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Golden Gun
Francisco Scaramanga is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the James Bond novel and film version of '' The Man with the Golden Gun''. Scaramanga is an assassin who kills with his signature weapon, a pistol made of solid gold. In the novel, the character is nicknamed "Pistols" Scaramanga is also called "Paco" (a Spanish diminutive of Francisco). In the film, the character was played by Christopher Lee (the real-life step-cousin of James Bond creator Ian Fleming). As with another of James Bond's nemeses, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, in 2007 the Daily Mail reported that the inspiration for this fictional character was a classmate of Fleming's, at Eton College in the 1920s, George Ambrosios (Ambrose) Scaramanga. Novel biography Francisco Scaramanga, of Spanish (Catalonia) origin, became a trick shot while a youngster, and he performed in a circus owned by his father Enrico. Francisco also cared for one of the circus elephants, which he stated was his only real friend. When t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee (27 May 1922 – 7 June 2015) was an English actor and singer. In a career spanning more than sixty years, Lee became known as an actor with a deep and commanding voice who often portrayed villains in horror and franchise films. Lee was knighted for services to drama and charity in 2009, received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2011 and received the BFI Fellowship in 2013. Lee gained fame for portraying Count Dracula in seven Hammer Horror films. His other film roles include Francisco Scaramanga in the James Bond film '' The Man with the Golden Gun'' (1974), Count Dooku in two ''Star Wars'' films (2002–2008) and Saruman in both ''The Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy (2001–2003) and ''The Hobbit'' film trilogy (2012–2014). He frequently appeared opposite his friend Peter Cushing in horror films, and late in his career had roles in five Tim Burton films, including '' Sleepy Hollow'' (1999), '' Corpse Bride'' (2005), '' Charlie and the Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Trieste
Trieste ( , ; ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital and largest city of the Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as well as of the Province of Trieste, regional decentralization entity of Trieste. Trieste is located at the head of the Gulf of Trieste, on a narrow strip of Italian territory lying between the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia; Slovenia lies close, at approximately east and southeast of the city, while Croatia is about to the south of the city. The city has a long coastline and is surrounded by grassland, forest, and karstic areas. As of 2025, it has a population of 198,668. Trieste belonged, as Triest, to the Habsburg monarchy from 1382 until 1918. In the 19th century, the monarchy was one of the Great Powers of Europe and Trieste was its most important seaport. As a prosperous trading hub in the Mediterranean region, Trieste grew to become the fourth largest city of the Aust ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Detroit
Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of United States cities by population, 26th-most populous city in the United States and the largest U.S. city on the Canada–United States border. The Metro Detroit area, home to 4.3 million people, is the second-largest in the Midwestern United States, Midwest after the Chicago metropolitan area and the 14th-largest in the United States. The county seat, seat of Wayne County, Michigan, Wayne County, Detroit is a significant cultural center known for its contributions to music, art, architecture and design, in addition to its historical automotive and industrial background. In 1701, Kingdom of France, Royal French explorers Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac and Alphonse de Tonty founded Fort Pontc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
The Purple Gang
The Purple Gang, also known as the Sugar House Gang, was a criminal mob of bootleggers and hijackers composed predominantly of Jewish gangsters. They operated in Detroit, Michigan, during the 1920s of the Prohibition era and came to be Detroit's dominant criminal gang. Excessive violence and infighting caused the gang to destroy itself in the 1930s. History The Michigan legislature prohibited the sale of liquor in 1917, three years before national Prohibition was established by a constitutional amendment. Along with temperance supporters, industrialist Henry Ford owned the River Rouge plant and desired a sober workforce, so he backed the Damon Act, a state law that, along with the Wiley Act, prohibited virtually all possession, manufacture, or sale of alcohol starting in 1918. Detroit is close to Ohio, so bootleggers and others would import liquor from Toledo where it was still legal. They also smuggled liquor in from Canada. Judges took a lenient view of offenders. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Executioner
An executioner, also known as a hangman or headsman, is an official who effects a sentence of capital punishment on a condemned person. Scope and job The executioner was usually presented with a warrant authorizing or ordering him to ''execute'' the sentence. The warrant protects the executioner from the charge of murder. Common terms for executioners derived from forms of capital punishment—though they often also performed other physical punishments—include hangman (hanging) and headsman ( beheading). In the military, the role of executioner was performed by a soldier, such as the ''provost''. A common stereotype of an executioner is a hooded medieval or absolutist executioner. Symbolic or real, executioners were rarely hooded, and not robed in all black; hoods were only used if an executioner's identity and anonymity were to be preserved from the public. As Hilary Mantel noted in her 2018 Reith Lectures, "Why would an executioner wear a mask? Everybody knew who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, the 32nd-most populous, and the ninth-least densely populated U.S. state. Nearly three-quarters of Nevada's population live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area, including three of the state's four largest incorporated cities. Nevada's capital is Carson City. Las Vegas is the largest city in the state. Nevada is officially known as the "Silver State" because of the importance of silver to its history and economy. It is also known as the "Battle Born State" because it achieved statehood during the Civil War (the words "Battle Born" also appear on its state flag); due to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, the Union benefited immensely from the support of newly awarded statehood by the infusion of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Las Vegas Valley
