Tony Palmer's award-winning feature-length documentary profile of Richard Burton.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Lauren Bacall (born Betty Joan Perske; September 16, 1924 – August 12, 2014) was an American actress known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks. She began her career as a model. She first appeared as a leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have and Have Not (1944) and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in Bogart movies The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948), as well as comedic roles in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) with Marilyn Monroe and Designing Woman (1957) with Gregory Peck. Bacall worked on Broadway in musicals, earning Tony Awards for Applause in 1970 and Woman of the Year in 1981. Her performance in the movie The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) earned her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination. In 1999, Bacall was ranked 20th out of the 25 actresses on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list by the American Film Institute. In 2009, she was selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive an Academy Honorary Award "in recognition of her central place in the Golden Age of motion pictures." Bacall died on August 12, 2014, at the age of 89. According to her grandson Jamie Bogart, the actress died after suffering from a stroke.
Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg, CH, HonFRS, FRSL, FBA (born 6 October 1939), is an English broadcaster, author and parliamentarian. He is best known for his work with ITV as editor and presenter of The South Bank Show (1978–2010), and for the BBC Radio 4 documentary series In Our Time. Earlier in his career, Bragg worked for the BBC in various roles including presenter, a connection that resumed in 1988 when he began to host Start the Week on Radio 4. After his ennoblement in 1998, he switched to presenting the new In Our Time, an academic discussion radio programme, which has run to over 900 broadcast editions and is a popular podcast. He was Chancellor of the University of Leeds from 1999 until 2017. Description above from the Wikipedia article Melvyn Bragg, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Kate Burton is a Swiss-born Welsh-American stage and screen actress. She is best known for her TV roles as Vice President Sally Langston on ABC's Scandal, Vera Quinn on the Audience Network's series Full Circle, and Dr. Ellis Grey on ABC's Grey's Anatomy. She holds an BA in Russian Studies and European History from Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, and an MFA from the Yale School of Drama, New Haven, Connecticut.
Richard Burton CBE (born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr.; 10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor. Noted for his mellifluous baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s, and he gave a memorable performance of Hamlet in 1964. He was called "the natural successor to Olivier" by critic Kenneth Tynan. A heavy drinker, Burton's perceived failure to live up to those expectations disappointed some critics and colleagues and added to his image as a great performer who had wasted his talent. Nevertheless, he is widely regarded as one of the most acclaimed actors of his generation. Burton was nominated for an Academy Award seven times, but never won an Oscar. He was a recipient of BAFTAs, Golden Globes, and Tony Awards for Best Actor. In the mid-1960s, Burton ascended into the ranks of the top box office stars. By the late 1960s, Burton was one of the highest-paid actors in the world, receiving fees of $1 million or more plus a share of the gross receipts. Burton remained closely associated in the public consciousness with his second wife, actress Elizabeth Taylor. The couple's turbulent relationship, in which they were married twice and divorced twice, was rarely out of the news. Description above from the Wikipedia article Richard Burton, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH (14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937. He was known for his beautiful speaking of verse and particularly for his warm and expressive voice, which his colleague Sir Alec Guinness likened to "a silver trumpet muffled in silk". Gielgud is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award. Description above from the Wikipedia article John Gielgud, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
One of England's most successful and enduring character actors, with a prolific screen career on television and in films, Robert Hardy was acclaimed for his versatility and the depth of his performances. Born in Cheltenham in 1925, he studied at Oxford University and, in 1949, he joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon. Television viewers most fondly remember him as the overbearing Siegfried Farnon in All Creatures Great and Small (1978) but his most critically acclaimed performance was as the title character of Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (1981). His portrayal of Britain's wartime leader was so accurately observed that, in the following years, he was called on to reprise the role in such productions as The Woman He Loved (1988) and War and Remembrance (1988). Unlike some British character actors, Hardy was not a Hollywood name and his work in films was therefore restricted to appearances in predominantly British-based productions such as The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1965), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) and Sense and Sensibility (1995). However, in the 21st century, Hardy came to the attention of a whole new generation for his performances in the hugely successful Harry Potter films, while also continuing to make regular appearances in British television series. His co-star from All Creatures Great and Small (1978), Peter Davison, quite simply described Hardy as an "extraordinary" actor who would "never do the same thing twice" when he was acting with him. He was awarded the CBE for services to acting. He died in August 2017.
Joseph Leo Mankiewicz was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz had a long Hollywood career and is best known as the writer-director of the Oscar-winning All About Eve (1950). He was brother to screenwriter and drama critic Herman J. Mankiewicz who also won an Oscar for co-writing Citizen Kane (1941).
