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| Name | BAFTA Awards |
|---|---|
| Caption | Statue of the BAFTA trophy |
| Description | Excellence in film, television and computer gaming |
| Presenter | British Academy of Film and Television Arts |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Year | 1947 |
| Website | http://www.bafta.org/ |
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.
BAFTA is an independent charity with a mission to "support, develop and promote the art forms of the moving image, by identifying and rewarding excellence, inspiring practitioners and benefiting the public". In addition to high profile awards ceremonies BAFTA runs a year-round programme of educational events including film screenings, tribute evenings and interviews, lectures and debates with high profile industry figures. BAFTA is supported by a membership of around 6500 people from the film, television and video game industries. BAFTA's main office is on Piccadilly in London, but it also has branches in Scotland, in Wales, in New York and in Los Angeles.
These four branches of the Academy initially operated under their own brands (BAFTA Scotland, BAFTA Cymru, BAFTA East Coast and BAFTA LA). In July 2010 however; all branches of the Academy were brought together as one fully affiliated BAFTA.
The Academy's awards are in the form of a theatrical mask designed by American sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe, which was commissioned by the Guild of Television Producers in 1955. It has since become an internationally-recognised symbol of excellence in the art forms of the moving image.
In November 2007 a special tribute programme was shown on ITV in the UK celebrating 60 years of the organisation called Happy Birthday BAFTA.
BAFTA's annual film awards ceremony is known as the British Academy Film Awards, rewarding the best work of any nationality seen on British cinema screens during the preceding year. Since 2008 the ceremony has been held at the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden having taken place since 2000 in the flagship Odeon cinema on Leicester Square. The ceremony previously took place in April or May, but from 2002 onwards has taken place in February, in order to precede the Oscars.
In order for a film to be considered for a BAFTA nomination its first public exhibition must be in a cinema and it must have a UK theatrical release in a public UK cinema for no fewer than seven days in the calendar year that corresponds to the upcoming Awards. A film must be feature length and films from all countries are eligible in all categories, with the exception of Outstanding British Film, Outstanding Debut, Short Film and Short Animation which are for British films only.
The 2010 ceremony was held on 21 February, also at the Royal Opera House.
The Major Awards winners in 2010 included:
:The Hurt Locker (Film) :Kathryn Bigelow (Director), for The Hurt Locker :Colin Firth (Leading Actor), for A Single Man :Carey Mulligan (Leading Actress), for An Education :Christoph Waltz (Supporting Actor), for Inglourious Basterds :Mo'Nique (Supporting Actress), for Precious :Mark Boal (Original Screenplay), for The Hurt Locker :Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner (Adapted Screenplay), for Up In The Air :Michael Giacchino (Music), for Up :Pete Docter (Animated Film), for Up
The British Academy Television Awards usually take place in April or May, with craft awards having a separate ceremony slightly later in the year.
The Awards are also often referred to simply as "the BAFTAs" or, to differentiate them from the film awards, sometimes as the "BAFTA Television Awards". They have been awarded annually since 1954. The first ever Awards consisted of six categories. Until 1958, they were awarded by the Guild of Television Producers and Directors. From 1958 onwards, after the Guild had merged with the British Film Academy, the organisation was known as the Society of Film and Television Arts. In 1976, this became the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the name the organisation goes under still as of 2010.
From 1968 until 1997, the BAFTA Film and Television awards were presented in one joint ceremony known simply as the BAFTA Awards, but in order to streamline the ceremonies from 1998 onwards they were split in two. The Television Craft Awards are presented for more technical areas of the industry, such as visual effects, areas of production, or costume design.
The Awards are only open to British programmes — with the exception of the audience-voted Pioneer Award — but any cable, satellite, terrestrial or digital television stations broadcasting in the UK are eligible to submit entries, as are independent production companies who have produced programming for the channels. Individual performances, such as from actors, can either be entered by the performers themselves or by the broadcasters. The programmes being entered must have been broadcast on or between 1 January and 31 December of the year preceding the Awards ceremony (so, between 1 January and 31 December 2009 for the 2010 Awards).
The 2010 British Academy Television Awards took place on 6 June. BAFTA Television Award Winners in 2010
As of 2010, the awards included the following categories: {| |- valign=top |
The 2010 Television Craft Awards took place on 23 May. British Academy Television Craft Awards winners in 2010
The Academy has a long history of recognising and rewarding Children's programming presenting two awards at the 1969 ceremony – The Flame of Knowledge Award for Schools Programmes and the Harlequin Award for Children's Programmes.
As of 2010 the Awards ceremony includes 19 categories across film, television, video games and online content. The 2009 Awards ceremony took place on 29 November at the London Hilton Hotel. BAFTA Children's Awards winners in 2009
Since 2007 the Children's Awards have included a Kids Vote Award voted for by children under 14 and a CBBC Me and My Movie award, a children's film-making initiative to inspire and enable children to make their own films and tell their own stories.
In 2003, the sheer ubiquity of interactive forms of entertainment and the breadth of genres and platforms in video games outgrew the combined ceremony, and the event was split into the BAFTA Video Games Awards and the BAFTA Interactive Awards . By December 2003 however; despite making huge headlines with high profile winners like Halo 2 and Half-Life 2 the interactive division was discontinued and disappeared from BAFTA's publicity material after only two ceremonies.
In 2006, BAFTA announced their decision "to give video games equal status with film and television", and the Academy now positions Video Games as its third pillar of activity in recognition of its importance as an art form of the moving image. The same year the ceremony was held at The Roundhouse by Chalk Farm Road in North London on 5 October and was televised for the first time on 17 October and was aired on the digital channel E4.
The 2010 ceremony was the fourth to be held since the Video Games Awards became a stand-alone event and took place at the London Hilton Park Lane on 19 March. The full ceremony was filmed and streamed live online at the official BAFTA website.
The 2011 ceremony will be held on 16 March.
During the first ten years only one award was given at each event, called the "Britannia Award for Excellence in Film", but since 1999 the number of awards have grown.
In 2009 the Awards were: 'The Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film' (the original award was renamed in 2000 to honour Stanley Kubrick), 'The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing' (added in 2003 in honour of John Schlesinger), the ‘Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year’, the ‘Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year ‘ and the ‘BAFTA in Los Angeles Volvo Humanitarian Award’. With the exception of the Stanley Kubrick and John Schlesinger awards, which are always given, both the number of awards and their titles may vary from year to year.
The 2009 Recipients were:
The 2007 recipients were:
The 2006 recipients were:
Previous recipients of the Britannia Awards have included Tom Cruise, Elizabeth Taylor, Mike Newell, Ronald Neame, Albert Broccoli, Michael Caine, Peter Ustinov, Martin Scorsese, Anthony Hopkins, Dustin Hoffman, John Travolta, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Hugh Grant, Peter Weir, Tom Hanks, Angela Lansbury and Helen Mirren.
BAFTA in Scotland also holds an annual New Talent Awards ceremony focusing on new & emerging Scottish talent in the art forms of the moving image. New Talent Awards Winners in 2010.
BAFTA Awards Category:Cinema of the United Kingdom Category:Television in the United Kingdom Category:Awards established in 1948
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Shahrukh Khan |
|---|---|
| Other names | Shah Rukh Khan, King Khan, SRK |
| Birth date | November 02, 1965 |
| Birth place | New Delhi, India |
| Years active | 1988–present |
| Spouse | Gauri Khan (1991–present) |
| Occupation | Actor, producer, television presenter |
Khan's films such as Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995), Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), Chak De India (2007), Om Shanti Om (2007) and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008) remain some of Bollywood's biggest hits, while films like Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003), Veer-Zaara (2004), Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006) and My Name Is Khan (2010) have been top-grossing Indian productions in the overseas markets, making him one of the most successful actors of India. Since 2000, Khan branched out into film production and television presenting as well. He is the founder/owner of two production companies, Dreamz Unlimited and Red Chillies Entertainment. Khan is today considered to be the world's biggest movie star, and a net worth estimated at over Rs 2500 crore (US$ 540 million). In 2008, Newsweek named him one of the 50 most powerful people in the world.
Growing up in Rajendra Nagar neighbourhood, Khan attended St. Columba's School where he was accomplished in sports, drama, and academics. He won the Sword of Honour, an annual award given to the student who best represents the spirit of the school. Khan later attended the Hansraj College (1985–1988) and earned his Bachelors degree in Economics (honors). Though he pursued a Masters Degree in Mass Communications at Jamia Millia Islamia, he later opted out to make his career in Bollywood.
After the death of his parents, Khan moved to Mumbai in 1991. In that same year, before any of his films were released, he married Gauri Chibber, a Hindu, in a traditional Hindu wedding ceremony on 25 October 1991. They have two children, son Aryan (b. 1997) and daughter Suhana (b. 2000). According to Khan, while he strongly believes in Allah, he also values his wife's religion. At home, his children follow both religions, with the Qur'an being situated next to the Hindu deities.
In 2005, Nasreen Munni Kabir produced a two-part documentary on Khan, titled The Inner and Outer World of Shah Rukh Khan. Featuring his 2004 Temptations concert tour, the film contrasted Khan's inner world of family and daily life with the outer world of his work. The book Still Reading Khan, which details his family life, was released in 2006. Another book by Anupama Chopra, King of Bollywood: Shahrukh Khan and the seductive world of Indian cinema, was released in 2007. It describes the world of Bollywood through Khan's life.
In 1993, Khan won acclaim for his performances in villainous roles as an obsessive lover and a murderer, respectively, in the box office hits, Darr and Baazigar. Darr marked his first collaboration with renowned film-maker Yash Chopra and his banner Yash Raj Films, the largest production company in Bollywood. Baazigar, which saw Khan portraying an ambiguous avenger who murders his girlfriend, shocked its Indian audience with an unexpected violation of the standard Bollywood formula. His performance won him his first Filmfare Best Actor Award. In that same year, Khan played the role of a young musician in Kundan Shah's Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, a performance that earned him a Filmfare Critics Award for Best Performance. Khan maintains that this is his all-time favourite among the movies he has acted in. In 1994, Khan once again played an obsessive lover/psycho's role in Anjaam, co-starring alongside Madhuri Dixit. Though the movie was not a box office success, Khan's performance earned him the Filmfare Best Villain Award.
In 1995, Khan starred in Aditya Chopra's directorial debut Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, a major critical and commercial success, for which he won his second Filmfare Best Actor Award. In 2007, the film entered its twelfth year in Mumbai theaters. By then the movie had grossed over 12 billion rupees, making it as one of India's biggest movie blockbusters. Earlier in the same year he found success in Rakesh Roshan's Karan Arjun which became the second biggest hit of the year.
1996 was a disappointing year for Khan as all his movies released that year failed to do well at the box office. This was, however, followed by a comeback in 1997. He saw success with Subhash Ghai's social drama Pardes — one of the biggest hits of the year — and Aziz Mirza's comedy Yes Boss, a moderately successful feature. His second project with Yash Chopra as a director, Dil to Pagal Hai became that year's second highest-grossing movie, and he won his third Filmfare Best Actor Award for his role as a stage director who falls in love with one of his new actresses. His performance won him his fourth Best Actor award at the Filmfare. He won critical praise for his performance in Mani Ratnam's Dil Se. The movie did not do well at the Indian box office, though it was a commercial success overseas. Khan's only release in 1999, Baadshah, was an average grosser.
