separate stereotype from reality with U-RP. Upton distinguishes between RP, Traditional RP, and an older version which he identifies with Cruttendens Refined RP. An article on the website of the British Library refers to Conservative, Mainstream, the modern style of RP is an accent often taught to non-native speakers learning British English. Non-RP Britons abroad may modify their pronunciation to something closer to Received Pronunciation to be understood by people unfamiliar with the diversity of British accents. They may also modify their vocabulary and grammar to be closer to those of Standard English for the same reason
30.
Ascot Racecourse
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Ascot Racecourse is a British racecourse, located in Ascot, Berkshire, England, which is used for thoroughbred horse racing. It is one of the racecourses in the United Kingdom. The course, owned by Ascot Racecourse Ltd, enjoys close associations with the British Royal Family, Ascot today stages twenty-six days of racing over the course of the year, comprising eighteen flat meetings held between the months of May and October inclusive. It also stages important jump racing throughout the winter months, the Royal Meeting held each June, remains a major draw, its highlight being The Gold Cup. The most prestigious race is the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes run over the course in July, Ascot Racecourse was founded in 1711 by Queen Anne. The first race, Her Majestys Plate, with a purse of 100 guineas, was held on 11 August 1711, seven horses competed, each carrying a weight of 12 stones. This first race comprised three separate four-mile heats, in 1813 Parliament passed an Act to ensure that the grounds would remain a public racecourse. A new grandstand was opened in 1839 at a cost of £10000, a further Act of Parliament of 1913 establishing the Ascot Authority which entity manages the racecourse to this day. From its creation until 1945 the only racing that took place at Ascot was the Royal Meeting, since that date, more fixtures have been introduced to the grounds, notably steeplechase and hurdles in 1965. Ascot racecourse closed for a period of twenty months on 26 September 2004, for a £185 million redevelopment funded by Allied Irish Bank and designed by Populous, as owner of the Ascot estate, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth reopened the racecourse on Tuesday 20 June 2006. However, the upper levels provide far less accommodation for the everyday racegoer than was present in the former stand, in July 2009 Ascot Racecourse also hosted the third round of the UAE Presidents Cup. The Royal Ascot is the centrepiece of Ascots year and dates back to 1711 when it was founded by Queen Anne and it is a major event in the British social calendar, and press coverage of the attendees and what they are wearing often exceeds coverage of the actual racing. There are three enclosures attended by guests on Royal Ascot week, the Royal Enclosure is the most prestigious of the three enclosures, with recent visits from the Queen and Royal Family members. Access to the Royal Enclosure is restricted, with security on the day. First-time applicants must apply to the Royal Enclosure Office and gain membership from someone who has attended the enclosure for at least four years, for existing badgeholders, an invitation is sent out by Her Majestys Representative to request badges. The badgeholders name is written onto the badge and can be used only by that person and those in the Royal Enclosure have the options of fine dining and hospitality, and a selection of bars. The dress code is strictly enforced, for women, only a day dress with a hat is acceptable, with rules applying to the length and style of the dress. In addition, women must not show bare midriffs or shoulders, for men, black or grey morning dress with top hat is required
31.
