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Agatha Christie's Marple
''Agatha Christie's Marple'' (or simply ''Marple'') is a British ITV television programme loosely based on books and short stories by British crime novelist Agatha Christie. The title character was played by Geraldine McEwan from the first to the third series, until her retirement from the role, and by Julia McKenzie from the fourth series onwards. Unlike the counterpart TV series '' Agatha Christie's Poirot'', the show took many liberties with Christie’s works, most notably adding Miss Marple’s character to the adaptations of novels in which she never appeared. Following the conclusion of the sixth series, the BBC acquired the rights for the production of Agatha Christie adaptations, suggesting that ITV would be unable to make a seventh series of ''Marple''. Premise ''Agatha Christie's Marple'' follows the adventures of Miss Jane Marple, an elderly spinster living in the quiet little village of St. Mary Mead. During her many visits to friends and relatives in other v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geraldine McEwan
Geraldine McEwan (born Geraldine McKeown; 9 May 1932 – 30 January 2015) was an English actress, who had a long career in film, theatre and television. Michael Coveney described her, in a tribute article, as "a great comic stylist, with a syrupy, seductive voice and a forthright, sparkling manner".Michael Covene"Geraldine McEwan was a great comic stylist" whatsonstage.com, 2 February 2015 McEwan was a five-time Olivier Award nominee, and twice won the Evening Standard Award for Best Actress; for ''The Rivals'' (1983) and '' The Way of the World'' (1995). She was also nominated for the 1998 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for '' The Chairs''. She won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for the 1990 television serial '' Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit'', and from 2004 to 2009, she starred as the Agatha Christie sleuth Miss Marple, in the ITV series '' Marple''. Early life She was born Geraldine McKeown on 9 May 1932 in Old Windsor, Berkshire, England, to Donald ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Churchett
Stephen George Churchett (10 April 1947 – 11 January 2022) was an English actor and writer. Life and career One of his most notable roles was as solicitor Marcus Christie in ''EastEnders'', on and off from 1990 to 2004. He reprised the role in 2014 and again in 2015. He has also appeared in various television programmes, including '' The Brief'', ''Together'', ''Minder'', '' Campion'', ''Up Pompeii!'', ''Enemy at the Door'', '' Specials'', '' The Professionals'', '' C.A.T.S. Eyes'', ''Lucan'', ''Casualty'', '' Moon and Son'', '' Bugs'', '' The House of Elliot'', ''Peak Practice'', ''Silent Witness'', '' Dangerfield'', '' Pie in the Sky'', ''The Bill'', ''Preston Front'', '' Boon'', ''Monroe'', ''Dalziel and Pascoe'' and '' Porkpie''. He also appeared in the ''Doctor Who'' episode titled ''Attack of the Cybermen'' in 1985. He voiced Wing Commander Belfridge in the '''Allo 'Allo!'' episode titled " The Sausages in the Trousers". He appeared in various episodes of '' The Britta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Caribbean Mystery
''A Caribbean Mystery'' is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 16 November 1964 and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at sixteen shillings (16/-) and the US edition at $4.50. It features the detective Miss Marple. Two reviewers at the time the novel was published said that Agatha Christie was returning to the top of her form. A critic writing in 1990 judged this plot to be standard fare for any writer who travels to the Caribbean and needs double duty out of a vacation. Two of the major characters reappear in the novel ''Nemesis'', published in 1971. Jason Rafiel reappears posthumously, and his assistant Esther Walters assists Miss Marple in the early chapters of the subsequent story. Plot summary This story takes place at the Golden Palm resort on the Caribbean island of St Honoré. Miss Marple's nephew has paid for her to holiday there ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Bond (ornithologist)
James Bond (January 4, 1900 – February 14, 1989) was an American ornithologist and expert on the birds of the Caribbean, having written the definitive book on the subject: '' Birds of the West Indies'', first published in 1936. He served as a curator of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. His name was appropriated by writer Ian Fleming for his fictional British spy of the same name; the real Bond enjoyed knowing his name was being used this way, and references to him permeate the resulting media franchise. Life and career Bond was born on January 4, 1900, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Margaret Reeves ( Tyson) and Francis Edward Bond. His interest in natural history was spurred by an expedition his father undertook in 1911 to the Orinoco Delta. Bond was educated at the Delancey School followed by St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, but after the death of his mother he moved with his father to the United Kingdom in 1914. There, he studied at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming (28 May 1908 – 12 August 1964) was a British writer, best known for his postwar ''James Bond'' series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., and his father was the Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley (UK Parliament constituency), Henley from 1910 until his death on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front in 1917. Educated at Eton College, Eton, Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Sandhurst, and, briefly, the universities of Munich University, Munich and University of Geneva, Geneva, Fleming moved through several jobs before he started writing. While working for Britain's Naval Intelligence Division (United Kingdom), Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War, Fleming was involved in planning Operation Goldeneye and in the planning and oversight of two intelligence units: 30 Assault Unit and T-Force. He drew from his wartime se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
