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1-19 of 19
- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Balding, quietly spoken, of slight build and possessed of piercing blue eyes -- often peering out from behind round, steel-rimmed glasses -- Donald Pleasence had the essential physical attributes which make a great screen villain. In the course of his lengthy career, he relished playing the obsessed, the paranoid and the purely evil. Even the Van Helsing-like psychiatrist Sam Loomis in the Halloween (1978) franchise seems only marginally more balanced than his prey. An actor of great intensity, Pleasence excelled on stage as Shakespearean villains. He was an unrelenting prosecutor in Jean Anouilh's "Poor Bitos" and made his theatrical reputation in the title role of the seedy, scheming tramp in Harold Pinter's "The Caretaker" (1960). On screen, he gave a perfectly plausible interpretation of the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, in The Eagle Has Landed (1976). He was a convincingly devious Thomas Cromwell in Henry VIII and His Six Wives (1972), disturbing in his portrayal of the crazed, bloodthirsty preacher Quint in Will Penny (1967); and as sexually depraved, alcohol-sodden 'Doc' Tydon in the brilliant Aussie outback drama Wake in Fright (1971). And, of course, he was Ernst Stavro Blofeld in You Only Live Twice (1967). These are some of the films, for which we may remember Pleasence, but there was a great deal more to this fabulous, multi-faceted actor.
Donald Henry Pleasence was born on October 5, 1919 in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England, to Alice (Armitage) and Thomas Stanley Pleasence. His family worked on the railway. His grandfather had been a signal man and both his brother and father were station masters. When Donald failed to get a scholarship at RADA, he joined the family occupation working as a clerk at his father's station before becoming station master at Swinton, Yorkshire. While there, he wrote letters to theatre companies, eventually being accepted by one on the island of Jersey in Spring 1939 as an assistant stage manager. On the eve of World War II, he made his theatrical debut in "Wuthering Heights". In 1942, he played Curio in "Twelfth Night", but his career was then interrupted by military service in the RAF. He was shot down over France, incarcerated and tortured in a German POW camp. Once repatriated, Donald returned to the stage in Peter Brook's 1946 London production of "The Brothers Karamazov" with Alec Guinness although he missed the opening due to measles, followed by a stint on Broadway with Laurence Olivier's touring company in "Caesar and Cleopatra" and "Anthony and Cleopatra". Upon his return to England, he won critical plaudits for his performance in "Hobson's Choice". In 1952, Donald began his screen career, rather unobtrusively, in small parts. He was only really noticed once having found his métier as dastardly, sneaky Prince John in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955). It took several more years, until international recognition came his way: first, through the filmed adaptation of The Guest (1963), and, secondly, with his blind forger in The Great Escape (1963), a role he imbued with added conviction due to his own wartime experience.
Some of his best acting Donald reserved for the small screen. In 1962, the producer of The Twilight Zone (1959), Buck Houghton, brought Donald to the United States ("damn the expense"!) to guest star in the third-season episode "The Changing of the Guard". He was given a mere five days to immerse himself in the part of a gentle school teacher, Professor Ellis Fowler, who, on the eve of Christmas is forcibly retired after fifty-one years of teaching. Devastated, and believing himself a failure who has made no mark on the world, he is about to commit suicide when the school's bell summons him to his classroom. There, he is confronted by the spirits of deceased students who beg him to consider that his lessons have indeed had fundamental effects on their lives, even leading to acts of great heroism. Upon hearing this, Fowler is now content to graciously accept his retirement. Managing to avoid maudlin sentimentality, Donald's performance was intuitive and, arguably, one of the most poignant ever accomplished in a thirty-minute television episode. Once again, against type, he was equally delightful as the mild-mannered Reverend Septimus Harding in Anthony Trollope's The Barchester Chronicles (1982).
