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Warren Allen Smith
Warren Allen Smith (October 27, 1921 – January 9, 2017) was an American writer, humanist and gay rights activist. A World War II veteran and an outspoken atheist, he dubbed himself as "the atheist in a foxhole". Biography From 1942 to 1946, Smith served in the U.S. Army, having taken part in the "Omaha" beach landing on Normandy in 1944. He insisted that the religious affiliation inscription on his dogtag was 'None', instead of the usual P (for Protestant), C (Catholic) or H (Hebrew - Jewish). In 1961, Smith started the Variety Recording Studio, a major independent company off Broadway, New York City, with his business partner and longtime companion Fernando Rodolfo de Jesus Vargas Zamora. Smith ran the company for almost thirty years (1961–90). In 1969, Smith participated in the Stonewall riots. Smith was one of the signatories of the 1973 Humanist Manifesto II as well as the Humanist Manifesto III in 2003. In 2015, Smith took control the website Philosopedia, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Luckman
Charles Luckman (May 16, 1909 – January 26, 1999) was an American businessman, property developer, and architect known for designing landmark buildings in the United States such as the Theme Building, Prudential Tower, Madison Square Garden, and The Forum. He was named the "Boy Wonder of American Business" by Time magazine when president of the Pepsodent toothpaste company in 1939. Through acquisition, he later became president of Lever Brothers. Luckman would later collaborate with William Pereira, in which the two would form their architectural firm, Pereira & Luckman, in 1950. Pereira & Luckman would later dissolve by 1958, parting ways for both himself and Pereira. Luckman would continue successfully with his own firm, Charles Luckman Associates. Luckman retired from the firm, although he would still be present. Aside from his business and architectural work, Luckman did public work that dates back during World War II. He was appointed on the President's Committee on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity and satire of American culture. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and ''musique concrète'' works, and produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse musicians of his generation. As a self-taught composer and performer, Zappa had diverse musical influences that led him to create music that was sometimes difficult to categorize. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for 20th-century classical modernism, African-American rhythm and blues, and doo-wop music. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Reeve
Christopher D'Olier Reeve (September 25, 1952 – October 10, 2004) was an American actor, best known for playing the title character in the film ''Superman (1978 film), Superman'' (1978) and three sequels. Born in New York City and raised in Princeton, New Jersey, Reeve discovered a passion for acting and the theater at the age of nine. He studied at Cornell University and the Juilliard School and made his Broadway debut in 1976. After his acclaimed performances in ''Superman'' and ''Superman II'', Reeve declined many roles in action movies, choosing instead to work in small films and plays with more complex characters. He later appeared in critically successful films such as ''The Bostonians (film), The Bostonians'' (1984), ''Street Smart (film), Street Smart'' (1987), and ''The Remains of the Day (film), The Remains of the Day'' (1993), and in the plays ''Fifth of July'' on Broadway and ''The Aspern Papers'' in London's West End. On May 27, 1995, Reeve broke his neck when he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress in film, stage, and television. Her career as a Hollywood leading lady spanned over 60 years. She was known for her headstrong independence, spirited personality, and outspokenness, cultivating a screen persona that matched this public image, and regularly playing strong-willed, sophisticated women. Her work was in a range of genres, from screwball comedy to literary drama, and earned her List of awards and nominations received by Katharine Hepburn, various accolades, including four Academy Awards for Academy Award for Best Actress, Best Actress—a record for any performer. In 1999, Hepburn was named the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, greatest female star of Classical Hollywood cinema, classic Hollywood cinema by the American Film Institute. Raised in Connecticut by wealthy, Progressive Era, progressive parents, Hepburn began to act while at Bryn Mawr College. Favorable reviews of her work on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marlene Dietrich
