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Venetian Bird
''Venetian Bird'' (U.S. title ''The Assassin'') is a 1952 British thriller film directed by Ralph Thomas and starring Richard Todd, Eva Bartok and John Gregson. The screenplay was adapted by Victor Canning from his 1950 Venetian Bird (novel), novel of the same title. It was released in America by United Artists. Plot British private detective Edward Mercer is employed to travel to Venice and locate an Italian who is to be rewarded for his assistance to an Allied airman during the Second World War. Once he arrives in Italy, however, he becomes mixed up in an assassination plot enveloped in a great deal of mystery. Central to it is whether Renzo Uccello actually died a few years earlier in World War II or not. Cast * Richard Todd as Edward Mercer * Eva Bartok as Adriana Medova * John Gregson as Renzo Uccello * George Coulouris as Chief of Police Spadoni * Margot Grahame as Rosa Melitus * David Hurst as Minelli * Walter Rilla as Count Boria * John Bailey (British actor), John Bail ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ralph Thomas
Ralph Philip Thomas (10 August 1915 – 17 March 2001) was an English film director who directed the Doctor (film series), ''Doctor'' film series. Thomas cast the actor James Robertson Justice in many of his films. He often worked with the producer Betty Box, Betty E. Box, who was married to ''Carry On'' producer Peter Rogers. Early life Ralph Philip Thomas was born on 10 August 1915 in Kingston upon Hull, Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire. Thomas was a nephew of producer Victor Saville. He studied law at Middlesex University College. Career Early career Thomas entered the film business as a clapperboard, clapper boy at Shepperton Studios in 1932 during his summer vacation while at college. Following graduation, instead of becoming a lawyer he decided to enter the film industry, and became an apprentice at Shepperton Studios, working as a clapper boy and then in the editing room, the sound department and art department. From 1932 to 1934, Thomas worked predominantly on "Cinema ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margot Grahame
Margot Grahame (born Margaret Clark; 20 February 1911 – 1 January 1982) was an English actress most noted for starring in '' The Informer'' (1935) and ''The Three Musketeers'' (1935). She started acting in 1930 and made her last screen appearance in 1958. Film actress Her family went to South Africa when she was three years old, which led to her being educated there. She began her stage career in Pretoria, with Dennis Neilson-Terry, a few weeks after leaving school at the age of 14. She made her London stage debut in 1927 as understudy to Mary Glynne in ''The Terror''. Her screen debut was in the 1930 film '' Rookery Nook''. During the early 1930s, Grahame was gradually becoming a popular actress in Britain. Hollywood producers were impressed that, in only three years, she had appeared in 42 major roles in British films. After she went to America, she was signed to a long-term contract with RKO and performed in a number of movies from the mid-1930s to the late 1950s. Sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meier Tzelniker
Meier Tzelniker (1 January 1894 – 8 October 1980) was a Yiddish-speaking actor born in Hotin County, Romania. He appeared mainly in Yiddish theatre, but was sometimes a character actor in English-language plays and films, such as '' It Always Rains On Sunday'' (1947) and '' Expresso Bongo'' (1959). Biography Meier Tzelniker was born in Hotin-Bessarabia, Romania, the son of a yeast manufacturer. Meier was a boy chorister in a synagogue when he got his first stage role in Yiddish theatre, and toured eastern Europe with a Yiddish theatre company. Selected filmography * '' Mr. Emmanuel'' (1944) - Mr. Silver * '' It Always Rains on Sunday'' (1947) - Solly, his father * '' Last Holiday'' (1950) - Baltin * ''Venetian Bird'' (1952) - Mayor of Mirave * '' The Teckman Mystery'' (1954) - John Rice * '' Make Me an Offer'' (1954) - Wendl * '' The Woman for Joe'' (1955) - Sol Goldstein * ''The Extra Day'' (1956) - Lou Skeat * '' Stars in Your Eyes'' (1956) - Maxie Jago * '' The Long Haul'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eileen Way
