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- Actress
- Art Department
- Additional Crew
Samantha's early theatre work includes repertory seasons at Coventry, Edinburgh, Derby, and Bristol and 'Never in My Life 'at the Soho Poly in London. After appearing in Kenneth Branagh's production of 'Romeo and Juliet' she went on to West End productions of 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses', 'Man of the Moment', 'Three Tall Women' and 'Much Ado About Nothing' which was directed by Judi Dench. As a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company she acted in 'A Winters Tale' and 'As You Like It' She made her film debut in 'Eric the Viking' Television work includes 'Inspector Morse', 'Rumpole of the Bailey', 'Under the Moon', 'Tears Before Bedtime' and 'The Ruby Ring'- English actress Francesca Annis, who has enjoyed a career spanning seven decades in movies, television and the theater, was born in London six days after V-E Day, on May 14, 1945. Her father, Lester, was English, but her mother, Mariquita (aka Mara Purcell), was of Brazilian-French heritage. From the time she was a year old to the age of seven, the family lived in Brazil. The young Francesca spoke Portuguese, that country's language, as a child. Educated at a convent school, she dreamed of becoming a nun but trained as a ballet dancer before studying drama at the Corona Theatre School. She began acting in bit parts in the 1950s, working her way up to better roles. In addition to appearing on the big and little screens, she was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Her most famous roles are as Lady Macbeth in Roman Polanski's version of Macbeth (1971), in which she had a notorious nude sleepwalking scene, and as Kyle MacLachlan (Paul Atreides)' mother Lady Jessica in David Lynch's adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune (1984). A highly respected performer, in 1979, she won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress, playing Lily Langtry in the miniseries Lillie (1978). She appeared with James Warwick as husband and wife sleuths Tommy and Tuppence Beresford in the television series Partners in Crime (1983). She also appeared as Jacqueline Kennedy in the television movie Onassis: The Richest Man in the World (1988). - Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Carmen Elizabeth Ejogo was born in Kensington, London, England, to a Nigerian father and a Scottish mother. Her television career began in the United Kingdom in the early 1990s, where she presented the children's series Saturday Disney (1990). Subsequently, she has had an acting career in the United States. She has appeared in Metro (1997) with Eddie Murphy, What's the Worst That Could Happen? (2001) with Martin Lawrence, and Love's Labour's Lost (2000) with Kenneth Branagh, among other films, and also presented "The Carmen Ejogo Video Show" - her own video show on BSB's Power Station channel. She starred as Thomas Jefferson's slave concubine in the television drama Sally Hemings: An American Scandal (2000) as Sally Hemings and also as Sister Anderson in the remake version of the cult classic original film Sparkle (2012).
Ejogo is also a vocalist, having collaborated with several artists in the 1990s. She wrote and sang lead vocals on the song "Candles" by English drum 'n' bass DJ Alex Reece - she appeared in the music video and is listed in the production credits as 'Carmen'. She also sang vocals and duets with British artist Tricky on a song called "Slowly". Aside from "Candles", Ejogo appears on four songs of the Sparkle (2012) original soundtrack album from the movie of the same name, singing lead on "Yes I Do" (as a solo), and co-lead vocals with Jordin Sparks and Tika Sumpter on "Jump", "Hooked on Your Love" and "Something He Can Feel". She is also a member of Mensa International, the largest and oldest high IQ society in the world.- Marjorie Stewart was born on 18 May 1912 in Kensington, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Little Big Shot (1952), Young and Willing (1954) and The Lost King (1958). She was married to March-Phillips, Gus. She died on 9 November 1988 in Kensington, London, England, UK.
- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Austin Stowell was born and raised in Kensington, Connecticut, by his father, Robert, a retired steelworker, and his mother, Elizabeth, a schoolteacher. He graduated from Berlin High School in 2003. Upon acceptance at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut, he studied with the Department of Dramatic Arts, a division of the School of Fine Arts. He performed in several productions with the Connecticut Repertory Theatre, including Julius Caesar, It Can't Happen Here, and As You Like It. Stowell graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2007.- Actress
- Writer
Dakota Blue Richards, was born at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in South Kensington, London but grew up in Brighton with her mother. She is of Prussian heritage on her Grandmother's side, and Irish on her father's. The name Dakota Blue was inspired by her mother's time spent with Native Americans while studying and traveling in USA. At school, she enjoyed drama, dance and the arts, was an active participant in school plays and attended a local amateur dramatics group in her spare time.
She made her professional acting debut age 12, starring alongside Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig as Lyra Belaqua in the film adaptation of Phillip Pullman's The Northern Lights (The Golden Compass). Ten thousand girls turned up for open auditions in Cambridge, Oxford, Exeter and Kendal for the role; Richards was awarded the part after the casting directors Lucy Bevan and Fiona Weir took a shine to her at the Cambridge auditions. Richards, who was a fan of the books from an early age and had seen the stage adaptation at The National Theatre, said of her character 'I feel like I can relate to her. I like to think I'm quite brave. I stand up for myself. And I don't let other people tell me what to do. Well, unless it's my mum.'
She has been nominated for two best actress awards for her portrayal of popular character Franky Fitzgerald in E4's BAFTA-winning drama Skins, and a multitude of awards, including a Saturn award, for her role in The Golden Compass.
Richards took up screenwriting during her time as WPC Shirley Trewlove in ITV's Endeavour and has since completed a short and a feature length film. She described the experience of writing her first piece as 'In many ways more personal than acting. It was quite cathartic.'
Richards was photographed by RANKIN as part of Ocean 2012, a campaign to prevent over fishing, alongside the likes of Sir Ben Kingsley, Terry Gilliam and Lily Loveless. In 2013 she modelled for fashion designer SORAPOL's AW13 campaign 'Immortal'. She has also been photographed by noted fashion photographer Kate Bellm and was the first woman to appear on the cover of 7th Man magazine.
