- published: 21 Nov 2015
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Jacques Bergerac (26 May 1927 – 15 June 2014) was a French actor, who later became a business executive with Revlon.
Bergerac met and married Ginger Rogers, with whom he appeared in Twist of Fate (1954) (also known as Beautiful Stranger). He then went on to appear as Armand Duval in a television production of Camille for Kraft Television Theatre, opposite Signe Hasso. He played the Comte de Provence in Jean Delannoy's film, Marie Antoinette Queen of France.
In Strange Intruder (1956), he shared the screen with Edmund Purdom and Ida Lupino, and in Les Girls (1957), he played the second male lead. He also appeared in Gigi (1958), Thunder in the Sun (1959), the cult horror film The Hypnotic Eye (1960), and A Global Affair (1964). In 1957, he received the Golden Globe Award for Foreign Newcomer.
He divorced Rogers in 1957. In 1959, he married Dorothy Malone; the couple had two children, Mimi and Diane Bergerac. The marriage ended in divorce in 1964. He appeared in a few more films and on television, including Batman, 77 Sunset Strip, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (3 episodes), The Lucy Show, and Get Smart, The Dick Van Dyke Show. His last appearance was on an episode of The Doris Day Show in 1969, after which he left show business and became the head of Revlon's Paris office. His younger brother Michel became CEO of Revlon six years later.
Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac (6 March 1619 – 28 July 1655) was a French novelist, playwright, epistolarian and duelist.
A bold and innovative author, his work was part of the libertine literature of the first half of the seventeenth century. Today he is best known as the inspiration for Edmond Rostand's most noted drama Cyrano de Bergerac which, although it includes elements of his life, also contains invention and myth.
Since the 1970s, there has been a resurgence in the study of Cyrano, demonstrated in the abundance of theses, essays, articles and biographies published in France and elsewhere in recent decades.
Cyrano's short life is poorly documented. Certain significant chapters of his life are only known from the Preface to the Histoire Comique par Monsieur de Cyrano Bergerac, Contenant les Estats & Empires de la Lune (Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon) published in 1657, 20 months after his death. Without Henri Le Bret, who wrote the biographical information, his country childhood, his military engagement, the injuries it caused, his prowess as a swordsman, the circumstances of his death and his supposed final conversion would remain unknown.
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director and producer, often nicknamed "The Master of Suspense". He pioneered many elements of the suspense and psychological thriller genres. He had a successful career in British cinema with both silent films and early talkies and became renowned as England's best director. Hitchcock moved to Hollywood in 1939 and became a US citizen in 1955.
Over a career spanning half a century, Hitchcock fashioned for himself a recognisable directorial style. His stylistic trademarks include the use of camera movement that mimics a person's gaze, forcing viewers to engage in a form of voyeurism. In addition, he framed shots to maximise anxiety, fear, or empathy, and used innovative forms of film editing. His work often features fugitives on the run alongside "icy blonde" female characters. Many of Hitchcock's films have twist endings and thrilling plots featuring depictions of murder and other violence. Many of the mysteries, however, are used as decoys or "MacGuffins" that serve the films' themes and the psychological examinations of their characters. Hitchcock's films also borrow many themes from psychoanalysis and sometimes feature strong sexual overtones. He became a highly visible public figure through interviews, movie trailers, cameo appearances in his own films, and the ten years in which he hosted the television program Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In 1978, film critic John Russell Taylor described Hitchcock as "the most universally recognizable person in the world", and "a straightforward middle-class Englishman who just happened to be an artistic genius."