Title	The Hollywood Reporter
Publisher	Lori Burgess
Editor	Janice Min
Editor title	Editorial Director
Frequency	Weekly
Category	Entertainment
Company	Prometheus Global Media
Circulation	71,223
Firstdate	September 3, 1930
Country	United States
Based	Los Angeles, California
Language	English
Website	thr.com
Issn	0018-3660

Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience. The multi-platform brand currently consists of an oversized weekly magazine, bi-monthly special reports, quarterly glossies, a high-traffic website, a digital daily, iPad app and events.

Its current mission statement reads as follows:

During the last century it was one of the two major publications focused on Hollywood—the other being Variety. Today both publications cover what is more broadly called the entertainment industry.

History

The Hollywood Reporter was Hollywood's first daily entertainment industry trade paper. It began as a daily film publication, then added television coverage in the 1950s and began in the late 1980s to cover intellectual property industries.

Founder

William R. Wilkerson published the first issue of the Hollywood Reporter on September 3, 1930. This daily magazine reported on movies, studios and personalities in an outrageously candid style. Through its outspoken pages Wilkerson became one of the town's most colorful and controversial figures. He began each issue with a self-penned editorial entitled "Tradeviews", which exposed corrupt studio practices. "Tradeviews" went on to become one of the most widely read daily columns in the industry. The upstart publisher also employed hard-ball tactics to solicit advertising. Studios were literally blackmailed into giving their support. If they refused, he ordered a complete editorial blackout on all their material—from press releases to film reviews. The corporate moguls eventually banded together to deal with The Reporter. They refused Wilkerson all advertising support and deprived him of news from their studios. They even hired extra employees to burn The Hollywood Reporter when it was delivered every morning at their front gates. At the height of the battle, his reporters were barred from every lot in town. Wilkerson told them to climb over the studio walls and sift through executives' garbage. These tactics produced a flood of incriminating news, which Wilkerson cheerfully printed. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had the paper airmailed daily to his desk at the White House. By 1936, The Hollywood Reporter had become something even the most prescient studio heads never anticipated—a power that rivaled their own.

The Hollywood blacklist

Wilkerson believed that the Screen Writers Guild was one of the prime Communist strongholds in all of Hollywood. He used his TradeView column to publicize the "Communist Takeover" of the guild dating as early as 1938. Throughout the thirteen year Screen Writers Guild ban of its members advertising their services in trade papers, Wilkerson would not allow screenwriter credits in the Reporters film reviews.

On Monday, July 29, 1946, Wilkerson published his TradeView entitled "A Vote For Joe Stalin". It contained the first industry names on what later became the infamous Hollywood Blacklist—Dalton Trumbo, Maurice Rapf, Lester Cole, Howard Koch, Harold Buchman, John Wexley, Ring Lardner Jr., Harold Salemson, Henry Meyers, Theodore Strauss and John Howard Lawson.

Wilkerson soon went after Cole, who was the first Vice President of the Screen Writers Guild. Here, Wilkerson would be the first to ask the two questions that would ring throughout the nation for the next decade: "Are you a member of the Writers Guild?" and "Are you a member of the Communist Party of the United States?" On Monday August 19, 1946, Wilkerson wrote:

FOR THE PURPOSE of trying to tag the activity of the Screen-Writers Guild generally, and particularly its action proposing to our State Department that the U.S.-French film agreement be renegotiated to give "greater benefit" to the French film writers, we would like to ask Mr. Lester Cole, who authored the motion for SWG passage:

:"Are you a Communist? Do you hold card number 46805 in what is known as the Northwest Section of the Communist party, a division of the party made up mostly of West Coast Commies?"

In an editorial entitled "RED BEACH-HEAD!" on Tuesday August 20, 1946, Wilkerson took aim at Hollywood writer John Howard Lawson. On Wednesday August 21, 1946, in an editorial entitled "Hywd’s Red Commissars!", Wilkerson skewered John Leech, Emmet Lavery, Oliver H. P. Garrett, Harold Buchman, Maurice Rapf, and William Pomerance. On September 12, 1946, Wilkerson printed "the list" of names that would be plucked by The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) for their 1947 hearings. Wilkerson used two different colors to identify two different levels of participation in Communism. "Red" indicated that the individual was a card-carrying communist. "Pink" meant that an individual simply had communist sympathies.

The list included:

Edward Dmytryk

John Howard Lawson

Guy Endore

Lester Cole

Dalton Trumbo

Albert Maltz

Henry Myers

Marian Spitzer

Ring Lardner Jr.

Jay Gorney

E. Y. Harburg

Boris Ingster

Harold Buchman

Gordon Kahn

Howard Koch

Alvah Bessie

John Bright

Howard Dimsdale

Paul Jarrico

Francis E. Faragoh

Frank Tuttle

Alvin Wilder

Martin Berkeley

Known in the beginning as "Billy’s List", it quickly became "Billy’s Blacklist", referring to the color of the publisher’s magazine ink. Wilkerson's list would eventually evolve into the infamous "Blacklist" that became the backbone of the May 8, October 20 and October 27 hearings. These hearings led to citations for contempt being issued by the United States on November 24, 1947.

Wilkerson would do what no other publisher in America had dared to do prior to August 1946—publish the identities of card-carrying communists, their party member numbers and pseudonyms on his front page.

Ownership changes

Wilkerson ran The Hollywood Reporter until his death in 1962, when his wife, Tichi Wilkerson, took over as publisher and editor-in-chief. She sold the paper on April 11, 1988 to trade publishers BPI for $26.7 million. Teri Ritzer was the last editor under Wilkerson. She began the paper's modernization by bringing newspaper editors into what was essentially a Hollywood wannabe newsroom.

BPI's publisher, Robert J. Dowling, brought in Alex Ben Block in 1990 and editorial quality of both news and specials was steadily improved. Ritzer and Block dampened much of the rah-rah coverage and cronyism that had infected the paper under Wilkerson. After Ben Block left, former film editor at Variety, Anita Busch, was brought in as editor between 1999 and 2001. Busch was credited with making the paper competitive with Variety. Dowling helmed the paper until he was forced to retire during corporate changes in late 2005. Tony Uphoff assumed the publisher position in November 2005. The Reporter was acquired, along with the rest of the assets of VNU, in spring 2006 by a private equity consortium led by Blackstone and KKR, both with ties to the conservative movement in the United States. Uphoff was replaced in October 2006 by John Kilcullen, who was the publisher of Billboard. Kilcullen was a defendant in Billboard's infamous "dildo" lawsuit, in which he was accused of race discrimination and sexual harassment. VNU settled the suit on the courthouse steps. Kilcullen "exited" Nielsen in February 2008 "to pursue his passion as an entrepreneur." Matthew King, vice president for content and audience, editorial director Howard Burns, and executive editor Peter Pryor left the paper in a wave of layoffs in December 2006; editor Cynthia Littleton, widely respected throughout the industry, reported directly to Kilcullen. The Reporter absorbed another blow when Littleton left her position for an editorial job at Variety in March, 2007. Web editor Glenn Abel also left after 16 years with the paper.

In January 2007 VNU was purchased by a private equity consortium and renamed The Nielsen Company, whose properties include Billboard, AdWeek and A.C. Nielsen. Under its new leadership, Nielsen is reported to have made a $5 million investment in The Reporter.

In December 2009, Prometheus Global Media, a newly formed company formed by Pluribus Capital Management and Guggenheim Partners and chaired by Jimmy Finkelstein, CEO of News Communications, parent of Congressional Journal the Hill, acquired The Hollywood Reporter from Nielsen Business Media. It pledged to invest in the brand and grow the company.

Richard Beckman, formerly of Conde Nast, was appointed the new company’s CEO.

Editors and publishers

In April 2007 industry veteran Eric Mika was named to the newly-created role of Senior Vice President, Publishing Director of The Reporter. Having previously served as Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Nielsen Business Media’s Film and Performing Arts Group and, before that, as Vice President and Managing Director for Variety, Mika assumed responsibility for the general management of sales, marketing and editorial for The Hollywood Reporter, as well as the brand’s ancillary products, events, licensing business and partnerships

In June 2007, Rose Einstein, former Vice President, Advertising Sales for Netflix and 25-year veteran of Reed Business Media, was named to the newly-created role of Vice President, Associate Publisher to oversee all sales and business development for The Reporter. Mika left The Hollywood Reporter in early 2010.

Then in July 2007 The Reporter named Elizabeth Guider as its new editor. An 18-year veteran of Variety, where she served as Executive Editor, Guider assumed responsibility for the editorial vision and strategic direction of The Hollywood Reporter’s daily and weekly editions, digital content offerings and executive conferences. Guider left The Hollywood Reporter in early 2010.

In April 2010, Lori Burgess was named publisher of The Hollywood Reporter. Burgess had been publisher of OK! Magazine since October 2008. Michaela Apruzzese was named associate publisher, entertainment, of The Hollywood Reporter in May 2010. Apruzzese served as the director of movie advertising for Los Angeles Times Media Group.

In May 2010, Janice Min was named Editorial Director. Min previously served as the editor-in-chief of Us Weekly magazine from 2003 until 2009. Richard Beckman, CEO of Prometheus Global Media, owner of The Hollywood Reporter, said of her hire: "Janice dramatically transformed the landscape of entertainment journalism, and she is perfectly suited to lead The Hollywood Reporter's business-to-influencer coverage of the global entertainment industry."

Presence on the web

The Reporter published a primitive "satellite" digital edition in the late 1980s. It became the first daily entertainment trade paper to start a web site in 1995. Initially the site offered free news briefs with complete coverage firewalled as a premium (paid) service. In later years the web site became mostly free as it became more reliant on ad sales and less on subscribers. The web site had already gone through a redesign by the time competitor Daily Variety took to the web. In 2002, The Reporter’s web site won the Jesse H. Neal Award for business journalism.

Later, other Reporter electronic products include U.S. and European daily e-mail editions, a daily East Coast digital edition, a business podcast and a number of blogs, and a weekly Korean-language newsletter that reached nearly 4,000 subscribers in Korea each day. In June 2007 The Reporter introduced The Hollywood Reporter, Digital Edition, an online electronic replica of the daily magazine, available in 12 languages, that also features text-to-voice conversion into six languages. In October 2007 the publication launched THR Direct, a free application that provides subscribers with immediate delivery of customized news, alerts and video from The Hollywood Reporter to their desktop

The Reporter itself was slow to modernize. The paper still used vintage IBM-styled selectric typewriters in several departments into the early 1990s and was sluggish in upgrading operations by adding common business equipment such as computers, scanners and color printers to all departments. Archival materials were routinely microfilmed as late as 1998 rather than digitized, even though the system to view it was in storage or broken. Many staff members did not have email several years after its use became relatively common in business.

