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Steve Brown
Biography
Steven James Brown (25 October 1954 – 2 February 2024) was a British composer, lyricist, record producer, and arranger.
Although primarily known for his composing, Brown proved himself an adept comic, both in performing and writing. He was a full cast member of the Sony Award winning BBC Radio 4 comedy sketch series In One Ear from 1984 to 1986. Part of his character arc revolved around his complaining (jokingly) that not enough time or attention was given to his musical interludes, and that the rest of the cast got all the funny material.
Brown went on to write many of the songs for the satirical comedy show Spitting Image in the late 1980s and the entirety of the 1990s, originally providing just lyrics and eventually taking over permanently from Philip Pope as house composer/musical director, as well as providing many of the sung impressions. He worked and appeared extensively with Rory Bremner in the 1980s and 1990s, completing UK tours and the BBC series, The Rory Bremner Show. Brown wrote a number of songs for BBC 2's Dead Ringers, appearing briefly as Noel Gallagher with Jon Culshaw singing as Liam Gallagher. He also acted as MD for impressionists Alistair McGowan and Ronni Ancona.
In 1995, he composed the music for The Ant & Dec Show on Children's BBC, and later worked on their SMTV Live programme, for which he wrote the 'Wonky Donkey' jingle, among other themes. He continued to work extensively as a jingle writer for their ITV show Saturday Night Takeaway.
Brown played the fictional bandleader Glen Ponder in the Steve Coogan TV show Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge, and worked with Coogan thereafter, writing material and appearing as MD on two major UK tours including a West End run at The Lyceum in The Man Who Thinks He Is It, a further UK tour in 2008, The Tony Ferrino Phenomenon special and album and the song "Raped In The Face" for the film Hamlet 2. In April 2018, he worked again with Coogan on the BBC revival of the Alan Partridge character.
Other television shows include Lee Mack's Not Going Out, The Brian Conley Show, BBC1 series New Tricks and Lenny Henry Goes to Town. He wrote songs for the BBC Children's TV shows, Playaway and Play School, and also the long-running ITV show My Parents Are Aliens. CITV's Scrambled! on which Brown provided theme song and numerous jingles. In 2018, transmission began of the adventure game show Spyschool for which he provided theme music and the entire underscore.
As a performer Brown featured on several radio series including the radio show Jammin' with Roland Rivron and The Lee Mack Show for BBC Radio 2 in which he took part in many of the sketches.
Brown provided all the music and arrangements for British comedian Harry Hill's television, radio, live, recording and film work since 1997, and worked on his ITV TV Burp show as musical director and jingle composer, later providing the same for Harry Hill's Tea Time on Sky and Harry Hill's Alien Fun Capsule for ITV. In 2013, Brown wrote the orchestral score and all original songs for The Harry Hill Movie. Brown arranged and recorded all the music for Hill's 2015 revival of ITV's Stars In Their Eyes.
Steve Brown died from pulmonary fibrosis on 2 February 2024, at the age of 69.
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Ann Hu
Biography
Writer, producer and director Ann Hu's 35mm debut Shadow Magic (2000) won both the Chinese Academy Award and Presidential Award in China for Best film among other international prizes. The film premiered at the 2000 Sundance film Festival and released by Sony Classics in 2001.
Among the earliest students from mainland China after the Cultural Revolution, Hu came to the United States to pursue a higher education in 1979. After receiving a degree in Business Administration from New York University and achieving unusual success as a business woman, Hu decided to become a filmmaker. In 1992, she took courses at the NYU Film School and subsequently completed a 16mm narrative film, "Dream and Memory", which generated critical acclaim internationally in 1994. Hu is currently developing her next film projects as international co-productions. She is also working on a TV talk show, which is expected to air both in China and America.
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Kent Wills
Biography
Kent worked as a radio host in Santa Barbara in the 1980s before leaving to Hong Kong, where he worked as a model. Tomas Tang, who owned Filmark International, gave him a small role in the film Super Platoon. A few weeks later, when one of the main actors left Hong Kong, he was given a bigger role in the film Crocodile Fury while appearing in other Filmark productions in 1987 and 1988. After 1988, he did more modeling work and acting, appearing in a Taiwanese soap opera in 1992. Kent now teaches English at universities and writes books, living with his wife in Prague, Czechia.
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Börje Salming
Biography
Börje Salming (17 April 1951 – 24 November 2022) was a Swedish ice hockey player. He was a defenceman who played professionally for 23 seasons, for the clubs Brynäs IF, Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings, and AIK. He spent 16 seasons with the Maple Leafs, who retired his number 21 in 2016. Salming holds several Maple Leafs records, including the most assists.
Salming was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in July 2022. He died on 24 November 2022, days after accepting an award in what his wife announced on his behalf would be the family's final public appearance.
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John Kani
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Bonsile John Kani (born 1943) is a South African actor, director and playwright. He was born in New Brighton, South Africa. Kani joined The Serpent Players (a group of actors whose first performance was in the former snake pit of the zoo, hence the name) in Port Elizabeth in 1965 and helped to create many plays that went unpublished but were performed to a resounding reception. These were followed by the more famous Sizwe Banzi is Dead and The Island, co-written with Athol Fugard and Winston Ntshona, in the early 1970s. He also received an Olivier nomination for his role in My Children My Africa! Kani's work has been widely performed around the world, including New York, where he and Winston Ntshona won a Tony Award in 1975 for Sizwe Banzi Is Dead and The Island. These two plays were presented in repertory at the Edison Theatre for a total of 52 performances. Nothing but the Truth (2002) was his debut as sole playwright and was first performed in the Market Theatre in Johannesburg. This play takes place in post-apartheid South Africa and does not concern the conflicts between whites and blacks, but the rift between blacks who stayed in South Africa to fight apartheid, and those who left only to return when the hated regime folded. It won the 2003 Fleur du Cap Awards for best actor and best new South African play. In the same year he was also awarded a special Obie award for his extraordinary contribution to theatre in the USA. Kani is executive trustee of the Market Theatre Foundation, founder and director of the Market Theatre Laboratory and chairman of the National Arts Council of SA.
Description above from the Wikipedia article John Kani, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Leslee Bremmer
Biography
Bremmer participated in and frequently won numerous bikini contests held throughout Southern California from the mid-1980's to the early 1990's. Among the notable titles that Leslee won are Miss Hot Rod Show World and Miss Golden State 100 for the years 1986 and 1987, respectively. She also was a trophy girl at a lot of stock car racing events around this same time. Moreover, Bremmer not only appeared in minor roles in a handful of lowbrow comedies that were made and released in the mid-1980's, but also was featured in the 1988 California Girls calendar and graced the cover of the April, 1993 issue of Hot Rod magazine. Leslee was last reported living somewhere in the Northwest Rockies.
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Peter Gruner Jr.
Biography
Peter Alan Gruner, Jr. is an American professional wrestler and wrestling producer, better known by his ring name Billy Kidman. He is currently signed to WWE, where works as a producer. As a wrestler, Kidman is best known for his work with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and WWE throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s. While in WCW, Kidman gained fame as a key member of several stables. In addition to being a member of Raven's Flock, he also was a member of the Filthy Animals and later The New Blood. As a member of these stables, Kidman participated in memorable feuds with top WCW names, including Hulk Hogan, Jeff Jarrett, and Rey Mysterio, Jr.. Kidman also found championship success while in WCW, where he became a three time Cruiserweight Champion, a two time World Tag Team Champion (once with Mysterio, Jr. and once with Konnan) and a one time (and the final) Cruiserweight Tag Team Champion with Mysterio, Jr. Upon WCW's purchase by the World Wrestling Federation, Kidman became a member of the WCW/ECW Alliance. During his time in the WWF (later renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment), Kidman once again found success upon winning the Cruiserweight Championship an additional four times while the title was under the WCW banner and later the WWF/E banner, in addition to winning WWE's Tag Team Championship once with Paul London.
