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Robert Hooks
Robert Hooks (born Bobby Dean Hooks; April 18, 1937) is an American actor, producer, and activist. Along with Douglas Turner Ward and Gerald S. Krone, he founded The Negro Ensemble Company. The Negro Ensemble Company is credited with the launch of the careers of many major black artists of all disciplines, while creating a body of performance literature over the last thirty years, providing the backbone of African-American theatrical classics. Additionally, Hooks is the sole founder of two significant black theatre companies: the D.C. Black Repertory Company, and New York's Group Theatre Workshop. Biography Early life The youngest of five children, Hooks was born in Foggy Bottom, Washington, D.C. to Mae Bertha (née Ward), a seamstress, and Edward Hooks who had moved from Rocky Mount, North Carolina with their four other children, Bernice, Caroleigh, Charles Edward "Charlie", and James Walter "Jimmy". Named Bobby Dean Hooks at birth, Robert was their first child born up north ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since 1854, the city has been coextensive with Philadelphia County, the most populous county in Pennsylvania and the urban core of the Delaware Valley, the nation's seventh-largest and one of world's largest metropolitan regions, with 6.245 million residents . The city's population at the 2020 census was 1,603,797, and over 56 million people live within of Philadelphia. Philadelphia was founded in 1682 by William Penn, an English Quaker. The city served as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony during the British colonial era and went on to play a historic and vital role as the central meeting place for the nation's founding fathers whose plans and actions in Philadelphia ultimately inspired the American Revolution and the nation's inde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at several universities, including the University at Buffalo and Stony Brook University. He received the PEN/Beyond Margins Award in 2008 for ''Tales of the Out and the Gone''. Baraka's plays, poetry, and essays have been described by scholars as constituting defining texts for African-American culture. Baraka's career spanned nearly 52 years, and his themes range from black liberation to white racism. His notable poems include "The Music: Reflection on Jazz and Blues", "The Book of Monk", and "New Music, New Poetry", works that draw on topics from the worlds of society, music, and literature. Baraka's poetry and writing have attracted both high praise and condemnation. In the African-American community, some com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tab Hunter
Tab Hunter (born Arthur Andrew Kelm; July 11, 1931 – July 8, 2018) was an American actor, singer, film producer, and author. Known for his blond, clean-cut good looks, Hunter starred in more than forty films. He was a Hollywood heartthrob of the 1950s and 1960s appearing on the covers of hundreds of film magazines. Hunter's film credits include ''Battle Cry'' (1955), ''The Girl He Left Behind'' (1956), ''Gunman's Walk'' (1958), and ''Damn Yankees'' (1958). Hunter also had a music career in the late 1950s; in 1957, he released a number one hit single " Young Love". Hunter's 2005 autobiography, ''Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star'', was a ''New York Times'' bestseller. Early life Arthur Andrew Kelm was born in Manhattan, New York City, the son of Gertrude () and Charles Kelm. Kelm's father was Jewish, and his mother was a Catholic German immigrant from Hamburg. He had an older brother, Walter. Kelm's father was reportedly abusive, and within a few years of his b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Brockman Bankhead (January 31, 1902 – December 12, 1968) was an American actress. Primarily an actress of the stage, Bankhead also appeared in several prominent films including an award-winning performance in Alfred Hitchcock's ''Lifeboat'' (1944). She also had a brief but successful career on radio and made appearances on television. In all, Bankhead amassed nearly 300 film, stage, television and radio roles during her career. She was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1972 and the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1981. Bankhead was a member of the Bankhead and Brockman family, a prominent Alabama political family. Her grandfather and her uncle were U.S. senators, and her father was Speaker of the House of Representatives. Bankhead's support of liberal causes, including the budding civil rights movement, brought her into public conflict with her family and southern contemporaries, who championed white supremacy and racial segregation. She also supp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones (born January 17, 1931) is an American actor. He has been described as "one of America's most distinguished and versatile" actors for his performances in film, television, and theater, and "one of the greatest actors in American history". With a career spanning six decades, Jones is among the few performers awarded an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT). Jones's voice has been praised as a "a stirring basso profondo that has lent gravel and gravitas" to his projects, including live-action acting, voice acting, and commercial voice-overs. Born with a childhood stutter, Jones has said that poetry and acting helped him overcome the disability. A pre-med major in college, he served in the United States Army during the Korean War before pursuing a career in acting. Since his Broadway debut in 1957, he has performed in several Shakespeare plays including '' Othello'', ''Hamlet'', ''Coriolanus'', and ''King Lear''. Jones made his film debut in Stanley Kubrick's 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Blacks (play)
