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Gordon Mitchell
Biography
Gordon Mitchell was born "Charles Pendleton" in Colorado and served his country in both World War II and the Korean War (during which he was briefly a POW). Afterward he worked as a teacher in inner city schools in California and got heavily involved in personal fitness and bodybuilding. He became friends with Joe Gold (of Gold's Gym), joining Mae West's comedy act as one of her "strongmen" who would carry her on and off the stage. During this time he also found himself in demand as an extra in several Hollywood films including "Lil Abner", "The Enemy Below", and "The Ten Commandments" (in which he and Joe Gold bring Moses to Ramsey's court in chains). When the Peplum craze began in Italy and his fellow Muscle Beach star Steve Reeves became a huge star. Gordon (along with Reg Park, Mark Forrest, Brad Harris, Mickey Hargitay, and Richard Harrison) similarly jumped on the bandwagon and headed to Italy to find stardom and financially greener pastures.
Thanks to his unconventional appearance (small, sharp eyes and craggy face) and enthusiasm for his work, Mitchell found himself one of the most in-demand performers in Italy's Sword & Sandal craze of the early 60's, working with several top directors including Marino Girolami, Alberto De Martino, and Michele Lupo. Unlike most of his peers who left Italy once the genre ran its course, Mitchell stayed on to play villains in numerous Spaghetti Westerns, Giallos, War Films, and Science Fiction movies. He also had a small but key role in the Elizabeth Taylor / Marlon Brandon vehicle "Reflections in a Golden Eye" (1967) during this time though perhaps his most prestigious role would be the rogue who helps the two protagonists kidnap the noble in Fellini's "Satyricon" (1969). Mitchell used his extra cash to buy and build his own movie studio (Cave Studios) which he single-handedly constructed outside of Rome. It went largely unused except by ultra-low budget director Demofilo Fidani who would often cast Mitchell as well.
In the late 1980's when the Italian genre film industry had basically self-destructed, unable to compete with American films even for video rentals, Mitchell packed his bags and moved back to California. Once home, he re-teamed with old friend Joe Gold to manage World Gym, at which Mitchell acted as COO and lived at the top floor of its headquarters in Marina Del Rey. Continuing for years to act in low budget films purely for the fun of it, Mitchell passed away in his sleep at age 80 in 2003. Having just won the California recall election the day prior, Arnold Schwarzenegger took time out of his busy schedule to pay his respects at Mitchell's Memorial Service at the World Gym Headquarters along with many other bodybuilders who credit Mitchell with getting them into their careers.
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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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Kathryn McCormick
Biography
Kathryn Renée McCormick (born July 7, 1990) is an American contemporary dancer and actress, noted for placing third in the sixth season of the American televised dance competition So You Think You Can Dance, in which she had the highest placement for a woman on the season. She has returned in seasons 7-10 as one of the show's "all-stars". She has played a leading role in the fourth Step Up movie, Step Up Revolution (2012) and the upcoming, Dance-Off (2014), alongside Shane Harper.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Kathryn McCormick, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Jorge Drexler
Biography
Jorge Drexler is a Uruguayan composer and singer with a long professional career linked to music and the arts. During his more than 30-year career he has recorded fourteen studio albums and has given concerts all over the world.
A doctor by training, in 1995 he decided to leave behind his life in Uruguay and move to Spain to devote himself entirely to music and composition. Throughout his career, his work has been awarded with an Oscar for "Al otro lado del río" (2005) -Best Original Song, being the first in non-English language to win this award- thirteen Latin Grammys (2014, 2018, 2021 and 2022), a Goya Award (2011) and a Biznaga de Plata, among other recognitions.
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Kim Delaney
Biography
Kim Delaney (born November 29, 1961) is an American actress known for her starring role as Detective Diane Russell on the ABC drama television series NYPD Blue, for which she won an Emmy Award. Early in her career, she played the role of Jenny Gardner in the ABC daytime television drama All My Children. She later had leading roles in the short lived TV drama Philly, part of the first season of CSI: Miami, and the first six seasons of Army Wives.She also appeared in Tour of Duty, Season 2 and the first two episodes of Season 3, playing a writer during the Vietnam War named Alex Devlin.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Kim Delaney, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Terry Farrell
Biography
Theresa Lee "Terry" Farrell (born November 19, 1963) is an American former actress and fashion model. She is perhaps best known for her performances in the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Jadzia Dax and Becker as Regina Kostas.