In late summer 2010, thr.com was completely redesigned and re-launched under Janice Min to become a cutting-edge, one-stop entertainment destination, covering movies, television, music, style, theatre, personal tech, and the business side of the entertainment industry (some content lives behind a pay wall). With breaking news and much more exclusive industry scoop, web traffic for the site has increased over 800% since late 2009. The site now features HD movie and television trailers, photo and video galleries, and much more social connectivity - with buttons for Facebook, Twitter, Digg and a comment section on nearly every posting.

THR also has feeds on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, in addition to a respected series of blogs that live on thr.com.

Editors and reporters today

The Hollywood Reporter has a staff of roughly 150. Today, editors and reporters number more than 65, with another 50 staffers scattered in key bureaus around the world. It is interesting to note that during the "golden age" of Hollywood film and television, The Reporter was seldom staffed with more than 20 people. It was chiefly in the media boom of the late 1970s, 1980s and 1990s that the employee roster increased.

In addition to hiring Eric Mika, Rose Eintstein and Elizabeth Guider, The Reporter hired the following staff in 2007:

Todd Cunningham, former assistant managing editor of the LA Business Journal, as National Editor for The Hollywood Reporter: Premier Edition

Steven Zeitchik as Senior Writer, based in New York, where he provide news analysis and features for the Premiere Edition

Melissa Grego, former managing editor of TV Week, as Editor of HollywoodReporter.com

Jonathan Landreth as the new Asian bureau chief, in addition to 13 new writers across Asia

However, staffing levels began to drop again in 2008. In April, Nielsen Business Media eliminated between 40 and 50 editorial staff positions at The Hollywood Reporter and its sister publications: Adweek, Brandweek, Editor & Publisher and Mediaweek. In December, another 12 editorial positions were cut at the trade paper. In addition, 2008 saw substantial turnover in the online department: THR.com Editor Melissa Grego left her position in July to become executive editor of Broadcasting & Cable, and Managing Editor Scott McKim left to become a new media manager at Knox College (Illinois). With the entertainment industry as a whole shrinking, "Hollywood studios have cut more than $20 million from the Motion Picture Association of America budget this year. The resulting staff and program reductions are expected to permanently shrink the scope and size of the six-studio trade and advocacy group." Staffing at THR in 2008 saw even further cutbacks with "names from today's tragic bloodletting of The Hollywood Reporter's staff" adding up quickly in the hard economic times at the end of 2008. "The trade has not only been thin, but only publishing digital version 19 days this holiday season. Film writers Leslie Simmons, Carolyn Giardina, Gregg Goldstein, plus lead TV critic Barry Garron and TV reporter Kimberly Nordyke, also special issues editor Randee Dawn Cohen out of New York and managing editor Harley Lond and international department editor Hy Hollinger, plus Dan Evans, Lesley Goldberg, Michelle Belaski, James Gonzalez were among those chopped from the masthead."

Variety makes good use of its well-branded heritage as part of the Hollywood scene and culture, not just an observer reporting on it. The Reporter, on the other hand, is often considered by industry insiders as outside that circle looking in and continues to struggle with branding an image for itself, in spite of being established in Hollywood three years before Daily Variety. For instance, Variety's "brand" continues to perpetuate awareness of their place in Hollywood culture in such old films as Singin' in the Rain, Yankee Doodle Dandy and TV shows like I Love Lucy, Make Room For Daddy and others. The Reporter has tried to do the same in recent years, with recent placements in TV shows like Entourage, which also prominently features Variety.

Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter both are located on Wilshire Boulevard along the well-trafficked "Miracle Mile". Staffers often migrate between the papers. There is a history of bad blood between the rivals bordering on the obsessive, sometimes petty and occasionally myopic. Variety was long established as an entertainment trade paper in vaudeville circles, Tin Pan Alley and in the theatre district of New York City, but it was The Hollywood Reporter that began covering the developing film business in Hollywood in 1930. Variety did not start its Hollywood edition until 1933.

The Hollywood Reporter maintains a business association with the home entertainment trade publication Home Media Magazine, which is owned by Questex Media Group. The alliance includes an exchange of stories when the need arises, and gives The Reporter access into the home entertainment trade, which Variety enjoys with its sister publication, the Reed-owned Video Business.

Today, news and analysis from The Reporter is also distributed through an exclusive partnership with Reuters entertainment wire services, which reaches 11 million subscribers each day.

The Reporter also reaches about 10 million readers each day through the Nielsen Entertainment News Wire, including the Chicago Sun Times, Newsday, San Jose Mercury News, Arizona Republic, Philadelphia Daily News and Toronto Star.

See also

Variety (magazine)

Nielsen Business Media

Tubefilter

Notes

External links

Official website

Global Network Hot News

Category:The Hollywood Reporter Category:VNU Business Media publications Category:Entertainment magazines Category:Professional and trade magazines Category:American magazines Category:Television magazines Category:Publications established in 1930

Name	Seth MacFarlane
Alt	A man (Seth MacFarlane) with black hair, and tan skin with a black shirt on, leans forward while laughing into a microphone.
Caption	Seth MacFarlane at the San Diego Comic-Con International in July 2010.
Birth name	Seth Woodbury MacFarlane
Birth date	October 26, 1973
Birth place	Kent, Connecticut
Occupation	Actor, animator, writer, comedian, singer, producer, voice actor
Years active	1995–present

Seth Woodbury MacFarlane (; born October 26, 1973) is an American animator, writer, comedian, producer, actor, singer, voice actor, and director best known for creating the animated sitcoms Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show, for which he also voices many of the shows' various characters.

A native of Kent, Connecticut, MacFarlane is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, where he studied animation, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree. He was an animator and writer for Hanna-Barbera for several television shows, including Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken and Dexter's Laboratory, before creating his own series for 20th Century Fox entitled Family Guy in 1999. MacFarlane would go on to co-create American Dad! in 2005, The Winner in 2007 and The Cleveland Show in 2009 for 20th Century Fox.

As an actor, he has made guest appearances on shows such as Gilmore Girls, The War at Home and FlashForward. MacFarlane's interest in science fiction and fantasy has led to cameo and guest appearances on and voicing the character of Johann Kraus in Guillermo del Toro's . In 2008, he created his own YouTube series entitled Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. As a performer, MacFarlane has sung at several venues, including Carnegie and Royal Albert Hall.

MacFarlane has won several awards for his work on Family Guy, including two Primetime Emmy Awards, and an Annie Award. In 2009, he won the Webby Award for Film & Video Person of the Year. He has been a subject of criticism from television watchdog groups, such as the Parents Television Council, who regularly condemn Family Guy for its indecency. He occasionally speaks at universities and colleges throughout the United States, and is an outspoken supporter of gay rights and the legalization of marijuana.

MacFarlane has announced he is working on a debut album, which he recently announced will be released sometime in March 2011.

Early life and career

MacFarlane's mother, Ann Perry (née Sager), was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts. MacFarlane's parents met in 1970 where they both lived and worked in Boston, and married later that year. During his childhood, MacFarlane developed an interest in illustration and began drawing cartoon characters Fred Flintstone and Woody Woodpecker, as early as two years old. By the age of five, MacFarlane knew that he would want to pursue a career in animation, and began by creating flip books, after his parents found a book on the subject. Four years later, at nine, MacFarlane began publishing a weekly comic strip entitled "Walter Crouton" for The Kent Good Times Dispatch, the local newspaper in Kent, Connecticut, which paid him five dollars per week.

MacFarlane received his high school diploma in 1991 from the Kent School. MacFarlane went on to study film, video and animation at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. At RISD, MacFarlane created a series of independent films, eventually meeting future Family Guy cast member Mike Henry, whose brother was MacFarlane's classmate. His senior year at RISD, MacFarlane created a thesis film entitled The Life of Larry, which would eventually become the inspiration for Family Guy. MacFarlane's professor submitted his film to the animation studio Hanna-Barbera, where he was later hired. He also worked as a writer and storyboard artist on Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, and Dexter's Laboratory. In 1996, MacFarlane created a sequel to The Life of Larry entitled Larry and Steve, which features a middle-aged character named Larry and an intellectual dog, Steve. The short was broadcast as one of Cartoon Network's World Premiere Toons. Executives at Fox saw both Larry shorts and contracted MacFarlane to create a series based on the characters, to be called Family Guy.

Further career

At 24, MacFarlane was television's youngest executive producer. MacFarlane stated that the pilot for Family Guy took half a year to create and produce.

Bolstered by high DVD sales and established fan loyalty, Family Guy developed into a $1 billion franchise.

Family Guy

Family Guy first aired January 31, 1999. MacFarlane's work in animating Family Guy has been influenced by Jackie Gleason and Woody Allen's work, along with examples from The Simpsons and All in the Family. In addition to writing three episodes, "Death Has a Shadow", "Family Guy Viewer Mail 1" and "North by North Quahog", MacFarlane voices Family Guy's main characters – Peter Griffin, Stewie Griffin, Brian Griffin and Glenn Quagmire as well as Tom Tucker and his son Jake and additional characters.

MacFarlane's success with Family Guy has opened doors to other ventures relating to Family Guy. On April 26, 2005, he and composer Walter Murphy created . The soundtrack features a Broadway show tune theme, and MacFarlane voiced Stewie in the track "Stewie's Sexy Party". A fan of Broadway musicals, Two years later, in August 2007, he closed a digital content production deal with AdSense. MacFarlane takes cast members on the road to voice characters in front of live audiences. Family Guy Live provides fans with the opportunity to hear future scripts. In mid-2007, Chicago fans had the opportunity to hear the then upcoming sixth season premiere "Blue Harvest". Shows have been played in Montreal, New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

On July 22, 2007, in an interview with "The Hollywood Reporter", MacFarlane announced that he may start working on a feature film, although "nothing's official." In September 2007, Ricky Blitt gave TV.com an interview confirming that he had already started working on the script. Then in TV Week on July 18, 2008, MacFarlane confirmed plans to produce a theatrically released Family Guy feature film sometime "within the next year". He came up with an idea for the story, "something that you could not do on the show, which [to him] is the only reason to do a movie." He later went to say he imagines the film to be "an old-style musical with dialogue" similar to The Sound of Music, saying that he would "really be trying to capture, musically, that feel."

Despite its popularity, Family Guy has not been immune to criticism. The Parents Television Council frequently criticizes Family Guy for its content, once organized a letter-writing campaign aimed at removing Family Guy from FOX's lineup, and has filed complaints with the Federal Communications Commission alleging that some episodes of the show contained indecent content. MacFarlane has responded to the PTC's criticism by saying, among other things, "That's like getting hate mail from Hitler. They're literally terrible human beings." Family Guy has been cancelled twice, although strong fan support and DVD sales have caused Fox to reconsider. MacFarlane mentioned how these cancellations affected the lineup of writers each time Fox again gave Family Guy the green light, "One of the positive aspects of 'Family Guy' constantly being pulled off [the air] is that we were always having to restaff writers". and the series resumed airing regularly, beginning with "Back to the Woods".

