Sir Henry Morton Stanley, GCB, born John Rowlands (28 January 1841 – 10 May 1904), was a Welsh journalist and explorer famous for his exploration of Africa and his search for David Livingstone. Upon finding Livingstone, Stanley allegedly uttered the now-famous greeting, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

When Stanley was born in Denbigh, Wales, his mother, Elizabeth Parry, was 19 years old. He never knew his father, who died within a few weeks of his birth; there is some doubt as to his true parentage. His parents were unmarried, so his birth certificate refers to him as a bastard and the stigma of illegitimacy weighed heavily upon him all his life.

Originally taking his father's name of Rowlands, Stanley was brought up by his grandfather until the age of five. When his guardian died, Stanley stayed at first with cousins and nieces for a short time, but was eventually sent to St. Asaph Union Workhouse for the poor, where overcrowding and lack of supervision resulted in frequent abuse by the older boys. When he was ten, his mother and two siblings stayed for a short while in this workhouse, without Stanley realising who they were. He stayed until the age of 15. After completing an elementary education, he was employed as a pupil teacher in a National School.

In 1874-1877 Henry Morton Stanley traveled Africa, exploring Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika and Lualaba/Congo river. He traveled 7,000 miles (11,000 km) from Zanzibar in the east to Boma in the mouth of the Congo in the west. He thereby solved many questions that were still open on the central Africa geography, including those on the source of the Nile. He proved that the Lualala river continued as the Congo river – not as Nile.

In 1871-1872 Stanley had searched for Livingstone in central Africa, finding him and greeting with the famous (but probably made up afterwards) words: “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”. Livingstone, with whom he had traveled afterwards, had died in 1873, leaving the questions unresolved.

Stanley started with about 225 people from Zanzibar near the east coast. He was the only European of four to reach the west coast. Apart from being accused in the press of being a murderer, his fame rose extremely high. He proposed to open Africa by trade, so as to remove the slave trade on the continent. Afterward he would be working (traveling) in Africa to advance many political interests of European states.

Henry Canova Vollam (H. V.) Morton, FRSL (26 July 1892–18 June 1979) was a journalist and pioneering travel writer from Lancashire, England, best known for his prolific and popular books on Britain and the Holy Land. He first achieved fame in 1923 when, while working for the Daily Express, he scooped the official Times correspondent during the coverage of the opening of the Tomb of Tutankhamon by Howard Carter in Egypt.

Morton was born at Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, the son of Joseph Morton, editor of the Birmingham Mail, and of Margaret Maclean Ewart. He was educated at King Edward's School in Birmingham.

In the late 1940s he moved to South Africa, settling near Cape Town in Somerset West and became a South African citizen.

He firstly married Dorothy Vaughton (born 1887) on 14 September 1915; they divorced and he then married Violet Mary Muskett, née Greig (born 1900), herself a divorcee, on 4 January 1934: she survived him.

After leaving school, Morton entered journalism on the staff of the newspaper edited by his father, the Birmingham Gazette and Express. After two years, he became its assistant editor in 1912. He then moved to London, and spent most of the rest of his British career there, on various national newspapers and magazines. His first job in the capital was as a freelance lineage reporter for the Evening Standard.

David Livingstone (19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and an explorer in Africa. His meeting with H. M. Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

Perhaps one of the most popular national heroes of the late 19th century in Victorian Britain, Livingstone had a mythic status, which operated on a number of interconnected levels: that of Protestant missionary martyr, that of working-class "rags to riches" inspirational story, that of scientific investigator and explorer, that of imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader, and advocate of commercial empire.

His fame as an explorer helped drive forward the obsession with discovering the sources of the River Nile that formed the culmination of the classic period of European geographical discovery and colonial penetration of the African continent. At the same time his missionary travels, "disappearance" and death in Africa, and subsequent glorification as posthumous national hero in 1874 led to the founding of several major central African Christian missionary initiatives carried forward in the era of the European "Scramble for Africa".

Urbano Barberini (18 September 1961) is an Italian actor fluent in Italian and French. His most recognized role in the English-speaking countries was in his work in Dario Argento's film Opera though in the English dubbing, his voice was replaced with a more masculine actor's voice. The only DVD that retains his original voice on the English dub is the UK release from Arrow Films.