TV Reader's Digest
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TV Reader's Digest
''TV Reader's Digest '' is the title of a 30-minute American television anthology drama series, which aired on the ABC from 1955 to 1956. Its theme music was "Polonaise" from Act III of ''Eugene Onegin''. Based on articles that appeared in ''Reader's Digest'' magazine, the episodes were true stories that were varied in their themes, plots, and content. Themes included crime, heroism, mystery, romance, and human interest. Episode writers included Frederick Hazlitt Brennan, Cleveland Amory, and Frank Gruber. Some of the actors who were cast in the episodes include Claude Akins, Leon Askin, Jean Byron, Chuck Connors, Peter Graves, John Howard, Vivi Janiss (as Mary Todd Lincoln in "How Chance Made Lincoln President"), Lee Marvin, Francis McDonald, Martin Milner, Jerry Paris, Gene Raymond, Max Showalter, and Michael Winkelman. Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series '' ...
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Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been contrasted with the epic and the lyrical modes ever since Aristotle's '' Poetics'' (c. 335 BC)—the earliest work of dramatic theory. The term "drama" comes from a Greek word meaning "deed" or " act" (Classical Greek: , ''drâma''), which is derived from "I do" (Classical Greek: , ''dráō''). The two masks associated with drama represent the traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy. In English (as was the analogous case in many other European languages), the word ''play'' or ''game'' (translating the Anglo-Saxon ''pleġan'' or Latin ''ludus'') was the standard term for dramas until William Shakespeare's time—just as its creator was a ''play-maker'' rather than a ''dramatist'' and the building was a ''play-house'' r ...
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Eugene Onegin (opera)
''Eugene Onegin'' ( rus, Евгений Онегин, italic=yes, Yevgény Onégin, jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ɐˈnʲeɡʲɪn, Ru-Evgeny_Onegin.ogg), Opus number, Op. 24, is an opera ("lyrical scenes") in 3 acts (7 scenes), composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto, organised by the composer himself, very closely follows certain passages in Alexander Pushkin's 1825-1832 Eugene Onegin, novel in verse, retaining much of his poetry. Tchaikovsky's friend Konstantin Shilovsky contributed M. Triquet's verses in Act 2, Scene 1, while Tchaikovsky himself arranged the text for Lensky's arioso in Act 1, Scene 1, and almost all of Prince Gremin's aria in Act 3, Scene 1. ''Eugene Onegin'' is a well-known example of lyric opera, to which Tchaikovsky added music of a dramatic nature. The story concerns a selfish hero who lives to regret his blasé rejection of a young woman's love and his careless incitement of a fatal duel with his best friend. The opera was first performed in Moscow in 1879. ...
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Lee Marvin
Lee Marvin (born Lamont Waltman Marvin Jr.; February 19, 1924August 29, 1987) was an American film and television actor. Known for his bass voice and premature white hair, he is best remembered for playing hardboiled "tough guy" characters. Although initially typecasting, typecast as the "heavy" (i.e. villainous character), he later gained prominence for portraying anti-hero, anti-heroes, such as Detective Lieutenant Frank Ballinger on the television series ''M Squad'' (1957–1960). Marvin's notable roles in film included Charlie Strom in ''The Killers (1964 film), The Killers'' (1964), Rico Fardan in ''The Professionals (1966 film), The Professionals'' (1966), Major John Reisman in ''The Dirty Dozen'' (1967), Ben Rumson in ''Paint Your Wagon (film), Paint Your Wagon'' (1969), Walker in ''Point Blank (1967 film), Point Blank'' (1967), and the Sergeant in ''The Big Red One'' (1980). Marvin achieved numerous accolades when he portrayed both gunfighter Kid Shelleen and criminal Tim ...
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Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Ann Todd Lincoln (December 13, 1818July 16, 1882) served as First Lady of the United States from 1861 until the assassination of her husband, President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Mary Lincoln was a member of a large and wealthy, slave-owning Kentucky family. She was well educated. Born Mary Ann Todd, she dropped the name Ann after her younger sister, Ann Todd (later Clark), was born. After finishing school during her teens, she moved to Springfield, Illinois, where she lived with her married sister Elizabeth Edwards. Before she married Abraham Lincoln, she was courted by his long-time political opponent Stephen A. Douglas. The Lincolns had four sons of whom only the eldest, Robert, survived both parents. Their family home and neighborhood in Springfield is preserved at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site. Mary Lincoln staunchly supported her husband throughout his presidency and was active in keeping national morale high during the Civil War. She acted as the White Hous ...
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Vivi Janiss
Vivi may refer to: People * Vivi Bach (1939–2013), Danish actress and singer * Vivi Fernandez (born 1977), Brazilian model * Vivi Flindt (born 1943), Danish ballerina * Vivi Friedman (1967–2012), Finnish film director * Vivi Gioi (1917–1975), Italian actress * Vivi Jiang (born 1988), Chinese pop singer * Vivi Krogh (1919–2014), Norwegian anti-immigration activist * Vivi Zigler, American television executive * Albert Vivancos (born 1994), commonly known as Vivi, Spanish footballer * ViVi / Wong Gaahei, (born 1996), Hong Kong born singer based in South Korea, member of LOONA Places * Vivi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, a town * Lake Vivi in Evenkia, Russia * Vivi (river), a tributary of the Nizhnyaya Tunguska in Evenkia, Russia * Río Viví, a river in Puerto Rico Fictional characters * Nefertari Vivi, in the manga and anime ''One Piece'' * Vivi (''Final Fantasy''), in the role-playing game ''Final Fantasy IX'' * Vivi, main character of ''Sirens second and fina ...
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John Howard (American Actor)
John Howard (born John Richard Cox Jr.; April 14, 1913 – February 19, 1995) was an American actor. He is best remembered for his roles in the films ''Lost Horizon'' (1937) and '' The Philadelphia Story'' (1940). Howard played Bulldog Drummond in seven films which were produced by Paramount. He also appeared in many television series and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Early life Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Howard was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of what now is Case Western Reserve University. At college he discovered a love for the theater, and took part in student productions. One night, a talent scout from Paramount was in Cleveland to see the local stock company. The show was not on that night, so the scout decided to go and see a production at the local university. He was impressed by Howard in a production of ''John Brown's Body'' and arranged for a screen test.Weaver p 191 Career Paramount Howard became a contract player for Paramount under the name of "Jon ...
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Peter Graves
Peter Graves (born Peter Duesler Aurness; March 18, 1926 – March 14, 2010) was an American actor. He was best known for his role as Jim Phelps in the CBS television series '' Mission: Impossible'' from 1967 to 1973 (original) and from 1988 to 1990 (revival). His elder brother was actor James Arness. Graves was also known for his portrayal of airline pilot Captain Clarence Oveur in the 1980 comedy film ''Airplane!'' and its 1982 sequel '' Airplane II: The Sequel''. Early life and education Peter Graves was born Peter Duesler Aurness on March 18, 1926, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Rolf Cirkler Aurness (1894–1982), a businessman, and his wife Ruth (''née'' Duesler, died 1986), a journalist. Graves's ancestry was Norwegian, German, and English. He used the stage name Graves, a maternal family name, to honor his mother's family, and also so as to not be confused with his elder brother James Arness, star of the television series ''Gunsmoke''. Graves graduated from South ...
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Chuck Connors
Kevin Joseph Aloysius "Chuck" Connors (April 10, 1921 – November 10, 1992) was an American actor, writer, and professional basketball and baseball player. He is one of only 13 athletes in the history of American professional sports to have played in both Major League Baseball ( Brooklyn Dodgers 1949, Chicago Cubs, 1951) and the National Basketball Association ( Boston Celtics 1946–48). With a 40-year film and television career, he is best known for his five-year role as Lucas McCain in the highly rated ABC series ''The Rifleman'' (1958–63). Early life and education Connors was born on April 10, 1921, in Brooklyn, New York City, the elder of two children born to Marcella () and Alban Francis "Allan" Connors, immigrants of Irish descent from Newfoundland and Labrador."Fifteenth Censu ...