Eileen Mabel Elizabeth Way (2 September 1911 – 16 June 1994) was a British actress who appeared in film and television roles in a career dating back to the 1930s. She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from the age of 16. She was in some of the first productions of Tennessee Williams' plays in Great Britain, including playing the role of the Mexican Woman in ''A Streetcar Named Desire'', and appeared at the Bristol Old Vic and Nottingham Playhouse. She appeared in an early televised episode of ''Hancock's Half Hour'' as a puritanical former ATS member, the TV series ''Doctor Who'', in the serials ''An Unearthly Child'' (as Old Mother, the programme's first on-screen death) and '' The Creature from the Pit'' (as Karela), as well as in the 1966 film '' Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.'' (as Old Woman), based on the serial ''The Dalek Invasion of Earth'' (1964). She also appeared in the second series of ''Poldark'' (1977) as Aunt Agatha; '' Century Falls''; '' Upstai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ferdy Mayne
Ferdy Mayne or Ferdie Mayne (born Ferdinand Philip Mayer-Horckel; 11 March 1916 – 30 January 1998) was a German-British stage and screen actor. Born in Mainz, he emigrated to the United Kingdom in the early 1930s to escape the Nazi regime. He resided in the UK for the majority of his professional career. Working almost continuously throughout a 60-year-long career, Mayne was known as a versatile character actor, often playing suave villains and aristocratic eccentrics in films like '' The Fearless Vampire Killers'', ''Where Eagles Dare'', ''Barry Lyndon'', and '' Benefit of the Doubt.'' Early life Ferdinand Philip Mayer-Horckel was born in Mainz, Germany, on 11 March 1916. His German father was the judge of Mainz, while his half-English mother was a singing instructor. Because his family was Jewish, a teenage Mayne was sent to Britain in 1932 to protect him from the Nazis. He stayed with his aunt, Li Osborne (1883–1968), nee Luisa Friedericka Wolf, a well-known German t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raymond Young
Raymond is a male given name of Germanic origin. It was borrowed into English from French (older French spellings were Reimund and Raimund, whereas the modern English and French spellings are identical). It originated as the Germanic ᚱᚨᚷᛁᚾᛗᚢᚾᛞ (''Raginmund'') or ᚱᛖᚷᛁᚾᛗᚢᚾᛞ (''Reginmund''). ''Ragin'' ( Gothic) and ''regin'' (Old German) meant "counsel". The Old High German ''mund'' originally meant "hand", but came to mean "protection". This etymology suggests that the name originated in the Early Middle Ages, possibly from Latin. Alternatively, the name can also be derived from Germanic Hraidmund, the first element being ''Hraid'', possibly meaning "fame" (compare ''Hrod'', found in names such as Robert, Roderick, Rudolph, Roland, Rodney and Roger) and ''mund'' meaning "protector". Despite the German and French origins of the English name, some of its early uses in English documents appear in Latinized form. As a surname, its first recorded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eric Pohlmann
Eric Pohlmann (; born Erich Pollak; 18 July 1913 – 25 July 1979) was an Austrian theatre, film and television character actor who worked mostly in the United Kingdom. He is known for voicing Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the primary antagonist of the ''James Bond'' series, in the films '' From Russia with Love'' and '' Thunderball''. Early life Pohlmann was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, and received classical actor training under the renowned director Max Reinhardt. He appeared at the Raimund Theater, and supplemented his income by working as an entertainer in a bar. In 1939, he followed his fiancée and later wife, actress Lieselotte Goettinger, into exile in London. Until mid-1941, both were kept in an internment camp. After their release, Eric took part in propaganda broadcasts against the Nazis on the BBC World Service. In order to earn a living, the Pohlmanns temporarily took positions in the household of the Duke of Bedford, Lieselotte as a cook and Eric, as he then be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miles Malleson
William Miles Malleson (25 May 1888 – 15 March 1969) was an English actor and dramatist, particularly remembered for his appearances in British comedy films of the 1930s to 1960s. Towards the end of his career, he also appeared in cameo roles in several Hammer horror films, with a fairly large role in '' The Brides of Dracula'' as the hypochondriac and fee-hungry local doctor. Malleson was also a writer on many films, including some of those in which he had small parts, such as ''Nell Gwyn'' (1934) and '' The Thief of Bagdad'' (1940). He also translated and adapted several of Molière's plays (''The Misanthrope'', which he titled ''The Slave of Truth'', '' Tartuffe'' and ''The Imaginary Invalid''). Biography Malleson was born in Avondale Road, South Croydon, Surrey, England, the son of Edmund Taylor Malleson (1859-1909), a manufacturing chemist, and Myrrha Bithynia Frances Borrell (1863-1931), a descendant of the numismatist Henry Perigal Borrell and the inventor Francis Mac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sydney Tafler
