Christopher Morahan
Christopher Thomas Morahan Order of the British Empire, CBE (9 July 1929 – 7 April 2017) was a British stage and television director and production executive. Biography Early life and career Morahan was born on 9 July 1929 in London, the son of film production designer Thomas N. Morahan, Tom Morahan (1906-1969) and his wife, Nancy Charlotte Barker (1904-1977), an artist. He was educated at Highgate School followed by his national service. Originally thinking about a career as an architect, he realised it would be some years before he could earn a living and thus settled on working in the film industry. The director Thorold Dickinson advised him to learn about acting and the theatrical repertoire instead. He trained for the stage at the Old Vic Theatre School from 1947 with actor/director Michel Saint-Denis, designer Margaret Harris, and director George Devine. Initially an actor, he briefly worked as a stage manager on Orson Welles' touring production of ''Othello'', but r ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Order Of The British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established on 4 June 1917 by King George V and comprises five classes across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two of which make the recipient either a knight if male or dame if female. There is also the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with, but not members of, the order. Recommendations for appointments to the Order of the British Empire were originally made on the nomination of the United Kingdom, the self-governing Dominions of the Empire (later Commonwealth) and the Viceroy of India. Nominations continue today from Commonwealth countries that participate in recommending British honours. Most Commonwealth countries ceased recommendations for appointments to the Order of the British Empire when they ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Emergency Ward 10
''Emergency Ward 10'' is a British medical soap opera series shown on ITV between 1957 and 1967. Like ''The Grove Family'', a series shown by the BBC between 1954 and 1957, ''Emergency Ward 10'' is considered to be one of British television's first major soap operas. Overview The series was made by the ITV contractor ATV and set in a fictional hospital called Oxbridge General. Growing out of what was originally intended to be no more than a six-week serial (entitled ''Calling Nurse Roberts''), the series became ITV's first twice-weekly evening soap opera. ''Emergency Ward 10'' was the first hospital-based television drama to establish a successful format combining medical matters with storylines centring on the personal lives of the doctors and nurses. ''Emergency Ward 10'' attracted attention for its portrayal of an interracial relationship between surgeon Louise Mahler (played by Joan Hooley) and Doctor Giles Farmer (played by John White), showing the second kiss on televis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Little Murders
''Little Murders'' is a 1971 American black comedy film directed by Alan Arkin, in his feature film directorial debut, and starring Elliott Gould and Marcia Rodd. Based on the stage play of the same name by Jules Feiffer, it is the story of a woman, Patsy (Rodd), who brings home her boyfriend, Alfred (Gould), to meet her severely dysfunctional family amidst a series of random shootings, garbage strikes and electrical outages ravaging their New York City neighborhood. Plot Patsy Newquist is a 27-year-old interior designer who lives in a New York City that is rife with street crime, noise, obscene phone calls, power blackouts and unsolved homicides. When she sees a defenseless man being attacked by street thugs, she intervenes, but is surprised when the passive victim doesn't even bother to thank her. She ends up attracted to the man, Alfred Chamberlain, a photographer, but finds that he is emotionally vacant, barely able to feel pain or pleasure. He permits muggers to beat him up ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jules Feiffer
Jules Ralph Feiffer (born January 26, 1929)''Comics Buyer's Guide'' #1650; February 2009; Page 107 is an American cartoonist and author, who was considered the most widely read satirist in the country. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 as North-America's leading editorial cartoonist, and in 2004 he was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame. He wrote the animated short ''Munro'', which won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1961. The Library of Congress has recognized his "remarkable legacy", from 1946 to the present, as a cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, adult and children's book author, illustrator, and art instructor. When Feiffer was 17 (in the mid-1940s) he became assistant to cartoonist Will Eisner. There he helped Eisner write and illustrate his comic strips, including ''The Spirit''. In 1956 he became a staff cartoonist at ''The Village Voice'', where he produced the weekly comic strip titled ''Feiffer'' until 1997. His cartoons became nationally sy ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia Dench (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress. Regarded as one of Britain's best actresses, she is noted for her versatile work in various films and television programmes encompassing several genres, as well as for her numerous roles on the stage. Dench has garnered various accolades throughout a career spanning over six decades, including an Academy Award, a Tony Award, two Golden Globe Awards, four British Academy Television Awards, six British Academy Film Awards and seven Olivier Awards. Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years, she performed in several of Shakespeare's plays, in such roles as Ophelia in ''Hamlet'', Juliet in '' Romeo and Juliet'' and Lady Macbeth in '' Macbeth''. Although most of Dench's work during this period was in theatre, she also branched into film work and won a BAFTA Award as Most Promising Newcomer. In 1968, she drew excellent reviews for her leading role of Sal ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Margery Mason
Margery Mason (27 September 1913 – 26 January 2014) was an English actress and director. She was the artistic director of the Repertory Theatre in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland in the 1960s. Career Mason played Sarah Stevens, the mother in John Hopkins' four-play cycle '' Talking to a Stranger'' (1966). A family drama with four characters, the viewpoint of Sarah Stevens was depicted in the fourth play, ''The Innocent Must Suffer''. Her film roles included ''Charlie Bubbles'' (1968), '' Clegg'' (1970), ''The Raging Moon'' (1971), ''Made'' (1972), ''Hennessy'' (1975), the bullying teacher's wife in ''Pink Floyd – The Wall'' (1982), '' Terry on the Fence'' (1986), a game show contestant in '' Victoria Wood Presents'' (1989), '' 101 Dalmatians'' (1996), ''Love Actually'' (2003), and the lady who works the sweets trolley in '' Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'' (2005). She played "The Ancient Booer" in the 1987 film ''The Princess Bride''. Her television roles inc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Maurice Denham
William Maurice Denham OBE (23 December 1909 – 24 July 2002) was an English character actor who appeared in over 100 films and television programmes in his long career. Family Denham was born on 23 December 1909 in Beckenham, Kent, the son of Eleanor Winifred (née Lillico) and Norman Denham. He was the third child of four: Norman Keith (1907), Winifred Joan (1908), and Charles (1915). He was educated at Tonbridge School and trained as a lift engineer. Like fellow actor James Robertson Justice, he played amateur rugby for Beckenham RFC. In 1936, he married Elizabeth Dunn, with whom he had two sons and a daughter: Christopher (born 1939), Timothy (born 1946) and Virginia (born 1948). Elizabeth died in 1971. He was awarded the OBE in 1992. He died on 24 July 2002, aged 92 at Denville Hall in North London. Career Denham eventually became an actor in 1934, and appeared in live television broadcasts as early as 1938, continuing to perform in that medium until 1997. Denha ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Michael Bryant (actor)
Michael Dennis Bryant (5 April 192825 April 2002) was a British stage and television actor. Biography Bryant attended Battersea Grammar School and, after service in the Merchant Navy and the Army, attended drama school and appeared in many productions on the London stage. He made his film debut in 1955. He had a role as Mathieu in the BBC2 serial ''The Roads to Freedom'', a 1970 adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre's trilogy of the same name. His guest star appearance as Wing Commander Marsh, who feigns insanity in the 'Tweedledum' episode of the BBC drama series ''Colditz'' (1972), is still widely remembered. Bryant was chosen by Orson Welles to play the lead role in '' The Deep'', Welles's adaptation of the Charles Williams novel ''Dead Calm''. The production frequently ran out of money, and following the death of actor Laurence Harvey in 1973, Welles stopped production and announced the movie – which had been completed except for one special effects shot of a ship exploding â ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Michael Billington (critic)
Michael Keith Billington OBE (born 16 November 1939) is a British author and arts critic. He writes for ''The Guardian'', and was the paper's chief drama critic from 1971 to 2019. Billington is "Britain's longest-serving theatre critic" and the author of biographical and critical studies relating to British theatre and the arts. He is the authorised biographer of the playwright Harold Pinter (1930–2008). Early life and education Billington was born on 16 November 1939, in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England, and attended Warwick School, an independent boys' school in Warwick. He attended St Catherine's College, Oxford, from 1958 to 1961, where he studied English and was appointed theatre critic of '' Cherwell''. He graduated with a BA degree. As a member of Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), in 1959, Billington played the Priest in '' The Birds'', by Aristophanes, his only appearance as an actor, and, in 1960, he directed a production of Eugène Ionesco's ''The Ba ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on ''baasskap'' (boss-hood or boss-ship), which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically by the nation's minority white population. According to this system of social stratification, white citizens had the highest status, followed by Indians and Coloureds, then black Africans. The economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day. Broadly speaking, apartheid was delineated into ''petty apartheid'', which entailed the segregation of public facilities and social events, and ''grand apartheid'', which dictated housing and employment opportunities by race. The first apartheid law was the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Wednesday Play
''The Wednesday Play'' is an anthology series of United Kingdom, British television plays which ran on BBC One, BBC1 for six seasons from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually original works written for television, although dramatic adaptations of fiction (and occasionally stage plays) also featured. The series gained a reputation for presenting contemporary social dramas, and for bringing issues to the attention of a mass audience that would not otherwise have been discussed on screen. Some of British television drama's most influential, and controversial, plays were shown in this slot, including ''Up the Junction (The Wednesday Play), Up the Junction'' and ''Cathy Come Home''. The earliest television plays of Dennis Potter were featured in this slot. History Origins and early seasons The series was suggested to the BBC's Head of Drama, Sydney Newman, by the corporation's director of television Kenneth Adam after his cancellation of the two previous series of sin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |