1.
William Wyler
–
William Wyler, born as Willy Wyler was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Wyler received his first Oscar nomination for directing Dodsworth in 1936, starring Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton and Mary Astor, Film historian Ian Freer calls Wyler a bona fide perfectionist, whose penchant for retakes and an attempt to hone every last nuance, became the stuff of legend. Through his talent for staging, editing, and camera movement and he helped propel a number of actors to stardom, finding and directing Audrey Hepburn in her Hollywood debut film, Roman Holiday, and directing Barbra Streisand in her debut film, Funny Girl. He directed Olivia de Havilland to her second Oscar in The Heiress and Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights, Olivier credited Wyler with teaching him how to act for the screen. And Bette Davis, who received three Oscar nominations under his direction and won her second Oscar in Jezebel, said Wyler made her a far, far better actress than she had ever been. Other popular Wyler films include, Hells Heroes, Dodsworth, The Westerner, The Letter, Friendly Persuasion, The Big Country, The Childrens Hour, Wyler was born to a Jewish family in Mulhouse, Alsace. His Swiss father, Leopold, started as a traveling salesman which he turned into a thriving haberdashery business in Mulhouse. His mother, Melanie, was German, and a cousin of Carl Laemmle, during Wylers childhood, he attended a number of schools and developed a reputation as something of a hellraiser, being expelled more than once for misbehavior. His mother often took him and his older brother Robert to concerts, opera, sometimes at home his family and their friends would stage amateur theatricals for personal enjoyment. Wyler was supposed to take over the family business in Mulhouse. After World War I, he spent a year working in Paris at 100.000 Chemises selling shirts. He was so poor that he spent his time wandering around the Pigalle district. After realizing that Willy was not interested in the business, his mother, Melanie, contacted her distant cousin, Carl Laemmle who owned Universal Studios. Laemmle was in the habit of coming to Europe each year, in 1921, Wyler, while traveling as a Swiss citizen, met Laemmle who hired him to work at Universal Studios in New York. As Wyler said, America seemed as far away as the moon, booked onto a ship to New York with Laemmle upon his return voyage, he met a young Czech man, Paul Kohner, aboard the same ship. Their enjoyment of the first class trip was short-lived, however, after working in New York for several years, and even serving in the New York Army National Guard for a year, Wyler moved to Hollywood to become a director. Around 1923, Wyler arrived in Los Angeles and began work on the Universal Studios lot in the gang, cleaning the stages. His break came when he was hired as an assistant editor
2.
Dalton Trumbo
–
James Dalton Trumbo was an American screenwriter and novelist, who scripted films including Roman Holiday, Exodus, Spartacus, and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. One of the Hollywood Ten, he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 during the investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry. He was subsequently blacklisted by that industry and he continued working clandestinely, producing work under other authors names. His uncredited work won two Academy Awards, the one for Roman Holiday was given to a front writer, the public crediting of him as the writer of both Exodus and Spartacus in 1960 marked the end of the Hollywood Blacklist. His earlier achievements were eventually credited to him by the Writers Guild,60 years after the fact, Trumbo was born in Montrose, Colorado, the son of Maud and Orus Bonham Trumbo. His family moved to Grand Junction in 1908 and he was proud of his paternal immigrant ancestor, a Protestant Swiss man named Jacob Trumbo, who settled in the colony of Virginia in 1736. Trumbo graduated from Grand Junction High School, while still in high school, he worked for Walter Walker as a cub reporter for the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, covering courts, the high school, the mortuary and civic organizations. He was also a member of Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity, for nine years after his father died, Trumbo worked the night shift wrapping bread at a Los Angeles bakery, and attended the University of Southern California. At the same time, he wrote reviews,88 short stories and six novels. In 1934 Trumbo was hired as managing editor of the Hollywood Spectator, later he left the magazine to become a reader in the story department at Warner Bros. studio. His first published novel was Eclipse, released during the Great Depression, Writing in the social realist style, Trumbo drew on his years in Grand Junction to portray a town and its people. The book was controversial in his town, where many people took issue with his fictional portrayal. But years after his death, Trumbo was honored by installation of a statue of him in front of the Avalon Theater on Main Street, Trumbo started working in movies in 1937 but continued writing prose. His anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun won one of the early National Book Awards, the Most Original Book of 1939. It was inspired by an article Trumbo had read several years earlier, during the late 1930s and early 1940s, Trumbo became one of Hollywoods highest-paid screenwriters, at about $4000 per week while on assignment, and earning as much as $80,000 in one year. He worked on films as Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Our Vines Have Tender Grapes. Trumbo aligned with the Communist Party in the United States before the 1940s and his novel The Remarkable Andrew featured the ghost of President Andrew Jackson appearing to caution the United States against getting involved in World War II. Shortly after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Trumbo, Trumbo regretted this decision, which he called foolish
3.
Gregory Peck
–
Eldred Gregory Peck was an American actor who was one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s. Peck continued to major film roles until the late 1980s. His performance as Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor and he had also been nominated for an Oscar for the same category for The Keys of the Kingdom, The Yearling, Gentlemans Agreement and Twelve OClock High. Other notable films he appeared in include Spellbound, Roman Holiday, Moby Dick, The Guns of Navarone, Cape Fear, How the West Was Won, The Omen, President Lyndon Johnson honored Peck with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 for his lifetime humanitarian efforts. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck among Greatest Male Stars of Classic Hollywood cinema and he was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1983. His father was of English and Irish heritage and his mother of English and she converted to her husbands religion, Roman Catholicism, when she married his father, and Peck was raised as a Catholic. Pecks parents divorced when he was five and he was brought up by his maternal grandmother, at the age of 10 he was sent to a Catholic military school, St. Johns Military Academy in Los Angeles. While he was a student there, his grandmother died, at 14, he moved back to San Diego to live with his father, attended San Diego High School, and after graduating enrolled for one year at San Diego State Teachers College. While there he joined the team, took his first theatre and public-speaking courses. Peck however had ambitions to be a doctor and the following year gained admission to the University of California, Berkeley, as an English major, standing 6 ft 3 in, he rowed on the university crew. Although his tuition fee was only $26 per year, Peck still struggled to pay, at Berkeley, encouraged by the acting coach, who saw in him perfect material for university theatre, Peck became more and more interested in acting. He was recruited by Edwin Duerr, director of the universitys Little Theater, Peck would later say about Berkeley that, it was a very special experience for me and three of the greatest years of my life. It woke me up and made me a human being, in 1997, Peck donated $25,000 to the Berkeley rowing crew in honor of his coach, the renowned Ky Ebright. He was often broke and sometimes slept in Central Park and he worked at the 1939 Worlds Fair and as a tour guide for NBCs television broadcasting. In 1940, Peck learned more of the craft, working in exchange for food, at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, appearing in five plays including Family Portrait. His stage career began in 1941 when he played the secretary in a Katharine Cornell production of George Bernard Shaws play The Doctors Dilemma, unfortunately, the play opened in San Francisco just one week before the attack on Pearl Harbor. He made his Broadway debut as the lead in Emlyn Williams The Morning Star in 1942 and his second Broadway performance that year was in The Willow and I with Edward Pawley. Twentieth Century Fox claimed he had injured his back while rowing at university, ive been trying to straighten out that story for years
4.
Audrey Hepburn
–
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress, model, dancer and humanitarian. Recognized as a film and fashion icon, Hepburn was active during Hollywoods Golden Age and she was ranked by the American Film Institute as the third-greatest female screen legend in Golden Age Hollywood and was inducted into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. Born in Ixelles, a district of Brussels, Hepburn spent her childhood between Belgium, England and the Netherlands, following minor appearances in several films, Hepburn starred in the 1951 Broadway play Gigi after being spotted by French novelist Colette, on whose work the play was based. She shot to stardom for playing the role in Roman Holiday, for which she was the first actress to win an Academy Award, a Golden Globe. The same year Hepburn won a Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play for her performance in Ondine, Hepburn won a record three BAFTA Awards for Best British Actress in a Leading Role. In recognition of her career, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from BAFTA. DeMille Award, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award and the Special Tony Award and she remains one of the few people who have won Academy, Emmy, Grammy and Tony Awards. Hepburn appeared in films as her life went on, devoting much of her later life to UNICEF. She had contributed to the organisation since 1954, then worked in some of the poorest communities of Africa, South America and she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in December 1992. A month later, Hepburn died of cancer at her home in Switzerland at the age of 63. Hepburn was born Audrey Kathleen Ruston or Edda Kathleen Hepburn-Ruston on 4 May 1929 at number 48 Rue Keyenveld in Ixelles and her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, was a British subject born in Auschitz, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary. He was the son of Victor John George Ruston, of British and Austrian descent and Anna Wels, Hepburns mother, Ella van Heemstra, was a Dutch baroness. At age nineteen, Ella had married Jonkheer Hendrik Gustaaf Adolf Quarles van Ufford, an oil based in Batavia, Dutch East Indies. They had two sons, Jonkheer Arnoud Robert Alexander Quarles van Ufford and Jonkheer Ian Edgar Bruce Quarles van Ufford, Hepburns parents were married in Batavia in September 1926. At the time, Ruston worked for a company, but soon after the marriage, the couple relocated to Europe. After a year in London, they moved to Brussels, where he had assigned to open a branch office. After three years spent travelling between Brussels, Arnhem, The Hague and London, the family settled to the suburban Brussels municipality of Linkebeek in 1932, Hepburns early childhood was sheltered and privileged. In the mid-1930s, Hepburns parents recruited and collected donations for the British Union of Fascists, Joseph left the family abruptly in 1935, which Hepburn later professed was the most traumatic event of my life
5.