In her personal life, Richards takes a keen interest in politics and global issues. In 2008, she attended a two-week camp in the Lake District organised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission which aimed to bring together teenagers from different backgrounds to discuss discrimination. Since 2010, she has supported Action for Children, a charity in the United Kingdom helping vulnerable young people overcome injustice and deprivation. In 2011, she fronted an advertising campaign to promote the charity's new project. She is a long time supporter of Good Gifts. Richards is also a vegan.- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Paul McGann was born on 14 November 1959 in Kensington, Liverpool, England, UK. He is an actor and director, known for The Three Musketeers (1993), Withnail & I (1987) and Alien 3 (1992). He has been married to Annie Milner since 1992. They have two children.- Charlotte Lewis was born on 7 August 1967 in Kensington, London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for The Golden Child (1986), Men of War (1994) and Broken Badges (1990).
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Denholm entered RADA at the age of 17, but dropped out after a year having hated every minute being there. He joined the RAF in 1940, trained as a gunner/radio operator, and was shot down over Germany in 1942. In the POW camp he and his fellow prisoners staged various productions in a theatre constructed out of old packing cases. After the war he joined a London repertory company and his career took off particularly when Laurence Olivier chose him for the starring role in Venus Observed, for which he won a Clarence Derwent award. When another Olivier production Ring Around the Moon transferred to New York Denholm replaced Paul Schofield in what became a Broadway hit. Returning to Britain he was signed to a film contract and appeared in such movies as The Cruel Sea, The Sound Barrier, Alfie, King Rat, and others in addition to appearing on television and making countrywide theatre tours. In 1983 he won a BAFTA Award for his role as the butler in Trading Places and followed it with a Best Supporting Actor Award for his role in A Private Function. Prior to that he won an Evening Standard Best Actor award for Bad Timing.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Joss Ackland, the distinguished English actor who has appeared in over 100 movies, scores of plays and a plethora of television programs in his six-decade career, was born Sidney Edmond Jocelyn Ackland on February 29, 1928, in North Kensington, London. After attending London's Central School of Speech and Drama, the 17-year-old Ackland made his professional stage debut in "The Hasty Heart" in 1945.
Although he first appeared on film in John Boulting's and Roy Boulting's Oscar-winning thriller Seven Days to Noon (1950) in an uncredited bit role, he made his credited debut in a supporting role in Vernon Sewell's Ghost Ship (1952). He would not again grace the big screen until the end of the decade. Instead, Ackland spent the latter half of the 1940s and the first half of the 1950s honing his craft in regional theatrical companies.
In 1955 he left the English stage behind and moved to Africa to manage a tea plantation, an experience that likely informed his heralded performance 20 years later in White Mischief (1987). In his two years in Africa he wrote plays and did service as a radio disc jockey. Upon his return to England in 1957, he joined the Old Vic company.
From 1962-64 he served as associate director of the Mermaid Theatre. Subsequently, his stage acting career primarily was in London's commercial West End theater, where he made a name for himself in musicals. He was distinguished as Captain Hook in the musical version of "Peter Pan" and as Juan Peron in "Evita". In the straight theater he was a memorable Falstaff in William Shakespeare's "Henry IV Parts 1 & 2" and as Captain Shotover in George Bernard Shaw's "Heartbreak House". In the 1960s Ackland began appearing more regularly in films, and his career as a movie character actor picked up rapidly in the 1970s and began to flourish in the 1980s. It has shown little sign of abating in the 21st century, even though he's well into his 70s.
In addition to his performance in "White Mischief", among his more notable turns as an actor before the camera came in the BBC-TV production of Shadowlands (1986), in which he played 'C.S. Lewis', and in Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) as the ruthless South African heavy, Arjen Rudd.
He is the father of seven children, whom he listed as his "hobby" in a 1981 interview. On December 31, 2000, Joss Ackland was named a Commander of the British Empire on the New Year's Honours List for his 50 years of service to the English stage, cinema and television.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Born in London, England, John Gielgud trained at Lady Benson's Acting School and RADA, London. Best known for his Shakespearean roles in the theater, he first played Hamlet at the age of 26. He worked under the tutelage of Lilian Bayliss with friend and fellow performer Laurence Olivier and other contemporaries of the National Theatre at the "Old Vic", London. He made his screen debut in 1924. Academy Award Best Supporting Actor, 1981, for Arthur (1981), Academy Award Nomination, 1964, for Becket (1964).- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Finola Hughes was born in London. She studied at Arts Educational Schools and began her career in the Northern Ballet Company, after winning the Markova award. She went on to work in the West End, in the original cast of "Cats" and continued working with Andrew Lloyd Webber in "Song & Dance". After making Staying Alive (1983) in LA, she moved to California in 1984 and began working on General Hospital (1963), winning an Emmy award in 1991. She continued to make TV series and various movies for the next few years, Jack's Place (1992), Aspen Extreme (1993), Blossom (1990), Charmed (1998), and returned to ABC daytime, in 1999, to join the cast of All My Children (1970) in New York. Once in NY, she began entering the Fashion World and returned to Los Angeles to begin a 4-year stint on the Style Network, with a fabulous makeover show, How Do I Look? (2004). She returned for a brief sojourn to General Hospital (1963), and it's spin-off, "Night Shift". Finola lives in Santa Barbara with her husband, artist Russell Young, and their 3 children.- Anna Calder-Marshall was born on 11 January 1947 in Kensington, London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Wuthering Heights (1970), Male of the Species (1969) and Last Christmas (2019). She has been married to David Burke since 20 March 1971. They have one child.
- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Christopher Villiers was born in Kensington, London, England, UK. He is an actor and director, known for Top Secret! (1984), First Knight (1995) and Snijeg za Vodu: Snow for Water (2018).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Susan Hampshire, the English actress who has won three Emmy Awards, was born in Kensington, London on May 12, 1937. Her original ambition was to be a nurse, but she could not pass her O-Level exam in Latin. (She found out when she was 30 years old that she was dyslexic, and her work on dyslexia subsequently brought her the Officer of the British Empire award.) She decided to become an actress and gained training in the theater. She made her movie debut, at 10 years old, in The Woman in the Hall (1947) but her proper debut was in the Laurence Harvey picture, Expresso Bongo (1959), in 1958. Her career has never faltered.
Hampshire made a name for herself in her native Britain, appearing in Katy (1962) on TV in 1962 for the BBC. Walt Disney signed her to star in the 1964 family picture, The Three Lives of Thomasina (1963), but it was her role in the 1967 BBC mini-series, The Forsyte Saga (1967), that made her famous and won her the first of her three Emmy Awards. Shown in the United States on the precursor to PBS, the great popularity of the series led the new PBS to create Masterpiece (1971). The First Churchills (1969), in which Hampshire played "Sarah Churchill", was the first series offered on "Masterpiece Theater" and brought her her second Emmy. In 1973, she won her third, playing "Becky Sharp" in Vanity Fair (1967), for a mini-series that had been released in the UK in 1967.
Susan Hampshire has continued to be active on television and in the theater. She has been married to her second husband, the theatrical impresario, Sir Eddie Kulukundis, since 1981.- Le Touzel was born in London to a prominent family from Jersey, Channel Islands. She showed an interest in acting at an early age, enrolling at a Stage School. Subsequent television roles followed, including as Fanny Price in a 1983 adaptation of Mansfield Park (1983), though, in cult television terms, this was eclipsed by a commercial, still long remembered, for Heineken lager where, in a parody of My Fair Lady (1964) she portrayed an upper-class girl being tutored for a cockney role by Bryan Pringle, success only coming when she drank a can of Heineken (which "refreshes the parts other lagers cannot not reach" and enabled her to proclaim that 'the wa'er in Majjawca don't taste like wot i' ough'a'). Married to actor Owen Teale since 2001, they live, with their two children, in Telegraph Hill, London. In 2008 she appeared on the West End stage with Kenneth Branagh in his generally well received revival of the play 'Ivanov'.
- Honor Swinton Byrne was born on 6 October 1997 in Kensington & Chelsea, London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for The Souvenir (2019), The Souvenir: Part II (2021) and I Am Love (2009).
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Despite being one of the finest actors of his generation, Peter Finch will be remembered as much for his reputation as a hard-drinking, hell-raising womanizer as for his performances on the screen. He was born in London in 1916 and went to live in Sydney, Australia, at the age of ten. There, he worked in a series of dead-end jobs before taking up acting, his film debut being in the mediocre comedy The Farmer Goes to Town (1938). He made his stage debut as a comedian's stooge in 1939. Laurence Olivier spotted him and persuaded him to return to Britain to perform classic roles on the stage. Finch then had an affair with Olivier's wife, Vivien Leigh. Despite being married three times, Finch also had highly-publicized affairs with actresses Kay Kendall and Mai Zetterling. Finch soon switched to film after suffering appalling stage fright. As a screen actor, he won five BAFTA awards and his talent was beyond doubt. His two finest roles, the only two for which he received Oscar nominations, were as the homosexual Jewish doctor in Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) and as the "mad prophet of the air-waves" in Network (1976). He died a couple of months before being awarded the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in Network (1976) and was the first actor to have won the award posthumously.- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Patricia Alma Hitchcock was the only child of Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville. Her upbringing was 'English' and strict. Two years of boarding school from the age of eight was followed by relocation to the U.S. a year later when Hitch was contracted by David O. Selznick to direct Rebecca (1940). Keen to join the acting fraternity, Pat appeared on stage by the early 40s. In 1944, she played the titular role in the short-lived Broadway play Violet at the Belasco Theater. Though she would have liked to go on to a college education, her father instead packed her off to London when she was 18 to study at RADA (among her classmates were Lionel Jeffries and Dorothy Tutin). She made several appearances on the London stage, followed by an inauspicious screen debut in 1949. In 1950, she had a small role in her father's thriller Stage Fright (1950) (as 'Chubby Bannister') which set the tone for her future roles, usually as the dowdy friend or sister of the heroine (Strangers on a Train (1951), Psycho (1960)). She was also featured in ten episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), whenever (in her own words) "they needed a maid with an English accent". In a 1984 Washington Post interview she bemoaned the fact that her father had not believed in nepotism, so that more work would have come her way. In 1951, Pat got married and -- barely a decade later -- decided to forsake show business to raise a family. Her father did not object. In 2003, Pat published a book of reminiscences and anecdotes (co-authored by film writer Laurent Bouzereau), entitled Alma Hitchcock: the Woman Behind the Man, asserting that "My mother had much more to do with the films than she has ever been given credit for - he depended on her for everything, absolutely everything".- Stewart Granger was born James Lablache Stewart in London, the great grandson of the opera singer Luigi Lablache. He attended Epsom College but left after deciding not to pursue a medical degree. He decided to try acting and attended Webber-Douglas School of Dramatic Art, London. By 1935, he made his stage debut in "The Cardinal" at the Little Theatre Hull . He was with the Birmingham Repertory Company between 1936 and 1937 and, in 1938, he made his debut in the West End, London in "The Sun Never Sets". He joined the Old Vic company in 1939, appearing in 'Tony Draws a Horse' at the Criterion and 'A House in the Square' at the St Martins He had been gradually rising through the ranks of better stage roles when World War II began, and he joined the British Army in 1940. However, he developed an ulcer (1942) which brought his release from military service.
With a dearth of leading men for British movies he quickly landed his first film opportunity The Man in Grey (1943) for Gainsborough Pictures. This was the first installment of the company's successful series of romance films. Not to be confused with American actor James Stewart, James Lablanche Stewart became Stewart Granger (though he was "Jimmy" to his off-screen friends). But the film work was unsatisfying. He was forever cast as the dashing hero type, while fellow up-and-coming actor James Mason always garnered the more substantial Gainsborough part. When Mason got the nod from Hollywood, Granger inherited better parts and, in some star company in one case, the sophisticated Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) with Claude Rains and Vivien Leigh and a very young bit player already being noticed, Jean Simmons. Granger's lead roles to the end of the decade were substantial, but Simmons was unwittingly moving on into British film history with small but memorable roles for David Lean, Michael Powell, and, in a big way, Laurence Olivier, as "Ophelia" in his historic Hamlet (1948) for which she received an Oscar nomination. Granger and she were brought together as co-stars in the comedy Adam and Evalyn (1949). This time around, the chemistry off-camera was there as well, and they became engaged. About the same time, Granger's hope of interesting Hollywood was realized for him and his bride-to-be. He married Simmons and signed with MGM in 1950. Once in Hollywood, he was getting star billing leads in romantic roles that the audiences loved, but he found them still unsatisfying. He also found himself heir apparent to Errol Flynn as a swashbuckler in two popular films: the remake of The Prisoner of Zenda (1952) and Scaramouche (1952). He and Simmons were paired in Young Bess (1953), where Granger had the romantic lead, but Simmons was the focus of the movie.
