|
Simon And Laura
''Simon and Laura'' is a 1955 British comedy film directed by Muriel Box and starring Peter Finch and Kay Kendall. Play Satirising the early days of BBC Television, ''Simon and Laura'' focuses on an argumentative theatrical couple called Simon and Laura Foster; they've been together for some 20 years and are given a new lease of life when playing a faux-harmonious version of 'themselves' in a daily soap opera filmed in their own home. Presented by H M Tennent Ltd, the play began a provincial tour at the Opera House Manchester on 30 August 1954, subsequently opening at the Strand Theatre in London's West End on 25 November. Directed by Murray Macdonald, it starred Roland Culver, Coral Browne, Ian Carmichael, Dora Bryan, Ernest Thesiger and Esma Cannon, with settings designed by Alan Tagg. According to Frances Stephens, editor of ''Theatre World'', "''Simon and Laura'' has as its amusing central theme the guying of television family serials and the author is well served by th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Film Poster
A film poster is a poster used to promote and advertise a film primarily to persuade paying customers into a theater to see it. Studios often print several posters that vary in size and content for various domestic and international markets. They normally contain an image with text. Today's posters often feature printed likenesses of the main actors. Prior to the 1980s, illustrations instead of photos were far more common. The text on film posters usually contains the film title in large lettering and often the names of the main actors. It may also include a tagline, the name of the director, names of characters, the release date, and other pertinent details to inform prospective viewers about the film. Film posters are often displayed inside and on the outside of movie theaters, and elsewhere on the street or in shops. The same images appear in the film exhibitor's pressbook and may also be used on websites, DVD (and historically VHS) packaging, flyers, advertisements in newspap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Novello Theatre
The Novello Theatre is a West End theatre on Aldwych, in the City of Westminster. It was known as the Strand Theatre between 1913 and 2005. History The theatre was built as one of a pair with the Aldwych Theatre on either side of The Waldorf Hilton, London, both being designed by W. G. R. Sprague. The theatre was opened by The Shubert Organization as the Waldorf Theatre on 22 May 1905, and was renamed the Strand Theatre, in 1909. It was again renamed as the Whitney Theatre in 1911, before again becoming the Strand Theatre in 1913. In 2005, the theatre was renamed by its owners (Delfont Mackintosh Theatres) the Novello Theatre in honour of Ivor Novello, who lived in a flat above the theatre from 1913 to 1951. The black comedy ''Arsenic and Old Lace (play), Arsenic and Old Lace'' had a run of 1337 performances here in the 1940s, and ''Sailor Beware! (play), Sailor Beware!'' ran for 1231 performances from 1955. Stephen Sondheim's musical ''A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Thora Hird
Dame Thora Hird (28 May 1911 – 15 March 2003) was an English actress. In a career spanning over 70 years, she appeared in more than 100 films, as well as many television roles, becoming a household name and a British institution. Hird was a three-time winner of the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress, for '' Talking Heads: A Cream Cracker Under the Settee'' (1989), '' Talking Heads: Waiting for the Telegram'' (1999) and '' Lost for Words'' (2000). She also received a BAFTA Special Award in 1994. Her film credits included '' The Love Match'' (1955), '' The Entertainer'' (1960), '' A Kind of Loving'' (1962) and '' The Nightcomers'' (1971). Early life and career Hird was born on 28 May 1911 in the Lancashire seaside town of Morecambe to James Henry Hird and Jane Mary (née Mayor). Her family background was largely theatrical: her mother had been an actress, while her father managed a number of entertainment venues in Morecambe, including the Royalty Theatre, where Hird made ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Richard Wattis
Richard Cameron Wattis (25 February 1912 – 1 February 1975) was an English actor, co-starring in many popular British comedies of the 1950s and 1960s. Early life Richard Cameron Wattis was born on 25 February 1912 in Wednesbury, Staffordshire, the elder of two sons born to Cameron Tom Wattis and Margaret Janet, née Preston. He attended King Edward's School and Bromsgrove School, after which he worked for the electrical engineering firm William Sanders & Co (Wednesbury) Ltd. His uncle, William Preston (1874–1941), was the managing director and was the Conservative MP for Walsall Walsall (, or ; locally ) is a market town and administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Historic counties of England, Historically part of Staffordshire, it is located ... from 1924 to 1929. Career After leaving the family business, Wattis became an actor. His debut was with Croydon Repertory Theatre, and he mad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
The Deep Blue Sea (play)
''The Deep Blue Sea'' is a British stage play by Terence Rattigan from 1952. Rattigan based his story and characters in part on his secret relationship with Kenny Morgan, and the aftermath of the end of their relationship. The play was first performed in London on 6 March 1952, directed by Frith Banbury, and won praise for actress Peggy Ashcroft, who co-starred with Kenneth More. In the US, the Plymouth Theater staged the play in October 1952, with Margaret Sullavan. The play with Sullavan subsequently transferred to Broadway, with its Broadway premiere on 5 November 1953, and running for 132 performances. Prior to Rattigan's coding of his relationship with Morgan into the heterosexual relationship between Hester and Freddie, his first draft of the play more specifically treated the relationship between the lead characters as a homosexual relationship, and also hinted that the reason for the striking off of Miller, the ex-doctor in the play, from the medical register was M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan (10 June 191130 November 1977) was a British dramatist and screenwriter. He was one of England's most popular mid-20th-century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background.Geoffrey Wansell. ''Terence Rattigan'' (London: Fourth Estate, 1995); He wrote ''The Winslow Boy'' (1946), '' The Browning Version'' (1948), '' The Deep Blue Sea'' (1952) and '' Separate Tables'' (1954), among many others. A troubled gay man who saw himself as an outsider, Rattigan wrote a number of plays which centred on issues of sexual frustration, failed relationships, or a world of repression and reticence. Early life Terence Rattigan was born in 1911 in South Kensington,Wansell, p. 13. London, of Irish extraction. He had an elder brother, Brian. They were the grandsons of Sir William Henry Rattigan, a notable India-based jurist and later a Liberal Unionist Member of Parliament for North-East Lanarkshire. His father was Frank Rattigan CMG, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Googie Withers