The Las Vegas Valley is a major metropolitan area in the Southern Nevada, southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada, and the second largest in the Southwestern United States. The state's largest urban agglomeration, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Statistical Area is coextensive since 2003 with Clark County, Nevada. The Valley is largely defined by the Las Vegas Valley land formation, a Depression (geology), basin area surrounded by mountains to the north, south, east and west of the metropolitan area. The Valley is home to the three largest incorporated cities in Nevada: Las Vegas, Henderson, Nevada, Henderson and North Las Vegas, Nevada, North Las Vegas. Eleven unincorporated towns governed by the Clark County government are part of the Las Vegas Township and constitute the largest community in the state of Nevada. The names Las Vegas and Vegas are interchangeably used to indicate the Valley, Las Vegas Strip, the Strip, and the city, and as a brand by the Las Vegas Convention and V ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Casino
A casino is a facility for gambling. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shops, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions. Some casinos also host live entertainment, such as stand-up comedy, concerts, and sports. Etymology and usage ''Casino'' is of Italian language, Italian origin; the root means a house. The term ''casino'' may mean a small country villa, Summerhouse (building), summerhouse, or social club. During the 19th century, ''casino'' came to include other public buildings where pleasurable activities took place; such edifices were usually built on the grounds of a larger Italian villa or palazzo, and were used to host civic town functions, including dancing, gambling, music listening, and sports. Examples in Italy include Villa Farnese and Villa Giulia, and in the US the Newport Casino in Newport, Rhode Island. In modern-day Italian, a is a brothel (also called , literally "closed house"), a mess (confusing situation), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Auric Goldfinger
Auric Goldfinger is a fictional character and the main antagonist in Ian Fleming's 1959 seventh ''James Bond'' novel, '' Goldfinger'', and the 1964 film it inspired (the third in the ''James Bond'' series). His first name, Auric, is an adjective meaning "of gold". Fleming chose the name to commemorate the architect Ernő Goldfinger, who had built his home in Hampstead next door to Fleming's; he disliked Goldfinger's style of architecture and destruction of Victorian terraces and decided to name a memorable villain after him. According to a 1965 ''Forbes'' article and ''The New York Times'', the Goldfinger persona was based on gold-mining magnate Charles W. Engelhard, Jr. In 2003, the American Film Institute declared Auric Goldfinger the 49th-greatest villain in the past 100 years of film. In a poll on IMDb, Auric Goldfinger was voted the most sinister James Bond villain, beating (in order) Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Dr. Julius No, Max Zorin and Emilio Largo. Goldfinger's oft-quot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Goldfinger (novel)
''Goldfinger'' is the seventh novel in Ian Fleming's James Bond series. Written in January and February 1958, it was first published in the UK by Jonathan Cape on 23 March 1959. The story centres on the investigation by the British MI6, Secret Service operative James Bond into the gold-smuggling activities of Auric Goldfinger, who is also suspected by MI6 of being connected to SMERSH, the Soviet counter-intelligence organisation. As well as establishing the background to the smuggling operation, Bond uncovers a much larger plot: Goldfinger plans to steal the gold reserves of the United States from United States Bullion Depository, Fort Knox. Fleming developed the James Bond (literary character), James Bond character in ''Goldfinger'', presenting him as a more complex individual than in the previous novels, and bringing out a theme of Bond as a St George figure. This theme is echoed by the fact that it is a British agent sorting out an American problem. In common with his other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
James Bond (literary Character)
Commander (Royal Navy), Commander James Bond is a character created by the British journalist and novelist Ian Fleming in 1953. He is the protagonist of the ''James Bond'' series of List of James Bond novels and stories, novels, James Bond in film, films, James Bond (comics), comics and James Bond in video games, video games. Fleming wrote twelve Bond novels and two short story collections. His final two books—''The Man with the Golden Gun (novel), The Man with the Golden Gun'' (1965) and ''Octopussy and The Living Daylights'' (1966)—were published posthumously. The character is a Secret Intelligence Service, Secret Service officer, code number 00 Agent, 007 (pronounced "double-O[]-seven"), residing in London but active internationally. Bond was a composite character who was based on a number of British Commandos, commandos whom Fleming knew during his service in the Naval Intelligence Division (United Kingdom), Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War, to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Diamonds Are Forever (novel)
''Diamonds Are Forever'' is the fourth novel by the British author Ian Fleming to feature his fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond. Fleming wrote the story at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica, inspired by a '' Sunday Times'' article on diamond smuggling. The book was first published by Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom on 26 March 1956. The story centres on Bond's investigation of a diamond-smuggling operation that originates in the mines of Sierra Leone and runs to Las Vegas. Along the way Bond meets and falls in love with one of the members of the smuggling gang, Tiffany Case. Much of Fleming's background research formed the basis for his non-fiction 1957 book '' The Diamond Smugglers''. ''Diamonds Are Forever'' deals with international travel, marriage and the transitory nature of life. As with Fleming's previous novels, ''Diamonds Are Forever'' received broadly positive reviews at the time of publication. The story was serialised in the ''Daily Express'' n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
