The Queen's Birthday Honours (or King's Birthday Honours) is a part of the British honours system, being a civic occasion on the celebration of the Queen's Official Birthday in which new members of most Commonwealth Realms honours are named. The awards are presented by the reigning monarch or head of state, currently Queen Elizabeth II. All Royal honours conferred by Her Majesty are made official by publication in supplements to the London Gazette. The lists are also published by the quality broadsheet newspapers, most notably The Times. Honours have been awarded on the monarch's birthday since at the latest 9 November 1908, the birthday of King Edward VII (1901–1910).^[1] After that year the monarch's official birthday was moved to 1, 2 or 3 June, on which date the Birthday Honours lists have subsequently been published.

Birthday Honours lists[link]

• 1908 Birthday Honours
• 1909 Birthday Honours
• 1910 Birthday Honours
• 1911 Birthday Honours
• 1912 Birthday Honours
• 1913 Birthday Honours
• 1914 Birthday Honours
• 1915 Birthday Honours
• 1916 Birthday Honours
• 1917 Birthday Honours
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• 1920 Birthday Honours
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• 1924 Birthday Honours
• 1925 Birthday Honours
• 1926 Birthday Honours
• 1927 Birthday Honours
• 1928 Birthday Honours
• 1929 Birthday Honours
• 1930 Birthday Honours
• 1931 Birthday Honours
• 1932 Birthday Honours
• 1933 Birthday Honours
• 1934 Birthday Honours
• 1935 Birthday Honours
• 1936 Birthday Honours
• 1937 Birthday Honours
• 1938 Birthday Honours
• 1939 Birthday Honours
• 1940 Birthday Honours
• 1941 Birthday Honours
• 1942 Birthday Honours
• 1943 Birthday Honours
• 1944 Birthday Honours
• 1945 Birthday Honours
• 1946 Birthday Honours
• 1947 Birthday Honours
• 1948 Birthday Honours
• 1949 Birthday Honours
• 1950 Birthday Honours
• 1951 Birthday Honours
• 1952 Birthday Honours
• 1953 Birthday Honours
• 1954 Birthday Honours
• 1955 Birthday Honours
• 1956 Birthday Honours
• 1957 Birthday Honours
• 1958 Birthday Honours
• 1959 Birthday Honours
• 1960 Birthday Honours
• 1961 Birthday Honours
• 1962 Birthday Honours
• 1963 Birthday Honours
• 1964 Birthday Honours
• 1965 Birthday Honours
• 1966 Birthday Honours
• 1967 Birthday Honours
• 1968 Birthday Honours
• 1969 Birthday Honours
• 1970 Birthday Honours
• 1971 Birthday Honours
• 1972 Birthday Honours
• 1973 Birthday Honours
• 1974 Birthday Honours
• 1975 Birthday Honours
• 1976 Birthday Honours
• 1977 Birthday Honours
• 1978 Birthday Honours
• 1979 Birthday Honours
• 1980 Birthday Honours
• 1981 Birthday Honours
• 1982 Birthday Honours
• 1983 Birthday Honours
• 1984 Birthday Honours
• 1985 Birthday Honours
• 1986 Birthday Honours
• 1987 Birthday Honours
• 1988 Birthday Honours
• 1989 Birthday Honours
• 1990 Birthday Honours
• 1991 Birthday Honours
• 1992 Birthday Honours
• 1993 Birthday Honours
• 1994 Birthday Honours
• 1995 Birthday Honours
• 1996 Birthday Honours
• 1997 Birthday Honours
• 1998 Birthday Honours
• 1999 Birthday Honours
• 2000 Birthday Honours
• 2001 Birthday Honours
• 2002 Birthday Honours
• 2003 Birthday Honours
• 2004 Birthday Honours
• 2005 Birthday Honours
• 2006 Birthday Honours
• 2007 Birthday Honours
• 2008 Birthday Honours
• 2009 Birthday Honours
• 2010 Birthday Honours
• 2011 Birthday Honours
• 2012 Birthday Honours

See also[link]

• Orders, decorations, and medals of Canada
• Orders, decorations, and medals of Australia
• Orders, decorations, and medals of New Zealand
• Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom

References[link]

Kenneth Branagh
Branagh in July 2009
Born	Kenneth Charles Branagh (1960-12-10) 10 December 1960 (age 51) Belfast, Northern Ireland
Occupation	Actor, film director
Years active	1981–present
Spouse	Emma Thompson (1989–95; divorced) Lindsay Brunnock (2003–present)

Kenneth Charles Branagh (/ˈbrænə/ BRAN-ə; born 10 December 1960) is an actor and film director from Northern Ireland. He is best known for directing and starring in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays including Henry V (1989) (for which he was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best Director), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Othello, Hamlet (1996) (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay), Love's Labour's Lost (2000), and As You Like It (2006).

He has also starred in numerous other films and television series including Fortunes of War (1987), Wild Wild West (1999), The Road to El Dorado (2000), Conspiracy (TV) (2001), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Warm Springs (TV) (2005), Valkyrie (2008), Wallander (TV series) (2008–present), and My Week with Marilyn (2011) as Laurence Olivier (Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor); and directed such notable films as Dead Again (1991) (also starring), Swan Song (1992) (Academy Award nominated for Best Live Action Short Film), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) (also starring), The Magic Flute (2006), Sleuth (2007), and the blockbuster action film Thor (2011).

Branagh has been nominated for five Academy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards, and has won an Emmy Award and three BAFTA Awards.

Early life[link]

Branagh, the middle of three children, was born and brought up in Belfast, the son of working-class Protestant parents Frances (née Harper) and William Branagh, a plumber and joiner who ran a company that specialised in fitting partitions and suspended ceilings.^[1] At the age of nine, he relocated with his family to Reading, Berkshire to escape the Troubles.^[2][3] He was educated at Grove Primary School,^[4] Whiteknights Primary School, then Meadway School, Tilehurst,^[5][6] where he appeared in school productions such as Toad of Toad Hall"^[7] and Oh, What a Lovely War!.^[8] At school, he acquired an English accent to avoid bullying. On his identity today he has said, "I feel Irish. I don't think you can take Belfast out of the boy," and he attributes his "love of words" to his Irish heritage.^[9][10] He is known to have attended the (Amateur) Reading Cine & Video Society (now called Reading Film & Video Makers)^[11] as a member.

Branagh went on to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.^[12]

Career[link]

Stage work[link]

Branagh achieved some early measure of success in his native Northern Ireland for his role as the title character in the BBC's Play for Today^[13] trilogy known as the Billy Plays (1982–84), written by Graham Reid and set in Belfast.

He received acclaim in the UK for his stage performances, first winning the 1982 SWET Award for Best Newcomer, for his role as Judd in Julian Mitchell's Another Country, immediately after leaving RADA. Branagh was part of the 'new wave’ of actors to emerge from the Academy. Others included Jonathan Pryce, Juliet Stevenson, Alan Rickman, Anton Lesser, Bruce Payne and Fiona Shaw. In 1984 he appeared in the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Henry V, directed by Adrian Noble. The production played to full houses, especially at the Barbican in London. It was this production that he adapted for the film version of the play in 1989. He and David Parfitt founded the Renaissance Theatre Company in 1987, following success with several productions on the London 'Fringe', including Branagh's full-scale production of Romeo and Juliet at the Lyric Studio, co-starring with Samantha Bond. The first major Renaissance production was Branagh's Christmas 1987 staging of Twelfth Night at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, starring Richard Briers as Malvolio and Frances Barber as Viola, and with an original score by actor, musician and composer Patrick Doyle, who two years later was to compose the music for Branagh's film adaptation of Henry V. This Twelfth Night was later adapted for television.

