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Yu Aoi
Biography
Yu Aoi (蒼井優) is a Japanese actress and model born on August 17, 1985. She made her film debut as Shiori Tsuda in Shunji Iwai's 2001 film All About Lily Chou-Chou. She subsequently portrayed Tetsuko Arisugawa in Hana and Alice (2004), also directed by Iwai, Kimiko Tanigawa in the hula dancing film Hula Girls and Hagumi Hanamoto in the 2006 live-action adaptation of the popular Honey and Clover manga series.
She has won numerous awards for her performances on screen, including the prestigious Japan Academy Prize and Kinema Junpo Awards for best supporting actress in 2007 for Hula Girls and Rookie of the Year for continued performances in the field of Films in Media and Fine Arts by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan in 2009.
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Édouard Balladur
Biography
Édouard Balladur (born 2 May 1929) is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France under François Mitterrand from 29 March 1993 to 17 May 1995. He unsuccessfully ran for president in the 1995 French presidential election, coming in third place.
Balladur was born in Izmir, Turkey, to an ethnic Armenian family with five children and longstanding ties to France. His family emigrated to Marseille in the mid-to-late 1930s.
In 1957, Balladur married Marie-Josèphe Delacour, with whom he had four sons.
Balladur started his political career in 1964 as an advisor to Prime Minister Georges Pompidou. After Pompidou's election as President of France in 1969, Balladur was appointed under-secretary general of the presidency then secretary general from 1973 to Pompidou's death in 1974.
He returned to politics in the 1980s as a supporter of Jacques Chirac. A member of the Neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic (RPR) party, he was the theoretician behind the "cohabitation government" from 1986 to 1988, explaining that if the right won the legislative election, it could govern with Chirac as prime minister without Socialist Party President François Mitterrand's resignation. As Minister of Economy and Finance, he implemented a liberal economic policy reminiscent of the one attributed to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. He thus implemented a major privatisation programme, involving several companies nationalised in 1945 and 1982, such as the Compagnie Financière de Suez, Paribas and the Société Générale. He also privatised TF1. He also reduced the number of civil servants and state expenditure.
Balladur appeared as an unofficial deputy Prime Minister in the cabinet led by Chirac. He took a major part in the adoption of liberal and pro-European policies by Chirac and the RPR. After Chirac's defeat at the 1988 presidential election, part of the RPR held him responsible of the abandonment of Gaullist doctrine, but he kept the confidence of Chirac.
When the RPR/UDF coalition won the 1993 legislative election, Chirac declined to become Prime Minister again in a second "cohabitation" with President Mitterrand, and Balladur became Prime Minister. He was faced with a difficult economic situation, but he did not want to make the political errors of the previous cohabitation government. He continued the economic policy he had undertaken in 1986 by carrying out new privatisations (notably Rhône-Poulenc, Banque Nationale de Paris and Elf). Conveying the image of a quiet conservative, he did not question the wealth tax (reestablished by the Socialists in 1988).
He disagreed with François Mitterrand by considering that nuclear tests were necessary to maintain the credibility of the French deterrent.
Despite corruption affairs affecting some of his ministers, who he forced to resign (thus lending his name to the so-called "Balladur jurisprudence"), he had the support of influential media. ...
Source: Article "Édouard Balladur" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Sean Connery
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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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Tiana Ringer
Biography
Tiana Ringer is a former American female professional wrestler who competed in North American promotions in Ontario and the North Central United States and has appeared in Blood, Sweat & Ears and SHIMMER during the early 2000s. As of 2007 she is currently listed as inactive and presumably retired from wrestling. She has also appeared in All Pro Wrestling, Ring of Honor and toured Mexico with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling participating in an interpromotional event between TNA and Asistencia Asesoría y Administración in September 2006.
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Raymond Barre
Biography
Raymond Octave Joseph Barre (12 April 1924 – 25 August 2007) was a French centre-right politician and economist. He was a Vice President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs under three presidents (Rey, Malfatti and Mansholt). He later served as Prime Minister under Valéry Giscard d'Estaing from 1976 until 1981. As a candidate for the presidency in 1988, he came in third and was eliminated in the first round. He was born in Saint-Denis, on the French island of Réunion, and then still a colony (it became an overseas department in 1946).
After his education, Raymond Barre was a professor of economics at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) as well as École Centrale Paris.
From 1959 to 1962, he was director of Jean-Marcel Jeanneney's staff in the ministry of Industry and Trade. Then, in 1967, President Charles de Gaulle chose him as Vice-President of the European Commission for Economic & Financial Affairs. He stayed in Brussels until January 1973, serving in the Rey, Malfatti and Mansholt Commissions. Having come back to France, he joined the cabinet as minister of External Trade in January 1976.
Seven months later, while mostly unknown at that time, President Giscard d'Estaing appointed him Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance. He presented him to the French people as "the best economist in France" (French: meilleur économiste de France). Under the Fifth Republic, he was the only person to hold these two offices at the same time. He left the ministry of Economy and Finance in 1978 but stayed as Prime minister until the defeat of Giscard d'Estaing at the 1981 presidential election.
At the head of the cabinet, he was faced with the conflict which divided the parliamentary majority between the "Giscardians" and the neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic (RPR) led by his predecessor Jacques Chirac. The right majority unexpectedly won the 1978 legislative election.
Barre was primarily confronted with an economic crisis. He advocated numerous complex, strict policies ("Barre Plans"). The first Barre plan emerged on 22 September 1976, with a priority to stop inflation. It included a 3-month price freeze; a reduction in the value-added tax; wage controls; salary controls; a reduction of the growth in the money supply; and increases in the income tax, automobile taxes, luxury taxes and bank rates. There were measures to restore the trade balance and support the growth of the economy and employment. Oil imports, whose price had shot up, were limited. There was special aid to exports, and an action fund was set up to aid industries. There was increased financial aid to farmers, who were suffering from a drought, and for social security. The package was not very popular but was pursued with vigor.
