Trending
Popular people
Kim Ha-eun
Biography
Kim Hyun Jin (known professionally as Kim Ha-eun; born 3 January 1984) is a South Korean actress. She graduated from Hanseo High School and later on obtained a bachelor's degree in Broadcasting and Entertainment from Dongduk Women's University. Her debut was made in 1999 as a support role in the MBC drama "Days of Delight". In 2003, she passed the 20th open recruitment for talent at KBS and obtained her first lead role in the 2007 drama "Conspiracy in the Court".
She married in 2017 and made her own decision to retire from the entertainment industry.
Read more
Elizabeth Teissier
Biography
Élizabeth Teissier, née Germaine Élizabeth Hanselmann (born 6 January 1938) is a French astrologer and former model and actress. Between 1975 and 1976, she created a daily horoscope on French television channel Antenne 2, and in 1981, she launched the Astro Show television programme in Germany. Her personal clients included former President of France François Mitterrand, and she has published several books on astrology. A test that compared her predictions against common sense and chance failed to show any evidence of her having any special powers.
She has been involved in several controversies, including the award of a Doctorate in Sociology for her thesis which argued that astrology was being oppressed by science. Her work was contested by the scientific community; criticisms included the alleged failure to work within the field of sociology and also lacking the necessary scientific rigour for a doctoral thesis in any scientific field. The university and jury who awarded the degree were harshly criticised, though both they and Teissier had supporters and defenders.
In 2015, Teissier unsuccessfully sued the Wikimedia Foundation, claiming that the French Wikipedia article about her damaged her reputation.
Born to a Swiss father and a French mother, she married André Teissier du Cros in 1960. She gained a Masters in Modern Literature in 1963 and a Bachelor of Arts in Literature in 1992.
Between 1965 and 1975, she acted in a dozen films, including mainly soft erotic films, but also ones directed by Sydney Pollack (Castle Keep, 1969), Marcel Carné, Philippe de Broca and Yves Robert. She has also worked as a model, notably for Coco Chanel.
In 1968 she became a student of the astrologer Henri Joseph Gouchon on the advice of Federico Fellini. Afterwards, from 1975 to 2009, she had several astrological columns, presented astrology on television, and published pleas for astrology's recognition.
From 1989, she advised the French President, François Mitterrand, who consulted her regularly at the Élysée Palace. Her advice covered both personal matters, such as his health, and matters of state such as the Gulf War and the timing of the Maastricht Treaty referendum. She released transcripts of their recorded conversations four years after his death. For example, he said, "You once told me there were days when it was better to talk, and days when it was better not to talk. When is the next best day for me to speak? Could you check for me?"
Source: Article "Élizabeth Teissier" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Read more
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.
Read more
Paul Schulze
Biography
Paul Schulze (born November 30, 1962) is an American actor best known for portraying Ryan Chappelle on the FOX series 24 from 2001 to 2004 and Father Phil Intintola on HBO's The Sopranos from 1999 to 2006. Schulze was featured on FOX's legal drama, Justice and has guest starred on Law & Order, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, the West Wing, NCIS, Oz, Frasier, NYPD Blue, Cold Case, Boston Legal, Journeyman, Numb3rs, Mad Men, and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. His film appearances include Clockers in 1995 and Don't Say a Word in 2001 and the David Fincher films, Panic Room (2002) and Zodiac (2007). Schulze next appeared as Michael Burnett in Rambo, the 2008 fourth installment of the Rambo film saga.
Schulze costars as Eddie in the Showtime dark comedy series Nurse Jackie, which premiered in June 2009.
Read more
Bernard Tapie
Biography
Bernard Roger Tapie (26 January 1943 – 3 October 2021) was a French businessman, politician and occasional actor, singer, and TV host. He was Minister of City Affairs in the government of Pierre Bérégovoy.
He was the manager of a group of companies, notably owner of Adidas and Olympique de Marseille, manager of the Bernard Tapie Group and owner of the La Provence Group, which publishes the newspaper of the same name, as well as Corse-Matin.
At the beginning of 1984, he presented his cycling team La Vie claire, then bought OM a few years later.
In the 1990s, engaged in politics as a left-wing radical, he was twice Minister of the City in the Bérégovoy government, deputy for Bouches-du-Rhône twice, European deputy (his list obtained 12% in the 1994 elections) as well as general councilor for Bouches-du-Rhône.
His political career ended due to his legal troubles. Involved in several financial scandals, he was convicted in the VA-OM affair (for which he was imprisoned in 1997 for nearly six months), in the Phocéa affair and in the Testut affair.
In the 2010s, following an arbitration condemning the State to pay him 403 million euros in compensation in the context of the Crédit Lyonnais affair, he was prosecuted again, his death putting an end to the criminal proceedings.
Tapie was born in Paris. He was a businessman who specialized in recovering bankrupt companies, among which Adidas is the most famous (he owned Adidas from 1990 to 1993); and owner of sports teams: his cycling team La Vie Claire won the Tour de France twice – in 1985 and 1986 – and his football club Marseille won the French championship four times in a row, and the Champions League in 1993.
La Vie Claire, one of Tapie's former businesses, is a chain of health product stores. It sponsored one of the strongest cycling teams of all time, La Vie Claire, which was founded after the 1983 European cycling season, when multiple Tour de France winner Bernard Hinault had acrimoniously broken away from the Renault–Elf–Gitane team. Hinault and Greg LeMond won successive Tours with the La Vie Claire team in 1985 and 1986. From 1986 to 1994, Tapie was the president of the Marseille football club, which became champions of France five times in a row (from 1989 to 1993) and won the 1992–93 UEFA Champions League.
In 1985, Tapie bought the sailing ship Club Méditerrannée from the wife of disappeared French navigator Alain Colas. The boat was transported to Marseille, where Tapie had his football team, and restored for two years. It was renamed Phocea and was at that time the longest sailing ship in the world (70 m or 225 ft). Tapie took command of it with a new crew in 1988 and broke the world record for crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
In 2021, Tapie and his wife were severely beaten in a home invasion robbery. ...
Source: Article "Bernard Tapie" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
Read more
Pierre Amoyal
Biography
Pierre Amoyal (born 22 June 1949 in Paris) is a French violinist and is the artistic director of the Conservatory of Lausanne.
He owns the "Kochanski" Stradivarius of 1717. It was stolen from him in 1987 and recovered in 1991.
He studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, graduating at age 12 with a First Prize (in 1961). He then won the Ginette Neveu Prize in 1963, and the Paganini Prize in 1964. At age 17, he traveled to Los Angeles for five years of study with Jascha Heifetz, which culminated in participating in chamber-music recordings with Heifetz. During this time he won the Enescu Prize (1970). He has toured extensively, made numerous recordings and played with many major conductors, such as Sir Georg Solti, with whom he made his European debut at the age of 22, Pierre Boulez, and Herbert von Karajan with the Berlin Philharmonic
He was violin teacher at the Conservatoire de Paris and then at the Conservatory of Lausanne, until June 2014. Then he was teacher at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg and in Japan.
He is the artistic director of the Conservatory of Lausanne. In 2002, he founded the Camerata de Lausanne, a string orchestra. He also created and organised the "violin and piano master-classes" of the Music Academy of Lausanne since 1991.
He was made a Chevalier of Arts and Letters in 1985 and promoted to Knight of the National Order of Merit in 1995. He also received the Prix du rayonnement de la Fondation vaudoise pour la culture in 2002, and the Prix de Lausanne in 2006.
Source: Article "Pierre Amoyal" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Read more
Hal Needham
Biography
Hal Brett Needham (March 6, 1931 – October 25, 2013) was an American stuntman, film director, actor and writer. He is best known for his frequent collaborations with actor Burt Reynolds, usually in films involving fast cars, such as Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Hooper (1978), The Cannonball Run (1981) and Stroker Ace (1983).
In his later years, Needham moved out of stunt work, and focused his energy on the World land speed record project. In 2001, Needham received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Taurus World Stunt Awards, and in 2012, he was awarded a Governors Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Hal Needham, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Read more
Stéphane Audran
Biography
Stéphane Audran (born Colette Suzanne Jeannine Dacheville; November 8, 1932 – March 27, 2018) was a French film and television actress. Best known for her performances in Oscar-winning movies such as The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) and Babette's Feast (1987), and in critically acclaimed films like The Big Red One (1980) and Violette Nozière (1978), she became mostly associated with haughty bourgeois women roles.