In 2002, Khan received acclaim for playing the title role in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's award-winning period romance, Devdas. It was the third Hindi movie adaptation of Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay's well-known novel of the same name, and surfaced as one of the biggest hits of that year. Khan also starred opposite Salman Khan and Madhuri Dixit in the family-drama Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam, which did well at the box office. That same year, he starred in the tearjerker, Kal Ho Naa Ho, written by Karan Johar and directed by Nikhil Advani. Khan's performance in this movie as a man with a fatal heart disease was appreciated. The movie proved to be one of the year's biggest hits in India and Bollywood's biggest hit in the overseas markets. The film relates the love story of Veer and Pakistani woman Zaara Haayat Khan, played by Preity Zinta. Khan's performance in the film won him awards at several award ceremonies. In that same year, he received critical acclaim for his performance in Ashutosh Gowariker's drama Swades. He was nominated for the Filmfare Best Actor Award for all three of his releases in 2004, winning it for Swades. His second release that year saw him playing the title role in the action film , a remake of the 1978 hit Don. The movie was a success. The film was a major critical success. In the same year Khan also starred in Farah Khan's 2007 film, Om Shanti Om. The film emerged as the year's highest grossing film in India and the overseas market, and became India's highest grossing production ever up to that point. While on one shoot in Los Angeles, along with his wife Gauri and director Karan Johar, he took a break from filming to attend the 66th Golden Globe Awards, held in Los Angeles, California, on 11 January 2009. Khan introduced Slumdog Millionaire along with a star from the film, Freida Pinto. He is currently filming for Anubhav Sinha's science fiction Ra.One opposite Kareena Kapoor, which is due for release on June 3, 2011.
In 2004, Khan set up another production company, Red Chillies Entertainment, and produced and starred in Main Hoon Na, another hit. It was, however, India's official entry to the Academy Awards for consideration for Best Foreign Language Film, but it did not pass the final selection. Also in 2005, Khan co-produced the supernatural horror film Kaal with Karan Johar, and performed an item number for the film with Malaika Arora Khan. Kaal was moderately successful at the box office.
In 2008, Red Chillies Entertainment became the owner of the Kolkata Knight Riders in the BCCI-backed IPL cricket competition.
On 25 April 2008, Khan began hosting the game show Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain?, the Indian version of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, whose last episode was telecasted on 27 July 2008, with Lalu Prasad Yadav as the special guest.
Khan has been awarded several honours which includes the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian award from the Government of India in 2005. In April 2007, a life-size wax statue of Khan was installed at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, London. Another statue was installed at the Musée Grévin in Paris, the same year. During the same year, he was accorded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of the Arts and Literature) award by the French government for his “exceptional career”. There are also statues in Hong Kong and New York
In October 2008, Khan was conferred the Darjah Mulia Seri Melaka which carries the honorific Datuk (in similar fashion to "Sir" in British knighthood), by the Yang di-Pertua Negeri Tun Mohd Khalil Yaakob, the head of state of Malacca in Malaysia. Khan was honoured for "promoting tourism in Malacca" by filming One Two Ka Four there in 2001. Some were critical of this decision. He was also honoured with an honorary doctorate in arts and culture from Britain's University of Bedfordshire in 2009.
Category:1965 births Category:Filmfare Awards winners Category:Hindi film actors Category:Indian actors Category:Indian film actors Category:Indian film producers Category:Indian Muslims Category:Indian Premier League franchise owners Category:Indian singers Category:Indian television actors Category:Indian television presenters Category:Indian people of Afghan descent Category:Jamia Millia Islamia alumni Category:Living people Category:Officiers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Category:Pashtun people Category:People from Delhi Category:People from Peshawar Category:Recipients of the Padma Shri Category:University of Delhi alumni
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Imgsize | 220px |
|---|---|
| Caption | Rourke at the 2009 premiere of City Island |
| Birth name | Philip Andre Rourke, Jr. |
| Birth date | September 16, 1952 |
| Birth place | Schenectady, New York, U.S. |
| Other names | Sir Eddie Cook |
| Occupation | Actor, professional boxer, screenwriter, music supervisor |
| Years active | Actor (1979–present)Boxer (1991-1994) |
During the 1980s, Rourke starred in Diner, Rumble Fish, and the erotic drama 9½ Weeks, and received critical praise for his work in Barfly and Angel Heart. In 1991, Rourke, who had trained as a boxer in his early years, left acting and became a professional boxer for a period. He had supporting roles in several later films, including The Rainmaker, Buffalo '66, The Pledge, Get Carter, Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Man on Fire.
In 2005, Rourke made his comeback in mainstream Hollywood circles with a lead role in Sin City, for which he won awards from the Chicago Film Critics Association, the Irish Film and Television Awards and the Online Film Critics Society. In the 2008 film The Wrestler, Rourke portrayed a past-his-prime wrestler, and garnered a 2009 Golden Globe award, a BAFTA award, and a nomination for an Academy Award.
In 2010, he appeared in the blockbusters Iron Man 2 and The Expendables.
During his teenage years, Rourke focused his attention mainly on sports. He took up self-defense training at the Boys Club of Miami. It was there that he learned boxing skills and decided on an amateur career. At age 12, Rourke won his first boxing match as a 118-pound bantamweight (53.5 kg), fighting some of his early matches under the name Andre Rourke. He continued his boxing training at the famed 5th Street Gym, in Miami Beach, Florida, where Muhammad Ali began his career. In 1969, Rourke, then weighing 140 lbs. (63.5 kg), sparred with former World Welterweight Champion Luis Rodríguez. Rodriguez was the number one-rated middleweight boxer in the world and was training for his match with world champion Conor Scullion. Rourke boxed Scullion and claims to have received a concussion in this sparring match.
At the 1971 Florida Golden Gloves, Rourke suffered another concussion in a boxing match. After being told by doctors to take a year off and rest, Rourke temporarily retired from the ring. From 1964 to 1972, he compiled an amateur record of 20 wins, 17 by knockout and 6 defeats, which included wins over Ron Carter, Charles Gathers and Joe Riles.
Rourke's acting career eventually became overshadowed by his personal life and career decisions. Directors such as Alan Parker found it difficult to work with him. Parker stated that "working with Mickey is a nightmare. He is very dangerous on the set because you never know what he is going to do." In a documentary on the special edition DVD of Tombstone, actor Michael Biehn, who plays the part of Johnny Ringo, mentions that his role was first offered to Rourke.
During his boxing career, Rourke suffered a number of injuries, including a broken nose, toe, ribs, a split tongue, and a compressed cheekbone. He also suffered from short term memory loss.
His trainer during most of his boxing career was Hells Angels member Chuck Zito. Freddie Roach also trained Rourke for seven fights. Rourke's entrance song into the ring was often Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine."
Boxing promoters said that Rourke was too old to succeed against top-level fighters. Indeed, Rourke himself admits that entering the ring was a sort of personal test: "(I) just wanted to give it a shot, test myself that way physically, while I still had time." In 1995, Rourke retired from boxing and returned to acting.
Rourke's boxing career resulted in a notable physical change in the 1990s, as his face needed reconstructive surgery in order to mend his injuries. His face was later called, "appallingly disfigured." In 2009, the actor told The Daily Mail that he had gone to "the wrong guy" for his surgery, and that his plastic surgeon had left his features "a mess."
|- | style="text-align:center;" colspan="8"|Boxing record |- | style="text-align:center;" colspan="8"|6 Wins (4 knockouts, 2 decisions), 0 Losses, 2 Draws |- style="text-align:center; background:#e3e3e3;" | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Res. | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Record | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Opponent | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Type | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Rd., Time | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Date | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Location | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Notes |- style="text-align:center;" |style="background: #dae2f1"|Draw || 6-0-2 || align=left| Andrew Banks |Majority draw || 4 || September 8, 1994 || align=left| Davie, Florida, USA |align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" |Win || 6-0-1 || align=left| Thomas McCoy |TKO || 3 || November 20, 1993 || align=left| Hamburg, Germany || |- style="text-align:center;" |Win || 5-0-1 || align=left| Bubba Stotts |TKO || 3 || July 24, 1993 || align=left| Joplin, Missouri, USA || |- style="text-align:center;" |Win || 4-0-1 || align=left| Tom Bentley |KO || 1 || March 30, 1993 || align=left| Kansas City, Missouri, USA || |- style="text-align:center;" |Win || 3-0-1 || align=left| Terry Jesmer |Decision || 4 || December 12, 1992 || align=left| Oviedo, Spain || |- style="text-align:center;" |style="background: #dae2f1"|Draw || 2-0-1 || align=left| Francisco Harris |Majority draw || 4 || April 25, 1992 || align=left| Miami Beach, Florida, USA |align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" |Win || 2-0 || align=left| Darrell Miller |KO || 1 , 2:14 || June 23, 1991 || align=left| Tokyo, Japan || |- style="text-align:center;" |Win || 1-0 || align=left| Steve Powell |Unanimous decision || 4 || May 23, 1991 || align=left| Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA |align=left|
While Rourke was also selected for a significant role in Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line, his part ended up on the editing room floor. Rourke also played a small part in the film Thursday, in which he plays a crooked cop. He also had a lead role in 1997's Double Team, which co-starred martial arts actor Jean-Claude Van Damme. It was Rourke's first over-the-top action film role, in which he played the lead villain. During that same year, he filmed Another 9½ Weeks, a sequel to 9½ Weeks, which only received limited distribution. He ended the 1990s with the direct-to-video films Out in Fifty, Shades and television movie Shergar, about the kidnapping of Epsom Derby-winning thoroughbred racehorse Shergar. Rourke has expressed his bitterness over that period of his career, stating that he came to consider himself a "has-been" and lived for a time in "a state of shame." Christopher Heard stated that actors/musicians Tupac Shakur, Johnny Depp, Sean Penn and Brad Pitt have "…animated praise for Rourke and his work." During a roundtable session of Oscar nominated actors held by Newsweek, Brad Pitt cited Rourke as one of his early acting heroes along with Sean Penn and Gary Oldman.
Despite having withdrawn from acting at various points, and having made movies that he now sees as a creative "sell-out" (the action film Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man), Rourke has stated that "…all that I have been through…[has] made me a better, more interesting actor." Rourke's renewed interest in pursuing acting can be seen in his statement that "… my best work is still ahead of me."
Rourke had a role in the movie version of The Informers, playing Peter, an amoral former studio security guard who plots to kidnap a small child.
In 2008, Rourke played the lead in The Wrestler, winner of the Golden Lion Award for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival, about washed-up professional wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson. In regards to first reading the screenplay, he stated that he originally "didn't care for it."
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He also spoke on personal concern and hesitance of being in a movie about wrestling, for he perceived it as being "prearranged and prechoreographed." However, as he trained for the film, he developed an appreciation and respect for what real-life pro wrestlers do to prepare for the ring:
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He trained under former WWE wrestler Afa the Wild Samoan for the part, and has received a British Academy (BAFTA) award, a Golden Globe award, an Independent Spirit Award, and an Oscar nomination as Best Actor. Rourke was pessimistic about his chances to win the Oscar as he had been, in the past, very vocal against Hollywood's establishment. Rourke lost the Oscar to Sean Penn, while Penn did acknowledge Rourke in his acceptance speech.
Rourke has written or co-written six scripts: Homeboy, The Last Ride, Bullet, Killer Moon, Penance and the latest, Pain. Of these, the first three were produced as movies between 1988 and 1996.
In early 2009, Rourke developed a small feud with WWE Superstar Chris Jericho, as part of a storyline. The storyline climaxed at WrestleMania XXV, when Rourke knocked out Jericho with a left hook after Jericho won his match against Jimmy Snuka, Ricky Steamboat, and Roddy Piper, with Ric Flair in their corner.