At Bertram's Hotel
''At Bertram's Hotel'' is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 15 November 1965Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. ''Collins Crime Club: A Checklist of First Editions''. Dragonby Press (second edition) March 1999 (p. 15) and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1966. The novel follows Chief Inspector Fred Davy as he investigates an upmarket hotel that is at the centre of a mysterious disappearance. Among the lodgers at the hotel is Christie's popular character Miss Marple; ''At Bertram's Hotel'' was marketed as a Miss Marple novel, despite the fact that Marple only appears in a few chapters and has a completely passive role in the investigation. ''At Bertram's Hotel'' met with mostly positive reviews. Reviewers criticized the reliance of far-fetched coincidences, but found that Christie's gripping writing style makes the book enjoyable in spite of any weaknesses in the plot. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Armstrong
Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several eras in the history of jazz. Armstrong received numerous accolades including the Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, Grammy Award for Best Male Vocal Performance for ''Hello, Dolly! (song), Hello, Dolly!'' in 1965, as well as a posthumous win for the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1972. His influence crossed musical genres, with inductions into the DownBeat, ''DownBeat'' Jazz Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame, among others. Armstrong was born and raised in New Orleans. Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an inventive trumpet and cornet player, he was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time (magazine), Time'' called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise"."Noel Coward at 70" ''Time'', 26 December 1969, p. 46 Coward attended a dance academy in London as a child, making his professional stage début at the age of eleven. As a teenager he was introduced into the high society in which most of his plays would be set. Coward achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his works, such as ''Hay Fever (play), Hay Fever'', ''Private Lives'', ''Design for Living'', ''Pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sittaford Mystery
''The Sittaford Mystery'' is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1931 under the title of ''The Murder at Hazelmoor'' and in UK by the Collins Crime Club on 7 September of the same year under Christie's original title. It is the first Christie novel to be given a different title for the US market. The US edition retailed at $2.00 and the UK edition at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6). Mrs Willett and her daughter host an evening of "table-turning" (a séance) on a snowy winter's evening in Dartmoor. The spirit tells them that Captain Trevelyan is dead. The roads being impassable to vehicles, Major Burnaby announces his intention to go to the village on foot to check on his friend, where he appears to find the prediction has come true. Emily Trefusis, engaged to Trevelyan's nephew, uncovers the mystery along with the police. The novel was well received, with praise for the character Miss Emily ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, during the Second World War) and again from 1951 to 1955. For some 62 of the years between 1900 and 1964, he was a Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), member of parliament (MP) and represented a total of five Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, constituencies over that time. Ideologically an adherent to economic liberalism and imperialism, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924. Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire into the wealthy, aristocratic Spencer family. He joined the British Army in 1895 and saw action in British R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antony Sher
Sir Antony Sher (14 June 1949 – 2 December 2021) was a British actor, writer and theatre director of South African origin. A two-time Laurence Olivier Award winner and a five-time nominee, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1982 and toured in many roles, as well as appearing on film and television. In 2001, he starred in his cousin Ronald Harwood's play ''Mahler's Conversion'', and said that the story of a composer sacrificing his faith for his career echoed his own identity struggles. During his 2017 "Commonwealth Tour", Prince Charles referred to Sher as his favourite actor. Sher and his partner and collaborator Gregory Doran became one of the first same-sex couples to enter into a civil partnership in the UK. Early life and education Sher was born on 14 June 1949 in Cape Town, South Africa, the son of Margery (Abramowitz) and Emmanuel Sher, who worked in business. He was a first cousin once removed of the playwright Sir Ronald Harwood. He grew up in the subu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbert Lom
Herbert Charles Angelo Kuchačevič ze Schluderpacheru (11 September 1917 – 27 September 2012), known professionally as Herbert Lom (), was a Czech-British actor with a career spanning over 60 years. His cool demeanour and precise, elegant elocution saw him cast as criminals or suave villains in his younger years, and professional men and nobles as he aged. Highly versatile, he also played the beleaguered Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus in seven '' Pink Panther'' films. Lom’s other notable films included '' The Ladykillers'' (1955), ''War and Peace'' (1956), ''Spartacus'' (1960), ''El Cid'' (1961), ''Mysterious Island'' (also 1961), ''The Phantom of the Opera'' (1962), and ''The Dead Zone'' (1983). He also originated the role of the King of Siam in the original West End production of The King and I, and starred on the 1960s television drama '' The Human Jungle''. Early life and education Lom was born in Prague to Karl Kuchačevič ze Schluderpacheru and Olga Got ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
