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Jennifer Booth
Biography
Jennifer Booth is a film and television executive producer. Booth previously served as a Vice President of Physical Production at Marvel Studios. Booth has managed productions of all scales, from independent gems like Akeelah and the Bee and Strangers with Candy to large-scale studio projects and high-end television productions such as Marvel Studios' She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and Secret Invasion.
Booth began her professional journey as Head of Production at King Size Entertainment from 2000 to 2003, where she oversaw production for the independent film company. Between 2005 and 2013, she worked as a self-employed producer and unit production manager on a wide range of independent and studio features, further sharpening her expertise in both creative collaboration and logistical execution.
In November 2014, Booth joined Lionsgate as Executive Vice President of Production, a role she held until March 2020. She then moved to PICTURESTART as Executive Vice President of Production from March 2020 to December 2020, where she oversaw physical production and post-production for both film and television.
Booth then joined Marvel Studios in December 2020, serving as Vice President of Physical Production until July 2023. At Marvel Studios, she oversaw physical production on several streaming series.
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Anne Dudley
Biography
Anne Jennifer Dudley (née Beckingham; born 7 May 1956) is an English composer, keyboardist, conductor and pop musician. She was the first BBC Concert Orchestra's Composer in Association in 2001. She has worked in the classical and pop genres, as a film composer, and was one of the core members of the synthpop band Art of Noise. In 1998, Dudley won an Oscar for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score for The Full Monty. In addition to over twenty other film scores, in 2012 she served as music producer for the film version of Les Misérables, also acting as arranger and composing some new additional music.
Dudley was born in Beckenham, Kent. She graduated with a master's in music from King's College London in 1978. Trained as a classical performer, she moved into the competitive commercial field as a session musician, where her professional relationship with Trevor Horn began. In 1982, Dudley made significant contributions to the Horn-produced The Lexicon of Love album by ABC. She went from fleshing-out keyboard parts to scoring the album's orchestrations (which were, according to Horn, her first-ever string arrangements) and also co-writing some of the songs.
Dudley was a founding member of the successful band Art of Noise in 1983, which helped pioneer the use of sampling within the pop genre. Their stand-out hits include "Beat Box" (1984), "Moments in Love" (1985), "Close (to the Edit)" (1984), "Paranoimia" (1986), which featured a monologue about insomnia by the artificial intelligence character, Max Headroom (who fitted in well with the group's futuristic anonymity), and, with Tom Jones, "Kiss", a Top 10 in 1988. Art of Noise also produced the theme tune to the ITV game show The Krypton Factor which was used between 1986 and 1993 and is arguably its most recognised theme. "(Theme From) The Krypton Factor" was composed and recorded in 1986 and was reworked as "Crusoe" on their 1987 album.
Dudley's association with Trevor Horn and Art of Noise led on to working with artists such as Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Seal, Marc Almond, Rod Stewart, Robbie Williams and, more recently, Siphiwo. She has co-written songs with Malcolm McLaren ("Buffalo Gals"), Cathy Dennis ("Too Many Walls"), and a 1930s-inspired song with Sting called "This Was Never Meant to Be".
She produced the Tom Jones hit "You Can Leave Your Hat On" (1988) and a Debbie Harry single "Strike Me Pink" (1993).
In 1989, Dudley produced and conducted the string arrangements for the eponymous debut album by Welsh sophisti-pop duo Waterfront. Her intricate production is demonstrated most notably on the song "Nature of Love", which was released as a single in both the UK and US. Another collaboration in 1989 was with Neil Tennant from Pet Shop Boys and Bernard Sumner of New Order; Dudley contributed the lush string arrangements on their debut Electronic release, "Getting Away with It", which peaked at #12 in the UK in December 1989, and #38 in the US in 1990.
Dudley produced two tracks on the 2002 Opera Babes album Beyond Imagination (ranking No. 1 on the UK classical charts for 11 weeks, and No. 4 on the US Billboard charts). In 2004, she produced the album Voice for Alison Moyet. The album, an eclectic collection of cover versions, reached No. 7 on the UK Albums Chart. ...
Source: Article "Anne Dudley" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Aziz Ali
Biography
Aziz bin Ali, a renowned monologist and folk poet, was born in Baghdad on the side of Al-Karkh. His true name was Aziz bin Ali bin Abdul Aziz Ali bin Hatim bin Hanei. Completing his primary education in 1924, Aziz embarked on a journey that would significantly influence the landscape of Iraqi music.
Aziz bin Ali gained prominence for his unique contribution to the world of music through the art of monologue singing. Prior to his emergence, this distinctive style was neither known nor familiar within the Iraqi singing community. Aziz's musical legacy lies in his ability to introduce and popularize the monologue genre in Iraqi music, leaving an indelible mark on the country's cultural heritage.