Branagh became a major presence in the media and on the British stage when Renaissance collaborated with Birmingham Rep for a 1988 touring season of three Shakespeare plays under the umbrella title of Renaissance Shakespeare on the Road, which also played a repertory season at the Phoenix Theatre in London. It featured directorial debuts for Judi Dench with Much Ado About Nothing (starring Branagh and Emma Thompson as Benedick and Beatrice), Geraldine McEwan with As You Like It, and Derek Jacobi directing Branagh in the title role in Hamlet, with Sophie Thompson as Ophelia. Critic Milton Shulman of the London Evening Standard wrote: "On the positive side Branagh has the vitality of Olivier, the passion of Gielgud, the assurance of Guinness, to mention but three famous actors who have essayed the role. On the negative side, he has not got the magnetism of Olivier, nor the mellifluous voice quality of Gielgud nor the intelligence of Guinness."^[14]

A year later in 1989 Branagh co-starred with Emma Thompson in the Renaissance revival of Look Back in Anger. Judi Dench directed both the theatre and television productions, presented first in Belfast then at the London Coliseum and Lyric Theatre.

In 2002, Branagh starred at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield as Richard III. In 2003 he starred in the Royal National Theatre's production of David Mamet's Edmond. Branagh directed The Play What I Wrote in England in 2001^[15] and directed a Broadway production in 2003.^[16][17] From September to November 2008, Branagh appeared at Wyndham's Theatre as the title character in the Donmar West End revival of Anton Chekhov's Ivanov in a new version by Tom Stoppard. His performance was lauded as the "performance of the year" by several critics.^[18] It won him the Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Male Performance but did not get him a Laurence Olivier Award nomination, to the surprise of critics.^[19]

Branagh in April 2011

Film work[link]

Branagh is known for his film adaptations of William Shakespeare, beginning with Henry V (1989), followed by Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Othello (1995), Hamlet (1996), Love's Labour's Lost (2000) and As You Like It (2006). As You Like It premiered in theatres in Europe, but was sent directly to television in the U.S., where it aired on HBO in August 2007.

Notable non-Shakespeare films in which Branagh has appeared include Dead Again (1991) and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), both of which he also directed, Wild Wild West (1999), Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) and Valkyrie (2008). He starred as Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). He also played the Minister, Dormandy, (a parody of PMG Tony Benn) in the film The Boat That Rocked (2009).

From 1989 to 1996, Branagh mostly directed his own films, but the commercial and critical failure of Love's Labour's Lost ended his directorial career for a time. In 2006, the same year that Branagh's film version of As You Like It was released, he also directed a film version of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute. Branagh has also directed the thriller Sleuth (2007), a remake of the 1972 film. At a film promotion for Valkyrie in 2008, Branagh confirmed that he would be directing Thor, a film based on the Marvel superhero.^[20] Thor, Branagh's return to big-budget directing, released on 6 May 2011.^[21] In 2011, Branagh portrayed Sir Laurence Olivier in My Week with Marilyn.

Television[link]

Branagh has also been involved in several made-for-TV films. Among his most acclaimed portrayals is that of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the film Warm Springs (2005), for which he received an Emmy Award nomination. Though the film received 16 Emmy nominations, winning five (including Best Made-For-Television Film), Branagh did not win the award for his portrayal. He did, though, receive an Emmy for his portrayal of SS leader Reinhard Heydrich in the TV film Conspiracy (2001), a depiction of the Wannsee Conference, where Nazi officials decided on the Final Solution. In 2002 Branagh starred in the two-part television movie Shackleton, a dramatization of the 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition's battle for survival, for which he was nominated for a BAFTA award and an Emmy.^[22] Branagh also narrated the BBC documentaries Walking With Dinosaurs, World War 1 in Colour, Walking With Beasts and Walking With Monsters, and the BBC miniseries Great Composers.

Branagh is the star of the Wallander television series, adaptations of Henning Mankell's best-selling Wallander crime novels. Branagh plays the eponymous Inspector Kurt Wallander and also serves as the executive producer of the series. The first three films were broadcast on BBC One in November and December 2008.^[23] Branagh won the award for best actor at the 35th Broadcasting Press Guild Television and Radio Awards (2009). It was his first major television award win in the UK.^[24] He received his first BAFTA TV on 26 April 2009 for the British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series.^[25] For his performance in the episode One Step Behind, he was nominated in the Outstanding Actor, Miniseries or Movie category of the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards.^[26] The role also gained him a nomination for Best Actor at the 2009 Crime Thriller Awards.^[27] The second season of three episodes were filmed in 2009 and aired in January 2010 on the BBC and October/November 2010 on PBS in the US. Plans have been announced for a third season of six episodes—the last three Mankell novels, as well as three original Wallander stories.

