Trending
Popular people
Angelo Novi
Biography
Angelo Novi (9 June 1930 – 6 May 1997) worked for thirty years as the exclusive photographer with some of the most known Italian film directors of his time, such as Bernardo Bertolucci, Sergio Leone, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. He studied at the Brera Academy in Milan, and from 1952 on, started to work as a photojournalist. The ability to capture the decisive moment, inspired by idols like Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa, is an important gist for his photographic style, which later honed in his work as a set photographer.
Novi told his own story through the scenic action captured by his photographs. Emphasis on the decisive moment, the contrast of proximity and distance, and the black and whites, are all attributes of Novi's work. With his photographs, Novi has made a comprehensive contribution to the cultural memory of the golden era of the Italian cinema. As a silent observer, he captured the moments at the film sets both behind the scenes and in action, revealing intimate aspects that cannot be found on the screen.
Read more
Colin Davis
Biography
Sir Colin Rex Davis CH CBE (25 September 1927 – 14 April 2013) was an English conductor, known for his association with the London Symphony Orchestra, having first conducted it in 1959. His repertoire was broad, but among the composers with whom he was particularly associated were Mozart, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tippett.
Davis studied as a clarinetist, but was intent on becoming a conductor. After struggling as a freelance conductor from 1949 to 1957, he gained a series of appointments with orchestras including the BBC Scottish Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. He also held the musical directorships of Sadler's Wells Opera and the Royal Opera House, where he was principal conductor for over fifteen years. His guest conductorships included the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and the Staatskapelle Dresden, among many others.
As a teacher, Davis held posts at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and the Landesgymnasium für Musik "Carl Maria von Weber" (preparatory school for music) in Dresden. He made his first gramophone recordings in 1958, and his discography over the next five decades was extensive, with many studio recordings for Philips Records and a substantial catalogue of live recordings for the London Symphony Orchestra's own label.
Davis was born in Weybridge, Surrey, the fifth of seven children, to Reginald George Davis (a bank clerk) and Lillian Constance (Colbran) Davis. The family was musical, and he was exposed to music from an early age. He recalled: "I can still see Sargent conducting the first concert I ever attended. I can still hear Melchior in the final scene of Siegfried – an old 78 playing on my father's gramophone. … I can also remember the moment I decided to make music my life. I was 13 or 14 at the time and the performance was of Beethoven's Eighth. Doors were suddenly opened. I became totally involved, even obsessed by music, although I was frightfully enclosed by my likes and dislikes. Today I'm game for anything."
With financial assistance from his great-uncle, Davis was educated at Christ's Hospital in Sussex and then won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London, where he studied the clarinet with Frederick Thurston. His fellow-students included Gervase de Peyer, but Davis developed a greater interest in conducting. He was, however, not eligible for the conducting class at the college, because he could not play the piano. ...
Source: Article "Colin Davis" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
Read more
Aina the End
Biography
Born in Osaka, Aina the End has a natural husky voice and unique expressions. In 2021, she released her first album "THE END," featuring entirely self-written and composed songs, marking the beginning of her solo career. In June 2023, she left BiSH, and is currently active as a solo artist.
In 2022, she took on the lead role of Janis Joplin in the first-ever Japanese production of the Broadway musical "Janis." In October 2023, she made her film debut as the lead in the movie "Kirie no Uta," directed by Shunji Iwai. In the film, she not only performed as an actress but also wrote lyrics and composed songs, releasing an album titled "DEBUT" under the name "Kyrie."
In January 2024, she held their first solo live performance since leaving BiSH at LINE CUBE SHIBUYA, with tickets selling out the day they went on sale. From March 2024, she embarked on a solo tour titled "Grow The Sunset."
Read more
Claudio Scarchilli
Biography
Claudio Scarchilli (10 February 1924, Rome – 25 July 1992) was an Italian film actor who appeared in films throughout the 1960s. He acted in nearly twenty films within that decade.
He is best known in world cinema for his small roles in several of Sergio Leone's films, portraying Pedro, member of Tuco's gang, in the Spaghetti Western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in 1966, and Once Upon a Time in the West in 1968.
His brother Sandro Scarchilli was also an actor and also appeared in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in 1966.
He made his last appearance in 1970.
Read more
Enzo Petito
Biography
Enzo Petito (24 July 1897 – 17 July 1967) was an Italian film and stage character actor. A theatre actor under Eduardo De Filippo in the 1950s in the Teatro San Ferdinando of Naples, with whom he was professionally closely associated, Petito also appeared in several of his films, often co-starring Eduardo or/and brother, Peppino De Filippo, brothers who are considered to be amongst the greatest Italian actors of the 20th century. Petito played minor roles in some memorable commedia all'Italiana movies directed by the likes of Dino Risi and Mario Monicelli in the late 1950s and early 1960s, often appearing alongside actors such as Nino Manfredi, Alberto Sordi, Peppino De Filippo, Anna Maria Ferrero, and Totò.
Although never a leading actor, he made a number of small appearances as character actors alongside Italy's leading film stars in films throughout the early to mid-1960s and is arguably best known in world cinema for his role as the store keeper in the Sergio Leone classic Spaghetti Western film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in 1966. His roles ranged from storekeepers and cobblers to priests and homeless men. His role of most esteem, however, is perhaps as Napoleon in Sergio Corbucci's comedy Chi si ferma è perduto in 1963.
Read more
Arcelia Ramírez
Biography
Arcelia Ramírez (born 7 December 1967) is a Mexican actress who appeared in over 50 films and television shows since 1985. At a young age she became interested in acting. She studied acting at the Centro Universitario de Teatro (CUT), from where she was prepared for several plays produced by the same institution, including La pasión de Pentesilea, La séptima morada, La noche de Hernán Cortés, Las mujeres sabias, Freda y otras griegas and Relaciones peligrosas. She lived in France from 2007 to 2011, a period in which she kept up her work pace, coming to Mexico to film movies as diverse as Arturo Ripstein's "Las razones del corazón" and Victor Avelar's "Cómo no te voy a querer". Meanwhile, her life in Paris was like that of a nameless woman who was beginning to raise a family.
Throughout her career, which began in 1985 with the film "El centro del laberinto", she has been nominated for important awards, such as the Ariel, at the Cannes Festival, at the Havana Festival, at the Latin American Film Festival in Lérida, among others. She has been nominated four times for the Ariel Award, twice for Best Actress (1997, 2000) and twice for Best Supporting Actress (2001 and 2003).
The first actress attended the Cannes Film Festival 2021 for her performance in the film "La civil", first fiction of the Belgian-Romanian director Teodora Mihai. In the film she plays Cielo, a mother searching for her daughter kidnapped by organized crime in northern Mexico. After the screening on July 10 at the Debussy Hall, Ramirez received an eight-minute standing ovation from the audience. An unprecedented and almost unbelievable experience for Arcelia Ramírez, she explained, so much so that it marked her life and brought tears to her eyes.
Read more
Lee Van Cleef
Biography
Clarence LeRoy "Lee" Van Cleef Jr. was an American actor best known for his roles in Spaghetti Westerns such as For A Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Hatchet-faced with piercing eyes, he had declined to have his nose altered to play a sympathetic character in his film debut, High Noon, and was relegated to a non-speaking outlaw as a result. For a decade he was typecast as a minor villain, his sinister features overshadowing his acting skills. After suffering serious injuries in a car crash, Van Cleef began to lose interest in his apparently waning career by the time Sergio Leone gave him a major role in For a Few Dollars More. The film made him a box-office draw, especially in Europe.
Military service:
After basic training and further training at the Naval Fleet Sound School, Van Cleef was assigned to a submarine chaser and then to a minesweeper, USS Incredible, on which he worked as a sonarman.
After leaving the Navy, Van Cleef read for a part in Our Town at the Little Theater Group in Clinton, New Jersey and received his first stage role. From there, he continued to meet with the group and audition for parts. The next biggest part was that of the boxer, Joe Pendleton, in the play Heaven Can Wait. During this time, he was observed by visiting talent scouts, who were impressed by Van Cleef's stage presence and delivery. One of these scouts later took him to New York City talent agent Maynard Morris of the MCA agency, who then sent him to the Alvin Theater for an audition.
Van Cleef's screen debut came in High Noon. During a performance of Mister Roberts in Los Angeles, he was noticed by film director Stanley Kramer, who offered Van Cleef a role in his upcoming film. Kramer originally wanted Van Cleef for the role of the deputy Harvey Pell, but as he wanted Van Cleef to have his "distinctive nose" fixed, Van Cleef declined the role in favor of the part of the silent gunslinger Jack Colby. He was then cast mostly in villainous roles, due to his sharp cheeks and chin, piercing eyes, and hawk-like nose, from the part of Tony Romano in Kansas City Confidential (1952), culminating 14 years later in Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Despite suffering from heart disease from the late 1970s and having a pacemaker installed in the early 1980s, Van Cleef continued to work in films until his death on December 16, 1989, at age 64. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Hollywood Hills, California, with an inscription on his grave marker referring to his many acting performances as a villain: "BEST OF THE BAD". Description above from the Wikipedia article Lee Van Cleef, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Read more
Eli Wallach
Biography
Eli Herschel Wallach (December 7, 1915 – June 24, 2014) was an American film, television and stage actor, who gained fame in the late 1950s. For his performance in Baby Doll he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe nomination. One of his most famous roles is that of Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Other roles include his portrayal of Don Altobello in The Godfather Part III, Calvera in The Magnificent Seven, and Arthur Abbott in The Holiday. Wallach has received BAFTA Awards, Tony Awards and Emmy Awards for his work. Wallach also has a cameo as a liquor store owner in Clint Eastwood's Mystic River. Wallach received an Honorary Academy Award at the 2nd Annual Governors Awards, presented on November 13, 2010.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Eli Wallach, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Read more
Clint Eastwood
Biography
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and former politician. Following his breakthrough role on the TV series "Rawhide" (1959–65), Eastwood starred as the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy of spaghetti westerns ("A Fistful of Dollars," "For a Few Dollars More," and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly") in the 1960s, and as San Francisco Police Department Inspector Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry films ("Dirty Harry," "Magnum Force," "The Enforcer," "Sudden Impact," and "The Dead Pool") during the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, along with several others in which he plays tough-talking no-nonsense police officers, have made him an enduring cultural icon of masculinity.
Eastwood won Academy Awards for Best Director and Producer of the Best Picture, as well as receiving nominations for Best Actor, for his work in the films "Unforgiven" (1992) and "Million Dollar Baby" (2004). These films in particular, as well as others including "Play Misty for Me" (1971), "The Outlaw Josey Wales" (1976), "Pale Rider" (1985), "In the Line of Fire" (1993), "The Bridges of Madison County" (1995), and "Gran Torino" (2008), have all received commercial success and/or critical acclaim. Eastwood's only comedies have been "Every Which Way but Loose" (1978) and its sequel "Any Which Way You Can" (1980); despite being widely panned by critics they are the two highest-grossing films of his career after adjusting for inflation.
Eastwood has directed most of his own star vehicles, but he has also directed films in which he did not appear such as "Mystic River" (2003) and "Letters from Iwo Jima" (2006), for which he received Academy Award nominations and "Changeling" (2008), which received Golden Globe Award nominations. He has received considerable critical praise in France in particular, including for several of his films which were panned in the United States, and was awarded two of France's highest honors: in 1994 he received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres medal and in 2007 was awarded the Légion d'honneur medal. In 2000 he was awarded the Italian Venice Film Festival Golden Lion for lifetime achievement.
Since 1967 Eastwood has run his own production company, Malpaso, which has produced the vast majority of his films. He also served as the nonpartisan mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, from 1986 to 1988. Eastwood has seven children by five women, although he has only married twice. An audiophile, Eastwood is also associated with jazz and has composed and performed pieces in several films along with his eldest son, Kyle Eastwood.
Description above adapted from the Wikipedia article Clint Eastwood, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Read more
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 31 October 2020, it was announced that Connery had died at the age of 90.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Sean Connery, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Read more
