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Hugh Hastings (playwright)
Hugh Hastings (31 January 191726 November 2004) was an Australian writer best known for his play ''Seagulls Over Sorrento''. He moved to England in 1936 determined to break into theatre as an actor or writer. He served in the British Royal Navy for over five years during World War II. Life Hastings's ''Seagulls Over Sorrento'' made theatre history by running for 1,551 performances at London's Apollo Theatre. Only two other plays had then run longer in theatre history: Noël Coward's '' Blithe Spirit''; and R. F. Delderfield's ''Worm's Eye View''. Part of the play's appeal was that it was radical for the time. The play was set inside a Royal Navy research station near Scapa Flow. The play was not popular with everyone, and not everyone saw the humor in it. It elicited subdued laughs as well as frowns, depending on whether the audience was liberal or conservative. He estimated he made £50,000 from ''Sorrento''. The fortune grew to £100,000 when in 1954 a film version made by th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seagulls Over Sorrento (play)
''Seagulls Over Sorrento'' is a play by the writer Hugh Hastings, an Australian who had served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. It was first staged for a single performance at the Comedy Theatre in London's West End in 1949 before embarking on a lengthy run of 1,551 performances between 14 June 1950 and 13 March 1954 mainly at the Apollo Theatre and then transferring briefly to the Duchess Theatre. The West End cast included John Gregson (replaced by Gordon Jackson), Nigel Stock, Bernard Lee, Ronald Shiner and William Hartnell. Shiner and Hartnell, in particular, were singled out for praised by critics A Broadway version ran for only 12 performances at the John Golden Theatre. Film adaptation It was made into the 1954 film ''Seagulls Over Sorrento'' by MGM British, directed by Boulting Brothers and starring Gene Kelly, John Justin and Bernard Lee John Bernard Lee (10 January 190816 January 1981) was an English actor, best known for his role as M in the fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
It Started In Paradise
''It Started in Paradise'' is a 1952 British drama film directed by Compton Bennett and starring Jane Hylton, Martita Hunt and Muriel Pavlow. Set in the world of haute couture, the film was squarely aimed at female audiences. Its storyline of an established master of her craft being usurped by a younger, ruthlessly ambitious underling, who then years later finds the same thing happening to her – with a waspish male critic on hand throughout to provide a steady stream of acerbic, biting commentary – led inevitably to the film being dubbed the ''All About Eve'' of the fashion world. The film was made at Pinewood Studios with sets designed by the art director Edward Carrick. It was shot in Technicolor and is described by Hal Erickson of ''Allmovie'' as: "an unusually plush, Lana Turner-esque production to come from a British studio in the early 1950s". The title is a wry suggestion that Adam, by his crafting of the fig leaves for Eve and for himself to wear, also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2004 Deaths
This is a list of deaths of notable people, organised by year. New deaths articles are added to their respective month (e.g., Deaths in ) and then linked here. 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 See also * Lists of deaths by day The following pages, corresponding to the Gregorian calendar, list the historical events, births, deaths, and holidays and observances of the specified day of the year: Footnotes See also * Leap year * List of calendars * List of non-standard ... * Deaths by year {{DEFAULTSORT:deaths by year ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1917 Births
Events Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix. January * January 9 – WWI – Battle of Rafa: The last substantial Ottoman Army garrison on the Sinai Peninsula is captured by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force's Desert Column. * January 10 – Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition: Seven survivors of the Ross Sea party were rescued after being stranded for several months. * January 11 – Unknown saboteurs set off the Kingsland Explosion at Kingsland (modern-day Lyndhurst, New Jersey), one of the events leading to United States involvement in WWI. * January 16 – The Danish West Indies is sold to the United States for $25 million. * January 22 – WWI: United States President Woodrow Wilson calls for "peace without victory" in Germany. * January 25 ** WWI: British armed merchantman is sunk by mines off Lough Swilly (Ireland), with the loss of 354 of the 475 aboard. ** An anti- prostitution drive in San Francisco occurs, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian Writers
Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Australians, indigenous peoples of Australia as identified and defined within Australian law * Australia (continent) ** Indigenous Australians * Australian English, the dialect of the English language spoken in Australia * Australian Aboriginal languages * ''The Australian'', a newspaper * Australiana, things of Australian origins Other uses * Australian (horse), a racehorse * Australian, British Columbia, an unincorporated community in Canada See also * The Australian (other) * Australia (other) Australia is a country in the Southern Hemisphere. Australia may also refer to: Places * Name of Australia relates the history of the term, as applied to various places. Oceania *Australia (continent), or Sahul, the landmasses ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AustLit
AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource (also known as AustLit: Australian Literature Gateway; and AustLit: The Resource for Australian Literature), usually referred to simply as AustLit, is an internet-based, non-profit collaboration between researchers and librarians from Australian universities, led by the University of Queensland (UQ), designed to comprehensively record the history of Australian literary and story-making cultures. AustLit is an encyclopaedia of Australian writers and writing. BlackWords is a landmark research project by and within AustLit that details the lives and work of Indigenous Australian authors, which includes Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and storytellers. History AustLit was founded in 2000, when several independent databases on a variety of themes related to literary studies was created from work done by research groups at eight universities. The first dataset comprised about 300,000 fairly simple biographical and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glory At Sea
''Gift Horse'' (released in the United States as ''Glory at Sea'') is a 1952 British black-and-white World War II drama film. It was produced by George Pitcher, directed by Compton Bennett, and stars Trevor Howard, Richard Attenborough, James Donald, and Sonny Tufts. The film follows the story of the fictional ship HMS ''Ballantrae'' and her crew from the time they come together in 1940 until they go on a one-way mission to destroy a German-held dry dock in France. The title is a reference to the old proverb " Never look a gift horse in the mouth". Plot In the Second World War, the Royal Navy is desperately short of personnel. Court-martialed eight years before, Lieutenant Commander Fraser is brought out of retirement and put in command of the antiquated "four pipe" First World War-vintage ship HMS ''Ballantrae'', formerly USS ''Whittier'', one of the Town-class destroyers from the destroyers-for-bases deal. On her first mission, convoy escort duty, ''Ballantrae'' suff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seagulls Over Sorrento
''Seagulls Over Sorrento'' is a 1954 British war drama film made by the Boulting brothers based on the play of the same name by Hugh Hastings. The film stars Gene Kelly and was one of three made by Kelly in Europe over an 18-month period to make use of frozen MGM funds. The cast features John Justin, Bernard Lee and Jeff Richards. It was shot at MGM's Elstree Studios with sets designed by the art director Alfred Junge with location shooting taking place in the Channel Islands. Although the film finished shooting in July 1953, MGM could not release it in the United Kingdom until the play finished its London run, which delayed the film's release for almost a year. It was released as ''Crest of the Wave'' in the United States and Canada. Plot A small group of British sailors stationed on a Scottish island engaged in top-secret research on a new and dangerous torpedo are joined by a US Navy scientist, Lt. Brad Bradville (Gene Kelly), and his assistants. When several tests of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adelphi Theatre
The Adelphi Theatre is a West End theatre, located on the Strand in the City of Westminster, central London. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiving house for a variety of productions, including many musicals. The theatre was Grade II listed for historical preservation on 1 December 1987. History 19th century It was founded in 1806 as the Sans Pareil ("Without Compare"), by merchant John Scott, and his daughter Jane (1770–1839). Jane was a British theatre manager, performer, and playwright. Together, they gathered a theatrical company and by 1809 the theatre was licensed for musical entertainments, pantomime, and burletta. She wrote more than fifty stage pieces in an array of genres: melodramas, pantomimes, farces, comic operettas, historical dramas, and adaptations, as well as translations. Jane Scott retired to Surrey in 1819, marrying John Davies Middleton (1790–186 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amethyst Incident
The ''Amethyst'' Incident, also known as the Yangtze Incident, was a historic event which involved the Royal Navy ships , , , and on the Yangtze River for three months during the Chinese Civil War in the summer of 1949. Description On 20 April 1949, , commanded by Lieutenant Commander Bernard Skinner, was on her way from Shanghai to Nanking,Nanking is now known as Nanjing and is situated on the Yangtze River to replace , which was standing as guard ship for the British Embassy there during the Chinese Civil War between the nationalist Kuomintang-led Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party. According to the Royal Navy, at around 08:31, after a burst of small arms fire, a People's Liberation Army (PLA) field gun battery on the north bank of the river fired a salvo of ten shells to warn ''Amethyst'' to stay away from the war zone. The salvo fell well short of the ship, and was assumed to be part of a regular bombardment of Nationalist forces on the south bank. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marghanita Laski
Marghanita Laski (24 October 1915 – 6 February 1988) was an English journalist, radio panellist and novelist. She also wrote literary biography, plays and short stories, and contributed about 250,000 additions to the ''Oxford English Dictionary''. Personal life Marghanita Laski was born in Manchester, England, to a prominent family of Jewish intellectuals (Neville Laski was her father, Moses Gaster her grandfather, and Harold Laski her uncle). She was educated at Lady Barn House School in Manchester and St Paul's Girls' School in Hammersmith, worked in fashion, then studied English at Somerville College, Oxford, where she was a close friend of Inez Pearn, who was later to become a novelist and marry Stephen Spender and subsequently, after a divorce, Charles Madge. While at Oxford, she met John Eldred Howard, founder of the Cresset Press; they married in 1937. During this time, she worked as a journalist. Laski lived at Capo Di Monte in Judge's Walk, Hampstead, North London, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against France. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century; the oldest of the UK's armed services, it is consequently known as the Senior Service. From the middle decades of the 17th century, and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century, it was the world's most powerful navy until the Second World War. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing and defending the British Empire, and four Imperial fortress colonies and a string of imperial bases and coaling stations secured the Royal Navy's ability to assert naval superiority globally. Owing to this historical prominence, it is common, even among non-Britons, to ref ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
