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Nanci Griffith

Biography

Griffith was born in Seguin, Texas, and her career has spanned a variety of musical genres, predominantly country, folk, and what she terms "folkabilly." Griffith won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 1994 for her recording, Other Voices, Other Rooms. This album features Griffith covering the songs of artists who were her major influences. One of her better-known songs is "From a Distance," which was written and composed by Julie Gold, although Bette Midler's version achieved greater commercial success. Similarly, other artists have occasionally achieved greater success than Griffith herself with songs that she wrote or co-wrote. For example, Kathy Mattea had a country music top five hit with a 1986 cover of Griffith's "Love at the Five and Dime" and Suzy Bogguss had one of her largest hits with Griffith's and Tom Russell's "Outbound Plane". In 1994, Griffith teamed up with Jimmy Webb to contribute the song "If These Old Walls Could Speak" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country  produced by the Red Hot Organization. Griffith was a survivor of breast cancer which was diagnosed in 1996, and thyroid cancer in 1998.
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Xavier Gélin

Biography

Xavier Gélin (21 June 1946 – 2 July 1999) was a French actor and film producer, and son of French film star Daniel Gélin and actress-producer Danièle Delorme. Through his father, he was a half-brother of Fiona Gélin and Maria Schneider, also actresses. Gélin, a French actor and a mainstay of popular French cinema for more than three decades, died of cancer at the age of 53. He played supporting roles in more than 20 films, including Gerard Oury's 1973 comic hit "The Adventures of Rabbi Jacob" with Louis de Funes. He also starred in Claude Lelouche's "Adventure, It's Adventure" and "The Devil by the Tail" by Phillippe de Broca. Other hits include Claude Pinoteau's "The Slap" and "The Party-2." Source: Article "Xavier Gélin" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Paul Benedict

Biography

Paul Benedict (September 17, 1938 – December 1, 2008) was an American actor who made numerous appearances in television and movies beginning in the 1960s. He was known for his roles as The Number Painter on the popular PBS children's show Sesame Street, and as the quirky English neighbor "Harry Bentley" on the CBS sitcom The Jeffersons. Often mistakenly credited as Charlie Bucket's school teacher (the uncredited role of Mr. Turkentine), in the cult classic Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, who was actually played by David Battley. Description above from the Wikipedia article Paul Benedict, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Hunter Whaley

Biography

Hunter Whaley (born 1996) is an American writer, director, and editor based in New York City. Originally from Grand Junction, Colorado, Hunter started as an actor in community theater productions at the age of five. He then wrote and directed several original plays for his high school theater program before fully pursuing his lifelong passion for film. While attending New York University, his senior thesis film "By Day and Again" (2018) was awarded Achievement in Experimental Filmmaking at the First Run Film Festival. Hunter's other independent short films include "Der Platz" (2021), a Cold War spy thriller that recreates a purgatorial vision of Berlin in a Brooklyn warehouse, and "The Big Whatsit" (2024), a proof-of-concept comedy crime caper shot entirely on miniDV. In 2025, Hunter participated in the Terre di Cinema Filmmaking Program in Ortigia, Sicily.
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Dimitri Storoge

Biography

Dimitri Storoge (born 26 July 1977) is a French actor. He is most noted for his performances as Patrick Esposito Di Napoli in the film Through the Mist (Dédé, à travers les brumes), for which he received a Jutra Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the 12th Jutra Awards in 2010, and as the young Edmond Vidal in A Gang Story (Les Lyonnais), for which he was a César Award nominee for Most Promising Actor at the 37th César Awards in 2012. He was previously in a relationship with actress and television host Virginie de Clausade. Source: Article "Dimitri Storoge" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Elmer Clifton

Biography

Born in Chicago, he was an actor in touring stock companies before making his screen debut in 1912. Joining D.W. Griffith's Fine Arts Studio in 1914, he was cast as Union officer Phil Stoneman in "The Birth of a Nation" (1915) and as The Rhapsodie in the Babylonian story of "Intolerance" (1916). He was also a second-unit director for those films. Promoted to director in 1917, Clifton supervised several successful Fine Arts comedies starring Dorothy Gish while continuing to serve as Griffith's assistant. Their association culminated with the blockbuster "Way Down East" (1920). Clifton shot much of its famous "Rescue from the ice" sequence and doubled for star Richard Barthelmess in the riskier scenes. He then left Griffith to form his own production company and had a smash hit with "Down to the Sea in Ships" (1922), a colorful whaling saga made on location in New England. It made a star of future "It Girl" Clara Bow, who appeared as a cross-dressing stowaway. In 1923 Clifton signed a lucrative seven-year contract with Fox and was poised to become one of Hollywood's major directors. Then tragedy struck. He was filming "The Warrens of Virginia" in Texas when his lead actress died from burns in an accident on the set. Although Clifton was blameless in the incident, he was fired by Fox and his career never regained its momentum.
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Theresa Russell

Biography

Theresa Russell (born Theresa Lynn Paup; March 20, 1957) is an American actress. Russell made her film debut in The Last Tycoon (1976), followed by a lead role in Straight Time (1978). She was then cast in Nicolas Roeg's controversial thriller Bad Timing (1980), which earned her critical praise. After marrying Roeg in 1982, she appeared in many films directed by him, mainly arthouse and experimental films, including Eureka (1983), Insignificance (1985), and Cold Heaven (1991). Russell starred in Whore and Kafka, both released in 1991. Russell appeared in the box-office hit thriller Wild Things (1998), starred in the critically acclaimed drama The Believer (2001) and, in the later 2000s, appeared in HBO miniseries Empire Falls (2005) and had a minor role in Spider-Man 3 (2007). Description above from the Wikipedia article Theresa Russell, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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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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Renzo Montagnani

Biography

Renzo Montagnani (September 11, 1930 – May 22, 1997) was an Italian actor and voice actor. Montagnani was born in Alessandria, Piedmont, and debuted as theatre actor thanks to the help of Erminio Macario. His first cinema success was his dramatic role in Metello (1970), but he later switched to the commedia all'italiana with his roles in the last two chapters of the Amici miei series (1982 and 1985). In the 1980s he also participated to a TV show as Don Fumino, an easy-speaking Tuscan parish priest. Montagnani also intensively worked as dubber, dubbing actors such as Michel Piccoli, Charles Bronson and Philippe Noiret for the Italian version of movies. He was also the Italian voice of Thomas O'Malley in the 1970 Disney film The Aristocats. In his later years he participated to numerous commedia sexy all'italiana films, often pairing with Edwige Fenech, the most popular actress of the genre, and also with Alvaro Vitali as the comic sidekick. In 1959, Montagnani married Eileen Jarvis, who was a member of the Bluebell Girls. In 1963, they had one son, Daniele. Montagnani died in Rome of lung cancer on 22 May 1997 at the age of 66. He was buried in England. His son Daniele, died of cancer in 2004 and was buried alongside his father. Source: Article "Renzo Montagnani" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Paul Hurst

Biography

Paul Hurst (October 15, 1888 - February 27, 1953) was an American character actor of prodigious output who also directed and wrote silent films. Much of his early work was in low budget western films. A native of central California, Hurst had a first-hand knowledge of Western lore, growing up surrounded by the multi-million acre Lux & Miller ranches which ran cattle throughout the state. Visiting San Francisco as a young man, Hurst became involved in amateur theatricals and thereafter traveled to Los Angeles to join in the emerging film industry there. He began appearing in films as early as 1912, most of them Westerns. By 1916, he was directing them as well (some sources report that he served in the First World War as a member of the French Foreign Legion, but the dates of his film projects make this story highly suspect). In the early 1920s, Hurst wrote several scenarios for films he directed and appeared in. He proved adept at working as a director for some of the cheapest producers along Gower Gulch, where movies were normally shot on location in a week or less and where stunt men were often the highest paid folks on the set. Within a few years, he focused all of his energies into acting, notably becoming one of the few successes to emerge from Hollywood's Poverty Row. Hurst quickly became one of the more prolific and familiar characters in American movies. With his blocky build and squinty demeanor, and with a raspy voice that enhanced his memorability once sound pictures came in, Hurst played villains and cops and comedy sidekicks in more than 250 films. His most famous role was that of the deserter shot dead on the stairway of Tara by Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind (1939). Hurst was the sidekick to Monte Hale in a number of B-Westerns. Former Gower Gulch veteran John Wayne hired Hurst for Big Jim McLain (1952) knowing that Hurst was ill with terminal cancer. In 1953, at the age of 64, due to his health problems, Paul Hurst committed suicide. Date of Death: 27 February 1953, Hollywood, California  (suicide)
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