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John Merivale
John Herman Merivale (1 December 1917 – 6 February 1990) was a Canadian-born British theatre actor, and occasional supporting player in British films. Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, John Merivale was the son of English actors Philip Merivale and Viva Birkett. His stepmother was the English actress Gladys Cooper. Merivale was educated in England, at Rugby and New College, Oxford. Merivale made his acting debut at age 15, playing the small role of a newsboy in James Whale's ''The Invisible Man'' (1933). His stage career started when he was 21, as an understudy in a production of ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', where he first met Vivien Leigh. He later worked in the production of ''Romeo and Juliet'' by Leigh and her husband, Laurence Olivier. Merivale's career was put on hold while he served as a pilot with both the British and Canadian air forces during World War II. He resumed his career in 1946, with a starring role in a successful U.S. production of Oscar Wilde's ...
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Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anchor of the Golden Horseshoe, an urban agglomeration of 9,765,188 people (as of 2021) surrounding the western end of Lake Ontario, while the Greater Toronto Area proper had a 2021 population of 6,712,341. Toronto is an international centre of business, finance, arts, sports and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world. Indigenous peoples have travelled through and inhabited the Toronto area, located on a broad sloping plateau interspersed with rivers, deep ravines, and urban forest, for more than 10,000 years. After the broadly disputed Toronto Purchase, when the Mississauga surrendered the area to the British Crown, the British established the town of York in 1793 and later designat ...
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Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'', and the circumstances of his criminal conviction for gross indecency for consensual homosexual acts in "one of the first celebrity trials", imprisonment, and early death from meningitis at age 46. Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. A young Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, Wilde read Literae Humaniores#Greats, Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional Classics, classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde m ...
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Kidney Failure
Kidney failure, also known as end-stage kidney disease, is a medical condition in which the kidneys can no longer adequately filter waste products from the blood, functioning at less than 15% of normal levels. Kidney failure is classified as either acute kidney failure, which develops rapidly and may resolve; and chronic kidney failure, which develops slowly and can often be irreversible. Symptoms may include leg swelling, feeling tired, vomiting, loss of appetite, and confusion. Complications of acute and chronic failure include uremia, high blood potassium, and volume overload. Complications of chronic failure also include heart disease, high blood pressure, and anemia. Causes of acute kidney failure include low blood pressure, blockage of the urinary tract, certain medications, muscle breakdown, and hemolytic uremic syndrome. Causes of chronic kidney failure include diabetes, high blood pressure, nephrotic syndrome, and polycystic kidney disease. Diagnosis of acute failure ...
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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 ...
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The Reluctant Debutante (play)
''The Reluctant Debutante'' is a 1955 play by the British playwright William Douglas Home. It was first performed (for a 'try-out' week) at the Theatre Royal Brighton after William Douglas-Home spotted the untrained 17-year-old actress Anna Massey and brought her in to audition for the title role. After she wowed the Brighton audiences the play quickly transferred to the Cambridge Theatre, London on 24 May 1955, where it enjoyed a long run with Wilfrid Hyde-White continuing to play the father and Celia Johnson the neurotic mother, Sheila Broadbent. The production was directed by Jack Minster. On 30 June 1955 MGM bought the film and stage rights to this hit London success with the aim of taking it to Broadway. In 1956 the play premièred on Broadway at the Henry Miller's Theatre with a mostly changed cast but still with Anna Massey in the lead and Wilfrid Hyde-White playing her father. Plot The plot follows an aristocratic family through one of London's debutante A d ...
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Venus Observed
''Venus Observed'' is a play in blank verse by the English dramatist and poet Christopher Fry. The play concerns a Duke who decides to remarry for a third time. He gets his son Edgar to pick the bride. The Duke likes Perpetua but Edgar wants her for himself. Productions It was first performed on 18 January 1950 at the St James's Theatre, London, and ran for 229 performances with the following cast: *The Duke of Altair – Laurence Olivier *Edgar, his son – Denholm Elliott *Herbert Reedbeck, his agent – George Relph *Dominic, Reedbeck's son – Robert Beaumont *Rosabel Fleming – Valerie Taylor *Jessie Dill – Brenda de Banzie *Captain Fox Reddleman, the Duke's butler – Fred Johnson *Bates, the Duke's footman – Thomas Heathcote *Hilda Taylor-Snell – Rachel Kempson *Perpetua, Reedbeck's daughter – Heather Stannard *Director – Laurence Olivier *Set designer – Roger Furse *Composer – Herbert Menges *Costume designer – Margaret Furse Scenes: *Th ...
