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Ann Dvorak
Biography
Ann Dvorak (born Anna McKim; August 2, 1911 – December 10, 1979) was an American stage and film actress. Asked how to pronounce her adopted surname, she told The Literary Digest: "My fake name is properly pronounced vor'shack. The D remains silent."
Dvorak was the daughter and only child of silent film actress Anna Lehr and director Edwin McKim. While in New York, she attended St. Catherine's Convent. After moving to California, she attended Page School for Girls in Hollywood.
She made her film debut when she was five years old in the silent film version of Ramona (1916), credited as "Baby Anna Lehr". She continued in children's roles in The Man Hater (1917) and Five Dollar Plate (1920), but then stopped acting in films. Her parents separated in 1916 and divorced in 1920; she did not see her father again until 13 years later, when she made a public plea to the press to help her find him.
In the late 1920s, Dvorak worked as a dance instructor and gradually began to appear on film as a chorus girl. Her friend, actress Karen Morley, introduced her to billionaire movie producer Howard Hughes, who groomed her as a dramatic actress. She was a success in such pre-Code films as Scarface (1932) as Paul Muni's sister; in Three on a Match (1932) with Bette Davis and Joan Blondell as the doomed, unstable Vivian; in The Crowd Roars (1932) with James Cagney; and in Sky Devils (1932) opposite Spencer Tracy. Known for her style and elegance, she was a popular leading lady for Warner Bros. during the 1930s, and appeared in numerous contemporary romances and melodramas. At age 19, Dvorak eloped with Leslie Fenton, her English co-star from The Strange Love of Molly Louvain (1932), and they married on March 17, 1932. They left for a year-long honeymoon in spite of her contractual obligations to the studio, which led to a period of litigation and pay disputes during which she discovered she was making the same amount of money as the boy who played her son in Three on a Match. She completed her contract on permanent suspension, then worked as a freelancer. Although she worked regularly, the quality of her scripts declined sharply. She appeared as secretary Della Street to Donald Woods' Perry Mason in The Case of the Stuttering Bishop (1937). With her then-husband, Leslie Fenton, Dvorak traveled to England where she supported the war effort by working as an ambulance driver and acted in several British films. She appeared as a saloon singer in Abilene Town with Randolph Scott and Edgar Buchanan, released in 1946. The following year she adeptly handled comedy by giving an assured performance in Out of the Blue (1947). In 1948, Dvorak gave her only performance on Broadway in The Respectful Prostitute.
Dvorak's marriage to Fenton ended in divorce in 1946. In 1947, she married Igor Dega, a Russian dancer who danced with her briefly in The Bachelor's Daughters. The marriage ended two years later.
Dvorak retired from the screen in 1951, when she married her third and last husband, Nicholas Wade, to whom she remained married until his death in 1975. She had no children.
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Ken Campbell
Biography
Kenneth Victor Campbell (10 December 1941 – 31 August 2008) was an English writer, actor, director and comedian known for his work in experimental theatre.He has been called "a one-man dynamo of British theatre."
Campbell achieved notoriety in the 1970s for his nine-hour adaptation of the science-fiction trilogy Illuminatus! and his 22-hour staging of Neil Oram's play cycle The Warp. The Guinness Book of Records listed the latter as the longest play in the world. The Independent said that, "In the 1990s, through a series of sprawling monologues packed with arcane information and freakish speculations on the nature of reality, he became something approaching a grand old man of the fringe, though without ever discarding his inner enfant terrible." The Times labelled Campbell a one-man whirlwind of comic and surreal performance. The Guardian, in a posthumous tribute, judged him to be "one of the most original and unclassifiable talents in the British theatre of the past half-century. A genius at producing shows on a shoestring and honing the improvisational capabilities of the actors who were brave enough to work with him." The artistic director of the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse said, "He was the door through which many hundreds of kindred souls entered a madder, braver, brighter, funnier and more complex universe."
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Maeve Mollaghan
Biography
Maeve Mollaghan (pronounced molla-hin) is a NYC-based actor and writer from Brooklyn. She is a graduate of The Theatre School at DePaul University with a BFA in acting and a BA in English. She is also an alumna of LaGuardia High School’s drama program. She values grit and humor in her work and has a passion for heightened text. Favorite theatre credits include You On the Moors Now (Jane Eyre), and The Maids (Claire). Catch her as a co-star in Dark Matter on Apple TV+, and look out for The Last Agent— an indie short coming out later this year.
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Aliza Gur
Biography
Aliza Gur was born Aliza Gross in Ramat Gan, Israel, in 1944. She was Miss Israel of 1960 in the Miss Universe pageant, placing in the top 15. Her parents had fled Germany during the rise to power of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and they eventually settled in Israel, where she and her brother were born. She emigrated to the US in her 20s and settled in California, where she began her film and television career. Her television credits include guest appearances on Get Smart(1965) and The Wild Wild West (1965), among other shows. Her film credits include From Russia with Love (1963), Kill a Dragon (1967) and the cult vampire film Beast of Morocco(1968) (she was also, at 12 years of age, an extra in The Ten Commandments (1956). Her parents came to the United States and settled in Cleveland, Ohio, for a time. They passed away in the mid-'70s.
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Kurt Russell
Biography
Kurt Vogel Russell (born March 17, 1951) is an American actor. At 12, he began acting in the Western TV series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (1963–1964). In the late 1960s, he signed a ten-year contract with The Walt Disney Company, where he starred as Dexter Riley in films such as The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), Now You See Him, Now You Don't (1972), and The Strongest Man in the World (1975). For his portrayal of rock and roll superstar Elvis Presley in Elvis (1979), he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. According to Robert Osborne of Turner Classic Movies, Russell became the studio's top star of the 1970s.