Farrell is the daughter of Kay Carol Christine (Bendickson) and Edwin Francis Farrell, Jr. Later, her mother married David W. Grussendorf, who adopted Terry and her sister, Christine. In 1978, she left her hometown for a summer in Mexico City as a foreign exchange student. She has since been fond of big cities, so in her junior year of high school, the nearly six feet tall Farrell submitted her image to the Elite modeling agency in New York City. Shortly after, at the age of 16, she was summoned to New York City and, within two days of arriving, had an exclusive contract with Mademoiselle.
After 18 months of modeling, she studied acting with Kate McGregor Stewart while still modeling on the side. Her first major roles were in the short-lived 1983 television series Paper Dolls playing a model and in the feature film Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield. In the spring of 1989, she began studying acting with Stella Adler and appeared in a number of guest-starring roles in series like Quantum Leap and The Cosby Show. In 1992, she played Cat in a second pilot for a U.S. version of Red Dwarf, which was not picked up.
Soon after the Red Dwarf USA project folded, she was offered a lead role in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Farrell starred as Jadzia Dax, the space station's Starfleet science officer; a character from an alien species known as the Trill, who is host to a 300-year-old symbiont and can draw upon the memories and knowledge of the symbiont's seven previous hosts. The series debuted in January 1993. When she decided to leave the show at the end of the sixth season, Paramount killed Farrell's "host" character (though continuing the "symbiont" character in a new Dax host, played by Nicole DeBoer).
Farrell then co-starred on Paramount's television comedy series Becker. She played Regina "Reggie" Kostas, foil and love interest to Ted Danson's John Becker, for four years and 94 episodes, before she was replaced by Nancy Travis.
Farrell also provided the voice of Six of One in the animated short film Tripping the Rift, which eventually became a Sci-Fi Channel TV series with other actors providing the voice of Six. First released independently on the Internet, Tripping the Rift originally featured Patricia Beckmann as the voice of Six and was replaced by Farrell's voice for an episode of the Sci-Fi Channel's short film series Exposure, in which Farrell was guest host. Farrell's version of Six was heard only once on television.The asteroid 26734 Terryfarrell, discovered in 2001, was named in her honor by its discoverer, William Kwong Yu Yeung.Farrell lives in Hershey, Pennsylvania, with her husband, former Sprint Corporation spokesman Brian Baker (a.k.a. the Sprint Guy) and their son. She enjoys sewing and quilting.arrell has appeared with her husband at the Hershey Area Playhouse in Hershey, Pennsylvania in a production of A. R. Gurney's Love Letters.
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Jim Howick
Biography
James Howick (born 14 May 1979) is an English actor and writer. He is best known for his roles in television series such as Horrible Histories (2009-2013), Yonderland (2013-2016), Sex Education (2019-), Peep Show (2007–2012) and Ghosts (2019-). He also starred in films such as Hellboy (2004) and Bill (2015).
Along with the five other members of the Horrible Histories starring cast, Howick is also the co-creator, -writer and -star of Yonderland, an eight-part family fantasy comedy series that premiered on SkyOne on 10 November 2013. He co-starred with the same troupe in Bill, a BBC-produced comedy film based loosely around the early life of William Shakespeare.
Other prominent television roles include Gerard in Peep Show (2007–2012), Gerry in Danny Boyle's Babylon (2014) and Anthony in the revival of Reggie Perrin (2009–2010). In addition, he has been a regular guest star in various sketch comedies, including The Armstrong and Miller Show (2007–2010), and The Kevin Bishop Show (2008–2009). In 2017, he played Aaron Mayford in the ITV thriller Broadchurch. In 2019, Howick starred in the Netflix original series Sex Education as Mr Hendricks. Howick is the co-creator, co-writer and co-star of the BBC One sitcom Ghosts which was first broadcasted in 2019. In film, Howick played Cpl. Matlin in the Guillermo del Toro adaptation of Hellboy.