John Neville, OBE, CM was an English theatre and film actor who moved to Canada with his family in 1972. He enjoyed a resurgence of international attention as a result of his starring role in Terry Gilliam's "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen". He was appointed to the Order of Canada, that nation's highest civilian honor, in 2006. According to publicists at Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Neville died "peacefully surrounded by family" on 19 November 2011, aged 86. Neville suffered with Alzheimer's disease in his latter years. He is survived by his wife, Caroline (née Hopper), and their six children. Above description from the Wikipedia article John Neville (actor), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Mike Nichols (born Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky; November 6, 1931 – November 19, 2014) was a German-born American film and theatre director, producer, actor and comedian. He was noted for his ability to work across a range of genres and an aptitude for getting the best out of actors regardless of their acting experience. Nichols began his career in the 1950s with the comedy improvisational troupe, The Compass Players, predecessor of The Second City, in Chicago. He then teamed up with his improv partner, Elaine May, to form the comedy duo Nichols and May. Their live improv acts were a hit on Broadway resulting in three albums, with their debut album winning a Grammy Award. After Nichols and May disbanded their act in 1961, Nichols began directing plays. He soon earned a reputation as a skilled Broadway director with a flair for creating innovative productions and the ability to elicit polished performances from actors. His debut Broadway play was Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park in 1963, with Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley. He next directed Luv in 1964 and in 1965 directed another Neil Simon play, The Odd Couple. Nichols received a Tony Award for each of those plays. Nearly five decades later, he won his sixth Tony Award as best director with a revival of Death of a Salesman in 2012. During his career, he directed or produced over twenty-five Broadway plays. In 1966, Warner Brothers invited Nichols to direct his first film, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The groundbreaking and acclaimed film led critics to declare Nichols the "new Orson Welles". The film garnered 13 Academy Award nominations, winning five. It was also a box office hit and became the number 1 film of 1966. His next film was The Graduate in 1967, starring then unknown actor Dustin Hoffman, alongside Anne Bancroft and Katharine Ross. The film was another critical and financial success, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1967 and receiving seven Academy Award nominations, winning Nichols the Academy Award for Best Directing. Among the other films he directed were Catch-22 (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971), Silkwood (1983), Working Girl (1988), Wolf (1994), The Birdcage (1996), Closer (2004), and Charlie Wilson's War (2007). Along with an Academy Award, Nichols won a Grammy Award (the first for a comedian born outside the United States), four Emmy Awards and nine Tony Awards. He was also a three-time BAFTA Award winner. His other honors included the Lincoln Center Gala Tribute in 1999, the National Medal of Arts in 2001, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2003 and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2010. His films garnered a total of 42 Academy Award nominations and seven wins. Description above from the Wikipedia article Mike Nichols, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
William Squire (29 April 1917 – 3 May 1989) was a Welsh actor of stage, film and television. Squire was born in Neath, South Wales, the son of William Squire and his wife Martha (née Bridgeman). As a stage actor, Squire performed at Stratford-upon-Avon and at the Old Vic, and notably replaced his fellow-countryman Richard Burton as King Arthur in Camelot at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. One of his first film appearances was in the 1956 film Alexander the Great, which starred Burton in the title role. His varied screen roles included Thomas More in the 1969 film version of Maxwell Anderson's play Anne of the Thousand Days, Sir Daniel Brackley in the 1972 television adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Black Arrow, the voice of Gandalf in the 1978 animated version of The Lord of the Rings and the Shadow in the 1979 Doctor Whoserial The Armageddon Factor. Perhaps his best-known role was as Hunter, the superior of secret agent David Callan in the spy series Callan in the early 1970s; Squire took over the role from Derek Bond. In a set of Encyclopædia Britannica-produced educational films about William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Squire played the role of Macbeth. This was in keeping with his long career as a Shakespearean actor, which included roles in the classic 1960s TV series, An Age of Kings.
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age. As one of the world's most famous film stars, Taylor was recognized for her acting ability and for her glamorous lifestyle, beauty and distinctive violet eyes. National Velvet (1944) was Taylor's first success, and she starred in Father of the Bride (1950), A Place in the Sun (1951), Giant (1956), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for BUtterfield 8 (1960), played the title role in Cleopatra (1963), and married her co-star Richard Burton. They appeared together in 11 films, including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), for which Taylor won a second Academy Award. From the mid-1970s, she appeared less frequently in film, and made occasional appearances in television and theatre. Her much publicized personal life included eight marriages and several life-threatening illnesses. From the mid-1980s, Taylor championed HIV and AIDS programs; she co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985, and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1993. She received the Presidential Citizens Medal, the Legion of Honour, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, who named her seventh on their list of the "Greatest American Screen Legends". Taylor died of congestive heart failure at the age of 79.
