Zazou
The zazous were a subculture in France during World War II. They were young people expressing their individuality by wearing big or garish clothing (similar to the zoot suit fashion in America a few years before) and dancing wildly to swing jazz. Men wore large striped lumber jackets, while women wore short skirts, striped stockings and heavy shoes, and often carried umbrellas. Origins of the movement During the German occupation of France, the Vichy regime, which collaborated with the Nazi occupiers, had an ultra-conservative morality and started to use a whole range of laws against a youth that was restless and disenchanted. These young people expressed their resistance and nonconformity through aggressive dance competitions, sometimes against soldiers from the occupying forces. The Zazous were to be found throughout France, but were most concentrated in Paris. The two most important meeting places of the Zazous were the terrace of the Pam Pam cafe on the Champs-Élysées and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Christian Dior
Christian Ernest Dior (; 21 January 1905 – 24 October 1957) was a French fashion designer and founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, Dior, Christian Dior SE. His fashion house is known all around the world, having gained prominence "on five continents in only a decade." Dior's skills led to his employment and design for various fashion icons in attempts to preserve the fashion industry during World War II. After the war, he founded and established the Dior fashion house, with his collection of the "New Look (style of clothing), New Look". In 1947, the collection debuted featuring rounded shoulders, a cinched waist, and very full skirt. The New Look celebrated ultra-femininity and opulence in women's fashion. Throughout his lifetime, and after his death, he won numerous awards for Best Costume Design. He died in 1957. Early life Dior was born in Granville, Manche, Granville, a seaside town on the coast of Normandy, France. He was the second of five children b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Boris Vian
Boris Vian (; 10 March 1920 – 23 June 1959) was a French polymath who is primarily remembered for his novels. Those published under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan were bizarre parodies of criminal fiction, highly controversial at the time of their release owing to their unconventional outlook. Vian's other fiction, published under his real name, featured a highly individual writing style with numerous made-up words, subtle wordplay and surrealistic plots. His novel '' Froth on the Daydream'' (''L'Écume des jours'') is the best known of these works and one of the few translated into English. Vian was an important influence on the French jazz scene. He served as liaison for Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis in Paris, wrote for several French jazz-reviews ('' Le Jazz Hot'', ''Paris Jazz'') and published numerous articles dealing with jazz both in the United States and in France. His own music and songs enjoyed popularity during his lifetime, particularly the anti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Johnny Hess
Johnny is an English language personal name. It is usually an affectionate diminutive of the masculine given name John, but from the 16th century it has sometimes been a given name in its own right for males and, less commonly, females. Variant forms of Johnny include Johnnie, Johnney, Johhny, Johnni and Johni. The masculine Johnny can be rendered into Scottish Gaelic as . Notable people and characters named Johnny or Johnnie include: People Johnny * Johnny 3 Tears (born 1981/82), American musician * Johnny Adams (1932–1998), American singer * Johnny Aba (born 1956), Papua New Guinean professional boxer * Johnny Abarrientos (born 1970), Filipino professional basketball player * Johnny Abbes García (1924–1967), chief of the government intelligence office of the Dominican Republic * Johnny Abel (1947–1995), Canadian politician * Johnny Abrego (born 1962), former Major League baseball player * Johnny Ace (1929–1954), American rhythm and blues singer * Johnny Adair (bor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Minnie The Moocher
"Minnie the Moocher" is a jazz song co-written by American musician Cab Calloway and first recorded in 1931 by Calloway and his big band orchestra, selling over a million copies. "Minnie the Moocher" is famous for its nonsensical ad libbed lyrics, also known as scat singing (for example, its refrain of "Hi de hi de hi de ho"). In performances, Calloway would have the audience and the band members participate by repeating each scat phrase in a form of a call and response, eventually making it too fast and complicated for the audience to replicate. First released by Brunswick Records, the song was the biggest chart-topper of 1931. Calloway publicized and then celebrated a "12th birthday" for the song on June 17, 1943, while performing at New York's Strand Theatre. He reported that he was then singing the song at both beginning and end of four performances daily, and then estimated his total performances to date: "she's kicked the gong around for me more than 40,000 times." In ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cab Calloway
Cabell "Cab" Calloway III (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994) was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was a regular performer at the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he became a popular vocalist of the Swing music, swing era. His niche of mixing jazz and vaudeville won him acclaim during a career that spanned over 65 years. Calloway was a master of energetic scat singing and led one of the most popular Big band, dance bands in the United States from the early 1930s to the late 1940s. His band included trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Jonah Jones, and Doc Cheatham, Adolphus "Doc" Cheatham, saxophonists Ben Webster and Leon "Chu" Berry, guitarist Danny Barker, bassist Milt Hinton, and drummer Cozy Cole. Calloway had several hit records in the 1930s and 1940s, becoming the first African-American musician to sell one million copies of a record. He became known as the "Hi-de-ho" man of jazz for his most famous song, "Minnie the Moocher", originally recorded in 1931. He reached t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Django Reinhardt