Sydney Tafler (31 July 1916 – 8 November 1979) was an English actor who after having started his career on stage, was best remembered for numerous appearances in films and television from the 1940s to the 1970s. Personal life Tafler was born into a Jewish family, the son of Eva (née Kosky) and Mark Tafler, an antique dealer. His sister, Hylda, married the film director Lewis Gilbert. Another sister, Sheila, was also an actress. He was married to the actress Joy Shelton from 1941 until his death from cancer; they had three children – two sons, Jeremy and Jonathan, and a daughter, Jennifer, who became a child actress. Career After two years at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Tafler first appeared on stage in London's West End in 1936, with Sir Seymour Hicks in ''The Man in Dress Clothes''. From 1943 to 1946 he played many Shakespearean roles with the Old Vic company at the New Theatre. His other stage roles included the menacing character of Nat Goldberg in a 1975 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Balfour (actor)
Michael Creighton Balfour (11 February 1918 – 24 October 1997) was an English actor, working mainly in British films and TV, following his TV debut in the BBC's ''The Marvellous History of St Bernard'', in 1938. He was a recognisable face, often in small character parts and supporting roles, in nearly two hundred films and TV shows, from the 1940s to the 1990s, often playing comical heavies or otherwise shady characters notable for their "loud" clothes, sometimes convincingly cast as an American. He worked for a roll call of film directors, including Tony Richardson, Pete Walker, Billy Wilder, Lewis Gilbert, Roman Polanski, Leslie Norman, Tim Burton, John Frankenheimer, François Truffaut, John Gilling, Stanley Donen, Ken Annakin, Cavalcanti, Lance Comfort, Terence Young, Gerald Thomas, Pasolini, John Paddy Carstairs, Terence Fisher, Val Guest, Frank Launder, John Huston, Basil Dearden and Howard Hawks. Balfour had parts in many popular TV shows of the era including '' Ed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Boddey
Albert Martin Boddey (16 April 1907 – 24 October 1975) was a British film and television actor. Boddey started acting when he was nearly 40, often portraying irritable authority figures such as police officers or magistrates. He was a founder member of the Lord's Taverners charity. Selected filmography * '' A Song for Tomorrow'' (1948) – Major * ''The Third Man'' (1949) – Russian Military Policeman (uncredited) * ''Landfall'' (1949) – Civilian (uncredited) * '' The Twenty Questions Murder Mystery'' (1950) – 2nd Plainclothesman (uncredited) * '' Cairo Road'' (1950) – Maj. Ahmed Mustafa * '' State Secret'' (1950) – Clubman * '' The Dancing Years'' (1950) – Minor Role (uncredited) * '' Seven Days to Noon'' (1950) – Gen. Willoughby * '' Cage of Gold'' (1950) – Adams * '' The Franchise Affair'' (1951) – Insp. Hallam * '' The Adventurers'' (1951) – Chief Engineer * ''Laughter in Paradise'' (1951) – Store Shopwalker * '' Cloudburst'' (1951) – Desk Se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sid James
Sidney James (born Solomon Joel Cohen; 8 May 1913 – 26 April 1976) was a South African–British actor and comedian whose career encompassed radio, television, stage and screen. Noted for his distinctive laugh, he was best known for numerous roles in the ''Carry On (franchise), Carry On'' film series. Born to a middle-class Jewish family in South Africa, James started his career in his native country before finding his greatest success in the UK. Beginning his screen career playing bit parts in films from 1947, he was cast in numerous small and supporting roles into the 1950s. He appeared in the film ''The Lavender Hill Mob'' in 1951, starring Alec Guinness. His profile was raised as Tony Hancock's co-star in ''Hancock's Half Hour'', firstly in the radio series and later when it was adapted for television and ran from 1954 to 1960. After this he became known as a regular performer in the ''Carry On (franchise), Carry On'' films, appearing in 19 films of the series, Billing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
