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Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Biography
Alejandro González Iñárritu is a Mexican filmmaker. He is primarily known for making modern psychological drama films about the human condition. His projects have garnered critical acclaim and numerous accolades, including five Academy Awards, Special Achievement Awards, Golden Globe Awards, BAFTA Awards, and Directors Guild of America Awards. His most notable films include Amores Perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003), Babel (2006), Biutiful (2010), Birdman (2014), The Revenant (2015), and Bardo (2022).
Amores Perros (2000), and Biutiful (2010) each received nominations for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. He earned critical and commercial success for his films 21 Grams(2003) and Babel (2006). For Birdman (2014), he won three Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. The following year, he was awarded Best Director for The Revenant (2015), making him the third director to win back-to-back after John Ford and Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Iñárritu was later awarded a Special Achievement Academy Award for his virtual reality installation Carne y Arena (2017).
Iñárritu became the first Mexican filmmaker to be nominated as director or producer in the Academy Awards' history and the first to win for Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture. He was the first Mexican filmmaker to receive the Best Director Award at Cannes, and the first to win a DGA Award for Outstanding Directing. In 2019, Iñárritu became the first Latin American to serve as jury president for the 72nd Cannes Film Festival. Iñárritu and Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro are known in the film industry as "The Three Amigos."
Description above from the Wikipedia article Alejandro González Iñárritu, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Andréas Voutsinas
Biography
Andreas Voutsinas (22 August 1930 – 8 June 2010) was a Greek actor and theatre director. In the English-speaking world, he was best known for his roles in three Mel Brooks films, The Producers (1967), The Twelve Chairs (1970) and History of the World, Part I (1981).
Voutsinas was born on 22 August 1930 in Khartoum, since there was a sizeable community of Greek settlers in Sudan at the time. His parents came from the island of Cephalonia, Greece. They set up a pasta factory in the Anglo-Egyptian colony, "reputedly supplying spaghetti to Italian forces" during the Fascist invasion of Abyssinia. After the collapse of the business during WWII, Voutsinas moved with his mother to Athens, Greece. His father returned 2 years later.
Voutsinas studied acting and costume design at the The Old Vic Τheatre School and drama and song at the Webber Douglas Academy in London, and, in 1957, joined the Actors Studio.
Voutsinas directed more than 130 performances of classical and contemporary repertoire in London, Paris, New York, Canada and Greece. He worked as an actor and director on Broadway and acted in films by Jules Dassin and Luc Besson.
Voutsinas, a life member of The Actors Studio since 1957, spent many years working in summer stock theater and as an assistant to Studio co-founder Elia Kazan, before he met Jane Fonda, with whom he got involved and whom he cast in the leading part in The Fun Couple, his Broadway directorial debut in 1963.
Voutsinas later followed Fonda to Hollywood where he coached her in a number of movies. He then started working as a coach for many others, including Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. Following Fonda to Paris to coach her in Roger Vadim's Barbarella, he decided to found Le Theatre Des Cinquante, an acting workshop based on the principles of Lee Strasberg. Many famous French actors and actresses started attending his classes, and at the same time he successfully began directing plays for the French theatre.
In 1967, Voutsinas became the original Carmen Ghia after befriending Mel Brooks's wife, Anne Bancroft. She recommended him to Brooks and said Voutsinas would be perfect for the part. Voutsinas had a role in another Brooks feature, History of the World, Part I, playing the role of "Bernaise" in the French Revolution scenes.
It was not until the early 1980s that he eventually moved to his ancestral Greece, where he continued his career directing a wide range of repertoire from Tennessee Williams to Euripides, mainly for the State Theatre of Northern Greece in Thessaloniki. His productions were also staged during summer in the Athens Festival in Herodion, as well as in the Epidaurus Festival. He continued working between the two countries while he appeared in many French and Greek films, including Le Grand Bleu (1988) and Safe Sex (1999).
Andreas Voutsinas taught acting at the State Theatre of Northern Greece from 2002 to 2009.
After he suffered a stroke he founded his own drama school in Thessaloniki, the Higher Drama School Andreas Voutsinas.
He was married to Artemis Papastrati from 1953 to 1964, they had one son Marios Voutsinas, who became an artist. ...