Through the 50s, the films of each might have fairly equal production values, but as the fortunes of Hollywood go, Simmons was the more memorable star in films that were more popular-some very big hits, the later Elmer Gantry (1960) and Spartacus (1960). That sort of undeclared competition for a married Hollywood couple was poison to the marriage. In 1960, they divorced. Granger did a lot of work in Germany, along with some in Italy and Spain in the 60s. Interestingly, in the same period Simmons was finding the same lack of challenging roles in the US. In the 70s and 80s, Granger was relegated to small screen subsistence with regular TV roles along with a few movies and a stint on the New York stage. And ironically, Simmons was in the same boat during that period. Granger's typecasting was nothing new, but certainly his often scathing criticism of Hollywood and its denizens that came out in his autobiography "Sparks Fly Upward" was understandable and rang true with so many other stories dealing with illusive stardom. Though he was candid in his disgust with his whole career - and admittedly he did not have the depth for the range of roles allotted to bigger named actors - nonetheless he always turned in solid performances in the roles that became his legacy. - Samuel Joslin was born in 2002 in Kensington, London, England, UK. He is an actor, known for The Impossible (2012), Paddington (2014) and Paddington 2 (2017).
- A beautiful and durable actress of screen, stage and television, Asherson was born Renée Ascherson in London (dropping the "c" early in her acting career), the younger daughter of Charles Ascherson, a businessman and bibliophile of German-Jewish extraction, and his second wife, Dorothy Wiseman, who wed on 14 December 1910. (Her older sister was Janet Elizabeth Ascherson, born 22 May 1914).
Asherson's parents narrowly avoided being passengers on the fateful maiden voyage of the Titanic in 1912, after Charles Ascherson reportedly canceled the passage due to suffering from appendicitis.
She played the bride of Laurence Olivier's title character in Henry V (1944) (Henry V (1944)). She later appeared in Maniacs on Wheels (1949), a speedway drama with Dirk Bogarde. A frequent co-star of the actor Robert Donat, whom she married in 1953. The couple separated in 1956, but were due to reconcile at the time of his untimely death in London on 9th June 1958, aged 53. - Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Cruttwell attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art from 1978-1981. Before branching out as a writer, director and producer, Cruttwell performed in many theatre productions throughout Great Britain. In 1990, he wrote and starred in the play Waiting for Sir Larry, which won a Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival. He made his film debut in Mike Leigh's Naked (1993) and had a leading role in John Herzfeld's 2 Days in the Valley (1996), starring alongside Danny Aiello, James Spader and Jeff Daniels. His last acting role to date was in the box-office success George of the Jungle (1997). Cruttwell has been seen in numerous British television productions including Murder Most Horrid and Birds of a Feather. In the United States, he guest starred in episodes of Murder She Wrote and The Marshal. In 2000 he wrote and directed the feature film, Chunky Monkey, starring David Threlfall and Alison Steadman, which had a limited release in the UK. In 2002 he co-founded the production company Head Gear Films with Phil Hunt and Compton Ross and in 2007 co-founded international sales and film finance company Bankside Films. In 2001, Cruttwell founded Balham Blazers Football Club. In 2011, the club was voted South East England Charter Standard Community Club of the Year, becoming a full-time senior outfit in Balham F.C. in the process and in 2012 Cruttwell won the London FA Award for Outstanding Contribution To Football In The Community. Since its formation, the club has won over 600 league and cup trophies. It is also a three-time winner of the London F.A. Charter Standard Community Club of the Year Award and a four-time winner of the Wandsworth Sports Club of the Year Award. In addition to founding the club and coaching many age group teams, Cruttwell, now Club President, has been Chairman, Director of Football and First Team Manager. In 2018, having won five promotions in six years to reach Step 5 on the Football League ladder, the club, nicknamed The Blazers, made its first appearance in the FA Cup and won the London Senior Cup, having won the London Senior Trophy in 2017. In 2018 Cruttwell co-devised a football-based TV Quiz show, Football Genius, a Hat Trick production, which was shown on ITV, with Tim Vine as host and Sam Quek and Paul Sinha as team captains. In 2019 he founded a production company, Park the Bus, with a remit to make sports-related drama and documentaries. To date, he has written, directed and produced two films for the company, The Football Monologues and Animals. He's also produced and directed two documentaries, King Of Clubs and In The Middle, which won the Best Screenplay Award at the 2022 Paladino d'Oro Sports Film Festival. Cruttwell, who lives in Suffolk with his wife, Rachel Hart, has four children, two grandchildren and is a lifelong supporter of Fulham FC.- Actress
- Writer
Daisy Beaumont was born on 5 May 1974 in Kensington, London, England, UK. She is an actress and writer, known for The World Is Not Enough (1999), A Touch of Cloth (2012) and Shanghai Knights (2003).- Composer
- Music Department
- Writer
Andrew Lloyd Webber is arguably the most successful composer of our time. He is best known for stage and film adaptations of his musicals Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), Cats (1994), Evita (1996), and The Phantom of the Opera (2004).
He was born on March 22, 1948, in South Kensington in London, England, the first of two sons of William Lloyd Webber, an organist and composer. His mother, Jean Johnstone, was a pianist and violinist. Young Andrew Lloyd Webber learned to play various musical instruments at home and began composing at an early age. He continued his music studies at Westminster School, where his father was an organist. At the age of 9, young Andrew was able to play the organ and assisted his father during performances. In 1964 he went to Oxford University as a Queens Scholar of history.