She married French director and screenwriter Claude Chabrol in 1964, after a short marriage to the French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant. Her son by her marriage to Chabrol (which ended in 1980) is the French actor Thomas Chabrol (born in 1963).
Her first major role was in Chabrol's film Les Cousins (1959). She has since appeared in most of Chabrol's films. Some of the more noteworthy of his films Audran has appeared in are Les Bonnes Femmes (1960), La Femme Infidèle (1968), Les Biches (1968) as a rich lesbian who becomes involved in a ménage à trois (she first gained notice in this), Le Boucher (1970) as a school teacher who falls in love with a murderous butcher, Juste Avant La Nuit (1971), and Violette Nozière (1978). She won the Silver Bear for Best Actress for her role in Les Biches at the 18th Berlin International Film Festival.
She also appeared in the first film of Éric Rohmer (Signe du Lion), and in films by Jean Delannoy (La Peau de Torpedo), Gabriel Axel (Babette's Feast, as the mysterious cook, Babette), Bertrand Tavernier (Coup de Torchon, as the wife of the cop turned serial killer) and Samuel Fuller (The Big Red One). The most celebrated of her non-Chabrol films was Luis Buñuel's Oscar-winning Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (1972) as Alice Senechal. Also appearing in English-language productions, Audran has appeared in American features like The Black Bird (1975), and in TV serials like Brideshead Revisited (1981), Mistral's Daughter (1984) and The Sun Also Rises (1984).
Audran won a French César Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in Violette Nozière (1978) and British Film Academy award for Just Before Nightfall (1975).
Description above from the Wikipedia article Stéphane Audran, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Read more
Fred Rouhling
Biography
Fred Rouhling, born in 1970 in Valençay, is a French climber known in particular for his high-level achievements in sport climbing (cliff climbing) and bouldering.
Rouhling grew up in a rural environment near Angoulême, near renowned limestone cliffs. He began climbing at school and reached grade 8b at 19, when the world's highest climb was 8c. After studying in the south of France, he opened major routes such as UFO (the first 8c in the Calanques) and Les Spécialistes Direct (the first 8c in the Verdon Gorges). He opened several routes with holds carved at the best grade of his time: the first 9a grade in France and the fourth in the world at this level. This route, equipped and carved by Rouhling, marked a turning point in French sport climbing. The grade has been confirmed by repeaters such as Dai Koyamada and Sébastien Bouin, and Salamandre (2007, 9a+): These natural routes (without carved holds) confirm his exceptional level and his ability to open at the highest level. In addition to his exploits on the cliff, Rouhling also excelled in bouldering, repeating several extreme routes in Switzerland and elsewhere, up to grade 8C (V15), such as E la nave va. He has long been among the world's top climbers, ranking third in the combined ranking of the 8a.nu website in 2003.
After family difficulties (his wife's serious illness), he stepped away from high-level competition to devote himself to his family, before occasionally returning to extreme climbing. Today, Fred Rouhling has turned to sculpture, a passion that extends the artistic dimension of his approach to climbing.
Fred Rouhling remains a major figure in French climbing, both admired for his innovations and controversial for his methods, but undeniably a pioneer in the history of the discipline.
Read more
Melody Chen
Biography
Melody was born and raised in Singapore to a Singaporean-Chinese father and a Thai-English mother. After completing her O'levels, Melody juggled tertiary education while starring in a regular role for Singapore's local television sitcom, Happy Belly ( 1996 ). Thereafter, she went on to expand her acting career in various other starring roles in both English and Mandarin television dramas and sitcoms such as Spin ( 2000 ), Singapore Short Stories ( 2004 ), A New Life ( 2005 ) and Point of Entry (2010).
Best known for her debut lead acting performance in the well-known Singapore film, The Teenage Textbook Movie (1998) , Melody is also a television presenter having hosted several kids genre and lifestyle/sports programs like Groom My Room ( 2005 ), New Zealand On Wheels ( 2007 ), Generation Ex ( 2007 )and Goals On Sunday ( 2011 ).
Melody also recently added radio deejaying to her list of talents as she takes on being a part-time weekend radio jock for Singapore's newest radio station, Kiss 92.
In 2013, Melody had a guest role in HBO Asia's Serangoon Road (2013) starring alongside Joan Chen.
Read more