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Arabesque (1966 Film)
''Arabesque'' is a 1966 American comedy thriller spy film directed by Stanley Donen and starring Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren, written by Julian Mitchell, Stanley Price, and Peter Stone based on ''The Cipher'', a 1961 novel by Alex Gordon (pseudonym of Gordon Cotler). The film, along with Donen's immediately prior film ''Charade'' (1963), is usually described as being "Hitchcockian", as it features as a protagonist an innocent and ordinary man thrust into dangerous and extraordinary situations. It was the last film of that genre which Donen would make. ''Arabesque'' was filmed in Technicolor and Panavision and was distributed by Universal Pictures. Plot In an undercover mission, Major Sloane kills Professor Ragheeb, an ancient hieroglyphics expert at Oxford University and steals a hieroglyph-encrypted message. Sloane then asks Professor David Pollock, who has taken over Ragheeb's class on hieroglyphics, to meet with shipping magnate Nejim Beshraavi on a business matter. David d ...
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King Rat (film)
''King Rat'' is a 1965 American war film written and directed by Bryan Forbes and starring George Segal and James Fox. They play Corporal King and Flight Lieutenant Marlowe, respectively, two World War II prisoners of war in a squalid camp in Singapore. Among the supporting cast are John Mills and Tom Courtenay. The film was adapted from James Clavell's novel '' King Rat'' (1962), which in turn is partly based on Clavell's experiences as a POW at Changi Prison in Singapore in the latter part of the Second World War. Plot Corporal King is an anomaly in the Japanese prison camp. One of only a handful of Americans amongst the British and Australian inmates, he thrives through his conniving and black market enterprises, while others, nearly all of higher rank, struggle to survive sickness and starvation while trying to retain their civilized standards. King recruits upper class British RAF officer Flight Lieutenant Peter Marlowe to act as a translator. As they become acquainted, Mar ...
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The List Of Adrian Messenger
''The List of Adrian Messenger'' is a 1963 American mystery film directed by John Huston starring Kirk Douglas, George C. Scott, Dana Wynter, Clive Brook, Gladys Cooper and Herbert Marshall. It is based on a 1959 novel of the same name written by Philip MacDonald. Plot A writer named Adrian Messenger believes a series of apparently unrelated "accidental" deaths are actually linked murders. He asks his friend Anthony Gethryn, recently retired from MI5, to help clear up the mystery, and provides him with a list of the victims' names. Soon afterward, Messenger's plane is bombed while he is en route to collect evidence to confirm his suspicions and, with his dying breath, he tells a fellow passenger the key to the mystery. The passenger survives and turns out to be Raoul Le Borg, Gethryn's old World War II counterpart in the French Resistance. The two of them join forces to investigate Messenger's list of names and decode his cryptic final words. They are joined by Lady Jocelyn Brut ...
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House Of Mystery (1961 Film)
''House of Mystery'' is a 1961 British supernatural mystery film. It was based on a play director Vernon Sewell had filmed three times before.John Hamilton, ''The British Independent Horror Film 1951-70'' Hemlock Books 2013 p 96-98 It was known in Germany as Das Landhaus des Dr. Lemming ("The Country House of Dr. Lemming"), and because of its compact running time, aired in the U.S. as an episode of the TV series "Kraft Mystery Theatre". Plot A pair of newlyweds visit an old cottage for sale in the country, and hear the housekeeper's account of its macabre history. The previous owners had been disturbed by paranormal activity, and on calling in a medium, the ghost was identified as an eccentric and vengeful scientist, once resident in the cottage. The scientist was obsessed with electricity, and when his unfaithful wife and her lover attempted to murder him, he responded by electrifying the living room floor and fixtures, and challenging the couple to escape. Cast *Stella Lemming ...
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Circus Of Horrors
''Circus of Horrors'' is a 1960 British horror film directed by Sidney Hayers, and starring Anton Diffring, Yvonne Monlaur, Erika Remberg, Kenneth Griffith, Jane Hylton, Conrad Phillips, Yvonne Romain, and Donald Pleasence. Set in 1947, it follows a deranged plastic surgeon who changes his identity after botching an operation, and later comes to gain control of a circus that he uses as a front for his surgical exploits. The original screenplay was written by American screenwriter George Baxt. It was released in the United States by American International Pictures as a double feature with ''The Angry Red Planet''. Plot In 1947 England, plastic surgeon Dr. Rossiter is wanted by police after performing a botched operation on socialite Evelyn Morley. However, believing himself to have brilliant abilities as a surgeon, he and his assistants, Martin and Angela, evade capture and escape to France. To avoid capture, Rossiter changes his name to Dr. Schüler. Schüler sees a girl scarre ...
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