1.
Catherine Deneuve
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Catherine Deneuve is a French actress as well as an occasional singer, model and producer. She gained recognition for her portrayal of aloof, mysterious beauties for various directors, including Luis Buñuel, Francois Truffaut, in 1985, she succeeded Mireille Mathieu as the official face of Marianne, Frances national symbol of liberty. A 14-time César Award nominee, she won for her performances in Truffauts The Last Metro and she is also noted for her support for a variety of liberal causes. She was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress for Belle de Jour, and she also won the 1998 Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for Place Vendôme. Other films include Scene of the Crime, My Favourite Season,8 Women and her English-language films include The April Fools, Hustle, The Hunger and Dancer in the Dark. In 2015, she starred in The Brand New Testament and Standing Tall, Deneuve was born Catherine Fabienne Dorléac in Paris, France, the daughter of French stage actors Maurice Dorléac and Renée Simonot. Deneuve was her mothers name, which she chose for her stage name. Her work for Buñuel would be her most famous, further prominent films from this early time in her career included Jean-Paul Rappeneaus A Matter of Resistance, and Demys musical Les Demoiselles de Rochefort. Her starring roles at the time were featured in films as A Slightly Pregnant Man with Marcello Mastroianni. She made her film as a producer in 1988, Drôle dendroit pour une rencontre. In 1997, Deneuve was the protagonist in the video for the song NOubliez Jamais sung by Joe Cocker. In 1998 she won acclaim and the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival for her performance in Place Vendôme. In the late 1990s, Deneuve continued to appear in a number of films such as 1999s five films Est-Ouest, Le temps retrouvé, Pola X, Belle maman. In 2000, Deneuves part in Lars von Triers musical drama Dancer in the Dark alongside Icelandic singer Björk was subject to critical scrutiny. The film was selected for the Palme dOr at the Cannes Film Festival and she made another foray into Hollywood the following year, starring in The Musketeer for Peter Hyams. In 2002, she shared the Silver Bear Award for Best Ensemble Cast at the Berlin International Film Festival for her performance in 8 Women. In 2005, Deneuve published her diary A lombre de moi-meme, in it she writes about her experiences shooting the films Indochine and she also provided the voice role of Marjane Satrapis mother in Satrapis animated autobiographical film Persepolis, based on the graphic novel of the same name. In 2008, she appeared in her 100th film, Un conte de Noël, during an interview at the Cannes Film Festival with Ali Naderzad, Deneuve was asked which was her own favorite film
2.
Gene Kelly
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Eugene Curran Gene Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director, producer and choreographer. He was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style, his looks. Best known today for his performances in such as An American in Paris, Anchors Aweigh. He starred in musical films throughout the 1940s, including For Me and My Gal, Du Barry Was a Lady, Thousands Cheer, The Three Musketeers. In his later career, he starred in two films outside the genre, Inherit the Wind and What a Way to Go. Throughout his career, he directed films, most notably the 1969 film Hello. His many innovations transformed the Hollywood musical and he is credited with almost single-handedly making the ballet form commercially acceptable to film audiences, Kelly received an Academy Honorary Award in 1952 for his career achievements. He later received lifetime achievement awards in the Kennedy Center Honors, in 1999, the American Film Institute also numbered him 15th in their Greatest Male Stars of Classic Hollywood cinema list. Kelly was born in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh and he was the third son of James Patrick Joseph Kelly, a phonograph salesman, and his wife Harriet Catherine Curran. His father was born in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, to an Irish-Canadian family and his maternal grandfather was an immigrant from Derry, Ireland, and his maternal grandmother was of German ancestry. When he was eight, Kellys mother enrolled him and his brother James in dance classes and they both rebelled, as recalled by Kelly, We didnt like it much and were continually involved in fistfights with the neighborhood boys who called us sissies. I didnt dance again until I was fifteen, at one time his childhood dream was to play shortstop for the hometown Pittsburgh Pirates. By the time he decided to dance, he was an accomplished sportsman and he attended St. Raphael Elementary School in the Morningside neighborhood of Pittsburgh and graduated from Peabody High School at age sixteen. He entered Pennsylvania State College as a major, but the 1929 crash forced him to work to help his family. He created dance routines with his younger brother Fred to earn money in local talent contests. They also performed in local nightclubs, in 1931, Kelly enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh to study economics, joining the Phi Kappa Theta fraternity. He became involved in the universitys Cap and Gown Club, which staged original musical productions, after graduating in 1933, he continued to be active with the Cap and Gown Club, serving as the director from 1934 to 1938. Kelly was admitted to the University of Pittsburgh Law School and his family opened a dance studio in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh
3.