Whether eccentric, sinister or given to pathos, Donald Pleasence was always great value for money and his performances have rarely failed to engage.- Writer
- Additional Crew
- Actor
James Baldwin was born on 2 August 1924 in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for I Am Not Your Negro (2016), If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) and American Playhouse (1980). He died on 1 December 1987 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Alpes-Maritimes, France.- Music Department
- Writer
- Composer
Leslie Bricusse was born on 29 January 1931 in Southfields, London, England, UK. He was a writer and composer, known for Doctor Dolittle (1967), Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Scrooge (1970). He was married to Yvonne Romain. He died on 19 October 2021 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Alpes-Maritime, France.- David Herbert Lawrence was born in Nottinghamshire, England, 11 September 1885. His father was a coal miner, his mother a genteel woman who sought education and refinement for her son. Lawrence earned a university degree and taught school for a short time. While still a student he began to publish his poems and short stories. He fell in love with the wife of a professor, Frieda von Richthofen Weekley. She eloped with Lawrence, abandoning her husband and three small children. Lawrence's pet themes of myth, freedom, redemption, the difficulty and necessity of emotional, erotic expression and the inevitable torments of family relationships occupied him throughout his life. Eventually, there would be accusations of obscenity, his novel "Lady Chatterley's Lover" being the most prominent example.
- Marc Chagall was a Russian-Jewish artist and writer in Yiddish who moved to France and developed his highly original style by blending elements of traditional Jewish culture with cutting-edge innovations in modern art.
He was born Moishe Segal (Russified: Marc Zakharovich Shagalov) on July 7, 1887, in Liozno, a suburb of Vitebsk, Russia (now in Belarus). He was the first-born of nine children in the traditional close-knit Russian-Jewish family. Chagall's father and mother were cousins. His father, Khatskel Segal, was a herring merchant. His mother, Feiga-Ita, was a housewife. Chagall studied Torah and Talmud in Hebrew with Rabbi Ochre, and then with Rabbi Jatkin for basic education at home. At that time Jews were not admitted to schools in Russia, but Chagall's parents managed to get him admitted by bribing a school principal. Chagall's favorite classes were drawing and geometry.
Young Chagall made his first artwork for the Haggadah for his family on Passover. Then he did a copy of the portrait of composer Anton Rubinstein from the magazine "Niva". His first job was as a photo-retoucher at the photo studio of Meshchaninov in Vitebsk. Chagall briefly studied in the cheder of the Zarechenskaya synagogue, the biggest temple in Vitebsk. There he also sang as a cantor's assistant and studied violin. He later took painting lessons from Yehuda Pen in Vitebsk for two months. In 1907 Chagall went to St. Petersburg. There he studied art under Nikolai Roerich at the Imperial Society of Art Supporters; then under Leon Bakst and Mstislav Doboujinsky at Zviagintseva School of Art.
From 1910-1914 he lived in Paris on a stipend of 125 francs a month from a notable Russian-Jewish lawyer, Maxim Vinaver. Chagall settled in the Montparnasse community of La Ruche. There he associated with Guillaume Apollinaire, M. Jakob, A. Salmon, Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger and others. During those four years in Paris he witnessed the emerging new styles of Fauvism, Cubism, Surrealism and various avant-garde currents being created by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Amedeo Modigliani and Giorgio De Chirico, as well as other leading artists of the time. In May of 1914 Chagall went to Germany. There he became acquainted with the artistic experiments of Wassily Kandinsky. Chagall had his first solo show at the Sturm gallery in Berlin. Then, after the onset of World War I, he went back to Russia.
In May of 1915 Chagall married his first love, Bella Rosenfeld, the daughter of a wealthy jeweler in Vitebsk. She was the inspirational model for his famous series of paintings with passionate flying figures. In 1916 the Chagalls had a daughter, Ida. At that time he created his most vibrant and youthful paintings depicting his wife Bella flying with him in the skies above their hometown of Vitebsk.
Chagall was appointed the Commissar of Arts in Vitebsk Province after the Russian Revolution of 1917. He organized the new Vitebsk Art School and also taught there. He moved to Moscow in 1920. There he took an active part in the stage productions of the newly formed Moscow Jewish Theatre, of which he was the Art Director from 1920-1922. Chagall designed the stage decoration for the production of "Fiddler on the Roof", based on the story by Sholom Aleichem. Chagall's work was marked by surrealistic inventiveness and continued his emergence as a cross-cultural artist.
In 1922 the Chagalls fled the troubled Russia and moved to Berlin, then to Paris in 1923, as did many Russian intellectuals. He published his book of memoirs with illustrations in 1923. Then he made illustrations for "Dead Souls" by Nikolay Gogol, and began illustrating the Bible in 1930. In 1937 Chagall became a naturalized French citizen. In 1941, however, the Chagalls fled the German occupation of Paris and lived in New York until 1947. There Chagall designed decorations for the production of "Firebird" with the music of Igor Stravinsky and choreography by George Balanchine. Chagall also made a stage set for "Aleko" with the music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. In September of 1944 his beloved wife and inspirational muse Bella died.
Back in Europe, Chagall settled in Provence, France. His creativity was now inspired by his new love, Valentina (Vava) Brodsky, whom he married in 1952. His works during this period are marked with energetic and joyful feelings, expressed by vibrant lines and vivid colors. He expanded his creativity into sculpture, ceramics and stained glass, making stained glass windows for several Catholic and Protestant cathedrals in France, Switzerland and Germany. In 1960 Chagall created remarkable stained glass windows for the Synagogue of the Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem. In the 1960s and 1970s he decorated the new Parliament in Jerusalem, the ceiling of the Grand Opera in Paris, the lobby of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and the National Bank Building in Chicago with a series of large-scale mosaic murals that define the language of 20th-century monumental art.
Mark Chagall died at the age of 97, on March 28, 1985, in Saint-Paul de Vence, France, and was laid to rest in Saint-Paul Town Cemetery, Provence, France.
Chagall's art is the pride of museum collections across the world. In 1973, the Musee National Message Biblique Marc Chagall (The Chagall Museum) opened in Nice, France. The Chagall family home on Pokrovskaia street in Vitebsk was turned into a memorial museum in 1992 and decorated with copies of his works in 1997. - Witold Gombrowicz was born on 4 August 1904 in Maloszyce, Poland, Russian Empire [now Maloszyce, Swietokrzyskie, Poland]. He was a writer, known for 30 Door Key (1991), Television Theater (1953) and El servicio (1978). He was married to Rita Labrosse. He died on 25 July 1969 in Vence, Alpes-Maritimes, France.
- Ida Rubinstein was a Russian actress, dancer and director. She came from a wealthy family, who sent her to music, dancing and acting classes with some of the most prominent teachers in the field. Her performance in a private showing of "Salome" in 1908 created a scandal in conservative Russia when, in the course of her performance of "The Dance of the Seven Vails", she removed most of the veils. The next year she joined the Ballet Russes under the direction of Sergei Diaghilev. She performed in productions of "Cleopatra" and "Scheherezade", but left the organization in 1911 to start her own ballet company. She put on a series of large-scale--and expensive--productions, such as "Le Martyre of Saint-Sebastian". World War I slowed down her career somewhat, but after the war she made appearances in Europe, including a performance of "Istar" at the Paris Opera. From 1928-29 she had her own ballet company, and produced and directed several productions in Paris, with choreography by the famous Bronislava Njinska. She was one of the very few female ballet directors of her time, and her productions were lavish and well-received.
In 1935 she closed down her ballet company in Paris and only made a few more appearances on stage before she retired, her last performance occurring in 1939 in Paris. She died in 1960. - Maxime Desjardins was born on 17 September 1861 in Auxerre, Yonne, France. He was an actor, known for Les mystères de Paris (1922), L'agonie des aigles (1922) and The Mystery of the Yellow Room (1930). He died on 2 October 1936 in Vence, Alpes-Maritimes, France.
- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Louiguy was born on 3 April 1916 in Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. He was a composer and actor, known for A Star Is Born (2018), X-Men: First Class (2011) and Sabrina (1954). He was married to Simone Malherbe and Andrée Castel. He died on 4 April 1991 in Vence, Alpes-Maritimes, France.- Katinka Andrássy grófnö was born on 15 September 1892 in Tiszadob, Hungary. She was an actress, known for A 300 éves ember (1914). She died on 12 June 1985 in Vence, France.
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Additional Crew
Bob Willoughby, born in Los Angeles in 1927, studied cinema at the USC Cinema Department and design with Saul Bass at the Kann Institute of Art. At the same time he apprenticed with many Hollywood photographers as: Wallace Seawell, Paul Hesse, and Glenn Embree during the late 40's. His first magazine assignments were with Harper's Bazaar in the early 50's. He was soon discovered by the film studios and was the first 'outside' photographer to be hired to get space for them in the magazines, starting in 1954, when Warner Brothers asked him to photograph Judy Garland in the final number of "A Star Is Born". This proved successful for them both, (with Willoughby getting his first Life Magazine cover) and it began a 20 year collaboration with the publicity departments of all of the major studios, and provided a new link to the great magazines of the day. Popular Photography called him "The man who virtually invented the photo journalistic motion picture still". His work was literally never out of print for one week during his 20 year career in films. In 1972 he moved to the south of Ireland with his wife, four children and his mother-in-law, Quig. They lived 17 years in a castle on Courtmacsherry Bay, where he translated a book of early Irish poetry; Voices From Ancient Ireland. With the children and grandchildren now scattered to many places in the world, he and his wife Dorothy now live in the south of France.