''The Blacks'' (french: Les Nègres) is a play by the French dramatist Jean Genet. Published in 1958, it was first performed in a production directed by Roger Blin at the Théâtre de Lutèce in Paris, which opened on 28 October 1959. __TOC__ Synopsis A review of the Theatre Royal Stratford East production (2007) states: In Genet's oeuvre In a prefatory note, Genet specifies the conditions under which he anticipates the play would be performed, revealing his characteristic concern with the politics and ritual of theatricality: After ''The Balcony'', The Blacks was the second of Genet's plays to be staged in New York. The production was the longest-running Off-Broadway non-musical of the decade. This 1961 New York production opened on 4 May at the St. Mark's Playhouse and ran for 1,408 performances. It was directed by Gene Frankel, with sets by Kim E. Swados, music by Charles Gross Charles Gross (born 13 May 1934) is an American film and TV composer, living in New York City. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Genet
Jean Genet (; – ) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels ''The Thief's Journal'' and ''Our Lady of the Flowers'' and the plays ''The Balcony'', ''The Maids'' and ''The Screens''. Biography Early life Genet's mother was a prostitute who raised him for the first seven months of his life before placing him for adoption. Thereafter Genet was raised in the provincial town of Alligny-en-Morvan, in the Nièvre department of central France. His foster family was headed by a carpenter and, according to Edmund White's biography, was loving and attentive. While he received excellent grades in school, his childhood involved a series of attempts at running away and incidents of petty theft. After the death of his foster mother, Genet was placed with an elderly couple but remained with them less than two years. Accord ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy Dee Williams
William December Williams Jr. (born April 6, 1937) is an American actor. He appeared as Lando Calrissian in the ''Star Wars'' franchise, first in the early 1980s for ''The Empire Strikes Back'' (1980) and ''Return of the Jedi'' (1983), and thirty-six years later in ''The Rise of Skywalker'' (2019), marking one of the longest intervals between onscreen portrayals of a character by the same actor in American film history. Williams was born in New York City, and raised with his twin sister Loretta in Harlem. In 1945, he made his Broadway theatre debut at age seven in ''The Firebrand of Florence''. He later graduated from The High School of Music & Art, then won a painting scholarship to the National Academy of Fine Arts and Design, where he won a Hallgarten Prize for painting in the mid-1950s. To fund his art supplies he returned to acting, including stage, films, and television. He continued painting; his work has since been shown in galleries and collections worldwide. Williamsâ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Gossett Jr
Louis Cameron Gossett Jr. (born May 27, 1936) is an American actor. Born in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City, He had his stage debut at the age of 17, in a school production of '' You Can't Take It with You.'' Shortly after he successfully auditioned for the Broadway play ''Take a Giant Step.'' Gossett would go on acting on stage. One of these plays was ''A Raisin in the Sun'' in 1959, and in 1961 he made his debut on screen in its film adaptation. From thereon, Gossett added to his resume many roles in films and television, as well as releasing music. In 1977, Gossett gained wide recognition for his role of Fiddler in the popular miniseries ''Roots''. For which he won "Outstanding lead actor for a single appearance in a drama or comedy series" at the Emmy Awards. Gossett continued acting in high profile films and television. In 1982, for his role as Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in '' An Officer and a Gentleman'', he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and beca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Raisin In The Sun
''A Raisin in the Sun'' is a play by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959. The title comes from the poem "Harlem" (also known as "A Dream Deferred") by Langston Hughes. The story tells of a black family's experiences in south Chicago, as they attempt to improve their financial circumstances with an insurance payout following the death of the father, and deals with matters of housing discrimination, racism, and assimilation. The New York Drama Critics' Circle named it the best play of 1959, and in recent years publications such as ''The Independent'' and ''Time Out'' have listed it among the best plays ever written. Plot Walter and Ruth Younger, their son Travis, along with Walter's mother Lena (Mama) and Walter's younger sister Beneatha, live in poverty in a run-down two-bedroom apartment on Chicago's South Side. Walter is barely making a living as a limousine driver. Though Ruth is content with their lot, Walter is not, and desperately wishes to become wealthy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bruce Dern
Bruce MacLeish Dern (born June 4, 1936) is an American actor. He has often played supporting villainous characters of unstable natures. He has received several accolades, including the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and the Silver Bear for Best Actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for '' Coming Home'' (1978) and the Academy Award for Best Actor for ''Nebraska'' (2013). He is also a BAFTA Award, two-time Genie Award, and three-time Golden Globe Award nominee. A member of The Actors Studio, he rose to prominence during the New Hollywood era, through roles in films such as '' They Shoot Horses, Don't They?'' (1969), ''The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant'' (1971), ''The Cowboys'', '' Silent Running'', and ''The King of Marvin Gardens'' (all 1972). Other notable films include ''The Great Gatsby'' (1974), ''Posse'' (1975), '' Family Plot'' (1976), '' Black Sunday'' (1977), ''The Driver'' (1978), ''Tattoo'' (1981), ''That Championship Seas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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