Warner Bros.
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Entertainment Inc. – colloquially known as Warner Bros. or Warner Bros. It is one of the Big Six major American film studios, Warner Bros. is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America. The companys name originated from the four founding Warner brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam, Jack, the youngest, was born in London, Ontario. The three elder brothers began in the theater business, having acquired a movie projector with which they showed films in the mining towns of Pennsylvania. In the beginning, Sam and Albert Warner invested $150 to present Life of an American Fireman and they opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania, in 1903. When the original building was in danger of being demolished, the modern Warner Bros. called the current building owners, the owners noted people across the country had asked them to protect it for its historical significance. In 1904, the Warners founded the Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Amusement & Supply Company, in 1912, Harry Warner hired an auditor named Paul Ashley Chase. By the time of World War I they had begun producing films, in 1918 they opened the first Warner Bros. studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Sam and Jack produced the pictures, while Harry and Albert, along with their auditor and now controller Chase, handled finance and distribution in New York City. During World War I their first nationally syndicated film, My Four Years in Germany, on April 4,1923, with help from money loaned to Harry by his banker Motley Flint, they formally incorporated as Warner Brothers Pictures, Incorporated. The first important deal was the acquisition of the rights to Avery Hopwoods 1919 Broadway play, The Gold Diggers, however, Rin Tin Tin, a dog brought from France after World War I by an American soldier, established their reputation. Rin Tin Tin debuted in the feature Where the North Begins, the movie was so successful that Jack signed the dog to star in more films for $1,000 per week. Rin Tin Tin became the top star. Jack nicknamed him The Mortgage Lifter and the success boosted Darryl F. Zanucks career, Zanuck eventually became a top producer and between 1928 and 1933 served as Jacks right-hand man and executive producer, with responsibilities including day-to-day film production. More success came after Ernst Lubitsch was hired as head director, lubitschs film The Marriage Circle was the studios most successful film of 1924, and was on The New York Times best list for that year. Despite the success of Rin Tin Tin and Lubitsch, Warners remained a lesser studio, Sam and Jack decided to offer Broadway actor John Barrymore the lead role in Beau Brummel. The film was so successful that Harry signed Barrymore to a contract, like The Marriage Circle. By the end of 1924, Warner Bros. was arguably Hollywoods most successful independent studio, as the studio prospered, it gained backing from Wall Street, and in 1924 Goldman Sachs arranged a major loan
4.
Rochefort, Charente-Maritime
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Rochefort is a commune in southwestern France, a port on the Charente estuary. It is a sub-prefecture of the Charente-Maritime department, in December 1665, Rochefort was chosen by Jean-Baptiste Colbert as a place of refuge, defense and supply for the French Navy. The Arsenal de Rochefort served as a base and dockyard until it closed in 1926. In September 1757, Rochefort was the target of an ambitious British raid during the Seven Years War, another infrastructure of early Rochefort from 1766 was its bagne, a high-security penal colony involving hard labor. Bagnes were then common fixtures in military harbors and naval bases, such as Toulon or Brest, Rochefort is a notable example of 17th-century ville nouvelle or new town, which means its design and building resulted from a political decree. The reason for building Rochefort was to an extent that royal power could hardly depend on rebellious Protestant La Rochelle. Well into the 20th century, Rochefort remained primarily a garrison town, the tourist industry, which had long existed due to the towns spa, gained emphasis in the 1990s. Charles Rigault de Genouilly, French admiral, conqueror of Vietnam and his house has been turned into a museum Jean-Joseph Sanfourche was a French artist and sculptor. Amédée William Merlaud-Ponty, Governor General of French West Africa, pauline Réage, pseudonym of Anne Desclos, author Maurice Merleau-Ponty, philosopher Pierre Salviac, is a French journalist, former commentator of rugby-match and since then polemicist. Loïc Le Marrec French volleyball coach He has a total of 140 teams in France
5.
Musical film
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The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline. The musical film was a development of the stage musical after the emergence of sound film technology. Typically, the biggest difference between film and stage musicals is the use of background scenery and locations that would be impractical in a theater. Musical films characteristically contain elements reminiscent of theater, performers often treat their song, in a sense, the viewer becomes the diegetic audience, as the performer looks directly into the camera and performs to it. The 1930s through the early 1950s are considered to be the age of the musical film. Musical short films were made by Lee de Forest in 1923–24, beginning in 1926, thousands of Vitaphone shorts were made, many featuring bands, vocalists and dancers. The Jazz Singer, released in 1927 by Warner Brothers, was the first to include a track including non-diegetic music and diegetic music. This feature-length film was also a musical, featuring Al Jolson singing Dirty Hands, Dirty Face, Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Blue Skies and My Mammy. Historian Scott Eyman wrote, As the film ended and applause grew with the houselights and she saw terror in all their faces, she said, as if they knew that the game they had been playing for years was finally over. Still, only isolated sequences featured live sound, most of the film had only a musical score. In 1928, Warner Brothers followed this up with another Jolson part-talkie, The Singing Fool, theaters scrambled to install the new sound equipment and to hire Broadway composers to write musicals for the screen. The first all-talking feature, Lights of New York, included a sequence in a night club. The enthusiasm of audiences was so great that in less than an all the major studios were making sound pictures exclusively. The Broadway Melody had a plot about two sisters competing for a charming song-and-dance man. Advertised by MGM as the first All-Talking, All-Singing, All-Dancing feature film, it was a hit, there was a rush by the studios to hire talent from the stage to star in lavishly filmed versions of Broadway hits. The Love Parade starred Maurice Chevalier and newcomer Jeanette MacDonald, written by Broadway veteran Guy Bolton, Warner Brothers produced the first screen operetta, The Desert Song in 1929. They spared no expense and photographed a large percentage of the film in Technicolor and this was followed by the first all-color, all-talking musical feature which was entitled On with the Show
6.
Danielle Darrieux
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Danielle Yvonne Marie Antoinette Darrieux is a French actress and singer, who has appeared in more than 110 films since 1931. She is one of Frances great movie stars and her career is among the longest in film history. Darrieux was born in Bordeaux, France during World War I to a physician who was serving in the French Army and her father died when she was seven years old. Raised in Paris, she studied the cello at the Conservatoire de Musique, at 13, she won a part in the musical film Le Bal. Her beauty combined with her singing and dancing ability led to other offers. In 1935, Darrieux married director/screenwriter Henri Decoin, who encouraged her to try Hollywood and she signed with Universal Studios to star in The Rage of Paris opposite Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Afterwards, she elected to return to Paris. Under the German occupation of France during World War II, she continued to perform, however, it is reported that her brother had been threatened with deportation by Alfred Greven, the manager of the German run film production company in occupied France, Continental. She got a divorce and then fell in love with Porfirio Rubirosa and his anti-Nazi opinions resulted in his forced residence in Germany. In exchange for Rubirosas freedom, Darrieux agreed to make a trip in Berlin. The couple lived in Switzerland until the end of the war and she married scriptwriter Georges Mitsikidès in 1948, and they lived together until his death in 1991. She gave a performance in the 1951 MGM musical, Rich, Young. Joseph L. Mankiewicz lured her back to Hollywood to star in 5 Fingers opposite James Mason, upon returning to France, she appeared in Max Ophüls The Earrings of Madame de. Opposite Charles Boyer, and The Red and the Black opposite Gérard Philippe, the next year she starred in Lady Chatterleys Lover, whose theme of uninhibited sexuality led to its being proscribed by Catholic censors in the United States. During the late 1950s, she played a role in her last American film to date, United Artists epic Alexander the Great starring Richard Burton. In 1961 she went to England at the request of director Lewis Gilbert to star in The Greengage Summer opposite Kenneth More, in 1963, she starred in the romantic comedy La Robe Mauve de Valentine at the Chatelet Theatre in Paris. The play was adapted from the novel by Françoise Sagan, then, in 1966, she played a memorable supporting role in Jacques Demys musical The Young Girls of Rochefort. She is notable for being the principal actor in any of Demys film-musicals to sing her own songs. During the 1960s she also was a concert singer, in 1970, Darrieux replaced Katharine Hepburn in the Broadway musical Coco, based on the life of Coco Chanel, but the play, essentially a showcase for Hepburn, soon folded without her
7.
