1.
William Goldman
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William Goldman is an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He came to prominence in the 1950s as a novelist, before turning to writing for film and his other notable works include his thriller novel Marathon Man and comedy-fantasy novel The Princess Bride, both of which Goldman adapted for film. Author Sean Egan has described Goldman as one of the late twentieth century’s most popular storytellers. Goldman was born in Chicago and grew up in a Jewish family in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois, the son of Marion and Maurice Clarence Goldman, who worked in business. Goldmans father initially was a businessman, working in Chicago and then in partnership. He came home to live and he was in his pajamas for the last five years of his life, Maurice Goldman killed himself while his son was still in high school. Marion Goldmans deafness increased the stress in the home, Goldman received a bachelor of arts degree from Oberlin College in 1952, then went into the army. He knew how to type, so was sent to the Pentagon and he then matriculated at Columbia University, where he earned a master of arts degree in 1956. Throughout all this, Goldman wrote short stories in the evenings, after graduating, Goldman received an offer to teach at a high school and also considered working in advertising. But he really wanted to write, according to his memoir, Adventures in the Screen Trade, Goldman began writing when he took a creative-writing course in college. His grades in the class were horrible and he did not originally intend to become a screenwriter. His main interests were poetry, short stories, and novels, in 1956 he completed an MA thesis at Columbia University on the comedy of manners in America. His brother, James Goldman, who died in 1998, was a playwright and they shared an apartment in New York with their friend John Kander and helped out Kander, a composer, by writing the libretto for his dissertation. All three later won separate Academy Awards, on 25 June 1956 Goldman started writing what became his first novel, The Temple of Gold. It was written in less than three weeks and was picked up for publication and it sold well enough to launch Goldman on his career. Goldman published five novels, and had three plays produced on Broadway, before he began to write screenplays and he wrote mostly serious literary works until the death of his first agent, when he started writing thrillers, the first of which was Marathon Man. Goldman began writing screenplays in his 30s when Cliff Robertson hired him to adapt Flowers for Algernon, later retitled Charly, Robertson then hired him to do some rewriting on Masquerade, which was Goldmans first screen credit. Goldman researched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for eight years, after deciding he did not want to write a cowboy novel, he turned the story into his first original screenplay and sold it for a record $400,000 in the late 1960s
2.
Rod Steiger
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Rodney Stephen Rod Steiger was an American actor, noted for his portrayal of offbeat, often volatile and crazed characters. His performance in that film won him the Academy Award for Best Actor, Steiger was born in Westhampton, New York, the son of a vaudevillian. He had a childhood, with an alcoholic mother from whom he ran away at the age of 16. He made his debut in 1946, in a production of Curse you. At the Civic Repertory Theatre of Newark, and subsequently appeared in such as An Enemy of the People, Clifford Odetss Night Music, Seagulls Over Sorrento. Steiger made his debut in Fred Zinnemanns Teresa in 1951. Across the Bridge and Al Capone, the following year, he played a serial killer of many guises in No Way to Treat a Lady. During the 1970s, Steiger increasingly turned to European productions in his search for more demanding roles and he portrayed Napoleon Bonaparte in Waterloo, a Mexican bandit in Sergio Leones Duck, You Sucker. Benito Mussolini in Last Days of Mussolini, and ended the decade playing a disturbed priest in The Amityville Horror. By the 1980s, heart problems and depression took its toll on Steigers career, One of his final roles was as judge H. Lee Sarokin in the prison drama The Hurricane, which reunited him with In the Heat of the Night director Norman Jewison. Steiger was married five times, and had a daughter, opera singer Anna Steiger, and a son, Michael Steiger. He died of pneumonia and complications from surgery for a gall bladder tumor on July 9,2002, aged 77, in Los Angeles, and was survived by his fifth wife Joan Benedict Steiger. Steiger was born on April 14,1925 in Westhampton, New York, Rod was raised as a Lutheran. Biographer Tom Hutchinson describes him as a shadowy, fugitive figure, one who haunted Rod throughout his life and was an invisible presence, Hutchinson described Steigers mother as plump, energetic and small, with long auburn hair. She had a singing voice and nearly became a Hollywood actress. As a result, she quit show business and moved away from Westhampton to raise her son and they moved through several towns, including Irvington and Bloomfield, before settling in Newark, New Jersey. Her alcoholism caused Steiger much embarrassment, and the family was frequently mocked by other children, at the age of five he was sexually abused by a pedophile who lured him in with a butterfly collection. A loving, secure childhood in a New York minute, during the last 11 years of her life, Steigers mother stayed sober and regularly attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings
3.
Lee Remick
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Lee Ann Remick was an American actress. Remick made her debut in 1957 in A Face in the Crowd. Her other notable roles include Anatomy of a Murder, Wild River, The Detective, The Omen. She won Golden Globe Awards for the 1973 TV film The Blue Knight, for the latter role, she also won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress. In April 1991, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Lee Remick was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, the daughter of Gertrude Margaret, an actress, and Francis Edwin Frank Remick, who owned a department store. Her maternal great-grandmother, Eliza Duffield, was a born in England. Remick attended the Swaboda School of Dance, the Hewitt School and studied acting at Barnard College, Remick made her film debut in Elia Kazans A Face in the Crowd. While filming the movie in Arkansas, Remick lived with a local family, after appearing as Eula Varner, the hot-blooded daughter-in-law of Will Varner in 1958s The Long, Hot Summer, she appeared in These Thousand Hills as a dance hall girl. Remick came to prominence as a victim whose husband is tried for killing her attacker in Otto Premingers Anatomy of a Murder. In 1960, she made a film with Kazan, Wild River. In 1962 she starred opposite Glenn Ford in the Blake Edwards suspense-thriller Experiment in Terror and that same year she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as the alcoholic wife of Jack Lemmon in Days of Wine and Roses. Bette Davis, also nominated that year for Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. said Miss Remicks performance astonished me and they both lost to Anne Bancroft in The Miracle Worker. When Marilyn Monroe was fired during the filming of the comedy Somethings Got to Give, co-star Dean Martin refused to continue, however, saying that while he admired Remick, he had signed onto the picture strictly to be able to work with Monroe. Remick next appeared in the 1964 Broadway musical Anyone Can Whistle, written by Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents, Remicks performance is captured on the original cast recording. This began a friendship between Remick and Sondheim, and she later appeared in the landmark 1985 concert version of his musical Follies. In 1966, she starred in the Broadway play Wait Until Dark and it was adapted into a successful film the following year starring Audrey Hepburn. She co-starred with Gregory Peck in the 1976 horror film The Omen, in which her characters adopted son, the film was both a critical and commercial success and was regarded as one of the best horror films ever made. Remick later appeared in several movies and miniseries, for which she earned a total of seven Emmy nominations
4.
George Segal
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George Segal, Jr. is an American actor and musician. Segal became popular in the 1960s and 1970s for playing both dramatic and comedic roles, some of his most acclaimed roles are in films such as Ship of Fools, King Rat, Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf. The Hot Rock, Blume in Love, A Touch of Class, California Split, For the Boys, on television, he is best known for his roles as Jack Gallo on Just Shoot Me. and as Albert Pops Solomon on The Goldbergs. Segal is also a banjo player. He has released three albums and has performed the instrument in several of his acting roles and on late night television. Segal was born in Great Neck, New York, the son of Fannie Blanche Segal and George Segal, Sr. a malt, Segals family was Jewish, but he was raised in a secular household. A paternal great-grandfather ran for governor of Massachusetts as a socialist, when asked if he had a bar mitzvah, Segal stated, Im afraid not. I went to a Passover Seder at Groucho Marxs once and he kept saying, I went to a friends bar mitzvah, and that was the only time I was in Temple Beth Shalom. Jewish life wasnt happening that much at the time, peoples car tires were slashed in front of the temple. I was once kicked down a flight of stairs by some kids from the parochial school. All of Segals grandparents were immigrants from Russia and his maternal grandparents changed their surname from Slobodkin to Bodkin. He first became interested in acting at the age of nine and he states, I started off with the ukulele when I was a kid in Great Neck. A friend had a red Harold Teen model, it won my heart, when I got to high school, I realized you couldnt play in a band with a ukulele, so I moved on to the four-string banjo. When his father died in 1947, Segal moved to New York City with his mother and he graduated from George School in 1951, and attended Haverford College. He graduated from Columbia College of Columbia University in 1955 with a Bachelor of Arts in performing arts and he was drafted into the United States Army in 1956. He studied at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen, originally a stage actor and musician, Segal appeared in several minor films in the early 1960s in addition to the well-known World War II film The Longest Day. He was signed to a Columbia Pictures contract in 1961, making his debut in The Young Doctors. In 1965, he was a co-recipient of the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year for his role in The New Interns
5.
