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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2019 9:56:43 GMT
Pete Sampras (born August 12, 1971) is an American former professional tennis player. A right-handed player with a single-handed backhand, his precise and powerful serve earned him the nickname "Pistol Pete". His professional career began in 1988 and ended at the 2002 US Open, which he won, defeating rival Andre Agassi in the final.
Sampras held the all-time record of seven Wimbledon Men's Singles titles with William Renshaw until 2017 when Roger Federer won his 8th title. Sampras also won five US Open titles, a joint Open-era record shared by Roger Federer and Jimmy Connors, and two Australian Open titles. His 14 Grand Slam titles were a record, surpassed when Federer won his 15th Grand Slam title at the 2009 Wimbledon Championships and later also by Rafael Nadal at the 2017 French Open and Novak Djokovic at the 2019 Australian Open. Sampras won 64 singles titles. He first reached world No. 1 in 1993, and held that position for a total of 286 weeks (second behind Federer 310 weeks as No. 1 player), including a record six consecutive year-end No. 1 rankings from 1993 to 1998. In 2007, he was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
A rare gentleman tennis player, never arguing over decisions or grunting and fiddling with himself on the court. Rare these days except perhaps Djokovic
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Post by ARENA on Aug 13, 2019 7:13:01 GMT
Sir George Shearing, OBE , Born in London(August 13, 1919 – February 14, 2011) was a blind jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for Discovery Records, MGM Records and Capitol Records. The composer of over 300 titles, he had multiple albums on the Billboard charts during the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s. He died of heart failure on February 14, 2011 in New York City.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2019 9:40:58 GMT
Shearing's jazz was my kind of jazz, melodic
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2019 9:45:33 GMT
John Logie Baird FRSE (13 August 1888 – 14 June 1946) was a Scottish engineer, innovator, one of the inventors of the mechanical television, demonstrating the first working television system on 26 January 1926, and inventor of both the first publicly demonstrated colour television system, and the first purely electronic colour television picture tube.
In 1928 the Baird Television Development Company achieved the first transatlantic television transmission. Baird's early technological successes and his role in the practical introduction of broadcast television for home entertainment have earned him a prominent place in television's history.
Baird was ranked number 44 in the BBC's list of the 100 Greatest Britons following a UK-wide vote in 2002. In 2006, Baird was named as one of the 10 greatest Scottish scientists in history, having been listed in the National Library of Scotland's 'Scottish Science Hall of Fame'. In 2015 he was inducted into the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame.
Without him would we still be listening to the radio?
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Post by aubrey on Aug 13, 2019 15:42:34 GMT
Maria Rohm (13 August 1945 – 18 June 2018) was an Austrian actress. Born Helga Grohmann in Vienna, she started her acting career at the very young age, working at the famous Viennese Burgtheatre as a child actor from ages 4 through 13. She continued her theatrical work until the age of 18 when she auditioned for British film producer, Harry Alan Towers, whom she would later marry. Working with Towers she became famous for appearing in a number of films directed by Jesús Franco in the late 1960s.
My favourite film of hers is probably Venus in Furs (which has nothing to do with the book of the same title), in which she plays the title character, and in which James Darren plays a jazz musician who becomes obsessed to the point of madness with the mysterious fur-clad Wanda, only to find her dead body washed up on the beach (wiki).
(It also has a great soundtrack, by Manfred Mann.)
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Post by ARENA on Aug 14, 2019 5:41:34 GMT
Fred Davis, OBE (14 August 1913 – 16 April 1998) was an English professional player of snooker and billiards, being one of only two players ever to win the world title in both. He was one of the most popular personalities in the game. His professional career spanned from 1929 to 1993. He was born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2019 9:12:19 GMT
Sarah Brightman (born 14 August 1960) is an English classical crossover soprano, singer, songwriter, actress, dancer and musician. Brightman has sung in many languages including English, Spanish, French, Latin, German, Turkish, Italian, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese and Catalan. Brightman began her career as a member of the dance troupe Hot Gossip and released several disco singles as a solo performer. In 1981, she made her West End musical theatre debut in Cats and met composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, whom she later married. She went on to star in several West End and Broadway musicals, including The Phantom of the Opera, where she originated the role of Christine Daaé. Her original London cast album of Phantom was released in CD format in 1987 and sold 40 million copies worldwide, making it the biggest-selling cast album ever. After retiring from the stage and divorcing Lloyd Webber, Brightman resumed her music career with former Enigma producer Frank Peterson, this time as a classical crossover artist. She has been credited as the creator and remains among the most prominent performers of this genre, with worldwide sales of more than 35 million albums and two million DVDs, establishing herself as the world's best-selling soprano. Brightman's 1996 duet with the Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, "Time to Say Goodbye", topped the charts all over Europe and became the highest and fastest-selling single of all-time in Germany, where it stayed at the top of the charts for 14 consecutive weeks and sold over three million copies.[8][9] It subsequently became an international success, selling 12 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all-time. She has collected over 200 gold and platinum record awards in 38 different countries. In 2010, she was named by Billboard the fifth most influential and best-selling classical artist of the 2000s decade in the US and according to Nielsen SoundScan, she has sold 6.5 million albums in the country. Brightman is the first artist to have been invited twice to perform the theme song at the Olympic Games, first at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games where she sang "Amigos Para Siempre" with the Spanish tenor José Carreras with an estimated global audience of a billion people, and 16 years later in 2008 in Beijing, this time with Chinese singer Liu Huan, performing the song "You and Me" to an estimated four billion people worldwide. In 2012, Brightman was appointed as the UNESCO Artist for Peace for the period 2012–2014, for her "commitment to humanitarian and charitable causes, her contribution, throughout her artistic career, to the promotion of cultural dialogue and the exchanges among cultures, and her dedication to the ideals and aims of the Organization". Since 2010, Brightman has been Panasonic's global brand ambassador. In 2014, she began training for a journey to the International Space Station, later postponed until further notice, citing personal reasons. Brightman was awarded the decoration 'Cavaliere' in the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic on 2 June 2016 and a Honorary Doctorate from the University of Hertfordshire in 2018, in recognition of her outstanding contributions to music and theatre. Allegedly for whom Lloyd Weber created the role of Christine in Phantom
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Post by ARENA on Aug 15, 2019 6:52:24 GMT
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (15 August 1875 – 1 September 1912) was an English composer who achieved such success that he was once called the "African Mahler". Coleridge-Taylor was born in 1875 in Holborn, London, to Alice Hare Martin, an English woman, and Dr Daniel Peter Hughes Taylor, a Sierra Leonean Creole. They were not married.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2019 9:50:22 GMT
I never knew that the writer of Kubla Khan was mixed race, was that his Xanadu?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2019 9:52:53 GMT
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet FRSE FSA Scot (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832) was a Scottish historical novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of both English-language literature and of Scottish literature. Famous titles include Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, Old Mortality, The Lady of the Lake, Waverley, The Heart of Midlothian and The Bride of Lammermoor.
