Alexander ( /ˈæləksˈændər/) is a common male first name, and less common surname. The most famous is Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, who created one of the largest empires in ancient history.

Etymologically, the name is derived from the Greek "Αλέξανδρος" (Aléxandros), meaning "defending men" or "protector of men", a compound of the verb "ἀλέξω" (alexō), "to ward off, to avert, to defend" and the noun "ἀνδρός" (andros), genitive of "ἀνήρ" (anēr), "man". It is an example of the widespread motif of Greek (or Indo-European more generally) names expressing "battle-prowess", in this case the ability to withstand or push back an enemy battle line.

The earliest attested form of the name is the Mycenaean Greek feminine noun a-re-ka-sa-da-ra, (transliterated as Alexandra), written in Linear B syllabic script.

The name was one of the titles ("epithets") given to the Greek goddess Hera and as such is usually taken to mean "one who comes to save warriors". In the Iliad, the character Paris is known also as Alexander. The name's popularity was spread throughout the Greek world by the military conquests of King Alexander III, commonly known as "Alexander the Great". Most later Alexanders in various countries were directly or indirectly named for him.^{[citation needed]}

Frederick William (Freddie) Francis BSC (22 December 1917 – 17 March 2007) was an English cinematographer and film director.

He achieved his greatest successes as a cinematographer, including winning two Academy Awards, for Sons and Lovers (1960) and Glory (1989). As a director, he has cult status on account of his association with the British production companies Amicus and Hammer in the 1960s and 1970s.

Born in Islington in London, England, Francis was originally on the way to a career in engineering. At school, a piece he wrote about films of the future won him a scholarship to the North West London Polytechnic in Kentish Town. He left school at age 16, becoming an apprentice to a stills photographer by the name of Louis Prothero. Freddie stayed with him for six months. In this time they photograped stills for a Stanley Lupino picture made at Ealing. This led to him successively becoming a clapper boy, camera loader and focus puller. He started his career at B.I.P, then to British and Dominions. His first film as a clapper boy was The Marriage of Corbal.

Robert Oliver Reed (13 February 1938 – 2 May 1999) was an English actor known for his burly screen presence. Reed exemplified his real-life macho image in "tough guy" roles. His films include The Trap, Oliver!, Women in Love, Hannibal Brooks, The Triple Echo, The Devils, The Three Musketeers, Tommy, Castaway, Lion of the Desert and Gladiator.

Reed was born Robert Oliver Reed in Wimbledon, London, to sports journalist Peter Reed and his wife Marcia (née Andrews). He was the nephew of film director Sir Carol Reed, and grandson of the actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree by his alleged mistress May Pinney Reed. He was alleged to have been a descendant (through an illegitimate step) of Tsar Peter the Great of Russia. Reed attended Ewell Castle School in Surrey.

After time in the British Army, serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps, Reed commenced his thespian career as an extra in films in the late 1950s. He had no acting training or theatrical experience.

Oliver Reed appeared uncredited in an early Norman Wisdom film, The Square Peg in 1958, and in another Wisdom comedy, The Bulldog Breed in 1960, where Reed played the leader of a gang of Teddy Boys roughing up Wisdom in a cinema. Uncredited television includes episodes of The Invisible Man (1958) and The Four Just Men (1959). Reed got his first notable roles in Hammer Films' Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960), The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), Captain Clegg (1962), Pirates of Blood River (1962), and The Curse of the Werewolf (1961). Reed also starred in Paranoiac, and The Damned. In 1964 he starred in the first of six films directed by Michael Winner, The System, (known as The Girl-Getters in the U.S.). More Hammer Films productions followed, such as The Brigand Of Kandahar (1965). He first collaborated with director Ken Russell in a TV biopic of Claude Debussy in 1965, and later played Dante Gabriel Rossetti in Russell's subsequent TV biopic Dante's Inferno (1967).

Thora Janette Scott (born 14 December 1938) is an English actress. She was born in Morecambe, England. She is the daughter of actors Jimmy Scott and Thora Hird. She started her acting career as a child actress known as Janette Scott, and was briefly (along with Jennifer Gay) one of the so-called "Children's Announcers" providing continuity links for the BBC's children's TV programmes from the Lime Grove Studios in the early 1950s. She became a popular leading lady, one of her best known roles being April Smith in the 1960 film School for Scoundrels, based on the "One-upmanship" books by Stephen Potter, in which Ian Carmichael and Terry-Thomas competed for her attention. Scott wrote her autobiography at the age of 14. Her film appearances include The Day of the Triffids; her appearance there is referenced in The Rocky Horror Picture Show:

She has been married three times:

Michel Nowak (born 1962) is a French judoka and Olympic medalist. He won a bronze medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.