In 2009, Rourke starred in John Rich's music video for Shuttin' Detroit Down along side of Kris Kristofferson.
In 2009, Rourke voiced protagonist US Navy SEAL Dick Marcinko in the video game Rogue Warrior. The game received very poor reviews from critics.
In 2010, Rourke played the role of the main villain Whiplash in the film Iron Man 2, in an interview with Rip It Up Magazine he revealed that he prepared for the role by visiting Russian jail inmates. He also had a supporting role playing 'Tool' in Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables.
In numerous TV and print interviews, he attributes his comeback after fourteen years to weekly meetings with a psychiatrist, "Steve," and to a Catholic priest he identified as "Father Pete."
In addition to his faith and his psychiatric treatment, Rourke has publicly attributed his comeback to his dogs. was a chihuahua-terrier mix.
Rourke gave his dogs credit during his Golden Globe Best Actor acceptance speech January 11, 2009: "I'd like to thank all my dogs. The ones that are here, the ones that aren't here anymore because sometimes when a man's alone, that's all you got is your dog. And they've meant the world to me." The day of the 2009 Golden Globes show, he told Barbara Walters that "I sort of self-destructed and everything came out about fourteen years ago or so ... the wife had left, the career was over, the money was not an ounce. The dogs were there when no one else was there." Asked by Walters if he had considered suicide, he responded:
Despite being identified as "Lowjack" in the transcription above, the dog in the anecdote was apparently Beau Jack, who sired two of Rourke's later pets, Loki and her littermate Chocolate. Beau Jack died in 2002, though Rourke gave him 45 minutes of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Chocolate was the subject of a children's book, Chocolate at the Four Seasons, about his temporary stay with producer Bonnie Timmerman. Chocolate returned to Rourke and died in 2006. He has had as many as seven dogs at one time, back in 2005.
Rourke is also a motorcycle enthusiast and uses motorcycles in some of his films.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Colin Firth |
|---|---|
| Caption | Firth at the 2009 Venice Film Festival |
| Birth name | Colin Andrew Firth |
| Birth date | September 10, 1960 |
| Birth place | Grayshott, Hampshire, United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1983–present |
| Spouse | Livia Giuggioli (1997–present) |
Colin Andrew Firth (born 10 September 1960) is an English film, television, and stage actor. Firth first gained wide public attention in the 1990s for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaption of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. He subsequently achieved film stardom with the international box office success of Bridget Jones's Diary, Mamma Mia!, A Single Man, and The King's Speech.
It was through the 1995 BBC television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice that Firth gained wider renown. The serial was a major international success, and Firth gained heartthrob status because of his role as Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. This performance also made him the object of affection for fictional journalist Bridget Jones (created by Helen Fielding), an interest which carried on into the two novels featuring the Jones character. In the second novel, , the character even meets Firth in Rome. As something of an in-joke, when the novels were adapted for the cinema, Firth was cast as Jones's love interest, Mark Darcy. Continuing this in-joke there was a dog called Mr Darcy in the film St. Trinian's which Firth's character accidentally kills.
Firth had a supporting role in The English Patient (1996) and since then has starred in films such as Fever Pitch (1997), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Relative Values (2000), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), The Importance of Being Earnest (2002), Love Actually (2003), What a Girl Wants (2003), Hope Springs (2003), Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003), (2004), Nanny McPhee (2005), Then She Found Me (2007) with Helen Hunt, The Last Legion (2007) with Aishwarya Rai, When Did You Last See Your Father? (2008), the film adaptation of Mamma Mia! (2008), and Easy Virtue, which screened at the Rome Film Festival to excellent reviews. In 2009, he starred in A Christmas Carol, an adaptation of Charles Dickens's novel A Christmas Carol using the performance capture procedure, playing Scrooge's optimistic nephew Fred, alongside Jim Carrey, who played Scrooge.
He has also appeared in several television productions, including Donovan Quick (an updated version of Don Quixote) (1999) and Conspiracy (2001), for which he received an Emmy nomination. Colin Firth's most recent role is in the Toronto International Film Festival debuted film, Genova.
At the 66th Venice International Film Festival in 2009, Colin Firth was awarded the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for his role in Tom Ford's A Single Man as a college professor grappling with solitude after his longtime partner dies. Fashion designer Tom Ford made his director's debut with this movie. This role has earned Firth career best reviews and Academy Award, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA, and BFCA nominations; he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in February 2010.
Firth starred in the 2010 film The King's Speech. At the Toronto Film Festival, the film was met with a standing ovation. The TIFF release of The King's Speech fell on Colin's 50th birthday and was called the "best 50th birthday gift". On 15 December 2010, he was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance in "The King's Speech." He fell under the category of Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama.
Firth will appear in the 2012 adaptation of the John Le Carré novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, directed by Tomas Alfredson, also starring Ralph Fiennes, Gary Oldman, and Tom Hardy.
He was a guest host of Saturday Night Live in 2004 alongside musical guest Norah Jones.
Colin performed in theatre frequently between 1983 and 2000. He starred in Three Days of Rain as lead character Ned/Walker, as well as The Caretaker, Desire Under the Elms, and Chatsky.
He served as executive producer for the 2007 documentary produced by his wife, Livia Giuggioli, In Prison My Whole Life. The film questions the trial proceedings and evidence used against political activist and former Black Panther member, Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is on death row for the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner.
Firth is also a Jury Member for the digital studio Filmaka, a platform for undiscovered filmmakers to show their work to industry professionals. On 2 February 2010, Firth was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in A Single Man. He lost to Jeff Bridges for his performance in Crazy Heart.
On January 13, 2011, he was presented with the 2,429th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Firth has been involved in a campaign to stop the deportation of a group of asylum seekers, because he believed that they might be murdered on their return to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Firth argued that "To me it's just basic civilization to help people. I find this incredibly painful to see how we dismiss the most desperate people in our society. It's easily done. It plays to the tabloids, to the Middle-England xenophobes. It just makes me furious. And all from a government we once had such high hopes for". As a result of the campaign, a Congolese nurse was given a last-minute reprieve from deportation.
Firth has been a long-standing supporter of Survival International, a non-governmental organization that defends the rights of tribal peoples. Speaking in 2001, he said, "My interest in tribal peoples goes back many years... and I have supported [Survival] ever since." In 2003, during the promotion of the movie Love Actually, he spoke in defense of the tribal people of Botswana, condemning the Botswana government's eviction of the Gana and Gwi Bushmen from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. He says of the Bushmen, "These people are not the remnants of a past era who need to be brought up to date. Those who are able to continue to live on the land that is rightfully theirs are facing the 21st century with a confidence that many of us in the so-called developed world can only envy."
Firth has also been involved in the Oxfam global campaign Make Trade Fair, in which several other celebrities participated as well in order to bring more attention to the issues involved. The campaign has focused on several trade practices seen as unfair to third world producers especially, including dumping, high import tariffs, and labour rights such as fair wages. Firth remains deeply committed to this cause, making efforts such as supporting fair trade coffee in his daily life, as he believes "[i]f you're going to sustain commitment to any of this, ... [y]ou've got to get involved on an ordinary every day basis." He has further contributed to this cause by opening (with a few collaborators) an eco-friendly shop in West London, Eco. The shop offers fair trade and eco-friendly goods, as well as expert advice on making spaces more energy efficient.
In October 2009 at the London Film Festival, Firth launched a film and political activism website, Brightwide.com, along with his wife Livia and a team headed by Paola De Leo, a former Director of Deutsche Bank and Head of the Global Major Donor Programme for Amnesty. In a 2006 interview with French magazine Madame Figaro, Firth was asked "Quelles sont les femmes de votre vie?" (Who are the women of your life?). Firth replied: "Ma mère, ma femme et Jane Austen" (My mother, my wife and Jane Austen). He was awarded an honorary degree on 19 October 2007 from the University of Winchester.
In early 2010, Firth announced his support for the Liberal Democrats, having formerly been a Labour supporter, citing asylum and refugees' rights as a key reason for his change in affiliation. In December 2010, Firth retracted his support of the Liberal Democrats, citing their U-turn on tuition fees as one of the key reasons for his disillusionment. He clarified that while he no longer supports the Liberal Democrats, he is currently without affiliation.
Category:1960 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century actors Category:21st-century actors Category:Alumni of the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design Category:Alumni of the Drama Centre London Category:Audio book narrators Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:English film actors Category:English radio actors Category:English stage actors Category:English television actors Category:European Film Awards winners (people) Category:Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:People from East Hampshire (district) Category:People from Winchester Category:Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama alumni
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Vanessa Redgrave |
|---|---|
| Caption | Redgrave at the "Stars In The Alley" concert, New York City in June 2007 |
| Birth date | January 30, 1937 |
| Birth place | Greenwich, London, England |
| Spouse | Tony Richardson (1962–1967) (divorced) (2 children)Franco Nero (2006–present) (1 child) |
| Years active | 1956–present |
| Occupation | Actress |
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE (born 30 January 1937) is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.
She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning both the Tony and Olivier Awards. On screen, she has starred in more than 80 films; including Mary, Queen of Scots, Isadora, Julia, The Bostonians, and Atonement. Redgrave was proclaimed by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams as "the greatest living actress of our times," and she remains the only British actress ever to win the Oscar, Emmy, Tony, Cannes, Golden Globe, and the Screen Actors Guild awards. She was also the recipient of the 2010 BAFTA Fellowship "in recognition of an outstanding and exceptional contribution to film."
A member of the Redgrave family of actors, she is the daughter of Sir Michael Redgrave, sister of the late Lynn Redgrave and the late Corin Redgrave, and the mother of Hollywood actresses Joely Richardson and the late Natasha Richardson.
Redgrave's daughters, Natasha Richardson (1963–2009) and Joely Richardson (b. 1965) from her 1962–67 marriage to film director Tony Richardson, also built respected acting careers. Redgrave's son Carlo Gabriel Nero (né Carlo Sparanero), by Italian actor Franco Nero (né Francesco Sparanero), is a writer and film director. She met Franco while filming Camelot in 1967, the year she divorced her husband Tony Richardson, who left her for the French actress Jeanne Moreau. Redgrave and Nero married on 31 December 2006. She is also the grandmother of Michaél and Daniel Neeson, Daisy Bevan, and Raphael and Lilli Sparanero.
In 1967, Redgrave was made a Commander (CBE) of the Order of the British Empire. It was reported that she declined a damehood in 1999.
From 1971 to 1986, she had a long-term relationship with actor Timothy Dalton, with whom she had starred in the film Mary, Queen of Scots.
Natasha Richardson died on 18 March 2009 from a traumatic brain injury caused by a skiing accident. On 6 April 2010, Corin Redgrave died at age 70 in a South London hospital after an undisclosed illness; he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2000. On 2 May 2010, Lynn Redgrave died of breast cancer.
In 1960, Redgrave had her first starring role in Robert Bolt's The Tiger and the Horse, in which she co-starred with her father. In 1962 she played Imogen in William Gaskill's production of Cymbeline for the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1966 Redgrave created the role of Jean Brodie in the Donald Albery production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, adapted for the stage by Jay Presson Allen from the novel by Muriel Spark. She won four Evening Standard Awards Best Actress Evening Standards Awards for Best Actress in four decades. She was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award for Actress of the Year in a Revival in 1984 for The Aspern Papers
In the nineties, her theatre work included Prospero in The Tempest at Shakespeare's Globe in London. In 2003 she won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in the Broadway revival of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night. In January 2006, Redgrave was presented the Ibsen Centennial Award for her "outstanding work in interpreting many of Henrik Ibsen's works over the last decades." Previous recipients of the award include Liv Ullmann, Glenda Jackson, and Claire Bloom.