Eileen Heckart
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Eileen Heckart was an American actress of film, stage, and television. Primarily known as an actress, her career spanned nearly 60 years. She first became known for her role as schoolteacher Rosemary Sydney in the original 1953 cast of William Inges play Picnic on Broadway. In addition to her Academy Award, she won two Emmy Awards for Save Me a Place at Forest Lawn and Love & War. She also received a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement in 2000 and she made her final acting appearance in 2000 at age 80 in an off-Broadway production, The Waverly Gallery, in which she played the leading role of an elderly grandmother with Alzheimers disease. Heckart was born Anna Eileen Herbert in Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of Esther Stark, the child was soon after legally adopted by her maternal grandmothers wealthy second husband, J. W. Heckart, the surname by which she would be known her entire life. She had two stepsisters, Anne and Marilyn and she graduated from Ohio State University with a B. A. in drama. Heckart began her Broadway career as the assistant stage manager and an understudy for The Voice of the Turtle in 1943 and that same year, she was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame and received an honorary Tony Award for lifetime achievement. Other awards include the 1953 Theatre World Award for Picnic and her nominations include Tony Award nominations for Butterflies Are Free, Invitation to a March, and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. She was granted three honorary doctorates by Sacred Heart University, Niagara University and Ohio State University, daigle in The Bad Seed, both of which were roles Heckart had originated on Broadway. She also appeared as a Vietnam War widow in the Clint Eastwood film and she played Diane Keatons meddling mother in the 1996 comedy film The First Wives Club. On television, Heckart had starring roles in The Five Mrs. Buchanans, Out of the Blue, Partners in Crime, in 1994, she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her appearance as Rose Stein on Love & War. Her other guest spots included The Fugitive, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Love Story, Rhoda, Alice, Murder One, Hawaii Five-O, Gunsmoke, Cybill, The Cosby Show, Heckart played two unrelated characters on the daytime soap opera One Life to Live. During the early 1990s, she played the role of Wilma Bern, mother of upstate Pennsylvania mob boss Carlo Hesser and his meek twin and she appeared in the 1954 NBC legal drama Justice, based on case files of New Yorks Legal Aid Society. She appeared in an episode of the NBC medical drama about psychiatry, The Eleventh Hour, Heckart was married to John Harrison Yankee, Jr. for 55 years from 1942 until his death in 1997. Her son Luke Yankee is the author of Just Outside the Spotlight, Growing Up with Eileen Heckart, on December 31,2001, Heckart died of lung cancer at her home in Norwalk, Connecticut at the age of 82. She was survived by her three children and her two stepsisters, the Eileen Heckart Collection was established at Ohio State Universitys Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute, with her notes, copies of scripts, and personal papers. In 2005, the Eileen Heckart Drama for Seniors Competition was established in her memory by Ohio States Department of Theatre and her sons also established a scholarship at Ohio State in her name
6.
Wizards (film)
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Wizards is a 1977 American animated post-apocalyptic science fantasy film written, produced, and directed by Ralph Bakshi. The film follows the battle between two wizards, one representing the forces of magic and one representing the forces of industrial technology. Earth has been devastated by a nuclear war instigated by five terrorists, only a handful of humans have survived, while the rest have changed into mutants who roam the radioactive wastelands. In the idyllic land of Montagar, the ancestors of man – fairies, elves and dwarves – have returned. During a celebration of 3,000 years of peace Delia, queen of the fairies, falls into a trance, puzzled, the fairies follow her to her home and discover that she has given birth to twin wizards. Blackwolf is excited, he believes he will take over her leadership, Avatar opposes his evil brother and forces him to fight for the kingship. Avatars magic is empowered by his grief, allowing him to defeat Blackwolf, Blackwolf leaves Montagar with a vow to return and make this a planet where mutants rule. Years later, Blackwolf has risen to lead the dark land of Scortch and he tries to attack Montagar twice, but is foiled both times when his mutant warriors become bored or sidetracked in the midst of battle. Blackwolf then discovers an old projector and reels of Nazi propaganda footage and he enhances the projector with magical power and uses it in battle to both inspire his own soldiers and horrify enemy troops. The mutants destroy the elf army, meanwhile, in Montagar, Avatar has become a tutor tasked with training the presidents daughter Elinore to become a full-fledged fairy. Suddenly, the president is assassinated by Necron 99, a robot sent by Blackwolf to kill believers in magic, Avatar confronts the robot and battles it using brain reading. Necron 99 loses the desire for war and changes his name to Peace, Avatar learns from the robot that the dream machine – the projector – is Blackwolfs secret weapon, inspiring his armies with images of ancient warfare. Avatar, Elinore, Peace, and the elf spy Weehawk set out to destroy the projector, in a forest inhabited by fairies, Peace has an intuition that something is amiss shortly before the group is accosted by the leader of the fairies, Sean. Weehawk realizes that Peace is missing, when an assassin kills Sean. Avatar and Weehawk begin to search for Elinore in the forbidden Fairy Sanctuary and he locates her, captured by fairies and small human-like creatures, just as she is about to be killed. Avatar attempts to explain that they did not kill Sean, but the fairies dont believe him, wounded in the shoulder, Avatar refuses to fight back, which impresses the fairy king. Instead of executing them, he merely teleports Avatar and Elinore to a snowy mountaintop, Avatar and Elinore resume their journey despite the poor conditions, but they soon realize they are wandering in circles. Weehawk and Peace finally find them and together they find their way out of the mountains, soon Avatar and the others encounter the encamped army of an elf General who is preparing to attack Scortch the following day, but Blackwolf launches a sneak attack that night
7.
