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Ronald J. Tomaino, Jr.

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Ronald J. Tomaino, Jr. is an award winning media specialist, filmmaker and documentarian who continues to work in both film and television. During his fifteen year career, Ronald has been a director of live newscasts (News 12 New Jersey, KOAT, KRQE News 13) while producing and editing productions for high-profile clients (MTV, VH1, Discovery/Warner Brothers, Steven Michael Quezada). Ronald has been recognized several times for his work including a 2015 New York Emmy Award (“Choices & Chances: NJ Heroin Epidemic”), 2022 Best Documentary Short Award at Kevin Smith’s SModcastle Film Festival (“Apartment 38”) and 2023 Bronze Award for Best New Mexico Short at Mindfield Film Festival ("Hallelujah"). Ronald also produces and directs short films, most notably "Stiff Love" (2014), "Finding Fernando" (2018) and "Mother From Hell" (2020).
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Perry Lopez

Biography

​From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.   Perry Lopez (July 22, 1929 - February 14, 2008) was an American film and television actor. His acting career lasted over 40 years before his death in 2008. Lopez was born in New York City. Lopez began his acting career on in theater, based in New York. He was signed to a contract at Warner Bros. Studios in 1955. Lopez appeared in a number of B-movies and Westerns early on in his career, including the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Young Guns and The Lone Ranger. Lopez was, perhaps, best known as Lieutenant Lou Escobar in the 1974 film Chinatown, which he starred in opposite Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. He reprised the role sixteen years later (with Escobar promoted to Captain) in The Two Jakes in 1990. Among his many television appearances, one of his more well-known roles is that of Esteban Rodriguez in the classic Star Trek episode "Shore Leave". Lopez also appeared in an episode of Bonanza, as the cold-blooded outlaw Duke Miller, who kills a man over being first in line to get a haircut. He was Joaquín Castañeda, a mestizo that fought to free his people, on El Zorro, starring Guy Williams. Lopez also appeared in episode 14, "Night Of The Long Knives" originally airing December 16, 1966 of The Time Tunnel television series, in the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea -episode "Savage Jungle" and played Pvt. Petuko in Kelly's Heroes (1970). Lopez died of lung cancer in at The Rehabilitation Centre of Beverly Hills in Beverly Hills, California at age 78. He was survived by several nieces and nephews. Description above from the Wikipedia article   licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Christopher McQuarrie

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Christopher McQuarrie (born October 25, 1968) is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer. He received the BAFTA Award, Independent Spirit Award, and Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the neo-noir mystery film The Usual Suspects (1995). He made his directorial debut with the crime thriller film The Way of the Gun (2000).  McQuarrie is a frequent collaborator with Tom Cruise, having written and directed the action films Jack Reacher (2012), as well as four instalments of the Mission: Impossible film series: Rogue Nation (2015), Fallout (2018), Dead Reckoning (2023), and The Final Reckoning (2025). He was also a part of the writing and/or producing team on the Cruise films Valkyrie (2008), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016), The Mummy (2017), and Top Gun: Maverick (2022), the last of which received Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture. Description above from the Wikipedia article about Christopher McQuarrie, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Claude Barzotti

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Claude Barzotti (born Francesco Barzotti; 23 July 1953 – 24 June 2023) was a Belgian singer of Italian origin who was prominent during the 1980s. Barzotti recorded several songs which each sold hundreds of thousands of copies. He first achieved success in 1983 with his song Le Rital. Barzotti was born in Châtelineau, Belgium, but raised in Italy. Barzotti moved back to Belgium at the age of 18 and settled in the town of Court-Saint-Étienne. Barzotti began his musical career in France in 1981 with his song Madame, which sold 400,000 copies. However, later in the year, Barzotti found widespread success with his song Le Rital, which propelled him to household-name status. Rital is a derogatory French slang term used to refer to people of Italian descent. The song deals with Barzotti's experiences as a young child and how "he would have preferred to be named Dupont" (a common French surname) but the song also deals with his pride concerning the term, exemplified in lines such as Je suis rital et je le reste, (I'm Italian and will so remain). Barzotti's career continued throughout the 1980s, but his last major successful song was Aime-moi (Love Me) in 1990, at which point many people believed his career was far from over. Although Barzotti took advantage of the wave of nostalgia which gripped France at the turn of the 21st century, he was unable to capture the musical prominence he had once held. Because of his distinctive voice and great successes in the French music industry, he is considered one of the most prominent French pop musicians of the 1980s. Barzotti's music was also popular in Québec, with songs such as Je ne t'écrirai plus (I Won't Write You Anymore), Prends bien soin d'elle (Take Good Care of Her), C'est moi qui pars (It's Me Who's Leaving), and J'ai les bleus (I Have the Blues). Barzotti's songs have also been featured in movies and DVDs in France. The movies in which his songs have been featured have sold more than five million copies. He also wrote the Belgian entry to the 1992 Eurovision Song Contest. Barzotti's best-of compilation was released in France in 2003, and he also recorded a more traditional Italian song, Vado Via. He released a new single, Jada, on 8 August 2007, the proceeds from which went to benefit children in poor countries who did not have access to education. His 2012 album C'est mon histoire debuted at No. 39 on the Canadian Albums Chart. Barzotti died on 24 June 2023, 29 days before his 70th birthday. Source: Article "Claude Barzotti" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
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Jarrett Michael Collins

