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Anton Diffring
Anton Diffring (born Alfred Pollack, 20 October 1916 – 19 May 1989) was a German-born character actor who had an extensive career in the United Kingdom from the 1940s to the 1980s, latterly appearing in international films. He appeared in over 50 features and was typically cast as a Nazi officer. Early life Diffring was born Alfred Pollack in Koblenz. His father, Solomon Pollack, was a Jewish shop-owner who managed to avoid internment and survived Nazi rule in Germany. His mother, Bertha Pollack (née Diffring), was Christian. He studied acting in Berlin and Vienna, but there is conjecture about when he left Germany prior to the outbreak of World War II. The audio commentary for the ''Doctor Who'' series ''Silver Nemesis'' mentions that he left in 1936 to escape persecution due to his homosexuality. Other accounts point to him leaving in 1939 and settling in Canada, where he was interned in 1940, which is unlikely as he appears in the Ealing Studios film ''Convoy'' (released ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Beast Must Die (1974 Film)
''The Beast Must Die'' is a 1974 British horror film directed by Paul Annett. The screenplay was written by Michael Winder, based on the short story "There Shall Be No Darkness" by James Blish, which was originally published in ''Thrilling Wonder Stories''. The film stars Calvin Lockhart, Peter Cushing, Marlene Clark, Charles Gray, Anton Diffring, Ciaran Madden, Tom Chadbon, and Michael Gambon.Ed. Allan Bryce, ''Amicus: The Studio That Dripped Blood'', Stray Cat Publishing, 2000 p 138-143 A millionaire big game hunter gathers six people at his remote English mansion, announcing that he suspects one of them is a werewolf. The viewer is invited to unfold the mystery along with the characters. Near the end, there is a 30-second pause called the "werewolf break", where the audience is asked to guess the werewolf's identity, based on clues from the movie. An alternative version of the film was released under the title ''Black Werewolf''. This cut omits the "werewolf break" near t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Where Eagles Dare
''Where Eagles Dare'' is a 1968 war film directed by Brian G. Hutton and starring Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood and Mary Ure. It follows a joint British-American Special Operations Executive team of paratroopers raiding a castle (shot on location in Austria and Bavaria). It was filmed in Panavision using the Metrocolor process, and was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Alistair MacLean wrote the screenplay, his first, at the same time that he wrote the novel of the same name. Both became commercial successes. The film involved some of the top filmmakers of the day and is considered a classic. Hollywood stuntman Yakima Canutt was the second unit director and shot most of the action scenes; British stuntman Alf Joint doubled for Burton in many sequences, including the fight on top of the cable car; award-winning conductor and composer Ron Goodwin wrote the film score; and future Oscar-nominee Arthur Ibbetson worked on the cinematography. Plot In the winter of 1943–4 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russ Conway
Russ Conway, DSM (born Trevor Herbert Stanford; 2 September 1925 – 16 November 2000) was an English popular music pianist and composer. Conway had 20 piano instrumentals in the UK Singles Chart between 1957 and 1963, including two number one hits. Career Conway was born in Bristol, England.Larkin C (1997) ''Virgin Encyclopedia of Sixties Music'', Muze UK Ltd, p. 125 He won a scholarship to Bristol Cathedral Choir School and, after leaving school at 14, was largely self-taught on piano during a three-year term in a Borstal detention centre for stealing from his employers. During the Second World War, he was conscripted into the Royal Navy and was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal as signalman in a minesweeping flotilla "for distinguished service, efficiency and zeal" in clearance of mines in the Aegean and operations during the relief of Greece 1944–45. During his Navy service, he lost the tip of the third finger of his right hand while using a bread slicer. At th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johnny Speight
Johnny Speight (2 June 1920 – 5 July 1998) was an English television scriptwriter of many classic British sitcoms. He emerged in the mid-1950s. He wrote for radio comics Frankie Howerd, Vic Oliver, Arthur Askey, and Cyril Fletcher. For television he wrote for Morecambe & Wise, and Peter Sellers, as well as '' The Arthur Haynes Show''. Later, he began to write ''Till Death Us Do Part'', which included his most famous creation, the controversial bigot Alf Garnett. His shows often explored the themes of racism and sexism through satire. Life and career John Speight was born into an Irish Catholic family in Canning Town, West Ham, Essex (now Greater London). He left school at 14, and after a series of odd jobs, tried his hand at writing, looking to George Bernard Shaw as inspiration. He began contributing scripts to comedy shows in 1955, starting with ''Great Scott - It's Maynard!'' He later contributed to ''Sykes and a...'' (1960–65), which starred Eric Sykes, Hattie Jacques ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ray Galton
Raymond Percy Galton (17 July 1930 – 5 October 2018) was an English radio and television scriptwriter, best known for the Galton and Simpson comedy writing partnership with Alan Simpson. Together they devised and wrote 1950s and 60s BBC sitcoms including ''Hancock's Half Hour'' (1954–1961), the first two series' of ''Comedy Playhouse'' (1961–1963), and ''Steptoe and Son'' (1962–1974). Early life Galton was born in Paddington, West London, and after leaving school he worked for the Transport and General Workers Union. He contracted tuberculosis aged 18 in 1948 and was admitted to Milford Sanatorium near Godalming in Surrey, where he met fellow patient Alan Simpson. Galton and Simpson Later career Alan Simpson retired from scriptwriting in 1978 to concentrate on his business interests. Galton then often worked with Johnny Speight on scripts, including '' Spooner's Patch'' (1979–1982) about a corrupt police station. He also wrote scripts for sitcoms produced in Germa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prince Of Wales Theatre
The Prince of Wales Theatre is a West End theatre in Coventry Street, near Leicester Square in London. It was established in 1884 and rebuilt in 1937, and extensively refurbished in 2004 by Sir Cameron Mackintosh, its current owner. The theatre should not be confused with the former Scala Theatre in London that was known as the ''Prince of Wales Royal Theatre'' or ''Prince of Wales's Theatre'' from 1865 until its demolition in 1903. History Phipps' theatre The first theatre on the site opened in January 1884 when Charles J. Phipps, C.J. Phipps built the Prince's Theatre for actor-manager Edgar Bruce. It was a traditional three-tier theatre, seating just over 1,000 people. The theatre was renamed the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1886 after the future Edward VII of the United Kingdom, Edward VII. Located between Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square, the theatre was favourably situated to attract theatregoers. The first production in the theatre was an 1884 revival of W. S. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frankie Howerd
Francis Alick Howard (6 March 1917 – 19 April 1992), better known by his stage-name Frankie Howerd, was an English actor and comedian. Early life Howerd was born the son of soldier Francis Alfred William (1887–1934)England & Wales, Death Index: 1916–2005 and Edith Florence Howard (née Morrison, 1888–1962), at the City Hospital in York, England, in 1917 (not 1922 as he later claimed). His mother worked at the Rowntree's chocolate factory. For his first two and a half years, Howerd lived in a terraced house at 53, Hartoft Street. He described it as "a poorish area of the city near the River Ouse". He later said he had only one memory of living in York and that was of falling down the stairs, an experience which left him with a life-long dread of heights. He returned to York on many occasions for family holidays, however, and later in life spoke of his fondness for the city. His family moved to Eltham, London when he was a young child, and he was educated at Shooter' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Special Air Service
The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling and in 1950, it was reconstituted as a corps. The unit specialises in a number of roles including counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, direct action and covert reconnaissance. Much of the information about the SAS is highly classified, and the unit is not commented on by either the British government or the Ministry of Defence due to the secrecy and sensitivity of its operations. The corps currently consists of the 22 Special Air Service Regiment, the regular component, as well as the 21 Special Air Service Regiment (Artists) (Reserve) and the 23 Special Air Service Regiment (Reserve), which are reserve units, all under the operational command of United Kingdom Special Forces (UKSF). Its sister unit is the Royal Navy's Special Boat Service which specialises in maritime counter-terrorism. Both units are under the operational control of the Directo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Winds Of War (miniseries)
''The Winds of War'' is a 1983 miniseries, directed and produced by Dan Curtis, that follows the 1971 book of the same name written by Herman Wouk. Just as in the book, in addition to the lives of the Henry and Jastrow families, much time in the miniseries is devoted to the major global events of the early years of World War II. Adolf Hitler and the German General Staff, with the fictitious general Armin von Roon as a major character, is a prominent subplot of the miniseries. ''The Winds of War'' also includes segments of documentary footage, narrated by William Woodson, to explain major events and important characters. It was followed by a sequel, ''War and Remembrance,'' in 1988, also based on a novel written by Wouk and also directed and produced by Curtis. With 140 million viewers of part or all of ''Winds of War'', it was the most-watched miniseries at that time. Plot The film follows the plot of Wouk's novel closely, depicting events from March 1939 until the entry of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joachim Von Ribbentrop
Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's notice as a well-travelled businessman with more knowledge of the outside world than most senior Nazis and as a perceived authority on foreign affairs. He offered his house Schloss Fuschl for the secret meetings in January 1933 that resulted in Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany. He became a close confidant of Hitler, to the disgust of some party members, who thought him superficial and lacking in talent. He was appointed ambassador to the Court of St James's, the royal court of the United Kingdom, in 1936 and then Foreign Minister of Germany in February 1938. Before World War II, he played a key role in brokering the Pact of Steel (an alliance with Fascist Italy) and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (the Nazi–Soviet non-aggr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Red Beret
''The Red Beret'' (aka ''The Red Devils'', ''The Big Jump'' and retitled ''Paratrooper'' for the US release) is a 1953 British-American war film directed by Terence Young and starring Alan Ladd, Leo Genn and Susan Stephen. ''The Red Beret'' is the fictional story about an American who enlists in the British Parachute Regiment in 1940, claiming to be a Canadian. It was the first film made by Irving Allen and Albert R. Broccoli's Warwick Films, with many of the crew later working on various films for Warwick Films and Broccoli's Eon Productions. It is partly based on the 1950 non-fiction book with the same title written by Hilary Saint George Saunders, about the Parachute Regiment and its second operation, Operation Biting, in February 1942. Plot Steve MacKendrick (Alan Ladd), nicknamed "Canada" because he claims he is from the country, volunteers in 1940 for the British military's parachute training facility. He has much more experience and leadership skills than he admits. C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Escape To Victory
''Escape to Victory'' (stylized as ''Victory'') is a 1981 American-British-Italian sports war film directed by John Huston and starring Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, Max von Sydow and Pelé. The film is about Allied prisoners of war who are interned in a German prison camp during the Second World War who play an exhibition match of football against a German team. The film received great attention upon its theatrical release, as it also starred professional footballers Bobby Moore, Osvaldo Ardiles, Kazimierz Deyna, Paul Van Himst, Mike Summerbee, Hallvar Thoresen, Werner Roth and Pelé. Numerous Ipswich Town players were also in the film, including John Wark, Russell Osman, Laurie Sivell, Robin Turner and Kevin O'Callaghan. Other Ipswich Town players stood in for actors in the football scenes – Kevin Beattie for Michael Caine, and Paul Cooper for Sylvester Stallone. Yabo Yablonsky wrote the script and the film was entered into the 12th Moscow International Fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
