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Gérard De Villiers
Gérard de Villiers (; 8 December 1929 – 31 October 2013) was a French writer, journalist and publisher whose Son Altesse Sérénissime, ''SAS'' series of Spy fiction, spy novels have been major bestsellers. Life Born in Paris in 1929, Villiers was the son of playwright Jacques Adam de Villiers (known by his stage name of Jacques Deval) and his wife. His father was both prolific and a spendthrift. The younger Villiers attended high school and graduated from Sciences Po university in Paris. He also obtained a degree from the École supérieure de journalisme de Paris. He began writing during the 1950s for ''France Soir'', a French daily, and became a foreign correspondent. He found "the blend of risk and cold calculation" in intelligence work to be "seductive". In 1964 Villiers began to write and publish spy novels. He had acquaintances among the military and intelligence services who enjoyed helping Villiers describe them and their acts in fiction. He is the author of the Sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, fourth-most populous city in the European Union and the List of cities proper by population density, 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2022. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, culture, Fashion capital, fashion, and gastronomy. Because of its leading role in the French art, arts and Science and technology in France, sciences and its early adoption of extensive street lighting, Paris became known as the City of Light in the 19th century. The City of Paris is the centre of the Île-de-France region, or Paris Region, with an official estimated population of 12,271,794 inhabitants in January 2023, or ... [...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] |
Sybil Danning
Sybil Danning (born Sybille Johanna Danninger; May 24, 1952) is an Austrian–American former actress, model, and film producer. She is best known for her frequent appearances in B movies during the 1970s and 1980s. Biography Early life Danning was born in Wels, Austria. Her father was an American military man who returned to the United States, resulting in her growing up primarily in , and . After she finished school she went to Europe. Working in a clothing store there provided opportunities for modeling, and from that activity she turned to acting. She also worked as a nurse and studied cosmetology while in |
Anton Diffring
Anton Diffring (born Alfred Pollack; 20 October 1916 – 19 May 1989) was a German actor. He had an extensive film and television career in the United Kingdom from the 1940s to the 1980s, latterly appearing in international films. Primarily a character actor, he often played Nazi officers in World War II films and villains in horror films, and other antagonistic authority figures. Early life Diffring was born Alfred Pollack in Koblenz, Rhineland-Palatinate. His father, Solomon Pollack, was a Jewish shop-owner who managed to avoid internment and survived Nazi rule in Germany. His mother, Bertha Pollack (née Diffring), was Christian. He studied acting in Berlin and Vienna, but there is conjecture about when he left Germany prior to the outbreak of World War II. The audio commentary for the ''Doctor Who'' serial '' Silver Nemesis'' mentions that he left in 1936 to escape persecution due to his homosexuality. Other accounts point to him leaving in 1939 and settling in Canada, wher ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dagmar Lassander
Dagmar Lassander (born as Dagmar Regine Hager on 16 June 1943) is a German actress. The character of Lassander Dagmar in the Italian-influenced 2015 horror film '' We Are Still Here'' is named after her. Early life and career She was born in Prague to a French father and Chilean-German mother, and began her career as a costume designer in the Berlin Opera. Her first role was in 1966 in '' Sperrbezirk'' by Will Tremper. Starting from 1969, she began to work regularly, especially in Italian crime, horror, and erotic movies. Her first non-erotic film was '' Hatchet for the Honeymoon''. Her experience making the film was unpleasant: the producers required her to lose 25 pounds before filming, script revisions sidelined her character in order to give a larger role to co-star Laura Betti (who Lassander has said was "extremely rude" to her on the set), and because she only spoke German and a little English at the time, communication with the director was difficult. Lassander later ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raimund Harmstorf
Raimund Harmstorf (7 October 1939 – 3 May 1998) was a German actor. He became famous as the protagonist of a German TV mini series based on Jack London's the Sea-Wolf (which was sold into many countries) and starred later on successfully in another German TV series based on Jules Verne's Michael Strogoff. Early life and education Harmstorf was the son of a doctor from Hamburg. He started a sports career and soon became a regional master of the decathlon. He then studied medicine, later music and performing arts. Career From the beginning of the 1960s he started performing in smaller TV productions. His breakthrough was in 1971 with the TV series ''Der Seewolf'', based on Jack London's novel ''The Sea-Wolf'', where he played the evil-minded Captain Larsen. In one iconic scene, Harmstorf crushed a potato in his hand. (To make this possible, the potato had been cooked before the scene was filmed.) Later he played in several spaghetti westerns along with Bud Spencer, Franc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miles O'Keeffe