In 1965 he met lyricist Tim Rice and dropped out of school to compose musicals and pop songs. In 1968 he had his first success with the West End production of 'Joseph and the Amasing Techicolor Dreamcoat'. From the 1960s to 2000s Lloyd Webber has been constantly updating his style as an eclectic blend of musical genres ranging from classical to rock, pop, and jazz, and with inclusion of electro-acoustic music and choral-like numbers in his musicals.
Andrew Lloyd Webber shot to fame in 1971 with the opening of his rock opera 'Jesus Christ Superstar'. His next successful collaboration with Tim Rice was the musical biopic 'Evita', based on the true story of Eva Peron of Argentina. Andrew Lloyd Webber has been constantly updating the genre of musical theatre. In 1981 he delivered 'Cats', based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats and other poems by T.S. Eliot. It was produced at New London Theatre, where stage was designed as a giant junkyard with large-scale bottles and cans scattered around a huge tire representing a playground for cats dressed in exotic costumes who would come and go through the aisles. The record-breaking production of 'Cats' was on stage for 21 seasons, from 1981 - 2002, and became one of the most popular musicals of all time. It played the total of 8,949 performances in London and 7,485 in New York.
In 1986 Andrew Lloyd Webber released his most successful musical, 'The Phantom of the Opera', based on the eponymous book by Gaston Leroux with the English lyrics by Charles Hart. 'The Phantom of the Opera' became the highest grossing entertainment event of all time, with total worldwide gross of 3,3 billion dollars and attendance of 80 million. It is also the longest running Broadway musical of all time and the most financially successful Broadway show in history. 'The Phantom of the Opera' was translated into several languages and was produced in more than twenty countries as "clones" of the original production, using similar staging, direction, costumes concept and sets design.
He was knighted Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber in 1992, and was created an honorary life peer in 1997 as Baron Lloyd-Webber, of Syndmonton in the County of Hampshire. He won the 1996 Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for Evita (1996), and received two more Oscar nominations. Among his other awards are seven Tonys and three Grammys, including his 1986 Grammy Award for Requiem in the category of best classical composition. In 2006 Andrew Lloyd Webber was Awarded Kennedy Center Honors. He owns seven London theatres, which he also restored. Outside of his entertainment career he developed a passion for collecting Pre-Raphaelite paintings and Victorian art. He was married three times and has five children. He is residing in England.
Andrew Lloyd Webber is currently working on his new opera titled 'Master and Margarita' based on the eponymous novel by Mikhail A. Bulgakov.- Lou Gish was a bright and sassy actress of natural poise and comic edge. The daughter of the actors Roland Curram and Sheila Gish, she demonstrated her range in her last two stage roles.
At the tiny Gate Theatre in Notting Hill, west London, in January last year, she played General Pinochet's Spanish lawyer in Thea Sharrock's riveting promenade production of Fermín Cabal's Tejas Verdas (Green Gables), a moving memorial to Chilean torture victims. Last summer she took on the role of Goneril in Steven Pimlott's lucid version of King Lear, starring David Warner, in the Minerva Theatre, Chichester.
In the first, she was sleek, reasonable, assured. In the second, she tore up the stage, dashing to the floor the Bible proffered by a distraught Albany (Raad Rawi) and channelling her evil complots through a serpentine presence beautifully contrasted with Zoe Waites's choleric Regan. Her younger sister, Kay Curram, played Cordelia.
Lou and Kay were returning to Chichester in part to memorialise their mother's last stage performance there - as Arkadina in The Seagull in 2003 (a production in which Kay played Nina) - but also to get over it. Typically, they arranged company visits to the local bowling alley and teased their leading man by calling him "Dave" - "He's so not a Dave," they said. Warner himself described Lou as "a wonderful, positive presence, a superb actress whose spirit remained with us for the entire run". She had been forced to leave the production when her illness took hold again.
Lou Gish was born and raised in London. After Macaulay church school, Alleyn's in Dulwich, and Furzedown school, Wandsworth, she took a degree at Camberwell School of Art. She first thought of going into journalism; as a student she won a prize for an article she wrote for Harper's magazine, and the then editor, Beatrix Miller, said she would take her on after graduation.
But Lou decided to change direction and took an office job with the actors' agent Jeremy Conway, where she answered the telephone and served the tea, sometimes jokingly dressed in a waitress uniform. A role in a fringe production in Paddington led to the acquisition of an agent of her own, and a notable cameo in Sean Mathias's 1994 revival of Noel Coward's Design for Living at the Donmar Warehouse. Rachel Weisz was a sensational, sulky Gilda in this production, and Gish, no way fazed, played Helen Carver as a screeching socialite in a glittering sheath.
When her parents first separated (Sheila Gish later married the actor and director Denis Lawson), Roland Curram sombrely announced to his daughters that he was coming out as gay. No big surprise there, said Lou, "as he had brought us up on a diet of Judy Garland, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Barbra Streisand." Gish and Curram had met while working on the film Darling in the mid-1960s. The star and the director, Julie Christie and the late John Schlesinger, were Lou's godparents - the coolest, she said, in the world.
In a second collaboration with Mathias, Lou played a mannish playwright and adoring assistant to Sian Phillips's Marlene Dietrich in Pam Gems's Marlene. She specialised in such strong, but marginalised, romantic figures: at the Watford Palace in 1998, in Phyllis Nagy's skilful adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr Ripley, she played Marge as a hilarious piggy-in-the-middle. Later that year, she joined her stepfather Denis Lawson's production of Little Malcolm and his Struggle against the Eunuchs, starring Ewan McGregor, at the Hampstead Theatre, and subsequently in the West End. She played Ann, the object of the lads' fear and misogyny - and of a brutal attack - with devastating contempt.
In 1999, Michael Billington described how Lou - slim, green-eyed and dark-haired - lit up the Chichester stage as a rejected fiancée in Maria Aitken's revival of Noel Coward's underrated comedy Easy Virtue. She was the perfect, swish, middle-class Helena in Look Back in Anger at the Bristol Old Vic in 2001, and an effortlessly aristocratic Duchess of Malfi at the Salisbury Playhouse the following year. Of this latter performance, Alastair Macaulay wrote in the Financial Times that "she doesn't invite us into her tragedy; we are riveted by it from a distance."
