Mona Washbourne (born 27 November 1903, Birmingham, Warwickshire - died 15 November 1988, London) was an English actress of stage, film and television.

Mona Washbourne began her entertaining career training as a concert pianist. While performing on stage in the early 1920s, she found that she liked acting and became an actress.^{[citation needed]} In 1948, after numerous stage musical performances, Washbourne began appearing in films. Her film credits include Billy Liar (1963) and The Collector (1965). She played Mrs. Pearce in 1964's My Fair Lady, the stern and caustic Mrs. Bramson in the remake of Night Must Fall, and the Matron in the 1968 film, If.....

She appeared at both the Royal Court Theatre in London and on Broadway in 1970 in David Storey's Home. She was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play. She won the 1981 New York Film Critics' Circle Awards for Best Supporting Actress in Stevie.

In 1981, Mona Washbourne appeared in Granada Television's adaptation of Brideshead Revisited in the role of Nanny Hawkins.

Family[link]

Her husband Basil Dignam and her brother-in-law Mark Dignam were stage and film actors.

Her sister Katherine Washbourne was a noted violinist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Adrian Boult.

One of her grand-nephews is Richard Washbourne of "Interactive TV Today" [itvt] in San Francisco.

Selected filmography[link]

External links[link]

• Mona Washbourne at the Internet Movie Database
• Performances listed in the Theatre Archive University of Bristol

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William Wyler (July 1, 1902 – July 27, 1981) was a leading Alsatian-born American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter who made his mark in Hollywood as one of film industry's icons.^[1]

Notable works included Ben-Hur (1959), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), and Mrs. Miniver (1942), all of which won Wyler Academy Awards for Best Director, and also won Best Picture. He earned his first Oscar nomination for directing Dodsworth in 1936, starring Walter Huston and Mary Astor, "sparking a 20-year run of almost unbroken greatness."^[2]

Film historian Ian Freer calls Wyler a "bona fide perfectionist," whose penchant for retakes and an attempt to hone every last nuance, "became the stuff of legend."^[3] His ability to direct a string of classic literary adaptations into huge box-office and critical successes made him one of "Hollywood's most bankable moviemakers" during the 1930s and 1940s.

Other popular films include Funny Girl (1968), How to Steal a Million (1966), The Big Country (1958), Roman Holiday (1953), The Heiress (1949), The Letter (1940), The Westerner (1940), Wuthering Heights (1939), Jezebel (1938), Dodsworth (1936), A House Divided (1931), and Hell's Heroes (1930).

Early life[link]

Wyler was born Willi Wyler to a Jewish family, a Swiss father and a German mother,^[4] in Mulhouse in the French region of Alsace (then part of the German Empire).^[5] His mother was a cousin of Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal Pictures. His father, Leopold, started as a traveling salesman which he later turned into a thriving haberdashery business.

During his childhood, Wyler attended a number of schools and developed a reputation as "something of a hellraiser," being expelled more than once for misbehavior.^[6] His mother often took him and his older brother Robert, to concerts, opera, and the theatre, as well as the early cinema. Sometimes at home his family and their friends would stage amateur theatricals for personal enjoyment.^[7]

After realizing that William was not interested in the family business, and having suffered through a terrible year financially after World War I, his mother, Melanie, contacted her distant cousin about opportunities for him. Laemmle was in the habit of coming to Europe each year and finding promising young men who would work in America.