Miles O'Keeffe (born June 20, 1954) is an American film and television actor. O'Keeffe got his first big break playing the title role in the 1981 version of '' Tarzan, the Ape Man''. Youth O'Keeffe was born in Ripley, Tennessee. A star football athlete, he attended the United States Air Force Academy and played halfback on the freshman football team in 1972. However, in 1973 he transferred to Mississippi State University under a football scholarship, playing as an offensive lineman. During this time, he bulked up to . Subsequently, he transferred to University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee and became a small college All-American playing both tight end and linebacker. After studying political science and psychology, O'Keeffe became a prison counselor in the Tennessee penal system for a year or two where he became manager of playground activities and inmate weightlifting programs. He left for California to play in a semi-professional rugby team before becoming involve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raoul Coutard
Raoul Coutard (16 September 1924 – 8 November 2016) was a French cinematographer. He is best known for his connection with the French New Wave (''Nouvelle Vague'') period and particularly for his work with director Jean-Luc Godard, which includes '' Breathless'' (1960), ''A Woman Is a Woman'' (1961), '' Vivre sa vie'' (1962), '' Bande à part'' (1964), '' Alphaville'', '' Pierrot le Fou'' (both 1965), and ''Weekend'' (1967). Coutard also shot films for New Wave director François Truffaut—including '' Shoot the Piano Player'' (1960) and ''Jules and Jim'' (1962)—as well as Jacques Demy, another contemporary associated with the movement. Coutard shot over 75 films during a career that lasted nearly half a century. Biography Coutard originally planned to study chemistry, but switched to photography because of the cost of tuition. In 1945, Coutard was sent to participate in the French Indochina War; he lived in Vietnam for the next 11 years, working as a war photographer, event ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Rodarmor
William Rodarmor (born June 5, 1942) is an American journalist, adventurer, and translator of French literature. He is notable in the field of literary translation for having won the Lewis Galantière Award from the American Translators Association, and the Albertine Prize. Rodarmor was born in New York City and pursued a bilingual education in English and French. He briefly practiced law in San Francisco but quickly abandoned it to sail to Tahiti. He then spent the 1970s traveling, mountaineering, and sailing. He took odd jobs and wrote freelance. Sailing in the South Pacific, he met singlehanded sailor and author Bernard Moitessier in Tahiti. This led to Rodarmor's first book translation: Moitessier's round-the-world saga, ''The Long Way''. He would go on to translate over forty more books, including Moitessier's popular ''Tamata and the Alliance'', and a number of books by Gérard de Villiers, Tanguy Viel, and Katherine Pancol. Rodarmor concurrently pursued a career in j ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (26 October 1919 – 27 July 1980) was the last List of monarchs of Iran, Shah of Iran, ruling from 1941 to 1979. He succeeded his father Reza Shah and ruled the Imperial State of Iran until he was overthrown by the Iranian Revolution, which abolished the Iranian monarchy to establish the present-day Islamic Republic of Iran. In 1967, he took the title (), and also held several others, including () and (). He was the second and last ruling monarch of the Pahlavi dynasty. His vision of the "Great Civilization" () led to his leadership over rapid industrial and military modernization, as well as economic and social reforms in Iran. During World War II, the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran forced the abdication of Reza Shah and succession of Mohammad Reza Shah. During his reign, the Anglo-Iranian Oil, British-owned oil industry was nationalized by the prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had support from Iran's national parliament to do so; however, Mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carlos The Jackal
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (; born 12 October 1949), also known as Carlos the Jackal () or simply Carlos, is a Venezuelan convict who conducted a series of assassinations and terrorist bombings from 1973 to 1985. A committed Marxist–Leninist, he was one of the most notorious political terrorists of his era, protected and supported by the Stasi and the KGB. After several bungled bombings, Carlos led the 1975 raid on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) headquarters in Vienna, during which three people were killed. He and five others demanded a plane and flew with a number of hostages to Libya. After his wife Magdalena Kopp was arrested and imprisoned, Carlos detonated a series of bombs, claiming 11 lives and injuring more than 100, demanding the French release his wife. For many years he was among the most-wanted international fugitives. He was ultimately captured by extra-judicial means in Sudan and transferred to France, where he was convicted of m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