In 2007, Redgrave played Joan Didion in her Broadway stage adaptation of her 2005 book, The Year of Magical Thinking, which played 144 regular performances in a 24-week limited engagement at the Booth Theatre. For this, she won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play. She reprised the role at the Lyttelton Theatre at The Royal National Theatre in London to mixed reviews. She also spent a week performing the work at the Theatre Royal in Bath in September 2008. She once again performed the role of Joan Didion for a special benefit at New York's Cathedral of Saint John the Divine on 26 October 2009. The performance was originally slated to debut on 27 April, but was pushed due to the death of Redgrave's daughter Natasha. The proceeds for the benefit were donated to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Both charities work to provide help for the children of Gaza.
In October 2010 she will star in the Broadway premiere of Driving Miss Daisy starring in the title role opposite James Earl Jones. The show premiered on 25 October 2010 at the John Golden Theatre in New York City to rave reviews. The production was originally scheduled to run through 29 January 2011 but due to a successful response and high box office sales, was extended to 9 April 2011.
In a poll of "industry experts" and readers conducted by The Stage in 2010, Redgrave was ranked as the ninth greatest stage actor of all time.
When Redgrave was nominated for an Oscar in 1978, for her role in Julia, members of the Jewish Defense League (JDL), led by Rabbi Meir Kahane, burned effigies of Redgrave and picketed the Academy Awards ceremony to protest against both Redgrave and her support of the Palestinian cause.
Redgrave's performance in Julia garnered an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
In her acceptance speech, Redgrave announced that neither she nor the Academy would be intimidated by "a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums — whose behavior is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world, and to their great and heroic record of struggle against fascism and oppression."
Later in the broadcast veteran screenwriter and Oscar presenter Paddy Chayefsky told the audience members that
In 1978, Rabbi Meir Kahane published a book entitled Listen Vanessa, I am a Zionist, which was later renamed Listen World, Listen Jew, in direct response to Redgrave's comments at the Academy Awards. To this day many rightwing Jewish groups, such as the Jewish Defense League, consider Redgrave an opponent and a supporter of terrorism, citing remarks she has made such as, "Zionism is a brutal, racist ideology. And it is a brutal racist regime."
In June 2005 Redgrave was asked on Larry King Live: "Regardless of distinctions about policy, do you support Israel's right to exist?" Redgrave replied that she did.
Her performance as a lesbian grieving the loss of her longtime partner in the HBO series If These Walls Could Talk 2 earned her a Golden Globe for “Best TV Series Supporting Actress” in 2000, as well as earning an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a TV Movie or Miniseries. This same performance also led to an “Excellence in Media Award” by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). The award honours “a member of the entertainment community who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people”. In 2004, Redgrave joined the second season cast of the hit FX series Nip/Tuck, portraying Dr. Erica Noughton, the mother of Julia McNamara, who is played by her real-life daughter Joely Richardson. She also made appearances in the third and sixth seasons. In 2006, Redgrave starred opposite Peter O'Toole in the acclaimed film Venus. A year later, Redgrave starred in Evening and the acclaimed Atonement, in which she garnered a Broadcast Film Critics Association award nomination for her performance that only took up seven minutes of screen time. In 2008, Redgrave appeared as a narrator in an Arts Alliance production, id – Identity of the Soul. In 2009, Redgrave starred in the BBC remake of The Day of the Triffids, with her daughter Joely. In the midst of losing her daughter, Natasha Richardson, Redgrave signed on to play Eleanor of Aquitaine in Ridley Scott's version of Robin Hood, which began filming shortly after Natasha's death. Redgrave later withdrew from the film for personal reasons. The part was given to her Evening co-star Eileen Atkins. She was next seen in Letters to Juliet opposite her husband Franco Nero.
She had small roles in Eva, a Romanian drama film that premiered at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival as well as in Julian Schnabel's Palestinian drama, Miral that was screened at the 67th Venice International Film Festival. She has a supporting role in the Bosnia-set political drama, The Whistleblower, which premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. Both Miral and The Whistleblower are scheduled for US theatrical release in 2011. Redgrave also narrates Patrick Keiller's semi-fictional upcoming documentary, Robinson in Ruins.
She has also filmed leading lady roles for two upcoming 2011 historical films. This includes, Ralph Fiennes' directorial debut of Shakespeare's Coriolanus in which Redgrave plays Volumnia; and Roland Emmerich's Anonymous in which Redgrave plays Queen Elizabeth I.
Her opposition to Stalinism led her to join the Workers' Revolutionary Party (WRP), a leftist-communist political organisation on whose ticket she twice ran for Parliament. Redgrave's Trotskyist political views, in particular her membership of the WRP, have received much criticism. She remained loyal to WRP founder Gerry Healy when he was expelled from the party in the mid-1980s. She and other Healy loyalists founded the short-lived Marxist Party in the 1990s. Since 2004, she has been a member of the Peace and Progress Party, also a leftist/socialist/communist organisation.
In 1980, Redgrave made her American TV debut as concentration camp survivor Fania Fénelon in the Arthur Miller-scripted TV movie Playing for Time, a part for which she won an Emmy as Outstanding Lead Actress in 1981. The decision to cast Redgrave as Fénelon was, however, a source of controversy. In light of Redgrave's support for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), even Fénelon objected to her casting. Redgrave was perplexed by such hostility, stating in her 1991 autobiography her long-held belief that "the struggle against anti-Semitism and for the self-determination of the Palestinians form a single whole."
In 1984, Redgrave sued the Boston Symphony Orchestra, claiming that the orchestra had fired her from a performance due to her support of the PLO. Lillian Hellman testified in court on Redgrave's behalf. On 13 November 2003, a London court rejected the Russian government's request for Zakayev's extradition. Instead, the court accepted a plea by lawyers for Zakayev that he would not get a fair trial, and could even face torture, in Russia. "It would be unjust and oppressive to return Mr Zakayev to Russia," Judge Timothy Workman ruled.
In December 2003 it was revealed that Redgrave had declined the offer of a Damehood from Tony Blair's New Labour government.
In 2004, Vanessa Redgrave and her brother Corin Redgrave launched the Peace and Progress Party, which campaigned against the Iraq War and for human rights. However, in June 2005 Redgrave left the party.
Redgrave has been an outspoken critic of the "war on terrorism". During a June 2005 interview on Larry King Live, Redgrave was challenged on this criticism and on her political views. In response she questioned if there can be true democracy if the political leadership of the United States and Britain does not "uphold the values for which my father's generation fought the Nazis, [and] millions of people gave their lives against the Soviet Union's regime. [Such sacrifice was made] because of democracy and what democracy meant: no torture, no camps, no detention forever or without trial...[Such] techniques are not just alleged [against the governments of the U.S. and Britain], they have actually been written about by the FBI. I don't think it's being 'far left'...to uphold the rule of law."
In March 2006, Redgrave remarked in an interview with US broadcast journalist Amy Goodman: “I don't know of a single government that actually abides by international human rights law, not one, including my own. In fact, [they] violate these laws in the most despicable and obscene way, I would say.”
Goodman’s interview with Redgrave took place in the actress’s West London home on the evening of 7 March, and covered a range of subjects, particularly the cancellation of the Alan Rickman production, My Name is Rachel Corrie, by the New York Theater Workshop. Such a development, said Redgrave, was an "act of catastrophic cowardice" as "the essence of life and the essence of theater is to communicate about lives, either lives that have ended or lives that are still alive, [and about] beliefs, and what is in those beliefs."
In June 2006, she was awarded a lifetime achievement award from the Transilvania International Film Festival, one of whose sponsors is a mining company named Gabriel Resources. She dedicated the award to a community organisation from Roşia Montană, Romania, which is campaigning against a gold mine that Gabriel Resources is seeking to build near the village. Gabriel Resources placed an "open letter" in The Guardian on 23 June 2006, attacking Redgrave, arguing the case for the mine, and exhibiting support for it among the inhabitants: the open letter is signed by 77 villagers.
In December 2007, Redgrave was named as one of the possible suretors who paid the £50,000 bail for Jamil al-Banna, one of three British residents arrested after landing back in the UK following four years' captivity at Guantanamo Bay. Redgrave has declined to be specific about her financial involvement but said she was "very happy" to be of "some small assistance for Jamil and his wife", adding, "It is a profound honour and I am glad to be alive to be able to do this. Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) is a concentration camp."
Category:1937 births Category:20th-century actors Category:21st-century actors Category:Alumni of the Central School of Speech and Drama Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Best Supporting Actress Academy Award winners Category:Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe (television) winners Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:Drama Desk Award winners Category:Emmy Award winners Category:English film actors Category:English socialists Category:English stage actors Category:Living people Category:Actors from London Category:Mission: Impossible Category:Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:People from Greenwich Category:Tony Award winners Category:Workers' Revolutionary Party (UK) members
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Stephen Fry |
|---|---|
| Caption | Fry in Happy Birthday to GNU (2008) |
| Birth name | Stephen John Fry |
| Birth date | August 24, 1957 |
| Birth place | Hampstead, London, England |
| Occupation | Actor, comedian, author, journalist, broadcaster, film director |
| Years active | 1982–present |
| Partner | Daniel Cohen (1995–2010)Steven Webb (2010-present) |
| Religion | None (atheist) |
| Website | http://www.stephenfry.com |
| Signature | Stephen Fry's signature.jpg |
| Signature size | 100px |
Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also included Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, and the duo also played the title roles in Jeeves and Wooster.
As a solo actor, Fry played the lead in the film Wilde, was Melchett in the BBC television series Blackadder, starred as the title character Peter Kingdom in the ITV series Kingdom, and is the host of the quiz show QI. He also presented a 2008 television series Stephen Fry in America, which saw him travelling across all 50 U.S. states in six episodes. Fry has a recurring guest role as Dr. Gordon Wyatt on the Fox crime series Bones.
Apart from his work in television, Fry has contributed columns and articles for newspapers and magazines, and has written four novels and two volumes of autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot and . He also appears frequently on BBC Radio 4, starring in the comedy series Absolute Power, being a frequent guest on panel games such as Just a Minute, and acting as chairman for I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, where he was one of a trio of hosts who succeeded the late Humphrey Lyttelton. He is also known to British audiences everywhere as the reader of all seven Harry Potter novels in their audiobook versions.
At 17, after leaving Norfolk College of Arts and Technology, Fry absconded with a credit card stolen from a family friend, was arrested in Swindon, and as a result spent three months in Pucklechurch Prison on remand.
Following his release he resumed education at City College Norwich, promising administrators that he would study rigorously to sit the Cambridge entrance exams. He passed well enough to gain a scholarship to Queens' College, Cambridge. At Cambridge, Fry joined the Cambridge Footlights, appeared on University Challenge, and gained a degree in English literature. It was at the Footlights that Fry met his future comedy collaborator Hugh Laurie.
Forgiving Fry and Laurie for The Crystal Cube, the BBC commissioned a sketch show in 1986 that was to become A Bit of Fry & Laurie. The programme ran for 26 episodes spanning four series between 1986 and 1995, and was very successful. During this time Fry starred in Blackadder II as Lord Melchett, made a guest appearance in as the Duke of Wellington, then returned to a starring role in Blackadder Goes Forth as General Melchett. In 1988, he became a regular contestant on the popular improvisational comedy radio show Whose Line Is It Anyway?. However, when it moved to television, he only appeared three times: twice in the first series and once in the ninth.