He did not use diplomatic language in the face of trade union opposition. Instead, he mocked "the bearers of banners" (French: les porteurs de pancartes) and he exhorted "instead of grousing, you should work hard".
After he departed from the head of the cabinet, he was elected deputy of Rhône département under the label of the Union for French Democracy (UDF). However, he never formally joined the party. He held his parliamentary seat until 2002. ...
Source: Article "Raymond Barre" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Michelle Pfeiffer
Biography
Michelle Marie Pfeiffer (/ˈfaɪfər/ FY-fər; born April 29, 1958) is an American actress. One of Hollywood's most bankable stars during the 1980s and 1990s, her performances have earned her numerous accolades including a Golden Globe Award and a British Academy Film Award, as well as nominations for three Academy Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Pfeiffer began her acting career with minor television and film appearances and secured her first lead role in Grease 2 (1982). Her breakthrough role as Elvira Hancock in Scarface (1983) propelled her into mainstream success, which continued with performances in The Witches of Eastwick (1987) and Tequila Sunrise (1988). Pfeiffer received her first of six consecutive Golden Globe Award nominations for Married to the Mob (1988). Her roles in Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) garnered her two consecutive Academy Award nominations, for Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress, respectively, and she won a Golden Globe Award for the latter.
Cemented as one of the highest-paid actresses of the 1990s, Pfeiffer starred in The Russia House (1990) and Frankie and Johnny (1991). In 1992, she played Catwoman in Batman Returns and received her third Academy Award nomination for Love Field, which she followed up with performances in The Age of Innocence (1993) and Wolf (1994). She also produced several of her own features through her company, Via Rosa Productions, including Dangerous Minds (1995). Reducing her workload to prioritise her family, Pfeiffer acted sporadically throughout the 2000s, starring in What Lies Beneath (2000), White Oleander (2002), Hairspray, and Stardust (both 2007).
Following another hiatus, Pfeiffer returned to prominence in 2017 with performances in Where Is Kyra?, Mother!, and Murder on the Orient Express, and received her first Primetime Emmy Award nomination for playing Ruth Madoff in The Wizard of Lies. In 2020, she received her eighth Golden Globe Award nomination for French Exit. Pfeiffer has played Janet van Dyne in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2018, beginning with Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Michael Douglas, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Margaret Hall
Biography
Margaret Hall (1931 - December 21, 2015) was an American actress and performer whose career lasted over six decades, beginning in the early 1950s. In 1960, she appeared in a Broadway production of Becket, starring Laurence Olivier and Anthony Quinn. In addition to her theater work, Hall had regular roles on the daytime dramas One Life to Live and As the World Turns and the nostalgic AMC series Remember WENN. In 2004-05, she had an ongoing spot on The Late Show with David Letterman — at the end of each episode, she would wave goodnight to the audience holding an immense bouquet of flowers in her arms.
Hall was also seen in several feature films, including The Bell Jar, So Fine, Weekend at Bernie's, Party Girl and The Guru. Her television movies included The Holy Terror, Summer of My German Soldier, and Circus. She earned her final TV credit in 2011 with a role the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce. Hall was married to actor Gil Rogers from 1970 until her death in 2015 at age 84. They had one daughter, actress Amanda Hall Rogers.
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Helen Arney
Biography
Thinking that she’d left her geek past behind after graduating in Physics from Imperial College, Helen proved herself wrong when she turned to writing quirky stand-up and song inspired by science. Since touring the UK in “Uncaged Monkeys” with Robin Ince and Brian Cox, she's popped up on BBC 2 Coast, Channel 4, Radio 3, 4, 5Live and 6Music, Stewart Lee's Alternative Comedy Experience on Comedy Central, and at the Edinburgh Fringe with her award-winning solo show “Voice of an Angle”. Helen also presents science on Discovery Channel's “You Have Been Warned” and has filled several notebooks with rhymes for Uranus.
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James Culshaw
Biography
James Culshaw is an Actor born in Liverpool England. His father was a merchant seaman,who lived in New York for several years,after bumping into his first cousin, late, Billy washington,who,s daughter was the late, Actor Patrica Hardy married to Late, Actor Richard Egan,his father on returning to Liverpool met james,s mother Anastasia.he has four sisters and one brother,but sadly lost a younger sister Shirley Marie in her twenties to a heart condition.at xmas 1983 whilst his parents were visiting relatives in Australia.,and strangely he was performing in "The Land of OZ"as the "Tin Woodman".
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Eva Lyberten
Biography
Herminia Benito, known as Eva Lyberten (Barcelona, December 20, 1958) is a Spanish actress. At age 15 he studied in a School of Dramatic Art, and later, dance and jazz academy in Barcelona. At the age of 18, she appears in programs of Spanish Television in Catalonia, as "The Saga of the Rius", where he worked a few days, and as supporting actress in most films shot in Barcelona in 1975. After shooting his second film, "La ciutat cremada" (1976) by Antoni Ribas, he moved to Ibiza. On his return from Ibiza is chosen among hundreds of applicants, vedette for Music-hall: "Crazy Horse" which is the most important erotic spectacle of Spain's democratic transition. Show in which acts for a year with remarkable success and leaving to join the cast of artists involved in the erotic films of the era, and movies rated "S" highlighting on all director Ignacio F. Iquino. In the mid-80s with the decline of the films "S", Eva wanted to change her "look" of erotic artist and engage in a cinema with more content. Aspirations that were not fulfilled until he was involved in "Sal Gorda" (1984), of Fernando Trueba, as supporting actress playing the role of Bridget. From here his film appearances were declining.
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