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Jean Byron
Jean Byron (born Imogene Audette Burkhart; December 10, 1925February 3, 2006) was an American film, television, and stage actress. She is best known for the role of Natalie Lane, Patty Lane's mother in ''The Patty Duke Show''. She was also known as Jean Audette and Jean Burkhart early in her career. Early life Byron was born in Paducah, Kentucky, the daughter of Anna Gertrude (née Bastin; 19061988) and Edward Burkhart (18921958). Her family moved to Louisville when she was still quite young, and then to California when she was 19 during World War II. As a teenager, Byron tap danced and performed comedy. In the summer of 1939, she sang with a production company at the Iroquois Amphitheater in Louisville. Career Byron sang on radio stations WGRC and WHAS, both in Louisville. In 1939, she was one of two winners of the regional '' Gateway to Hollywood'' competition in Louisville, which enabled her to go to Hollywood to compete at the program's next level. Byron sang on alt ...
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Leon Askin
Leon Askin (; born Leon Aschkenasy, 18 September 1907 – 3 June 2005) was an Austrian Jewish actor best known in North America for portraying the character General Burkhalter on the TV situation comedy ''Hogan's Heroes''. Life and career Askin was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, the son of Malvine (Susman) and Samuel Aschkenazy (both of whom were later murdered in the Holocaust). According to his autobiography his first experience of show business occurred during World War I when he recited a poem before Emperor Franz Joseph. In the 1920s, he studied acting with Louise Dumont and Max Reinhardt. While working at Vienna's "ABC" cabaret theater in the 1930s, he frequently directed the works of dissident political writer Jura Soyfer. Askin fled Austria to the United States in 1940, after having been beaten and abused by the Nazi SA and SS. His parents were murdered in the Treblinka death camp. He then served in World War II as a Staff Sergeant in the US Army Air Forc ...
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Claude Akins
Claude Aubrey Akins (May 25, 1926 – January 27, 1994) was an American character actor with a long career on stage, screen, and television. He was best known as Sheriff Lobo on the 1979–1981 television series ''B.J. and the Bear'', and later ''The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo'', a spin-off series. Early years Akins was born in Nelson, Georgia, and grew up in Bedford, Indiana, the son of Maude and Ernest Akins. Film reference works said he was born in 1918, making his age at death 75; however, Akins' son said his father was 67 at the time of his death, and he is listed as Aubrey Akins in the 1940 Census, age 13. He served with the U.S. Army Signal Corps in World War II in Burma and the Philippines. He graduated in 1949 from Northwestern University, where he had majored in theatre arts and became a member of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. Film career As a film actor, Akins first appeared in ''From Here to Eternity'' (1953). He appeared as a seaman and shipmate of Le ...
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Frank Gruber (writer)
Frank Gruber (born February 2, 1904, Elmer, Minnesota, died December 9, 1969, Santa Monica, California) was an American writer. He was a writer of stories for pulp fiction magazines. He also wrote dozens of novels, mostly Westerns and detective stories. Gruber wrote many scripts for Hollywood movies and television shows and was the creator of three TV series. He sometimes wrote under the pen names Stephen Acre, Charles K. Boston and John K. Vedder. Career Gruber said that as a nine-year-old newsboy, he read his first book, ''Luke Walton, the Chicago Newsboy'' by Horatio Alger. During the next seven years he read a hundred more Alger books and said they influenced him professionally more than anything else in his life. They told how poor boys became rich, but what they instilled in Gruber was an ambition, at age nine or ten, to be an author. He had written his first book before age 11, using a pencil on wrapping paper. Age 13 or 14, his ambition died for a while but several ...
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