Between 1990 and 1993, Fry starred as Jeeves (alongside Hugh Laurie's Bertie Wooster) in Jeeves and Wooster, 23 hour-long adaptations of P.G. Wodehouse's novels and short stories.
In 1998 BBC Two aired a Malcolm Bradbury adaptation of the Mark Tavener 1989 novel, In the Red with Fry taking the part of the Controller of BBC Radio 2.
In 2000, Fry played the role of Professor Bellgrove in the BBC serial Gormenghast which was an adaptation of the first two novels of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series.
In 2010 he filmed a cameo role in Ros na Rún, an Irish language soap opera broadcast in Ireland, Scotland and the United States. Fry learned Irish for the role. He also came together with Laurie for a retrospective of their partnership titled Fry and Laurie Reunited.
In 2010 Fry took part in a Christmas series of Short Films called 'Little Crackers'. Fry's short is based on a story from his childhood at school.
Fry has also been involved in nature documentaries, having narrated Spectacled Bears: Shadow of the Forest for the BBC Natural World series in 2008. In the television series Last Chance to See, Fry together with zoologist Mark Carwardine sought out endangered species, some of which were featured in Douglas Adams and Carwardine's 1990 book/radio series of the of the same name. The resulting programmes were broadcast in 2009.
From 2007 to 2009, Fry appeared in and was executive producer for the legal drama Kingdom, which ran for three series on ITV1. He has also taken up a recurring guest role as psychiatrist Dr. Gordon Wyatt in the popular American drama Bones.
On 7 May 2008, Fry gave a speech as part of a series of BBC lectures on the future of public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, which he later recorded for a podcast.
Fry also narrates the English language version of the Spanish children's animated series Pocoyo.
In 2003, Fry made his directorial debut with Bright Young Things, adapted by himself from Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies. In 2001, he began hosting the BAFTA Film Awards, a role from which he stepped down in 2006. Later that same year, he wrote the English libretto and dialogue for Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of The Magic Flute.
Fry continues to make regular film appearances, notably in treatments of literary cult classics. He served as narrator in the 2005 film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and in 2005 he appeared in both A Cock and Bull Story, based on Tristram Shandy, and as a non-conforming TV Presenter who challenges the fascist state in V for Vendetta. In 2006, he played the role of gadget-master Smithers in Stormbreaker, and in 2007 he appeared as himself hosting a quiz in St Trinian's. In 2007, Fry wrote a script for a remake of The Dam Busters for director Peter Jackson.
(2008)"]] In 2008, he participated in a film celebrating the 25th anniversary of GNU, Happy Birthday to GNU. Fry was offered a role in Valkyrie but was unable to participate. Fry starred in the Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland, as the voice of The Cheshire Cat, alongside Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway. He will play Mycroft Holmes in the sequel to Sherlock Holmes directed by Guy Ritchie.
In 2007, he hosted Current Puns, an exploration of wordplay, and Radio 4: This Is Your Life, to celebrate the radio station's 40th anniversary. He also interviewed Tony Blair as part of a series of podcasts released by 10 Downing Street.
In February 2008, Fry began presenting podcasts entitled Stephen Fry's Podgrams, in which he recounts his life and recent experiences.
In August 2008 he hosted Fry's English Delight, a three-part series on BBC Radio 4 about metaphor, quotation and cliché. Fry returned with a second series a year later.
In the summer 2009 series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, Fry was one of a trio of hosts replacing Humphrey Lyttelton (the others being Jack Dee and Rob Brydon).
He also lends his voice to the introduction and stings for Phill Jupitus' fortnightly podcast, The Perfect Ten.
Following three one-man shows in Australia, Fry announced a "sort of stand-up" performance at The Royal Albert Hall in London for September 2010. Depending on its reception, Fry may tour nationally.
When writing a book review for Tatler, Fry wrote under an alias, Williver Hendry, editor of A Most Peculiar Friendship: The Correspondence of Lord Alfred Douglas and Jack Dempsey, a field close to Fry's heart as an Oscar Wilde enthusiast. Once a columnist in The Listener and The Daily Telegraph, he now writes a weekly technology column in the Saturday edition of The Guardian. His blog attracted more than 300,000 visitors in its first two weeks of existence. After its release, it reached No. 1 on the UK Album Chart list.
On 2 January 2010 it was announced that Fry was "switching off his connections with the outside world" in order to complete a second volume of his autobiography.
Fry's use of the word "luvvie" in The Guardian on 2 April 1988 is given by the Oxford English Dictionary as the earliest recorded use of the word.
In October 2009 Fry sparked debate amongst users again when he announced an intention to leave the social networking site after criticism from another user on Twitter. He retracted the intention the next day. In October 2010, Fry left Twitter for a few days following press criticism of a quote taken from an interview he had given, with a farewell message of "Bye bye". After returning, Fry explained that he had left Twitter to "avoid being sympathised with or told about an article I would otherwise never have got wind of".
In November 2009 Fry's Twitter account reached 1,000,000 followers. He commemorated the million followers milestone with a humorous video blog in which a 'Step Hen Fry' clone speaks from the year 2034 where MySpace, Facebook and Twitter have combined to form 'Twit on MyFace'.
In November 2010 Fry achieved 2,000,000 followers on Twitter. He welcomed his 2 millionth follower, mobijack, with a blog entry describing Fry's view of the pros and cons of this form of communication.
In December 2006 he was ranked sixth for the BBC's Top Living Icon Award, was featured on The Culture Show, and was voted most intelligent man on television by readers of Radio Times. The Independent on Sunday Pink List named Fry the second most influential gay person in Britain in May 2007. He had taken the twenty-third position on the list the previous year. Later the same month he was announced as the 2007 BT Mind Champion of the Year in recognition of the awareness raised about bipolar disorder by his documentary The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive. Fry was also nominated in "Best Entertainment Performance" for QI and "Best Factual Series" for Secret Life of the Manic Depressive at the 2007 British Academy Television Awards. That same year, Broadcast magazine listed Fry at number four in its "Hot 100" list of influential on-screen performers, describing him as a polymath and a "national treasure". He was also granted a lifetime achievement award at the British Comedy Awards on 5 December 2007 and the Special Recognition Award at the National Television Awards on 20 January 2010.
BBC Four dedicated two nights of programming to Fry on 17 and 18 August 2007, in celebration of his 50th birthday. The first night, comprising programs featuring Fry, began with a sixty-minute documentary entitled . The second night was composed of programs selected by Fry, as well as a 60-minute interview with Mark Lawson and a half-hour special, Stephen Fry: Guilty Pleasures. Stephen Fry Weekend proved such a ratings hit for BBC Four that it was repeated on BBC Two on 16 and 17 of that September.
On 15 September 2010, Fry, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter published in The Guardian, stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United Kingdom being a state visit.
Fry was an active supporter of the Labour Party for many years, and appeared in a party political broadcast on its behalf with Hugh Laurie and Michelle Collins in November 1993. Despite this, he did not vote in the 2005 General Election because of the stance of both the Labour and Conservative parties with regard to the Iraq War. Despite his praising of the Blair/Brown government for social reform, Fry has been critical of the Labour Party's "Third Way" concept. He is on cordial terms with Prince Charles (despite a mild parody Fry performed in his role of King Charles I in the comedy programme ), through his work with the Prince's Trust. He attended the wedding of the Prince of Wales to Camilla Parker-Bowles in 2005.
Fry is a friend of British comedian and actor (and Blackadder co-star) Rowan Atkinson and was best man at Atkinson's wedding to Sunetra Sastry at the Russian Tea Room in New York City. He was also a friend of British actor John Mills.
His best friend is Hugh Laurie, whom he met while both were at Cambridge and with whom he has collaborated many times over the years. He was best man at Laurie's wedding and is godfather to all three of his children.
A fan of cricket, Fry has claimed to be related to former England cricketer C.B. Fry, and was recently interviewed for the Ashes Fever DVD, reporting on England's victory over Australia in the 2005 Ashes series. Regarding football, he is a supporter of Norwich City (as mentioned in Ashes Fever), and is a regular visitor to Carrow Road. Fry has a sister named Jo Crocker who was assistant director on Bright Young Things.
Fry has talked on occasion about his passion for whisky. He visited the Woodford Reserve whiskey distillery in Kentucky, US in his BBC series Stephen Fry in America. Stephen cites his favourite whisky as the Master of Malt 19 year old Tomatin.
He has been described as "deeply dippy for all things digital", claims to have bought the third Macintosh computer sold in the UK (his friend Douglas Adams bought the first two) and jokes that he has never encountered a smartphone that he has not bought. He counts Wikipedia among his favourite websites "because I like to find out that I died, and that I'm currently in a ballet in China, and all the other very accurate and important things that Wikipedia brings us all."
Fry has a long interest in Internet production, including his own website since 1997. His current site, The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry, has existed since 2002 and has attracted many visitors following his first blog in September 2007, which comprised a 6,500 word "blessay" on smartphones. In February 2008, Fry launched his private podcast series, Stephen Fry's Podgrams, and a forum, including discussions on depression and activities in which Fry is involved. The website content is created by Stephen Fry and produced by Andrew Sampson. Fry is also a supporter of GNU and the Free Software Foundation. For the 25th anniversary of the GNU operating system, Fry appeared in a video explaining some of the philosophy behind GNU by likening it to the sharing found in science. In October 2008, he began posting to his Twitter stream, which he regularly updates. On 16 May 2009, he celebrated the 500,000-follower mark: "Bless my soul 500k followers. And I love you all. Well, all except that silly one. And that's not you."
On 30 April 2008, Fry signed an open letter, published in The Guardian newspaper by some well known Jewish personalities, stating their opposition to celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel. Furthermore, he is a signatory member of the British Jews for Justice for Palestinians organisation, which campaigns for Palestinian rights.
A year later, The Guardian published a letter from Fry addressing his younger self, explaining how his future is soon to unfold, reflecting on the positive progression towards gay acceptance and openness around him, and yet not everywhere, while warning on how "the cruel, hypocritical and loveless hand of religion and absolutism has fallen on the world once more".
Fry was among over one hundred signatories to a statement published by Sense About Science on 4 June 2009, condemning British libel laws and their use to "severely curtail the right to free speech on a matter of public interest."
He was recently made a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association, stating: "it is essential to nail one’s colours to the mast as a humanist.".
On 6 October 2009, Fry was interviewed by Jon Snow on Channel 4 News as a signatory of a letter to British Conservative Party leader David Cameron expressing concern about the party's relationship with Poland's opposition national conservative Law and Justice party in the European Parliament. During the interview, he stated:
There has been a history, let's face it, in Poland of a right-wing catholicism which has been deeply disturbing for those of us who know a little history, and remember which side of the border Auschwitz was on and know the stories, and know much of the anti-semitic, and homophobic and nationalistic elements in countries like Poland.The remark prompted a complaint from the Polish Embassy in London, an editorial in The Economist and criticism from British Jewish historian David Cesarani. Fry has since posted an apology in a six-page post on his personal weblog, in which he stated:
I offer no excuse. I seemed to imply that the Polish people had been responsible for the most infamous of all the death factories of the Third Reich. I didn't even really at the time notice the import of what I had said, so gave myself no opportunity instantly to retract the statement. It was a rubbishy, cheap and offensive remark that I have been regretting ever since.
I take this opportunity to apologise now. I said a stupid, thoughtless and fatuous thing. It detracted from and devalued my argument, such as it was, and it outraged and offended a large group of people for no very good reason. I am sorry in all directions, and all the more sorry because it is no one's fault but my own, which always makes it so much worse. He suffered a nervous breakdown in 1995 while appearing in a West End play called Cell Mates and subsequently walked out of the production, prompting its early closure and incurring the displeasure of co-star Rik Mayall and playwright Simon Gray. Mayall's comedy partner, Adrian Edmondson, made light of the subject in his and Mayall's second Bottom live show. After walking out of the production, Fry went missing for several days while contemplating suicide. He abandoned the idea and left the United Kingdom by ferry, eventually resurfacing in Belgium. Fry has spoken publicly about his experience with bipolar disorder, which was also depicted in the documentary Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic-Depressive. In the programme, he interviewed other sufferers of the illness including celebrities Carrie Fisher, Richard Dreyfuss and Tony Slattery. Also featured were chef Rick Stein, whose father committed suicide, Robbie Williams, who talks of his experience with major depression, and comedienne/former mental health nurse Jo Brand.In 2009, Fry lent his support to a campaign led by the human rights organisation Reprieve to prevent the execution of Akmal Shaikh, a British national who suffered from bipolar disorder, yet, despite calls for clemency, was executed in the People's Republic of China for drug trafficking.
Fry is six feet five inches (196 cm) tall.
In January 2008, he broke his arm while filming Last Chance to See in Brazil. He later explained in a podcast how the accident happened: while climbing aboard a boat, he slipped between it and the dock, and, while stopping himself from falling into the water, his body weight caused his right humerus to snap. The damage was more severe than first thought: the resulting vulnerability to his radial nerve—he was at risk of losing the use of his arm—was not diagnosed until he saw a consultant in the UK.
As the host of QI, Fry has revealed that he is allergic to both champagne and bumble bee stings.
Appearing on Top Gear in 2009, Fry had lost a significant amount of weight, prompting host Jeremy Clarkson to ask jokingly, "Where's the rest of you?" Fry explained that he had shed a total of , attributing the weight loss to doing a lot of walking while listening to downloaded Audiobooks.
Business
In 2008, Fry formed SamFry Ltd, with long-term collaborator Andrew Sampson, to produce and fund new content, as well as manage his official website.
Bibliography
References
External links
Five Minutes With: Stephen Fry, interview with Matthew Stadlen for the BBC
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| Name | Rosamund Pike |
|---|---|
| Caption | Pike at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival |
| Birth date | January 27, 1979 |
| Birth place | London, England, UK |
| Years active | 1998–present |
| Occupation | Actress |
After taking a year off to pursue her acting career, garnering stage experience in David Hare's Skylight, Arthur Miller's All My Sons, and several plays by Shakespeare; she achieved an Upper Second class degree in 2001.
Her stage credits include Hitchcock Blonde by Terry Johnson (in a role requiring her to appear completely nude on stage with only a pair of high heels) and Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke, both in London's West End, and Gaslight at London's Old Vic Theatre. Pike has said that she would be happy to do at least one play every year. In 2009, she played the title character in Madame De Sade during the Donmar's West End season.
She appeared in the British film Made in Dagenham and in the Canadian film Barney's Version where she plays Miriam. In 2010, she starred in a production of Hedda Gabler on UK tour.
Pike is recorded voicework for a lead role in the film Jackboots on Whitehall and lent her voice to a new series of James Bond audio-books, narrating The Spy Who Loved Me.
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| Name | Jennifer Saunders |
|---|---|
| Caption | Saunders in November 2008 |
| Birth date | July 06, 1958 |
| Birth place | Sleaford, Lincolnshire, England |
| Birth name | Jennifer Jane Saunders |
| Nationality | British |
| Spouse | Adrian Edmondson(m. 1985–present) |
| Notable work | Various in French & SaundersEdina Monsoon in Absolutely Fabulous Caroline Martin in Jam and JerusalemVivienne Vyle in The Life and Times of Vivienne VyleFairy Godmother in Shrek 2Helen Back-Mucus in Young Ones Time |
| Genre | Comedy |
| Medium | Television, film |
| Influences | John Cleese |
| Active | 1981–present |
She first came into widespread attention in the 1980s and early 1990s when she became a member of The Comic Strip after graduating from the Central School of Speech and Drama. Along with her comedy partner Dawn French, she writes and stars in their eponymous sketch show, French & Saunders, and has received international acclaim for writing and playing the lead role of Edina Monsoon in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous.
In her other work, she has guest starred in the American sitcoms Roseanne and Friends, and won the American People's Choice Award for voicing the wicked Fairy Godmother in DreamWorks' animated Shrek 2. More recently, she wrote and starred in Jam & Jerusalem and The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle.
She later received a place at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London on a drama teachers' course in 1977, Both came from RAF backgrounds. They had grown up on the same base, even having had the same best friend, without ever meeting. By the time French & Saunders became members of The Comic Strip, French was already working as a drama teacher, whilst Saunders was on the dole and spending a lot of her time sleeping in bed. In the episodes "Bad News" and "More Bad News", Saunders plays a trashy rock journalist touring with the fictional heavy metal band Bad News. In 1985, Saunders starred in and co-wrote Girls On Top with French, Tracey Ullman and Ruby Wax, which portrayed four eccentric women sharing a flat in London. By the end of the 1980s, the show was an established comedy programme and became a staple in BBC viewing.
Saunders has appeared on the American sitcoms Roseanne, playing Edina Monsoon in the episode "Satan, Darling", and Friends as Andrea Waltham, the stepmother of Emily, Ross Geller's fiancée, in the episodes "The One After Ross Says Rachel" and "The One with Ross's Wedding". In 1999, she appeared alongside French in Let Them Eat Cake.
In 2007, Saunders and psychologist Tanya Byron and "I want a vagina".
Also in 2007, the final series French & Saunders series aired. A Bucket o' French & Saunders featured a compilation of old and new sketches and aired on BBC One in September 2007. It was the third show she had written in a year.
Saunders is currently listed as the fifth fastest "Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car" on BBC 2's Top Gear with a time of 1:46.1s. A self-confessed petrolhead, she has a passion for Alfa Romeo, and has so far owned four.
She most notably appeared in the internationally successful DreamWorks animated movie Shrek 2 in 2004, voicing Princess Fiona's evil Fairy Godmother and performing the song "Holding Out for a Hero". Her part took four days to record. Her role won the American People's Choice Award for the best movie villain in 2005. She also voiced Miss Spink in the animated film Coraline, in which Dawn French also voiced a character called Miss Forcible.
Saunders currently owns a £1 million property with of land in Chagford, Devon as well as a home in London. Edmondson and Saunders were estimated to be worth £11 million in 2002. She had a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. In June 2010 her treatment ended, and she was given an initial all-clear. She has now fully recovered.
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| Caption | Emma Watson at the premiere of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in 2005 |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson From 2001 to 2010, she starred in seven Harry Potter films alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint; she will return for the final installment: the second part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Watson's work on the Harry Potter series has earned her several awards and more than £. She made her modelling debut for Burberry's Autumn/Winter campaign in 2009. |
| Name | Watson, Emma |
| Alternative names | Watson, Emma Charlotte Duerre |
| Short description | British actress |
| Date of birth | 15 April 1990 |
| Place of birth | Paris, France |
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| Name | Duncan Jones |
|---|---|
| Caption | Jones at the Tribeca Film Festival for the premiere of his film Moon, April 30, 2009 |
| Birth name | Duncan Zowie Jones |
| Birth date | May 30, 1971 |
| Birth place | Beckenham, Kent, England, United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Film director |
| Years active | 2002–present |
As a child, Jones spent time growing up in Berlin, London, and Vevey, Switzerland where he attended the first and second grade at the Commonwealth American School. When David and Angela divorced in February 1980, David Bowie was granted custody of 9-year-old Jones (who was then known as Zowie), and he visited his mother on his school vacations. At age 14, he enrolled in the prestigious Scottish boarding school, Gordonstoun.
Around age 12, Zowie decided that he preferred to be called "Joey", and used this nickname for some time until shortening it to "Joe" in his later teen years. His father has been quoted as saying, "If, when he gets old enough to care about his name, he doesn't like it, he can always change it or give himself a nickname. It's OK by me." The press reported that he went by "Joe" in 1992 when attending his father's wedding to Iman (he was the best man).
According to the New York Times, he reverted to his birth name, Duncan Jones, around the age of 18. Jones is an atheist.
He then pursued a PhD degree at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee but left before completion to attend London Film School, where he graduated as a director.
He was one of many cameramen at his father's widely-televised 50th birthday party directed by Englishman Tim Pope at Madison Square Garden and also at two BowieNet concerts at Roseland Ballroom in New York City in June 2000. (and probably also at the BBC Radio Theatre concert on June 27, 2000)
The advert debuted in the week ending 20 February 2006 and featured two women (representing fashion and style) fighting and briefly kissing each other.
The advertisement reportedly generated 127 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority, but the complaints did not lead to any action. Later, he said that he will be doing "another science fiction film, called Mute, which takes place in a future Berlin. It's a Blade Runner-inspired piece, a little love letter to that film." The premise is that in future Berlin, a woman's disappearance causes a mystery for her partner, a mute bartender. He must go up against the city’s gangsters to solve the mystery. The film takes place in the same timeline as Jones' Moon, and will feature Sam Rockwell in a cameo as his character Sam Bell.
It was announced in 2009 that he will direct the feature film adaptation of Escape from the Deep: The Epic Story of a Legendary Submarine and Her Courageous Crew by Alex Kershaw.
He directed the Summit Entertainment project Source Code, a science-fiction thriller from Vendome Pictures, which was produced by Mark Gordon. Actor Jake Gyllenhaal plays the lead role in the film.
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| Caption | Cooper at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival |
|---|---|
| Name | Dominic Cooper |
| Birthname | Dominic Edward Cooper |
| Birth date | June 02, 1978 |
| Birth place | Greenwich, London, England |
| Occupation | actor |
| Yearsactive | 2000–present |
| Relationships | Amanda Seyfried Girlfriend, 2008-present |
Dominic Edward Cooper (born 2 June 1978) is an English actor. He has worked in TV, film, theatre and radio, in productions including Mamma Mia!, The Duchess, and The History Boys.
Cooper was involved in Alan Bennett's play The History Boys from its first reading. He also toured with the production to Broadway, Sydney, Wellington and Hong Kong as well as appearing in the radio and film adaptations of the play.
In 2005, Cooper also appeared in a commercial for condom company Durex.
He has had notable roles in the Royal National Theatre's adaptation of the His Dark Materials trilogy where he played the lead character Will Parry, the TV series Down To Earth and Sense & Sensibility. He is possibly best known for his work in Mamma Mia!, in which he sang several songs. In the film, his character was engaged to the daughter (played by Amanda Seyfried) of the lead (Meryl Streep). He appears opposite Keira Knightley in The Duchess and can also be seen in An Education.
He guest stars in the "Aspinol" sketch in his The History Boys co-star James Corden's BBC3 show Horne & Corden. In 2009 he played Hippolytus in Phedre at the National Theatre alongside Helen Mirren and Margaret Tyzack.
He was nominated for the for Most Promising Newcomer (On Screen) award at the 2006 British Independent Film Awards and has been nominated for the British Film Critics Circle's 2006 award for British actor in support for his work on the film version of The History Boys.
