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Desmond Walter-Ellis
Desmond Walter-Ellis (16 September 1914 – 16 September 1994) was an English actor. He was active in a range of genres, from classic drama to cabaret, revue and musicals. He played a major part in the development of BBC Television when it restarted after the Second World War. Life and career Walter-Ellis was born in London on 16 September 1914, the son of Valentine Walter-Ellis and his wife Eileen Ellis, ''née'' Kerin. He trained for the stage at the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells and made his first professional appearance in December 1932. He then acted at the Old Vic, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, and Sadler's Wells, mostly in the classics. After repertory work, he served in the armed forces during the Second World War. In the immediate post-war years, Walter-Ellis worked mainly in the fledgling television service. In 1950 a magazine dubbed him "the first actor television star", with "seventy different performances to his credit … romped to favour in television versions of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 1932, although the start of its regular service of television broadcasts is dated to 2 November 1936. The BBC's domestic television channels have no commercial advertising and collectively they accounted for more than 30% of all UK viewing in 2013. The services are funded by a television licence. As a result of the 2016 Licence Fee settlement, the BBC Television division was split, with in-house television production being separated into a new division called BBC Studios and the remaining parts of television (channels and genre commissioning, BBC Sport and BBC iPlayer) being renamed as BBC Content. History of BBC Television The BBC operates several television networks, television stations (although there is generally very little distincti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arsenic And Old Lace (play)
''Arsenic and Old Lace'' is a play by American playwright Joseph Kesselring, written in 1939. It has become best known through the 1944 film adaptation starring Cary Grant and directed by Frank Capra. The play was produced by Lindsay and Crouse and directed by Bretaigne Windust, and opened on Broadway at the Fulton Theatre on January 10, 1941. On September 25, 1943, the play moved to the Hudson Theatre, closing there on June 17, 1944, having played 1,444 performances. The West End production - directed by Marcel Varnel and produced at London's Strand Theatre - enjoyed a similarly long run. Opening on December 23, 1942 and closing on March 2, 1946, it totalled 1,337 performances. Of the 12 plays written by Kesselring, ''Arsenic and Old Lace'' was by far the most successful. According to the opening night review in ''The New York Times'', the play was "so funny that none of us will ever forget it." Plot The play is a farcical black comedy revolving around the Brewster fami ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1914 Births
This year saw the beginning of what became known as World War I, after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austrian throne was assassinated by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. It also saw the first airline to provide scheduled regular commercial passenger services with heavier-than-air aircraft, with the St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line. Events January * January 1 – The St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line in the United States starts services between St. Petersburg and Tampa, Florida, becoming the first airline to provide scheduled regular commercial passenger services with heavier-than-air aircraft, with Tony Jannus (the first federally-licensed pilot) conveying passengers in a Benoist XIV flying boat. Abram C. Pheil, mayor of St. Petersburg, is the first airline passenger, and over 3,000 people witness the first departure. * January 11 – The Sakurajima volcano in Japan begins to erupt, becoming effusive after a very large earthquake ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Rise And Rise Of Michael Rimmer
''The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer'' is a 1970 British satirical film starring Peter Cook, and co-written by Cook, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, and Kevin Billington, who directed the film. The film was devised and produced by David Frost under the pseudonym "David Paradine". Cleese and Chapman began writing the script following patronage from Frost. Cook and Billington were later called upon to complete the writing as, according to Cleese, he and Chapman "had no idea what they were doing". The film satirised the growing influence of PR, spin and opinion polls in British politics, as well as parodying political figures of the time such as Harold Wilson and Enoch Powell. Cook admitted later that he had partly based his portrayal of the Rimmer character on David Frost, who provided funding for the film and took an executive producer credit. Plot The mysterious Michael Rimmer (Cook) appears at a small and ailing British advertising agency, where the employees assume he is worki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe And Find True Happiness?
''Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?'' is a 1969 British musical film directed by and starring Anthony Newley. Plot Merkin is an internationally successful singer approaching middle age who retells his life story in a series of production numbers on a seashore in front of his two toddlers and aged mother. Merkin's promiscuous relationships with women are explored, particularly Polyester Poontang and the adolescent Mercy Humppe. Merkin compares the relationship with Mercy Humppe to that of Humbert Humbert and Lolita. Merkin is constantly surrounded by a Satan-like procurer, Goodtime Eddie Filth, and an angelic 'Presence' who interrupts Merkin's biography with cryptic Borscht Belt-level jokes to denote births and deaths in Merkin's life. Newley periodically steps out of character to complain about his 'Merkin' role with an unseen director, two screenwriters, the film's producers and a trio of blasé movie critics who are turned off by the story ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery
''The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery'' is a British comedy film, directed by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, written by Sidney and Leslie Gilliat, and released on 4 April 1966. It is the last of the original series of films based on the '' St Trinian's School'' set of images and comics, and the only one to be produced in colour. The film stars a selection of actors from previous films in the series, including George Cole, Richard Wattis, Eric Barker, Michael Ripper, and Raymond Huntley, alongside Frankie Howerd, Reg Varney, Dora Bryan, and the voice of Stratford Johns. The film's story focuses on St Trinian's becoming caught up in a train robbery, after the gang who conducted it attempts to reclaim their loot from the building that the students and teachers now inhabit. The story itself is based on the actual Great Train Robbery that took place in 1963, and includes numerous parodies of the technocratic ideas of the Harold Wilson government and its support of the comprehe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Jones (actor)
Peter Geoffrey Francis Jones (12 June 1920 – 10 April 2000) was an English actor, screenwriter and broadcaster. Early life and early career Peter Jones, born in Wem, Shropshire, was educated at Wem Grammar School and Ellesmere College, making his first appearance as an actor in Wolverhampton at the age of 16 and then appeared in repertory theatre in East Anglia. In 1942 he acted on the West End stage in '' The Doctor's Dilemma'' and in 1942 he made an uncredited film appearance in '' Fanny by Gaslight''. An early film credit was as a Xenobian trade delegate in '' Chance of a Lifetime'' (1950). He appeared in the 1949 comedy ''Love in Albania'' by Eric Linklater. He co-wrote the 1954 play ''The Party Spirit'' which ran in the West End with Ralph Lynn and Robertson Hare. Radio Between 1952 and 1955 Jones starred alongside Peter Ustinov in the BBC radio comedy ''In All Directions''. The show featured Jones and Ustinov as themselves in a car in London perpetually searching fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beggar My Neighbour (TV Series)
''Beggar My Neighbour'' is a British sitcom starring Reg Varney, Peter Jones, June Whitfield, Pat Coombs and (later) Desmond Walter-Ellis. Made in black-and-white, it was broadcast from 1966 to 1968 and was written by Ken Hoare and Mike Sharland. Cast * Peter Jones – Gerald Garvey ''(pilot and series 1)'' *Desmond Walter-Ellis – Gerald Garvey ''(from series 2)'' *June Whitfield – Rose Garvey *Reg Varney – Harry Butt *Pat Coombs – Lana Butt *Rosemary Faith – Deidre Garvey ''(from series 2)'' Plot Rose Garvey, and her husband Gerald, live next door to her sister Lana Butt, and her husband Harry, in the fictional Larkworthy Road, Muswell Hill, North London. Gerald is an underpaid junior executive, while Harry is a well-paid fitter. The slightly snobbish Gerald makes sure that he and Rose keep up a pretence of doing well even though they are not. Meanwhile, the Butts' relative wealth encourages Lana to put on airs and graces, although Harry r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Athene Seyler
Athene Seyler, CBE (31 May 188912 September 1990) was an English actress. Early life She was born in Hackney, London; her German-born grandparents moved to the United Kingdom, where her grandfather Philip Seyler was a merchant in London. Athene Seyler was educated at Coombe Hill School in Surrey, a progressive co-educational school which disliked petitionary prayer and whose advanced biology classes studied Darwin's ''On the Origin of Species''. Seyler took part in an anti-blood sports demonstration, during which pupils captured the fox from the local hunt.MacKillop, I. D. (1986) ''The British Ethical Societies'', Cambridge University Press, nlineAvailable from: https://books.google.com/books?id=mqgsFS_MN9UC&pgis=1 (Accessed 13 May 2014). She was also active in the South Place Ethical Society during the 1920s, where her father Clarence H. Seyler took his family for many years to hear Moncure Conway lecture as an alternative to attending a religious Sunday service. Clarence r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sybil Thorndike
Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike, Lady Casson (24 October 18829 June 1976) was an English actress whose stage career lasted from 1904 to 1969. Trained in her youth as a concert pianist, Thorndike turned to the stage when a medical problem with her hands ruled out a musical career. She began her professional acting career with the company of the actor-manager Ben Greet, with whom she toured the US from 1904 to 1908. In Britain she played in old and new plays on tour and in the West End theatre, West End, often appearing with her husband, the actor and director Lewis Casson. She joined the the Old Vic, Old Vic company during the First World War, and in the early 1920s George Bernard Shaw, Bernard Shaw, impressed by seeing her in a tragedy, wrote ''Saint Joan (play), Saint Joan'' with her in mind. She starred in it with great success. She became known as Britain's leading tragedienne, but also appeared frequently in comedy. During the Second World War, Thorndike and her husband toured ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Camelot (musical)
''Camelot'' is a 1960 musical by Alan Jay Lerner (book and lyrics) and Frederick Loewe (music). It is based on the King Arthur legend as adapted from T. H. White's 1958 novel ''The Once and Future King''. The original production, directed by Moss Hart with orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett and Philip J. Lang, ran on Broadway for 873 performances, winning four Tony Awards. It starred Richard Burton as Arthur, Julie Andrews as Guinevere, and Robert Goulet as Lancelot. It spawned several revivals, foreign productions, and the 1967 Warner Bros. film ''Camelot''. The musical has become associated with the Kennedy Administration, which is sometimes called the "Camelot Era," due to an interview with Jackie Kennedy in which she compared her husband's presidency to King Arthur's reign, specifically mentioning his fondness for the musical and particularly the closing lyrics which end the song "Camelot" and also form the ending of the musical itself. Background In 1959, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