Michel Legrand
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Michel Legrand is a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and jazz pianist. Legrand is a composer, having written over 200 film and television scores. He is best known for his haunting, jazz-tinged film music. His celebrated scores for the films of French New Wave director Jacques Demy, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort, for The Thomas Crown Affair and its title song, The Windmills of Your Mind, Legrand won his first Oscar. Legrand was born in the Bécon les Bruyères district of Courbevoie and his father Raymond Legrand was a conductor and composer renowned for hits such as Irma la douce, and his mother was Marcelle Der Mikaëlian, who married Legrand Senior in 1929. His maternal grandfather was of Armenian descent and considered a member of the bourgeoisie, Legrand has composed more than two hundred film and television scores and several musicals and has made well over a hundred albums. He has won three Oscars and five Grammys and has been nominated for an Emmy and he was 22 when his first album, I Love Paris, became one of the best-selling instrumental albums ever released. He is a jazz and classical pianist and an accomplished arranger. Legrand graduated with top honors as both a composer and a pianist, Legrand has also contributed significant work in jazz. While on a visit to the U. S, the following year, back in Paris with bassist Guy Pedersen and percussionist Gus Wallez, he recorded an album of Paris-themed songs arranged for jazz piano trio, titled Paris Jazz Piano. Nearly a decade later he recorded At Shellys Manne-Hole, a trio session with bassist Ray Brown and drummer Shelly Manne. Legrand also provided an odd scat vocal on My Funny Valentine, Not as well received as his earlier work in the field of jazz was a 1994 album for LaserLight entitled Michel Plays Legrand. More recently, in 2002, he recorded a jazz piano album reworking 14 of his classic songs. His jazz piano style is virtuosic and eclectic, drawing upon such influences as Art Tatum, Erroll Garner, Oscar Peterson, in 1966, he made the arrangements of the international song Cest si bon by Henri Betti and André Hornez for the Barbra Streisand album Color Me Barbra. In 1948, his father Raymond Legrand had conducted the orchestra for the recording of song by Les Soeurs Étienne. A number of his songs, including What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life, watch What Happens, The Summer Knows, and You Must Believe in Spring, have become jazz standards covered frequently by other artists. During various periods of work, Legrand became a conductor for orchestras in St. Petersburg, Florida, Vancouver, Montreal, Atlanta, Pittsburgh. Legrand has also recorded classical piano pieces by Erik Satie and American composers such as Amy Beach, George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, John Cage and he is a prolific recorder of jazz, popular and classical music albums, having released over one hundred
8.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
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The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a 1964 French/German romantic musical film directed by Jacques Demy, starring Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo. The music was written by Michel Legrand, the film dialogue is all sung as recitative, including casual conversation. It was styled full of color, the film was very successful in France with a total of 1,274,958 admissions. In the late 1950s Madame Emery and her beautiful 17-year-old daughter Geneviève sell umbrellas at their tiny boutique in the town of Cherbourg in Normandy. Guy, a young auto mechanic, lives with and cares for his sickly aunt. Guy and Geneviève are deeply in love, they want to get married, Madeleine is a quiet young caregiver who looks after Guys aunt. She has feelings for Guy, but has not expressed this, Guy is drafted and must leave to serve as a soldier in the Algerian War. The night before Guy leaves, he and Geneviève pledge their undying love, after a couple of months Geneviève learns she is pregnant. She writes to Guy, but she abandoned when Guy writes back infrequently. Her mother says that this shows Guy has forgotten her, Geneviève is courted by Roland Cassard, a quiet, kind, young Parisian jeweler, who is very wealthy. He wants to marry her even after learning that she is pregnant by another man, Genevièves mother repeatedly tells her daughter to be sensible and choose a secure future with Cassard. Geneviève finally decides to accept him, and they are married in a great cathedral and she appears ambivalent about her decision. Guy returns from the war with a limp from an injury. He learns that the store has been sold, and that Geneviève married. As a veteran, Guy has difficulty settling in and he argues with his boss, quits his job, and goes to drink in a seedy port bar. He spends the night with a prostitute named Jenny. When he returns to his apartment, he finds Madeleine, who tells him that his godmother, Guy sees that Madeleine loves him, and he cleans up his life with her encouragement. With an inheritance from his aunt, he finances a new American-style Esso gas station and he asks Madeleine to marry him, and she accepts, although wondering if he is just on the rebound from his lost Geneviève
9.