Carpathian Mountains
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The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a mountain range system forming an arc roughly 1,500 km long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe. The Carpathians and their foothills also have many thermal and mineral waters, the Carpathians consist of a chain of mountain ranges that stretch in an arc from the Czech Republic in the northwest through Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Ukraine to Romania and Serbia. The highest range within the Carpathians is the Tatras, on the border of Slovakia and Poland, the second-highest range is the Southern Carpathians in Romania, where the highest peaks exceed 2,500 m. The divisions of the Carpathians are usually in three sections, Western Carpathians — Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia. Eastern Carpathians — southeastern Poland, eastern Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, the term Outer Carpathians is frequently used to describe the northern rim of the Western and Eastern Carpathians. The most important cities in or near the Carpathians are, Bratislava and Košice in Slovakia, Kraków in Poland, Cluj-Napoca, Sibiu and Braşov in Romania, and Uzhhorod in Ukraine. In modern times, the range is called Karpaty in Czech, Polish, Slovak and Карпати in Ukrainian, Carpați in Romanian, Karpaten in German, Kárpátok in Hungarian and Karpati or Карпати in Serbian. Although the toponym was recorded already by Ptolemy in the 2nd century CE, for instance, Havasok was its medieval Hungarian name, Rus and Romanian chronicles referred to it as Hungarian Mountains. The archaic Polish word karpa meant rugged irregularities, underwater obstacles/rocks, the more common word skarpa means a sharp cliff or other vertical terrain. In late Roman documents, the Eastern Carpathian Mountains were referred to as Montes Sarmatici, the Western Carpathians were called Carpates, a name that is first recorded in Ptolemys Geographia. In the Scandinavian Hervarar saga, which relates ancient Germanic legends about battles between Goths and Huns, the name Karpates appears in the predictable Germanic form as Harvaða fjöllum, inter Alpes Huniae et Oceanum est Polonia by Gervase of Tilbury, has described in his Otia Imperialia in 1211. Thirteenth- to fifteenth-century Hungarian documents named the mountains Thorchal, Tarczal or less frequently Montes Nivium, the northwestern Carpathians begin in Slovakia and southern Poland. They surround Transcarpathia and Transylvania in a semicircle, sweeping towards the southeast. The total length of the Carpathians is over 1,500 km, the highest altitudes of the Carpathians occur where they are widest. The Carpathians cover an area of 190,000 km2 and, after the Alps, although commonly referred to as a mountain chain, the Carpathians do not actually form an uninterrupted chain of mountains. Rather, they consist of several orographically and geologically distinctive groups, the Carpathians at their highest altitude are only as high as the middle region of the Alps, with which they share a common appearance, climate, and flora. The Carpathians are separated from the Alps by the Danube, the two ranges meet at only one point, the Leitha Mountains at Bratislava. The river also separates them from the Balkan Mountains at Orşova in Romania, the valley of the March and Oder separates the Carpathians from the Silesian and Moravian chains, which belong to the middle wing of the great Central Mountain System of Europe
32.
Theodore Bikel
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Theodore Meir Bikel was an Austrian-American Jewish stage, television and film actor, folk singer, musician, composer, unionist and political activist. He made his debut in Tevye the Milkman in Tel Aviv, Israel. He later studied acting at Britains Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and made his London stage debut in 1948 and he was also a widely recognized and recorded folk singer and guitarist. In 1969 Bikel began acting and singing on stage as Tevye in the musical Fiddler on the Roof, the production won nine Tony Awards and was one of the longest-running musicals in Broadway history. Bikel was president of the Associated Actors and Artistes of America and was president of Actors Equity in the late 1970s and he served as the Chair of the Board of Directors of Partners for Progressive Israel, where he also lectured. Theodore Bikel was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria, as an active Zionist, his father named him after Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism. Following the German union with Austria in 1938, Bikels family fled to Mandatory Palestine, Bikel studied at the Mikve Yisrael agricultural school and joined Kibbutz Kfar HaMaccabi. Bikel started acting while in his teens and he performed with Habimah Theater in 1943 and was one of the founding members of the Cameri Theatre, which became a leading Israeli theater company. He described his experience there as similar, if not better. The Habimah people were much closer to the Method, indeed, than Lee Strasberg was, in 1945, he moved to London to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Bikel moved to the United States in 1954 and became a citizen in 1961. Bikel graduated from understudy to star opposite the directors wife, Vivien Leigh, with a sudden unplanned performance when a co-star, playing the role of Mitch, came down with a case of flu. Bikel showed up backstage and went directly to Leighs dressing room to ask if she wanted to rehearse with him and she replied that she did not need to, Go and do it, she said. You are a professional, and Larry gave you this job because he trusted you to do it well, after the show, Leigh told him, Well done. He also portrayed the sadistic General Jouvet in The Pride and the Passion, in My Fair Lady, he played an overbearing Hungarian linguist. He made his Broadway debut in 1955 in Tonight in Samarkind, in 1959, he created the role of Captain von Trapp in the original production of The Sound of Music, which earned him a second Tony nomination. Bikel did not like his role, however, because his ability to sing was underutilized, when the composers, Rodgers and Hammerstein, realized Bikel was an accomplished folksinger, they wrote the song Edelweiss specifically for him to sing and accompany himself on the guitar. In 1964, he played Zoltan Karpathy, the dialect expert, since his first appearance as Tevye in the musical Fiddler on the Roof in 1967, Bikel had performed the role more often than any other actor
33.
Jeremy Brett
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Jeremy Brett, was an English actor, probably best known for playing fictional detective Sherlock Holmes in four Granada TV series from 1984 to 1994 in all 41 episodes. His career spanned stage, to television and film, to Shakespeare. He is also remembered for playing the besotted Freddie Eynsford-Hill in the Warner Bros.1964 production of My Fair Lady, Jeremy Brett was born Peter Jeremy William Huggins at Berkswell Grange in Berkswell, West Midlands. His birthdate is given variously as either 3 November 1933, December 1933 or 1935, according to many sources and he was the son of Lieutenant Colonel Henry William Huggins, an Army officer, and Elizabeth Edith Cadbury Butler. He had three brothers, John, Patrick and Michael. The actor Martin Clunes is his nephew, educated at Eton College, he claimed to have been an academic disaster, attributing his learning difficulties to dyslexia. Although he eventually developed precisely honed diction, he was born with rhotacism and he underwent corrective surgery as a teenager and followed it with years of practising. Much later he claimed that he practised all of his speech exercises daily, however, while at Eton he excelled at singing and was a member of the college choir. In 1959, while Brett was playing Hamlet, his mother was killed in a car crash in the Welsh mountains and this had a tremendous effect on Brett. There was anger – it was interesting, and I think that came through. I felt cheated – I felt my mother had been cheated – the rage of that came through and he couldnt believe the circumstances and went on to say I was very rough on my mother, I think. I mean physically rough, in the play as he channelled his anger into his performance, Brett made his professional acting debut in rep at the Library Theatre in Manchester in 1954, and his London stage debut with the Old Vic company in Troilus and Cressida in 1956. He made his first appearance in a film with War and Peace. Also in 1956, he appeared on Broadway as the Duke of Aumerle in Richard II, in 1959, Brett had a singing role as the romantic lead of Archie Forsyth in the West End musical Marigold. Also in 1959, he played the part of Hamlet, however on reflection, in a BBC2 television documentary Playing the Dane, I had qualities, but Id much rather see other peoples. The respected theatre critic Harold Hobson wrote of Bretts portrayal that the bed was the centre of his performance. He played many roles on stage, including about a dozen Shakespearean parts at the Old Vic, in New York. From the early 1960s, Brett was often on British television and he starred in several serials, including as DArtagnan in an adaptation of The Three Musketeers
34.
Marni Nixon
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Margaret Nixon McEathron, known professionally as Marni Nixon, was an American soprano and playback singer for featured actresses in movie musicals. She was best known for dubbing the voices of the leading actresses in films, including The King and I, West Side Story. She went on to singing and opera with, among others, Vera Schwarz, Carl Ebert, Boris Goldovsky. In 1947, having adopted the stage name Marni Nixon, she made her Hollywood Bowl solo debut in Carmina Burana with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under conductor Leopold Stokowski. Nixons career in film started in 1948 when she sang the voices of the angels heard by Ingrid Bergman in Joan of Arc, the same year, she did her first dubbing work when she provided Margaret OBriens singing voice in 1948s Big City and then 1949s The Secret Garden. She sang for Jeanne Crain in Cheaper by the Dozen and dubbed Marilyn Monroes high notes in Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, also in 1953, she sang for Ida Lupino in Jennifer. Nixon appeared on Broadway in 1954 in The Girl in Pink Tights and that year, she also sang for Sophia Loren in Boy on a Dolphin. In 1960, she dubbed Janet Leighs voice in Pepe and had a chorus role in Can-Can. In 1961s West Side Story, the studio kept her work on the film a secret from the actress, in 1962, she also sang Woods high notes in Gypsy. For My Fair Lady in 1964, she worked with the female lead of the film, Audrey Hepburn. Because of her uncredited dubbing work in films, Time magazine called her The Ghostess with the Mostest. Before My Fair Lady was released in theatres in 1964, Nixon played Eliza in a revival of the musical at New York City Center, nixons first onscreen appearance was as Sister Sophia in the 1965 film The Sound of Music. In the DVD commentary to the film, director Robert Wise comments that audiences were able to see the woman whose voice they knew so well. In 1967, she was the voice of Princess Serena in a live action and animated version of Jack. Her opera credits included performances at Los Angeles Opera, Seattle Opera, San Francisco Opera, Nixon also toured with Liberace and Victor Borge and later in her own cabaret shows. On stage, in 1984, she originated the role of Edna Off-Broadway in Taking My Turn, composed by Gary William Friedman and she also originated the role of Sadie McKibben in Opal, and she had a 1997 film role as Aunt Alice in I Think I Do. Under her own name, beginning in the 1980s, Nixon recorded songs by Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Arnold Schönberg, Igor Stravinsky, Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, and Anton Webern. She was nominated for two Grammy Awards for Best Classical Performance, Vocal Soloist, one for her Schönberg album, in the 1998 Disney film Mulan, Nixon was the singing voice of Grandmother Fa
35.
Bill Shirley
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William Jesse Bill Shirley was an American actor and tenor/lyric baritone singer who later became a Broadway theatre producer. William Shirley was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on July 6,1921 and his father, Luther James Shirley, was a funeral director for Shirley Brothers Mortuaries. His mother, Inez Shirley, was a professional pianist. According to the Indianapolis Star, June 1,1952, Inez first discovered her sons talent around the age of five and she directed him to the founder of the Ogden Chorale, who was taken with the childs vocal ability, expressive eyes, and unusual personality. From then on, Billy was known locally as a boy soprano and he was a very popular boy soloist with the Ogden Chorale, which sang at Christmas and Easter on the steps of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. He performed with the Meglin Kiddies and was an member of the Childrens Civic Theater. At the age of eleven, he traveled with his family to California and was introduced to L. E. Behymer who arranged to introduce him to Sid Grauman. He listened to Billy sing, and the boy with the voice soon appeared in films by 20th Century Fox, Columbia. The family owned a dog, a Boston terrier named Buddy, during the time he stayed in California, little Billy often wrote letters home requesting news about his pet. Some of the boys first acting roles were in rare or hard-to-find films, such as The Phantom President and he sang Christmas carols in As The Devil Commands. Some press reports list the films name as Acquitted, the name of a previous Columbia film from 1929. Bill attended George W. Julian Elementary during his school years. Among other things, he became a member of its student council along with prominent figures as Madelyn Pugh. The following year, aged 19, Bill and his moved to Hollywood. His singing teacher there, the famous Andrés de Segurola, would accept Shirley as a pupil for no less than six months, mrs. Shirley lived with her son in Hollywood for sixteen years, and the two went to Indiana to visit family and friends quite often. In early 1941, Shirley was introduced to Republic Studios president Herbert Yates by a friend who worked at the studio. Shirley sang a few numbers for Yates, and was signed up for a seven-year contract. Shirleys roles in the Republic films were very small or supporting
36.
