Coral Browne
Coral Edith Browne (23 July 1913 – 29 May 1991) was an Australian-American stage and screen actress. Her extensive theatre credits included Broadway productions of ''Macbeth'' (1956), '' The Rehearsal'' (1963) and '' The Right Honourable Gentleman'' (1965). She won the 1984 BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for the BBC TV film ''An Englishman Abroad'' (1983). Her film appearances included ''Auntie Mame'' (1958), ''The Killing of Sister George'' (1968), '' The Ruling Class'' (1972) and ''Dreamchild'' (1985). She was also actor Vincent Price's third wife. Family Coral Edith Browne was the only daughter of railway clerk Leslie Clarence Brown (1890–1957), and Victoria Elizabeth Brown (1890–?), née Bennett, both of Victorian birth. She and her two brothers were raised in Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne. Career She studied at the National Gallery Art School. Her amateur debut was as Gloria in Shaw's ''You Never Can Tell'', directed by Frank Clewlow. Gregan McMahon snapp ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metropolitan area known as Greater Melbourne, comprising an urban agglomeration of 31 local municipalities, although the name is also used specifically for the local municipality of City of Melbourne based around its central business area. The metropolis occupies much of the northern and eastern coastlines of Port Phillip Bay and spreads into the Mornington Peninsula, part of West Gippsland, as well as the hinterlands towards the Yarra Valley, the Dandenong and Macedon Ranges. It has a population over 5 million (19% of the population of Australia, as per 2021 census), mostly residing to the east side of the city centre, and its inhabitants are commonly referred to as "Melburnians". The area of Melbourne has been home to Aboriginal ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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National Gallery Of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two sites: NGV International, located on St Kilda Road in the Melbourne Arts Precinct of Southbank, and the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, located nearby at Federation Square. The NGV International building, designed by Sir Roy Grounds, opened in 1968, and was redeveloped by Mario Bellini before reopening in 2003. It houses the gallery's international art collection and is on the Victorian Heritage Register. The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, designed by Lab Architecture Studio, opened in 2002 and houses the gallery's Australian art collection. A third site, The Fox: NGV Contemporary, is planned to open in 2028, and will be Australia's largest contemporary gallery. History 19th century In 1850, the Port Phillip District of New S ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Desert Island Discs
''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942. Each week a guest, called a " castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight recordings (usually, but not always, music), a book and a luxury item that they would take if they were to be cast away on a desert island, whilst discussing their life and the reasons for their choices. It was devised and originally presented by Roy Plomley. Since 2018 the programme has been presented by Lauren Laverne. More than 3,000 episodes have been recorded, with some guests having appeared more than once and some episodes featuring more than one guest. An example of a guest who falls into both categories is Bob Monkhouse, who appeared with his co-writer Denis Goodwin on 12 December 1955 and in his own right on 20 December 1998. When ''Desert Island Discs'' marked its 75th year in 2017, ''The Guardian'' called the show a radio classic. In Februar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Man Who Came To Dinner
''The Man Who Came to Dinner'' is a comedy play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. It debuted on October 16, 1939, at the Music Box Theatre in New York City, where it ran until 1941, closing after 739 performances. It then enjoyed a number of New York and London revivals. The first London production was staged at The Savoy Theatre starring Robert Morley and Coral Browne. In 1990, Browne stated in a televised biographical interview, broadcast on UK Channel 4 (entitled ''Caviar to the General''), that she bought the rights to the play, borrowing money from her dentist to do so. When she died, her will revealed that she had received royalties for all future productions and adaptations. Synopsis The play is set in the small town of Mesalia, Ohio in the weeks leading to Christmas in the late 1930s. The famously outlandish New York City radio wit Sheridan Whiteside ('Sherry' to his friends) is invited to dine at the house of the well-to-do factory owner Ernest W. Stanley and his fa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Savoy Hotel
The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London, England. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte's family for over a century. The Savoy was the first luxury hotel in Britain, introducing electric lights throughout the building, electric lifts, bathrooms in most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired César Ritz as manager and Auguste Escoffier as ''chef de cuisine''; they established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other rich and powerful guests and diners. The hotel became Carte's most successful venture. Its bands, Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band, became famous, and other entertainers (who were als ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Savoy Theatre