Though the monologist and folk poet has departed, his impact continues to resonate, shaping the course of Iraqi musical traditions and inspiring future generations. Aziz bin Ali's dedication to his craft and pioneering spirit have solidified his place as a trailblazer in the rich tapestry of Iraqi artistic expression.
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Maxine Peake
Biography
Maxine Peake (born 14 July 1974) is an English stage, radio, film and television actress, playwright, producer, director and political activist, who made her name as Twinkle in Victoria Wood's sitcom Dinnerladies. She has since played Veronica in Channel 4's Manchester-based drama series Shameless, barrister Martha Costello in the BBC legal drama Silk and Grace Middleton in The Village. She is also an accomplished stage actress, having played the title role in Hamlet, and had a role in the 2014 film The Theory of Everything. In 2018 she played the lead in the film Funny Cow and had a starring role in Mike Leigh's epic Peterloo, a film very close to her heart.
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Jeremy Burnham
Biography
John Richard Jeremy Burnham (28 May 1931 – 31 December 2020) was a British television actor of the 1960s and 1970s, and a screenwriter.
Burnham began in the 1950s as an actor and appeared in many popular British TV series such as The Avengers episodes "The Fear Merchants", "The Town of No Return", and "The Forget-Me-Knot", The Saint and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) in 1969.
In the mid-1970s he retired from acting and concentrated on screenwriting. With Trevor Ray, he co-authored the fondly-remembered children's science fiction horror serial Children of the Stones (1977). A novelization followed, also in 1977. A sequel novel, Return to the Stones appeared in 2012 as an e-book and in 2015 as a physical book. Ray and Burnham collaborated on a less well-known children's five episode serial entitled Raven (1977); they also wrote the novelization (1977).
He also authored the children's tennis-based novel, Break Point, which was made into a BBC television series in 1982. Burnham himself played the leading role of tennis coach Frank Abbott.
Burnham also wrote for The Avengers, in which he had also appeared as an actor (see entry above), Minder and Peak Practice.
He died in December 2020 at the age of 89.
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Elissa Landi
Biography
Elissa Landi (December 6, 1904 – October 21, 1948) was an Italian born actress who was popular in Hollywood films of the 1920s and 1930s. Rumoured to be a descendant of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, she was noted for her aristocratic bearing.
Born Elisabeth Marie Christine Kühnelt in Venice, Landi was raised in Austria and educated in England.
Her first ambition was to be a writer, and she wrote her first novel at the age of twenty. She would return to writing during lulls in her acting career. She joined the Oxford Repertory Company at an early age, appearing in many British and American stage successes.
During the 1920s she appeared in British, French, and German films before travelling to the United States to appear in a Broadway production of A Farewell to Arms. She was signed to a contact by Fox Film Corporation (later 20th Century Fox) in 1931.
She played the heroine in Cecil B. De Mille's The Sign of the Cross (1932), but was overshadowed by Claudette Colbert who played the flashier role of Poppea. She was paired successfully with some of the major leading men, such as David Manners, Charles Farrell, Warner Baxter, and Ronald Colman in romantic dramas such as Body and Soul (1931) before appearing in the box office hit The Count of Monte Cristo (1934) with Robert Donat.
Her contract with Fox was abruptly cancelled in 1936 as a result of her refusal to accept a particular role. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer signed her to a contract and after a couple of romantic dramas she played the cousin of Myrna Loy in the very popular After the Thin Man (1936). After only two more films she retired, in 1943.
She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1943, and dedicated herself to writing, producing six novels and a series of poems.
She died from cancer in Kingston, New York, and was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Elissa Landi has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to Motion Pictures, at 1615 Vine St.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Elissa Landi, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Nils Tavernier
Biography
Nils Tavernier (born 1 September 1965) is a French actor and director. He is best known for his film appearances in Beatrice (1987), Valmont (1988), and Revenge of the Musketeers (1994), and for his directorial efforts The Other Side of the Tracks (1997), Etoiles: Dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet (2001), and Les enfants de Thiès (2001). He is the son of film director Bertrand Tavernier.
Nils Tavernier was born on 1 September 1965 in Normandy, France, the son of director, screenwriter, actor, and producer Bertrand Tavernier and Colo Tavernier O'Hagan. Tavernier made his first screen appearance in a film by his father, Spoiled Children in 1977 while still a teenager. He landed additional roles in feature films such as Beatrice in 1987, L.627 in 1991, and Revenge of the Musketeers in 1993 which was directed by his father. He also played supporting roles in Claude Chabrol's drama film Story of Women (1988) and Miloš Forman's period film Valmont (1988). He also appeared in Brigitte Roüan's After Sex in 1996, and Sylvie Verheyde's Un frère... in 1997.
Tavernier started his career as a director making short films and documentaries. In Etoiles: Dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet (2001), he explored his passion for dance with Etoiles. He co-directed with his father the documentary Histoires de vies brisées: les 'double peine' de Lyon (2001). In 2009, he directed the documentary The Mystery of Twins. In 2012, he performed with Gil Rabier a documentary about medical errors, What is left of our mistakes? This film is supported by the French Ministry of Health and Public-Hôpitaux de Paris. In 2013, he returned to the themes of childhood, disability, and commitment with the film Of all our forces.
Tavernier has also directed two documentaries for television: L'odyssée de la vie in 2004, in which he questioned the sexuality of the French, and L'odyssée de la vie in 2006, following a woman throughout her pregnancy and its affirmation as a mom within the couple. His most recent film is The Finishers (2013). Tavernier also authored The Mystery of Twins with Marie-Noelle Humbert in 2009.
Source: Article "Nils Tavernier" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Vladimir Bukovsky
Biography
Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky (Russian: Влади́мир Константи́нович Буко́вский; 30 December 1942 – 27 October 2019) was a Russian-born British human rights activist and writer. From the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, he was a prominent figure in the Soviet dissident movement, well known at home and abroad. He spent a total of twelve years in the psychiatric prison-hospitals, labour camps, and prisons of the Soviet Union during Brezhnev rule.
After being expelled from the Soviet Union in late 1976, Bukovsky remained in vocal opposition to the Soviet system and the shortcomings of its successor regimes in Russia. An activist, a writer, and a neurophysiologist, he is celebrated for his part in the campaign to expose and halt the political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union.
A member of the international advisory council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a director of the Gratitude Fund (set up in 1998 to commemorate and support former dissidents), and a member of the International Council of the New York City-based Human Rights Foundation, Bukovsky was a Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.
In 2001, Vladimir Bukovsky received the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom, awarded annually since 1993 by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
In 2015 he was prosecuted in the United Kingdom on the charge of possession of child pornography, but became ill and died before the case went to trial.
Vladimir Bukovsky was born to Russian parents in the town of Belebey in the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (today the Republic of Bashkortostan in the Russian Federation), to which his family was evacuated during World War II. After the war he and his parents returned to Moscow where his father Konstantin (1908–1976) was a well-known Soviet journalist. During his last year at school Vladimir was expelled for creating and editing an unauthorised magazine. To meet the requirements to apply for a university place he completed his secondary education at evening classes. Bukovsky was enrolled at Moscow State University for biology but was kicked out at age 19, having criticised the Komsomol, i.e., the Young Communist League.
In September 1960, Bukovsky entered Moscow University to study biology. There he and some friends decided to revive the informal Mayakovsky Square poetry readings which began after a statue to the poet was unveiled in central Moscow in 1958. They made contact with earlier participants of the readings such as Vladimir Osipov, the editor of Boomerang (1960), and Yuri Galanskov who issued the Phoenix (1961), two examples of literary samizdat.
It was then that the 19-year-old Bukovsky wrote his critical notes on the Communist Youth League or Komsomol. Later, this text was given the title "Theses on the Collapse of the Komsomol" by the KGB. Bukovsky portrayed the USSR as an "illegal society" facing an acute ideological crisis. The Komsomol was "moribund", he asserted, having lost both moral and spiritual authority, and he called for its democratisation. This text, and his other activities, brought Bukovsky to the attention of the authorities. He was interrogated twice before being thrown out of the university in autumn 1961. ...
Source: Article "Vladimir Bukovsky" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Daniel Toscan du Plantier
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Daniel Toscan du Plantier (7 April 1941 – 11 February 2003) was a French film producer. Educated at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques he became advertising manager for the France Soir daily newspaper in 1966 and between 1975 and 1985 was director-general of the Gaumont Film Company, and president of Unifrance, an organisation for promoting French films, from 1988 until his death.
Toscan du Plantier was married four times and had three sons and two daughters. His first marriage was to French actress Marie-Christine Barrault, with whom he had one son and one daughter. His second marriage was with Italian film director and producer Francesca Comencini, with whom he had one son. His third wife was Sophie Toscan du Plantier, who was murdered in 1996 (the crime is considered unsolved in Ireland, where it happened, and solved in France, where Ian Bailey was convicted in May 2019). His fourth marriage was with Melita Nikolic in 1998, with whom he had one son and one daughter.
Source: Article "Daniel Toscan du Plantier" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Vincent Tavier
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Vincent Tavier has a degree in history and sociology. Tavier is especially known as co-author, producer and actor from the cult movie Man Bites Dog ( 1992 ). In 1993 he founds Todo Films with the aim to support young directors in making their short films and clips. In 1997 we find him again alongside Benoît Poelvoorde, this time for the series Les Carnets de Monsieur Manatane, a huge success on Canal+. Afterwards he collaborates on features films such as Aaltra, Calvaire, Ober, Peur ( s ) du noir and Où est la main de l’homme sans tête.
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