Description above is from the Wikipedia article Jim Howick, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Magnus Carlsen
Biography
Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian chess grandmaster, often considered the greatest chess player of all time. Carlsen is a five-time World Chess Champion, reigning six-time World Rapid Chess Champion, reigning nine-time World Blitz Chess Champion and the reigning FIDE Freestyle Chess World Champion. Carlsen has held the No. 1 position in the FIDE rankings since 1 July 2011, the longest consecutive period, and trails only Garry Kasparov in time spent as the highest-rated player in the world. Carlsen's peak rating of 2882 is the highest in history. He also holds the record for the longest unbeaten streak at the elite level in classical chess at 125 games.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Magnus Carlsen, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Shosuke Tanihara
Biography
Shōsuke Tanihara (born July 8, 1972 in in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture) is a Japanese actor probably best known outside of Japan for his portrayal of Riki Fudoh in Fudoh: The New Generation. Tanihara hosts Tokyo Twenty-Four Living Supported by FLET’S Hikari, a podcast produced by TOKYO FM. The podcast began airing on 2006-01-07 with a guest appearance by the former Yokohama Bay Stars pitcher Takashi Saitō. He is married to Emi Miyake, who gave birth to their daughter in October 2007. He made the announcement at the 8th Best Formalist Award ceremony.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Shōsuke Tanihara, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
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S.V. Henson, Jr.
Biography
Stanley V. Henson, Jr. was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and lived the first year of his life, in the Annapolis, Maryland home of Abraham and Elizabeth Carr-Smith (owners of Carr's Beach) with his parents, who rented a room in the home. Carr's Beach was the east coast mecca for black entertainers in the 50's and 60's. Among the entertainers who performed at Carr's Beach were jazz legends such as Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, and Lionel Hampton, as well as soul artists Ray Charles, James Brown, Otis Redding and Jackie Wilson. Rock 'n' Roll pioneers Fats Domino and Buddy Holly also performed at Carr's Beach. On July 21, 1956, an estimated 70,000 people traveled to Carr's Beach to hear Chuck Berry perform, although only 8,000 made it past the gates because the grounds were filled beyond capacity. By the early 1960s, the list of popular entertainers included Little Richard, Lloyd Price, Etta James, Sam Cooke, The Temptations, Aretha Franklin, The Shirelles, The Coasters, and The Drifters. Henson's intrigue for film and television production was ignited, his discovery of the works of Oscar Micheaux, Gordon Parks, Spike Lee and Berry Gordy as a film producer struck a chord. A new friend named Sean Collinson, would again remind Henson of the genius of Clarence Avant as a businessman and an offer to introduce him again. A conversation with the late Pablo Davis (former manager of L.A. and Babyface) , the late music legend Duffy Hooks and actor/football legend Joe Theismann, also encouraged him to pursue a film career. His friend, actor and neighbor Maurice Sneed ("The Color Purple" and "Malcolm X"), actress Lettie Battle and TV producer Al Douche' taught him the craft of film production and Stanislavsky Method Acting. This period marked a crossroads where Henson's creative journey intersected with remarkable individuals, setting the stage for his continued exploration into the world of entertainment and film production. Henson has worked on films with Cicely Tyson, Morgan Freeman, James Earl Jones, Yaphett Koto, Ron O'Neal and Martin Sheen to name a few. Henson's young family members, cousins, nephews, nieces, and great-nephews are actors and producers in the entertainment business. Henson's nephew Jamaal Avery has been a producer for 17 years (Sister's son) produced the hit shows "The Jersey Shore", "Martha, and Snoop", "The Steve Harvey Show", "The Real" and "Vote or miss out" and his great-nephew Jamaal Avery, Jr. has starred as a regular on the hit show "Abbott Elementary", The new Steven Spielberg film "Color Purple" (Musical adaptation) as young Harpo, The Young Jedi Adventure and his niece, Naomi Avery stars in Abbot Elementary, Brandon Avery produces "Love Island", "Shaunie's Home Court" his cousin Monica Henson (Taraji P. Henson's aunt) and Taraji P. Henson are both actors who have appeared in Henson's films. Over the last 17 years, Henson earned an advanced certificate from Yale, a Doctorate, Masters, and Bachelors from Trinity University, and an Associates Degree from Los Angeles Valley College and has written endorsements from Congresswoman Maxine Waters, RCA and Warner Bros executive Lygia Guy, the late Sid Bernstein, the late Stanley Sheinbaum, The late Dick Gregory and the late William Haley, the son of Alex Haley.
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