Fire Over England
''Fire Over England'' is a 1937 London Film Productions film drama, notable for providing the first pairing of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. It was directed by William K. Howard and written by Clemence Dane from the 1936 novel ''Fire Over England (novel), Fire Over England'' by A. E. W. Mason, AEW Mason. Leigh's performance in the film helped to convince David O. Selznick to cast her as Scarlett O'Hara in his 1939 production of ''Gone with the Wind (film), Gone with the Wind''. The film is a historical drama set during the reign of Elizabeth I focusing on England's victory over the Spanish Armada. Plot During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, England is concerned by the impending arrival of the Spanish Armada. In 1588, relations between Spain and England are at breaking point. With the support of Queen Elizabeth I (Flora Robson), English privateers such as Francis Drake, Sir Francis Drake regularly capture Spanish merchantmen bringing gold from the New World. Elizabeth's ch ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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William K
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of England in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. It is sometimes abbreviated "Wm." Shortened familiar versions in English include Will, Wills, Willy, Willie, Bill, and Billy. A common Irish form is Liam. Scottish diminutives include Wull, Willie or Wullie (as in Oor Wullie or the play ''Douglas''). Female forms are Willa, Willemina, Wilma and Wilhelmina. Etymology William is related to the given name ''Wilhelm'' (cf. Proto-Germanic ᚹᛁᛚᛃᚨᚺᛖᛚᛗᚨᛉ, ''*Wiljahelmaz'' > German ''Wilhelm'' and Old Norse ᚢᛁᛚᛋᛅᚼᛅᛚᛘᛅᛋ, ''Vilhjálmr''). By regular sound changes, the native, inherited English form of the name should b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Scarlett O'Hara
Katie Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler is a fictional character and the protagonist in Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel ''Gone with the Wind'' and in the 1939 film of the same name, where she is portrayed by Vivien Leigh. She also is the main character in the 1970 musical '' Scarlett'' and the 1991 book '' Scarlett'', a sequel to ''Gone with the Wind'' that was written by Alexandra Ripley and adapted for a television mini-series in 1994. During early drafts of the original novel, Mitchell referred to her heroine as "Pansy", and did not decide on the name "Scarlett" until just before the novel went to print. Biography Scarlett O'Hara is the oldest living child of Gerald O'Hara and Ellen O'Hara (née Robillard). She was born in 1845 on her family's plantation Tara in Georgia. She was named Katie Scarlett, after her father's mother, but is always called Scarlett, except by her father, who refers to her as "Katie Scarlett". She is from a Catholic family of Irish ancestry on h ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Philip II Of Spain
Philip II) in Spain, while in Portugal and his Italian kingdoms he ruled as Philip I ( pt, Filipe I). (21 May 152713 September 1598), also known as Philip the Prudent ( es, Felipe el Prudente), was King of Spain from 1556, King of Portugal from 1580, and King of Naples and Sicily from 1554 until his death in 1598. He was '' jure uxoris'' King of England and Ireland from his marriage to Queen Mary I in 1554 until her death in 1558. He was also Duke of Milan from 1540. From 1555, he was Lord of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands. The son of Emperor Charles V and Isabella of Portugal, Philip inherited his father's Spanish Empire in 1556 and succeeded to the Portuguese throne in 1580 following a dynastic crisis. The Spanish conquests of the Inca Empire and of the Philippines, named in his honor by Ruy López de Villalobos, were completed during his reign. Under Philip II, Spain reached the height of its influence and power, sometimes called the Spanish Golden Age, and r ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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James Mason
James Neville Mason (; 15 May 190927 July 1984) was an English actor. He achieved considerable success in British cinema before becoming a star in Hollywood. He was the top box-office attraction in the UK in 1944 and 1945; his British films included ''The Seventh Veil'' (1945) and ''The Wicked Lady'' (1945). He starred in ''Odd Man Out'' (1947), the first recipient of the BAFTA Award for Best British Film. Mason starred in such films as George Cukor's '' A Star Is Born'' (1954), Alfred Hitchcock's ''North by Northwest'' (1959), Stanley Kubrick's ''Lolita'' (1962), Warren Beatty's '' Heaven Can Wait'' (1978), and Sidney Lumet's ''The Verdict'' (1982). He also starred in a number of successful British and American films from the 1950s to the early 1980s, including: '' The Desert Fox'' (1951), ''Julius Caesar'' (1953), ''Bigger Than Life'' (1956), ''20,000 Leagues Under the Sea'' (1954), ''Journey to the Center of the Earth'' (1959), ''Georgy Girl'' (1966), and '' The Boys from Bra ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tamara Desni
Tamara Desni (22 October 19137 February 2008) was a German-born British actress She appeared in films in the 1930s and 1940s. Biography Desni was born in Berlin as Tamara Brodsky, ''The Telegraph'' (15 February 2008). Retrieved 29 September 2010. the daughter of actress Xenia Desni. Her mother was born in Kiev, Russian Empire and emigrated to Germany some time before Desni's birth. She became a star of German cinema during the silent era. She studied ballet as a child and appeared on stage and in several German films. She married a dentist while a teenager, although they divorced before Desni landed her first London acting role in 1931 in the musical ''White Horse Inn''. She followed this up with another leading role in the musical ''Casanova'', featuring music by Johann Strauss, Jr. Desni's film career took off in 1933 with ''Fal ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lyn Harding
David Llewellyn Harding (12 October 1867 – 26 December 1952), known professionally as Lyn Harding, was a Welsh actor who spent 40 years on the stage before entering British made silent films, talkies and radio. He had an imposing and menacing stage presence and came to be cast as the villain in many films, notably Professor Moriarty in dramatisations of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Early years He was born in 1867 at St. Brides Wentloog, in Monmouthshire, into a strict Congregationalist Welsh-speaking family. Acting career He started his career as an apprentice draper in Newport, Wales and but he was drawn to an acting career. He began giving readings from Shakespeare at a chapel in Cardiff. In 1890 a chance meeting with a touring group on a train led to him standing in for a sick actor and his first professional engagement. He opened on 28 August 1890 in ''The Grip Of Iron'' at the Theatre Royal, Bristol. He toured "the provinces" and eventually made his London debut ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Robert Rendel