Georges Auric
–
Georges Auric was a French composer, born in Lodève, Hérault. He was considered one of Les Six, a group of artists associated with Jean Cocteau. Before he turned 20 he had orchestrated and written music for several ballets. He also had a career as a film composer. Georges Auric began his career at a young age, performing a piano recital at the Société Musicale Indépendante at the age of 2. Several songs that he had written were then performed in the year by Société Nationale de Musique. Along with his early successes professionally, Auric studied music at the Paris Conservatoire, as well as composition with Vincent dIndy at the Schola Cantorum de Paris and Albert Roussel. Having gained recognition as a child prodigy both in composition and piano performance, he became a protégé of Erik Satie during the following decade. During the 1910s and 20s, he was a significant contributor of avant-garde music in Paris and was influenced by Cocteau. Aurics early compositions were marked by a reaction against the musical establishment, because of this and his association with Cocteau and Satie, Auric was grouped into Les Six by music critic Henri Collet, and was friends with the artist Jean Hugo. His participation led to writing settings of poetry and other texts as songs, along with the other five composers, he contributed a piece to LAlbum des Six. In 1921, Cocteau asked him to write the music for his ballet and he found himself short of time, so he asked his fellow composers of Les Six to contribute some music. During this time, he wrote his one-act opera Sous le masque and it was also in 1927 that he contributed the Rondeau for the childrens ballet LÉventail de Jeanne, a collaboration between ten French composers. In 1952 he participated in yet another collaboration, the set of orchestral variations La Guirlande de Campra, Aurics later development as a populist composer was prefigured by many of the techniques and ideals of Les Six, especially the use of popular music and situations. Music of the circus or the hall played a significant role in the music of Les Six. However, Les Six soon drew apart, with Auric and others taking different approaches to their art, following his early successes as an avant-garde composer, Auric went through a transitional period during the 1930s. He began writing for film in 1930 and composed the music for A Nous, la Liberté. in 1931, the film itself was criticized for supposed communist or anarchist themes, but there was general approval of Aurics score for the film. While he was beginning a career as a film composer, his music went through a period of stagnation
6.
Victor Young
–
Not to be confused with the actor Victor Sen Yung who was sometimes billed as Victor Young Victor Young was an American composer, arranger, violinist and conductor. Young was born in Chicago on August 8,1900, into a very musical Jewish family, his father being a member of one Joseph Sheehan’s touring Opera company. The young Victor began playing violin at the age of six and he studied the piano with Isidor Philipp of the Paris Conservatory. While still a teenager he embarked on a career as a concert violinist with the Warsaw Philharmonic under Juliusz Wertheim, assistant conductor in 1915–16. His future wife, Rita Kinel, who met him in late 1918, used to food to him. He returned to Chicago in 1920 to join the orchestra at Central Park Casino, after turning to popular music, he worked for a while as violinist-arranger for Ted Fio Rito. In 1930 Chicago bandleader and radio-star Isham Jones commissioned Young to write an instrumental of Hoagy Carmichaels Stardust. Young slowed it down and played the melody as a gorgeous romantic violin solo which inspired Mitchell Parish to write lyrics for what became a much performed love song. In the mid-1930s he moved to Hollywood where he concentrated on films, recordings of music and providing backing for popular singers. Young was signed to Brunswick in 1931 where his studio groups recorded scores of dance music, waltzes. His studio groups often contained some of the best jazz musicians in New York, including Bunny Berigan, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Joe Venuti, Arthur Schutt, Eddie Lang, and others. He used first-rate vocalists, including Paul Small, Dick Robertson, Harlan Lattimore, Smith Ballew, Helen Rowland, Frank Munn, The Boswell Sisters, Lee Wiley and others. One of his most interesting recordings was the January 22,1932 session containing songs written by Herman Hupfeld, Goopy Geer and Down The Old Back Road, which Hupfeld sang and played piano on. In late 1934, Young signed with Decca and continued recording in New York until mid-1936, on radio, he was the musical director of The Old Gold Don Ameche Show and Harvest of Stars. He was musical director for many of Bing Crosbys recordings for the American branch of Decca Records, for Decca, he also conducted the first album of songs from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, a sort of pre-soundtrack cover version rather than a true soundtrack album. The album featured Judy Garland and the Ken Darby Singers singing songs from the film in Youngs own arrangements and he also composed the music for several Decca spoken word albums. He received 22 Academy Award nominations for his work in film, twice being nominated four times in a single year and he received his only Oscar posthumously for his score of Around the World in Eighty Days. Thus, Victor Young holds the record for most Oscar nominations before winning the first award and his last scores were for the 1957 films Omar Khayyam, Run of the Arrow, and China Gate, which were released after his death
7.
Henri Alekan
–
Henri Alekan was a French cinematographer. Alekan was born in Montmartre in 1909, at the age of sixteen he and his brother became travelling puppeteers. A little later he started work as assistant cameraman at the Billancourt Studios. He then spent a time in the army, returning to Billancourt in 1931. In the late 1930s he was the operator to Eugene Shufftan on Marcel Carnés Quai des Brumes. He was greatly influenced by Schufftans non-naturalistic style and his first success as a director of photography was René Cléments realistic war drama La Bataille du Rail of 1946. In the same year he worked on Jean Cocteaus fable La Belle et la Bête and he found himself out of sympathy with the French New Wave cinema which emerged in the late 1950s and Alekan shot some rather conventional films in Hollywood. A new generation of directors appreciated his style, and he worked with Raúl Ruiz on The Territory and On Top of the Whale. His last films were made with the Israeli director Amos Gitai and he wrote one of the best books about cinematography Des lumières et des ombres. Alekan died from leukemia on 15 June 2001 in Auxerre, Bourgogne, studio Harcourt Henri Alekan at the Internet Movie Database
8.
Paramount Pictures
–
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
9.
Romantic comedy film
–
Romantic comedy films are films with light-hearted, humorous plotlines, centered on romantic ideals such as that true love is able to surmount most obstacles. One dictionary definition is a movie, play, or television program about a love story that ends happily. Another definition states that its primary distinguishing feature is a plot in which two sympathetic and well-matched lovers are united or reconciled. Romantic comedy films are a genre of comedy films as well as of romance films. However a romantic comedy is classified as a film with two genres not a new genre. Some television series can also be classified as romantic comedies, a wedding-bells, fairy-tale-style happy ending is practically mandatory. The basic plot of a comedy is that two characters meet, part ways due to an argument or other obstacle, then ultimately reunite. Sometimes the two meet and become involved initially, then must confront challenges to their union. Sometimes they are hesitant to become involved because they believe that they do not like each other, because one of them already has a partner. However, the screenwriters leave clues that suggest that the characters are, in fact, attracted to each other, the protagonists often separate or seek time apart to sort out their feelings or deal with the external obstacles to their being together. While the two protagonists are separated, one or both of them realizes that they are ideal for each other, or that they are in love with each other. Then, after one of the two makes some effort to find the other person and declare their love, or through an astonishing coincidental encounter. Then, perhaps with some comic friction or awkwardness, they declare their love for each other, the couple does not, however, have to marry, or live together happily ever after. The ending of a comedy is meant to affirm the primary importance of the love relationship in its protagonists lives. There are many variations on this basic plotline, sometimes, instead of the two lead characters ending up in each others arms, another love match will be made between one of the principal characters and a secondary character. Alternatively, the film may be a rumination on the impossibility of love, the basic format of a romantic comedy film can be found in much earlier sources, such as Shakespeare plays like Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Nights Dream. Some comedy films, such as Knocked Up, combine themes of romantic comedies and stoner comedies, often known as bromance, such films usually use sexual elements which bring the two characters together. Films in this genre include American Pie 2 and even Wedding Crashers, romantic comedies have begun to spread out of their conventional and traditional structure into other territory
10.
Academy Award for Best Actress
–
The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is given in honor of an actress who has delivered a performance in a leading role while working within the film industry. The 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held in 1929 with Janet Gaynor receiving the award for her roles in 7th Heaven, Street Angel, and Sunrise. Currently, nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the branch of AMPAS. In the first three years of the awards, actresses were nominated as the best in their categories, at that time, all of their work during the qualifying period was listed after the award. The following year, this unwieldy and confusing system was replaced by the current system in which an actress is nominated for a performance in a single film. Starting with the 9th ceremony held in 1937, the category was officially limited to five nominations per year, one actress has been nominated posthumously, Jeanne Eagels. Only three film characters have been nominated more than once in this category, elizabeth I of England, Leslie Crosbie in The Letter, and Esther Blodgett in A Star is Born. Six women on the list have received an Honorary Academy Award for their acting, they are Greta Garbo, Barbara Stanwyck, Mary Pickford, Deborah Kerr, Gena Rowlands, since its inception, the award has been given to 74 actresses. Katharine Hepburn has won the most awards in this category, with four Oscars, meryl Streep, who has a total of 20 Oscar nominations, has been nominated in this category on 16 occasions, resulting in two awards. As of the 2017 ceremony, Emma Stone is the most recent winner in category for her role as Mia Dolan in La La Land. In the following table, the years are listed as per Academy convention, and generally correspond to the year of release in Los Angeles County. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months from August 1 to July 31, for the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1,1932 to December 31,1933
11.