Although primarily remembered for his extensive literary works and his political engagement, Scott was an advocate, judge and legal administrator by profession, and throughout his career combined his writing and editing work with his daily occupation as Clerk of Session and Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire.
A prominent member of the Tory establishment in Edinburgh, Scott was an active member of the Highland Society, served a long term as President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1820–32) and was a Vice President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1827-1829).
Scott's knowledge of history, and his facility with literary technique, made him a seminal figure in the establishement of the historical novel genre, as well as an exemplar of European literary Romanticism.
The books of our childhood, what will todays children remember - the nonsense of David Walliams and Roald Dahl?
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Post by ARENA on Aug 16, 2019 7:05:01 GMT
Angela Buxton (born 16 August 1934, in Liverpool, England) is an English tennis player. She won the women's doubles title at both the French Championships and Wimbledon in 1956 with Althea Gibson. Buxton began playing tennis as a youngster at a boarding school in North Wales. Coach Bob Mulligan immediately recognized her talent and entered her into a junior tournament, where she won the under-14 title.
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Post by ARENA on Aug 17, 2019 7:10:17 GMT
Anthony Valentine (born 17 August 1939) is an English actor. Valentine was born in Blackburn, Lancashire. Valentine was educated at the Valerie Glynne School and Acton County Grammar School, London. He worked as a child actor for the BBC, and appeared at the age of 10 in the film No Way Back (1949) and aged 12 in The Girl on the Pier (1953).
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2019 9:50:02 GMT
Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. ( born August 17, 1943) is an American-Italian actor, producer, and director. He is a recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, the Cecil B DeMille Award, AFI Life Achievement Award, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and has been nominated for six BAFTA Awards, four Primetime Emmy Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards.
De Niro was cast as the young Vito Corleone in the 1974 film The Godfather Part II, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His longtime collaboration with director Martin Scorsese earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Jake LaMotta in the 1980 film Raging Bull.
De Niro's first major film roles were in the sports drama Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) and Scorsese's crime film Mean Streets (1973). He earned Academy Award nominations for the psychological thrillers Taxi Driver (1976) and Cape Fear (1991), both directed by Scorsese. De Niro received additional nominations for Michael Cimino's Vietnam war drama The Deer Hunter (1978), Penny Marshall's drama Awakenings (1990), and David O. Russell's romantic comedy-drama Silver Linings Playbook (2012). His portrayal of gangster Jimmy Conway in Scorsese's crime film Goodfellas (1990), and his role as Rupert Pupkin in the black comedy film The King of Comedy (1982), earned him BAFTA Award nominations.[3]
De Niro has earned four nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, for his work in the musical drama New York, New York (1977), the action comedy Midnight Run (1988), the gangster comedy Analyze This (1999), and the comedy Meet the Parents (2000). Other notable performances include roles in 1900 (1976), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Brazil (1985), The Mission (1986), The Untouchables (1987), Heat (1995), and Casino (1995). He has directed and starred in films such as the crime drama A Bronx Tale (1993) and the spy film The Good Shepherd (2006)
One of acting greats, recently watched him in Dirty Grandpa - hilarious
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Post by ARENA on Aug 18, 2019 7:21:40 GMT
Brian Wilson Aldiss, OBE (born 18 August 1925) is an English author of both general fiction and science fiction. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss. Greatly influenced by science fiction pioneer H. G. Wells, Aldiss is a vice-president of the international H. G. Wells Society. He is also (with Harry Harrison) co-president of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group.
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Post by aubrey on Aug 18, 2019 9:02:24 GMT
Brian Wilson Aldiss, OBE (born 18 August 1925) is an English author of both general fiction and science fiction. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss. Greatly influenced by science fiction pioneer H. G. Wells, Aldiss is a vice-president of the international H. G. Wells Society. He is also (with Harry Harrison) co-president of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group. Was, unfortunately. He died nearly a year ago, and Harry Harrison died in August 2012 (I remember that because I was in hospital myself when I heard). He was good though; some of his books still live with me 30 years after reading them. I'm kind of scared to read them again, in case they're not as good as I remember: Non-Stop, Hot House, Cryptozoic! The Hand-reared Boy (and the rest of the Horatio Stubbs trilogy). And there are his histories of SF, and his own autobiographical works, all worth reading. Kingsley Amis used to say that if he ever got lost somewhere with no hope of rescue, all he'd need to do is announce a Science Fiction symposium and Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison would turn up and save him (presumably after holding the symposium).
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