Marie Magdalene "Marlene" DietrichBorn as Maria Magdalena, not Marie Magdalene, according to Dietrich's biography by her daughter, Maria Riva ; however Dietrich's biography by Charlotte Chandler cites "Marie Magdalene" as her birth name . (, ; 27 December 1901 – 6 May 1992) was a German and American actress and singer whose career spanned from the 1910s to the 1980s. In 1920s Berlin, Dietrich performed on the stage and in silent films. Her performance as Lola-Lola in Josef von Sternberg's '' The Blue Angel'' (1930) brought her international acclaim and a contract with Paramount Pictures. She starred in many Hollywood films, including six iconic roles directed by Sternberg: ''Morocco'' (1930) (her only Academy Award nomination), '' Dishonored'' (1931), '' Shanghai Express'' and '' Blonde Venus'' (both 1932), '' The Scarlet Empress'' (1934) and '' The Devil Is a Woman'' (1935), '' Desire'' (1936) and '' Destry Rides Again'' (1939). She successfully traded on her glamorous p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he received List of awards and nominations received by Marlon Brando, numerous accolades throughout his career, which spanned six decades, including two Academy Award for Best Actor, Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, one Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor, Cannes Film Festival Award and three British Academy Film Awards. Brando was also an activism, activist for many causes, notably the civil rights movement and various Native Americans in the United States, Native American movements. Having studied with Stella Adler in the 1940s, he is credited with being one of the first actors to bring the Stanislavski's system, Stanislavski system of acting, and method acting, to mainstream audiences. He initially gained acclaim and his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role for reprising the role of Stanley Kowal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Woody Allen
Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing material for television in the 1950s, mainly '' Your Show of Shows'' (1950–1954) working alongside Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart, and Neil Simon. He also published several books featuring short stories and wrote humor pieces for ''The New Yorker''. In the early 1960s, he performed as a stand-up comedian in Greenwich Village alongside Lenny Bruce, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, and Joan Rivers. There he developed a monologue style (rather than traditional jokes) and the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish. He released three comedy albums during the mid to late 1960s, earning a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album nomination for his 1964 comedy album entitled simply '' Woody Allen''. In 2004, Comedy Central ran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Waters (filmmaker)
John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films, including ''Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), ''Pink Flamingos'' (1972) and ''Female Trouble'' (1974). He wrote and directed the comedy film ''Hairspray (1988 film), Hairspray'' (1988), which was an international success and was later adapted into a Hairspray (musical), hit Broadway musical. He has written and directed other films, including ''Polyester (film), Polyester'' (1981), ''Cry-Baby'' (1990), ''Serial Mom'' (1994), ''Pecker (film), Pecker'' (1998), and ''Cecil B. Demented'' (2000). His films contain elements of Postmodern art, post-modern comedy and Surrealism and film, surrealism. As an actor, Waters has appeared in ''Sweet and Lowdown'' (1999), ''Seed of Chucky'' (2004), '''Til Death Do Us Part (American TV series), 'Til Death Do Us Part'' (2007), ''Excision (film), Excision'' (2012), and ''Suburban Gothic (fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kinsey Institute
The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction (often shortened to The Kinsey Institute) is a research institute at Indiana University. Established in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1947 as a nonprofit, the institute merged with Indiana University in 2016, "abolishing the 1947 independent incorporation absolutely and completely." The institute's mission is "To foster and promote a greater understanding of human sexuality and relationships through research, outreach, education, and historical preservation." Research, graduate training, information services, and the collection and preservation of library, art, and archival materials are main activities carried out by The Kinsey Institute. The institute and Alfred Kinsey himself have been the subject of much controversy. As of July 1, 2019, evolutionary biologist and sex researcher Justin Garcia holds the title of executive director of The Kinsey Institute, previously noted as the institute's research director. Garcia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeanne Moos
Jeanne Moos (born May 21) is an American national news correspondent for CNN. She is based at the network's studios in Manhattan. Biography A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Moos originally wanted to pursue a career in print journalism, but while attending the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University (where she earned a bachelor's degree in TV-Radio), she decided to go into the television business instead. In 1976, she landed her first major job in television at WPTZ in Plattsburgh, New York, as the station's first female correspondent. During her tenure at WPTZ, she covered local and national stories, including the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. In 1981, she joined CNN as a reporter. It was there that she covered stories ranging from political corruption to the United Nations during the 1991 Gulf War. In the 1990s, Moos began to report on unusual and off-beat soft news stories, which is her current trademark. In 1995, she bega ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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