Hollywood blacklist
–
Artists were barred from work on the basis of their alleged membership in or sympathy with the Communist Party USA or refusal to assist investigations into the partys activities. On June 22,1950, a pamphlet entitled Red Channels was published, focused on the field of broadcasting, it identified 151 entertainment industry professionals in the context of Red Fascists and their sympathizers. Soon, most of those named, along with a host of artists, were barred from employment in most of the entertainment field. A number of those blacklisted, however, were barred from work in their professions for years afterward. The Hollywood blacklist was rooted in events of the 1930s and the early 1940s, encompassing the height of the Great Depression, two major film industry strikes during the 1930s increased tensions between the Hollywood producers and the unions, particularly the Screen Writers Guild. The American Communist Party lost substantial support after the Moscow show trials of 1936–38, the U. S. government began turning its attention to the possible links between Hollywood and the party during this period. Under then chairman Martin Dies, Jr. the House Un-American Activities Committee released a report in 1938 claiming that communism was pervasive in Hollywood. Two years later, Dies privately took testimony from a former Communist Party member, John L. Leech, Dies said he would clear all those who cooperated by meeting with him in what he called executive session. Within two weeks of the grand jury leak, all those on the list except for actress Jean Muir had met with the HUAC chairman, Dies cleared everyone except actor Lionel Stander, who was fired by the movie studio, Republic Pictures, where he was contracted. In 1941, producer Walt Disney took out an ad in Variety, according to historians Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, In actuality, the strike had resulted from Disneys overbearing paternalism, high-handedness, and insensitivity. Inspired by Disney, California State Senator Jack Tenney, chairman of the state legislatures Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, the probe fell flat, and was mocked in several Variety headlines. The subsequent wartime alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union brought the American Communist Party newfound credibility, during the war, membership in the party reached a peak of 50,000. As World War II drew to a close, perceptions changed again, with communism increasingly becoming a focus of American fears and hatred. In 1945, Gerald L. K. Smith, founder of the neofascist America First Party, the greatest hotbed of subversive activities in the United States. Rankin promised, Were on the trail of the tarantula now, reports of Soviet repression in Eastern and Central Europe in the wars aftermath added more fuel to what became known as the Second Red Scare. Its counsel revolved around a list of ideological prohibitions, such as Dont smear the free-enterprise system, on July 29,1946, William R. Wilkerson, publisher and founder of The Hollywood Reporter, published a TradeView column entitled A Vote For Joe Stalin. In August and September 1946, Wilkerson published other columns containing names of numerous purported Communists and they became known as Billys List and Billys Blacklist. It had declared its intention to investigate whether Communist agents and sympathizers had been planting propaganda in U. S. films, the hearings opened with appearances by Walt Disney and Ronald Reagan, then president of the Screen Actors Guild
12.
Front (identity)
–
Artists were barred from work on the basis of their alleged membership in or sympathy with the Communist Party USA or refusal to assist investigations into the partys activities. On June 22,1950, a pamphlet entitled Red Channels was published, focused on the field of broadcasting, it identified 151 entertainment industry professionals in the context of Red Fascists and their sympathizers. Soon, most of those named, along with a host of artists, were barred from employment in most of the entertainment field. A number of those blacklisted, however, were barred from work in their professions for years afterward. The Hollywood blacklist was rooted in events of the 1930s and the early 1940s, encompassing the height of the Great Depression, two major film industry strikes during the 1930s increased tensions between the Hollywood producers and the unions, particularly the Screen Writers Guild. The American Communist Party lost substantial support after the Moscow show trials of 1936–38, the U. S. government began turning its attention to the possible links between Hollywood and the party during this period. Under then chairman Martin Dies, Jr. the House Un-American Activities Committee released a report in 1938 claiming that communism was pervasive in Hollywood. Two years later, Dies privately took testimony from a former Communist Party member, John L. Leech, Dies said he would clear all those who cooperated by meeting with him in what he called executive session. Within two weeks of the grand jury leak, all those on the list except for actress Jean Muir had met with the HUAC chairman, Dies cleared everyone except actor Lionel Stander, who was fired by the movie studio, Republic Pictures, where he was contracted. In 1941, producer Walt Disney took out an ad in Variety, according to historians Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, In actuality, the strike had resulted from Disneys overbearing paternalism, high-handedness, and insensitivity. Inspired by Disney, California State Senator Jack Tenney, chairman of the state legislatures Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, the probe fell flat, and was mocked in several Variety headlines. The subsequent wartime alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union brought the American Communist Party newfound credibility, during the war, membership in the party reached a peak of 50,000. As World War II drew to a close, perceptions changed again, with communism increasingly becoming a focus of American fears and hatred. In 1945, Gerald L. K. Smith, founder of the neofascist America First Party, the greatest hotbed of subversive activities in the United States. Rankin promised, Were on the trail of the tarantula now, reports of Soviet repression in Eastern and Central Europe in the wars aftermath added more fuel to what became known as the Second Red Scare. Its counsel revolved around a list of ideological prohibitions, such as Dont smear the free-enterprise system, on July 29,1946, William R. Wilkerson, publisher and founder of The Hollywood Reporter, published a TradeView column entitled A Vote For Joe Stalin. In August and September 1946, Wilkerson published other columns containing names of numerous purported Communists and they became known as Billys List and Billys Blacklist. It had declared its intention to investigate whether Communist agents and sympathizers had been planting propaganda in U. S. films, the hearings opened with appearances by Walt Disney and Ronald Reagan, then president of the Screen Actors Guild
13.
DVD
–
DVD is a digital optical disc storage format invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. The medium can store any kind of data and is widely used for software. DVDs offer higher capacity than compact discs while having the same dimensions. Pre-recorded DVDs are mass-produced using molding machines that physically stamp data onto the DVD, such discs are a form of DVD-ROM because data can only be read and not written or erased. Blank recordable DVD discs can be recorded using a DVD recorder. Rewritable DVDs can be recorded and erased many times, DVDs containing other types of information may be referred to as DVD data discs. The OED also states that in 1995, The companies said the name of the format will simply be DVD. Toshiba had been using the name ‘digital video disk’, but that was switched to ‘digital versatile disk’ after computer companies complained that it left out their applications, Digital versatile disc is the explanation provided in a DVD Forum Primer from 2000 and in the DVD Forums mission statement. There were several formats developed for recording video on optical discs before the DVD, Optical recording technology was invented by David Paul Gregg and James Russell in 1958 and first patented in 1961. A consumer optical disc data format known as LaserDisc was developed in the United States and it used much larger discs than the later formats. CD Video used analog video encoding on optical discs matching the established standard 120 mm size of audio CDs, Video CD became one of the first formats for distributing digitally encoded films in this format, in 1993. In the same year, two new optical disc formats were being developed. By the time of the launches for both formats in January 1995, the MMCD nomenclature had been dropped, and Philips and Sony were referring to their format as Digital Video Disc. Representatives from the SD camp asked IBM for advice on the system to use for their disc. Alan E. Bell, a researcher from IBMs Almaden Research Center, got that request and this group was referred to as the Technical Working Group, or TWG. On August 14,1995, an ad hoc group formed from five computer companies issued a release stating that they would only accept a single format. The TWG voted to both formats unless the two camps agreed on a single, converged standard. They recruited Lou Gerstner, president of IBM, to pressure the executives of the warring factions, as a result, the DVD specification provided a storage capacity of 4.7 GB for a single-layered, single-sided disc and 8.5 GB for a dual-layered, single-sided disc
14.
Bernard Vorhaus
–
Bernard Vorhaus was an American film director born in New York City. He worked steadily as a screenwriter in Hollywood while in his 20s and he eventually decided to move to England and began directing quota quickies, such as The Last Journey. After success in England, Vorhaus moved back to the U. S. Vorhaus was blacklisted in 1951 at HUAC hearings. Vorhaus had already moved to Europe at that time and directed a few films while there. He finally returned to England and retired from the film business, Vorhaus had two children, Gwyn and David, an electronic music pioneer who worked under the name White Noise
15.
Location shooting
–
Location shooting is the practice of filming in the actual setting in which a story takes place rather than on a sound stage or back lot. In filmmaking, a location is any place where a crew will be filming actors. A location where dialog is not recorded may be considered as a second unit photography site, filmmakers often choose to shoot on location because they believe that greater realism can be achieved in a real place, however location shooting is also often motivated by the films budget. However, many films shoot interior scenes on a sound stage and it is often mistakenly believed that filming on location takes place in a location where the story is set, but this is not necessarily the case. In certain situations it may be cheaper to shoot in a studio, in these situations lower budget films often shoot more in a studio. Before filming, the locations are generally surveyed in pre-production, also known as recce, canadian locations such as Vancouver and Toronto are known for this. It sometimes allows frozen currency to be used, the 1968 movie Kellys Heroes was filmed in Yugoslavia using profits that had been made on movie exhibitions in that country but could not be exported. Its disadvantages include, Lack of control over the environment — lighting, passing aircraft, traffic, pedestrians, bad weather, city regulations, cast and crew heavily rely upon local facilities such as catering, transportation, and accommodations. A film that becomes a blockbuster hit can introduce movie audiences around the world to a visually breathtaking location that they were unaware of. This can boost tourism for years or even decades, Location shooting usually requires a location manager, and locations are usually chosen by a location scout. In many cases a second unit is dispatched to film on location, with a unit director. Filming location Location manager, the responsible for the locations department Location scouting Location library Filmmaking
16.
Rome
–
Rome is a special comune and the capital of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region, with 2,873,598 residents in 1,285 km2, it is also the countrys largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the center of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4.3 million residents, the city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber. Romes history spans more than 2,500 years, while Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at only around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe. The citys early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans and it was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy. Rome is also called the Caput Mundi, due to that, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, in 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city, Rome ranked in 2014 as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, and the most popular tourist attraction in Italy. Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, monuments and museums such as the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum are among the worlds most visited tourist destinations with both locations receiving millions of tourists a year. Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics and is the seat of United Nations Food, however, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was actually derived from Rome itself. As early as the 4th century, there have been alternate theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. There is archaeological evidence of occupation of the Rome area from approximately 14,000 years ago. Evidence of stone tools, pottery and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence, several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the age and the beginning of the Iron age. However, none of them had yet an urban quality, nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city was gradually born through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine. All these happenings, which according to the excavations took place more or less around the mid of the 8th century BC. Despite recent excavations at the Palatine hill, the view that Rome has been indeed founded with an act of will as the legend suggests in the middle of the 8th century BC remains a fringe hypothesis. Traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves explain the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth
17.
Hollywood on the Tiber
–
As opposed to the native Italian film industry, these films were made in English for global release. Although the primary markets for such films were American and British audiences, the commercial success of Quo Vadis led to a stream of blockbusters produced in Italy by Hollywood studios, which reached its height with 20th Century Foxs Cleopatra in 1963. The term was coined in 1950 by Time Magazine during the making of Quo Vadis, the phrase refers to the Tiber, a river that runs through Rome. Following World War II, Hollywood studios increasingly shifted production abroad both to take advantage of lower costs and to use frozen funds and these films, known as runaway productions, could also benefit from local subsidies. By the early 1950s, some of the largest-budget American films were being shot in European countries, particularly in Britain, in both countries newly arrived American companies worked alongside continuing large-scale domestic film industries. In Italy, the film-makers used the vast Cinecittà complex which had built in the 1930s by Benito Mussolinis Fascist regime which was aiming to rebuild Italian cinema. Following Mussolinis overthrow in 1943, production at Cinecittà was suspended, although American companies had shot in Italy before the scale of the post-war investment was unprecedented. Many of the films were sword and sandal epics, often set in Ancient Rome which required large film sets, other films included contemporary-set romances Roman Holiday and Three Coins in the Fountain. The companies imported actors from a variety of countries, who appeared alongside Italians who generally played smaller, sophia Loren was a notable Italian star with sufficient international appeal to be cast in a leading role. In 1962 the lengthy and troubled production of Cleopatra brought further attention to the city. The delays led to a budget, making it the most expensive film ever made at the time. Far from leading to a decline in Italian cinema, the industry boomed during the era. In 1960 Italian films outperformed American imports to Italy for the first time since 1946, Italian actors and directors often adopted English-sounding names. Cinecittà was at the peak of its international fame between the production of Ben Hur and Cleopatra, in 2009 a documentary film Hollywood on the Tiber was released. It portrays Cinecittà and the stars who worked there between 1950 and 1970. The Foreign Film Renaissance on American Screens, 1946–1973, univ of Wisconsin Press,5 Nov 2010. Mussolinis Dream Factory, Film Stardom in Fascist Italy, the Death of Classical Cinema, Hitchcock, Lang, Minnelli. Broken Time, Fragmented Space, A Cultural Map for Postwar Italy
18.
Venice film festival
–
The film festival is part of the Venice Biennale, which was founded by the Venetian City Council in 1895. The film festival has taken place in late August or early September on the island of the Lido, Venice. Screenings take place in the historic Palazzo del Cinema on the Lungomare Marconi, since its inception the Venice Film Festival has grown into one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world. The 74th Venice International Film Festival is scheduled to be held from 30 August to 9 September 2017, the first edition of the Venice Film Festival was carried out from the 6 to the 21 of August in 1932. The festival began with an idea of the president of the Venice Biennale Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata and Luciano De Feo, with good reason, the festival was considered the first international event of its type, receiving strong support from authorities. This first edition was held on the terrace of the Hotel Excelsior on the Venice Lido, and at that stage it was not a competitive event. The very first film to be shown in the history of the Festival was Rouben Mamoulians Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the second edition was held two years later, from 1 to 20 of August in 1934. For the first time it included a competition, at least 19 countries took part with over 300 accredited journalists. The Mussolini Cup was introduced for best foreign film and best Italian film, other awards were the Great Gold Medals of the National Fascist Association for Entertainment to best actor and actress. The prize for best foreign film went to Robert J. Flahertys Man of Aran and was a confirmation of the taste of the time for auteur documentaries, starting in 1935, the Festival became a yearly event under the direction of Ottavio Croze. The actors award was renamed Volpi Cup, in 1936 an international jury was nominated for the first time and in 1937 the new Cinema Palace, designed by the architect Luigi Quagliata, was inaugurated. The 1940s represent one of the most difficult moments for the review, the conclusion of the Second World War divides the decade in two. Before 1938 political pressures distorted and ruined the festival, in addition, few countries participated and there was an absolute monopoly of institutions and directors that were members of the Rome-Berlin Axis. The festival resumed full speed in 1946, after the war, with the return of normalcy, Venice once again became a great icon of the film world. In 1947 the festival was held at the Doges Palace, a most magnificent backdrop for hosting a record 90 thousand participants, surely it can be considered one of the greatest editions in the history of the festival. For the next twenty years the festival continued its development and expansion in accordance with the plan set in motion after the war. In 1963 the winds of change blow strongly during Luigi Chiarini’s directorship of the festival, during the years of his presidency, Chiarini aspired to renew the spirit and the structures of the festival, pushing for a total reorganization of the entire system. The social and political unrest of 1968 had strong repercussions on the Venice Bienniale, from 1969 to 1979 no prizes were awarded and the festival returned to the non-competitiveness of the first edition
19.
United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
20.
National Film Registry
–
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Boards selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The NFPB, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992,1996,2005, and again in October 2008. The NFPBs mission, to which the NFR contributes, is to ensure the survival, conservation, the 1996 law also created the non-profit National Film Preservation Foundation which, although affiliated with the NFPB, raises money from the private sector. To be eligible for inclusion, a film must be at least ten years old, for the first selection in 1989, the public nominated almost 1,000 films for consideration. Members of the NFPB then developed individual ballots of possible films for inclusion, the ballots were tabulated into a list of 25 films which was then modified by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington and his staff at the Library for the final selection. Since 1997, members of the public have been able to nominate up to 50 films a year for the NFPB, the NFR includes films ranging from Hollywood classics to orphan films. A film is not required to be feature-length, nor is it required to have been released in the traditional sense. As of the 2016 listing, there are 700 films preserved in the Registry, currently, the earliest listed film is Newark Athlete, and the most recent is 13 Lakes. Counting the 11 multi-year serials in the NFR once each by year of completion, the years with the most films selected are 1928,1939, the time between a films debut and its selection varies greatly. The longest span is 119 years, Newark Athlete was originally released in 1891, the shortest span is the minimum 10 years, this distinction is shared by Raging Bull, Do the Right Thing, Goodfellas, Toy Story, Fargo and 13 Lakes. For purposes of this list, multi-year serials are counted once by year of completion
21.
Library of Congress
–
The Library of Congress is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the de facto national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States, the Library is housed in three buildings on Capitol Hill in Washington, D. C. it also maintains the Packard Campus in Culpeper, Virginia, which houses the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center. The Library of Congress claims to be the largest library in the world and its collections are universal, not limited by subject, format, or national boundary, and include research materials from all parts of the world and in more than 450 languages. Two-thirds of the books it acquires each year are in other than English. The Library of Congress moved to Washington in 1800, after sitting for years in the temporary national capitals of New York. John J. Beckley, who became the first Librarian of Congress, was two dollars per day and was required to also serve as the Clerk of the House of Representatives. The small Congressional Library was housed in the United States Capitol for most of the 19th century until the early 1890s, most of the original collection had been destroyed by the British in 1814, during the War of 1812. To restore its collection in 1815, the bought from former president Thomas Jefferson his entire personal collection of 6,487 books. After a period of growth, another fire struck the Library in its Capitol chambers in 1851, again destroying a large amount of the collection. The Library received the right of transference of all copyrighted works to have two copies deposited of books, maps, illustrations and diagrams printed in the United States. It also began to build its collections of British and other European works and it included several stories built underground of steel and cast iron stacks. Although the Library is open to the public, only high-ranking government officials may check out books, the Library promotes literacy and American literature through projects such as the American Folklife Center, American Memory, Center for the Book, and Poet Laureate. James Madison is credited with the idea for creating a congressional library, part of the legislation appropriated $5,000 for the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress. And for fitting up an apartment for containing them. Books were ordered from London and the collection, consisting of 740 books and 3 maps, was housed in the new Capitol, as president, Thomas Jefferson played an important role in establishing the structure of the Library of Congress. The new law also extended to the president and vice president the ability to borrow books and these volumes had been left in the Senate wing of the Capitol. One of the only congressional volumes to have survived was a government account book of receipts and it was taken as a souvenir by a British Commander whose family later returned it to the United States government in 1940. Within a month, former president Jefferson offered to sell his library as a replacement
22.