In 1921, Wyler, traveling as a Swiss citizen (his father's status automatically conferred Swiss citizenship to his sons ^[1]) found himself and a young Czech man, Paul Kohner (later the independent agent) on the same ship to New York. Their enjoyment of the first class trip was short lived as they found they had to pay back the cost of the passage out of their $25 weekly income as messengers to Universal Pictures in New York. After working in New York for several years, and even serving in the New York National Guard for a year, Wyler decided he wanted to go to Hollywood and be a director.^[1]

Film career[link]

Around 1923, applying for US citizenship at the time, Wyler arrived in Los Angeles and began work on the Universal Studios lot in the swing gang, cleaning the stages and moving the sets. His break came when he was hired as a 2nd assistant editor. His work ethic was uneven at best with Irving Thalberg nicknaming him "Worthless Willy". After some ups and downs (including getting fired) Wyler became focused on becoming a director. He started as a third assistant director and by 1925 he became the youngest director on the Universal lot directing the Westerns that Universal was famed at turning out. In 1928, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.^[8] He directed his first non-Western, the lost Anybody Here Seen Kelly?, in 1928. These were followed by his first part-talkie films, The Shakedown and The Love Trap.

Wyler soon proved himself an able craftsman and in the early 1930s became one of Universal's greatest assets, directing such solid films as The Love Trap, Hell's Heroes, Tom Brown of Culver, and The Good Fairy. He became well known for his merciless (some would say sadistic) insistence on multiple retakes, resulting in often award-winning and critically acclaimed performances from his actors. After leaving Universal he began a long collaboration with Samuel Goldwyn for whom he directed such classics as Dodsworth (1936), These Three (1936), Dead End (1937), Wuthering Heights (1939), The Westerner (1940), The Little Foxes (1941) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).

Laurence Olivier, whom Wyler directed to his first-ever Oscar nomination, for Wuthering Heights, credited Wyler with teaching him how to act for the screen, despite clashing with Wyler on multiple occasions during the making of the film. Olivier would go on to hold the record for the most nominations in the Best Actor category. Bette Davis received three Oscar nominations for her screen work under Wyler, and won her second Oscar for her performance in Wyler's 1938 film Jezebel. Charlton Heston won his only nomination and Best Actor Oscar for his work in Wyler's 1959 Ben-Hur. Barbra Streisand co-won 1968's Best Actress Oscar for her screen debut as entertainer Fanny Brice in Funny Girl. Audrey Hepburn won an Oscar in her debut performance in Roman Holiday. In all, 13 actors would win Oscars under Wyler's direction.

In 1941, Wyler directed one of the key films that galvanized support for Britain and against the Nazis in an America slow to awaken to the threat in Europe, it was Mrs. Miniver (1942), a story of a middle class English family adjusting to the war in Europe. Mrs. Miniver won Wyler his first Academy Award for Best Director, as well as another five Oscars.

Wyler was such a perfectionist that he earned the nickname "90-take Wyler". On the set of Jezebel Wyler forced Henry Fonda through 40 takes of one particular scene, his only guidance being "Again!" after each take. When Fonda asked for more direction, Wyler responded, "It stinks". Similarly, when Charlton Heston quizzed the director about the supposed shortcomings in his performance in Ben-Hur, Wyler dismissed his concerns with a simple "Be better".^[9]

World War II[link]

Between 1942 and 1945, Wyler served as a major in the United States Army Air Forces and directed two documentaries The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944) and Thunderbolt! (1947), with Lester Koenig and John Sturges, the story of a P-47 fighter-bomber squadron in the Mediterranean. Wyler filmed The Memphis Belle at great personal risk flying over enemy territory on actual bombing missions in 1943; on one flight, Wyler passed out from lack of oxygen. Wyler's associate, cinematographer Harold J. Tannenbaum was shot down and perished during the filming.^{[10][page needed]} The exposure to the sound of the aircraft's engines resulted in Wyler losing his hearing in one ear.

Wyler also directed a film which captured the mood of the nation as it turned to peace after the war. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), the story of three veterans arriving home and adjusting to civilian life, dramatized the problems of returning veterans for those who had remained on the homefront. Wyler's most personal film, taken from his experiences away from his family for three years and on the front, The Best Years of Our Lives won the Academy Award for Best Director (his second) and Academy Award for Best Picture.