Over the last 10 years of her life, Gish appeared regularly on television in such series as The Thin Blue Line (1995) EastEnders (1985), Casualty, Doctors (2000), Wire in the Blood, Coupling (2000) and Where the Heart Is.
She died of cancer at the age of 38 and was survived by her partner, the actor Nicholas Rowe, and her father, stepfather and sister. - Actress
British actress Jean Gillie met husband Jack Bernhard while he was stationed in Britain during the war. When they came to Hollywood, he produced and directed Decoy in May 1946 as a vehicle to showcase her talents to American audiences, while Gillie was simultaneously at work in The Macomber Affair (April-June 1946). However, the couple divorced the following year, and she returned to England, never again to appear in front of the motion picture cameras; she died three years later at the age of 33, allegedly as the result of pneumonia.- Writer
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Stephen Poliakoff was born on 1 December 1952 in Holland Park, Kensington, London, England, UK. He is a writer and director, known for Close My Eyes (1991), Perfect Strangers (2001) and Shooting the Past (1999). He has been married to Sandy Welch since 1983. They have two children.- Actress
- Additional Crew
Susan Duerden is an award-winning feature film and television actress. Critically acclaimed for her artistic versatility, she is known for hard-hitting, emotionally charged roles and lighthearted comedy, alike. In addition to her on-screen roles, she has also played lead theatre roles on London's West End and internationally. British by birth, she now lives in Los Angeles.- Actor
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Robin Le Mesurier was born on 22 March 1953 in Kensington, London, England, UK. He was an actor and composer, known for Memphis Rising: Elvis Returns (2011), The Badge (2002) and Inside the Goldmine (1994). He died on 22 December 2021.- Actress
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Damaris Hayman was an English character actress often cast in upper class or eccentric roles. Born in 1929 in Kensington, London, and educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College. After repertory work in the theatre, she made her film début in The Belles of St. Trinian's (1954) in an uncredited role as a sixth former.
Apart from scores of small parts, Hayman appeared in the Doctor Who (1963) serial, "The Dæmons" (1971; episodes 1-5) as Miss Hawthorne, the self-proclaimed White Witch of the village of Devil's End. 'Doctor Who, the Television Companion' described her character as "very memorable" and praised Hayman as being "perfectly cast in the role, her engaging performance adding much to the story".
She appeared in Citizen James (1960), Comedy Playhouse (1961), Steptoe and Son (1962), Ours Is a Nice House (1969), Happy Ever After (1974), The Sweeney (1975), and One Foot in the Grave (1990). She worked with Ronnie Barker, appearing in one episode of his final series, Clarence (1988). She appeared in The Liver Birds (1969) as Miss Rigby and in Duty Free (1984)'s A Duty Free Christmas (1986). After appearing in a sketch in Tony Hancock's last television series in 1967, she became a close friend of the comedian in the remaining year of his life.
Hayman died in 2021, shortly before her 92nd birthday.- Elspeth March was one of a golden generation of Central School of Speech and Drama students trained under the rigorous and inspiring Elsie Fogerty - Laurence Olivier, amongst others, always stressed Fogerty's contribution to the British stage. March also enjoyed the very best years of the British repertory system, with the kind of career denied young actors today, playing an enormous variety of roles in a crucial early period at the Birmingham Rep at one of its highest points.
Later in her career, with her formidable stage presence, commanding eyes and expressively wide-ranging voice, she was much in demand as a valued supporting character actress, playing a good number of battle-axes and dragonesses, often with whiplash comic precision, more than occasionally enlivening some less than effervescent scripts.
Her career never quite flowered as it should have; she never had the luck to play some parts for which she would have been ideal - Lady Bracknell or a number of Restoration comedy's gallery of deluded dowagers - and poor health clouded her later years. At her peak, however, she was one of the most distinctive, stylish actors of her generation.
Born Jean Elspeth Mackenzie into the comfortable world of a military family and given an excellent education at Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset, she gravitated early to the stage, and after her Central School training and a first professional appearance in a tiny part in Jonah and the Whale (Westminster Theatre, 1932) she played a few more minor roles and understudied in the West End until she was offered a season at the Birmingham Rep.
Between 1934 and 1937 she had a glorious run of rewarding leading roles there including the title role in Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan and Elizabeth in Rudolf Besier's 1930s smash-hit The Barretts of Wimpole Street. She also appeared at the Malvern Festivals between 1935 and 1937 when Shaw himself was often in evidence and in charge.
Her attack and vocal variety were supremely suited to Shaw and her many Shavian roles at Malvern included the rarity of Vashti in The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles, the rebellious Hypatia in Misalliance, Miss Brollikins in the political satire On the Rocks, the enormously demanding vocal pyrotechnics and physical agility of Epifania in The Millionairess, and Orinthia the seductive royal mistress in The Apple Cart.
More unexpectedly - although discerning directors had noted her versatility - she had a great personal success as The Widow Quin in Synge's Playboy of the Western World (a Mercury Theatre production, later transferring to the Duchess, in 1939) and she also played the part equally successfully nearly 20 years later for the Irish Players in New York (Tara Theatre, 1958).
While at Birmingham in the mid-1930s March had met fellow actor Stewart Granger. They married in 1938 and the following year performed together in a number of plays in Aberdeen, including Arms and the Man and Hay Fever (Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray performed the juvenile roles).
During the Second World War, rather than join Ensa, March left the stage for nearly five years to serve as a driver for the American Red Cross. Her immediate post-war career was unsettled, with some unrewarding roles and some disappointing London productions, although Noel Coward's large- cast Peace in Our Time (Lyric, 1947), set in a London pub against the background of an imagined 1940-45 Britain under Nazi occupation, gave her a meaty part as a novelist whose son has been killed in the Battle of Britain (Coward admired both her performance and the quality she maintained throughout the run).
She also had a happy return to Shaw with a much-praised Ftateeta in the Olivier/Vivien Leigh production of Caesar and Cleopatra (St James's, 1951) for the Festival of Britain. During the 1950s, good parts continued to be frustratingly sporadic following the break-up of her marriage to Stewart Granger, who had become a major movie star.
