Mr. Fox

Mr Fox were an early 1970s electric folk or folk rock band. They were seen as in the ‘second generation’ of electric folk performers and for a time were compared with Steeleye Span and Sandy Denny’s Fotheringay. Unlike Steeleye Span they mainly wrote their own material in a traditional style and developed a distinct ‘northern’ variant of the genre. They demonstrate the impact and diversity of the electric folk movement and the members went on to pursue significant careers within the electric folk and traditional music genres after they disbanded in 1972 having recording two highly regarded albums.

History

Origins

By the late 1960s Bob and Carole Pegg were already well-established singers and musicians on the British folk scene based in Yorkshire. In 1969 they moved south and played London folk clubs, where they met Ashley Hutchings, who had recently left Fairport Convention and was attempting to form a new group involving members of the Irish band Sweeney's Men including Terry Woods. They took part in rehearsals but the embryonic band soon broke up and Hutchings went on to form Steeleye Span with Woods and his wife Gay. The Peggs were approached by record producer Bill Leader. He secured them a contract with Transatlantic Records. For their first album they recruited Alun Eden (drums), Barry Lyons (bass), Andrew Massey (cello) and John Myatt (woodwinds) and adopted the name Mr Fox, the title of one of their songs and a nod towards one of the recurring figures of folk lore.

Wes Anderson

Wesley Wales "Wes" Anderson (born May 1, 1969) is an American film director, film producer, screenwriter, and actor. His films are known for their distinctive visual and narrative style.

He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Royal Tenenbaums in 2001, Moonrise Kingdom in 2012 and The Grand Budapest Hotel in 2014, as well as the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for Fantastic Mr. Fox in 2009. He received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Director and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for The Grand Budapest Hotel in 2014. He also received the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2015.

Early life

Wesley Wales Anderson was born on May 1, 1969, in Houston, Texas, the son of Texas Ann (Burroughs), a realtor and archaeologist, and Melver Leonard Anderson, who worked in advertising and public relations. He is the second of three boys; his parents divorced when he was eight. His elder brother, Mel, is a physician, and his younger brother, Eric, is a writer and artist whose paintings and designs have appeared in several of Anderson's films. Anderson is of Swedish and Norwegian ancestry.

Jason Schwartzman

Jason Francesco Schwartzman (born June 26, 1980) is an American actor, screenwriter and musician. He is known for his frequent collaborations with Wes Anderson, such as Rushmore (1998), The Darjeeling Limited (2007), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), Moonrise Kingdom (2012) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). He has also appeared in films such as I Heart Huckabees (2004), Shopgirl (2005), Marie Antoinette (2006), Funny People (2009), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) and Saving Mr. Banks (2013).

In addition to his film work, Schwartzman was the star of the HBO series Bored to Death (2009–2011), in which he played a writer who moonlights as an unlicensed private detective by advertising himself on Craigslist. He currently releases music through his solo project Coconut Records, and was formerly the drummer of rock band Phantom Planet.

Early life

Schwartzman was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of actress Talia Shire (née Coppola) and the late producer Jack Schwartzman. Schwartzman's brother is actor and musician Robert Schwartzman, and his paternal half-siblings are Stephanie and John Schwartzman. Many other members of Schwartzman's family are involved in film: he is the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, cousin of Nicolas Cage, Sofia Coppola, Roman Coppola and Christopher Coppola, and grandson of Italia Coppola (née Pennino) and Carmine Coppola. His first cousin once removed, father Jack's first cousin, is Elliott B. Oppenheim, novelist and screen-writer, whose first novel was Kaleidoscope, a turbulent tale loosely based upon his final high school year in 1963-64.

George Clooney

George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor, screenwriter, producer, director, and activist. He has received three Golden Globe Awards for his work as an actor and two Academy Awards, one for acting and the other for producing.

Clooney made his acting debut on television in 1978, and later gained wide recognition in his role as Dr. Doug Ross on the long-running medical drama ER from 1994 to 1999, for which he received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. While working on ER, he began attracting a variety of leading roles in films, including the superhero film Batman & Robin (1997) and the crime comedy Out of Sight (1998), in which he first worked with director Steven Soderbergh, who would become a long-time collaborator. In 1999, he took the lead role in Three Kings, a well-received war satire set during the Gulf War.

In 2001, Clooney's fame widened with the release of his biggest commercial success, the heist comedy Ocean's Eleven, the first of the film trilogy, a remake of the 1960 film with Frank Sinatra as Danny Ocean. He made his directorial debut a year later with the biographical spy comedy Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and has since directed the historical drama Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), the sports comedy Leatherheads (2008), the political drama The Ides of March (2011), and the war film The Monuments Men (2014).

Meryl Streep

Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. A three-time Academy Award winner, she is regarded as the "best actress of her generation". Streep made her professional stage debut in The Playboy of Seville in 1971, and went on to receive a 1976 Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for A Memory of Two Mondays/27 Wagons Full of Cotton. She made her screen debut in the 1977 television film The Deadliest Season, and made her film debut later that same year in Julia. In 1978, she won an Emmy Award for her role in the miniseries Holocaust, and received her first Academy Award nomination for The Deer Hunter. Nominated for 19 Academy Awards in total, Streep has more nominations than any other actor or actress in history, winning Best Supporting Actress for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), and Best Actress for Sophie's Choice (1982) and for The Iron Lady (2011).

Streep is one of only six actors to have won three or more competitive Academy Awards for acting. Her other nominated roles are The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), Silkwood (1983), Out of Africa (1985), Ironweed (1987), A Cry in the Dark (1988), Postcards from the Edge (1990), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), One True Thing (1998), Music of the Heart (1999), Adaptation (2002), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Doubt (2008), Julie & Julia (2009), August: Osage County (2013), and Into the Woods (2014). She returned to the stage for the first time in over 20 years in The Public Theater's 2001 revival of The Seagull, won a second Emmy Award in 2004 for the HBO miniseries Angels in America (2003), and starred in the Public Theater's 2006 production of Mother Courage and Her Children. As an actress, Streep is particularly known for her chameleonic approach to her roles, transformation into the characters she plays, and her perfection of accents.