American Dad!

Seth co-created American Dad!, with Matt Weitzman and Mike Barker. American Dad! was first shown after Super Bowl XXXIX as a sneak preview on February 6, 2005. The show began airing regularly on Fox on May 1, 2005. MacFarlane describes the show being similar to All in the Family

American Dad! received its inspiration from President George W. Bush's policies. The show focuses on Stan Smith, a straight-laced CIA officer and fanatical conservative. Stan's wife (Francine) and children, (Hayley and Steve), share a typical middle class home with Roger, an extraterrestrial rescued by Stan from Area 51, and Klaus, a goldfish who hosts the transplanted brain of an East German, 1986 Olympian skier. Seth MacFarlane provides the voices of Stan and Roger, basing Roger's voice on Paul Lynde as he played Uncle Arthur in Bewitched.

The Winner

MacFarlane was the executive producer of a live-action sitcom starring Rob Corddry called The Winner. The show premiered on Fox on March 4, 2007. The plot has a man named Glen discussing the time he matured at 32 and has him pursuing his only love after she moves in next door. Glen meets her son and both become good friends.

After six episodes, the show was officially canceled on May 16, 2007. However, at Family Guy Live in Montreal on July 21, 2007, Seth MacFarlane stated, "It is looking like there could be a future life for The Winner". After MacFarlane's statement neither Fox nor MacFarlane has released any details of plans for the show to return. The show was mentioned in the Family Guy episode "Family Gay" where all of the horses at a racing track are named after failed Fox shows, The Winner being one of them.

The Cleveland Show

Seth MacFarlane has recently developed a Family Guy spin-off called The Cleveland Show, which focuses on the character of Cleveland Brown and his family. The idea for the show originated from a suggestion by Family Guy writer and voice of Cleveland, Mike Henry. Fox has ordered 22 episodes and the series first aired on September 27, 2009. Due to the cancellation of Mike Judge's King of the Hill, the American adaptation of Sit Down, Shut Up being moved to Saturday nights, and the renewal of American Dad!, The Simpsons is now the only cartoon on Fox's "Animation Domination" line-up that was not created by Seth MacFarlane. The show, which was picked up to air a first season consisting of 22 episodes, was picked up by Fox for a second season, consisting of 13 episodes, bringing the total number to 35 episodes. The announcement was made on May 3, 2009 before the first season even premiered. Due to strong ratings FOX picked up the back 9 episodes of season 2 which would make a 22 episode season and bring the total episode count of the show to 44.

Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy

On September 10, 2008, MacFarlane released a series of webisodes known as Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. These animated shorts were distributed by Burger King and released weekly. The series saw a successful launch with Seth MacFarlane's YouTube Channel, SethComedy, becoming the most watched YouTube channel of the week obtaining over 3 million video views only two days after the first episode (a Super Mario Bros. parody) was released. They have since been released to DVD and Blu-Ray.

Guest appearances

MacFarlane has appeared in sitcoms, comedy and news programs, independent films, and other animated shows. In 2002, MacFarlane appeared in the Gilmore Girls episode "Lorelai's Graduation Day". Four years later on November 5, 2006, MacFarlane guest starred on Fox's The War at Home as "Hillary's Date", an unnamed 33-year-old man who secretly dates teenaged Hillary in the episode "I Wash My Hands of You". MacFarlane has also appeared as the engineer Ensign Rivers on the show in the third season episode "" and the fourth season episode "". He is also a frequent guest on the radio talkshow Loveline, hosted by Dr. Drew Pinsky.

on September 8, 2008.]] In Fox's comedy show MADtv on November 11, 2006, MacFarlane appeared and showed a live action re-enactment of a scene from the Family Guy episode "Fast Times at Buddy Cianci Jr. High". In the scene, Peter and Lois suspect Chris of murdering his teacher's husband. As a reaction, Meg jumps out the window in fear. A version with McFarlane as Peter, Nicole Parker as Kathy Griffin as Lois, Ike Barinholtz as Dane Cook as Chris, Nicole Randall Johnson as Queen Latifah as Meg, and Keegan-Michael Key as Snoop Dogg as Stewie was recorded over the original cartoon. MacFarlane served as a host to the Canadian Awards for the Electronic & Animated Arts's Second Annual Elan Awards on February 15, 2008.

MacFarlane has also appeared on news shows and late night television shows such as Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Late Show with David Letterman. On January 19, 2007, MacFarlane appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC to discuss Stephen Colbert's appearance on The O'Reilly Factor and Bill O'Reilly's return appearance on The Colbert Report. MacFarlane introduced the segment by saying in Stewie's voice "Oh, wait Bill. Hold still, allow me to soil myself on you. Victory is mine!" Three months later on March 24, 2007, MacFarlane was interviewed on Fox's Talkshow with Spike Feresten, and closed the show by singing the Frank Sinatra song "You Make Me Feel So Young". He also provided Stewie's voice when he appeared as a brain tumor-induced hallucination to Seeley Booth in an episode of Bones, writing his own dialogue for the episode. On May 8, 2009, MacFarlane was a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher.

Other than Family Guy and American Dad!, MacFarlane voices characters in other cartoon shows and movies. He voiced Wayne "The Main Brain" McClain in an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. He has also voiced various characters on Adult Swim's Robot Chicken, including a parody of Lion-O and Emperor Palpatine as well as Peter Griffin in the Season 2 premiere – he even parodied himself in the Season 4 premiere, in which he renewed the show simply by mentioning it in a Family Guy-like cutaway after its fictitious cancellation at the end of Season 3. He also played the villain "The Manotaur" in Bob Boyle's animated kids series Yin Yang Yo!. In addition, MacFarlane voiced Johann Krauss in the 2008 film . He also had a guest appearance in the animated film where he sings "That Was Then (And This is Too)", the opening theme. He had also starred in a commercial for Hulu in which he plays an alien presenting Hulu as an "evil plot to destroy the world," progressively as his famous Family Guy and American Dad! characters.

On August 1, 2009, MacFarlane performed at The BBC Proms with John Wilson and his orchestra, singing a selection of songs from MGM musicals alongside Kim Criswell, Sarah Fox, Sir Thomas Allen, and Curtis Stigers. Three songs from High Society, Singin' in the Rain, and That's Entertainment were featured. He made another appearance with the John Wilson orchestra in a BBC Two special, Swingin' Christmas, on December 25, 2010.

Seth also played in a character named Ziggy in the 2010 film, The Tooth Fairy. In August 2010, MacFarlane appeared as a guest voiceover in a sci-fi themed episode of Disney's Phineas and Ferb entitled Nerds of a Feather. Also in 2010, Seth was roastmaster of the Comedy Central Roast of David Hasselhoff.

Speaking engagements

to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in September 2010]] MacFarlane is a frequent speaking guest on college campuses. MacFarlane was invited by Harvard University's class of 2006 to deliver the "class day" address on June 7, 2006. He spoke as himself, as Peter Griffin, as Stewie Griffin, and as Glenn Quagmire. He has also delivered speeches at George Washington University, Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Texas, the University of Missouri, University of Toledo, Bowling Green State University and Loyola Marymount University.

Activism

Political beliefs

MacFarlane is a supporter of the Democratic Party.

Gay rights support

MacFarlane came to support gay rights and gay marriage after a family member wondered aloud whether his gay cousin's homosexuality could be "cured". MacFarlane went on to wonder, "Why is it that Johnny Spaghetti Stain in fucking Georgia can knock a woman up, legally be married to her, and then beat the shit out of her, but these two intelligent, sophisticated writers who have been together for 20 years can't get married?" Official production of Family Guy was halted for most of December 2007 and various periods afterwards. Fox continued producing episodes without MacFarlane's final approval, and although he refused to work on the show during the strike, his contract with Fox required him to contribute to any episodes it subsequently produced. Rumors of continued production on Family Guy prompted the statement from MacFarlane that "...it would just be a colossal dick move if they [continued production without his final approval]." He appeared at a Star Wars convention to promote his new Family Guy episode "Blue Harvest" on May 26, 2007. He is a skilled pianist and singer who, in his early years, trained with an elderly couple who were Frank Sinatra's vocal coaches. In early 2007, fellow comedian Alex Borstein reported in an interview that MacFarlane is classical in several aspects of his life, in that "his pop culture knowledge is very retro. Seth doesn't have e-mail at home, doesn't own a computer and he doesn't really watch television. He doesn't understand MySpace and despises most new music."

MacFarlane is unmarried. In 2004, in an interview with The Daily Princetonian, MacFarlane noted his similarities to Brian on Family Guy, revealing, "I have some Brian type issues from time to time – looking for the right person – but I date as much as the next guy".

On July 16, 2010, MacFarlane's mother Perry MacFarlane died, after battling cancer. The death was reported by Larry King on his show, Larry King Live, who acknowledged a conversation he had with her during an interview with her son in May 2010. A brief opening scene from the first episode of the ninth season of Family Guy ("And Then There Were Fewer") mentions her lifespan, and dedicates the episode to her.

MacFarlane is an atheist. He revealed this on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, MacFarlane was scheduled to return to Los Angeles on American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston, Massachusetts. Suffering from a hangover from the previous night's celebrations, and with an incorrect departure time (8:15 a.m. instead of 7:45 a.m.) from his travel agent, Fifteen minutes after departure, American Airlines Flight 11 was hijacked, and at 8:46 a.m. was flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, obliterating the airplane, destroying the building and killing everyone on board.

In an interview with TVShowsOnDVD.com, MacFarlane said the following about his close call:

MacFarlane's interest in sci-fi and music are regularly themes for his birthday and Christmas parties in Los Angeles. In 2009, he held a Star Wars-themed Christmas party. In 2010, he held a Rat Pack-themed party for his birthday with a 60-piece orchestra and performance by Frank Sinatra, Jr..

Filmography

Films

Television

Awards

References

External links

Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy

Interview on IGN.com

Seth MacFarlane at Voice Chasers

}}

Category:1973 births Category:Actors from Connecticut Category:American actors of English descent Category:American animators Category:American atheists Category:American baritones Category:American comedians Category:American male singers Category:American people of Scottish descent Category:American television producers Category:American television writers Category:American voice actors Category:Annie Award winners Category:Connecticut Democrats Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Family Guy Category:Former Roman Catholics Category:Kent School alumni Category:LGBT rights activists from the United States Category:Living people Category:People from Litchfield County, Connecticut Category:People from Providence, Rhode Island Category:Rhode Island School of Design alumni Category:Science fiction fans Category:American comedians

Caption	Mirren at the Orange British Academy Film Awards in February 2007
Birth date	July 26, 1945
Birth name	Helen Lydia Mironoff
Birth place	Chiswick, England
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1965–present
Spouse	Taylor Hackford(1997–present)
Website	Official site

Dame Helen Mirren, DBE (born 26 July 1945) is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, four Emmy Awards, and two Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Awards during her career.

