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The Avengers (TV Programme)
''The Avengers'' is a British espionage television series, created in 1961, that ran for 161 episodes until 1969. It initially focused on David Keel (Ian Hendry), aided by John Steed (Patrick Macnee). Hendry left after the first series; Steed then became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants. His most famous assistants were intelligent, stylish and assertive women: Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman), Emma Peel (Diana Rigg), and Tara King (Linda Thorson). Dresses and suits for the series were made by Pierre Cardin. The series ran from 1961 until 1969, screening as one-hour episodes for its entire run. The pilot episode, " Hot Snow", aired on 7 January 1961. The final episode, "Bizarre", aired on 21 April 1969 in the United States, and on 17 May 1969 in the United Kingdom. ''The Avengers'' was produced by ABC Weekend TV, a contractor within the ITV network. After a merger with Rediffusion London in July 1968, ABC Weekend became Thames Television, which continued ...
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Patrick Macnee
Daniel Patrick Macnee (6 February 1922 – 25 June 2015) was a British film and television actor. After serving in the Royal Navy during World War II, he began his acting career in Canada. Despite having some small film roles, Macnee spent much of his early career in playing small roles in American and Canadian television shows. In 1961, he landed the role of secret agent John Steed in the British television series '' The Avengers''. The show was a success running for eight seasons from 1961 to 1969 and was revived in 1976 as ''The New Avengers''. The show was a major breakthrough for Macnee and led to his roles in many films including '' This Is Spinal Tap'' and ''A View to a Kill'' as well as continuing to appear in both British and US television shows up until 2001. Early life and career The elder of two sons, Macnee was born in Paddington, London, England, on 6 February 1922;
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Associated British Corporation
ABC Weekend TV was the popular name of the British broadcaster ABC Television Limited, which provided the weekend service in the Midlands and Northern England regions of the Independent Television (ITV) network from 1956 to 1968. It was one of the " Big Four" companies that between them produced the majority of ITV networked programmes during this period. Originally created as Associated British Cinemas (Television) Ltd, ABC was one of a number of commercial television companies established during the 1950s by cinema chain companies, in an attempt to safeguard their business by becoming involved with television, which was taking away their cinema audiences. In this case, the parent company was the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC) — owner of ABC Cinemas — which initially did not wish to become involved with the new broadcasting system, but was persuaded to do so by the Independent Television Authority (ITA) and the manager of its Pathé News subsidiary Howar ...
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Cathy Gale
Dr. Catherine "Cathy" Gale is a fictional character played by Honor Blackman, on the 1960s British series '' The Avengers''. She was the first regular female partner of John Steed, following the departure of Steed's original male co-star, Dr David Keel (played by Ian Hendry). She made her first appearance at the start of the series' second season in 1962. Fictional biography Initially, Gale was one of several rotating partners who worked with Steed (the others being medical man Dr Martin King and nightclub singer Venus Smith). By the third season, however, she was Steed's only partner. Gale was born 5 October 1930. She was an anthropologist who married a farmer in Africa and there learned to hunt, fight and take care of herself. When her husband was killed, Gale returned to London to earn a Ph.D. in anthropology. She was the curator of a museum when she first encountered John Steed and agreed to work alongside him from 1962 to 1964. She is engaged in charities. The relationship ...
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John Steed
Major The Hon. John Wickham Gascoyne Beresford Steed usually known as John Steed, is a fictional character and the central protagonist on the 1960s British spy series '' The Avengers'' and its 1970s sequel '' The New Avengers'', played by Patrick Macnee in both; by Donald Monat in the South-African radio series adaptation of '' The Avengers''; by Ralph Fiennes in the 1998 film of the same name and by Julian Wadham in various audio adventures from Big Finish Productions. Steed is a secret agent working for an unnamed branch of British intelligence. He was teamed with a variety of partners, including Dr. David Keel (1961), Dr. Martin King (1962), Venus Smith (1962–1963), Cathy Gale (1962–1964), Emma Peel (1965–1968), Tara King (1968–1969), Lady Diana Forbes-Blakeney (1969), Purdey, and Mike Gambit (both 1976–1977). Biography Pre-Avengers Steed was born John Wickham Gascoyne Beresford Steed sometime between 1922 and 1925 (the actor who played him, Patrick Macnee, w ...
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Spy Fiction
Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligence agencies. It was given new impetus by the development of fascism and communism in the lead-up to World War II, continued to develop during the Cold War, and received a fresh impetus from the emergence of rogue states, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks, maritime piracy and technological sabotage and espionage as potent threats to Western societies. As a genre, spy fiction is thematically related to the novel of adventure (''The Prisoner of Zenda'', 1894, ''The Scarlet Pimpernel'', 1905), the thriller (such as the works of Edgar Wallace) and the politico-military thriller (''The Schirmer Inheritance'', 1953, ''The Quiet American'', 1955). History Commentator William Bendler noted that "Chapter 2 of the He ...