Even if some of her later performances were in productions which failed to reach London, March at least occasionally had the consolation - important, to one so well-read herself - of appearing in some work of distinguished pedigree. At the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford in 1966 she played the relatively small but pivotal role of Maria, a handsomely enigmatic woman who enters as the fiancee of a newly enriched Edwardian bachelor gentleman only to become the wife of his recently bereaved brother, in Julian Mitchell's subtle distillation of Ivy Compton-Burnett's lethally mordant portrait of family spites and tensions in A Family and a Fortune.
Also at Guildford (1967) she was glittering as the doctor hero's mother in Tennessee Williams's Eccentricities of a Nightingale (a reworking of Summer and Smoke), and she toured in Rodney Ackland's masterpiece maudit The Dark River.
Never one to be fazed by the seesaw vagaries of a theatrical career, she enjoyed her surprisingly long run in Ronald Millar's piece of medieval pish-tushery Abelard and Heloise (Wyndham's, 1970) as a severely wimpled Abbess just as much as her very much shorter run in the same author's sprawling generation-gap flop Parents' Day (Globe, 1972).
One of her most memorable later appearances was in a dire West End comedy written as a vehicle for Maggie Smith's then somewhat baroque comic technique. Snap (originally titled Clap, Vaudeville, 1974) was a kind of modern-day La Ronde set in a Bohemian fashionable London involving most of its characters in a chain of sexually transmitted diseases. Time has mercifully obliterated the memory of most of the details of this hapless piece - directed, amazingly enough, by William Gaskill - but not that of Elspeth March as Maude, a barking vision in heavy tweeds, up in London from her country retreat (nudgingly named Radclyffe Hall) and hilariously aghast at the ways of this new-age Sodom.
Elspeth March also had a long and successful television and film career, starting with Mr. Emmanuel (1944), and helped to enliven the dim musical remake of 'Goodbye, Mr Chips'. A woman of great taste and strong loyalties, she was a genuinely generous personality with a very wide circle of family and friends. - Kimberley Garner the daughter of property developer Russell Garner and Geraldine Garner, was educated at St. George's School, Ascot, in her sixth form she studied politics, photography, art, and religion.
After leaving school, she studied at two acting schools in London, LAMDA and RADA and then the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in West Hollywood, California.
She first came to national attention as a regular cast member of the reality show Made in Chelsea, which she joined in March 2012, and left in November of the same year.
While still acting, Kimberley designed and launched her own swimwear label Kimberley London Ltd in 2013.
Through her passion for business and design she has developed numerous home properties in London and Miami.
She recently took the female lead in the Hollywood action movie Sweetheart. - Actress
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- Music Department
Dido was born on 25 December 1971 in Kensington, London, England, UK. She is an actress and composer, known for 127 Hours (2010), Crossroads (2002) and Love Actually (2003). She has been married to Rohan Gavin since 2010. They have one child.- Actor
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Debonair British actor at home on stage (since the age of 15), screen and TV. Initially, his roles tended to be dramatic but, by his 40s, he was increasingly playing tongue-in-cheek comedy parts. His smooth lounge-lizard voice has frequently been used for voice-overs on television advertisements (most famously a long-running campaign for Schweppes drinks) and TV trailers.- Avis Scott was born on 22 February 1918 in Kensington, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for ITV Television Playhouse (1955), To Have and to Hold (1951) and Waterfront Women (1950). She was married to Jack Matthias. She died on 31 May 2010 in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.
- Genteel London-born actress Joyce Carey came from a distinguished theatrical family. Her own lengthy career on the stage began in 1916 when she played Princess Katherine in an all-female ensemble of "Henry V". She made her debut on the legitimate stage in a small part in the West End production of the exotic melodrama "Mr.Wu". During the 1920's, Joyce became a well-known interpreter of Shakespearean roles in Stratford-upon-Avon (including Miranda in "The Tempest" and Perdita in "The Winter's Tale"), as well as acting in several fashionable drawing room comedies in London. She came to be best known, however, for her long association with Noël Coward whom she met (and befriended) during a rehearsal for his play "The Vortex" in 1924. Coward liked her so much, that he cast her in the leading role of Sarah Hurst in "Easy Virtue" the following year. The play went from London to Broadway, opening at the Empire Theatre and enjoying a successful run of 147 performances. Joyce's career was now made and she regularly featured in Coward plays for the remainder of her life on stage.
In 1934, Joyce added another string to her bow as the author of the comedy "Sweet Aloes", written under the pseudonym 'Jay Mallory'. She also took on the key role of Lady Farrington. The play did better on the West End than on Broadway. Warner Brothers, nonetheless, bought the rights and filmed it as a teary melodrama entitled Give Me Your Heart (1936), starring Kay Francis and George Brent. Following wartime tours with the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) in Coward plays, she later repeated her stage successes in the filmed versions of the same, notably in Johnny in the Clouds (1945), Blithe Spirit (1945) and The Astonished Heart (1950). Her best remembered role was that of the train station buffet manageress Myrtle Bagot in David Lean's Brief Encounter (1945).
During Joyce's later career, her air of quiet authority and ladylike manner were perfectly suited to a gallery of aristocratic dowagers, doting or confused aunts or mothers. A true professional, she still performed at the age of 90 - on stage, unsurprisingly, in a minor Coward play, "Semi-Monde". On the screen she achieved critical acclaim for her role as an elderly lady facing eviction, in Michael Palin's BBC play Number 27 (1988). In 1982, Joyce was awarded the Order of the British Empire. - Nicholas Donnelly was born in 1938 in Kensington, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Lifeforce (1985), Dixon of Dock Green (1955) and Grange Hill (1978). He was married to Alrun Donnelly. He died on 9 January 2022 in England, UK.
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Fay Compton was born on 18 September 1894 in West Kensington, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for The Haunting (1963), Othello (1951) and Laughter in Paradise (1951). She was married to Ralph Michael, Leon Quartermaine, Lauri de Frece and Harry Gabriel Pelissier. She died on 12 December 1978 in Hove, East Sussex, England, UK.- Actress
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Charlie was born in Kensington, London, and travelled across the UK and Europe with family for most of her early years, before settling back in her native London to train and pursue a career in acting. She is a passionate conservationist, with a special love for herpetology (the study of reptiles and amphibians) and dedicated to constantly furthering her acting training.