Early life and family

Mirren was born Helen Lydia Mironoff in a corridor of the maternity wing of Queen Charlotte's Hospital, Chiswick, in West London. Her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov (1913–1980), was of Russian origin, and her mother, Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda (née Rogers; 1909–1996), was English. Mirren's paternal grandfather, Pyotr Vassilievich Mironov, a Russian nobleman, tsarist colonel and diplomat, was negotiating an arms deal in Britain and was stranded there, along with his family, during the Russian Revolution.

Her father called himself Basil and changed the family name to Mirren in the 1950s. He played the viola with the London Philharmonic before World War II, and later drove a cab and was a driving-test examiner, before becoming a civil servant with the Ministry of Transport. Mirren's mother was from West Ham, London, and was the thirteenth of fourteen children born to a butcher whose father had been the butcher to Queen Victoria.

The first house she remembers living in was in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, when she was two or three years old, after the birth of her younger brother, who was named Peter Basil after his grandfather and great-great-grandfather. Mirren was the second of three children, born two years after her older sister Katherine ("Kate").

Education

Mirren attended a Catholic girls' school, St Bernard's High School for Girls, in Southend-on-Sea, where she acted in school productions, and subsequently a teaching college, the New College of Speech and Drama in London "housed within Anna Pavlova's old home, Ivy House" on the North End Road, which leads from Golders Green to Hampstead, N. London. At age eighteen, she auditioned for the National Youth Theatre and was accepted. By the time she was 20, she was Cleopatra in the NYT production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Old Vic, which led to her signing with the agent Al Parker.

Theatre

Early years

Her work for the NYT led to Mirren joining the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), playing Castiza in Trevor Nunn's 1966 staging of The Revenger's Tragedy, Diana in All's Well That Ends Well in 1967, Cressida in Troilus and Cressida and Phebe in As You Like It in 1968, Julia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona in 1970, and Tatiana in Gorky's Enemies at the Aldwych and the title role in Miss Julie at The Other Place in 1971.

In 1970, Director/producer John Goldschmidt made the documentary film Doing Her Own Thing about Mirren at the Royal Shakespeare Company. The film was made for ATV and shown on the ITV Network in the UK.

In 1972–73, Mirren worked with Peter Brook's International Centre for Theatre Research, and joined the group's tour in North Africa and the US which created The Conference of the Birds. Returning to the RSC she played Lady Macbeth at Stratford in 1974 and at the Aldwych Theatre in 1975.

As reported by Sally Beauman in her 1982 history of the RSC, Mirren, while appearing in Nunn's Macbeth (1974) and in a highly publicised letter to The Guardian newspaper, attacked both the National Theatre and the RSC for their lavish production expenditure, declaring it "unnecessary and destructive to the art of the Theatre," and adding, "The realms of truth, emotion and imagination reached for in acting a great play have become more and more remote, often totally unreachable across an abyss of costume and technicalities..." There were no discernible repercussions for this rebuke of the RSC.

West End and RSC

At the Royal Court in September 1975 she notably played rock star Maggie in Teeth 'n' Smiles, a musical play by David Hare, which was revived at Wyndham's Theatre in May 1976 winning her the Plays & Players Best Actress award, voted by the London critics.

From November 1975 Mirren played in West End repertory with the Lyric Theatre Company as Nina in The Seagull and Ella in Ben Travers' new farce The Bed Before Yesterday ("Mirren is stirringly voluptuous as the Harlowesque good-time girl": Michael Billington, The Guardian, 10 December 1975). At the RSC in Stratford in 1977, and at the Aldwych the following year, she played a steely Queen Margaret in Terry Hands' production of the three parts of Henry VI, while 1979 saw her 'bursting with grace' with an acclaimed performance as Isabella in Peter Gill's otherwise unexceptional production of Measure for Measure at Riverside Studios.

In 1981 she returned to the Royal Court for the London premiere of Brian Friel's Faith Healer. In the same year she also received acclaim for her performance in the title role of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, a production of Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre which transferred to The Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, London. Reviewing her portrayal for The Sunday Telegraph, Francis King wrote: "Miss Mirren never leaves it in doubt that even in her absences, this ardent, beautiful woman is the most important character of the story."

Her performance as Moll Cutpurse in The Roaring Girl at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in January 1983, and at the Barbican Theatre April 1983), "swaggered through the action with radiant singularity of purpose, filling in areas of light and shade that even Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker omitted." – Michael Coveney, Financial Times, April 1983.

After a relatively barren sojourn in the Hollywood Hills, she returned to England at the beginning of 1989 to co-star with Bob Peck at the Young Vic in the London premiere of the Arthur Miller double-bill, Two Way Mirror, performances which prompted Miller to remark: "What is so good about English actors is that they are not afraid of the open expression of large emotions" (interview by Sheridan Morley: The Times 11 January 1989). In Elegy for a Lady she played the svelte proprietress of a classy boutique, while as the blonde hooker in Some Kind of Love Story she was "clad in a Freudian slip and shifting easily from waif-like vulnerability to sexual aggression, giving the role a breathy Monroesque quality" (Michael Billington, The Guardian).

Stage career breakthrough

A stage career breakthrough came in 1994, in an Yvonne Arnaud Theatre production bound for the West End, when Bill Bryden cast her as Natalya Petrovna in Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country. Her co-stars were John Hurt as her aimless lover Rakitin and Joseph Fiennes in only his second professional stage appearance as the cocksure young tutor Belyaev. "Instead of a bored Natalya fretting the summer away in dull frocks, Mirren, dazzlingly gowned, is a woman almost wilfully allowing her heart's desire for her son's young tutor to rule her head and wreak domestic havoc....Creamy shoulders bared, she feels free to launch into a gloriously enchanted, dreamily comic self-confession of love." (John Thaxter, Richmond & Twickenham Times, 4 March 1994).

Mirren was twice nominated for Broadway's Tony Award as Best Actress (Play): in 1995 for A Month in the Country, now directed by Scott Ellis ("Miss Mirren's performance is bigger and more animated than the one she gave last year in an entirely different London production", Vincent Canby in the NY Times, 26 April 1995). Then again in 2002 for August Strindberg's Dance of Death, co-starring with Sir Ian McKellen, their fraught rehearsal period coinciding with the terrorist attacks on New York on September 11, 2001 (as recorded in her In the Frame autobiography, September 2007).

National Theatre

Mirren had an unhappy experience at the National Theatre in 1998 when she played Cleopatra to Alan Rickman's Antony. In 2000 Nicholas Hytner, who had worked with Mirren on the film version of The Madness of King George, cast her as Lady Torrance in his revival of Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending at the Donmar Warehouse in London. Michael Billington, reviewing for The Guardian, described her performance as "an exemplary study of an immigrant woman who has acquired a patina of resilient toughness but who slowly acknowledges her sensuality."

At the National Theatre in November 2003 she again won praise playing Christine Mannon ("defiantly cool, camp and skittish", Evening Standard; "glows with mature sexual allure", Daily Telegraph) in a revival of Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra directed by Howard Davies.

“This production was one of the best experiences of my professional life, The play was four and a half hours long, and I have never known that kind of response from an audience ... It was the serendipity of a beautifully cast play, with great design and direction, It will be hard to be in anything better.” (In the Frame, September 2007).

She played the tragic title role in Jean Racine's Phèdre at the National in 2009, in a production directed by Nicholas Hytner. The production was also staged at the amphitheater of Epidaurus on 11 and 12 July 2009.

Selected stage credits

Cleopatra, Anthony and Cleopatra, Old Vic Theatre, London, 1965

Kitty, Charley's Aunt, Manchester Theatre, Manchester, England, 1967

Nerissa, The Merchant of Venice, Manchester Theatre, 1967

Castiza, The Revenger's Tragedy, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, England, 1967

Diana, All's Well That Ends Well, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1967

Cressida, Troilus and Cressida, Royal Shakespeare Company, AldwychTheatre, London, 1968

Hero, Much Ado about Nothing, Aldwych Theatre, 1968–1969

Win-the-Fight Littlewit, Bartholomew Fair, Aldwych Theatre, 1969

Lady Anne, Richard III, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1970

Ophelia, Hamlet, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1970

Julia, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1970

Tatyana, Enemies, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, 1971

Harriet, The Man of Mode, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, 1971

Title role, Miss Julie, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, 1971

Elayne, The Balcony, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, 1971

Isabella, Measure for Measure, Riverside Studios Theatre, London,1974

Lady Macbeth, Macbeth, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1974, then Aldwych Theatre, 1975

Maggie, Teeth 'n' Smiles, Royal Court Theatre, London, 1975, thenWyndham's Theatre, London, 1976

Nina, The Seagull, Lyric Theatre, London, 1975

Ella, The Bed before Yesterday, Lyric Theatre, 1975

Queen Margaret, Henry VI, Parts I, II and III, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1977, then Aldwych Theatre, 1978

Title role, The Duchess of Malfi, Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, England, 1980, then Mound House Theatre, London, 1981

Grace, Faith Healer, Royal Court Theatre, 1981

Cleopatra, Antony and Cleopatra, Pit Theatre, London, 1983

Moll Cutpurse, The Roaring Girl, Barbican Theatre, London, 1983

Marjorie, Extremities, Duchess Theatre, London, 1984

Madame Bovary, 1987

Angela, "Some Kind of Love Story," and dying woman, "Elegy for a Lady," in Two-Way Mirror (double-bill), Young Vic Theatre, *London, 1989

Sex Please We're Italian, 1991

Natalya Petrovna, A Month in the Country, London, 1994, then Criterion Theatre, New York City, 1995

Antony and Cleopatra, Royal National Theatre, London, 1998

Collected Stories, London, 1999

Lady Torrance, Orpheus Descending, Donmar Warehouse, London, 2000

Alice, Dance of Death, Broadhurst Theatre, New York City, 2001–2002

Mourning Becomes Electra, Lyttelton Stage, Royal National Theatre,2003

Phedre, National Theatre, 2009

Also appeared as Susie Monmican, The Silver Lassie; in Woman in Mind, Los Angeles.

Film

Mirren has also appeared in a large number of films throughout her career. Some of her earlier film roles include O Lucky Man!, Caligula, Excalibur, 2010, The Long Good Friday, White Nights and The Mosquito Coast. After those appearances she received roles in Belfast-born director Terry George's film Some Mother's Son, which was about the 1981 Hunger Strikes in Northern Ireland, opposite Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan, Painted Lady, The Prince of Egypt and The Madness of King George. One of her other film roles was in Peter Greenaway's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, as the eponymous thief's wife, opposite Michael Gambon. Her favourite film is Teaching Mrs. Tingle, in which she plays sadistic History teacher, Mrs Eve Tingle.