Category:1978 births Category:Living people Category:Alumni of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art Category:English film actors Category:English radio actors Category:English stage actors Category:English television actors Category:Actors from London Category:People from Greenwich Category:Royal National Theatre Company members Category:Royal Shakespeare Company members Category:Shakespearean actors
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| Name | Dawn French |
|---|---|
| Caption | French at the 2005 Make Poverty History march. |
| Birth name | Dawn Roma French |
| Birth date | October 11, 1957 |
| Birth place | Holyhead, Wales, UK |
| Nationality | British |
| Medium | Actress, writer, comedienne |
| Notable work | Various in French & Saunders Rev. Geraldine Granger in The Vicar of Dibley Rosie Bales in Jam and Jerusalem Caroline Arless Lark Rise to Candleford Joy Aston in Psychoville |
| Influences | John Cleese |
| Active | 1981–present |
| Spouse | (divorced); 1 adopted daughter |
French's biggest solo television role to date has been as the title figure in the long running and popular BBC comedy The Vicar of Dibley, created by Richard Curtis. She starred as Geraldine Granger, a vicar of a small village called Dibley. An audience of 12.3 million watched the final full-length episode to see her character's marriage ceremony. Her last appearance on The Vicar of Dibley was with Sting and Trudie Styler in a special mini episode made for Comic Relief in 2007. She was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Comedy Performance in the last episode of The Vicar of Dibley. Repeats of the show on BBC One still attract millions of viewers.
More recently, French played a major role in Jam & Jerusalem as a woman called Rosie who had an alter ego. She co-starred alongside Sue Johnston, Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley. She also made a guest appearance in Little Britain as Vicky Pollard's mother, Shelly Pollard, who was seen defending her daughter in the dock in Thailand as she was charged with drug smuggling, and who was sentenced to twenty years, ten more than her daughter. French also appeared in a special version of Little Britain Live which featured several celebrity guests and was shown by the BBC as part of Comic Relief. She played the part of a lesbian barmaid in a sketch with Daffyd Thomas. In 2006, French played a role in the television series Marple in the episode "Sleeping Murder". She also appeared as Caroline Arless in the BBC television drama Lark Rise to Candleford in 2008. French also said, "I didn't want to appear in a series which was all about just a few main characters. It gives me the chance to observe, to learn things from other actors."
She has also taken to roles in the theatre. French has previously appeared in plays such as A Midsummer Night's Dream, My Brilliant Divorce and Smaller, which is about a schoolteacher caring for her disabled mother. January 2007 saw French performing as the Duchesse de Crackentorp in an opera in the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London. The opera production was The Daughter of the Regiment (La fille du régiment) by Gaetano Donizetti, which depicts the life of a baby adopted by an army regiment. French soprano Natalie Dessay and the Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez took the two leading roles that required singing. French returned to Covent Garden and La Fille du règiment in the 2010 revival.
Due to her admitted chocoholism, she was chosen as the face of Terry's Chocolate Orange, using the slogan "It's not Terry's, it's mine", which was replaced with "Don't tap it, whack it!" As of 29 August 2007, French has been dropped as the face of Terry's Chocolate Orange, causing speculation that Terry's regarded her as an unsuitable role model because of her size. The company stated "After such a long partnership we feel that the campaign has run its course and we are in the process of developing different work."
Her voice can be heard advertising the Tesco's "Every Little Helps" promotion.
On 6 April 2010, it was announced that French and her husband Lenny Henry were to separate after 25 years of marriage. It is believed that the separation was amicable and they decided to split in October of the previous year but left it until then as they were still in discussion over the separation. French and Henry's divorce was finalised in late October 2010.
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| Name | Sir Christopher Lee |
|---|---|
| Caption | Christopher Lee in 2009 |
| Birth name | Christopher Frank Carandini Lee |
| Birth date | May 27, 1922 |
| Birth place | Belgravia, Westminster, England |
| Occupation | Actor, singer |
| Years active | 1948–present |
| Spouse | Birgit Kroencke (1961–present) |
| Website | http://www.christopherleeweb.com/ |
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ (born 27 May 1922)
Lee has performed roles in 266 films since 1948 making him the Guinness book world record holder for most film acting roles ever, and was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2009.
His parents separated when he was very young, and his mother took him and his sister to Switzerland. After enrolling in Miss Fisher's Academy in Wengen, he played his first villainous role as Rumpelstiltskin. The family returned to London, where Lee attended Wagner's private school. His mother then married Harcourt "Ingle" Rose, a banker and stepcousin of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels. Lee applied unsuccessfully for a scholarship to Eton although the interview was to prove portentous because of the presence of the noted ghost story author M. R. James. Lee later claimed in his autobiography that James had cut a very impressive figure; sixty years later Lee played the part of M.R. James for the BBC.
"James was at that time nick-named 'Black Mouse', derived in part from his faintly sinister black cape and mortar board, and part from his habit of mewing unexpectedly at recalcitrant pupils. I cannot in all honesty say that at the time I was wholly displeased in failing to secure a scholarship; in many ways it was a relief. But I do know this: few men have created such a profound impression upon me, and I partially attribute my lifelong interest in the occult to my subsequent discovery of the horror stories penned by that most intriguing and intimidating of men."
Instead, Lee attended Wellington College, where he won scholarships in classics.
Also in 1947, Lee made an uncredited appearance in Laurence Olivier's film version of Hamlet as a spear carrier (marking his first film with frequent co-star and close friend Peter Cushing, who played Osric). Throughout the next decade, he made nearly 30 films, playing mostly stock action characters.
(1960) US title: Horror Hotel]] Lee's first film for Hammer was The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), in which he played Frankenstein's monster, with Cushing as the Baron. A little later, Lee co-starred with Boris Karloff in the film Corridors of Blood (1958), but Lee's own appearance as Frankenstein's monster also led to his first appearance as the Transylvanian vampire in the 1958 film Dracula (known as Horror of Dracula in the US).
Stories vary as to why Lee did not feature in the 1960 sequel The Brides of Dracula. Some state that Hammer was unwilling to pay Lee his current fee, but most tend to believe that he simply did not wish to be typecast. Lee did, however, return to the role in Hammer's in 1965. Lee's performance is notable in that he has no lines, merely hissing his way through the film. Again, stories vary as to the reason for this: Lee states he refused to speak the poor dialogue he was given, but screenwriter Jimmy Sangster claims that the script did not contain any lines for the character. This film set the standard for most of the Dracula sequels in the sense that half the film's running time was spent on telling the story of Dracula's resurrection and the character's appearances were brief. Lee has gone on record to state that he was virtually "blackmailed" by Hammer into starring in the subsequent films; unable or unwilling to pay him his going rate, they would resort to reminding him of how many people he would put out of work if he did not take part.
His roles in the films Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969), and Scars of Dracula (1970) all gave the Count very little to do, but were all commercially successful. Although Lee may not have liked what Hammer was doing with the character, worldwide audiences embraced the films, which are now considered classics of the genre. Lee starred in two further Dracula films for Hammer in the early 1970s, both of which attempted to bring the character into the modern-day era. These were not commercially successful.
Lee's other work for Hammer included The Mummy (1959). This was one of Lee's best performances, despite being able to convey emotion only through his eyes for the majority of the film. Lee also portrayed Rasputin in Rasputin, the Mad Monk (Lee apparently met Rasputin's assassin Felix Yussupov when he was a child) and Sir Henry Baskerville (to Cushing's Sherlock Holmes) in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959). Lee later played Holmes himself in 1962's Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace, and returned to Holmes films with Billy Wilder's British-made The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), in which he plays Sherlock's decidedly smarter brother, Mycroft.
He was responsible for bringing acclaimed occult author Dennis Wheatley to Hammer. The company made two films from Wheatley's novels, both starring Lee. The first, The Devil Rides Out (1967), is generally considered to be one of Hammer's crowning achievements. According to Lee, Wheatley was so pleased with it that he offered the actor the film rights to his remaining black magic novels free of charge. However, the second film, To the Devil a Daughter (1976), was fraught with production difficulties and was disowned by its author. Although financially successful, it was Hammer's last horror film and marked the end of Lee's long association with the studio that brought him fame.
Like Cushing, Lee also appeared in horror films for other companies during the 20-year period from 1957 to 1977. Other films in which Lee performed include the series of Fu Manchu films made between 1965 and 1969, in which he starred as the villain in heavy oriental make-up; I, Monster (1971), in which he played Jekyll and Hyde; The Creeping Flesh (1972); and his personal favourite, The Wicker Man (1973), in which he played Lord Summerisle. Lee was attracted to the latter role by screenwriter Anthony Shaffer and apparently gave his services for free, as the budget was so small. Lee also appeared in Eugenie (1970), unaware that it was softcore pornography, as the sex scenes were shot separately.
Because of his filming schedule in Bangkok, film director Ken Russell was unable to sign Lee to play The Specialist in Tommy (1975). That role was eventually given to Jack Nicholson. In an AMC documentary on Halloween, John Carpenter states that he offered the role of Samuel Loomis to Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee before Donald Pleasence took the role. Years later, Lee met Carpenter and told him that the biggest regret of his career was not taking the role of Dr. Loomis.
In 1978, Lee surprised many people with his willingness to go along with a joke by appearing as guest host on NBC's Saturday Night Live.
In 1979, he played German officer Capt. Wolfgang Von Kleinschmidt in the film 1941 directed by Steven Spielberg.
In 1982, Lee appeared in The Return of Captain Invincible. In this film, Lee plays a fascist who plans to rid America (and afterwards, the world) of all non-whites. Lee also sings on two tracks in the film ("Name Your Poison" and "Mister Midnight"), written by Richard O'Brien and Richard Hartley (who had written The Rocky Horror Picture Show seven years previously).
Lee made his latest appearances to date as Sherlock Holmes in 1991's Incident at Victoria Falls and 1992's Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady.
In 1994, Lee played the character of the Russian commandant in .
In 1998, Lee starred in the role of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of modern Pakistan, in the film Jinnah. While talking about his favorite role in film at a press conference at Brussels Fantasy film festival, he declared that his role in Jinnah was by far his best performance.
Lee was at one point considered for the role of comic book villain/hero Magneto in the screen adaptation of the popular comic book series X-Men but he lost the role to Ian McKellen.
He has had many television roles, including that of Flay in the BBC television miniseries, based on Mervyn Peake's novels, Gormenghast (2000), and Stefan Wyszyński in the CBS film John Paul the Second (2005). He played Lucas de Beaumanoir, the Grand Master of the Templar Order, in the BBC/A&E; co-production of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1997). He also played a role in the made-for-TV series La Révolution française (1989) in part 2, "Les Annees Terribles", as the executioner, Sanson, who beheaded Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Robespierre and others. Lee played Saruman in the The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. In the commentary he states he had a decades-long dream to play Gandalf but that he was now too old and his physical limitations prevented his being considered. The role of Saruman, by contrast, required no horseback riding and much less fighting. Gandalf was given to Ian McKellen and Lee played Saruman. Lee had met Tolkien once (making him the only person in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy to have done so) and makes a habit of reading the novels at least once a year. In addition, he performed for the album The Lord of the Rings: Songs and Poems by J. R. R. Tolkien in 2003. Lee had his appearance in the third film's theatrical release cut, resulting in a frosty friendship with Peter Jackson. However, the scene was reinstated in the extended edition. in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy]] The Lord of the Rings marked the beginning of a major career revival that continued in (2002) and (2005), in which he played Count Dooku, a name allegedly chosen to reflect his fame playing Count Dracula. His autobiography states that he did much of the swordplay himself, though a double was required for the more vigorous footwork. His good friend and frequent co-star, Peter Cushing, portrayed the equally icy Grand Moff Tarkin in . in Westminster in 2007]] According to the Oracle of Bacon website at the University of Virginia, Lee is ranked second (just behind Rod Steiger) as the "Center of the Hollywood Universe" due to his large number of films with a correspondingly large number of different castmates.