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Associated British Studios
Elstree Studios on Shenley Road, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire is a British film and television production centre operated by Elstree Film Studios Limited. One of several facilities historically referred to as Elstree Studios, the Shenley Road studios originally opened in 1925. The studio complex has passed through many owners during its lifetime, and is now owned by Hertsmere Borough Council. Known as the studios used for filming Alfred Hitchcock's ''Blackmail'' (1929)—the first British talkie, ''Star Wars'' (1977), ''The'' ''Shining'' (1980) and ''Indiana Jones'' (its largest stage is known as the George Lucas Soundstage), the studios are used both for film and television productions. With the BBC Elstree Centre nearby, a number of the stages are leased to BBC Studioworks, and are used for recording television productions such as ''Strictly Come Dancing''. History British International and Associated British British National Pictures Ltd purchased of land on the south s ...
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Teddington Studios
Teddington Studios was a large British television studio in Teddington, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, providing studio facilities for programmes airing on the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky1 and others. The complex also provided studio space for channel continuity. The site was run by the Pinewood Studios Group. Originally built as film studios, the studios were the main production centres for the ITV franchisees ABC Weekend TV and Thames Television. Pinewood Group's lease on Teddington Studios expired in 2014. The studios were demolished in February 2016 to be turned into housing, with programmes made there having moved to other facilities. The studio buildings will be replaced by three modern apartment blocks and other smaller houses, with the view towards the river from Broom Road opened up. History Film studios The studio began in the early 20th century as film studios when stockbroker Henry Chinnery, owner of Weir House, Teddington, allowed filmmakers t ...
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The New Avengers (TV Series)
''The New Avengers'' is a secret agent action television series produced during 1976 and 1977. It is a sequel to the 1960s series '' The Avengers'' and was developed by original series producers Albert Fennell and Brian Clemens. The series was produced by The Avengers (Film and TV) Enterprises Ltd for the ITV network, cost £125,000 per episode to produce at Pinewood Studios, and was seen in 120 countries. A joint United Kingdom-France-Canada production, the series picks up the adventures of John Steed (again played by Patrick Macnee) as he and his team of "Avengers" fight evil plots and world domination. Whereas in the original series Steed had almost always been partnered with a woman, in the new series he had two partners: Mike Gambit (Gareth Hunt), a top agent, crack marksman and trained martial artist, and Purdey (Joanna Lumley), a former trainee with The Royal Ballet (to which she ascribed the high-kicking skills she frequently used in the series) who was an amalgam of ...
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Monaural
Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction (often shortened to mono) is sound intended to be heard as if it were emanating from one position. This contrasts with stereophonic sound or ''stereo'', which uses two separate audio channels to reproduce sound from two microphones on the right and left side, which is reproduced with two separate loudspeakers to give a sense of the direction of sound sources. In mono, only one loudspeaker is necessary, but, when played through multiple loudspeakers or headphones, identical signals are fed to each speaker, resulting in the perception of one-channel sound "imaging" in one sonic space between the speakers (provided that the speakers are set up in a proper symmetrical critical-listening placement). Monaural recordings, like stereo ones, typically use multiple microphones fed into multiple channels on a recording console, but each channel is " panned" to the center. In the final stage, the various center-panned signal paths are usually mixed d ...
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Color
Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associated with objects or materials based on their physical properties such as light absorption, reflection, or emission spectra. By defining a color space, colors can be identified numerically by their coordinates. Because perception of color stems from the varying spectral sensitivity of different types of cone cells in the retina to different parts of the spectrum, colors may be defined and quantified by the degree to which they stimulate these cells. These physical or physiological quantifications of color, however, do not fully explain the psychophysical perception of color appearance. Color science includes the perception of color by the eye and brain, the origin of color in materials, color theory in art, and the physics of electr ...
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35mm Movie Film
35 mm film is a film gauge used in filmmaking, and the film standard. In motion pictures that record on film, 35 mm is the most commonly used gauge. The name of the gauge is not a direct measurement, and refers to the nominal width of the 35 mm format photographic film, which consists of strips wide. The standard image exposure length on 35 mm for movies ("single-frame" format) is four perforations per frame along both edges, which results in 16 frames per foot of film. A variety of largely proprietary gauges were devised for the numerous camera and projection systems being developed independently in the late 19th century and early 20th century, as well as a variety of film feeding systems. This resulted in cameras, projectors, and other equipment having to be calibrated to each gauge. The 35 mm width, originally specified as inches, was introduced around 1890 by William Kennedy Dickson and Thomas Edison, using 120 film stock supplied by George Eastman. ...
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Black And White
Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. However, there are exceptions to this rule, including black-and-white fine art photography, as well as many film motion pictures and art film(s). Photography Contemporary use Since the late 1960s, few mainstream films have been shot in black-and-white. The reasons are frequently commercial, as it is difficult to sell a film for television broadcasting if the film is not in color. 1961 was the last year in which the majority of Hollywood films were released in black and white. Computing In computing terminology, ''black-and-white'' is sometimes used to refer to a binary image consisting solely of pure black pixels and pure white ones; what would normally be called a black-and-white image, that is, an image containing shades of ...
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