Paramount Pictures
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Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film studio based in Hollywood, California, that has been a subsidiary of the American media conglomerate Viacom since 1994. In 1916, film producer Adolph Zukor contracted 22 actors and actresses and these fortunate few would become the first movie stars. Paramount Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America, in 2014, Paramount Pictures became the first major Hollywood studio to distribute all of its films in digital form only. Paramount is the fifth oldest surviving studio in the world after the French studios Gaumont Film Company and Pathé, followed by the Nordisk Film company. It is the last major film studio headquartered in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. Paramount Pictures dates its existence from the 1912 founding date of the Famous Players Film Company, hungarian-born founder, Adolph Zukor, who had been an early investor in nickelodeons, saw that movies appealed mainly to working-class immigrants. With partners Daniel Frohman and Charles Frohman he planned to offer feature-length films that would appeal to the class by featuring the leading theatrical players of the time. By mid-1913, Famous Players had completed five films, and Zukor was on his way to success and its first film was Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth, which starred Sarah Bernhardt. That same year, another aspiring producer, Jesse L. Lasky, opened his Lasky Feature Play Company with money borrowed from his brother-in-law, Samuel Goldfish, the Lasky company hired as their first employee a stage director with virtually no film experience, Cecil B. DeMille, who would find a site in Hollywood, near Los Angeles, for his first feature film. Hodkinson and actor, director, producer Hobart Bosworth had started production of a series of Jack London movies, Paramount was the first successful nationwide distributor, until this time, films were sold on a statewide or regional basis which had proved costly to film producers. Also, Famous Players and Lasky were privately owned while Paramount was a corporation, in 1916, Zukor maneuvered a three-way merger of his Famous Players, the Lasky Company, and Paramount. Zukor and Lasky bought Hodkinson out of Paramount, and merged the three companies into one, with only the exhibitor-owned First National as a rival, Famous Players-Lasky and its Paramount Pictures soon dominated the business. It was this system that gave Paramount a leading position in the 1920s and 1930s, the driving force behind Paramounts rise was Zukor. In 1926, Zukor hired independent producer B. P. Schulberg and they purchased the Robert Brunton Studios, a 26-acre facility at 5451 Marathon Street for US$1 million. In 1927, Famous Players-Lasky took the name Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation, three years later, because of the importance of the Publix Theatres, it became Paramount Publix Corporation. In 1928, Paramount began releasing Inkwell Imps, animated cartoons produced by Max, the Fleischers, veterans in the animation industry, were among the few animation producers capable of challenging the prominence of Walt Disney. The Paramount newsreel series Paramount News ran from 1927 to 1957, Paramount was also one of the first Hollywood studios to release what were known at that time as talkies, and in 1929, released their first musical, Innocents of Paris
8.
Black comedy
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Black comedy or dark comedy is a comic style that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo. Literary critics have associated black comedy and black humor with authors as early as the ancient Greeks with Aristophanes, Black comedy corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor. The term black humor was coined by the Surrealist theorist André Breton in 1935 while interpreting the writings of Jonathan Swift. Bretons preference was to some of Swifts writings as a subgenre of comedy and satire in which laughter arises from cynicism and skepticism. Scholars have associated black humor with authors as early as the ancient Greeks with Aristophanes, Breton coined the term for his book Anthology of Black Humor, in which he credited Jonathan Swift as the originator of black humor and gallows humor, and included excerpts from 45 other writers. This victims suffering is trivialized, which leads to sympathizing with the victimizer, as found in the social commentary. Black humor is also related to that of the grotesque genre. Breton identified Swift as the originator of black humor and gallows humor, particularly in his pieces Directions to Servants, A Modest Proposal, A Meditation Upon a Broom-Stick, the terms black comedy or dark comedy have been later derived as alternatives to Bretons term. Bruce Jay Friedman, in his anthology entitled Black Humor, imported the concept of comedy to the United States. He labeled many different authors and works with the idea, arguing that they shared the literary genre. The Friedman label came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s, early American writers who employed black humor were Nathanael West and Vladimir Nabokov. In 1965 a mass-market paperback titled Black Humor, was released and this was one of the first American anthologies devoted to the conception of black humor as a literary genre, the publication also sparked nationwide interest in black humor. Among the writers labeled as black humorists by journalists and literary critics are Roald Dahl, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, Warren Zevon, John Barth, Joseph Heller, popular themes of the genre include violence, discrimination, disease, sexuality, religion and barbarism. Comedians, like Lenny Bruce, that since the late 1950s have been labeled for using sick comedy by mainstream journalists, have also labeled with black comedy. By contrast, blue comedy focuses more on crude topics such as nudity, sex, in obscene humor, much of the humorous element comes from shock and revulsion, while black comedy might include an element of irony, or even fatalism. For example, the black comedy self-mutilation appears in the English novel Tristram Shandy. Tristram, five years old at the time, starts to urinate out of a window for lack of a chamber pot. The sash falls and circumcises him, his family reacts with both chaotic action and philosophic digression, cringe comedy Comedy horror Macabre Off-color humor
9.
Thriller (genre)
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Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film and television, having numerous subgenres. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation, successful examples of thrillers are the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Thrillers generally keep the audience on the edge of their seats as the plot builds towards a climax, the cover-up of important information is a common element. Literary devices such as red herrings, plot twists, and cliffhangers are used extensively, a thriller is usually a villain-driven plot, whereby he or she presents obstacles that the protagonist must overcome. Homers Odyssey is one of the oldest stories in the Western world and is regarded as a prototype of the thriller. Thrillers may be defined by the mood that they elicit. In short, if it thrills, it is a thriller, as the introduction to a major anthology explains, Suspense is a crucial characteristic of the thriller genre. It gives the viewer a feeling of pleasurable fascination and excitement mixed with apprehension, anticipation and tension and these develop from unpredictable, mysterious and rousing events during the narrative, which make the viewer or reader think about the outcome of certain actions. Suspense builds in order to make those final moments, no matter how short, the suspense in a story keeps the person hooked to reading or watching more until the climax is reached. In terms of expectations, it may be contrasted with curiosity. The objective is to deliver a story with sustained tension, surprise, the second type of suspense is the. anticipation wherein we either know or else are fairly certain about what is going to happen but are still aroused in anticipation of its actual occurrence. According to Greek philosopher Aristotle in his book Poetics, suspense is an important building block of literature, common methods and themes in crime and action thrillers are mainly ransoms, captivities, heists, revenge, kidnappings. Common in mystery thrillers are investigations and the whodunit technique, common elements in dramatic and psychological thrillers include plot twists, psychology, obsession and mind games. Common in horror thrillers are serial killers, stalking, deathtraps, elements such as fringe theories, false accusations and paranoia are common in paranoid thrillers. Threats to entire countries, spies, espionage, conspiracies, assassins, the themes frequently include terrorism, political conspiracy, pursuit, or romantic triangles leading to murder. Plots of thrillers involve characters which come into conflict with other or with outside forces. The protagonist of these films is set against a problem, no matter what subgenre a thriller film falls into, it will emphasize the danger that the protagonist faces. While protagonists of thrillers have traditionally been men, women characters are increasingly common
10.
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
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The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is an independent charity that supports, develops and promotes the art forms of the moving image – film, television and game in the United Kingdom. David Lean was the founding Chairman of the Academy, the first Film Awards ceremony took place in May 1949 and honouring the films The Best Years of Our Lives, Odd Man Out and The World Is Rich. In 2005, it placed a cap on worldwide voting membership which now stands at approximately 6,500. BAFTA has offices in Scotland and Wales in the UK, in Los Angeles and New York in the United States and runs events in Hong Kong, amanda Berry OBE has been chief executive of the organisation since December 2000. Many of these events are free to online at BAFTA Guru. BAFTA runs a number of programmes across the UK, US. Launched in 2012, the UK programme enables talented British citizens who are in need of support to take an industry-recognised course in film. Each BAFTA Scholar receives up to £12,000 towards their annual course fees, since 2013, three students every year have received one of the Prince William Scholarships in Film, Television and Games, supported by BAFTA and Warner Bros. These scholarships are awarded in the name of in his role as President of BAFTA, since 2015, BAFTA has been offering scholarships for British citizens to study in China, vice versa. BAFTA presents awards for film, television and games, including entertainment, at a number of annual ceremonies across the UK and in Los Angeles. The BAFTA award trophy is a mask, designed by American sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe. Todays BAFTA award – including the mask and marble base – weighs 3.7 kg and measures 27 cm x 14 cm x 8 cm. BAFTAs annual film awards ceremony is known as the British Academy Film Awards, or the BAFTAs, in 1949 the British Film Academy, as it was then known, presented the first awards for films made in 1947 and 1948. Since 2008 the ceremony has held at the Royal Opera House in Londons Covent Garden. It had been held in the Odeon cinema on Leicester Square since 2000, the ceremony had been performed during April or May of each year, but since 2002 it has been held in February to precede the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Academy Awards, or Oscars. They have been awarded annually since 1954, the first ever ceremony consisted of six categories. Until 1958, they were awarded by the Guild of Television Producers and Directors, from 1968 until 1997, BAFTAs Film and Television Awards were presented together, but from 1998 onwards they were presented at two separate ceremonies. The Television Craft Awards celebrate the talent behind the programmes, such as working in visual effects, production
11.