Russell was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for his performance in Mike Nichols's Silkwood (1983). Also in the 1980s, he starred in several films directed by John Carpenter in which he played anti-hero roles: the futuristic action film Escape from New York (1981), its sequel Escape from L.A.(1996), the horror film The Thing (1982), and the kung-fu comedy action film Big Trouble in Little China (1986).
Russell starred in various other films, including Used Cars (1980), The Best of Times (1986), Overboard (1987), Tango & Cash (1989), Backdraft (1991), Tombstone (1993), Stargate (1994), Executive Decision (1996), Breakdown (1997), Vanilla Sky (2001), Miracle (2004), Sky High (2005), Death Proof (2007), The Hateful Eight (2015) and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). He also appeared in the Fast & Furious franchise as Mr. Nobody (starring in Furious 7 (2015), The Fate of the Furious (2017), and F9 (2021)). He also portrayed Ego in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) instalments Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) and What If...?(2021), and played the role of Santa Claus in The Christmas Chronicles (2018) and The Christmas Chronicles 2 (2020).
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Fernando Poe Jr.
Biography
Ronald Allan Kelley Poe (August 20, 1939 – December 14, 2004), better known as Fernando Poe, Jr. and colloquially known as FPJ and Da King, was a Filipino actor. During the latter part of his career, Poe was defeated by incumbent President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in the 2004 Philippine Presidential elections, a result roundly believed to have been fraudulent. His long career as an action film star earned him the moniker "King of Philippine Movies" (often shortened to Da King).
Poe was posthumously declared a National Artist of the Philippines for Film on 23 May 2006 by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The award was confirmed by President Benigno Aquino III on 20 July 2012, and was presented to his family on 16 August.
Ronald Allan K. Poe was the son of Filipino actor Allan Fernando R. Poe (Fernando Poe, Sr.) and Elizabeth Kelley, an American. He was born in San Carlos City, Pangasinan. His parents were not yet legally married when he was born on August 20, 1939, although his parents were later married in 1940. His opponents tried to derail his bid for the presidency when they sought to disqualify him as an illegitimate son of a non-Filipino mother. He was the second among six siblings and it was his brother Andy who was really named Fernando Poe, Jr. which FPJ later adopted, to bank on the popularity of his father who was a top actor in his time. Conrad Poe, a Filipino actor is FPJ's half-brother, the illegitimate son of the late Fernando Poe Sr. and actress Patricia Mijares. Pou is the original spelling of the family's surname from his grandfather, playwright Lorenzo Pou, a Catalan migrant from Majorca, Spain, who ventured into mining and business in the Philippines.
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Dania Ramirez
Biography
Dania Jissell Ramirez (born November 8, 1979) is a Dominican actress. Her credits include the roles of Nikki Batista on Alert: Missing Persons Unit, Rosie Falta on Lifetime's Devious Maids, Maya Herrera in Heroes, Alex in Entourage, Blanca on the last season of The Sopranos, and Cinderella on the last season of ABC's Once Upon a Time. Her film roles include Alex Guerrero in She Hate Me and Callisto in the feature film X-Men: The Last Stand.
She has made appearances in numerous music videos for artists such as LL Cool J, De La Soul, Santana, and Wisin & Yandel. She has acted in TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Heroes, 10-8: Officers on Duty, Entourage, and The Sopranos. In 1997, she was an extra in the HBO film Subway Stories, which led to her encountering filmmaker Spike Lee. He would later direct her in her film debut playing Daphne in 25th Hour (2002), as well as in She Hate Me (2004). Other films she has starred in include X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), Quarantine (2008), Cross Bronx (2004), and Premium Rush (2012).
Born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, from an early age she knew her calling to be an actress. As a child, she enjoyed reenacting telenovelas for her relatives. A modeling scout saw her working in a store at the age of 15, which led to her first acting job, in an ad for soda. She later apprenticed in the Actor's Workshop in N.Y.C. She then relocated to L.A. to develop her acting ambition.
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Ramsey Campbell
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Ramsey Campbell (born 4 January 1946 in Liverpool) is an English horror fiction author.
Since he first came to prominence in the mid-1960s, critics have cited Campbell as one of the leading writers in his field: T. E. D. Klein has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today", while S. T. Joshi stated, "future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft or Blackwood."
Description above from the Wikipedia article Ramsey Campbell,licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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John Hollis
Biography
John Hollis was an English actor. He played the role of Lobot in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and the German porter at the chateau in The Dirty Dozen. He appeared in the classic 1978 film Superman as one of the Elders of Krypton, and reprised his role in the 1980 theatrical version of Superman II. He also played the role of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the cold open of the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only, going uncredited due to the controversy over the film rights and characters of Thunderball. In this sequence, his character was famously lifted from a wheelchair and dropped to his death down a chimney stack by Bond after he had attempted to kill Bond by using a remote control link to Bond's MI6 helicopter. Hollis also took the role of Sondergaard in the Jon Pertwee era of Doctor Who in the story The Mutants, and appeared in The Avengers episode The Cybernauts as a sensei and also in The Tomorrow People. John Hollis was a versatile character actor for BBC Radio. Notable roles include Magwitch in Great Expectations, Leonard Bast in Howards End, Conan Doyle's Inspector Lestrade and Shakespeare's Bardolph.
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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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