Mona Washbourne
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Mona Washbourne was an English actress of stage, film and television. Mona Washbourne was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, and began her career training as a concert pianist. Her sister Katherine Washbourne was a violinist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Adrian Boult, Washbourne was performing professionally from the early 1920s. She married the actor Basil Dignam and her brother-in-law Mark Dignam was also a stage and film actor. In 1948, after numerous stage performances, Washbourne began appearing in films. Her film credits include Billy Liar and The Collector and she played Mrs. Pearce in My Fair Lady, the stern and caustic Mrs. Bramson in the remake of Night Must Fall, and the Matron in the film, If. She appeared at both the Royal Court Theatre in London and on Broadway in 1970 in David Storeys Home and she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play. In 1975 she appeared on the West End stage with James Stewart in a revival of Mary Chases play Harvey, Washbourne won the 1981 New York Film Critics Circle Awards for Best Supporting Actress in Stevie. In 1981, Washbourne appeared in Granada Televisions TV miniseries adaptation of Evelyn Waughs novel Brideshead Revisited as Nanny Hawkins, one of her last television appearances was in Wheres the Key. A BBC play about Alzheimers disease and she died, aged 84, in London. Mona Washbourne at the Internet Movie Database Mona Washbourne at the Internet Broadway Database Performances listed in the Theatre Archive University of Bristol
37.
Isobel Elsom
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Isobel Elsom was an English screen, stage and television actress. Born Isabelle Reed in Chesterton, Cambridge, Elsom usually was cast as a lady of the upper class. She attended Howard College, Bedford England, over the course of three decades she appeared in 17 Broadway productions, beginning with The Ghost Train in 1926. Her best-known stage role was the murder victim in Ladies in Retirement. Her other theatre credits included The Innocents and Romeo and Juliet, Elsom made her first screen appearance during the silent film era and appeared in nearly 100 films throughout her career. She met her first husband, director Maurice Elvey, when he cast her in his 1919 film Quinneys and he went on to direct her in eight more films before they divorced. She appeared opposite Jerry Lewis in four of his late 1950s/early 1960s films, elsoms television credits included Armstrong Circle Theatre, Hallmark Hall of Fame, Lux Video Theatre, My Three Sons, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Playhouse 90, Hawaiian Eye, and Dr. Kildare. Elsoms second husband was actor Carl Harbord, from 1942 until his death in 1958 and she died in Woodland Hills, California, aged 87. Five portraits of Elsom are included in the Photographs Collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London
38.
Henry Daniell
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Charles Henry Daniell was an English actor, best known for his villainous film roles, but who had a long and prestigious career on stage as well as in films. Daniell was given few opportunities to play a guy, one of the few being the biographical film Song of Love where he played the supporting part of Franz Liszt. Another such opportunity was his role as Anthony Lloyd in Voice of Terror and he was born in Barnes, London, and was educated at St Pauls School and at Greshams School, Holt, Norfolk. He made his first appearance on the stage in the provinces in 1913, in 1914 he joined the 2nd Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment during World War I, but was invalided out the following year after being severely wounded in combat. Thereafter he appeared at the New Theatre in October 1915 as Police Officer Clancy in Stop Thief. and notably, from May 1916, at the prestigious Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He again toured America in 1930–31, this time appearing on the Pacific Coast at Los Angeles as well as New York once more, daniells film debut came in 1929 in Jealousy. He appeared as Professor Moriarty in the Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes film The Woman in Green and he played the sleazy Baron de Varville opposite Greta Garbo in Camille. Another early triumph was his portrayal of Cecil in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and he also played the treacherous Lord Wolfingham in The Sea Hawk, fighting Errol Flynn in what is often considered one of the most spectacular sword fighting duels ever filmed. When Michael Curtiz cast him in film, Henry Daniell initially refused because he couldnt fence. Curtiz accomplished the climactic duel through the use of shadows and over-shoulder shots, towards the end of the Second World War, he appeared in one of his most memorable film roles, as the cruel Mr. Brocklehurst in Jane Eyre, opposite Joan Fontaine who played Eyre. That same year he appeared in The Suspect as Charles Laughtons black-mailing next-door neighbour, an absolute professional, he was always on the set when needed, and impatient when delays in filming took place. Much in demand for his dry, sardonic delivery, Daniell moved easily from big-budget films, such as Mutiny on the Bounty, to television without difficulty. In 1957, Daniell appeared as King Charles II of England in the NBC anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show in the episode The Trial of Colonel Blood, in the same year he played second chair to Charles Laughtons lead counsel in Witness for the Prosecution. He performed in episodes of Boris Karloffs TV series Thriller. His last role was an uncredited appearance as the British Ambassador in the 1964 film My Fair Lady directed by his old friend George Cukor. The scene in which he appears takes place at the embassy ball and he is seen as Eliza arrives and when introduced to her shakes her hand and says Miss Doolittle. Later, Daniell presents Eliza to the Queen of Transylvania with the one line, Miss Doolittle and he married Ann Knox and, in the years following World War II, lived in Los Angeles, California. He and Ann were involved in a Hollywood sex scandal in the late 1930s, and what I want to know is – where are these orgies
39.