The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre was designed by C. J. Phipps for Richard D'Oyly Carte and opened on 10 October 1881 on a site previously occupied by the Savoy Palace. Its intended purpose was to showcase the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, which became known as the Savoy operas. The theatre was the first public building in the world to be lit entirely by electricity. For many years, the Savoy Theatre was the home of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which continued to be run by the Carte family for over a century. Richard's son Rupert D'Oyly Carte rebuilt and modernised the theatre in 1929, and it was rebuilt again in 1993 following a fire. It is a Grade II* listed building. In addition to ''The Mikado'' and other famous Gilbert and Sullivan premières, the theatre has hosted such premières as the first public performance in England of Oscar Wilde's '' Salome'' (1931) and Noà ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lady Frederick
''Lady Frederick'' is a comedy by the British writer W. Somerset Maugham, written early in his career. The play was first seen in London in 1907, and was very successful, running for 422 performances. The title role was played by Ethel Irving. In New York it was first performed in 1908, with Lady Frederick played by Ethel Barrymore, who reprised her role in the play's film adaptation, ''The Divorcee''. In the play, Lady Frederick is an Irish widow, seriously in debt; she must deal with suitors who have various motives for proposing marriage, and with the man with whom she once had an affair. History Maugham's first play, ''A Man of Honour'', was produced by the Stage Society in 1902, after being refused by several managers, and had some success. He was unable to get his next play ''Loaves and Fishes'' produced. ''Lady Frederick'' was written in 1903. Maugham wrote about its origins: I reflected upon the qualities which the managers demanded in a play: evidently a comedy, for th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Last Of Mrs
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of pronoun ''thee'') when followed by a v ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jack Buchanan
Walter John Buchanan (2 April 1891 – 20 October 1957) was a Scottish theatre and film actor, singer, dancer, producer and director. He was known for three decades as the embodiment of the debonair man-about-town in the tradition of George Grossmith Jr., and was described by ''The Times'' as "the last of the knuts." He is best known in America for his role in the classic Hollywood musical ''The Band Wagon'' in 1953. Biography Buchanan was born in Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire, Scotland, the son of Walter John Buchanan Sr (1865–1902), auctioneer, and his wife, Patricia, ''née'' McWatt (1860–1936).Spicer, Andrew H"Buchanan, Walter John (1890–1957)" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, January 2008. Retrieved 3 November 2008 He was educated at the Glasgow Academy. Early career After a brief attempt to follow his late father's profession and a failure at acting in Glasgow, he became a music hall comedian u ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Marie Tempest
Dame Mary Susan Etherington, (15 July 1864 – 15 October 1942), known professionally as Marie Tempest, was an English singer and actress. Tempest became a famous soprano in late Victorian light opera and Edwardian musical comedies. Later, she became a leading comic actress and toured widely in North America and elsewhere. She was, at times, her own theatre manager during a career spanning 55 years. She was also instrumental in the founding of the actors' union Equity in Britain. Life and career Tempest was born in London. Her parents were Edwin Etherington (1838–1880), a stationer, and his wife, Sarah Mary (''née'' Castle). She had a sister, Florence Etherington, who married the theatre manager Michael Levenston. Tempest was educated at Midhurst School and an Ursuline convent in Tildonk, Belgium. Later, she studied music in Paris and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, as a singing pupil of Manuel GarcÃa, the tutor of Jenny Lind, Mathilde Marchesi and Charles San ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Comedy Theatre, Melbourne
The Comedy Theatre is a 1003-seat theatre in Melbourne's East End Theatre District. It was built in 1928, and was designed in the Spanish style, with a Florentine-style exterior and wrought-iron balconies. It is located at 240 Exhibition Street, and diagonally opposite Her Majesty's Theatre. It typically hosts commercial seasons of plays and smaller-scale musicals, as well as comedy and other entertainment events. History The site at the corner of Lonsdale and Stephen streets was from June 1842 to October 1854 an entertainment venue, " Rowe's American Circus", where G. B. W. Lewis gained his foothold in Australia. In December 1854 it was licensed as the "Royal Victoria Theatre", then demolished, to be replaced by a prefabricated iron building imported from Manchester, England for George Coppin George Selth Coppin (8 April 1819 – 14 March 1906) was a comic actor, a theatrical entrepreneur, a politician and a philanthropist, active in Australia.Sally O'Neill,Coppin, Geor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |