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Tom Connolly
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Thomas Anthony Connolly (December 31, 1870 - April 28, 1961) was an English-American umpire in Major League Baseball. He officiated in the National League from 1898 to 1900, followed by 31 years of service in the American League from 1901 to 1931. In over half a century as an AL umpire and supervisor, he established the high standards for which the circuit's arbiters became known, and solidified the reputation for integrity of umpires in the major leagues.
Connolly was born in Manchester, England, and played cricket as a boy. It was not until his family emigrated to the United States in 1885, settling in Natick, Massachusetts, that he saw the game of baseball played for the first time, but he was quickly fascinated and resolved himself to learning as much about the game as he could. He immersed himself in the rule book, and within a few years was umpiring for local games. While working in YMCA games, he was discovered by major league umpire Tim Hurst, who gained a position for him in the New England League, where he umpired from 1894 to 1897. In 1898 the NL brought him up to the majors, but he was offended by the league president's reluctance to back up umpires' decisions on the field, and resigned in the middle of the 1900 season, later signing with the fledgling AL in 1901. That league's president, Ban Johnson, was eager to create a reputation for the AL as a solid challenger to the NL, and he gave umpires a greater measure of support than they had previously received, demonstrating that attacks upon umpires would not be tolerated and that their judgment was final. Connolly had the privilege of umpiring, by himself, the first American League game ever played on April 24, 1901.
Although he had begun his career by showing that he was willing to remove players from the field – he ejected 10 in his first season – he came to earn great respect from the players, and once went 10 full years without needing to throw one out of a game. He also showed an ability to stand firm against the toughest players in defense of the rules; on September 11, 1912, he called Ty Cobb out for stepping across home plate while batting, after Cobb had hit an RBI triple on the third pitch of an intentional walk. During the ensuing argument, Connolly was struck in the mouth by a bottle thrown by a spectator. His reputation earned him prominent game assignments, including the first AL games ever played at Comiskey Park, Shibe Park, Fenway Park, and Yankee Stadium. Connolly was also the sole AL umpire chosen to work in the first World Series in 1903.
In 1931, new AL president Will Harridge was concerned about widespread complaints that the quality of umpiring in the league had deteriorated, and Connolly retired from active field work to become the league's first supervisor of umpires. Travelling throughout the league to work with other umpires and ensure that everyone's work was meeting the same high standards, he remained in that post until 1954, and came to be known as the nation's foremost expert on baseball rules.
In his career, Connolly worked in an AL-record 8 World Series: 1903, 1908 (even-numbered games), 1910, 1911, 1913, 1916, 1920 and 1924. He was also the home plate umpire for Addie Joss' perfect game on October 2, 1908, one of four no-hitters in which he called balls and strikes. On May 4, 1928, he was the first base umpire for a remarkable game between the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Athletics, in which 12 players who would eventually be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame appeared. Leo Durocher, who would be elected as a manager, also played; both managers, Miller Huggins and Connie Mack, were eventually elected, as were Connolly and fellow umpire Bill McGowan.
Connolly was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953, one of the first two umpires (the NL's Bill Klem was the other) named to that honor. Connolly and Klem are the only two umpires in history to have worked in five decades; Connolly's record of 31 years umpiring American League games was broken by Larry Barnett in 1999.
He died at age 90 in Natick, Massachusetts.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Tom Connolly, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
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Trần Hạnh
Biography
People’s Artist Trần Hạnh (March 12, 1929 – March 4, 2021) was a Vietnamese actor. Best known to the audience for his portrayal of impoverished peasants stuck in ironic miseries, he was born in Hanoi to a worker at the Ngô Tử Hạ printing factory on Nhà Thờ Street, and to a mother who was a small-sized merchant. His dad passed away when he was 8, and to support his mother he worked as a shoemaker, during which time he also participated in drama classes at the City’s Youth Social Club; in here, he befriended many artists who would later become influential figures in Vietnamese cinema like Đoàn Dũng, Trọng Khôi,..
In the early 1950s, Trần Hạnh joined Hanoi Theatre. He achieved many accolades at national drama festivals and was a highly established actor, but the highlight of his career only came in the late 70s and early 80s when he played the role of the revered patriot and poet Nguyễn Trãi in the poetic play “Lam Sơn Tụ Nghĩa”, which won the Gold Medal at the National Drama Festival; he aslo took leading roles in the plays "Tiền tuyến gọi" (The Front Line Calls"), "Âm mưu và tình yêu" ("Conspiracy and Love") directed by Nguyễn Đình Nghi. The playwright Lưu Quang Vũ praised him as “the only person to be able to rightly portray Nguyễn Trãi”, and the General Secretary Trường Chinh complimented him in person for his performance in "Âm mưu và tình yêu”.
Trần Hạnh retired from the Hanoi Theatre in 1989 and began to work in films. His first feature film role was in "Chiếc bình tiền kiếp" by Nguyễn Hữu Phần. He then participated in many other films such as "Tướng về hưu," "Hãy tha thứ cho em," "Cỏ lau," "Người đàn bà thứ hai," "Làng nổi,"...His first TV role, also his favorite, was the role of Mr. Cần in the series "Cuốn sổ ghi đời" by Tất Bình. At the 11th Vietnam Film Festival in 1996, he won the Best Actor award in the film "Nước mắt đàn bà" ("Tears of a Woman"). At the 2010 National Television Festival, he was honored with the Contribution Award for his role in the film "Ngõ lỗ thủng," directed by Quốc Trọng. In 2017, he participated in "Cha cõng con" in the role of a blind man.
The actor passed away at his home on March 4, 2021, aged 92.
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Sean Connery
Biography
Sir Thomas Sean Connery (August 25, 1930 - October 31, 2020) was a Scottish actor and producer who won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards (one being a BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award), and three Golden Globes, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award and a Henrietta Award.
Connery was the first actor to portray the character James Bond in film, starring in seven Bond films (every film from Dr. No to You Only Live Twice, plus Diamonds Are Forever and Never Say Never Again), between 1962 and 1983. In 1988, Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Untouchables. His films also include Marnie (1964), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Highlander (1986), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Dragonheart (1996), The Rock (1996), and Finding Forrester (2000).
Connery was polled in a 2004 The Sunday Herald as "The Greatest Living Scot" and in a 2011 EuroMillions survey as "Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure". He was voted by People magazine as both the “Sexiest Man Alive" in 1989 and the "Sexiest Man of the Century” in 1999. He received a lifetime achievement award in the United States with a Kennedy Center Honor in 1999. Connery was knighted in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to film drama.
On October 31, 2020, it was announced that Connery had died at the age of 90.
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Milena Vukotić
Biography
Milena Vukotić (born April 23, 1938) is a former ballerina and a stage, television, and film actress. She was born in Rome, to a Montenegrin comediographer father and an Italian pianist/composer mother. She is known for her role of Pina in the Fantozzi series of comedy films. Additional screen credits include Arabella, The Adventurers, Blood for Dracula, The Phantom of Liberty, Monsignor, Juliet of the Spirits and A Good Woman. She had a recurring role on the French television series Une famille formidable.
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Tom Waits
Biography
Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American musician, composer, songwriter and actor. His lyrics often focus on the underbelly of society and are delivered in his trademark deep, gravelly voice. He worked primarily in jazz during the 1970s, but his music since the 1980s has reflected greater influence from blues, rock, vaudeville, and experimental genres.
Waits was born and raised in a middle-class family in Whittier, California. Inspired by the work of Bob Dylan and the Beat Generation, he began singing on the San Diego folk music circuit as a young boy. He relocated to Los Angeles in 1972, where he worked as a songwriter before signing a recording contract with Asylum Records. His first albums were the jazz-oriented Closing Time (1973) and The Heart of Saturday Night (1974), which reflected his lyrical interest in nightlife, poverty, and criminality. He repeatedly toured the United States, Europe, and Japan, and attracted greater critical recognition and commercial success with Small Change (1976), Blue Valentine (1978), and Heartattack and Vine (1980). He produced the soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppola's film One from the Heart (1981), and subsequently made cameo appearances in several Coppola films.
In 1980, Waits married Kathleen Brennan, split from his manager and record label, and moved to New York City. With Brennan's encouragement and frequent collaboration, he pursued a more experimental and eclectic musical aesthetic influenced by the work of Harry Partch and Captain Beefheart. This was reflected in a series of albums released by Island Records, including Swordfishtrombones (1983), Rain Dogs (1985), and Franks Wild Years (1987). He continued appearing in films, notably starring in Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law (1986), and also made theatrical appearances. With theatre director Robert Wilson, he produced the musicals The Black Rider (1990) and Alice (1992), first performed in Hamburg. Having returned to California in the 1990s, his albums Bone Machine (1992), The Black Rider (1993), and Mule Variations (1999) earned him increasing critical acclaim and multiple Grammy Awards. In the late 1990s, he switched to the record label ANTI-, which released Blood Money (2002), Alice (2002), Real Gone (2004), and Bad as Me (2011).
Despite a lack of mainstream commercial success, Waits has influenced many musicians and gained an international cult following, and several biographies have been written about him. In 2015, he was ranked at No. 55 on Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time". He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.
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Mirza Davitaia
Biography
The founding president of Georgian International Films (GI-Films), Mirza Davitaia is a filmmaker who has written, directed, and produced both animated and live-action movies since1993. In 2016, Mirza created the graphic novel "The Knight in the Tiger's Skin" (AKA Prince of India). The book was published by major Georgian publisher "Artanuji" and was nominated by Georgian Public Broadcaster as the Best Literary Work of 2016 for "The Best of the Year Award". In 2022 Mirza produced and directed the feature-length animated movie based on his graphic novel. In previous years, Mirza has produced and co-written several live-action movies, including "The Narrow Bridge" in 2021, "The Last Fortress" in 2020, and "Anton" in 2019 which was directed by the Oscar and the Golden Globe-nominated director, Zaza Urushadze. The film was released internationally in 2020 and was considered for Academy Award's best picture category in 2021. In 2010, Mirza produced an action thriller "5 Days of War" stared by Andy Garcia, Rupert Friend, Val Kilmer, and other A-list Hollywood actors. The film was released in theaters internationally by major distributors such as "Anchor Bay" in North America and "eOne" in Great Britain, and other European countries. In 2013, he co-produced a comedy "Jacky in Women's Kingdom", stared by Charlotte Gainsbourg and Michel Hazanavicius. The film was theatrically released in France and other francophone countries by the distribution company Pathe. The film was also released worldwide on Blue Ray and VOD and is available on most digital platforms. Mirza Davitaia was born and raised in Georgia, where In the years of 2004 to 2012, he served as a member of Parliament, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee, Deputy Minister of Culture and Monument Protection, as well as the State Minister of Diaspora Issues. From 1992 to 2000 Mirza studied animation, illustration, graphic design, and fine art at Academies of fine art in Tbilisi, Georgia, and Nuremberg, Germany.
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Narikun Ketprapakorn
Biography
Narikun Ketprapakorn, nicknamed Frung, is an actress born in Bangkok, Thailand. She graduated grade and secondary school at Saint Joseph Convent school and Triam Udom Suksa School respectively. She is currently studying in the Faculty of Medicine at Chulalongkorn University. Her younger brother is the actor Ponlawit Ketprapakorn (Pond).
She was a compère in the game show, "Are You Smarter Than Elementary Students?" in her 6th grade. In 2013, she won the 5th Utip Freshy Idol contest and received the photogenic model award. She soon became a commercial model. Narikun has been selected as cast in the second season of "Hormones: The Series" after finishing up Top 6 in the reality show project "Hormones The Next Gen". Since then, she has been an actress under Nadao Bangkok.
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Malik Bentalha
Biography
Malik Bentalha (born 1 March 1989 in Bagnols-sur-Cèze) is a French humorist and actor of Algerian and Moroccan descent. He does stand-up comedy and has appeared in some films.
Malik Bentalha studied at the Cours Florent during one year, from 2007 to 2008. After that, he did sketches in Parisian café-théâtre, as the Théâtre du Point-Virgule.
In 2010, after Jamel Debbouze noticed him, Malik Bentalha integrated the Jamel Comedy Club and later on served as the opening act for Debbouze's tour, Tout sur Jamel, for two years. One day, he met Gad Elmaleh at Montmartre who asked him to do the opening act for his show at the Palais des Sports the following day. That same year, he was a part of Le meilleur de Paris fait sa comédie on France 2.
In 2011 he had a chronicle, Télé Délire, on Le Grand Direct, a radio program hosted by Jean-Marc Morandini. At first, he did it with Mathieu Madénian and since September 2011 with Benjamin Josse. In 2014, he joined Cyril Hanouna in his radio program Les pieds dans le plat on Europe 1, with Valérie Bénaïm.
Since 2010, he has been touring with his first one man show, Malik Bentalha se la raconte, directed by Alex Lutz. In December 2014, a DVD was released. In January 2015, W9 broadcast a live session of the one man show, followed by a TV report, Malik se raconte.
In 2015, he is going to film Pattaya, a Franck Gastambide film in which he'll have one of the main roles.
He is a godfather for the Theodora Children's Charity.
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Alexander Shulgin
Biography
Alexander Theodore "Sasha" Shulgin (June 17, 1925 – June 2, 2014) was a prolific American medicinal chemist, biochemist, organic chemist, pharmacologist, psychopharmacologist, and author. He is credited with introducing MDMA (ecstasy) to psychologists in the late 1970s for psychopharmaceutical use and for the discovery, synthesis and personal bioassay of over 230 psychoactive compounds for their psychedelic and entactogenic potential.
In 1991 and 1997, he and his wife Ann Shulgin authored the books PIHKAL and TIHKAL (standing for Phenethylamines and Tryptamines I Have Known And Loved), which extensively described their work and personal experiences with these two classes of psychoactive drugs. Shulgin performed seminal work into the descriptive synthesis of many of these compounds. Some of Shulgin's noteworthy discoveries include compounds of the 2C* family (such as 2C-B) and compounds of the DOx family (such as DOM).
Due in part to Shulgin's extensive work in the field of psychedelic research and the rational drug design of psychedelic drugs, he has since been dubbed the "godfather of psychedelics".
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Ben Cook
Biography
Benjamin Tyler Cook (born December 11, 1997) is an American actor, singer and dancer, known for his work across stage and screen. Cook has appeared on the Broadway stage in Ragtime, Billy Elliot the Musical (for which he was nominated for a Helen Hayes Award), Tuck Everlasting, Mean Girls, West Side Story, and Illinoise. He has also performed in two Broadway national tours, Billy Elliot the Musical and Newsies the Musical, and appeared on television in episodes of 30 Rock, House of Cards, Veep, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and in the HBO film Paterno. He most recently appeared as a Jet in the 2021 film version of West Side Story and as Henry in the HBO Max horror series Pretty Little Liars (2022–2024), a reboot of the original 2010s series.
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