Queenie Leonard
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Queenie Leonard was an English character actress and singer. She was the last remaining cast member of And Then There Were None and she was born as Pearl Walker in Manchester in 1905 and began her career on stage in 1921, and debuted on film in 1931. She had already amassed 20 years of stage and screen experience when, in 1941 and she also appeared in cabaret in Britain and in the United States, starred in a one-woman show, acted in television sitcoms, and provided voices for Disney animated films. Her last appearance was in 20th Century Foxs Doctor Dolittle and she was married to film designer Lawrence P. Williams from 1936 to 1947, and to actor Tom Conway from 1958 to 1963. Both unions were childless and ended in divorce and she died of natural causes on 17 January 2002, in West Los Angeles, one month before her 97th birthday. She is buried in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles in the plot called the Garden of Roses. At the time of her death, she was the last surviving cast member of And Then There Were None, Queenie Leonard at the Internet Movie Database Queenie Leonard at Find a Grave Queenie Leonard at AllMovie
40.
Moyna Macgill
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Moyna Macgill was an Irish-born British stage, film and television actress, and the mother of actress Angela Lansbury and producers Edgar and Bruce Lansbury. Born as Charlotte Lillian McIldowie in Belfast, she was the daughter of a solicitor who was a director of the Grand Opera House in Belfast. As a teenager she was noticed riding the London Underground by director and producer George Pearson, in 1918, she made her stage debut in the play Love is a Cottage at the West End theatres Globe Theatre. Her husband, actor Reginald Denham, named Lansbury as co-respondent when he filed for divorce, a year after it was finalized, Macgill and Lansbury married and with Isolde settled into a garden flat in Londons Regents Park. Macgill temporarily set aside her career following the birth of daughter Angela and twin sons Edgar, Jr. and Bruce, although music, in 1935, Edgar Lansbury died of stomach cancer, a year after publishing a biography of his father George. Macgill began an affair with Scotsman Leckie Forbes, a colonel with the British Army in India. The two moved their families to a house in Hampstead, but Macgill soon discovered Forbes military career had made him a staunch disciplinarian who ruled the household like a tyrant. When the opportunity to take her children to the U. S. presented itself just prior to The Blitz and she never spoke to Forbes again. In New York City, Macgill was unable to work in movies or on the stage, not having a work visa, and she took to presenting dramatic readings at private schools for income. In 1942, she was invited to join a troupe that was rehearsing Noël Cowards Tonight at 8,30 for a production designed to raise funds for the Royal Canadian Air Force. She accepted, and when the finished the run in Vancouver. She soon sent for Angela, and eventually the twins, and her career in Hollywood consisted largely of small character parts in films and on television. Among her more notable film credits are Frenchmans Creek and The Picture of Dorian Gray, in later years she made guest appearances on such television series as Studio One, The Twilight Zone, Dr. Kildare, Mister Ed, I Dream of Jeannie and My Favorite Martian. She died of cancer in Los Angeles, just fifteen days shy of her 80th birthday. Balancing Act, The Authorized Biography of Angela Lansbury, Moyna Macgill at the Internet Movie Database Moyna Macgill at the Internet Broadway Database Moyna Macgill at Find a Grave