Spanish Steps
–
The Spanish Steps are a set of steps in Rome, Italy, climbing a steep slope between the Piazza di Spagna at the base and Piazza Trinità dei Monti, dominated by the Trinità dei Monti church at the top. The stairway was designed by architects Francesco de Sanctis and Alessandro Specchi, following a competition in 1717 the steps were designed by the little-known Francesco de Sanctis, though Alessandro Specchi was long thought to have produced the winning entry. Generations of heated discussion over how the steep slope to the church on a shoulder of the Pincio should be urbanised preceded the final execution, archival drawings from the 1580s show that Pope Gregory XIII was interested in constructing a stair to the recently completed façade of the French church. Gaspar van Wittels view of the slope in 1683, before the Scalinata was built, is conserved in the Galleria Nazionale. Mazarin died in 1661, the pope in 1667, and Gueffiers will was contested by a nephew who claimed half. The Bourbon fleur-de-lys and Innocent XIIIs eagle and crown are carefully balanced in the sculptural details, the solution is a gigantic inflation of some conventions of terraced garden stairs. The Spanish Steps, which Joseph de Lalande and Charles de Brosses noted were already in poor condition, have restored several times. A new renovation commenced on May 30,2016 and the steps reopened on September 21,2016, the elder Bernini had been the popes architect for the Acqua Vergine, since 1623. According to a legend, Pope Urban VIII had the fountain installed after he had been impressed by a boat brought here by a flood of the Tiber river, at the top the stairway ramp up the Pincio which is the Pincian Hill. From the top of the steps the Villa Medici can be reached, during Christmas time a 19th-century criba manger is displayed on the first landing of the staircase. During Springtime, just before the anniversary of the foundation of Rome, April 21st, part of the steps are covered by pots of azaleas, in modern times the Spanish Steps have included a small cut-flower market. The steps are not a place for eating lunch, being forbidden by Roman urban regulations, the 1953 film Roman Holiday, starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, made the Spanish Steps famous to an American audience. The apartment that was the setting for The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is halfway up on the right, bernardo Bertoluccis Besieged is also set in a house next to the Steps. The Steps were featured prominently in the version of The Talented Mr. Ripley starring Matt Damon in the title role. Norwegian singer/songwriter Morten Harket, from A-ha, released a song called Spanish Steps on his album Wild Seed in 1995. Marc Cohns song Walk Through the World, released in 1993 on the album The Rainy Season, includes the lyric From the Spanish Steps to the Liberty Bell, I know the angels have seen us. The title song from Guy Clarks Dublin Blues album contains the lyric, north American & Japanese versions of the Mindfields album released in 1999 by American rock band Toto include the song Spanish Steps of Rome as a bonus track. The song describes a femme fatale romance that takes place on, in an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond which aired on October 2,2000, Ray, Debra, Frank, and Marie climb the Spanish Steps during a family vacation in Rome
23.
Eddie Albert
–
Edward Albert Heimberger, known professionally as Eddie Albert, was an American actor and activist. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1954 for his performance in Roman Holiday, other well-known screen roles of his include Bing Edwards in the Brother Rat films, traveling salesman Ali Hakim in the musical Oklahoma. And the sadistic prison warden in 1974s The Longest Yard and he starred as Oliver Wendell Douglas in the 1960s television sitcom Green Acres and as Frank MacBride in the 1970s crime drama Switch. He also had a role as Carlton Travis on Falcon Crest. Edward Albert Heimberger was born in Rock Island, Illinois, on April 22,1906, the oldest of the five children of Frank Daniel Heimberger, a realtor and his year of birth is often given as 1908, but this is incorrect. His parents were not married when Albert was born, and his mother altered his birth certificate after her marriage, when he was one year old, his family moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Young Edward secured his first job as a boy when he was only six. During World War I, his German name led to taunts as the enemy by his classmates and he studied at Central High School in Minneapolis and joined the drama club. His schoolmate Harriet Lake graduated in the same class, finishing high school in 1926, he entered the University of Minnesota, where he majored in business. When he graduated, he embarked on a business career, however, the stock market crash in 1929 left him essentially unemployed. He then took odd jobs, working as a performer, an insurance salesman. Albert stopped using his last name professionally, since it invariably was mispronounced as Hamburger and he moved to New York City in 1933, where he co-hosted a radio show, The Honeymooners - Grace and Eddie Show, which ran for three years. At the shows end, he was offered a contract by Warner Bros. In the 1930s, Albert performed in Broadway stage productions, including Brother Rat and he had lead roles in Room Service and The Boys from Syracuse. Performing regularly on television, Albert wrote and performed in the first teleplay, The Love Nest. Hosted by Betty Goodwin, The Love Nest starred Albert, Hildegarde, The Ink Spots, Ed Wynn, before this time, television productions were adaptations of stage plays. In 1938, he made his debut in the Hollywood version of Brother Rat with Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman. The next year, he starred in On Your Toes, adapted for the screen from the Broadway smash by Rodgers and Hart
24.
Mouth of Truth
–
It attracts visitors who audaciously stick their hand in the mouth. The massive marble mask weighs about 1300 kg and probably depicts the face of the sea god Oceanus, the eyes, nostrils and mouth are open. Historians arent quite certain what the purpose of the disc was. It is also thought that cattle merchants used it to drain the blood of cattle sacrificed to the god Hercules, in the thirteenth century the disc was probably removed from the temple and placed against the wall of the Santa Maria in Cosmedin. In the seventeenth century it moved to its current location inside the portico of the church. The Mouth of Truth is now mostly from its appearance in the 1953 film Roman Holiday. The film also uses the Mouth of Truth as a storytelling device since both Hepburns and Pecks characters are not initially truthful with each other, there are a number of Bocca della Verita replicas and derivative works. A full-size reproduction sits in the Alta Vista Gardens in California, coin-operated fortune teller machines have been developed and installed in different parts of the world, including one on display in the Musee Mecanique. The Mouth of Truth has also featured as a theme in historical European art. Northern Renaissance Art,1985, Harry N. Abrams, ISBN0136235964 Official website
25.
Red Skelton
–
Richard Bernard Red Skelton was an American entertainer. He was best known for his radio and television acts between 1937 and 1971, and as host of the television program The Red Skelton Show. Skelton began developing his comedic and pantomime skills from the age of 10 and he then spent time on a showboat, worked the burlesque circuit, then entered into vaudeville in 1934. The Doughnut Dunkers, a sketch of how different people ate doughnuts written by Skelton and his wife launched a career for him in vaudeville, in radio. Skeltons radio career began in 1937 with a guest appearance on The Fleischmanns Yeast Hour which led to his becoming the host of Avalon Time in 1938. He became the host of The Raleigh Cigarette Program in 1941 where many of his characters were created and had a regularly scheduled radio program until 1957. Skelton made his debut in 1938 alongside Ginger Rogers and Douglas Fairbanks. He was most eager to work in television, even when the medium was in its infancy, the Red Skelton Show made its television premiere on September 30,1951, on NBC. By 1954, Skeltons program moved to CBS, where it was expanded to one hour, despite high ratings, his television show was cancelled by CBS in 1970 as the network believed more youth-oriented programs were needed to attract younger viewers and their spending power. Skelton moved his program to NBC, where he completed his last year with a regularly scheduled show in 1971. After he no longer had a program, Skeltons time was spent making up to 125 personal appearances a year. Skeltons artwork of clowns remained a hobby until 1964 when his wife, Georgia, sales of his originals were successful and Skelton also sold prints and lithographs of them, earning $2.5 million yearly on lithograph sales. At the time of his death, his art dealer believed that Skelton had earned money through his paintings than from his television work. Skelton believed his lifes work was to make people laugh, he wanted to be known as a clown because he defined it as being able to do everything and he had a 70-year career as a performer and entertained three generations of Americans during this time. Born on July 18,1913, in Vincennes, Indiana, Richard Skelton was the fourth and youngest son of Ida Mae, Joseph, a grocer, died two months before Richard was born, he had once been a clown with the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus. During Skeltons lifetime there was some dispute about the year of his birth, author Wesley Hyatt suggests that since he began working at such an early age, Skelton may have claimed he was older than he actually was in order to gain employment. Because of the loss of his father, Skelton went to work as early as the age of seven, selling newspapers and doing odd jobs to help his family. He quickly learned the newsboys patter and would keep it up until a prospective buyer bought a copy of the paper just to quiet him, when the man asked Skelton what events were going on in town, Skelton suggested he see the new show in town
26.
Scooter (motorcycle)
–
A scooter or motor scooter is a motorcycle with step-through frame and a platform for the riders feet. Elements of scooter design have been present in some of the earliest motorcycles, Scooter development continued in Europe and the United States between the World Wars. The global popularity of scooters dates from the post-World War II introductions of the Vespa and these scooters were intended to provide low-power personal transportation. The original layout is widely used in this application. Maxi-scooters, with engines from 250 to 850 cc have been developed for Western markets, scooters are popular for personal transport, partly due to being cheap to buy, easy to operate and convenient to park and store. Licensing requirements for scooters are easier and cheaper than for cars in most parts of the world, a motor scooter is a motorcycle similar to a kick scooter with a seat, a floorboard, and small or low wheels. The United States Department of Transportation defines a scooter as a motorcycle that has a platform for the feet or has integrated footrests. The classic scooter design features a frame and a flat floorboard for the riders feet. This design is possible because most scooter engines and drive systems are attached to the axle or under the seat. Scooters usually feature bodywork, including a front leg shield and body that conceals all or most of the mechanicals, there is often some integral storage space, either under the seat, built into the front leg shield, or both. Scooters have varying engine displacements and configurations ranging from 50 cc single-cylinder to 850 cc twin-cylinder models, some scooters carry a spare wheel. Many recent scooters use conventional front forks with the front axle fastened at both ends, most jurisdictions do not differentiate between scooters and motorcycles. For all legal purposes in the United States of America, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommends using the motorcycle for all of these vehicles. However, while NHTSA excludes the term motor scooter from legal definition, it proceeds, in the same document, the emissions of mopeds and scooters have been the subject of multiple studies. In the same study, four-stroke mopeds, with and without catalytic converters, approximate parity with automobiles was achieved with NOx emissions in these studies. Emissions performance was tested on a basis and was unaffected by fuel economy. Scooter-like traits began to develop in motorcycle designs around the 1900s, in 1894, Hildebrand & Wolfmüller produced the first motorcycle that was available for purchase. Their motorcycle had a frame, with its fuel tank mounted on the down tube, its parallel two-cylinder engine mounted low on the frame
27.
