A Very Important Person, or VIP is a person who is accorded special privileges due to his or her status or importance.

Examples include celebrities, heads of state/heads of government, major employers, high rollers, politicians, high-level corporate officers, wealthy individuals, or any other notable person who receives special treatment for some reason. In some cases, such as tickets to events, VIP may be used as a title in a similar way to premium, and these "VIP tickets" can be purchased by anyone. The term was coined between 1930 and 1940.

VIP syndrome is a term used to describe a situation when a perceived VIP uses his/her status to influence a given professional to make unorthodox decisions under the pressure or presence of the individual.

The term can be applied to any profession which has relationships with wealthy, famous and/or powerful clients or patients, particularly medical or airline professions...

A person is a being, such as a human, that has certain capacities or attributes constituting personhood, the precise definition of which is the subject of much controversy.^{[vague language]} The common plural of "person", "people", is often used to refer to an entire nation or ethnic group (as in "a people"), so the plural "persons" is often used in contexts which require precision such as philosophical and legal writing.

In ancient Rome, the word "persona" (Latin) or "prosopon" (πρόσωπον: Greek) originally referred to the masks worn by actors on stage. The various masks represented the various "personae" in the stage play, while the masks themselves helped the actor's voice resonate and made it easier for the audience to hear.

In Roman law, the word "persona" became used to refer to a role played in court, and it became established that it was the role rather than the actor that could have rights, powers, and duties, because different individuals could assume the same roles, the rights, powers, and duties followed the role rather than the actor, and each individual could act in more than one role, each a different "person" in law.^{[tortured english][citation needed]}

David Keith McCallum, Jr. (born 19 September 1933) is a Scottish actor and musician. He is best known for his roles as Illya Kuryakin, a Russian-born secret agent, in the 1960s television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., as interdimensional operative Steel in Sapphire & Steel, and Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard in the series NCIS.

McCallum was born in Glasgow, the second of two sons of Dorothy Dorman, a cellist, and orchestral leader David McCallum, Sr. When he was 10, his family moved to London. Involved in local amateur drama, aged 17 he appeared as Oberon in an open-air production of A Midsummer Night's Dream with the Play and Pageant Union.

McCallum won a scholarship to University College School, a boys' independent school in Hampstead, London, followed by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (also in London).

McCallum became Assistant Stage Manager of the Glyndebourne Opera Company in 1951.

In 1951 he did his National Service where he was commissioned into the Middlesex Regiment and seconded to the Gold Coast Regiment.

Anthony Valentine (born 17 August 1939) is an English actor.

Valentine was born in Blackburn, Lancashire. Valentine was educated at the Valerie Glynne School and Acton County Grammar School, London.

He worked as a child actor for the BBC, and appeared at the age of 10 in the film No Way Back (1949) and aged 12 in The Girl on the Pier (1953). He played Harry Wharton in the 1950s BBC children's adaptation of Billy Bunter (1955–57).

In 1958, Valentine appeared opposite Laurence Olivier and Irene Worth in a production of Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman as part of the ITV Play of the Week series.

He is best known for his roles on television, most notably the ruthless Toby Meres in the series Callan (1967–72), sinister Luftwaffe Officer, Major Horst Mohn in the BBC drama Colditz (1974) and the eponymous Raffles (1975–1977).

Other TV appearances include A for Andromeda (1961), Z Cars (1972), The Avengers (1967, 1968), Softly, Softly (1969), Department S (1970), Budgie (1971), Codename (1970), Space: 1999 (1975), Raffles (1976), Minder (1979, 1980) playing Maurice, a professional gambler, Tales of the Unexpected (1980, 1982), Airline (1982) (in the first episode as Squadron Leader Dickie Marlowe of the RAF), Bergerac (1983), Robin of Sherwood (1984, 1985), Boon (1989), Lovejoy (1986, 1991), The House of Eliott (1991), The Bill (1998), The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (in The Illustrious Client, 1991) and New Tricks. He also narrated the three Wildlife Explorer documentary films & played a South London bookmaker in the cult classic film Performance (1970). He was also the voice of "Dr. X" on Queensrÿche's seminal 1988 album, Operation: Mindcrime.

Robert John Wagner (born February 10, 1930) is an American actor of stage, screen, and television, best known for starring in the television shows It Takes a Thief (1968–70), Switch (1975–78), and Hart to Hart (1979–84). In movies, Wagner is known for his role as Number Two in the Austin Powers films (1997, 1999, 2002). He also had a recurring role as Teddy Leopold on the TV sitcom Two and a Half Men.

Wagner's autobiography, Pieces of My Heart: A Life, written with author Scott Eyman, was published on September 23, 2008.

Wagner was born in Detroit, Michigan. He is the son of Hazel Alvera (née Boe), a telephone operator, and Robert John Wagner Sr., a traveling salesman who worked for the Ford Motor Company. His paternal grandparents were born in Germany. Wagner has a sister, Mary. He graduated from Santa Monica High School in 1949.

He made his film debut in The Happy Years (1950). He was signed by agent Henry Willson and put under contract with 20th Century-Fox, where he gained attention with a small but showy part as a shellshocked soldier in With a Song in My Heart (1952). This led to star roles in a series of films including Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953) and Prince Valiant (1954), and White Feather (1955, with Debra Paget and Jeffrey Hunter), A Kiss Before Dying (1956, a rare villainous role) and Between Heaven and Hell (1956).