Biography

Jarrett Michael Collins, born in Dayton, Ohio, was drawn to the arts early on, winning accolades as a young writer before exploring music and performance. Relocating to Detroit and later Atlanta, he pursued his musical passions while nurturing relationships. A friend's suggestion led him to professional acting training, unlocking new artistic dimensions and a deeper purpose. His dedication yielded roles in TV, music videos, and films, earning awards as a leading man. Co-creating "The BookingRoom ATL" acting class became his platform to support Atlanta's acting community. Jarrett's coaching endeavors echo his commitment to giving back. With aspirations in writing and directing, he remains driven and grounded in both his craft and community.
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Peteris Vilkaste

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Pēteris Vilkaste is a well-known actor and a worker of culture of Latvia, for the Professional actors of the association, and The Riga Latvian society member of the. After leaving school in 1975.in Pēteris Vilkaste goes in the ground, with a dream to become an actor, you take the people's kinoaktieru in the studio, as well as a complete Rīgas 3. For technical school. One of less than a year he worked in the cinema of 'Beach', parallel to the operating kinoaktieru in the studio, already in 1977. in perspective the establishment of the contest the order is accepted to work on the the actors of the State Puppet theatre. 1985.in vņš received the First prize for acting in the best debut of the Latvian Radio theatre (Alena By the characters of the novel "the Great Molns" fragments of the reading of the entry of the director of the Schengen Strelēvica,1985. Since the beginning of 2008.of Mr Vilkaste is dealing with the teaching practice is a lecturer in International applied psychology at university, training students in rhetoric and public address, business ethics. 2010. in the year he is a private, young people's theatre studies teacher and a leader.
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Mike Nichols

Biography

Mike Nichols (born Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky; November 6, 1931 – November 19, 2014) was a German-born American film and theatre director, producer, actor and comedian. He was noted for his ability to work across a range of genres and an aptitude for getting the best out of actors regardless of their acting experience. Nichols began his career in the 1950s with the comedy improvisational troupe, The Compass Players, predecessor of The Second City, in Chicago. He then teamed up with his improv partner, Elaine May, to form the comedy duo Nichols and May. Their live improv acts were a hit on Broadway resulting in three albums, with their debut album winning a Grammy Award. After Nichols and May disbanded their act in 1961, Nichols began directing plays. He soon earned a reputation as a skilled Broadway director with a flair for creating innovative productions and the ability to elicit polished performances from actors. His debut Broadway play was Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park in 1963, with Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley. He next directed Luv in 1964 and in 1965 directed another Neil Simon play, The Odd Couple. Nichols received a Tony Award for each of those plays. Nearly five decades later, he won his sixth Tony Award as best director with a revival of Death of a Salesman in 2012. During his career, he directed or produced over twenty-five Broadway plays. In 1966, Warner Brothers invited Nichols to direct his first film, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The groundbreaking and acclaimed film led critics to declare Nichols the "new Orson Welles". The film garnered 13 Academy Award nominations, winning five. It was also a box office hit and became the number 1 film of 1966. His next film was The Graduate in 1967, starring then unknown actor Dustin Hoffman, alongside Anne Bancroft and Katharine Ross. The film was another critical and financial success, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1967 and receiving seven Academy Award nominations, winning Nichols the Academy Award for Best Directing. Among the other films he directed were Catch-22 (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971), Silkwood (1983), Working Girl (1988), Wolf (1994), The Birdcage (1996), Closer (2004), and Charlie Wilson's War (2007). Along with an Academy Award, Nichols won a Grammy Award (the first for a comedian born outside the United States), four Emmy Awards and nine Tony Awards. He was also a three-time BAFTA Award winner. His other honors included the Lincoln Center Gala Tribute in 1999, the National Medal of Arts in 2001, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2003 and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2010. His films garnered a total of 42 Academy Award nominations and seven wins. Description above from the Wikipedia article Mike Nichols, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Denis Côté

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Denis Côté is an independent filmmaker and producer living in Quebec, of Brayon origin. His experimental films have been shown at major film festivals around the world. An uncompromising and prolific maverick who challenges audiences rather than offering them crystal clear, classically structured narratives, Côté has won acclaim and awards in Canada and internationally for his independent features and documentaries. Côté’s films are starkly minimalist, strangely poetic, dryly funny and thematically enigmatic. His deadpan style and marginalized characters have earned him an international reputation as one of Canada’s leading auteurs.
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Angelo Badalamenti

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Angelo Badalamenti (March 22, 1937 – December 11, 2022) was an American composer, best known for his work scoring films for director David Lynch, notably Blue Velvet, the Twin Peaks saga (1990–1992, 2017), The Straight Story and Mulholland Drive. Badalamenti received the 1990 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for his "Twin Peaks Theme", and had received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Soundtrack Awards and the Henry Mancini Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.
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Naomi Watts

Biography

Naomi Ellen Watts (born September 28, 1968) is a British actress. She has been nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Actress for her performances as a grief-stricken mother in Alejandro González Iñárritu's film 21 Grams (2003), and as Maria Bennett in the disaster film The Impossible (2012). After her family moved to Australia, she made her film debut there in the drama For Love Alone (1986) and then appeared in three television series, Hey Dad..! (1990), Brides of Christ (1991), and Home and Away (1991), and the film Flirting (1991). After moving to the United States, she initially struggled as an actress, taking roles in small-scale films until she starred in David Lynch's psychological thriller Mulholland Drive in 2001 as an aspiring actress. This role started her rise to international prominence. She has served as an ambassador for the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and Pantene's Beautiful Lengths. ​From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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