Radio[link]

Branagh has also played the title role in BBC radio broadcasts of Hamlet and Cyrano de Bergerac,and the role of Edmund in King Lear.

Other work[link]

Branagh has narrated several audio books, such as The Magician's Nephew by C. S. Lewis.^[28]

Branagh in July 2009 at the Roma Fiction Fest, where he was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award

Personal life[link]

Branagh was married from 20 August 1989 until 1995 to actress Emma Thompson, with whom he starred in Fortunes of War among other projects. After their divorce, he was in a well-publicised relationship for several years with actress Helena Bonham Carter, whom he directed and starred with in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In 2003, he married film art director Lindsay Brunnock,^[29] to whom he was introduced by Bonham Carter in 1997.^[30]

He is a lifelong supporter of Belfast football team Linfield, as well as Tottenham Hotspur and Rangers.^[31]

He speaks Italian.^{[citation needed]}

Honours[link]

Branagh has been nominated for five Academy Awards, the first man to be nominated for five different categories. His first two nominations were for Henry V (one each for directing and acting). He also received similar BAFTA Award nominations for his film work, winning one for his direction. His first BAFTA TV award came in April 2009, for Best Drama Series (Wallander). Branagh's two other Academy Award nominations were for the 1992 film short subject Swan Song and for his work on the screenplay of Hamlet in 1996. His most recent is for his portrayal of Lord Laurence Olivier in My Week With Marilyn. Branagh has co-starred several times with actress Emma Thompson, to whom he was married from 1989 to 1995. They appeared together in Look Back in Anger, Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Dead Again, and Peter's Friends. More recently, they both appeared in The Boat That Rocked, though with no shared scenes.

He is Honorary President of NICVA (the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action). He received an honorary Doctorate in Literature from Queen's University of Belfast in 1990. He is also a patron for the charity Over The Wall.^[32]

In 1994, Branagh declined an appointment as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).^[33]

Branagh was the youngest actor to receive the Golden Quill (also known as the Gielgud Award) in 2000.

Alongside Roberto Benigni, he is one of only two non-American actors to be nominated for Oscars for acting, writing, and directing, and one of nine actors to have achieved this honour. The other seven are Orson Welles, Woody Allen, Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, George Clooney, John Huston and John Cassavetes.

On 10 July 2009, Branagh was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the RomaFictionFest.^[34]

Filmography[link]

Actor[link]

Director[link]

Narrator[link]

• Anne Frank Remembered (Documentary) (1995)
• Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood (Six-part TV special) (1996)
• Great Composers (TV mini-series) (1997)
• Cold War (CNN TV series) (1998)
• The Making of Walking with Dinosaurs (UK version) (TV series) (1999)
• Walking with Dinosaurs (UK version) (TV series) (1999)
• The Science of Walking with Beasts (Australia) (Two-part TV special) (2001)
• The Ballad of Big Al (UK version) (TV special) (2001)
• Walking with Beasts (UK version) (TV series) (2001)
• The Tramp and the Dictator (Documentary) (2002)
• Walking with Monsters: Life Before Dinosaurs (TV series) (2005)
• Goebbels-Experiment, Das (Documentary) (2005)
• IMAX: Galapagos (Documentary)
• World War 1 in Colour (Documentary) (2005)

Awards and nominations[link]

Discography and audiobooks[link]

• Shakespeare's Richard III (complete) for Naxos Audiobooks
• In the Ravine & Other Short Stories by Anton Chekhov (unabridged) for Naxos Audiobooks
• Felix Mendelssohn's incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream (speaker) live recording for Sony Classical, conducted by Claudio Abbado
• The Diary of Samuel Pepys 1660–1669 (abridged) for Hodder Headline Audio Classics
• The Magician's Nephew by C.S Lewis for Harper Books
• Shakespeare's "Sonnet 30" for the 2002 compilation album, When Love Speaks (EMI Classics)
• Mary Shelley's Frankenstein [Abridged]
• Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness for Audible.com.

Further reading[link]

• Kenneth Branagh (1990 [1989]) Beginning, London: Chatto and Windus, ISBN 0-7011-3388-0; New York: W W Norton & Co, ISBN 0-393-02862-3
• Ian Shuttleworth (1994) Ken & Em, London: Headline. ISBN 0-7472-4718-8
• Mark White (2005) Kenneth Branagh, London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-22068-1
• Theatre Record and its annual Indexes

See also[link]

• Breathnach

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kenneth Branagh

• Kenneth Branagh at the Internet Movie Database
• Biography on Tiscali film section
• Kenneth Branagh interview from Premiere (1996)
• Branagh Collection at Queen's University, Belfast
• Branagh's Wallander - Website relating to the BBC's English-language Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh

Eric Barrett Winter (born July 17, 1976) is an American actor and former fashion model. He is also ambassador for Operation Smile.

Career[link]

At a young age, Winter began painting imitations. His most famous interpretation is that of "Sunday in the Park With George" but he prefers to recall it as "Winter in the park with Eric". Although most of his most famous paintings were canvas work, he has done many murals - Winter in the Park with Eric being one of them. This outrageously famous painting is pictured in a home in Elkhorn, Wisconsin - very near to the home of the BearCoon. After expressing his emotions through the medium of paint for quite sometime, Eric looked into another output for his talents and began acting.

Before his acting roles, Winter was a male model and had some high profile campaigns, such as one print campaign for Tommy Hilfiger. He also landed a part in a television commercial ad with Britney Spears for her perfume called Curious. Winter is best known for playing the role of Rex Brady on the daytime soap opera Days of our Lives. Winter joined the show from July 8, 2002 until his final appearance on July 26, 2005.

After leaving Days of our Lives, Winter had many small roles in television shows, such as CSI, Love, Inc., Charmed and the now-cancelled Just Legal. He has guest starred on ABC Family's Wildfire for five episodes. His character, R.J. Blake, a bull-rider who dated the character of Dani Davis (played by Nicole Tubiola), was killed in the episode "Heartless" which aired originally on Monday, February 28, 2007. Winter has also appeared on The Parkers in the episode The Boomerang Effect.

More recently, Winter has appeared in an episode of the CBS series The Ex-List, and a recurring role of Jason McCallister, the brother of Senator Robert McCallister (Rob Lowe) and love interest of Kevin Walker (Matthew Rhys) on the ABC drama Brothers & Sisters. He was also a regular on the CBS series Viva Laughlin. However, that show was canceled after only two episodes on October 22, 2007. He also appeared on the cancelled CBS series Moonlight as ADA Benjamin Talbot.

Winter also recently signed a one-year talent holding deal with 20th Century Fox Television.

He also starred in the 2008 film, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay and 2009 film The Ugly Truth, the latter alongside Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler.

Winter appeared in the CBS crime drama The Mentalist as FBI agent Craig O'Laughlin, the boyfriend and later fiancé of Amanda Righetti's character Grace Van Pelt. Eric left the show after his character was found to be working for serial killer Red John and he was shot dead by Van Pelt. Winter currently plays Luke Lourd on ABC's show GCB (TV series).

Personal life[link]

Eric Barrett Winter was born an only child in La Mirada, California. Some references site him as Eric Barnett Winter. Son of Wayne Winter and his second wife Gwen Macomber Winter Zaborniak. He went to Los Altos High School and from there attended and graduated from UCLA with a degree in psychology. Although an only child he has an older half-brother Robert W. Winter (born 1962) from his father's first marriage to Barbara L. Worthey. Eric and his cousin Anney Tesloyn Gomez, the choreorapher and singer, were brought up together during their childhood. They both appear in many small films and as cameos.

Eric Winter was married to actress Allison Christine Ford from 2001 until 2005. He dated actress Roselyn Sánchez for two years prior to their engagement on January 1, 2008 during a holiday vacation on the island of Vieques, just east of mainland Puerto Rico. The couple wed on November 29, 2008, at a historic San Juan fort in Puerto Rico.^[1] In August 2011, Sánchez announced she and Winter were expecting their first child together.^[2] On January 4 2012, Sánchez and Winter welcomed daughter Sebella Rose Winter.^[3]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Eric Winter Online
• Eric Winter at the Internet Movie Database