Mirren continued her successful film career when she starred more recently in Gosford Park with Maggie Smith and Calendar Girls where she starred with Julie Walters. Other more recent appearances include The Clearing, Pride, Raising Helen, and Shadowboxer. Mirren also provided the voice for the supercomputer "Deep Thought" in the film adaptation of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. During her career, she has portrayed three British queens in different films and television series: Elizabeth I in the television series Elizabeth I (2005), Elizabeth II in The Queen (2006), and Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, in The Madness of King George (1994). She is the only actress ever to have portrayed both Queens Elizabeth on the screen.

Mirren's title role of The Queen earned her numerous acting awards including a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, and an Academy Award, among many others. During her acceptance speech at the Academy Award ceremony, she praised and thanked Elizabeth II and stated that she had maintained her dignity and weathered many storms during her reign as Queen. Mirren later appeared in supporting roles in the films , Inkheart, State of Play, and The Last Station, for which Mirren was nominated for an Oscar.

In preparation for her role as a retired Israeli Mossad agent in the film The Debt, Mirren reportedly immersed herself in studies of Hebrew language, Jewish history, and Holocaust writing, including the life of Simon Wiesenthal, while in Israel in 2009 for the filming of some of the movie's scenes. The film is a remake of a 2007 Israeli film of the same name (Hebrew: Ha-khov).

Television

Mirren is well-known for her role as detective Jane Tennison in the widely viewed Prime Suspect, a multiple award-winning television drama that was noted for its high quality, higher popularity and its unique format, in that it ran for seven seasons in seven extended multi-act episodes rather than in a traditional seasonal schedule. Her portrayal of Tennison won her three consecutive BAFTA awards for Best Actress between 1992 and 1994.

Some of Mirren's other television performances include Cousin Bette (1971); As You Like It (1979); Blue Remembered Hills (1979); The Twilight Zone episode "Dead Woman's Shoes" (1985); Losing Chase (1996); The Passion of Ayn Rand (1999), where her performance won her both the Emmy and the Golden Globe; Door to Door (2002); and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (2003). In 1976, she appeared with Laurence Olivier, Alan Bates and Malcolm McDowell in a production of Harold Pinter's The Collection as part of the Laurence Olivier Presents series. She also played Elizabeth I in 2005, in the television serial Elizabeth I, for Channel 4 and HBO, for which she received an Emmy Award. Mirren won another Emmy Award on 16 September 2007 for her role in Prime Suspect: The Final Act on PBS in the same category as in 2006.

Awards and recognition

Film awards

In 1984, Mirren won Best Actress for her role in the film Cal at the Cannes Film Festival and the 1985 Evening Standard British Film Awards. In 1994 and 2001, she was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her roles in The Madness of King George and Gosford Park, respectively. In 1995, she had also been awarded for Best Actress once again in Cannes for playing Queen Charlotte in The Madness of King George. In 2002, she received the SAG Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for Gosford Park. Mirren is the first female actress to be nominated for three acting performances at the Golden Globe Awards in the same year. She won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Leading Role in the movie drama category for Stephen Frears' The Queen in 2006 (along with two nominations in the Actress in a Mini-series or TV Movie category for Elizabeth I, and Prime Suspect: Final Act). She won both Golden Globes for The Queen and Elizabeth I and also won two SAG awards the same year for the same roles. Mirren is the third actor to win two Golden Globes in the same year, and the first ever to win for both leading roles in TV and film in the same year. She is one of only three actresses (the first was Liza Minnelli in 1973 and then decades later Helen Hunt) to win a Golden Globe, an Oscar and an Emmy for performances given in the same year.

Along with the Golden Globe, Mirren's acclaimed performance in The Queen won her the 2007 Academy Award for Best Actress. She also received Best Actress awards from the Venice Film Festival, Broadcast Film Critics, National Board of Review, Satellite Awards, Screen Actors Guild and a BAFTA, as well as critics awards from all over the world. Entertainment Weekly recently ranked her Number 2 for Entertainer of the Year for 2006 and also won the award for best actress in film at the new Greatest Britons Awards for her role in The Queen. In 2007 Mirren became an Honorary Patron of the University Philosophical Society at Trinity College Dublin.

She won the Best Actress award at the 2009 Rome International Film Festival for her performance as Tolstoy's wife in The Last Station.

Academy Award Nominations

Best Actress

* '2006 – The Queen''

* 2009 – The Last Station

Best Supporting Actress

* 1994 – The Madness of King George

* 2001 – Gosford Park

Television awards

Mirren won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Mini-series or TV Movie in 1997 for her role in Losing Chase. She received two nominations in the Actress in a Mini-series or TV Movie category for Elizabeth I, and Prime Suspect: The Final Act, where she only won the Golden Globe for her title role performance in Elizabeth I. In that same year she won an SAG award for that same role. Mirren also won an Emmy for her role in Elizabeth I in category Lead Actress in a Mini-Series or a Movie in 2006. She had previously won an Emmy twice before, in that same category, in 1996 for her role in Prime Suspect: Scent of Darkness and in 1999 for The Passion of Ayn Rand.

At the end of a triumphant year of awards for her acclaimed movie performance as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, Dame Helen also collected a 2007 Emmy Television award as Best Actress in a Mini-Series for her performance as Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect: The Final Act. She now has four Emmy awards. This seventh and apparently concluding instalment of the Prime Suspect saga portrayed Tennison as an alcoholic destined for retirement, and was screened in the US on the public service network PBS.

Emmy Awards

Awards won are indicated by bold lettering.

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie

1993 – Prime Suspect 2

1994 – Prime Suspect 3

1996 – Prime Suspect 4: "Scent of Darkness"

1997 – Prime Suspect 5: Errors of Judgment

1999 – The Passion of Ayn Rand

2003 – The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

2004 – Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness

2006 – Elizabeth I

2007 – Prime Suspect: The Final Act

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie

2003 – Door to Door

Critics' Circle Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts

Awards Luncheon in April 2007.]] Each year since 1988 The Critics' Circle has presented an award for Distinguished Service to the Arts, voted for by all members of the Circle, embracing Dance, Drama, Film, Music, Visual Arts and Architecture. At a celebratory luncheon on 10 April 2007 in the National Theatre's Terrace Restaurant, the award for 2006 was presented to Dame Helen Mirren. As David Gritten, chairman of the Film section made clear, the decision to make the award was voted on in November 2006, well in advance of the awards hubbub that surrounded her performance in The Queen. Accepting the award, an engraved crystal rose bowl, Mirren described it as the most useful she has ever received, while reflecting poignantly that this now "might be the last award I will win in my life. It has been a most incredible year. You do the work and then....." Previous recipients include Peter Hall (1988), Judi Dench (1997) and Ian McKellen (2003).

Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire

On 5 December 2003, she was invested as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). When she received the honour, Mirren commented that Prince Charles was "very graceful" but forgot to give her half of the award; another person had to remind him to give Mirren the star. She also said that she felt wary about accepting the award and had to be persuaded by fellow comrades to accept the DBE. In 1996 she had declined appointment as a Commander of the order (CBE).

Personal life

Mirren married American director Taylor Hackford (her partner since 1986) on 31 December 1997, his 53rd birthday. The ceremony took place at the Ardersier Parish Church near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. The couple had met on the set of White Nights. It was her first marriage, and his third (he has two children from his previous marriage). Mirren has no children and says she has "no maternal instinct whatsoever."

Mirren's autobiography, In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures, was published in the UK by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in September 2007. Reviewing for The Stage, John Thaxter wrote: "Sumptuously illustrated, at first sight it looks like another of those photo albums of the stars. But between the pictures there are almost 200 pages of densely printed text, an unusually frank story of her private and professional life, mainly in the theatre, the words clearly Mirren's own, delivered with forthright candour."

In 1990, Mirren stated in an interview that she is an atheist.

In a GQ interview in 2008, Mirren stated she had been date raped as a student and had often taken cocaine at parties during the 1980s. She stopped using the drug after reading that Klaus Barbie made a living from cocaine dealing.

On 11 May 2010, Mirren attended the unveiling of her waxwork at Madame Tussauds London. The figure reportedly cost £150,000 to make and took four months to complete.

References in pop culture

The Mars Volta on their 2008 album Bedlam in Goliath have a song called "Ilyena" that is named after Mirren. Mars Volta lyricist/singer Cedric Bixler has stated an affinity for Mirren.

Filmography

{|class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" border="2" cellpadding="4" background: #f9f9f9; |- align="center" ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Year ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Film ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Role ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Notes |- | 1967 | Herostratus | | |- | 1968 | A Midsummer Night's Dream | Hermia | |- |rowspan="2" | 1969 | Red Hot Shot | | |- | Age of Consent | Cora Ryan | |- |rowspan="2" | 1972 | Miss Julie | Miss Julie | |- | Savage Messiah | Gosh Boyle | |- | 1973 | O Lucky Man! | Patricia | |- | 1975 | Caesar and Claretta | Claretta Petacci | |- | 1976 | Hamlet | Ophelia/Gertrude | |- |rowspan="2" | 1979 | The Quiz Kid | Joanne | |- | Caligula | Caesonia | |- |rowspan="3" | 1980 | Hussy | Beaty | |- | The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu | Alice Rage | |- | The Long Good Friday | Victoria | |- | 1981 | Excalibur | Morgana | |- |rowspan="3" | 1984 | Cal | Marcella | |- | 2010: The Year We Make Contact | Tanya Kirbuk | |- | Faerie Tale Theatre: "The Little Mermaid" | Princess Amelia | TV Series: 1 Episode |- |rowspan="3" | 1985 | Heavenly Pursuits | Ruth Chancellor | |- | Coming Through | Frieda von Richtofen Weekley | |- | White Nights | Galina Ivanova | |- | 1986 | The Mosquito Coast | Mother Fox | |- | 1988 | Pascali's Island | Lydia Neuman | |- |rowspan="2" | 1989 | When the Whales Came | Clemmie Jenkins | |- | The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover | Georgina Spica | |- |rowspan="2" | 1990 | Bethune: The Making of a Hero | Frances Penny Bethune | |- | The Comfort of Strangers | Caroline | |- | 1991 | Where Angels Fear to Tread | Lilia Herriton | |- |rowspan="2" | 1993 | The Hawk | Annie Marsh | |- | Royal Deceit | Geruth | |- | 1994 | The Madness of King George | Queen Charlotte | |- | 1995 | The Snow Queen | Snow Queen | (voice) |- |rowspan="2" | 1996 | Some Mother's Son | Kathleen Quigley | Also Associate Producer |- | Losing Chase | Chase Phillips | TV |- | 1997 | Critical Care | Stella | |- |rowspan="2" | 1998 | Sidoglio Smithee | | |- | The Prince of Egypt | The Queen | (voice) |- |rowspan="2" | 1999 | The Passion of Ayn Rand | Ayn Rand | |- | Teaching Mrs. Tingle | Mrs. Eve Tingle | |- | 2000 | Greenfingers | Georgina Woodhouse | |- |rowspan="5" | 2001 | The Pledge | Doctor | |- | No Such Thing | The Boss | |- | Happy Birthday | Distinguished Woman | Also Director |- | Last Orders | Amy | |- | Gosford Park | Mrs. Wilson | |- |rowspan="2" | 2003 | The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone | Karen Stone | TV |- | Calendar Girls | Chris Harper | |- |rowspan="3" | 2004 | The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | Deep Thought | (voice) |- | The Clearing | Eileen Hayes | |- | Raising Helen | Dominique | |- |rowspan="2" | 2005 | Elizabeth I | Queen Elizabeth I | |- | Shadowboxer | Rose | |- | 2006 | The Queen | Queen Elizabeth II | |- | 2007 | | Emily Appleton | |- | 2008 | Inkheart | Elinor Loredan | |- |rowspan="2" | 2009 | State of Play | Cameron Lynne | |- | The Last Station | Sofya Tolstoy | |- |rowspan="6" | 2010 | Love Ranch | Grace Bontempo | |- | The Debt | Rachel Singer | |- |The Tempest |Prospera | |- | Brighton Rock | Ida | |- | Red | Victoria | |- | | Nyra | (voice) |- | 2011 | Arthur | Hobson | filming |}