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Evald Hermaküla
Biography
Evald Hermaküla (December 6, 1941 – May 16, 2000) was an Estonian actor and director.
Hermaküla was born in the village of Maardu in Jõelähtme Parish. In 1965 he graduated from the University of Tartu in geology. In 1965 he also finished his studies at Vanemuine Theatre Studio in Tartu. From 1962 he was an actor and from 1969 a stage director in Vanemuine theatre. He also directed and appeared as an actor films and television.
Hermaküla committed suicide by hanging on 16 May 2000 in Kadriorg Park in Tallinn, aged 58. He was buried in Tallinn's Forest Cemetery. At the time of his death, he was married to actress Kaie Mihkelson.
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Camille Degeye
Biography
Camille Degeye is born in 1990 in France. She lives and works in Paris.
She’s graduated from a professional master in cinematographic creation and she’s a member of Etna and L’Abominable, both artists collectives where she developed her practice of artisanal filmmaking.
Camille's cinema focuses on the switch between narrative and dreamlike, surrendering to reality in often ghostly and obscure dimensions. Her work on film contributes to highlighting this fragility, in a quest for a collective and political memory.
In 2022, Camille Degeye joined the collective La Clef Revival which - through the fight to save the cinema La Clef in Paris - fights for the programming and the production of a free, an independent and an outsider cinema.
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Eline Powell
Biography
Born Eline Pauwels on the 12th April 1990, in Leuven, Belgium, Eline is a prominent actress, best known to the world as Ryn in the fantasy drama series “Siren” (2018), and also as Bianca in the award-winning fantasy drama series “Game of Thrones”, back in 2016. Eline also starred in the comedy film “Stoner Express”, also in 2016.
Eline is the daughter of the famous Belgian pharmacologist, Rudi Pauwels and his wife Carine Claeys; her father is best known to the world for launching biotech companies, Tibotec and Vicro, both focused on bringing the HIV virus to a controlled state. Eline has a brother, but his identity remains unknown to the public. Elin fell in love with acting at a young age, and in high school appeared in several school plays, which gave her enough experience to study acting once she completed her high school education. She enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, (RADA) London and earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in acting, with special skills in ballet, hip hop, singing, Flamenco and violin. Furthermore, Eline is proficient in Dutch, French and English languages, including American, South American, Irish and Estuary accents.
She started her career in a short student film For Elsie, where she played the role of Mila, a mobster's daughter who wants to learn the piano in one day. Her performance earned awards from the Beijing Student Film Festival and the Student Academy Awards, USA. Also at the 39th Annual Student Academy Awards in 2012, For Elsie earned its director David Winstone the Foreign Film Gold Medal.
In 2012, she had a small role (Angelique) in Quartet, Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut.
In 2014, she played the title role in the Italian drama film Anita B. directed by Roberto Faenza. The 2014 Capri, Hollywood International Film Festival named Powell as that year's "Breakout" actress for her role in Anita B.. Hollywood Reporter, on the other hand, criticized that performance as "ineffective..failing to convey any traces of the suffering her character has obviously endured."
In 2016, she appeared in two episodes of Game of Thrones as Bianca, a young actress plotting to murder her rival.
She had small roles in Novitiate and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, both released in 2017.
In August 2016, Powell was cast to star in the Freeform series Siren playing Ryn, a feral mermaid who comes to a small coastal village in search of her sister. Preparing for the role, Powell studied legends of mermaids and sea creatures. To develop ideas for the mermaid's body language, Powell worked from videos of marine and other predators.[20][4][21] For the mermaid's newly learned speech, Powell was inspired by the accent of Icelandic singer Björk.
Siren, which was the top new cable drama during spring 2018, was renewed in October for a second season, premiering on January 24, 2019.
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