Cary Grant
–
Cary Grant was a British-American actor, known as one of classic Hollywoods definitive leading men. He began a career in Hollywood in the early 1930s, and became known for his accent, debonair demeanor. He became an American citizen in 1942, Born in Horfield, Bristol, Grant became attracted to theatre at a young age, and began performing with a troupe known as The Penders from the age of six. After attending Bishop Road Primary School and Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol, he toured the country as a stage performer and he established a name for himself in vaudeville in the 1920s and toured the United States before moving to Hollywood in the early 1930s. Along with the later Arsenic and Old Lace and I Was a Male War Bride, having established himself as a major Hollywood star, he was nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Actor, for Penny Serenade and None but the Lonely Heart. In the 1940s and 1950s, Grant forged a relationship with the director Alfred Hitchcock, appearing in films such as Suspicion, Notorious, To Catch a Thief. Hitchcock admired Grant and considered him to have been the actor that he had ever loved working with. His comic timing and delivery made Grant what Premiere magazine considers to have quite simply. Grant was married five times, three of his marriages were elopements with actresses—Virginia Cherrill, Betsy Drake and Dyan Cannon and he has one daughter with Cannon, Jennifer Grant. After his retirement from acting in 1966, Grant pursued numerous business interests, representing cosmetics firm Fabergé. He was presented with an Honorary Oscar by his friend Frank Sinatra at the 42nd Academy Awards in 1970, in 1999, the American Film Institute named Grant the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema, after Humphrey Bogart. Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18,1904 at 15 Hughenden Road in the northern Bristol suburb of Horfield and he was the second child of Elias James Leach and Elsie Maria Leach. Elias, the son of a potter, worked as a tailors presser at a factory, while Elsie. Grants elder brother, John William Elias Leach, died of tuberculous meningitis, Grant considered himself to have been partly Jewish. He had an upbringing, his father was an alcoholic. Wanting the best for her son, Elsie taught Grant song and dance when he was four and she would occasionally take him to the cinema where he enjoyed the performances of Charlie Chaplin, Chester Conklin, Fatty Arbuckle, Ford Sterling, Mack Swain and Broncho Billy Anderson. Grant entered education when he was four-and-a-half and was sent to the Bishop Road Primary School, Bristol, another biographer, Geoffrey Wansell, notes that Elsie blamed herself bitterly for the death of Grants older brother John, and never recovered from it. Grant later acknowledged that his experiences with his fiercely independent mother affected his relationships with women later in life
28.
Charade (1963 film)
–
Charade is a 1963 Technicolor American romantic comedy/mystery film directed by Stanley Donen, written by Peter Stone and Marc Behm, and starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. The cast also features Walter Matthau, James Coburn, George Kennedy, Dominique Minot, Ned Glass and it spans three genres, suspense thriller, romance and comedy. Because Universal Pictures published the movie with a copyright notice. Charade has received positive reviews from critics, and was additionally noted to contain influences of genres such as whodunit, screwball. It has also referred to as the best Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never made. While on a holiday in Megève, Regina Reggie Lampert tells her friend Sylvie Gaudel that she has decided to divorce her husband Charles. She then meets a charming American stranger, Peter Joshua, on her return to Paris, she finds her apartment is completely empty and police inspector Edouard Grandpierre notifies her that Charles has been murdered while leaving Paris. Reggie is given her husbands travel bag, containing a letter addressed to her, at the funeral, three odd characters show up to view the body. Reggie is summoned to meet CIA administrator Hamilton Bartholomew at the U. S. Embassy and she learns that the three men are Tex Panthollow, Herman Scobie, and Leopold W. Gideon, the three survivors of a World War II OSS operation. Together with Charles and a man, Carson Dyle, they were to deliver $250,000 in gold to the French Resistance. Dyle was fatally wounded in a German ambush, and Charles double-crossed the others, the three men want the missing money, and the U. S. government wants it back. Bartholomew insists that Reggie has it, even if she does not know where it is, Peter tracks Reggie down and helps her move into a hotel. The three criminals separately threaten Reggie, each convinced that she knows where the money is, as the hunt for the money continues, first Scobie is found murdered, then Gideon is killed in an elevator. Meanwhile, Reggie falls in love with Dyle, but gets yet another shock when she learns from Bartholomew that Carson Dyle had no brother, confronted with this, Alexander now admits he is actually Adam Canfield, a professional thief. Although frustrated by his dishonesty, Reggie still finds herself trusting him, Reggie and Adam go to the location of Charless last appointment and find an outdoor market. They also spot Tex there and Adam follows him, Reggie now also realizes the stamps significance, so she, Sylvie, and Jean-Louis find the stamp trader, Mr. Felix who, recognizing the value of the stamps, returns them to Reggie. Back at the hotel, Reggie finds Tex murdered as well, while dying, he wrote the name Dyle. Assuming that Alexander is the murderer after all, a frightened Reggie telephones Bartholomew, when she leaves the hotel, Adam spots her and gives chase through the streets of Paris and the subway
29.
Billing (film)
–
Billing is a performing arts term used in referring to the order and other aspects of how credits are presented for plays, films, television, or other creative works. Information given in billing usually consists of the companies, actors, directors, producers and they also feared that, once actors were billed on film, they would be more popular and would seek large salaries. Actors themselves did not want to reveal their film careers to their counterparts via billing on film. As late as the 1910s, stars as famous as Mary Pickford, according to Mary Pickfords biography Doug and Mary, she was referred to by the public as the Biograph girl in all of her films before 1905. Before Mary Pickford, the used to call Florence Lawrence the Biograph girl. In 1910 Lawrence was lured away from Biograph by Carl Laemmle when he started the Independent Motion Picture Company, Laemmle wanted Lawrence to be his star attraction, so he offered her more money and marquee billing, something Biograph did not allow. She signed on, with the release of her first IMP film, The Broken Oath, from then on, actors received billing on film. Also originating during that time was the system of billing above and below the title, big stars such as Pickford, Fairbanks, and Chaplin were billed above the title, while lesser stars and supporting players were billed below the title. The studios still followed the system of the silent era. After the studio systems collapse in the 1950s, actors and their agents fought for billing on a film-by-film basis and this, combined with changes in union contracts and copyright laws, led to more actors and crew members being included in the credits sequence, expanding its size significantly. As a result, since the late 1960s, a significant amount of the billing is reserved for the credits of the film. In addition, more stars began to top billing. Billing demands even extended to publicity materials, down to the height of the letters, by the 1990s, some films had moved all billing to the films end, with the exception of company logos and the title. Occasionally, even the title is left to the end, such as in Avatar, The Passion of the Christ, Inception, the order in which credits are billed generally signify their importance. While there are variations, most opening credits use some variation of the following basic order. In the absence of opening credits, these roles will often be credited in order at the beginning of the closing credits. However, a studio may not necessarily be the party that produced it, instead, a separate production company may have actually made the film or financed a substantial part of the film. Sometimes the producer or writer may also get a possessory credit, Victor Fleming was one such director, his films usually featured the credit A Victor Fleming Production, even when someone else produced the film
30.
Elizabeth Taylor
–
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress, businesswoman, and humanitarian. She began as an actress in the early 1940s, and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. She continued her career successfully into the 1960s, and remained a well known figure for the rest of her life. The American Film Institute named her the seventh-greatest female screen legend in 1999, Born in London to wealthy, socially prominent American parents, Taylor moved with her family to Los Angeles in 1939, and she soon was given a film contract by Universal Pictures. Her screen debut was in a role in Theres One Born Every Minute. Taylor was then signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and had her breakthrough role in National Velvet, becoming one of the studios most popular teenaged stars. She made the transition to adult roles in the early 1950s, despite being one of MGMs most bankable stars, Taylor wished to end her career in the early 1950s, as she resented the studios control and disliked many of the films to which she was assigned. She began receiving roles in the mid-1950s, beginning with the epic drama Giant. These included two film adaptations of plays by Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly, Last Summer, although she disliked her role in BUtterfield 8, her last film for MGM, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. She was next paid a record-breaking $1 million to play the role in the historical epic Cleopatra. During the filming, Taylor and co-star Richard Burton began having an affair which caused a scandal. Despite public disapproval, Burton and she continued their relationship and were married the first time in 1964. Dubbed Liz and Dick by the media, they starred in 11 films together, including The V. I. P. s, The Sandpiper, The Taming of the Shrew, and Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Taylor received the best reviews of her career for Woolf, winning her second Academy Award, in the 1980s, she acted in her first substantial stage roles and in several television films and series, and became the first celebrity to launch a perfume brand. Taylor was also one of the first celebrities to take part in HIV/AIDS activism and she co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985 and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1991. From the early 1990s until her death, she dedicated her time to philanthropy and she received several accolades for it, including the Presidential Citizens Medal. Taylors personal life was subject to constant media attention throughout her life and she was married eight times to seven men, endured serious illnesses, and led a jet set lifestyle, including amassing one of the most expensive private collections of jewelry. After many years of ill health, Taylor died from heart failure at the age of 79 in 2011
31.
Jean Simmons
–
Jean Merilyn Simmons, OBE was an English-born American actress and singer. One of J. Simmons was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Hamlet, and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for Guys and Dolls. Other notable film appearances included Young Bess, The Robe, Elmer Gantry, Spartacus, and she also won an Emmy Award for the 1983 miniseries The Thorn Birds. Simmons was born in Lower Holloway, London, to Charles Simmons, jean was the youngest of four children with siblings Lorna, Harold and Edna. She began acting at the age of 14, during the Second World War, the Simmons family was evacuated to Winscombe, Somerset. Returning to London and just enrolled at the Aida Foster School of Dance, Simmons was spotted by the director Val Guest, small roles in several other films followed including the high-profile Caesar and Cleopatra, produced by Gabriel Pascal. Pascal saw potential in Simmons and in 1945 he signed her to a seven-year contract, prior to moving to Hollywood, she played the young Estella in David Leans version of Great Expectations and Ophelia in Laurence Oliviers Hamlet, for which she received her first Oscar nomination. She played an Indian girl in the Powell-Pressburger film Black Narcissus, but I figured Id just go off and get married and have children like my mother. It was working with David Lean that convinced me to go on, in 1949 Simmons starred with Stewart Granger in Adam and Evelyne. In 1950 she was voted the fourth most popular star in Britain, in 1951 Rank sold her contract to Howard Hughes, who then owned the RKO Pictures. In 1950 she married Stewart Granger, with whom she appeared in films. She made four films for Hughes, including Angel Face, directed by Otto Preminger, according to David Thomson if she had made only one film – Angel Face – she might now be spoken of with the awe given to Louise Brooks. A court case freed her from the contract with Hughes in 1952, in 1953 she starred alongside Spencer Tracy in The Actress, a film that was one of her personal favourites. In the opinion of film critic Philip French, Home Before Dark saw her give perhaps her finest performance as a housewife driven into a breakdown in Mervyn LeRoys psychodrama, by the 1970s Simmons turned her focus to stage and television acting. She toured the United States in Stephen Sondheims A Little Night Music, then took the show to London, and thus originated the role of Desirée Armfeldt in the West End. Performing in the show for three years, she said she never tired of Sondheims music, No matter how tired or off you felt, the music would just pick you up. She portrayed Fiona Fee Cleary, the Cleary family matriarch, in the 1983 miniseries The Thorn Birds, in 1985-86 she appeared in North and South, again playing the role of the family matriarch as Clarissa Main. She made a late appearance in the Star Trek, The Next Generation episode The Drumhead as a retired Starfleet admiral
32.
Gina Lollobrigida
–
Luigina Gina Lollobrigida is an Italian actress, photojournalist and sculptress. She was one of the highest profile European actresses of the 1950s and early 1960s, as her film career slowed, she established second careers as a photojournalist and sculptress. In the 1970s, she achieved a scoop by gaining access to Fidel Castro for an exclusive interview and she has continued as an active supporter of Italian and Italian American causes, particularly the National Italian American Foundation. In 2008, she received the NIAF Lifetime Achievement Award at the Foundations Anniversary Gala, in 2013, she sold her jewelry collection, and donated the nearly $5 million from the sale to benefit stem cell therapy research. Born Luigina Lollobrigida in Subiaco, Italy, she is one of four daughters of a furniture manufacturer and her sisters are Giuliana, Maria and Fernanda. In her youth, Lollobrigida did some modelling, and from that, at around this time, she began appearing in Italian films in minor roles. In 1945, at age 18, she played a part in the comedy Santarellina by Eduardo Scarpetta at the Teatro della Concordia of Monte Castello di Vibio, in 1947, Lollobrigida entered the Miss Italia pageant and came in third place, giving her national exposure. Her performance in Bread, Love and Dreams led to her receiving a BAFTA nomination, Lollobrigida also appeared in The Wayward Wife and in Woman of Rome. These were three of her most renowned Italian films, but she worked also in the French industry on such films as Fearless Little Soldier, Beauties of the Night and her first widely seen English language film was Beat the Devil, a film which was shot in Italy. In this film, directed by John Huston, she played the wife of Humphrey Bogart and she then took part in the Italian-American production Crossed Swords, co-starring with Errol Flynn. The film was directed by Jean Delannoy, in 1959, she appeared in the French movie The Law, alongside Yves Montand and Marcello Mastroianni, then, she co-starred with Frank Sinatra in Never So Few and with Yul Brynner in Solomon and Sheba. In the romantic comedy Come September, Lollobrigida had a role along with Rock Hudson, Sandra Dee. It was a film for which she won a Golden Globe Award and she appeared, also in 1961, with Ernest Borgnine and Anthony Franciosa in the drama Go Naked in the World. Jean Delannoy then directed her again, this time in Venere Imperiale and she co-starred with Stephen Boyd and she received Nastro dArgento and David di Donatello awards. She co-starred with Sean Connery in the thriller Woman of Straw, with Rock Hudson again in Strange Bedfellows and she starred in Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell with Shelley Winters, Phil Silvers, Peter Lawford and Telly Savalas. For this role, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, Lollobrigida co-starred with Bob Hope in the comedy The Private Navy of Sgt. OFarrell and also accompanied Hope on his visits to troops overseas. By the 1970s, her career had slowed down
33.
Al fresco dining
–
Al fresco dining or dining alfresco is eating outside. In temperate climates, al fresco dining is especially popular in the months when temperatures. It is a style of dining that is casual and often party-like in its atmosphere, the phrase al fresco is borrowed from Italian for in the cool, although it is not in current use in that language to refer to dining outside. Instead, Italians use the phrases fuori or allaperto, in Italian, the expression al fresco usually refers to spending time in jail. The Spanish meaning of al fresco is similar to Italian, and Spaniards use fuera or al aire libre to refer to outside dining
34.
Harcourt Williams
–
Ernest George Harcourt Williams was an English actor and director. After early experience in touring companies he established himself as an actor and director in the West End. From 1929 to 1934 he was director of The Old Vic theatre company, among the actors he recruited were John Gielgud, after directing some fifty plays he resigned the directorship of the Old Vic but continued to appear in the companys productions throughout the rest of his career. He appeared in thirty cinema and television roles during his later years, Williams was born in Croydon, London, the son of John Williams, a merchant. He was educated at Beckenham Abbey and Whitgift Grammar School, Croydon, after taking drama lessons he joined Frank Bensons touring company in 1897. He remained with Benson for five years, and made his London debut at the Lyceum in 1900 and he then worked for three other companies, including that of Ellen Terry, which he joined in 1903. In 1906 Williams made his American debut, with H B Irving, touring the US for a year, after returning to Britain he was in George Alexanders company before returning for another period with Irving. He married the actress Jean Sterling Mackinlay in 1908 and their son John Sterling became a well-known pianist. One of Williamss most notable parts of this period was General Lee in John Drinkwaters Abraham Lincoln in 1919, in 1922, in Mary Stuart by Drinkwater, he was exquisitely repulsive as Darnley. In a third historical drama by the author he was John Hampden in Oliver Cromwell at His Majestys in 1923. In 1923 he directed G K Chestertons play Magic at the Everyman Theatre, in 1926 he appeared in John Barrymores production of Hamlet at the Haymarket Theatre, as the Player King. In 1929, when he was forty-nine, Lilian Baylis appointed Williams as the new director of her Old Vic theatre company and he was responsible for engaging first John Gielgud and then Ralph Richardson to join the Old Vic as leading man. Over the next four years Williams directed about fifty plays for the company and he expanded the Old Vics traditional repertoire to include modern works by Bernard Shaw and others. … But behind the eccentric façade was a fanatical enthusiast for the theatre, … Williams was an imaginative producer, with a great feel for Shakespeares poetry, and a desire to introduce a more psychological interpretation of character. He was also a man with a mission, to get rid of the mannered Shakespearean voice, to break down the style of verse-speaking which made productions over-long. … Scene changes, which held up the action, would be swift. Above all, the text would be inviolate and he appeared in thirty film and television roles between 1944 and 1956. Williams celebrated his jubilee as an actor while appearing in a long-running production of Shaws You Never Can Tell described by The Times as the liveliest show in town
35.
Margaret Rawlings
–
Margaret Rawlings, Lady Barlow was an English stage actress, born in Osaka, Japan, daughter of the Rev. George William Rawlings and his wife Lilian Rawlings. She was educated at Oxford High School and Lady Margaret Hall and she first married Gabriel Toyne and then Sir Robert Barlow who pre-deceased her. She was a co-founder of Equity, serving as a Council member for 30 years and was twice appointed Vice President, in 1973–74, while still at Oxford, Rawlings appeared at the Little Theatre with John Masefields company. She made her London stage debut on 22 January 1928 with the Venturers company as Louise in Jordan at the Strand Theatre, then toured as Gwen in The Fanatics, railton Hands of the Ripper - Madame Bullard Follow Me
36.