Further reading

Command Performance, a profile of Helen Mirren written by John Lahr in The New Yorker magazine, 2 October 2006

In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures (autobiography) by Helen Mirren, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2007 ISBN 9780297851974.

*Rather than writing an autobiography Helen Mirren was commissioned by Alan Samson at Orion Books to write about her life in a series of chapters based on pictures from her extensive personal collection of photography and memorabilia. Edited by Chris Worwood, with whom she worked on the Award-winning HBO series Elizabeth, the book covers every aspect of her life from her aristocratic Russian heritage to her days with Peter Hall's RSC company to her Academy Award for The Queen.

Theatre Record (originally London Theatre Record) and its Indexes for the quoted theatre reviews, credit listings and playbills

The Best of Plays and Players 1969–1983, selected and edited by Peter Roberts, (Methuen Drama, 1989 ISBN 0413537307)

The Royal Shakespeare Company: A History of Ten Decades by Sally Beauman, (Oxford University Press, 1982 ISBN 0192122096)

A Dictionary of the RSC by Simon Trowbridge

References

External links

Official Website

Helen Mirren at the MBC Encyclopedia of Television

Helen Mirren Biography

Morley Safer profile of Helen Mirren on CBS' "60 minutes", 7 January 2007

The Helen Mirren Appreciation Society, Official fan club

The Guardian (London), 2 September 2006">Simon Hattenstone, "Nothing like a dame", (interview) The Guardian (London), 2 September 2006

The Independent (London), 27 May 2007">Arifa Akbar, "Helen Mirren: The good, the bad and The Queen", (interview), The Independent (London), 27 May 2007

Stills and comment regarding early films

Kevin Maher, Dame Helen Mirren: I'm an Essex Girl (interview), The Times (London), 12 February 2010

Category:1945 births Category:Living people Category:European Film Awards winners (people) Category:Actresses awarded British damehoods Category:Alumni of Middlesex University Category:Audio book narrators Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Best Actress Academy Award winners Category:Best Drama Actress Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Best Miniseries or Television Movie Actress Golden Globe winners Category:Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire Category:Emmy Award winners Category:English atheists Category:English film actors Category:English people of Russian descent Category:English radio actors Category:English stage actors Category:English television actors Category:English voice actors Category:Golden Orange Honorary Award winners Category:Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:People from Ilford Category:People from Westcliff-on-Sea Category:Royal National Theatre Company members Category:Royal Shakespeare Company members

Name	Elizabeth Taylor
Caption	Taylor photographed for Argentinean Magazine in 1947
Birth place	Hampstead, London, England
Birth name	Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor
Birth date	February 27, 1932
Other names	Liz Taylor
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1942–2003
Spouse	Conrad Hilton Jr. (1950–1951)Michael Wilding (1952–1957)Mike Todd (1957–1958)Eddie Fisher (1959–1964)Richard Burton (1964–1974)Richard Burton (1975–1976)John Warner (1976–1982)Larry Fortensky (1991–1996)
Children	Michael Howard Wilding, born on January 06, 1953Christopher Edward Wilding, born on February 28, 1955Elizabeth Frances Todd, born on August 06, 1957Maria Burton, born on August 01, 1961

Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, DBE (born 27 February 1932), also known as Liz Taylor, is an English-American actress. She is known for her acting talent and beauty, as well as her Hollywood lifestyle, including many marriages. Taylor is considered one of the great actresses of Hollywood's golden age.

The American Film Institute named Taylor seventh on its Female Legends list.

Early years (1932–1942)

Taylor was born in Hampstead, a wealthy district of north-west London, the second child of Francis Lenn Taylor (1897–1968) and Sara Viola Warmbrodt (1895–1994), who were Americans residing in England. Taylor's older brother, Howard Taylor, was born in 1929. Both of her parents were originally from Arkansas City, Kansas. Her father was an art dealer and her mother a former actress whose stage name was 'Sara Sothern'. Sothern retired from the stage when she and Francis Taylor married in 1926 in New York City. Taylor's two first names are in honour of her paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Mary (Rosemond) Taylor. A dual citizen of the UK and the U.S., she was born a British subject through her birth on British soil and an American citizen through her parents.

At the age of three, Taylor began taking ballet lessons with Vaccani. Shortly before the beginning of World War II, her parents decided to return to the United States to avoid hostilities. Her mother took the children first, arriving in New York in April 1939, while her father remained in London to wrap up matters in the art business, arriving in November. They settled in Los Angeles, California, where Sara's family, the Warmbrodts, were then living.

Through Hopper, the Taylors were introduced to Andrea Berens, a wealthy English socialite and also fiancée of Cheever Cowden, chairman and major stockholder of Universal Pictures in Hollywood. Berens insisted that Sara bring Elizabeth to see Cowden who, she was adamant, would be dazzled by Elizabeth's breathtaking dark beauty; she was born with a mutation that caused double rows of eyelashes, which enhanced her appearance on camera. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer soon took interest in the British youngster as well but she failed to secure a contract with them after an informal audition with producer John Considine had shown that she couldn't sing. However, on 18 September 1941, Universal Pictures signed Elizabeth to a six-month renewable contract at $100 a week.

Taylor appeared in her first motion picture at the age of nine in There's One Born Every Minute, her only film for Universal Pictures. Less than six months after she signed with Universal, her contract was reviewed by Edward Muhl, the studio's production chief. Muhl met with Taylor's agent, Myron Selznick (brother of David), and Cheever Cowden. Muhl challenged Selznick's and Cowden's constant support of Taylor: "She can't sing, she can't dance, she can't perform. What's more, her mother has to be one of the most unbearable women it has been my displeasure to meet." Universal cancelled Taylor's contract just short of her tenth birthday in February 1942. Nevertheless on 15 October 1942, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer signed Taylor to $100 a week for up to three months to appear as Priscilla in Lassie Come Home.

Career

Adolescent star

Lassie Come Home featured child star Roddy McDowall, with whom Taylor would share a lifelong friendship. Upon its release in 1943, the film received favourable attention for both McDowall and Taylor. On the basis for her performance in Lassie Come Home MGM signed Taylor to a conventional seven-year contract at $100 a week but increasing at regular intervals until it reached a hefty $750 during the seventh year. Her first assignment under her new contract at MGM was a loan-out to 20th Century Fox for the character of Helen Burns in a film version of the Charlotte Bronte novel Jane Eyre (1944). During this period she also returned to England to appear in another Roddy McDowall picture for MGM, The White Cliffs of Dover (1944). But it was Taylor's persistence in campaigning for the role of Velvet Brown in MGM's National Velvet that skyrocketed Taylor to stardom at the tender age of 12. Taylor's character, Velvet Brown, is a young girl who trains her beloved horse to win the Grand National. National Velvet, which also costarred beloved American favorite Mickey Rooney and English newcomer Angela Lansbury, became an overwhelming success upon its release in December 1944 and altered Taylor's life forever. Also, many of her back problems have been traced to when she hurt her back falling off a horse during the filming of National Velvet.

National Velvet grossed over US$4 million at the box office and Taylor was signed to a new long-term contract that raised her salary to $30,000 per year. To capitalize on the box office success of Velvet, Taylor was shoved into another animal opus, Courage of Lassie, in which a different dog named "Bill", cast as an Allied combatant in World War II, regularly outsmarts the Nazis, with Taylor going through another outdoors role. The 1946 success of Courage of Lassie led to another contract drawn up for Taylor earning her $750 per week, her mother $250, as well as a $1,500 bonus. Her roles as Mary Skinner in a loan-out to Warner Brothers' Life With Father (1947), Cynthia Bishop in Cynthia (1947), Carol Pringle in A Date with Judy (1948) and Susan Prackett in Julia Misbehaves (1948) all proved to be successful. Her reputation as a bankable adolescent star and nickname of "One-Shot Liz" (referring to her ability to shoot a scene in one take) promised her a full and bright career with Metro. Taylor's portrayal as Amy, in the American classic Little Women (1949) would prove to be her last adolescent role. In October 1948, she sailed aboard the RMS Queen Mary travelling to England where she would begin filming on Conspirator, where she would play her first adult role.

Transition into adult roles

When released in 1949, Conspirator bombed at the box office, but Taylor's portrayal of 21-year-old debutante Melinda Grayton (keeping in mind that Taylor was only 16 at the time of filming) who unknowingly marries a communist spy (played by 38-year-old Robert Taylor), was praised by critics for her first adult lead in a film, even though the public didn't seem ready to accept her in adult roles. Taylor's first picture under her new salary of $2,000 per week was The Big Hangover (1950), both a critical and box office failure, that paired her with screen idol Van Johnson. The picture also failed to present Taylor with an opportunity to exhibit her newly-realized sensuality. Her first box office success in an adult role came as Kay Banks in the romantic comedy Father of the Bride (1950), alongside Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett. The film spawned a sequel, Father's Little Dividend (1951), which Taylor's costar Spencer Tracy summarised with "boring...boring...boring." The film was received well at the box office but it would be Taylor's next picture that would set the course for her career as a dramatic actress.

In late 1949, Taylor had begun filming George Stevens' A Place In The Sun. Upon its release in 1951, Taylor was hailed for her performance as Angela Vickers, a spoiled socialite who comes between George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) and his poor, pregnant factory-working girlfriend Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters).

The film became the pivotal performance of Taylor's career as critics acclaimed it as a classic, a reputation it sustained throughout the next 50 years of cinema history. The New York Times' A.H. Weiler wrote, "Elizabeth's delineation of the rich and beauteous Angela is the top effort of her career," and the Boxoffice reviewer unequivocally stated "Miss Taylor deserves an Academy Award." "If you were considered pretty, you might as well have been a waitress trying to act – you were treated with no respect at all", she later bitterly reflected.

Even with such critical success as an actress, Taylor was increasingly unsatisfied with the roles being offered to her at the time. While she wanted to play the leads in The Barefoot Contessa and I'll Cry Tomorrow, MGM continued to restrict her to mindless and somewhat forgettable films such as: a cameo as herself in Callaway Went Thataway (1951), Love Is Better Than Ever (1952), Ivanhoe (1952), The Girl Who Had Everything (1953) and Beau Brummel (1954).

Taylor had made it perfectly clear that she wanted to play the role of Lady Rowena in Ivanhoe, but the part had already been given to Joan Fontaine and she was handed the thankless role of Rebecca. When she became pregnant with her first child, MGM forced her through The Girl Who Had Everything (even adding two hours to her daily work schedule) so as to get one more film out of her before she became too heavily pregnant. Taylor lamented that she needed the money, as she had just bought a new house with second husband Michael Wilding and with a child on the way things would be pretty tight. Taylor had been forced by her pregnancy to turn down Elephant Walk (1954), though the role had been designed for her. Vivien Leigh, to whom Taylor bore a striking resemblance, got the part and went to Ceylon to shoot on location. Leigh had a nervous breakdown during filming, and Taylor finally reclaimed the role after the birth of her child Michael Wilding, Jr. in January 1953.

Taylor's next screen endeavor, Rhapsody (1954), another tedious romantic drama, proved equally frustrating. Taylor portrayed Louise Durant, a beautiful rich girl in love with a temperamental violinist (Vittorio Gassman) and an earnest young pianist (John Ericson). A film critic for the New York Herald Tribune wrote: "There is beauty in the picture all right, with Miss Taylor glowing into the camera from every angle...but the dramatic pretenses are weak, despite the lofty sentences and handsome manikin poses."

Taylor's fourth period picture, Beau Brummell, made just after Elephant Walk and Rhapsody, cast her as the elaborately costumed Lady Patricia, which many felt was only a screen prop—a ravishing beauty whose sole purpose was to lend romantic support to the film's title star, Stewart Granger.

The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954) fared only slightly better than her previous pictures, with Taylor being reunited with The Big Hangover costar Van Johnson. The role of Helen Ellsworth Willis was based on that of Zelda Fitzgerald and, although pregnant with her second child, Taylor went ahead with the film, her fourth in twelve months. Although proving somewhat successful at the box office, she still yearned for meatier roles.

1955–1979

Following a more substantial role opposite Rock Hudson and James Dean in George Stevens' epic Giant (1956), Taylor was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for the following films: Raintree County (1957) opposite Montgomery Clift; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) opposite Paul Newman; and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) with Montgomery Clift, Katharine Hepburn and Mercedes McCambridge.

In 1960, Taylor became the highest paid actress up to that time when she signed a one million dollar contract to play the title role in 20th Century Fox's lavish production of Cleopatra,

Taylor won her first Academy Award, for Best Actress in a Leading Role, for her performance as Gloria Wandrous in BUtterfield 8 (1960), which co-starred then husband Eddie Fisher.

Her second and final Academy Award, also for Best Actress in a Leading Role, was for her performance as Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), playing opposite then husband Richard Burton. Taylor and Burton would appear together in six other films during the decade – The V.I.P.s (1963), The Sandpiper (1965), The Taming of the Shrew (1967), Doctor Faustus (1967), The Comedians {1967} and Boom! (1968).

Taylor appeared in John Huston's Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) opposite Marlon Brando (replacing Montgomery Clift who died before production began) and Secret Ceremony (1968) opposite Mia Farrow. However, by the end of the decade her box-office drawing power had considerably diminished, as evidenced by the failure of The Only Game in Town (1970), with Warren Beatty.

Taylor continued to star in numerous theatrical films throughout the 1970s, such as Zee and Co. (1972) with Michael Caine, Ash Wednesday (1973), The Blue Bird (1976) with Jane Fonda and Ava Gardner, and A Little Night Music (1977). With then-husband Richard Burton, she co-starred in the 1972 films Under Milk Wood and Hammersmith Is Out, and the 1973 made-for-TV movie Divorce His, Divorce Hers.

1980–2003

Taylor starred in the 1980 mystery/thriller The Mirror Crack'd opposite Kim Novak. In 1985, she played movie gossip columnist Louella Parsons in the TV film Malice in Wonderland opposite Jane Alexander, who played Hedda Hopper; and also appeared in the miniseries North and South. Her last theatrical film to date was 1994's The Flintstones. In 2001, she played an agent in the TV film These Old Broads. She has also appeared on a number television series, including the soap operas General Hospital and All My Children, as well as the animated series The Simpsons—once as herself, and once as the voice of Maggie Simpson. She has not done any acting since 2003.

Taylor has also acted on the stage, making her Broadway and West End debuts in 1982 with a revival of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes. She was then in a production of Noel Coward's Private Lives (1983), in which she starred with her former husband, Richard Burton. The student-run Burton Taylor Theatre in Oxford was named for the famous couple after Burton appeared as Doctor Faustus in the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS) production of the Marlowe play. Taylor played the ghostly, wordless Helen of Troy, who is entreated by Faustus to 'make [him] immortal with a kiss'.

Retirement, 2003–present

In November 2004, Taylor announced that she had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure, a progressive condition in which the heart is too weak to pump sufficient blood throughout the body, particularly to the lower extremities: the ankles and feet. She has broken her back five times, had both her hips replaced, has survived a benign brain tumor operation, has survived skin cancer, and has faced life-threatening bouts with pneumonia twice. She is reclusive and sometimes fails to make scheduled appearances due to illness or other personal reasons. She now uses a wheelchair and when asked about it she said that she has osteoporosis and was born with scoliosis.

In 2005, Taylor was a vocal supporter of her friend Michael Jackson in his trial in California on charges of sexually abusing a child. He was acquitted.

On 30 May 2006, Taylor appeared on Larry King Live to refute the claims that she has been ill, and denied the allegations that she was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and was close to death.

In late August 2006, Taylor decided to take a boating trip to help prove that she was not close to death. She also decided to make Christie's auction house the primary place where she will sell her jewellery, artwork, clothing, furniture and memorabilia (September 2006).

The February 2007 issue of Interview magazine was devoted entirely to Taylor. It celebrated her life, career and her upcoming 75th birthday.

On 5 December 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and California First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Taylor into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.

Taylor was in the news recently for a rumoured ninth marriage to her companion Jason Winters. This has been dismissed as a rumour. However, she was quoted as saying, "Jason Winters is one of the most wonderful men I've ever known and that's why I love him. He bought us the most beautiful house in Hawaii and we visit it as often as possible," to gossip columnist Liz Smith. Winters accompanied Taylor to Macy's Passport HIV/AIDS 2007 gala, where Taylor was honoured with a humanitarian award. In 2008, Taylor and Winters were spotted celebrating the 4th of July on a yacht in Santa Monica, California. The couple attended the Macy's Passport HIV/AIDS gala again in 2008.

On 1 December 2007, Taylor acted on-stage again, appearing opposite James Earl Jones in a benefit performance of the A. R. Gurney play Love Letters. The event's goal was to raise $1 million for Taylor's AIDS foundation. Tickets for the show were priced at $2,500, and more than 500 people attended. The event happened to coincide with the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike and, rather than cross the picket line, Taylor requested a "one night dispensation." The Writers Guild agreed not to picket the Paramount Pictures lot that night to allow for the performance.

In October 2008, Taylor and Winters took a trip overseas to England. They spent time visiting friends, family and shopping.

Other interests

Taylor has a passion for jewellery. She is a client of well-known jewellery designer, Shlomo Moussaieff. Over the years she has owned a number of well-known pieces, two of the most talked-about being the Krupp Diamond and the pear-shaped Taylor-Burton Diamond, which were among many gifts from husband Richard Burton. Taylor also owns the La Peregrina Pearl, purchased by Burton as a Valentine's Day present in 1969. The pearl was formerly owned by Mary I of England, and Burton sought a portrait of Queen Mary wearing the pearl. Upon the purchase of the painting, the Burtons discovered that the British National Portrait Gallery did not have an original painting of Mary, so they donated the painting to the Gallery. Her enduring collection of jewellery has been documented in her book My Love Affair with Jewelry (2002) with photographs by the New York photographer John Bigelow Taylor (no relation).

Taylor started designing jewels for The Elizabeth Collection, creating fine jewellery with elegance and flair. The Elizabeth Taylor collection by Piranesi is sold at Christie's. She has also launched three perfumes, "Passion," "White Diamonds," and "Black Pearls," that together earn an estimated US$200 million in annual sales. In fall 2006, Taylor celebrated the 15th anniversary of her White Diamonds perfume, one of the top 10 best selling fragrances for more than the past decade.

Taylor has devoted much time and energy to AIDS-related charities and fundraising. She helped start the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) after the death of her former costar and friend, Rock Hudson. She also created her own AIDS foundation, the Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation (ETAF). By 1999, she had helped to raise an estimated US$50 million to fight the disease.

In 2006, Taylor commissioned a "Care Van" equipped with examination tables and X Ray equipment and also donated US$40,000 to the New Orleans Aids task force, a charity designed for the New Orleans population with AIDS and HIV. The donation of the van was made by the Elizabeth Taylor HIV/AIDS Foundation and Macy's.

In the early 1980s, Taylor moved to Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, which is her current home. She also owns homes in Palm Springs, London and Hawaii. The fenced and gated property is on tour maps sold at street corners and is frequently passed by tour guides.

Taylor was also a fan of the soap opera General Hospital. In fact, she was cast as the first Helena Cassadine, matriarch of the Cassadine family.

Taylor is a supporter of Kabbalah and member of the Kabbalah Centre. She encouraged long-time friend Michael Jackson to wear a red string as protection from the evil-eye during his 2005 trial for molestation, where he was eventually cleared of all charges. On 6 October 1991, Taylor had married construction worker Larry Fortensky at Jackson's Neverland Ranch. In 1997, Jackson presented Taylor with the exclusively written-for-her epic song "Elizabeth, I Love You", performed on the day of her 65th birthday celebration.

In October 2007, Taylor won a legal battle, over a Vincent van Gogh painting in her possession, View of the Asylum and Chapel at Saint Remy. The US Supreme Court refused to reconsider a legal suit filed by four persons claiming that the artwork belongs to one of their Jewish ancestors, regardless of any statute of limitations.

Taylor attended Michael Jackson's private funeral on 3 September 2009.

Personal life

Marriages

Taylor has been married eight times to seven husbands:

Conrad "Nicky" Hilton (6 May 1950 – 29 January 1951) (divorced)

Michael Wilding (21 February 1952 – 26 January 1957) (divorced)

Michael Todd (2 February 1957 – 22 March 1958) (widowed)

Eddie Fisher (12 May 1959 – 6 March 1964) (divorced)

Richard Burton (15 March 1964 – 26 June 1974) (divorced)

Richard Burton (10 October 1975 – 29 July 1976) (divorced)

Note; Between 1975 and 1976, Taylor was the "companion" to the Persian ambassador from Iran to Washington, Ardeshir Zahedi. They were dubbed "the hottest couple", and both divorced their significant others during their relationship. Taylor even traveled with him to Tehran for a time. Shah Reza Pahlavi convinced Zahedi to end his relationship with Taylor. Zahedi then introduced Taylor to John Warner, whom she married that same year.

John Warner (4 December 1976 – 7 November 1982) (divorced)

Larry Fortensky (6 October 1991 – 31 October 1996) (divorced)

Children

With Wilding (2 sons)

Michael Howard Wilding (born 6 January 1953)

Christopher Edward Wilding (born 27 February 1955)

With Todd (1 daughter)

Elizabeth Frances "Liza" Todd (born 6 August 1957)

With Burton (1 daughter)

Maria Burton (born 1 August 1961; adopted 1964)

In 1971 Taylor became a grandmother at the age of 39. She has 9 grandchildren.

Treatment for alcoholism

In the 1980s, she received treatment for alcoholism.

Filmography

List of awards and honours

Taylor was the second actress to win two Academy Awards both for Best Actress, the first award from a color film and the second from a black and white film. The first was Vivien Leigh. In 1999, Taylor was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

See also

List of notable brain tumor patients

Notes

References

"Ailing Liz Taylor is 'close to death'". Retrieved 27 April 2006, since refuted by publicist

Diamond Bug. "Elizabeth Taylor's life-long love affair with Jewelry". Retrieved 15 May 2005.

"Liz takes centre stage". (6 November 2005). New Sunday Times, p. 29.

"Dame Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Kors talk fashion". (August 2006) Harper's Bazaar, p. 116.

Further reading

Spoto, Donald (1995). A Passion For Life: The Biography of Elizabeth Taylor. New York: HarperCollins, ISBN 0-06-017657-1

External links

Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF)

Elizabeth Taylor Resource Extensive biography, separate entries for each film, TV, stage, news archive, photographs, etc.

American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR)

Kennedy Center bio. for Elizabeth Taylor

Profile @ Turner Classic Movies

Category:1932 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century actors Category:21st-century actors Category:Academy Honorary Award recipients Category:Actresses awarded British damehoods Category:AIDS activists Category:Alumni of University High School (Los Angeles, California) Category:American child actors Category:American film actors Category:American Jews Category:American stage actors Category:American television actors Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Best Actress Academy Award winners Category:Best Drama Actress Golden Globe (film) winners Category:British child actors Category:British film actors Category:British Jews Category:British stage actors Category:British television actors Category:Converts to Judaism Category:Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Category:Jewish actors Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:People from Hampstead Category:People from the Greater Los Angeles Area Category:People self-identifying as alcoholics Category:Presidential Citizens Medal recipients Category:Skin cancer survivors Category:Spouses of United States Senators

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.

Early life

Firth was born in Grayshott, Hampshire, United Kingdom, the son of Shirley Jean (née Rolles), a comparative religion lecturer at King Alfred's College Winchester (now the University of Winchester), and David Norman Lewis Firth, a history lecturer (also at King Alfred's) and education officer for the Nigerian Government. Firth has a sister, Kate, and a younger brother, Jonathan, who is also an actor. Firth's parents were raised in India, because his maternal grandparents, Congregationalist ministers, and his paternal grandfather, an Anglican priest, performed missionary work abroad. Firth spent part of his childhood in Nigeria, where his father was teaching. He lived in St. Louis, Missouri when he was 11. He later attended the Montgomery of Alamein Secondary School (now Kings' School), a state comprehensive school in Winchester, Hampshire, and then Barton Peveril College in Eastleigh, Hampshire. While in Kings' School, he wanted to play the guitar, but the school banned the guitar and saxophone, as they were "not serious instruments", and he was told to play the baritone euphonium instead. His acting training took place at the Drama Centre London.

Film career

In 1983, Firth starred as Guy Bennett the award-winning London stage production of Another Country. In 1984, he made his film debut in the screen adaptation of the play, taking the role of Tommy Judd (opposite Rupert Everett as Bennett). In 1986 he starred with Sir Laurence Olivier in Lost Empires, a TV adaptation of J. B. Priestley's novel, then in 1987 he appeared alongside Kenneth Branagh in the film version of J. L. Carr's, A Month in the Country. In 1989, he played the title role in the film Valmont, and was co-lead in the film Apartment Zero. Firth and other young British actors who were becoming established film actors such as Tim Roth, Gary Oldman, Bruce Payne and Paul McGann were dubbed the 'Brit Pack'.

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.

Other work

Firth played William Shakespeare in a comedy special entitled . Edmund Blackadder runs into Firth's character while he is working on Macbeth, asks him to sign the script for him, and then punches him, saying "That is for every schoolboy and schoolgirl for the next 400 years!".

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.

Writer

Firth's first published work, "The Department of Nothing", appeared in Speaking with the Angel (2000). This collection of short stories was edited by Nick Hornby and was published to benefit the TreeHouse Trust, in aid of autistic children. Firth had previously met Hornby during the filming of the original Fever Pitch. Colin Firth contributed with his writing for the book, We Are One: A Celebration of Tribal Peoples, released in 2009. The book explores the culture of peoples around the world, portraying both its diversity and facing threats. It counts with the contributions of many western writers, such as Laurens van der Post, Noam Chomsky, Claude Lévi-Strauss; and also indigenous peoples, such as Davi Kopenawa Yanomami and Roy Sesana. The royalties from the sale of this book go to the indigenous rights organization, Survival International.

Personal life

London premiere in October 2005]] Firth resides in Chiswick, London. In 1989, he entered into a romantic relationship with actress Meg Tilly his co-star in Valmont. In 1990, she gave birth to a son, William "Will" Joseph Firth, and they made their home in Canada. He still stays in contact with Will and with Tilly's other children for whom he was a stepfather. In 1994, after he and Tilly had separated, Firth became involved with actress Jennifer Ehle, his co-star in Pride and Prejudice and The King's Speech, but the two broke up eventually. Firth is currently married to Italian film producer/director Livia Giuggioli and lives in both London and Italy. They have two sons, Luca (born March 2001) and Matteo (born August 2003).

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.

Singing career

Firth has performed songs in many of his films, the most recent being Mamma Mia! He performs the song "Lady Come Down" alongside Rupert Everett in The Importance of Being Earnest as well as one song in St. Trinian's with Everett which appeared in the credits, an adaptation of "Love Is in the Air".

Filmography

References

Further reading

!

External links

Colin Firth Interview Part One and Part Two New Statesman - June 2010

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

Name	Chris Colfer
Caption	Colfer at the San Diego Comic-Con International, July 2010
Birth name	Christopher Paul Colfer
Birth date	May 27, 1990
Birth place	Clovis, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, singer
Years active	2009–present

Christopher Paul "Chris" Colfer (born May 27, 1990) is an American actor and singer, known for his portrayal of Kurt Hummel on Glee.

Early life and education

Colfer was born in Clovis, California. While a student at Clovis East High School, Colfer was involved with the Speech & Debate program where he won "many speech and debate Champion titles," the drama club, the FFA, "was president of the Writer’s Club, editor of the school's literary magazine, and captain of Destination ImagiNation." As a high school senior, he wrote, starred in, and directed a spoof of Sweeney Todd entitled "Shirley Todd", in which all of the roles were gender-reversed.

Career

At the age of eighteen, Colfer starred as Russel Fish in , a short film where an awkward teenager must pass a Presidential Physical Fitness test or fail gym class and lose his admission to Harvard University.

Colfer's first TV role came in 2009 when he was cast as Kurt Hummel on Fox's Glee as a flamboyant singer who is bullied by the school football team. Kurt Hummel was created especially for Colfer and the show's creator, Ryan Murphy, had to scrap another planned character called "Rajish" so they could add Hummel. Colfer has explained that Hummel "puts on a very confident, 'I'm better than you' persona, but underneath it all he's the same anxious and scared teen everyone is/was at some point. In later episodes, he goes through an identity crisis, accepting and finding acceptance for who he is. [...] He's a tough guy in designer clothes." The character is also gay, which is at the crux of many of his conflicts on the show. Colfer has a high vocal range, as displayed in the episode "Wheels", in which his character demonstrates the unusual ability (for a man) of singing a "high F" (an F5). However, his character deliberately pretends to be unable to sing the note in order to spare his father the harassment he would receive for having a gay son.

Chris Colfer appeared at the 2010 MTV VMAs on September 12, 2010.

Colfer will star in the coming-of-age comedy Struck By Lightning that's been set up with David Permut (Youth in Revolt). Colfer also wrote the script for "Lightning," which is to be shot during the "Glee" hiatus next summer.

Personal life

Colfer is openly gay and shared on Access Hollywood that his parents were accepting of him but he was frequently bullied at school. He originally auditioned for the role of Artie with the song "Mr. Cellophane" but Kevin McHale was selected for the role. However, the casting directors were so impressed by Colfer that they wrote the Kurt Hummel character into the show as a vehicle for him. Colfer's sister, Hannah, suffers from severe epilepsy, and often experiences over fifty seizures in an hour. Colfer has commented that when he was younger he used acting as a method of escaping the stress involved with having a sick family member.

Colfer appeared on the Friday Night With Jonathan Ross talk show on June 18, 2010, along with his fellow Glee co-stars Amber Riley and Matthew Morrison. He demonstrated his skill with a pair of sai, revealing that he bought a pair of them on eBay and regularly practices in his trailer when not shooting.

Filmography

Discography

(2009)

(2009)

(2010)

(2010)

(2010)

(2010)

(2010)

(2010)

Awards and nominations

References

External links

Category:1990 births Category:Actors from California Category:American male singers Category:American television actors Category:Gay actors Category:LGBT musicians from the United States Category:Living people Category:Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:People from Clovis, California Category:Singers from California