Serial killer
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Different authorities apply different criteria when designating serial killers, while most set a threshold of three murders, others extend it to four or lessen it to two. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, for example, defines serial killing as a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone. The murders may be attempted or completed in a fashion. Serial killing is not the same as mass murdering, nor is it spree killing, however, there is ample evidence the term was used in Europe and the U. S. earlier. The German term and concept were coined by the influential Ernst Gennat, psychopathic behavior that is consistent with traits common to some serial killers include sensation seeking, a lack of remorse or guilt, impulsivity, the need for control, and predatory behavior. They were often abused—emotionally, physically and/or sexually—by a family member, a disproportionate number exhibit one, two, or all three of the Macdonald triad of predictors of future violent behavior, Many are fascinated with fire setting. They are involved in activity, especially in children who have not reached sexual maturity. More than 60 percent, or simply a large proportion, wet their beds beyond the age of 12 and they were frequently bullied or socially isolated as children or adolescents. For example, Henry Lee Lucas was ridiculed as a child, kenneth Bianchi was teased as a child because he urinated in his pants, suffered twitching, and as a teenager was ignored by his peers. Some were involved in petty crimes, such as fraud, theft, vandalism, often, they have trouble staying employed and tend to work in menial jobs. The FBI, however, states, Serial murderers often seem normal, have families and/or a steady job, other sources state they often come from unstable families. Studies have suggested that serial killers generally have an average or low-average IQ, although they are often described, a sample of 202 IQs of serial killers had a median IQ of 89. There are exceptions to these criteria, however, for example, Harold Shipman was a successful professional. He was considered a pillar of the community, he even won a professional award for a childrens asthma clinic and was interviewed by Granada Televisions World in Action. Dennis Nilsen was an ex-soldier turned civil servant and trade unionist who had no criminal record when arrested. Neither was known to have exhibited many of the tell-tale signs, vlado Taneski, a crime reporter, was a career journalist who was caught after a series of articles he wrote gave clues that he had murdered people. Russell Williams was a successful and respected career Royal Canadian Air Force Colonel who was convicted of murdering two women, along with fetish burglaries and rapes, Many serial killers have faced similar problems in their childhood development. Family, or lack thereof, is the most prominent part of a childs development because it is what the child can identify with on a regular basis
12.
Broadway theatre
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Along with Londons West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. The Theater District is a popular tourist attraction in New York City, the great majority of Broadway shows are musicals. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggars Opera, in 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice, the company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, by the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblos Garden opened, the 3, 000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmos Opera House opened and presented opera for four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as a venue for plays under the name Burtons Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847, booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865, and would later revive the role at his own Booths Theatre. Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, lydia Thompson came to America in 1868 heading a small theatrical troupe, adapting popular English burlesques for middle-class New York audiences. Thompsons troupe called the British Blondes, was the most popular entertainment in New York during the 1868–1869 theatrical season, the six-month tour ran for almost six extremely profitable years. Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown beginning around 1850, in 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Broadways first long-run musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857, New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keenes musical burletta The Seven Sisters shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keenes troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, the production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a musical comedy, Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham. They starred high quality singers, instead of the women of repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits, as in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women
13.
Murray Hamilton
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Murray Hamilton was an American stage, screen, and television character actor who appeared in such films as Anatomy of a Murder, The Hustler, The Graduate, The Amityville Horror and Jaws. Born in Washington, North Carolina, Hamilton displayed an early interest in performing during his days at Washington High School just before Americas entry into World War II. Bad hearing kept him from enlisting, so he moved to New York City as a 19-year-old to find a career on stage, in an early role, he performed on stage with Henry Fonda in the classic wartime story Mister Roberts as a replacement, playing Ensign Pulver. In 1950, he was again with Fonda in Critics Choice. Hamilton was teamed once more with Fonda in 1968 for the drama film The Boston Strangler and his best known performance is as the obdurate mayor of Amity, Larry Vaughn in the Steven Spielberg thriller Jaws. Hamilton reprised the role in the sequel, Jaws 2 in 1978 and he worked again with Stewart in The Spirit of St. Louis and The FBI Story. The actor made dozens of TV guest appearances, in 1955, Hamilton guest-starred on the NBC legal drama Justice, based on case files of the Legal Aid Society of New York. Hamilton appeared in the Perry Mason episode The Case of the Deadly Double as the boyfriend of a woman with a split personality whose brother is Masons client. Also, Hamilton portrayed Calhoun, on of Gunsmoke, which aired in April,1959 and his character is swindled in a land deal along with other members of a wagon train & his wife tries to leave Calhoun with the swindler. In the 1959-60 television season, Hamilton also co-starred with William Demarest, Jeanne Bal and he played attorney Steve Baker, who resides in an apartment with his wife, two daughters and a father-in-law. He soon appeared as a guest star on another sitcom, The Real McCoys, starring Walter Brennan, in 1961, he appeared in another science fiction series, Way Out, hosted by Roald Dahl, with fellow guest stars Doris Roberts and Martin Huston. In 1986, he played Claude Big Daddy Hollingsworth, Blanche Devereauxs father, Hamilton complained in a newspaper article about being typecasted, stating After I was first cast as a heavy on The Untouchables, I couldnt ever persuade them that I could also do something else. He also appeared in a comedic guest spot on Mamas Family in the episode, Mama Cries Uncle. He was more often cast in dramatic works, such as the stark science-fiction drama Seconds, in 1975, Hamilton appeared again with Newman in The Drowning Pool. He also worked with Robert Redford in a pair of films, The Way We Were and Brubaker. For many years both before and during his career, Hamilton was a prominent dramatic stage actor, earning a Tony Award nomination for his role in the 1965 production of Absence of a Cello. New York Times theater critic Brooks Atkinson praised his work in the play Stockade, modest in manner, pleasant of voice, he has a steel-like spirit that brings Prewitt honestly to life. Hamilton died of cancer at age 63, and is interred at Oakdale Cemetery in his native Washington
14.
Michael Dunn (actor)
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Michael Dunn was an American actor and singer. He inspired a number of actors that were smaller and shorter than most average people, including Zelda Rubinstein, Mark Povinelli, Dunn had medical dwarfism, a result of spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia, a genetic defect of cartilage production caused by a mutation in the COL2A1 gene. This disorder, classified as a skeletal dysplasia, caused distorted development of his limbs, spine, as an adult, he stood 310 and weighed about 78 pounds. Dunn was born Gary Neil Miller to Jewell and Fred Miller during the time of the Dust Bowl drought and he chose his stage name in order to differentiate himself from another Gary Miller in Screen Actors Guild. An only child, when he was four years old, his family moved to Dearborn, Dunn started reading at age three, was champion of the 1947 Detroit News Spelling Bee—representing Wallaceville School in Wayne County—and showed early skill at the piano. He enjoyed singing from childhood, loved to draw an impromptu audience and his parents defied pressure from school authorities to sequester him in a school for disabled children and staunchly supported his talents, independence, and integration into mainstream society. I always got thrown out of classes for being too lippy and his orthopedic condition greatly limited his mobility, but he swam and ice skated in childhood and remained a skilled swimmer throughout his life. He attended Redford High School in Detroit, then entered University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in September,1951, in 1953, he transferred to the University of Miami, College of Arts and Sciences, which offered a better climate and more accessible campus. His transcript shows that, despite scoring at the 97th percentile of ACE placement exams, however, he was a high spirited and well-known figure about campus who sang in the talent show and facetiously joined the football cheerleading squad. Archives at that universitys Otto G. Richter Library show that he became first a copyeditor and his classmate John Softness recalled, He could sing like an angel, and he could act and he could write and he was a brilliant raconteur. At various points, he held different odd jobs—singing in a nightclub, answering telephones for the Miami Daily News and he left college in 1956 after completing only his sophomore year, returned to Michigan, and attended summer classes at the University of Detroit, in 1957. Dunn had converted to Catholicism and was baptized on September 25,1954 by Rev. J. M. OSullivan at the Church of the Little Flower in Coral Gables, Florida. He was living in Ann Arbor with his parents, working as a singer, at the time he entered St. Bonaventure Monastery in Detroit. According to a Capuchin Provincial Archivist, Dunn entered with the intention of becoming a Capuchin non-ordained Brother and he was known by his given name, Gary, since he never became a novice. A testimonial from John F. Bradley, Catholic Chaplain, University of Michigan, states, in response to a question on the monastery application asking, How long have you been thinking of entering religious life. Dunn wrote, More than three years, however, monastery records entered by the Master of Novices show that the physical demands of monastic life in a huge, 19th-century building with no elevator proved too strenuous. Dunn left of his own accord on May 8,1958, in New York, Dunn re-encountered Softness, who volunteered to be his manager. He also befriended actress Phoebe Dorin in a show, Two by Saroyan
15.
Barbara Baxley
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Barbara Baxley was an American actress and singer. Barbara Angie Rose Baxley was born in Porterville, California, the daughter of Emma, a life member of the Actors Studio, Baxley also studied acting under the tutelage of Sanford Meisner at the prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater in New York City. Her first film was East of Eden, where she portrayed Adam Trasks obnoxious nurse at the end of the film, in 1961, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress for her performance in the Broadway production of Tennessee Williams comedy, Period of Adjustment. She appeared in Chekhovs The Three Sisters and Neil Simons Plaza Suite, as well as the 1960s Broadway musical She Loves Me and she also starred in the 1976 Broadway play Best Friend. Baxley appeared in supporting roles in television series of the 1950s, 1960s. She played a wife having her husband, played by Lee Van Cleef, murdered in the CBS crime drama series, Richard Diamond, Private Detective. She appeared in a 1958 Perry Mason episode, The Case of the Gilded Lily and she played two different characters in two episodes of Have Gun – Will Travel, starring Richard Boone
16.
Doris Roberts
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Doris Roberts was an American actress, author, and philanthropist whose career spanned six decades of television. She appeared as a guest on talk and variety shows. She was an advocate of animal rights and animal-rights activism, supporting groups such as the United Activists for Animal Rights and she received five Emmy Awards and a Screen Actors Guild award during her acting career, which began in 1951. She achieved continuing success for her role as Raymond Barones mother, Marie Barone, on the long-running CBS sitcom. She played Mildred Krebs in Remington Steele from 1983 to 1987, towards the end of her acting career, she also had a prominent role opposite Tyler Perry in Madeas Witness Protection. Doris May Green was born on November 4,1925, in St. Louis, Missouri and she was raised by her mother, Ann, and her maternal grandparents in The Bronx, New York, after her father, Larry Green, deserted the family. Roberts stepfather, whose surname she took as her own, was Chester H. Roberts, Chester and Roberts mother operated the Z. L. Rosenfield Agency, a stenographic service catering to playwrights and actors, Roberts acting career began in 1951 with a role on the TV series Studio One. She appeared in episodes of The Naked City, Way Out, Ben Casey, in 1961, she made her film debut in Something Wild. She appeared in such cult 1960s/1970s films as A Lovely Way to Die, No Way to Treat a Lady, The Honeymoon Killers, Such Good Friends, Little Murders, and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. In 1978, she appeared in a film about John F. Kennedys assassination, Ruby and Oswald and she also appeared very briefly in The Rose, as the mother of the title character. Roberts played Theresa Falco on Angie, and later appeared as Mildred Krebs on Remington Steele, after Remington Steele ended, she starred in the TV movie remake of If Its Tuesday, It Still Must Be Belgium and the National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. She appeared on Alice, playing the mother of the character, on Barney Miller as the wife of a man who secretly went to a sex surrogate. She played the unhinged Flo Flotsky on four episodes of Soap, Dorelda Doremus, a healer, on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Roberts achieved much of her fame for her role as Marie Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond and she was reportedly one of 100 actresses considered for the role. For her work on the series, she was nominated for seven Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She had previously won an Emmy for a guest appearance on St. Elsewhere, playing a homeless woman and she was nominated for appearances on Perfect Strangers and a PBS special called The Sunset Gang. In 2003, she made a guest appearance as Gordos grandmother in Lizzie McGuire, the same year, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
17.
Ruth White (actress)
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Ruth Patricia White was an American actress who worked in theatre, film, and television. She was an Emmy Award and Obie Award winner and also a Tony Award nominee, a lifelong resident of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, White graduated with a bachelors degree in Literature from New Jersey College for Women, now Douglass Residential College, Rutgers University in 1935. While pursuing her career in nearby New York City, she taught acting. During this period, she studied acting with Maria Ouspenskaya. Whites career was delayed in the late 1950s while she nursed her ailing mother, during her mothers illness White gained weight and looked older than her age. However, she managed to recover and appeared in plays of Samuel Beckett. White also earned a Tony Award nomination in 1968 for her role in Harold Pinters The Birthday Party, in 1964, she won an Emmy Award for her role in the Hallmark Hall of Fame TV Movie Little Moon of Alban. By the end of the 1960s, she had one of New Yorks most highly praised and in demand character actresses. White, who never married, died of cancer on December 3,1969 and she is interred with her brothers Charles and Richard in their family plot at Saint Marys Cemetery, Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Her final film role was in The Pursuit of Happiness, released fourteen months after her death
18.
David Doyle (actor)
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David Fitzgerald Doyle was an American actor. Doyle was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of Mary Ruth and Lewis Raymond Doyle and his maternal grandfather, John Fitzgerald, was a prominent railroad builder and banker in Nebraska. He graduated from Campion High School in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, in 1947 and he is best remembered for his role as detective John Bosley on the television series Charlies Angels, one of only two actors to appear in all 110 episodes of the series. He lent his distinctive voice to the character Grandpa Lou Pickles on the Nickelodeon animated television series Rugrats until his death. Joe Alaskey then assumed the role of Grandpa Lou, Doyle made a number of appearances as a guest on the game show Match Game in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He appeared on one week of Password Plus in 1980, three weeks of Super Password, and on Tattletales with his wife Anne in 1982, Doyle was a stage actor, as well. He played Orgon in the 1964 premiere of Richard Wilburs translation of Tartuffe at the Fred Miller Theater in Milwaukee and his sister Mary played the fulminate maid, Dorisse, in the same production. He married his first wife, Rachael, in 1956, Rachael died falling from a staircase in 1968. They had one child, a daughter named Leah, in 1961, while on a trip in the South Pacific in 1969, Doyle met Anne Nathan, a singer-dancer. They were married a short time later, Doyle died in Los Angeles, California, of a heart attack on February 26,1997, aged 67, and was cremated. Doyles sister, Mary, was a stage actress, Mary died from lung cancer in 1995. David Doyle at the Internet Movie Database David Doyle at the Internet Broadway Database
19.
Boys and Girls Together
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Boys and Girls Together is a 1964 novel by William Goldman. The title is taken from lyrics in the song, The Sidewalks of New York, Goldman says his creative impulse behind the book was his desire to write a long novel, At the time, all of my friends were screwing up in New York, it seemed. It was going badly for everybody, affecting all of us, and I wanted to get that down. But writing that novel was a tremendous experience and it was three years of my life on and off. He later said the pulse of the book, was the fact that nobody was making it as I was and I knew I was fraudulent and I knew Id be found out. It was very hard in those years and it was hard to be 25 or 7 or 8 and to be published when all of your other friends who were writers werent. After writing 300 pages, Goldman took some time off to work on Broadway, Goldman then returned to the novel and eventually finished it, despite being in great physical pain much of the time. When Goldman completed his novel, there was a demand for it among publishers. Goldman says for his first novels he received an advance of $10,000, then $5,000, for Boys and Girls Together, his fourth novel published under his name, he received an advance of $100,000. I dont know if Soldier in the Rain had sold to the movies or whatever happened, the novel was a best seller. That summer, Boys and Girls Together was the book in paperback. William Goldman says his editor, Hiram Haydn, thought the novel was going to establish me as a serious American novelist - and it just got very, very badly reviewed because people thought I was more popular than I was. Goldman later elaborated, Boys and Girls Together was three years of my life and I thought it was not what I meant and it was depressing, and not at all what I had meant when I started. Its so hard to fill many pages, and I thought, Well, its not what I meant. Nobody would write this depressing a book, in which nobody gets what they want and everybody fails, there was a review of Boys and Girls Together that I remember very clearly. It was one of the most painful reviews of my life by a critic from the New York Times called Conrad Knickerbocker, compared me with Harold Robbins, and I thought, You never read Harold Robbins. They get what they want in that world, and this is basically a cold, I remember for a month I was on the verge of tears. Richard Andersen wrote of the novel, Seeing all their energies leading to death and betrayal, nevertheless, suicide is not the answer, man must find a way to affirm life over death whenever his identities fail him
20.
Boston Strangler
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The Boston Strangler is a name given to the murderer of 13 women in the Boston area, in the U. S. state of Massachusetts, in the early 1960s. The crimes were attributed to Albert DeSalvo based on his confession, details revealed in court during a separate case, since then, parties investigating the crimes have suggested that the murders were committed by more than one person. Initially, the crimes were assumed to be the work of one unknown person dubbed The Mad Strangler of Boston. The July 8,1962 edition of the Sunday Herald, declared A mad strangler is loose in Boston, the killer was also known as the Phantom Fiend or Phantom Strangler due to the uncanny ability of the perpetrator to get women to allow him into their apartments. In 1963, two reporters for the Record American, Jean Cole and Loretta McLaughlin, wrote a four-part series about the killer. By the time that DeSalvos confession was aired in open court, anna E. Šlesers,55, sexually assaulted with unknown object and strangled with the belt on her bathrobe, found on June 14,1962 in her third-floor apartment at 77 Gainsborough St. Back Bay, Boston Mary Mullen,85, died from a heart attack, Boston Nina Nichols,68, sexually assaulted and strangled with her nylon stockings, found on June 30,1962 in her home at 1940 Commonwealth Ave. Between June 14,1962 and January 4,1964,13 single women between the ages of 19 and 85 were murdered in the Boston area, most were sexually assaulted and strangled in their apartments by what was assumed to be one man. The attacks continued despite the media publicity after the first few murders that presumably discouraged women from admitting strangers into their homes. Many residents purchased tear gas and new locks and deadbolts for their doors, some women left the area altogether. The murders occurred in cities, making it unclear who held overall jurisdiction over the crimes. Massachusetts Attorney General Edward W. Brooke helped to coordinate the various police forces and he controversially permitted psychometrist Peter Hurkos to use his alleged extrasensory perception to analyze the cases, for which Hurkos claimed that a single person was responsible. Hurkos provided a detailed description of the wrong person. On October 27,1964, a stranger entered a young womans home posing as a detective and he tied the victim to her bed, sexually assaulted her, and then suddenly left, saying I’m sorry as he went. The womans description of her attacker led police to identify the assailant as Albert DeSalvo, when his photo was published, many women identified him as the man who had assaulted them. Earlier on October 27, DeSalvo had posed as a motorist with car trouble and attempted to enter a home in Bridgewater, the homeowner, future Brockton police chief Richard Sproules, became suspicious and eventually fired a shotgun at DeSalvo. DeSalvo was not initially suspected of being involved with the stranglings and it was only after he was charged with rape that he gave a detailed confession of his activities as the Boston Strangler. He initially confessed to fellow inmate George Nassar, Nassar reported the confession to his attorney F. Lee Bailey, who also took on DeSalvos case
21.
Musical theatre
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Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through the words, music, movement, since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals. These were followed by the numerous Edwardian musical comedies and the theatre works of American creators like George M. Cohan. Musicals are performed around the world and they may be presented in large venues, such as big-budget Broadway or West End productions in New York City or London. Alternatively, musicals may be staged in smaller fringe theatre, Off-Broadway or regional theatre productions, musicals are often presented by amateur and school groups in churches, schools and other performance spaces. In addition to the United States and Britain, there are vibrant musical theatre scenes in continental Europe, Asia, Australasia, Canada, the three main components of a book musical are its music, lyrics and book. The interpretation of a musical is the responsibility of its team, which includes a director. A musicals production is also characterized by technical aspects, such as set design, costumes, stage properties, lighting. The creative team, designs and interpretations generally change from the production to succeeding productions. Some production elements, however, may be retained from the production, for example. There is no fixed length for a musical, while it can range from a short one-act entertainment to several acts and several hours in length, most musicals range from one and a half to three hours. Musicals are usually presented in two acts, with one intermission, and the first act is frequently longer than the second. A book musical is usually built four to six main theme tunes that are reprised later in the show. Several shorter musicals on Broadway and in the West End have been presented in one act in recent decades, moments of greatest dramatic intensity in a book musical are often performed in song. Proverbially, when the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing, typically, many fewer words are sung in a five-minute song than are spoken in a five-minute block of dialogue. Therefore, there is time to develop drama in a musical than in a straight play of equivalent length. Within the compressed nature of a musical, the writers must develop the characters, the material presented in a musical may be original, or it may be adapted from novels, plays, classic legends, historical events or films. On the other hand, many musical theatre works have been adapted for musical films, such as West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Oliver
22.
Turner Classic Movies
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Turner Classic Movies is an American movie-oriented basic cable and satellite television network owned by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary of Time Warner. TCM is headquartered at the Techwood Campus in Atlanta, Georgias Midtown business district, historically, the channels programming consisted mainly of featured classic theatrically released feature films from the Turner Entertainment film library – which comprises films from Warner Bros. However, TCM now has licensing deals with other Hollywood film studios as well as its Time Warner sister company, Warner Bros. and occasionally shows more recent films. The channel is available in United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Latin America, France, Spain, Nordic countries, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific. In 1986, eight years before the launch of Turner Classic Movies, concerns over Turner Entertainments corporate debt load resulted in Turner selling the studio that October back to Kirk Kerkorian, from whom Turner had purchased the studio less than a year before. As part of the deal, Turner Entertainment retained ownership of MGMs library of films released up to May 9,1986, Turner Broadcasting System was split into two companies, Turner Broadcasting System and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and reincorporated as MGM/UA Communications Co. The film library of Turner Entertainment would serve as the form of programming for TCM upon the networks launch. After the library was acquired, MGM/UA signed a deal with Turner to continue distributing the pre-May 1986 MGM and to begin distributing the pre-1950 Warner Bros. film libraries for video release. Turner Classic Movies debuted on April 14,1994, at 6,00 p. m. Eastern Time, the date and time were chosen for their historical significance as the exact centennial anniversary of the first public movie showing in New York City. The first movie broadcast on TCM was the 1939 film Gone with the Wind, at the time of its launch, TCM was available to approximately one million cable television subscribers. AMC had broadened its content to feature colorized and more recent films by 2002. In the early 90s AMC abandoned its format, leaving TCM as the only movie-oriented cable channel to devote its programming entirely to classic films without commercial interruption. In 1996, Turner Broadcasting System merged with Time Warner, which besides placing Turner Classic Movies, in March 1999, MGM paid Warner Bros. and gave up the home video rights to the MGM/UA films owned by Turner to Warner Home Video. In 2008, TCM won a Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting, in April 2010, Turner Classic Movies held the first TCM Classic Film Festival, an event – now held annually – at the Graumans Chinese Theater and the Graumans Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. In 2007, some of the films featured on TCM were made available for streaming on TCMs website. The networks programming season runs from February until the following March of each year when a retrospective of Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated movies is shown, called 31 Days of Oscar. Turner Classic Movies presents many of its features in their original aspect ratio whenever possible – widescreen films broadcast on TCM are letterboxed on the standard definition feed. TCM also regularly presents widescreen presentations of films not available in the format on any video release
23.
IMDb
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In 1998 it became a subsidiary of Amazon Inc, who were then able to use it as an advertising resource for selling DVDs and videotapes. As of January 2017, IMDb has approximately 4.1 million titles and 7.7 million personalities in its database, the site enables registered users to submit new material and edits to existing entries. Although all data is checked before going live, the system has open to abuse. The site also featured message boards which stimulate regular debates and dialogue among authenticated users, IMDb shutdown the message boards permanently on February 20,2017. Anyone with a connection can read the movie and talent pages of IMDb. A registration process is however, to contribute info to the site. A registered user chooses a name for themselves, and is given a profile page. These badges range from total contributions made, to independent categories such as photos, trivia, bios, if a registered user or visitor happens to be in the entertainment industry, and has an IMDb page, that user/visitor can add photos to that page by enrolling in IMDbPRO. Actors, crew, and industry executives can post their own resume and this fee enrolls them in a membership called IMDbPro. PRO can be accessed by anyone willing to pay the fee, which is $19.99 USD per month, or if paid annually, $149.99, which comes to approximately $12.50 per month USD. Membership enables a user to access the rank order of each industry personality, as well as agent contact information for any actor, producer, director etc. that has an IMDb page. Enrolling in PRO for industry personnel, enables those members the ability to upload a head shot to open their page, as well as the ability to upload hundreds of photos to accompany their page. Anyone can register as a user, and contribute to the site as well as enjoy its content, however those users enrolled in PRO have greater access and privileges. IMDb originated with a Usenet posting by British film fan and computer programmer Col Needham entitled Those Eyes, others with similar interests soon responded with additions or different lists of their own. Needham subsequently started an Actors List, while Dave Knight began a Directors List, and Andy Krieg took over THE LIST from Hank Driskill, which would later be renamed the Actress List. Both lists had been restricted to people who were alive and working, the goal of the participants now was to make the lists as inclusive as possible. By late 1990, the lists included almost 10,000 movies and television series correlated with actors and actresses appearing therein. On October 17,1990, Needham developed and posted a collection of Unix shell scripts which could be used to search the four lists, at the time, it was known as the rec. arts. movies movie database
24.
AllMovie
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AllMovie is an online guide service website with information about films, television programs, and screen actors. As of 2013, AllMovie. com and the AllMovie consumer brand are owned by All Media Network, AllMovie was founded by popular-culture archivist Michael Erlewine, who also founded AllMusic and AllGame. The AllMovie database was licensed to tens of thousands of distributors and retailers for point-of-sale systems, websites, the AllMovie database is comprehensive, including basic product information, cast and production credits, plot synopsis, professional reviews, biographies, relational links and more. AllMovie data was accessed on the web at the AllMovie. com website and it was also available via the AMG LASSO media recognition service, which can automatically recognize DVDs. In late 2007, Macrovision acquired AMG for a reported $72 million, the AMG consumer facing web properties AllMusic. com, AllMovie. com and AllGame. com were sold by Rovi in August 2013 to All Media Network, LLC. The buyers also include the founders of SideReel and Ackrell Capital investor Mike Ackrell. All Media Network offices are located in San Francisco, California, AllMusic AllGame SideReel All Media Network Official website
25.
I'd Rather Be Rich
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Id Rather Be Rich is a 1964 romantic comedy film with musical aspects directed by Jack Smight, produced by Ross Hunter and starring Sandra Dee. The film focuses on a man who wishes to meet his granddaughters fiancé. The film is a remake of the 1941 film It Started with Eve, during the opening credits Robert Goulet and Andy Williams perform a duet Id Rather Be Rich. We first meet Cynthia Dulaine sitting at a table while Warren Palmer croons to her It Had To Be You. Suddenly, Cynthia is called away to her dying grandfathers bedside, Philip Dulaine is the founder and CEO of Dulaine Enterprises and Cynthia is his closest surviving relative and heir. He tells her that his wish is for her to find the right man to marry. Shes happy to tell him of the kind, considerate and handsome Warren Palmer whom Philip has never met, Philip asks to meet Warren as soon as possible for the end seems close at hand. Stuck in Boston because of difficulties, Warren is unable to be with Cynthia. Realizing that Philip will die a happier man if he can meet her fiancé, Cynthia approaches a stranger and this man is Paul Benton, who has invented a heat-proof paint and desperately wants an audience with Philip Dulaine whose company has a contract with NASA. So, Benton agrees and the ruse is pulled off very successfully with Philip favorably impressed by the man he believes to be Cynthias fiancé. Especially after Philip makes the two kiss and sees Cynthia kick off her shoes just as her grandmother always did when Philip, Philip tells the couple that Dulaine Enterprises is in danger of a hostile take-over and implores Cynthia to meet with the board to try to save the company. He insists against her protest that she take her fiancé along, the meeting at first proves disastrous for Cynthia until Benton announces that Cynthia will put her own money into the company. This satisfies the board, but Cynthia later tells Benton she is outraged with him for offering up her money without checking with her first. However, she help him by sending him off on an interview with the best person at the company to help get his paint invention tested by NASA. Meanwhile, back at the Dulaine mansion and unbeknown to Cynthia, Philip has unexpectedly recovered and feels as healthy as ever. Throughout the rest of the film, he and his nurse perform a comical cat, Philip learns of Bentons success with the board and now surely approves of his granddaughters choice in a fiancé. But then Philip learns all about the ruse when he overhears Cynthia tell Benton that his presence is no longer required since the real Warren Palmer is arriving that afternoon. Because Philip likes Paul Benton so much and thinks he is the man for his granddaughter
26.
Harper (film)
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Harper is a 1966 Technicolor film based on Ross Macdonalds novel The Moving Target in Panavision and adapted for the screen by novelist William Goldman, who admired MacDonalds writings. The film stars Paul Newman as the eponymous Lew Harper and it is directed by Jack Smight, with an ensemble cast that includes Robert Wagner, Julie Harris, Janet Leigh, Shelley Winters and Arthur Hill. Goldman received a 1967 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay, in 1975, Newman reprised the role in The Drowning Pool. Elaine, physically disabled from a riding accident, doesnt even seem to like her husband. She just wants to know where he is, Harper first interviews Elaines spoiled, seductive step-daughter, Miranda, and her amiable boyfriend Allan Taggert, the missing mans private pilot. He is told Sampson disappeared from the airport after calling a hotel to send a limousine for him, the hotel staff says Sampson cancelled his request shortly after making it. A photo of a glamorous starlet in a bungalow Sampson keeps at the hotel leads to Fay Estabrook, Harper gets her drunk to see if there is any evidence linking her to Sampsons disappearance. While she is passed out, he answers her phone and pretends to be the Mr. Troy that the caller, Betty, Betty says that Fay was seen with a stranger – that being Harper – and that they need to be careful when the truck goes through. As soon as Harper mentions Ralph Sampson, Betty realizes that she is not speaking to Troy, after Harper hangs up, Troy comes out of the woodwork. He is Fays husband, Dwight Troy, and the house is his and he kicks out Harper at gunpoint. Harper tracks down Betty Fraley, a singer with a nasty drug habit. When he asks about Ralph, she recognizes his voice from the phone call. Harper, noticing the fresh track marks on her arm, threatens to turn her over to the squad, and Betty admits she knows Sampson. Harper becomes more insistent and Betty has the bouncer, Puddler, Puddler works over Harper in the back alley until Taggert comes out of nowhere and knocks Puddler unconscious. Taggert had apparently been following leads himself which led him to the lounge and they head back to Troys house to check on the truck, thinking Sampson may be in it. While Harper is inside the house, he hears gunshots, Taggert, standing watch outside, spotted the truck and tried to shoot the tires. Harper tries to run the truck down on foot, but the truck with distinctive tire tracks attempts to run Harper over before it speeds away, elaine receives a message from Ralph asking her to cash in $500,000 worth of bonds. She verifies that the handwriting is Ralphs and Harper deduces that hes actually been kidnapped, despite Claudes attempts to distract him, Harper looks around
27.
The Secret War of Harry Frigg
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The Secret War of Harry Frigg is a 1968 comedy film set in World War II. It was directed by Jack Smight and starred Paul Newman, several brigadier generals are unexpectedly taken prisoner by the Italians while arguing military tactics in a sauna - which is a public relations disaster. They are held in an Italian villa run as a top level prison camp by benevolent Italian Colonel Ferrucci, being all of the same rank, none is in command and they are forced to plan escapes by committee, with predictably ineffective results. Headquarters devises a plot to free them by sending in Harry Frigg. Frigg is a private in the U. S. Army who is escaping from military stockades. As an incentive, he is promised a promotion to sergeant after the generals have been freed, accepting the mission, Frigg is promoted to major general so that he will outrank all the prisoners, assume command and lead the resultant breakout. Parachuted behind enemy lines, Frigg allows himself to be captured, while they are initially skeptical of his rank, he has been given a few personal secrets about them that only a senior officer might be expected to know. Eventually, after an interlude the escape plan is reactivated. During the celebration a Nazi Major arrives and after midnight announces that Italy has surrendered to Germany, the Germans take the generals to a high-security prison camp for officers. Escape seems hopeless, however, Frigg confesses to being only a private, escaping his guard he then breaks back into the officers camp, eventually freeing them all and capturing the Major in the process. The film concludes with Frigg ending the war as a Master Sergeant who is offered the assignment of taking charge of a radio station, whilst discussing the role, Frigg passes the countesss castle and decides to use it as the base of the radio station. Paul Newman as Private/Major General/Sergeant/2nd Lt
28.
The Illustrated Man (film)
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The Illustrated Man is a 1969 American science fiction film directed by Jack Smight and starring Rod Steiger. The film is based on three stories from the 1951 collection The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, The Veldt, The Long Rain. The stories are about reality, a mysterious planet and the end of the world. Carl, accompanied by his dog, Peke, tells his tales to Willie, the tie-in prologue tells of how Carl came to be tattooed after he encountered a mysterious woman named Felicia in a remote farmhouse. A child psychologist suggests that the house is not good for the childrens development. The children are not pleased with this decision, but later agree to it. The children trap their parents in the nursery, where they become prey to the lions and they later have lunch on the veldt with the child psychologist, who sees the lions feasting. Unlike the original story, the psychologist realises what has happened and is horrified, the Long Rain - A group of astronauts are stranded on Venus, where it rains continually and heavily. The travellers make their way across the Venusian landscape to find a sun dome, the first sun dome they find has been destroyed by the native Venusians. Searching for another sun dome, the characters, one by one, are driven to madness, at the end of the story, only one sane astronaut remains to find a functional sun dome. The Last Night of the World - A married couple awaken to the knowledge that the world is going to end that very evening, nonetheless, they go through their normal routines, knowing and accepting the fact that there is no tomorrow. Anna The Illustrated Man comprises three science fiction stories from Ray Bradburys collection of short stories The Illustrated Man. Kreitsek wrote the screenplay that encompassed the stories The Veldt, The Long Rain, Bradbury was not consulted for the adaptation. The author sold story rights to the film in December 1967 for $85,000, as the tattooed man, the director cast Rod Steiger, whom he had known since the 1950s. The Illustrated Man was considered a critical and financial failure, time wrote, Responsibility for the failure of The Illustrated Man must rest with Director Jack Smight. He has committed every possible error of style and taste, including the inexcusable fault of letting Steiger chew up every piece of scenery in sight. Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, Mr. Kreitseks screenplay is unsharp, without focus, working into, Canby found the film to have moments of eerie beauty but believed that the director was limited by the screenplay. The critic said, Everything remains foetus-like and underdeveloped, although shrouded in misty pretentions of grandeur, echoing Canby, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, Smights confused, wandering film never does quite come to terms with what it wants to be
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The Traveling Executioner
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The Traveling Executioner is a 1970 American film starring Stacy Keach, Bud Cort, Stefan Gierasch and Marianna Hill and directed by Jack Smight. Two of Jonas potential victims are siblings Willy and Gundred Herzallerliebst, while Jonas successfully executes Willy, he falls for Gundred, hoping to fake her execution. The musical The Fields of Ambrosia is based on the film, list of American films of 1970 The Traveling Executioner at the Internet Movie Database The Traveling Executioner at AllMovie
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Frankenstein: The True Story
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Frankenstein, The True Story is a 1973 British and American made-for-television horror film loosely based on the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. It was directed by Jack Smight, and the screenplay was written by novelist Christopher Isherwood, the film starred Leonard Whiting as Victor Frankenstein, Jane Seymour as Prima, David McCallum as Henry Clerval, James Mason as Dr Polidori and Michael Sarrazin as the Creature. James Masons wife, Clarissa Kaye-Mason also appeared in the film, Polidoris own contribution was the first modern vampire story The Vampyre. The make-up was by Hammer horror veteran artist Roy Ashton and it was originally broadcast on NBC-TV in late 1973 in two 90-minute parts, but is often seen edited into a single film. Its DVD debut date was September 26,2006, included at the beginning is a short intro featuring James Mason wandering through St Johns Wood churchyard, London. He suggests that this is where Mary Shelley is buried, which is incorrect, Victor Frankenstein is a man training as a doctor, engaged to Elizabeth Fanshawe. After Victors younger brother, William, drowns, Victor renounces his belief in God, shortly afterward, Victor leaves for London to train in anatomy. He immediately meets a scientist named Henry Clerval, who Victor later learns has discovered how to preserve dead matter, Clerval is unable to complete it on his own due to a worsening heart condition. Frankenstein volunteers to help and the lab is completed, word reaches the pair that several peasant lads have been killed in a mine collapse. After their burial the doctors quickly dig up the bodies and stitch together a perfect human. The night before the creation, Clerval discovers in a most disturbing way that a reanimated arm set aside weeks earlier has become diseased, unsightly and deformed. Shocked and overcome, Clerval suffers an attack and, unable to get his medication in time. The next morning, Victor finds Clervals body and misreads the incomplete journal entry as meaning the process is ready to begin rather than the meaning of the process is reversing itself. Since neither of wanted the perfect body to have the brain of a peasant, Victor transplants Clervals brain into their creation. Victor introduces his creation into high-class London society, passing him off as a friend from a country with little grasp of English. Victors sweet and guileless creation wins the admiration of Londons elite class, shortly thereafter, Victor discovers the still-living but now repulsive arm in Clervals cupboard and realizes that a flaw in the system has caused the reanimation process to reverse itself. He destroys the deformed arm, but soon finds that the reversal process is beginning to break down the Creatures tissues. Victor desperately searches for a way to correct the problem, but is unsuccessful, the Creature, unaware of his degenerating appearance, does not understand Victors increasing coldness towards him