Jean Reinhardt (23 January 1910 – 16 May 1953), known by his Romani people, Romani nickname Django ( or ), was a Belgium, Belgian-born Romani jazz guitarist and composer in France. He was one of the first major jazz talents to emerge in Europe and has been hailed as one of its most significant exponents. With violinist Stéphane Grappelli, Reinhardt formed the Paris-based Quintette du Hot Club de France in 1934. The group was among the first to play jazz that featured the guitar as a lead instrument. Reinhardt recorded in France with many visiting American musicians, including Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter, and briefly toured the United States with Duke Ellington's orchestra in 1946. He died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage in 1953 at the age of 43. Reinhardt's most popular compositions have become standards within gypsy jazz, including "Minor Swing (song), Minor Swing", "Daphne", "Belleville", "Djangology", "Swing '42", and "Nuages (song), Nuages". The jazz guitarist Frank V ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Romani People
{{Infobox ethnic group , group = Romani people , image = , image_caption = , flag = Roma flag.svg , flag_caption = Romani flag created in 1933 and accepted at the 1971 World Romani Congress , pop = 2–12 million , region2 = United States , pop2 = 1 million estimated with Romani ancestry{{efn, 5,400 per 2000 United States census, 2000 census. , ref2 = {{cite news , first=Kayla , last=Webley , url=http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2025316,00.html , title=Hounded in Europe, Roma in the U.S. Keep a Low Profile , agency=Time , date=13 October 2010 , access-date=3 October 2015 , quote=Today, estimates put the number of Roma in the U.S. at about one million. , region3 = Brazil , pop3 = 800,000 (0.4%) , ref3 = , region4 = Spain , pop4 = 750,000–1.5 million (1.5–3.7%) , ref4 = {{cite web , url ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Manouche
The Manouche ( ) are a Romani subgroup who have lived in France and Switzerland since at least the 18th century. The term Manouche is the self-ascribed name of the French Sinti. Etymology The word (or ) means 'human being' in the Romani language, and is derived from Sanskrit (); close cognates are found in several modern Indian languages. Their Romani dialect, cognate to the one used by German Sinti, exhibits strong German influence. They are nowadays primary French-speaking, though the dialect of French they use exhibits many linguistic peculiarities compared to standard French. Persecution in Switzerland From 1926 to 1973, Swiss children's charity Pro Juventute—with the support of Swiss authorities—forcibly removed Manouche, Sinti, and Yenish children from their families and placed them in foster homes, adoptive families and correctional institutions through the ('Children of the Open Road') project. This was part of a wider effort to forcibly assimilate these tr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Montmartre
Montmartre ( , , ) is a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement of Paris, 18th arrondissement. It is high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Rive Droite, Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for its artistic history, for the white-domed Sacré-Cœur, Paris, Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur on its summit, and as a nightclub district. The other church on the hill, Saint Pierre de Montmartre, built in 1147, was the church of the prestigious Montmartre Abbey. On 15 August 1534, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Francis Xavier and five other companions bound themselves by vows in the Martyrium of Saint Denis, 11 Rue Yvonne Le Tac, the first step in the creation of the Society of Jesus, Jesuits. Near the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th, during the Belle Époque, many artists lived, worked, or had studios in or around Montmartre, including Amedeo Modigliani, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Clark Gable
William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901November 16, 1960) was an American actor often referred to as the "King of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood". He appeared in more than 60 Film, motion pictures across a variety of Film genre, genres during a 37-year career, three decades of which he spent as a Leading actor, leading man. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Gable as the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, seventh greatest male screen legend of classical Hollywood cinema. Gable won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Frank Capra's ''It Happened One Night'' (1934) and earned nominations in the same category for portraying Fletcher Christian in Frank Lloyd's ''Mutiny on the Bounty (1935 film), Mutiny on the Bounty'' (1935) and Rhett Butler in Victor Fleming's ''Gone with the Wind (film), Gone with the Wind'' (1939). For his Comedy, comedic performances in George Seaton's ''Teacher's Pet (1958 film), Teacher's Pet'' (1958) and Walter Lang's ''But Not for Me (fil ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Edelweiss Pirates
The Edelweiss Pirates ( ) were a loosely organized group of youths opposed to the status quo of Nazi Germany. They emerged in western Germany out of the German Youth Movement of the late 1930s in response to the strict regimentation of the Hitler Youth. Similar in many ways to the '' Leipzig Meuten'', they consisted of young people, mainly between the ages of 14 and 17, who had evaded the Hitler Youth by leaving school (which was allowed at 14) and were also young enough to avoid military conscription, which was only compulsory from the age of 17 onward. The roots and background of the Edelweiss Pirates movement were detailed in the 2004 film '' Edelweiss Pirates'', directed by Niko von Glasow. History The origins of the Edelweißpiraten can be traced to the period immediately prior to World War II, as the state-controlled Hitler Youth (''Hitler-Jugend'') was mobilized to indoctrinate young people, at the expense of the leisure activities previously offered to them. This tensio ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |