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Jackie Chan

Biography

Jackie Chan (Chinese: 成龍; born 7 April 1954), Chan Kong-sang, is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, filmmaker, comedian, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts. Jackie Chan has been acting since the 1970s and has appeared in over 100 films. Chan has received stars on the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As a cultural icon, Chan has been referenced in various pop songs, cartoons, and video games. Chan is also a Cantopop and Mandopop star, having released a number of albums and sung many of the theme songs for the films in which he has starred. Chan was born on April 7, 1954, in Victoria Peak, in the former Crown colony of Hong Kong, as Chan Kong-sang (meaning "born in Hong Kong") to Charles and Lee-Lee Chan, refugees from the Chinese Civil War. He was nicknamed Paopao (Chinese: 炮炮, literally meaning "Cannonball") because he was such a big baby, weighing 12 pounds, or about 5.4 kgs. Since his parents worked for the French Consul to Hong Kong, Chan spent his formative years within the grounds of the consul's residence in the Victoria Peak district. Chan attended the Nah-Hwa Primary School on Hong Kong Island, where he failed his first year, after which his parents withdrew him from the school. In 1960, his father immigrated to Canberra, Australia, to work as the head cook for the American embassy, and Chan was sent to the China Drama Academy, a Peking Opera School run by Master Yu Jim-yuen. Chan trained rigorously for the next decade, excelling in martial arts and acrobatics. He eventually became part of the Seven Little Fortunes, a performance group made up of the school's best students, gaining the stage name Yuen Lo in homage to his master. Chan became close friends with fellow group members Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, the three of them later to be known as the Three Brothers or Three Dragons. At the age of 17, he worked as a stuntman in the Bruce Lee films Fist of Fury and Enter the Dragon under the stage name Chan Yuen Lung. He received his first starring role later that year, in Little Tiger of Canton, which had a limited release in Hong Kong in 1973.
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Sean Connery

Biography

Sir Thomas Sean Connery (August 25, 1930 – October 31, 2020) was a Scottish actor and producer. He 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, Connery died at the age of 90.
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B. Reeves Eason

Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia William Reeves Eason (October 2, 1886 – June 9, 1956), known as B. Reeves Eason, was an American film director, actor and screenwriter. His directorial output was limited mainly to low-budget westerns and action pictures, but it was as a second-unit director and action specialist that he was best known. He was famous for staging spectacular battle scenes in war films and action scenes in large-budget westerns, but he acquired the nickname "Breezy" for his "breezy" attitude towards safety while staging his sequences—during the famous cavalry charge at the end of Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), so many horses were killed or injured so severely that they had to be euthanized that both the public and Hollywood itself were outraged, resulting in the selection of the American Humane Society by the beleaguered studios to provide representatives on the sets of all films using animals to ensure their safety.
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Andreas Scholl

Biography

Andreas Scholl is a German countertenor, a male classical singer in the alto vocal range, specialising in Baroque music. Born into a family of singers, Scholl was enrolled at the age of seven into the Kiedricher Chorbuben boys choir. Aged 13, he was chosen from 20,000 choristers gathered in Rome from around the world to sing solo at a Mass held on 4 January 1981. Just four years later, Scholl was offered a place at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, an institution that normally accepts only post-graduate students, based on the strength and quality of his voice. He became an instructor at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland, succeeding his own teacher, Richard Levitt. Since October 2019, he has been a professor at the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. This is his only position as a teacher now. Scholl's early operatic roles include his standing in for René Jacobs in 1993 at the Théâtre Grévin in Paris, where he caused a sensation. His major roles, such as his debut at Glyndebourne in 1998 as Bertarido in Handel's Rodelinda, a role he reprised at the Metropolitan Opera in 2006, were written for the 18th-century alto castrato Senesino. The bulk of Scholl's recording career has been with Harmonia Mundi and Decca, and his CDs are among Harmonia Mundi's best sellers. He has worked with most contemporary Baroque specialists, including William Christie and Philippe Herreweghe, and is himself a songwriter and composer of ballet and theatre music, with his own professional sound studio. Scholl was born on 10 November 1967 in Eltville, West Germany, and grew up in neighbouring Kiedrich. His entire family were singers, and he was enrolled at the age of seven into the Kiedricher Chorbuben, a boys' choir first documented in 1333. Aged 13, Scholl performed the role of the "second boy" in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, while his sister Elisabeth sang the first boy. That same year he was one of 20,000 choristers from all over the world gathered in Rome for a festival, and was chosen to sing solo at Mass on 4 January 1981, where he met Pope John Paul II. Along with his fellow choristers of the Kiedricher Chorbuben, Scholl was an extra in the film The Name of the Rose, playing a young monk standing alongside Sean Connery in scenes shot at Eberbach Abbey, near Kiedrich. Scholl lists his musical heroes as Howard Jones, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), New Order and the Pet Shop Boys. ... Source: Article "Andreas Scholl" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Karl Atticus

Biography

Karl Ivan Atticus was an American filmmaker. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, Atticus's brief career earned him a place in the pantheon of cult movie directors, having achieved a modest level of notoriety for two extremely violent films, Culture Shock (1969) and Mortal Remains (1972), though rumors persist that he may have directed and partially edited at least one other film during the period between these two productions. Regarded by some as the "father of the slasher movie," Atticus committed suicide in 1973.
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Ridley Scott

Biography

Sir Ridley Leighton Scott (born 30 November 1937) is an English filmmaker. He directs films in the science fiction, crime, and historical epic genres with an atmospheric and highly concentrated visual style. He ranks among the highest-grossing directors, with his films grossing a cumulative $5 billion worldwide. He has received many accolades, including the BAFTA Fellowship for Lifetime Achievement in 2018, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Golden Globe Award. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 and appointed a Knight Grand Cross by King Charles III in 2024. An alumnus of the Royal College of Art in London, Scott began his career in television as a designer and director before moving into advertising as a director of commercials. He made his film directorial debut with The Duellists (1977) and gained wider recognition with his next film, Alien (1979). Though his films range widely in setting and period, they showcase memorable imagery of urban environments, spanning 2nd-century Rome in Gladiator (2000) and its 2024 sequel, 12th-century Jerusalem in Kingdom of Heaven (2005), medieval England in Robin Hood (2010), ancient Memphis in Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), contemporary Mogadishu in Black Hawk Down (2001), futuristic cityscapes of Los Angeles in Blade Runner (1982) and extraterrestrial worlds in Alien, Prometheus (2012), The Martian (2015) and Alien: Covenant (2017). Scott has been nominated for three Academy Awards: Directing for Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, and Black Hawk Down. Gladiator won the Academy Award for Best Picture and received a nomination in the same category for The Martian. In 1995, Scott and his brother Tony received a British Academy Film Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema. Scott's films Alien, Blade Runner and Thelma & Louise were each selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being considered "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In a 2004 BBC poll, Scott was ranked 10 on the list of most influential people in British culture. Scott also works in television and has earned 10 Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He won twice, for Outstanding Television Film for the HBO film The Gathering Storm (2002) and Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special for the History Channel's Gettysburg (2011). He was Emmy-nominated for RKO 281 (1999), The Andromeda Strain (2008), and The Pillars of the Earth (2010).
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Ben Stobber

Biography

Ben Stobber is a Student Emmy and Broadway World award winning actor. Born in Hudson, Wisconsin but raised in the small town of Pueblo West, Colorado, he developed his passion for acting since age five through talent shows, musicals, speech & debate, and love for Shakespeare. His move to Las Vegas in 2002 brought opportunities with Paramount in Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton, followed by other local Vegas acting opportunities as a scare actor for Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, Blue Man Group at the Venetian, & Cirque du Soleil's Love at the Mirage. His first time in front of the camera was in 2004 for TNT's Dramatic Auditions when they were traveling around the country looking for the best actors. Of the many who auditioned, he was chosen as one of five semifinalists in the Las Vegas region. Biggest stage performance break came from being cast as the lead role of Ash in the Las Vegas premiere of Evil Dead the Musical. This lead him to his first starring performance on the strip at Planet Hollywood Hotel & Casino where he performed for almost three years. Other notable credits on the Las Vegas strip were Legwarmers, Divorce Party the Musical, & Awesome 80's Prom. Recent film credits include Immortal Wars(Eric Roberts, Tom Sizemore, Bill Oberst Jr.) distributed by ITN, Bus Party to Hell(Tara Reid, Sadie Katz, Devanny Pinn) distributed by Gravitas Ventures, Sunset Society(Lemmy, Dizzy Reed, Ron Jeremy, Steve-O) distributed by Cleopatra Entertainment, and Unwritten( Lorenzo Lamas). IMDb Mini Biography By: Ben Stobber
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Sheila Allen

Biography

Sheila Mathews Allen (February 2, 1929 – November 15, 2013) was an American actress. Born Sheila Marie Mathews in New York City to Christopher Joseph and Elizabeth (née McCloskey) Mathews, she was married to producer Irwin Allen until his death in 1991. She appeared in several of her husband's TV series and movies through to 1986. Appearances include City Beneath the Sea, Lost in Space, Land of the Giants, The Poseidon Adventureand The Towering Inferno. Following his death in 1991 she remained on the board of Irwin Allen Productions up until her death. She also served as a producer on the 2002 television remake of The Time Tunnel and as Executive Producer of the film Poseidon.
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Jill Lansing

Biography

Jill Lansing was a fiery, sexy and attractive brunette actress who only starred in one memorably trashy and entertaining down'n'dirty 70's exploitation gem, but nonetheless made such a strong and indelible impression as the lead in that picture, that she continues to amaze and win over fans more than thirty years after the film was initially released. Lansing gave an excellent, inspired, and utterly convincing performance as the bitter, surly, and calculating Kim Bentley, a ruthless and shameless teenage tramp who resorts to drastic measures to eke out a living in the sublimely sleazy Crown International grindhouse delight "Malibu High." Despite her fierce and compelling portrayal of this deliciously nasty, immoral and alienated femme fatale character, Jill Lansing alas never appeared in another movie and seems to have vanished into thin air. - IMDb mini biography by: woodyanders
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Douglas Aibel

Biography

For 20 years he has been the artistic director of the Vineyard Theater, a small downtown company known for producing world premieres of plays like Edward Albee’s “Three Tall Women” and Paula Vogel’s “How I Learned to Drive,” as well as the more recent Broadway musical “Avenue Q.” While this would seem like an all-consuming job, Mr. Aibel wears a second hat as a casting director for Hollywood movies, such as The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Marriage Story (2019), and Limitless (2011).
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