Lady-in-waiting
–
A lady-in-waiting or Court Lady is a female personal assistant at a court, royal or feudal, attending on a royal woman or a high-ranking noblewoman. Historically, in Europe, a lady-in-waiting was often a noblewoman from a family in good society, although she may or may not have received compensation for the service she rendered, a lady-in-waiting was considered more of a companion to her mistress than a servant. In courts where polygamy was practiced, a lady was formally available to the monarch for sexual services. Lady-in-waiting or court lady is often a term for women whose relative rank, title. The development of the office of lady-in-waiting in Europe is connected to that of the development of a royal court, in the late 12th-century, the queens of France are confirmed to have had their own household, and noblewomen are mentioned as ladies-in-waiting. A number of tribes and cultural areas in the African continent, within certain traditional states of the Bini and Yoruba peoples in Nigeria, the queen mothers and high priestesses were considered ritually male due to their social eminence. Due to this fact, they were often attended on by women who belonged to their harems in much the way as their actually male counterparts were served by women who belonged to theirs. This resulted in a mix of Burgundian and Spanish customs when the Austrian court model was created, the first rank of the female courtiers was the Obersthofmeisterin, who was second in rank after the empress herself, and responsible for all the female courtiers. Second rank belonged to the ayas, essentially governesses of the imperial children, the rest of the female noble courtiers consisted of the Hoffräulein, unmarried females from the nobility who normally served temporarily until marriage. The Hoffräulein could sometimes be promoted to Kammerfräulein, the Austrian court model was the role model for the princely courts in Germany. The German court model in turn became the model of the early modern Scandinavian courts of Denmark. The Kingdom of Belgium was founded in 1830, after which a court was founded. The ladies-in waiting have historically been chosen by the Queen herself from among the Catholic noble houses of Belgium, the chief functions at court were undertaken by members of the higher nobility, involving much contact with the royal ladies. Belgian princesses were assigned a lady upon their 18th birthday, princess Clementine was given a Dame by her father, a symbolic act of adulthood. When the Queen entertains, the ladies welcome guests and assist the hostess in sustaining conversation and this system has formally remained roughly the same. However, in practice, many offices have since then left vacant. For example, in recent times, Maids of Honour have only appointed for coronations. The duties of ladies-in-waiting at the Tudor court were to act as royal companions, Tudor queens often had wide personal latitude in selection of their ladies-in-waiting
37.
Tullio Carminati
–
Tullio Carminati was an Italian actor noted for roles in The Cardinal, One Night of Love, Music in the Air and El Cid. He also appeared in the movie Roman Holiday, at the age of 14, he toured America with his own company. He made his debut in Italy, and was discovered by Joseph Schenck. He also appeared on the British screen, some films were Paris Love Song, Lets Live Tonight, London Melody and Sunset in Vienna
38.
Paolo Carlini
–
Paolo Carlini was an Italian stage, television and film actor. He appeared in 45 films between 1940 and 1979, born in SantArcangelo di Romagna, Carlini followed the acting courses held by actress Teresa Franchini and debuted at very young age on stage. He is regarded as one of the stars of Italian television miniseries. He is also known for his association with actress Lea Padovani. Aside from his film career, Carlini attained notoriety as the rumoured partner of Giovanni Montini, Archbishop of Milan
39.
Paola Borboni
–
Paola Borboni was an Italian film actress whose career spanned nine decades of cinema. She also made a contribution to theatre. She entered film in 1916 in the silent picture Jacobo Ortis directed by Giuseppe Sterni, appearing in several silent films before 1921 she was absent from cinema for some 14 years during which time she made numerous stage appearances. She gained notoriety in 1925 when she appeared in a show as a mermaid exposing her breasts which she saw as natural in the role and she returned to the silver screen in 1936 in the Mario Mattoli film L Uomo che sorride. She died of a stroke aged 95 on 9 April 1995, paola Borboni at the Internet Movie Database
40.
Laura Solari
–
Laura Camaur, known by the stage name Laura Solari, was an Italian film actress. Laura Camaur was born on 55 January 1913, in Trieste and she was the daughter of sculptor and artist Antonio Camaur and his wife, Maria Taucer. In addition to being prominent in Triestine art and intellectual circles, Antonio Camaur was a prominent Irredentist, in late 1915, Camaur went into exile because of his pro-Italian sympathies, and Laura lived in Northern Italy until her familys return to Trieste in 1919. After World War I, Laura came under the tutelage of the Taucer family who sent her to be educated in Vienna, in 1930, Laura married an older Hungarian army officer, Oscar Szemere, but the couple separated after his business failed. They were divorced in Reno, Nevada, in 1940, Laura later married Arthur Roper Caldbeck, a colonel in the British army. Laura was spotted by a talent scout, who was taken by her beauty and she was recruited as a motion picture actress by the fledging Italian film industry and acquired the stage name Laura Solari. Beginning with Regina della Scala in 1936, she appeared in 30 films between 1936 and 1969, Solari participated in the legitimate stage in Triestes Nuovo Teatro. She also appeared on television in such as the 1955 drama television series Police Call. Laura retired in 1969 and moved to Switzerland and she died in Bellinzona, Ticino, Switzerland on 13 September 1983, survived by three sons
41.
Piazza della Rotonda
–
The Piazza della Rotonda is a piazza in Rome, Italy, on the south side of which is located the Pantheon. The square gets its name from the Pantheons informal title as the church of Santa Maria Rotonda. Although the Pantheon has stood from antiquity, the area in front of it had over the centuries become choked with a maze of sheds and these medieval accretions were cleared by order of Pope Eugenius IV and the piazza was laid out and paved. It took its name from the Pantheon, which had converted in the 7th century AD into a Christian church dedicated to St. Mary. The piazza is roughly rectangular, approximately 60 meters north to south and 40 meters east to west, with a fountain and obelisk in the center and the Pantheon on the south side. During the 19th century, the piazza was especially noted for its market of bird-sellers, who brought their cages with parrots, nightingales, owls. An 1879 Baedeker guidebook noted that the scene of the piazza affords the stranger opportunities of observing the characteristics of the peasantry. Its present appearance was threatened with destruction under the French administration of 1809-1814, the short life of French rule in Rome meant that the scheme never went ahead but it re-emerged in an altered form in the urban plan of 1873. This scheme proposed that the piazza should be enlarged and made into the focus of new boulevards converging on it from the direction of Piazza Borghese and Largo Magnanapoli. In the event, this did not happen, though several structures adjoining the end of the square. In the center of the piazza is a fountain, the Fontana del Pantheon, the fountain was constructed by Giacomo Della Porta under Pope Gregory XIII in 1575, and the obelisk was added to it in 1711 under Pope Clement XI. The Aqua Virgo, one of the aqueducts that supplied ancient Rome with drinking water, served the area of the Campus Martius. It was reconstructed under Pope Nicholas V and consecrated in 1453 as the Acqua Vergine, Della Porta designed the fountain, and Leonardo Sormani executed it. Due to the slope of the piazza, the fountain is approached by five steps on the south side, an engraving by Giovanni Battista Falda records the work that had been completed at the time of Alexanders death in 1667. In 1711, the fountain was given its current appearance when Pope Clement XI had the Late Baroque sculptor Filippo Barigioni top it with a 20-foot red marble Egyptian obelisk and it was rediscovered in 1374 underneath the apse of the nearby Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. In the mid-15th century, the obelisk had been erected in the small Piazza di San Macuto some 200 meters east of the Pantheon and it is still called the Obelisco Macutèo after its previous location. List of fountains in Rome List of obelisks in Rome
42.
Hollywood Blacklist
–
Artists were barred from work on the basis of their alleged membership in or sympathy with the Communist Party USA or refusal to assist investigations into the partys activities. On June 22,1950, a pamphlet entitled Red Channels was published, focused on the field of broadcasting, it identified 151 entertainment industry professionals in the context of Red Fascists and their sympathizers. Soon, most of those named, along with a host of artists, were barred from employment in most of the entertainment field. A number of those blacklisted, however, were barred from work in their professions for years afterward. The Hollywood blacklist was rooted in events of the 1930s and the early 1940s, encompassing the height of the Great Depression, two major film industry strikes during the 1930s increased tensions between the Hollywood producers and the unions, particularly the Screen Writers Guild. The American Communist Party lost substantial support after the Moscow show trials of 1936–38, the U. S. government began turning its attention to the possible links between Hollywood and the party during this period. Under then chairman Martin Dies, Jr. the House Un-American Activities Committee released a report in 1938 claiming that communism was pervasive in Hollywood. Two years later, Dies privately took testimony from a former Communist Party member, John L. Leech, Dies said he would clear all those who cooperated by meeting with him in what he called executive session. Within two weeks of the grand jury leak, all those on the list except for actress Jean Muir had met with the HUAC chairman, Dies cleared everyone except actor Lionel Stander, who was fired by the movie studio, Republic Pictures, where he was contracted. In 1941, producer Walt Disney took out an ad in Variety, according to historians Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, In actuality, the strike had resulted from Disneys overbearing paternalism, high-handedness, and insensitivity. Inspired by Disney, California State Senator Jack Tenney, chairman of the state legislatures Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, the probe fell flat, and was mocked in several Variety headlines. The subsequent wartime alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union brought the American Communist Party newfound credibility, during the war, membership in the party reached a peak of 50,000. As World War II drew to a close, perceptions changed again, with communism increasingly becoming a focus of American fears and hatred. In 1945, Gerald L. K. Smith, founder of the neofascist America First Party, the greatest hotbed of subversive activities in the United States. Rankin promised, Were on the trail of the tarantula now, reports of Soviet repression in Eastern and Central Europe in the wars aftermath added more fuel to what became known as the Second Red Scare. Its counsel revolved around a list of ideological prohibitions, such as Dont smear the free-enterprise system, on July 29,1946, William R. Wilkerson, publisher and founder of The Hollywood Reporter, published a TradeView column entitled A Vote For Joe Stalin. In August and September 1946, Wilkerson published other columns containing names of numerous purported Communists and they became known as Billys List and Billys Blacklist. It had declared its intention to investigate whether Communist agents and sympathizers had been planting propaganda in U. S. films, the hearings opened with appearances by Walt Disney and Ronald Reagan, then president of the Screen Actors Guild