Robert Rendel (2 December 1884, in St Mary Abbots Kensington, London – 9 May 1944, in Marylebone, London) was a British actor of stage, screen, television and radio. Career His stage work included roles in the original Broadway theatre, Broadway productions of W. Somerset Maugham, Somerset Maugham's ''The Circle (play), The Circle'' in 1921, and Arnold Ridley's ''The Ghost Train (play), The Ghost Train'' in 1926. In 1935 he played the Duke of Marlborough in Norman Ginsbury's ''Viceroy Sarah''. On film, he played Sherlock Holmes in the original sound film, sound version of ''The Hound of the Baskervilles (1932 film), The Hound of the Baskervilles'' in 1932. Filmography * ''Slander (1916 film), Slander'' (1916) as Harry Carson * ''The Barricade (1917 film), The Barricade'' (1917) as Gerald Hastings * ''Her Night of Romance'' (1924) as Prince George * ''The Hound of the Baskervilles (1932 film), The Hound of the Baskervilles'' (1932) as Sherlock Holmes * ''Death at Broadcastin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Robert Dudley, 1st Earl Of Leicester
Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, (24 June 1532 – 4 September 1588) was an English statesman and the favourite of Elizabeth I from her accession until his death. He was a suitor for the queen's hand for many years. Dudley's youth was overshadowed by the downfall of his family in 1553 after his father, John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, The 1st Duke of Northumberland, had failed to prevent the accession of Mary I. Robert Dudley was condemned to death but was released in 1554 and took part in the Battle of St. Quentin (1557), Battle of St. Quentin under Mary's husband and co-ruler, Philip II of Spain, Philip, which led to his full rehabilitation. On Elizabeth I's accession in November 1558, Dudley was appointed Master of the Horse. In October 1562, he became a Privy Council of England, privy councillor and, in 1587, was appointed Lord Steward of the Royal Household. In 1564, Dudley became Earl of Leicester and, from 1563, one of the greatest landowners in North Wales ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Morton Selten
Morton Selten (6 January 1860 – 27 July 1939) was a British stage and film actor. He was occasionally credited as Morton Selton. Biography At birth, Selten was given the name Morton Richard Stubbs and claimed as the son of Morton Stubbs, a lawyer who died in 1877. It is said that Selten was widely believed to be an illegitimate son of the then Prince of Wales (and future King Edward VII). However, there was no truth in the story; his parents had married on 9 December 1859, and he was born a month later, some time prior to the Prince's first sexual experiences in 1861 Selten began acting on the stage in 1878, mainly in America. In 1889, he played Clarence Vane in Mrs. Hargrove's '' Our Flat'' at the Lyceum Theatre and Captain Heartsease in ''Shenandoah'', Bronson Howard's American Civil War epic. Selten would go on to play in some twenty-five Broadway productions over the following three decades. His film career began with his portrayal of the Marquis of Shelford in ''Brand ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (13 September 15204 August 1598) was an English statesman, the chief adviser of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign, twice Secretary of State (1550–1553 and 1558–1572) and Lord High Treasurer from 1572. In his description in the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Eleventh Edition, Albert Pollard wrote, "From 1558 for forty years the biography of Cecil is almost indistinguishable from that of Elizabeth and from the history of England." Cecil set as the main goal of English policy the creation of a united and Protestant British Isles. His methods were to complete the control of Ireland, and to forge an alliance with Scotland. Protection from invasion required a powerful Royal Navy. While he was not fully successful, his successors agreed with his goals. In 1587, Cecil persuaded the Queen to order the execution of the Roman Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, after she was implicated in a plot to assassinate Elizabeth. He was the father of Robe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lord High Treasurer
The post of Lord High Treasurer or Lord Treasurer was an English government position and has been a British government position since the Acts of Union of 1707. A holder of the post would be the third-highest-ranked Great Officer of State in England, below the Lord High Steward and the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. The Lord High Treasurer functions as the head of His Majesty's Treasury. The office has, since the resignation of Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury in 1714, been vacant. Although the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was created in 1801, it was not until the Consolidated Fund Act 1816 that the separate offices of Lord High Treasurer of Great Britain and Lord High Treasurer of Ireland were united into one office as the 'Lord High Treasurer of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland' on 5 January 1817. Section 2 of the Consolidated Fund Act 1816 also provides that "whenever there shall not be Lord High Treasurer of the United Kingdo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Francis Drake
Sir Francis Drake ( – 28 January 1596) was an English explorer, sea captain, privateer, slave trader, naval officer, and politician. Drake is best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580 (the first English circumnavigation, the second carried out in a single expedition, and third circumnavigation overall). This included his incursion into the Pacific Ocean, until then an area of exclusive Spanish interest, and his claim to New Albion for England, an area in what is now the U.S. state of California. His expedition inaugurated an era of conflict with the Spanish on the western coast of the Americas, an area that had previously been largely unexplored by Western shipping. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for three constituencies; Camelford in 1581, Bossiney in 1584, and Plymouth in 1593. Queen Elizabeth I of England, Elizabeth I awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581 which he received on the ''Golden Hind'' in Deptford. In the same ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |