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Wilfrid Brambell
Henry Wilfrid Brambell (22 March 1912 – 18 January 1985) was an Irish television and film actor, best remembered for playing the grubby rag-and-bone man Albert Steptoe alongside Harry H. Corbett in the long-running BBC television sitcom ''Steptoe and Son'' (1962–65, 1970–74). He achieved international recognition in 1964 for his appearance alongside the Beatles in '' A Hard Day's Night'', playing the fictional grandfather of Paul McCartney. Early life Brambell was born in Dublin, the youngest of three sons born to Henry Lytton Brambell (1870–1937), a cashier at the Guinness Brewery, and his wife, Edith Marks (1879–1965), a former opera singer. The family surname was changed from "Bramble" by Wilfrid's grandfather Frederick William Brambell. His two older brothers were Frederick Edward Brambell (1905–1980) and James Christopher Marks "Jim" Brambell (1907–1992). His first appearance was as a child, entertaining the wounded troops during the First World War. After l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Duffy (photographer)
Brian Duffy (15 June 193331 May 2010) was an English photographer and film producer, best remembered for his fashion and portrait photography of the 1960s and 1970s. Early life Brian Duffy was born to Irish parents in London in 1933. During World War II he was evacuated with his two brothers and sister to Kings Langley where he was taken in by the actors Roger Livesey and Ursula Jeans. After a few weeks, his mother, unhappy about her four children being split up from the family insisted they all return to London. When the bombing in London became intense they were evacuated for a second time to Wales but returned to London having lived on a remote farm for a month. Once back in London, Duffy 'had the most wonderful war', breaking into abandoned houses and running wild. Only when it was over did he start school, first attending a liberal school in Chelsea where the London County Council had adopted a policy that treated difficult children with a programme of cultural experien ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Entertainments National Service Association
The Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) was an organisation established in 1939 by Basil Dean and Leslie Henson to provide entertainment for British armed forces personnel during World War II. ENSA operated as part of the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes. It was superseded by Combined Services Entertainment (CSE) which now operates as part of the Services Sound and Vision Corporation (SSVC). The first big wartime variety concert organised by ENSA was broadcast by the BBC to the Empire and local networks from RAF Hendon in north London on 17 October 1939. Among the entertainers appearing on the bill were Adelaide Hall, The Western Brothers and Mantovani. A newsreel of this concert showing Hall singing "We're Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line" accompanied by Mantovani and His Orchestra exists. Many members of ENSA later had careers in the entertainment industry after the war, including actors Terry-Thomas, Peter Sellers and Kenneth Connor. Ta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Christmas Carol
''A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas'', commonly known as ''A Christmas Carol'', is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. ''A Christmas Carol'' recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man. Dickens wrote ''A Christmas Carol'' during a period when the British were exploring and re-evaluating past Christmas traditions, including carols, and newer customs such as Christmas cards and Christmas trees. He was influenced by the experiences of his own youth and by the Christmas stories of other authors, including Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold. Dickens had written three Christmas stories prior to the novella, and was inspired following a visit to the Field Lan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ebenezer Scrooge
Ebenezer Scrooge () is the protagonist of Charles Dickens's 1843 novella ''A Christmas Carol''. At the beginning of the novella, Scrooge is a cold-hearted miser who despises Christmas. The tale of his redemption by three spirits (the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come) has become a defining tale of the Christmas holiday in the English-speaking world. Dickens describes Scrooge thus early in the story: "The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice." Towards the end of the novella, the three spirits show Scrooge the errors of his ways, and he becomes a better, more generous man. Scrooge's last name has entered the English language as a byword for greed and misanthropy, while his catchphrase, " Bah! Humbug!" is often used to express disgust with many modern Christmas tradi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
In Search Of The Castaways (film)
''In Search of the Castaways'' is a 1962 American adventure film starring Maurice Chevalier and Hayley Mills in a tale about a worldwide search for a shipwrecked sea captain. The film was directed by Robert Stevenson from a screenplay by Lowell S. Hawley freely based upon Jules Verne's 1868 adventure novel '' Captain Grant's Children''. ''In Search of the Castaways'' was the third of six films Hayley Mills made at Disney Studios. Plot In Britain in 1858, Professor Paganel ( Maurice Chevalier), a scientifically-thinking French geography professor, finds a bottle containing a note which he believes to have been written by the missing Captain John Grant (Jack Gwillim). Paganel and Grant's two teenaged children, Mary ( Hayley Mills) and Robert (Keith Hamshere), approach John Glenarvan (Michael Anderson, Jr.) and his father, the wealthy shipping magnate Lord Glenarvan (Wilfrid Hyde-White), the owner of Captain Grant's ship, and persuade them to finance a search expedition. The exped ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hayley Mills
Hayley Catherine Rose Vivien Mills (born 18 April 1946) is an English actress. The daughter of Sir John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell, and younger sister of actress Juliet Mills, she began her acting career as a child and was hailed as a promising newcomer, winning the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for her performance in the British crime drama film ''Tiger Bay'' (1959), the Academy Juvenile Award for Disney's ''Pollyanna'' (1960) and Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress in 1961. During her early career, she appeared in six films for Walt Disney, including her dual role as twins Susan and Sharon in the Disney film '' The Parent Trap'' (1961). Her performance in '' Whistle Down the Wind'' (a 1961 adaptation of the novel written by her mother) saw Mills nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress and she was voted the biggest star in Britain for 1961. In the late 1960s, Mills began performing in theatrical plays, making her stage debut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maurice Chevalier
Maurice Auguste Chevalier (; 12 September 1888 – 1 January 1972) was a French singer, actor and entertainer. He is perhaps best known for his signature songs, including " Livin' In The Sunlight", " Valentine", "Louise", " Mimi", and "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" and for his films, including ''The Love Parade'', ''The Big Pond'', ''The Smiling Lieutenant'', '' One Hour with You'' and ''Love Me Tonight''. His trademark attire was a boater hat and tuxedo. Chevalier was born in Paris. He made his name as a star of musical comedy, appearing in public as a singer and dancer at an early age before working in menial jobs as a teenager. In 1909, he became the partner of the biggest female star in France at the time, Fréhel. Although their relationship was brief, she secured him his first major engagement, as a mimic and a singer in ''l'Alcazar'' in Marseille, for which he received critical acclaim by French theatre critics. In 1917, he discovered jazz and ragtime and went to London, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scotland Yard (film Series)
''Scotland Yard'' is a series of 39 half-hour episodes produced by Anglo-Amalgamated. Produced between 1953 and 1961, they are short films, originally made to support the main feature in a cinema double-bill. Each film focuses on a true crime case with names changed, and feature an introduction by the crime writer Edgar Lustgarten. The earlier films were produced by Alec C. Snowden, who was succeeded by Jack Greenwood. Directors included Ken Hughes and Montgomery Tully. The principal character in each film is a Detective Inspector, played by a variety of actors but most frequently by Russell Napier (usually portraying DI Duggan). Many of the films feature, in supporting roles, actors later to become well-known. They include Jill Bennett, Peter Arne, Harry H. Corbett, James Villiers, Arthur Lowe, Peter Halliday, Wilfrid Brambell, Rita Webb, Peter Bowles and Roger Delgado. All of the episodes were shot at Merton Park Studios in London and on location on monochrome 35mm film. Mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quatermass II
''Quatermass II'' is a British science fiction serial, originally broadcast by BBC Television in the autumn of 1955. It is the second in the ''Quatermass Professor Bernard Quatermass is a fictional scientist, originally created by the writer Nigel Kneale for BBC Television. An intelligent and highly moral British scientist, Quatermass is a pioneer of the British space programme, heading the Brit ...'' series by writer Nigel Kneale, and the oldest of those serials to survive in its entirety in the BBC archives. The serial sees Bernard Quatermass, Professor Bernard Quatermass of the British Experimental Rocket Group being asked to examine strange meteorite showers. His investigations lead to his uncovering a conspiracy involving Extraterrestrial life, alien infiltration at the highest levels of the British government. As even some of Quatermass's closest colleagues fall victim to the alien influence, he is forced to use his own unsafe rocket prototype, which recently caused ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nineteen Eighty-Four (UK TV Programme)
''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' is a British television adaptation of the 1949 novel of the same name by George Orwell, originally broadcast on BBC Television in December 1954. The production proved to be hugely controversial, with questions asked in Parliament and many viewer complaints over its supposed subversive nature and horrific content. In a 2000 poll of industry experts conducted by the British Film Institute to determine the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century, ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' was ranked in seventy-third position. Background Orwell's novel was adapted for television by Nigel Kneale, one of the most prolific television scriptwriters of the time. The previous year he had created the character of Professor Bernard Quatermass for the science-fiction serial ''The Quatermass Experiment''. The adaptation was produced and directed by the equally respected Rudolph Cartier, perhaps the BBC's best producer-director of the 1950s who was always adventur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Quatermass Experiment
''The Quatermass Experiment'' is a British science fiction serial broadcast by BBC Television during the summer of 1953 and re-staged by BBC Four in 2005. Set in the near future against the background of a British space programme, it tells the story of the first crewed flight into space, supervised by Professor Bernard Quatermass of the British Experimental Rocket Group. When the spaceship that carries the first successful crew returns to Earth, two of the three astronauts are missing, and the third – Victor Carroon – is behaving strangely. It becomes apparent that an alien presence entered the rocket during its flight, and Quatermass and his associates must prevent the alien from destroying the world. Originally comprising six half-hour episodes, it was the first science fiction production to be written especially for a British adult television audience. Previous written-for-television efforts such as ''Stranger from Space'' (1951–52) were aimed at children, whereas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, primetime drama and entertainment, and live BBC Sport events. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution. It was renamed BBC TV in 1960 and used this name until the launch of the second BBC channel, BBC2, in 1964. The main channel then became known as BBC1. The channel adopted the current spelling of BBC One in 1997. The channel's annual budget for 2012–2013 was £1.14 billion. It is funded by the television licence fee together with the BBC's other domestic television stations and shows uninterrupted programming without commercial advertising. The television channel had the highest reach share of any broadcaster in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
