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Tom Santopietro
Tom Santopietro is an American author and Broadway theater manager. He worked for 25 years in the New York theater scene, managing over 30 Broadway shows. Tom Santopietro is the author of five books: ''The Sound of Music Story'', ''The Godfather Effect: Changing Hollywood, America, and Me'', ''Sinatra in Hollywood'', ''Considering Doris Day'' (a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice), and ''The Importance of Being Barbra''. A frequent media commentator in programs ranging from the PBS documentary The Italian Americans to the Jimmy van Heusen biography ''Swingin' With Frank & Bing'', Tom conducts monthly interviews for Barnes and Noble and lectures on classic films. Over the past thirty years he has managed more than two dozen Broadway shows. Early life Santopietro was born in Waterbury, Connecticut. His paternal grandfather and grandmother, Orazio Santopietro and Maria Victoria Valleta, emigrated to the U.S. from Italy at an early age. Orazio was only 13, and arrived in Ameri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waterbury, Connecticut
Waterbury is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut on the Naugatuck River, southwest of Hartford and northeast of New York City. Waterbury is the second-largest city in New Haven County, Connecticut. According to the 2020 US Census, in 2020 Waterbury had a population of 114,403. As of the 2010 census, Waterbury had a population of 110,366, making it the 10th largest city in the New York Metropolitan Area, 9th largest city in New England and the 5th largest city in Connecticut. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Waterbury had large industrial interests and was the leading center in the United States for the manufacture of brassware (including castings and finishings), as reflected in the nickname the "Brass City" and the city's motto ''Quid Aere Perennius?'' ("What Is More Lasting Than Brass?"). It was also noted for the manufacture of watches and clocks ( Timex). The city is alongside Interstate 84 (Yankee Expressway) and Route 8 and has a Metro-North railr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doris Day
Doris Day (born Doris Mary Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019) was an American actress, singer, and activist. She began her career as a big band singer in 1939, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, " Sentimental Journey" and "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time" with Les Brown & His Band of Renown. She left Brown to embark on a solo career and recorded more than 650 songs from 1947 to 1967. Day was one of the biggest film stars of the 1950s–1960s. Day's film career began during the Golden Age of Hollywood with the film ''Romance on the High Seas'' (1948). She starred in films of many genres, including musicals, comedies, dramas, and thrillers. She played the title role in ''Calamity Jane'' (1953) and starred in Alfred Hitchcock's '' The Man Who Knew Too Much'' (1956) with James Stewart. Her best-known films are those in which she co-starred with Rock Hudson, chief among them 1959's ''Pillow Talk'', for which she was nominated fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amerigo Bonasera
This is a list of characters from the film series ''The Godfather'' consisting of ''The Godfather'' (1972), ''The Godfather Part II'' (1974) and ''The Godfather Part III'' (1990), based on Mario Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel of the same name, as well as the book series ''The Godfather'' consisting of the original, Puzo's ''The Sicilian'' (1984), Mark Winegardner's '' The Godfather Returns'' (2004) and ''The Godfather's Revenge'' (2006), and Edward Falco's prequel novel ''The Family Corleone'' (2012). There are also three video games set within ''The Godfather'' universe were also created: ''The Godfather'' (1991), ''The Godfather'' (2006) and ''The Godfather II'' (2009). Corleone family Vito Corleone Vito Andolini Corleone is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's novel ''The Godfather'' and in the first two of Francis Ford Coppola's film trilogy. He is portrayed by Marlon Brando in ''The Godfather'' and as a young man by Robert De Niro in ''The Godfather Part II''. He is the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mario Puzo
Mario Francis Puzo (; ; October 15, 1920 – July 2, 1999) was an American author, screenwriter, and journalist. He is known for his crime novels about the Italian-American Mafia and Sicilian Mafia, most notably ''The Godfather'' (1969), which he later co-adapted into a film trilogy directed by Francis Ford Coppola. He received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the first film in 1972 and for ''Part II'' in 1974. Puzo also wrote the original screenplay for the 1978 '' Superman'' film and its 1980 sequel. His final novel, '' The Family'', was released posthumously in 2001. Personal life Puzo was born in the Hell's Kitchen section of New York City to Italian immigrants from Pietradefusi, Province of Avellino, Campania. When Puzo was 12, his father, who worked as a trackman for the New York Central Railroad, was committed to the Pilgrim State Hospital insane asylum for schizophrenia, and his wife, Maria, was left to raise their seven children. He served in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Godfather Effect
''The Godfather Effect'' is a 2012 critically acclaimed study of ''The Godfather'' films – as well as Mario Puzo's 1969 novel – and their effect on American culture. Written by biographer Tom Santopietro, the book demonstrates how ''The Godfather'' was a turning point in American cultural consciousness. With its emphasis on proud ethnicity, ''The Godfather'' changed not just the way Italian-Americans saw themselves, but how Americans of all backgrounds viewed their individual and national self-identities, their possibilities, and attendant disappointments. "The Godfather Effect" also had a broader philosophical dimension. As noted by Santopietro, "what Puzo delivered – brilliantly – was nothing less than a disquisition on the madness, glory, and failure of the American dream." Early in the novel, Amerigo Bonasera declares "I believe in America." The novel then depicts a nation where the Mafia and big business are two sides of the same coin: both are corrupt, tell the tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernest Lehman
Ernest Paul Lehman (December 8, 1915 – July 2, 2005) was an American screenwriter. He was nominated six times for Academy Awards for his screenplays during his career, but did not win. At the 73rd Academy Awards in 2001, he received an Honorary Academy Award in recognition of his achievements and his influential works for the screen. He was the first screenwriter to receive that honor. He received two Edgar Awards of the Mystery Writers of America for screenplays of suspense films he wrote for director Alfred Hitchcock: ''North by Northwest'' (1959), his only original screenplay, and '' Family Plot'' (1976), one of numerous adaptations. Early years Lehman was born in 1915 to Gertrude (Thorn) and Paul E. Lehman. Their wealthy Jewish family was based on Long Island; they had suffered major financial losses during the Great Depression. Lehman attended the College of the City of New York (The City College of New York). After graduation, he started working as a freelance wr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Wise
Robert Earl Wise (September 10, 1914 – September 14, 2005) was an American film director, producer, and editor. He won the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for his musical films ''West Side Story'' (1961) and ''The Sound of Music'' (1965). He was also nominated for Best Film Editing for ''Citizen Kane'' (1941) and directed and produced '' The Sand Pebbles'' (1966), which was nominated for Best Picture. Among his other films are ''The Body Snatcher'' (1945), ''Born to Kill'' (1947), '' The Set-Up'' (1949), ''The Day the Earth Stood Still'' (1951), '' Destination Gobi'' (1953), '' This Could Be The Night'' (1957), ''Run Silent, Run Deep'' (1958), '' I Want to Live!'' (1958), '' The Haunting'' (1963), '' The Andromeda Strain'' (1971), '' The Hindenburg'' (1975) and '' Star Trek: The Motion Picture'' (1979). He was the president of the Directors Guild of America from 1971 to 1975 and the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1985 thr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julie Andrews
Dame Julie Andrews (born Julia Elizabeth Wells; 1 October 1935) is an English actress, singer, and author. She has garnered numerous accolades throughout her career spanning over seven decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, three Grammy Awards and six Golden Globe Awards. She has also received three Tony Award nominations. Andrews was made a Disney Legend in 1991, and has been honoured with an Honorary Golden Lion, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2007, and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2022. In 2000, Andrews was made a dame by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the performing arts. Andrews, a child actress and singer, appeared in the West End in 1948 and made her Broadway debut in '' The Boy Friend'' (1954). Billed as "Britain's youngest prima donna", she rose to prominence starring in Broadway musicals such as ''My Fair Lady'' (1956) playing Eliza Doolittle and ''Camelot'' (1960) playing Quee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maria Von Trapp
Baroness Maria Augusta von Trapp DHS (; 26 January 1905 – 28 March 1987) was the stepmother and matriarch of the Trapp Family Singers. She wrote ''The Story of the Trapp Family Singers'', which was published in 1949 and was the inspiration for the 1956 West German film ''The Trapp Family'', which in turn inspired the 1959 Broadway musical ''The Sound of Music'' and its 1965 film version. Biography Early life Maria was born on 26 January 1905 to Augusta (''née'' Rainer) and Karl Kutschera. She was delivered on a train heading from her parents' village in Tyrol to a hospital in Vienna, Austria. Her mother died of pneumonia when she was two. Her father, grief-stricken, left Maria with his cousin (her foster mother) who had cared for Maria's half-brother after his mother died. Maria's father then traveled the world, although Maria would visit him upon occasion at his apartment in Vienna. When she was nine, her father died. Her foster mother's son-in-law, Uncle Franz, then ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hollywood, Los Angeles
Hollywood is a neighborhood in the Central Los Angeles, central region of Los Angeles, California. Its name has come to be a metonymy, shorthand reference for the Cinema of the United States, U.S. film industry and the people associated with it. Many notable film studios, such as Columbia Pictures, Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., and Universal Pictures, are located near or in Hollywood. Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. It was Merger (politics), consolidated with the city of Los Angeles in 1910. Soon thereafter a prominent film industry emerged, having developed first on the East Coast. Eventually it became the most recognizable in the world. History Initial development H.J. Whitley, a real estate developer, arranged to buy the E.C. Hurd ranch. They agreed on a price and shook hands on the deal. Whitley shared his plans for the new town with General Harrison Gray Otis (publisher), Harrison Gray Otis, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous city and state. A landlocked country, Austria is bordered by Germany to the northwest, the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia to the northeast, Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The country occupies an area of and has a population of 9 million. Austria emerged from the remnants of the Eastern and Hungarian March at the end of the first millennium. Originally a margraviate of Bavaria, it developed into a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire in 1156 and was later made an archduchy in 1453. In the 16th century, Vienna began serving as the empire's administrative capital and Austria thus became the heartland of the Habsburg monarchy. After the dissolution of the H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