Georgette Lizette "Googie" Withers (12 March 191715 July 2011) was an English entertainer. She was a dancer and actress, with a lengthy career spanning some seventy-three years in theatre, film, and television. She was a well-known actress and star of British films during and after the Second World War. She often featured in British productions, primarily in films with actor and producer John McCallum, whom she married and, in the late 1950s, emigrated together to her husband's native Australia, where they became best known in theatre. During the 1970s, she played prison governor Faye Boswell in the TV series '' Within These Walls'', and continued to feature in films. She won the inaugural British Academy Television Award for Best Actress in 1955. Biography Withers was born in Karachi, British India (now Pakistan), to Edgar Withers, a captain in the Royal Navy, and Lizette Wilhelmina Katarina, of Dutch, French and German descent. She was named after her aunt Georgette Ottoli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
John McCallum (actor)
John Neil McCallum (14 March 19183 February 2010) was an Australian theatre and film actor, highly successful in the United Kingdom. He was also a television producer. Early life McCallum's father, John Neil McCallum Sr., was a theatre owner and entrepreneur, who built and for many years ran the 2,000 seat Cremorne Theatre on the banks of the Brisbane River. After emigrating from Scotland, McCallum Snr. became an accomplished musician and was soon heavily involved in Brisbane's entertainment scene. His mother was an accomplished amateur actress who was born in England. In 1918, McCallum Jr. was born in Brisbane during the opening night of a comedy performance. After his birth, a family friend sent his father a wire: 'Congratulations on two howling successes'. McCallum was exposed to acting at a young age: his early childhood was full of backstage encounters at the Cremorne with the wide variety of performers who frequented his father's theatre. Although McCallum and his two yo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Apollo Theatre
The Apollo Theatre is a listed building, Grade II listed West End theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster, in central London.English Heritage listing accessed 28 April 2007 Designed by the architect Lewin Sharp for owner Henry Lowenfeld, it became the fourth legitimate theatre to be constructed on the street when it opened its doors on 21 February 1901, with the American Edwardian musical comedy, musical comedy ''The Belle of Bohemia''. History Construction Henry Lowenfeld had bought land on the newly created Shaftesbury Avenue at the turn of the 20th century—next door to the Lyric Theatre, London, Lyric Theatre, which opened in 1888—and as a ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan (2 April 1927 – 26 July 1980) was an English theatre critic and writer. Initially making his mark as a critic at ''The Observer'', he praised John Osborne's ''Look Back in Anger'' (1956) and encouraged the emerging wave of British theatrical talent. In 1963, Tynan was appointed the new Royal National Theatre, National Theatre Company's literary manager. An opponent of theatre censorship, he was the first person to deliberately say the word "fuck" during a live television broadcast in 1965, although Miriam Margolyes had earlier used the expletive accidentally. Later in life, he settled in California, where he resumed his writing career. Early life Tynan was born in Birmingham, England, to Letitia Rose Tynan and (as he was led to believe) "Peter Tynan" (#Oxford and other experiences, see below). Tynan had a stammer that was more pronounced as a child. He also possessed early on a high degree of articulate intelligence. By the age of six, he was already k ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Esma Cannon
Esma Ellen Charlotte Littmann (''née'' Cannon; 27 December 1905 – 18 October 1972), credited as Esme or Esma Cannon, was an Australian-born character actress who moved to Britain in the early 1930s. Although she frequently appeared on television in her latter years, Cannon is best remembered as a film actress, with a lengthy career in British productions from the 1930s to the 1960s. Career After early experience at Minnie Everett's School of Dancing in Sydney, Cannon began acting on the stage at the age of four in ''Madama Butterfly''. She appeared in productions for both the J. C. Williamson and Tait companies – including the early prominent role of Ruth Le Page in ''Sealed Orders'' at the Theatre Royal in 1914, and played Baby in an adaptation of '' Seven Little Australians'' the same year. She was given children's parts well into adulthood. In an interview with the ''Australian Women's Weekly'' published in 1963, she claimed it was the theatrical impresario Percy Hutchin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ernest Thesiger
Ernest Frederic Graham Thesiger (15 January 1879 – 14 January 1961) was an English stage and film actor. He is noted for his performance as Doctor Septimus Pretorius in James Whale's film ''Bride of Frankenstein'' (1935). Early life Ernest Thesiger was born 15 January 1879 in London. He was the third of four children of Hon. Sir Edward Peirson Thesiger (1842–1928), KCB, Clerk Assistant to Parliament, and Georgina Mary, daughter of William Bruce Stopford Sackville, of Drayton House, Thrapston, Northamptonshire, of the family of the Earl of Courtown. He was the grandson of the 1st Lord Chelmsford, first cousin once removed of the explorer and author Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003), and the nephew of the 2nd Lord Chelmsford. Thesiger attended Marlborough College and the Slade School of Art with aspirations of becoming a painter, but quickly switched to drama, making his professional debut in a production of ''Colonel Smith'' in 1909. He also processed with the Men's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