Willoughby devised a number of technical innovations to get the photographs he needed. He financed the first successful sound blimp of a still-camera, which is now common on most movie sets. He was the only photographer working on films at the time, to use radio-controlled cameras, allowing him unprecedented access for certain shots. He had made special brackets that held his still camera on or over the Panavision cameras.
His photographs can be found in the collections of The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., The National Portrait Gallery, London. The National Museum of Photography, Bradford, UK. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Musee de la Photographie, Charleroi, Belgium. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences, Beverly Hills. CA., The Museum of Modern Art, Film Department, NYC, The Tate Gallery Collection, London, & The Musee de la Photographie et de l'Image, Nice, France.- Producer
- Art Department
British actor / author / producer E. Gordon Craig was born in England on January 16, 1872. He was the son of legendary stage actress Ellen Terry (another theatrical legend, Henry Irving, was his godfather). He made his stage debut at age six in "Olivia", which starred his mother, and when the family traveled to the US in 1885, he appeared in another of his mother's plays, "Eugene Aram", in Chicago. He had a steady, if unspectacular, career on stage, but it wasn't his cup of tea and he gave up acting in 1897 for a career as an author and set designer.
In 1903 he left England for Italy, where he founded the School for the Art of the Theatre in Florence. He designed sets for productions starring Isadora Duncan, and in 1910 he was commissioned to design the sets for the Moscow Art Theatre's production of William Shakespeare's "Hamlet".
Gordon also also became a theatrical and film producer, in addition to being a set designer and author. In 1931 he wrote a biography of his mother, "Ellen Terry and Her Secret Self".- Camera and Electrical Department
- Cinematographer
Léo Mirkine was born on 9 July 1910 in Kiev, Russian Empire [now Ukraine]. He was a cinematographer, known for Ça va barder (1955), S.O.S. Mediterranean (1938) and Cet homme est dangereux (1953). He died on 7 November 1982 in Saint Paul de Vence, France.- Actor
- Transportation Department
Born in Belgium, Frere was one of the first racing journalists in that he did double duty as a motorsports writer and he competed as a driver for several years in Sportscars and Formula 1. Frere's career took place mostly during the 1950s, but it extended for a few years in the 60s. He then retired and returned to work behind the pen and occasionally lended his talents out most notably on the film _Grand Prix (1967)_.- Aimé Maeght was born on 27 April 1906 in Hazebrouck, Nord, France. He was a producer and writer, known for André Malraux: Les métamorphoses du regard (1974), Quelques espaces (1973) and Tàpies (1969). He was married to Marguerite Devaye. He died on 5 September 1981 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Alpes-Maritimes, France.
- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Raoul Moretti was born on 10 August 1893 in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. He was a composer, known for Chocolat (2000), Under the Roofs of Paris (1930) and Il est charmant (1932). He was married to Yvonne Taponnier. He died on 8 March 1954 in Vence, Alpes-Maritimes, France.- Yves Jamiaque was born on 30 January 1918 in Paris, France. Yves was a writer, known for Codine (1963), Les dossiers de Me Robineau (1972) and The Hideout (1962). Yves was married to Jeanne Mayer and Marguerite Magnin-Mingand . Yves died on 10 June 1987 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Alpes-Maritimes, France.
- Writer
- Producer
Pierre Nahon was born on 30 December 1935 in Oran, Algeria. He was a writer and producer, known for Chroniques de France (1964), Hans Hartung (1971) and Un marchand, des artistes et des collectionneurs (1996). He was married to Marianne Bayet. He died on 10 September 2020 in Vence, Alpes-Maritimes, France.- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Denis Marion was born on 15 April 1906 in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, Brussels, Belgium. He was a writer and assistant director, known for Le secret de Monte-Cristo (1948), L'échafaud peut attendre (1949) and Days of Hope (1940). He died on 15 August 2000 in Vence, Alpes-Maritimes, France.