Jacques Demy
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Jacques Demy was a French director and screenwriter. He appeared in the wake of the French New Wave alongside contemporaries like Jean-Luc Godard, Demys films are well known for their sumptuous look, drawing on Hollywood musicals, fairytales, jazz, and opera. His films are also distinguishable by their overlapping continuity, lush musical scores and themes like teenaged love, labor rights, incest, and the intersection between dreams and reality. After working with the animator Paul Grimault and the filmmaker Georges Rouquier, Demy directed his first feature film, Lola, in 1961, the Demy universe here emerges full-fledged. La Baie des Anges, starring Jeanne Moreau, took the theme of fate further, Demy is best known for his original musical, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, with a score by Legrand. Although the subversion of established genres was a typically New Wave obsession, the whimsical concept of singing all the dialogue sets the tone for this tragedy of the everyday. The young man, Roland Cassard, from Lola reappears here, such reappearances are typical of Demys work. Demys subsequent films never quite captured audience and critical acclaim the way that Les Parapluies had, although he continued to make ambitious and original dramas and musicals. It has stunning color photography, some of the best French songs of the period, peau dÂne is a visually extravagant musical interpretation of a classic French fairytale which highlights the tales incestuous overtones, starring Deneuve, Jean Marais, and Delphine Seyrig. Lévénement le plus important depuis que lhomme a marché sur la lune is a look back at the pressures of second-wave feminism in France. After years of neglect, Demys strengths have been recognized, Demy himself appears in the film in the opening and closing sequences, and at several points throughout. He had two children with Varda, Rosalie Varda-Demy, who was the daughter of Antoine Bourseiller. Jacques Demy died from complications of AIDS on 27 October 1990 at age 59 and was interred in the Montparnasse Cemetery in Montparnasse
10.
Jacques Perrin
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Jacques Perrin is a French actor and filmmaker. He is occasionally credited as Jacques Simonet, Simonet was his fathers name and Perrin his mothers. His father, Alexandre Simonet, was a theatre director, Perrin was trained as an actor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur dArt Dramatique. He was given his first juvenile film roles by Italian director Valerio Zurlini and he also gave over 400 performances of LAnnée du bac on the Paris stage. He played opposite Claudia Cardinale in the romantic comedy La Ragazza con la valigia and played the brother in Family Diary with Marcello Mastroianni. He was also the adult Salvatore in the international hit Cinema Paradiso and he won two Best Actor awards at the Venice Film Festival in 1966 for the Italian film Almost a Man and the Spanish film The Search. At 27, he created a studio and produced and acted in Z, directed by Costa Gavras and starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Yves Montand, Z received an Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1969. He collaborated with Costa Gavras again in État de Siège in 1973, both films had political themes, and Perrin continued this trend with a documentary on the Algerian uprising and a film on the Chilean presidency of Salvador Allende. In 1973 Perrin produced - and starred alongside Claude Jade as his love interest - the first film of Benoît Lamy, the film acclaimed 14 international awards. Perrin produced another Oscar-winning film in 1976, La Victoire en chantant by director Jean-Jacques Annaud, in 1977, he embarked on Le Désert des Tartares, again starring Trintignant. The cast included such actors as Max von Sydow, but was not very successful. His recent successes have been the animal films Microcosmos and Le Peuple Migrateur and he also played the role of the old Pierre Morhange, narrator of the very internationally successful film The Chorus, that he also produced. The young Pépinot was played by his younger son Maxence and he was made Knight of the Ordre national du Mérite in 1985, promoted Officer in 1997 and promoted Commander in 2003. He was made Knight of the Légion dhonneur in 1990 and promoted Officer in 2007 and he has three sons, Mathieu, born 1975, Maxence, born 1995, and Lancelot, born 2000. Jacques Perrin at the Internet Movie Database