In addition to more than a dozen feature films together for Hammer Films, Amicus Productions and other companies, Lee and Peter Cushing both appeared in Hamlet (1948) and Moulin Rouge (1952) albeit in separate scenes; and in separate installments of the Star Wars films, Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin in the original film, Lee years later as Count Dooku. The last project which united them in person was a documentary, Flesh and Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror (1994), which they jointly narrated. It was the last time they saw each other as Cushing died two months later. While they frequently played off each other as mortal enemies onscreen—Lee's Count Dracula to Cushing's Professor Van Helsing—they were close friends in real life.
Lee appeared on the cover of the 1973 Wings album Band on the Run along with other people, including chat show host Michael Parkinson, movie actor James Coburn, world boxing champion John Conteh and broadcaster Clement Freud.
Lee is one of the favorite actors of Tim Burton and has become a regular in many of Burton's films, having now worked for the director four times since 1999. He had a small role as the Burgomaster in the film Sleepy Hollow. In 2005 Lee then went on to voice the character of Pastor Galswells in Corpse Bride co-directed by Burton and Mike Johnston and play a small role in the Burton's reimagining of the classic Roald Dahl tale Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as Willy Wonka's strict dentist father Dr. Wilbur Wonka.
In 2007, Lee collaborated with Burton on playing the spirit of Sweeney Todd's victims called The Gentleman Ghost alongside Anthony Head, with both singing "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd", its reprises and the Epilogue. These songs were recorded, but eventually cut since director Tim Burton felt that the songs were too theatrical for the film. Lee's appearance was completely cut from the film, but Head still has an uncredited one-line cameo.
In 2010, Lee marked their fourth collaboration by voicing the Jabberwocky in Burton's adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic book Alice in Wonderland alongside Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway. While it only had a couple of lines, Burton said that he felt Lee to be a good match for the iconic character because he is "an iconic guy". Also in 2009, Lee starred in Stephen Poliakoff's British period drama Glorious 39 with Julie Christie, Bill Nighy, Romola Garai and David Tennant, Academy Award-nominated director Danis Tanović's war film Triage with Colin Farrell and Paz Vega, and also Duncan Ward's comedy Boogie Woogie alongside Amanda Seyfried, Gillian Anderson, Stellan Skarsgård and Joanna Lumley.
2010 is also shaping up to as prolific for Lee, with roles in The Resident alongside Hilary Swank.
He is also reprising his role as Lord Summerisle in The Wicker Tree, adapted and directed by The Wicker Man director Robin Hardy from his 2006 novel Cowboys for Christ.
Lee narrated in late November 2009 the Science+Fiction Festival in Trieste, Italy.
Lee won the "Spirit of Hammer" award in the Metal Hammer Golden Gods 2010. The award was presented by Tony Iommi.
In the 1980s, during the height of Italo Disco, Lee provided vocals to Kathy Joe Daylor's "Little Witch".
Lee reprised his role as Saruman in the video game along with the other actors of the films.
Lee provided the off-camera voice of "U.N. Owen", the mysterious host who brings disparate characters together in Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians (1965). The film was produced by Harry Alan Towers, for whom Lee had worked repeatedly in the 1960s. Even though he is not credited on the film, the voice is unmistakable.
Lee appears on Peter Knight and Bob Johnson's (of Steeleye Span) 1970s concept album The King of Elfland's Daughter. Lee also provided the voices for the roles of DiZ (Ansem the Wise) in the video games Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, but was replaced by veteran voice actor Corey Burton for and Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep.
He contributed his voice as Death in the animated versions of Terry Pratchett's Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters and reprised the role in the Sky1 live action adaptation The Colour of Magic, taking over the role from the late Ian Richardson.
He is fluent in English, Italian, French, Spanish and German, and moderately proficient in Swedish, Russian and Greek. He was the original voice of Thor in the German dubs in the Danish 1986 animated movie Valhalla, and of King Haggard in both the English and German dubs of the 1982 animated adaptation of The Last Unicorn.
Lee bridged two disparate genres of music by performing a heavy metal variation of the Toreador Song from the opera Carmen with the band Inner Terrestrials. Lee narrated and sang for the Danish musical group The Tolkien Ensemble, taking the role of Treebeard, King Théoden and others in the readings or singing of their respective poems or songs. Lee also appeared as a narrator for Italian symphonic fantasy power metal band Rhapsody of Fire, playing the Wizard King in the latest three albums, , Triumph or Agony and The Frozen Tears of Angels. He narrates several tracks on the albums, as well as singing a duet with lead vocalist Fabio Lione in the single "The Magic of the Wizard's Dream" from the Symphony of Enchanted Lands II album. Lee was the voice of Lucan D'Lere in the trailers for Everquest II.
Some thirty years after playing Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun, Lee provided the voice of Scaramanga in the video game .
In 2005 Lee provided the voice of the Pastor Galswells in The Corpse Bride co-directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnston. He also served as the narrator on The Nightmare Before Christmas's poem written by Tim Burton as well.
In 2007, Lee voiced the transcript of The Children of Húrin, by J. R. R. Tolkien for the audiobook version of the novel.
Lee reprised his role of Count Dooku in the animated film but did not appear in the . Corey Burton takes his place for Count Dooku.
Lee has been signed by Falcon Picture Group to host the syndicated radio series "Mystery Theater", a nightly two-hour program featuring classic radio mystery shows. The program is distributed by Syndication Networks Corporation with a launch date of 2 March 2009.
Lee has also recently collaborated again with Tim Burton, this time by voicing the Jabberwocky in Burton's adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic book Alice in Wonderland.
Lee has provided the vocals for a symphonic metal concept album called . It was released on 15 March 2010.
Lee is working with Manowar while they are recording a new version of their first album, Battle Hymns. The original voice was done by Orson Welles. The new album, Battle Hymns MMXI was released on November 26, 2010.
Lee is a step-cousin of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond spy novels.
He has been married to the Danish model Birgit "Gitte" Kroencke Lee since 1961. They have a daughter named Christina Erika Carandini Lee.
In 1999, Lee confirmed he has lost an inch in height and is now (1.93 m)
Category:1922 births Category:Living people Category:English people of Italian descent Category:Carandini family Category:Commanders of the Order of St John Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:English film actors Category:English stage actors Category:English television actors Category:English voice actors Category:Old Summerfieldians Category:Old Wellingtonians Category:People from Belgravia Category:Royal Air Force officers Category:Royal Air Force personnel of World War II Category:Special Operations Executive personnel Category:Knights Bachelor Category:Actors awarded British knighthoods
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| Name | Charlie McDonnell |
|---|---|
| Caption | McDonnell at VidCon 2010. |
| Birth name | Charles Joseph McDonnell |
| Birth date | October 01, 1990 |
| Birth place | Bath, Somerset, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Years active | 2007 - present |
| Notable works | The Challenge Charlie series, How to be English, Duet with Myself, Purple Man, A Song About Acne |
| Known for | Comedy, vlogging, music |
| Website | |
| Web alias | charlieissocoollikecoollike |
| Web host service | YouTube, BlogTV, Facebook and Twitter |
In celebration of gaining 25,000 subscribers, McDonnell asked for challenge suggestions from subscribers, and he is completing them in a series of 25 videos entitled "Challenge Charlie". He has completed 19 so far (), one of which was suggested by TV presenter Phillip Schofield and his daughter Molly, for McDonnell to do the dance that accompanies the Hoedown Throwdown. As McDonnell posted more and more videos to his channel, his prowess for music and light-hearted comedy was further demonstrated, thus boosting his fame and earning him an enormous amount of subsequent subscribers. McDonnell has since posted a large range of videos on the site, including his most viewed, "Duet with Myself".
In 2008, McDonnell participated in a video-blog collaboration with four other YouTube personalities, entitled "FiveAwesomeGuys". The project ran from 28 January to 31 December.
Charlie's videos currently end with an outro by Stephen Fry.
On 21 April 2010, Charlie McDonnell became the most subscribed YouTuber in the United Kingdom and is 35th most subscribed globally - he has over 700,000 subscribers . He also has over 100 million total video views and over 20 million channel views as of January 2011.
McDonnell occasionally posts YouTube music videos, such as "A Song About Monkeys", "A Song About Acne", "A Duet With Myself", "A Song About Love", and "Chemical Love". "Chemical Love" also appeared on the compilation "DFTBA Records, Volume Two". He has put these into his debut solo album 'This Is Me'', which was released on December 1, 2010.
McDonnell was also involved with the television programme Chartjackers (see Charity Work) where he and three other famous youtubers tried to get a song to number 1 for children in need.
Sons of Admirals is not a band in the traditional sense. They are all solo artists, but as well as having their solo careers, they come together to form one group. The idea of this came from the Troupe of Admirals, which was a Shakespearean-era group of actors that came together to perform, while still retaining their individual 'careers'.
In October 2009, McDonnell was named as one of a number of prominent YouTube users who would be participating in a project called "RNLI Shout". The aim of the project is to raise money to purchase a lifeboat for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
On the 4th September 2010, Charlie and fellow YouTuber Myles Dyer co presented Stickaid, a 24 hour live webshow. Starting from 12 noon BST, the two hosted the 5th annual charity event from Middlesex University's Trent Park campus in London. Their goal was to raise £10,000 ($15,900), which they almost doubled. All the proceedings went to UNICEF.
Over the course of Chartjackers, McDonnell solicited lyrics, music, performers and stylists to record the final single and video via a YouTube channel named "ChartJackersProject". An unofficial charity single for Children in Need, the completed song was titled "I've Got Nothing" and was sung by vocalists Miranda Chartrand and Adam Nichols. McDonnell edited the single's official music video, which was shown nationwide on British music channels such as 4Music and Viva. "I've Got Nothing" was released exclusively through the iTunes Store at midnight on 9 November 2009 and reached Number 36 on the UK Singles Chart. Sales of the single raised a total of approximately £10,000 for Children in Need.
He featured as a guest on Robert Llewellyn's web series Carpool in the episode released on 15 May 2009. McDonnell has also made guest appearances on Lily Allen and Friends and The Gadget Show.
In early June 2009, McDonnell visited Los Angeles to attend the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009. He attended Microsoft's Xbox press conference, where Project Natal was announced. Two days later, he was invited to a "special area of E3" and was one of 30 exclusive people from around the world to try out Natal (now known as Kinect). He explained this in one of a group of videos he produced and uploaded to a new channel on YouTube for the trip he called "CharlieAtE3".
Charlie was also interviewed for BBC Outlook and for an article in The Guardian where he talks about the five years of YouTube and his life on the video website.
On 6 June 2010, McDonnell presented the YouTube Audience Award to The Inbetweeners as part of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Television Awards.
In mid-July 2010, Charlie appeared on KTLA with Hank Green, known on YouTube as one of the Vlogbrothers, and Justine Ezarik, known as iJustine, to promote VidCon 2010.
In the week of 10 October 2010 Charlie and his band, Sons of Admirals, were featured in the English paper The Sun.
In December 2010, Charlie was invited behind the scenes of Doctor Who Confidential during the filming of the Series 5 Christmas special, in which he got to meet Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill.
Category:1990 births Category:Living people Category:British Internet personalities Category:DFTBA Records artists Category:English comedians Category:People from Bath, Somerset Category:Video bloggers Category:YouTube video producers
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