Source: Article "Andreas Voutsinas" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
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James N. Harrell
Biography
James Nelson Harrell was an American actor with a career spanning several decades. He graduated from Baylor University and held a Master's Degree in Drama from Trinity University. Harrell studied acting at the original Baylor Theater with Paul Baker in the 1930s and, in 1940, was invited to join Michael Chekhov's Acting Studio in Ridgefield, Connecticut. He appeared in films such as Michael (1996) and The Green Mile (1999). Harrell's extensive work in theater and film left a lasting impact on the acting community.
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Emily Blunt
Biography
Emily Olivia Laura Blunt (born 23 February 1983) is a British actress. She has received several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award and four British Academy Film Awards. Forbes ranked her as one of the highest-paid actresses in the world in 2020.
Blunt made her acting debut in the 2001 drama production of The Royal Family and portrayed Catherine Howard in the television miniseries Henry VIII (2003). She made her feature film debut in the drama My Summer of Love (2004). Blunt's breakthrough came in 2006 with her starring roles in the television film Gideon's Daughter and the comedy-drama The Devil Wears Prada. The former won her a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her profile continued to grow with leading roles in the period film The Young Victoria (2009), the romantic comedy Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011), the science fiction films The Adjustment Bureau (2011), Looper(2012) and Edge of Tomorrow (2014), and the musical Into the Woods (2014).
Blunt received critical acclaim for playing an idealistic FBI agent in the crime film Sicario (2015), an alcoholic in the psychological thriller The Girl on the Train (2016), and a survivalist mother in her husband John Krasinski's horror film A Quiet Place (2018), for which she won a SAG Award for Best Supporting Actress. She has since starred in the sequels Mary Poppins Returns (2018) and A Quiet Place Part II (2021), the fantasy adventure Jungle Cruise (2021), and the revisionist Western television miniseries The English (2022). Her portrayal of Katherine Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan's biographical thriller film Oppenheimer (2023) earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Blunt has been working with the American Institute for Stuttering since 2006 to help children overcome stuttering through educational resources and raise awareness of the realities of the condition. She is on the institute's board of directors and hosts a gala to raise funds for speech therapy scholarships for children and adults.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Emily Blunt, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Lelia Goldoni
Biography
Lelia Goldoni was an American actress who appeared in a number of motion pictures and television shows starting in the late-1940s, beginning with uncredited cameo roles in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's House of Strangers (1949) and John Huston's We Were Strangers (1949). She costarred on an episode of the British television series Danger Man "Fair Exchange" (1964) with Patrick MacGoohan.
She is best known for co-starring in John Cassavetes's groundbreaking film Shadows (1959) and playing the best friend of Ellen Burstyn's character in Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974).
Description above from the Wikipedia article Lelia Goldoni, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Lana Antonova
Biography
With the looks of Cameron Diaz and the sex appeal of a James Bond girl, Lana Antonova sauntered into the movie business. Also known as Lana Novac, she was born and raised in Kuybyshev, Russia, Soviet Union, which is a town along the mighty Volga River near present-day Saratov. She completed school and soon left home with a traveling urge. She found herself in such far-flung places as China, Austrailia, Italy, France, England, the United States and many others. For the good part of the 1990's and onward, she has enjoyed the traveling life. She gained an incredibly strong work ethic from the influence of her father and others during her youth. She sets a high standard for herself and is always striving to realize the best of her abilities. She acquired diverse training for her acting craft from: The Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in London, body movement, Alex Varden in Los Angeles, cold reading, Jered Barclay in Los Angeles. Her training in dance includes: Tatyana Tarasova, private coach, ballet in Russia and University of Brighton, London. Lana has also danced Latin style professionally. In music, her training is from the musical conservatory, Saratov, Russia for Classical Piano. As a singer, Lana is versatile with a vocal range from low 'G' to high 'E'. She received additional speech training in Los Angeles. She is able to do many accents from Russian to British to German to Italian. Her athletic interests include: figure skating and horseback riding, she enjoys many sports activities. The roles Lana has obtained to date, cover a wide range: from Go-Go dancer in Austin Powers (1997) to a naive immigrant mistaken for a drug courier in The Face of the Serpent (2003). Life hasn't always been a bed of roses. When Lana was only 20, her mother passed away and the loss affected her deeply. Lana was also divorced once in 2000. At the writing, she has been quietly involved with actor/author, Christopher Lawford. The two worked on Burt Munro(2005), as well as Slipstream (2007) with Anthony Hopkins. Lana is a person who thrives on excitement, but still likes to keep things under control. Her personality and integrity is outstanding in a vast and challenging field, she's a kind, gentle, soft-spoken, classy and compassionate individual. She is a woman who truly believes in living life to the fullest.
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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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Sammy 'The Bull' Gravano
Biography
Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano (born March 12, 1945) is an American former mobster who rose to the position of underboss in the Gambino crime family of New York City before becoming a government witness. As the underboss, Gravano played a major role in prosecuting John Gotti, the crime family's boss, by agreeing to testify as a government witness against him and other mobsters in a deal. As part of the agreement, Gravano confessed to his involvement in at least 19 murders, although he was also responsible for a number of other crimes, including the 1977 murder of a 16-year-old boy with no ties to the Mafia, who was shot and killed after witnessing Gravano and an associate carry out a drive-by shooting.
Originally an associate for the Colombo crime family, and later for the Brooklyn faction of the Gambino family, Gravano was part of the group in 1985 that conspired to murder Gambino boss Paul Castellano. Gravano played a key role in planning and executing Castellano's murder, along with John Gotti, Angelo Ruggiero, Frank DeCicco, and Joseph Armone.
Soon after Castellano's murder, Gotti elevated Gravano to become an official captain after Salvatore "Toddo" Aurelio stepped down, a position Gravano held until 1987 when he became consigliere. In 1988, he became underboss, a position he held at the time he became a government witness. In 1991, Gravano agreed to turn state's evidence and testify for the prosecution against Gotti after hearing the boss making several disparaging and untrue remarks about Gravano on a wiretap that
At the time, he was among the highest-ranking members of the Five Families, but broke his blood oath and cooperated with the government. As a result of his testimonies, Gotti and Frank LoCascio were sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in 1992. In 1994, a federal judge sentenced Gravano to five years in prison; however, since he had already served four years, the sentence amounted to less than one year. He was released early and entered the U.S. federal Witness Protection Program in Colorado, but left the program in 1995 after eight months and moved to Arizona with his family.
On the day of his sentencing in 1994, federal authorities stated as a result of Gravano's testimony, there had been "37 convictions, nine people awaiting trial, eight people resigned from the unions as a result of Gravano's cooperation." They also said that Gravano was indirectly responsible for even more convictions, as his actions had encouraged others to become witnesses against the Mafia.
In February 2000, he and nearly 40 other ring members—including his wife Debra, daughter Karen, and son Gerard—were arrested on federal and state drug charges. In 2001, he and his son, Gerard, were indicted on mirror charges with the federal government. In 2002, he was sentenced in New York to twenty years in prison. A month later, he was also sentenced in Arizona to nineteen years in prison to run concurrently. Additionally, he was sentenced to lifetime supervised release and a $100,000 fine. He was released in September 2017.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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Ivars Kalnins
Biography
His father worked as a car mechanic, his mother maintained a household. Parents wanted his son to choose a reliable male profession, and from about the age of 14 Ivar began to combine his studies with work. Mastered the plumbing, then the repair of computer equipment. In 1974 he graduated from the Theatrical Department of the Latvian Conservatory. Vitola. After graduating from the conservatory, Ivar Kalnins settled in the Art Academic Theater named after Rainis. Theatrical salaries were insignificant, and Ivar was supposed to feed his family — his wife and two daughters. In the end, I had to remember youth and pick up a guitar. Currently, at home in Latvia, Ivar Kalnins plays in two theaters in Riga: the Small and the New. The Latvian cinema, which showed the world more than one masterpiece, you just need to remember. But Russian viewers can enjoy the new work of the actor.
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Ernest B. Schoedsack
Biography
Ernest Beaumont Schoedsack (June 8, 1893 – December 23, 1979) was an American motion picture cinematographer, director, and producer.
Born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Schoedsack is probably best remembered for being the co-director of the 1933 film, King Kong.
His eyesight was severely damaged in World War II, yet he continued to direct films afterwards. He directed Mighty Joe Young at RKO in 1949, which was a reunion film of the main King Kong creative team (Cooper, Rose, and O'Brien).
He married screenwriter, Ruth Rose. They are interred together at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Ernest B. Schoedsack, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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