Postwar career[link]

During the immediate postwar period, Wyler directed a handful of critically acclaimed and influential films, The Heiress which earned Olivia de Havilland her second Oscar, Roman Holiday (1953), which introduced Audrey Hepburn to American audiences and resulted in her first Oscar nomination and win, Friendly Persuasion (1956) which was awarded the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the Cannes Film Festival, and Ben-Hur (1959) which won 11 Oscars (equalled only twice, by Titanic in 1997 and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2003). Wyler won his third Academy Award for Best Director for Ben-Hur .

Wyler's films garnered more awards for participating artists and actors than any other director in the history of Hollywood. He received 12 Oscar nominations for Best Director in total, while dozens of his collaborators and actors won Oscars or were nominated. In 1965, Wyler won the Irving Thalberg Award for career achievement. Eleven years later, he received the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award. In addition to his Best Picture and Best Director Oscar wins, 13 of Wyler's films earned Best Picture nominations.

Wyler's style is (among auteurist critics) notoriously difficult to perceive. He did not build a stable of players like most directors, although frequent collaborators included composer Alfred Newman, and editors Daniel Madell and Robert Swink. He directed varied types of films without any trademark shots or themes, but in his choice of lighting, blocking and camera distance, and in the serious liberal tone of his work, a continuity of worldview is detectable.

Other Wyler pictures that appeared at this time include The Children's Hour, The Collector, Funny Girl (which earned Barbra Streisand the Best Actress Oscar), and his final film The Liberation of L.B. Jones. He planned other films, but bad health forced him to drop out of the movies and he spent more time with his family.

On July 24, 1981, Wyler gave an interview with his daughter, producer Catherine Wyler for Directed by William Wyler, a PBS documentary about his life and career. A mere three days later, Wyler died from a heart attack. Wyler's last words on film concern a vision of directing his "next picture...Going Home". Wyler is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Wyler was briefly married to Margaret Sullavan (November 25, 1934 - March 13, 1936) and married Margaret Tallichet on October 23, 1938. The couple remained together until his death; they had five children, Catherine, Judith, William Jr., Melanie and David.

Awards[link]

Wyler is the most nominated director in Academy Awards history with 12 nominations. In addition to that, Wyler has the distinction of having won the Academy Award for Best Direction on three occasions, for his direction of Ben Hur, The Best Years of Our Lives, and Mrs. Miniver. He is tied with Frank Capra and behind John Ford, who won four Oscars in this category.

William Wyler received the fourth AFI LIfe Achievement Award in 1976.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

External links[link]

• William Wyler at the Internet Movie Database
• William Wyler bibliography via UC Berkeley Media Resources Center
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• "The Little Foxes" and Wyler's screen collaborations with playwright Lillian Hellman
• Margaret Tallichet and William Wyler remembered at Alabama festival

Robert Powell (born 1 June 1944) is an English television and film actor, best known for the title role in Jesus of Nazareth (1977) and as the fictional secret agent Richard Hannay. His distinctive voice has become well known in advertisements and documentaries.

He is also known for his role as Mark Williams in BBC One medical drama, Holby City, and in the sitcom The Detectives alongside Jasper Carrott.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Powell was born in Salford, Lancashire the son of Kathleen (née Davis) and John Wilson Powell.^[1]

Education[link]

Powell was educated at Manchester Grammar School, an independent school for boys in the city of Manchester in North West England, and later at the University of Salford. One of his classmates was Ben Kingsley, another famous actor, from nearby Pendlebury also in Salford.

Career[link]

Powell took up acting while an undergraduate. He had aspired to become a lawyer and in 1963-4 attended an external London University LLB degree Course at the Manchester College of Commerce but at the same time quietly took acting roles under Trevor Nunn. At the College of Commerce he swapped roles with Bernard Brandon in a week long College Revue of Comedy Sketches to see which role gave him "the best laughs". This early comedy experience was later to be fulfilled with Jasper Carrot. After this he secured a post at a repetory theatre in Stoke on Trent. He had a small role in the original film version of The Italian Job (1969) playing one of the gang, but had to wait a few years for his first success, playing scientist Toby Wren in the BBC's science fiction series, Doomwatch in 1970. Having been killed off in the last episode of the original series, at his request, Powell became a pin-up and a household name, following up with starring roles in several BBC serials, including television adaptations of the novels Sentimental Education (1970) and Jude the Obscure (1971). He also appeared in the 1975 series Looking for Clancy, based on the Frederic Mullally novel Clancy.

For several years Powell continued as a television regular, with occasional forays into film, as the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler in the Ken Russell biopic Mahler (1974) and Captain Walker in Russell's film version of Tommy (1975). His role in Tommy had no lines at all and apart from a few early scenes during the overture with Ann-Margret, he is primarily seen through the mind of his son as played by Barry Winch (Young Tommy) and Roger Daltrey. In one of those scenes Captain Walker is shown in a crucifixion pose.

He then played Jesus Christ in Jesus of Nazareth (1977) following a successful second audition with Franco Zeffirelli. The two-part television film had an all-star cast, including Laurence Olivier, Christopher Plummer, Rod Steiger and James Mason. For this role, Powell was nominated for a BAFTA award, and collected the TVTimes Best Actor award for the same performance.

In 1975, Powell married his girlfriend, the Pan's People dancer Babs Lord, quickly and quietly, partly because he was about to start filming for Jesus of Nazareth, and partly to overcome problems if she flew out to see him on location in Morocco. Both felt it would be easier if they were married. On 23 November 1977, they had their son, Barney, followed in 1979 by a daughter, Kate.

In 1978, Powell took the leading role of Richard Hannay in the third film version of The Thirty Nine Steps. It met with modest success, and critics compared Powell's portrayal of John Buchan's character favourably with his predecessors. His characterisation did indeed prove to be enduring, as almost ten years later a television series entitled simply Hannay appeared with Powell back in the role, (although the Buchan short stories on which the series was based were set in an earlier period than The Thirty-Nine Steps). Hannay ran for two seasons.

In 1980 Powell appeared in the film Harlequin playing the Harlequin of the title who seems to have the power to cure the son of a powerful politician. For this performance, he won the Best Actor Award at the Paris Film Festival. In 1982, he won Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival for his role in Imperativ.

Powell then agreed to a request from his old friend and golf partner, comedian Jasper Carrott, taking the part of an incompetent detective in a succession of sketches that formed part of Carrott's television series. The Detectives was so popular that it was turned into a sitcom, Powell's first and only venture into this genre.

In 1984, Powell made his U.S. film debut in What Waits Below (as known as Secrets of the Phantom Caverns).^[2]

In 1986, Powell narrated and co-starred in William C. Faure's popular miniseries Shaka Zulu, with soccer legend Henry Cele in the title role. In 1992, he starred in the New Zealand World War I film Chunuk Bair, as Sgt Maj Frank Smith. In 1993-1995, he was the voice actor of Dr. Livesey in The Legends of Treasure Island.

Nowadays Powell appears in person less often, but his distinctive voice is frequently heard on voice-overs, advertisements, and as a narrator of television programmes such as Great Crimes and Trials and The Century of Warfare. He has also narrated many audio books including The Thirty Nine Steps, abridged versions of many of Alan Garner's books, and several abridged novels for 'The Talking Classics Collection'. Powell has also lent his voice to musical works, such as David Bedford's album The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,^[3] or the 2002 rock opera The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Clive Nolan and Oliver Wakeman, where he played the role of John Watson. He also made use of his narrating skills on two rock albums by Rick Wakeman called Cost of Living and The Gospels (1987).

On 29 October 2001 a state-of-the-art theatre named after him was opened at the University of Salford.^[4] In early 2005 he became a regular in the UK TV medical drama, Holby City, where he remained for six years before departing to return to theatre.^[5] On 9 February 2008 he performed as narrator in Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf with the Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra with conductor Natalia Luis-Bassa in the North of England.^[6] He currently has a regular spot narrating literary passages on BBC4's The Book Quiz.

Filmography[link]

• Robbery (1967)
• Walk a Crooked Path (1969)
• The Italian Job (1969)
• Secrets (1971)
• Running Scared (1972)
• Asylum (1972)
• Shelley (1972, television film)
• The Asphyx (1973)
• Mahler (1974)
• Tommy (1975)
• Jesus of Nazareth (1977)
• The Four Feathers (1977)
• The Thirty Nine Steps (1978)
• Harlequin (1980)
• Jane Austen in Manhattan (1980)
• The Survivor (1981)
• Imperativ (1982)
• The Jigsaw Man (1983)
• What Waits Below (1984)
• D'Annunzio (1985)
• Shaka Zulu (1986)
• Chunuk Bair (1992)
• Fantomcat (1995)
• Pride of Africa (1997)
• The Alchemist of Happiness (documentary) (2004) - voiceover Al-Ghazali
• B-Mail (short animation) (2006) - voiceover The Pink Professor

References[link]

External links[link]

• Robert Powell at the Internet Movie Database
• Robert Powell's Holby City profile at What's on TV

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Its only attribution is to IMDb, which may not be a reliable source for biographical information. Please help by adding additional, reliable sources for verification. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (April 2008)

Vanessa Howard (born 1948) is a British former film actress. She married film producer Robert Chartoff in July 1970.

Filmography[link]

Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1967) - Audrey
The Blood Beast Terror (1968) - Meg Quennell.
Corruption (1968) - Kate
A Promise of Bed (1969) - Barbara
Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly (1969) - Girly
Lock Up Your Daughters! (1969) - Hoyden
Some Girls Do (1969) - Robot Number Seven
All the Way Up (1970) - Avril Hadfield
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970) - Patricia Cartwright
What Became of Jack and Jill? (1972) - Jill Standish
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1973) (TV) - Sybil Vane

External links[link]

• Vanessa Howard at the Internet Movie Database

Howard R. Paul (born November 15, 1960 in Petersburg, Virginia) is President/CEO of Benedetto Guitars, Inc., a company he co-founded with American luthier Robert Benedetto in June 2006 following Benedetto's departure from a seven year licensing agreement with Fender Musical Instruments Company. Benedetto Guitars was begun in 1968 and is an boutique American archtop guitar manufacturer internationally renown for building hand-carved instruments popular with jazz guitarists and collectors. The company is currently based in Savannah, Georgia and produces 150 to 300 instruments per year.

Paul, a professional guitarist and business man partnered with Benedetto following a ten year career as a US Army logistics officer (TC 1987-1996) and ten years as an executive with www.chathamsteel.com (1996-2006). He holds a BA in Political Science from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (1984) and was commissioned as a lieutenant following completion Infantry Officer Candidate School in January 1987 and the US Army Transportation School. He served tours of Desert Storm assigned to 3rd Army HQ and Somalia attached to the 10th Mountain Division.

Paul's musical background began at age four in Northfield New Jersey with his first guitar. He began playing jazz at age ten and worked professionally beginning at age thirteen in Atlantic City, New Jersey. His recent work includes performances with pianist/composer Bob James, George Mesterhazy, guitarists Bucky Pizzarelli, Howard Alden, Jack Wilkins, Joe Beck, Andreas Oberg, Jimmy Bruno, Joe Negri, and Frank Vignola. He's performed in venues include The Savannah Jazz Festival and Savannah Music Festival, Smithsonian Jazz Cafe, The Jazz Corner (Hilton Head, South Carolina), The Jazz Kitchen (Indianapolis, Indiana), Kuumbwa Jazz Center (San Jose, California, Yoshi's (Oakland, California), and The Blue Wisp (Cincinnati, Ohio) and Silo Jazz (Napa, California). His recent recordings include Bob James & Howard Paul, Just Friends: The Hamilton Hall Sessions', and Ali Ryerson Trio, Jamin' At The Jazz Corner. He was inducted into the Savannah Coastal Jazz Hall of Fame in 2011.