After dipping her toe into the British crime film world with parts in several successful British movies, Charlie has had no shortage of film and theatre offers come her way -from playing hard-hitting police officers in the chart topping 'The fall of the Essex Boys' to her favourite role of Lucy Westenra in a sold out performance of 'Dracula' at the Leicester Square Theatre opposite Primeval star Andrew Lee Potts and Carrie Marx.
She continues to reside in West London.- London-born Virginia Woolf came from a wealthy family and, unlike her brothers, received her education at home, an unusual step for the times. Her parents had both had children from previous marriages, so she grew up with a variety of siblings, stepbrothers and stepsisters. Her father was a well-respected editor and author and the former son-in-law of William Makepeace Thackeray. Author James Russell Lowell was her godfather, and Henry James and George Elliott were regular visitors and guests at the family home. As she recalled later in life, her most pleasant childhood memories were of the summers spent at the family home in Cornwall, by Porthminster Bay (the Godrevy Lighthouse there was the basis for her novel "To the Lighthouse").
The sudden death of Virginia's mother in 1895, when she was 13, and the passing of her sister two years later led to the first of Virginia's mental breakdowns. In 1904 her father died, which caused a complete mental and physical collapse and for a while she was sent to a mental institution to recover. Nervous breakdowns and bouts of severe depression tormented Virginia throughout her life, and the fact that as children she and her sister Vanessa were sexually abused by two of their stepbrothers added to her already considerable feelings of guilt and inferiority.
She studied at London's Kings College, where she became acquainted with such literary figures as Lytton Strachey, Saxon Sydney-Turner and Leonard Woolf. She married Woolf in 1912. Virginia was always ashamed of what she termed her "unattractive countenance", and once wrote that "being wanted [was] a pleasure that I have never felt". In 1922 she met Vita Sackville-West, and the two women began a relationship that lasted for almost ten years. She was said to have written her novel "Orlando" as a love letter to West.
After the publication of her novel "Between the Acts" she fell into a deep depression, exacerbated by the destruction of her London home by Nazi planes during the bombing of that city, and the less than enthusiastic critical reaction to her biography of her close friend Roger Fry. Her condition deteriorated to the point where she was unable to write or even read. She finally had a full-blown nervous breakdown. Unable and unwilling to continue, she wrote a note to her husband saying that "I am certain I am going mad again" and "I shan't recover this time . . . I can't fight any longer . . . I can't go on spoiling your life any longer." On March 28, 1941, she left her home, walked to the banks of the nearby River Ouse, loaded heavy stones into her pockets and walked into the water. She was 59 years old. - Actress
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Denise Bryer was born on 5 January 1928 in Kensington, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Return to Oz (1985), Labyrinth (1986) and Four Feather Falls (1960). She was married to Nicholas Parsons. She died on 16 October 2021 in the UK.- Peter Howell was an English actor born in London to Owen, a solicitor, and his wife Nora, née Mally, on 25 October 1919. He attended Winchester College and began studying Law at Christ Church, Oxford but left when he was called up for wartime service in 1939. Invalided out of the army in 1943 as a result of dysentery he became interested in acting through his sister Gillian, who was training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). At this point of the war RADA was looking for men to act in productions to replace those away on active service.
Howell then joined the Old Vic Company which had relocated to the New Theatre, London following the bombing of it's own location. Whist there he gained valuable experience with small parts alongside the likes of Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson and Sybil Thorndike. This would provide the foundation for a stage and screen career that would eventually last for over fifty years.
Since then he played many roles on stage and television, notably in long-running hospital soap 'Emergency Ward 10'. He was also an active member of Equity, the actors' union, and the Labour Party. Married to Susan , who died in 1992, he died on April 20 2015 and is survived by three daughters and a son. - Writer
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Michael Pertwee was born on 24 April 1916 in Kensington, London, England, UK. He was a writer and actor, known for The Interrupted Journey (1949), The Saint (1962) and Secret Agent (1964). He was married to Maya Guha, Valerie French and Elizabeth Gilbert. He died on 17 April 1991 in Hampstead, London, England, UK.- Princess Alexandrina Victoria was born on May 24, 1819 to the Duke and Duchess of Kent. Victoria as she was called was the granddaughter of King George III. When she was less than a year old her father died leaving her mother broke and at the mercy of her brother Leopold, the King of Belgium. Victoria lead a sheltered life in Kensington Palace while growing up. She was not allowed to see anybody besides her mother, half-sister and brother, and the comptroller of the household and reputed lover of the Duchess of Kent, Sir John Conroy. When she was 17 she met for the first time her cousins Albert and Ernest (sons of her mother's brother Ernest) The meeting went well but nothing happened. Several months later Victoria's Uncle King William IV died and she became Queen at the age of 18. Three years later she and Albert met again and this time they fell in love. They got married on Feburary 10, 1840 and In November of that year they welcomed their first child named Victoria. In 1841 they had Albert Edward, who would be Prince of Wales and then Edward VII. Followed by Alice (b. 1843),Alfred (b. 1844), Helena (b. 1846), Louise (b. 1848) Arthur (b. 1850) and Leopold (b. 1853) and Beatrice (b. 1857.) In 1860, though something happened that brought Victoria's world to a stand-still. Her beloved husband died on December 14 after a short illness with Thyphoid. This did not hinder any plans though. Their oldest daughter had been married to the Prussian Prince Fritz for several years by then, but their daughter Alice and son Bertie were almost to be married at the time of their father's death. A few months later Alice married Prince Louis of Hess and several months after that Bertie married Prince Alexandra of Denmark. For the rest of her life Victoria missed Albert and insisted in a funereal like atmosphere in her household. The only thing that could lift her spirits where her 40 grandchildren. On that fateful December 14 of 1878 Victoria lost her daughter, Alice, and mourned her. After several months though she recovered enough to concoct an idea. She would have her son in law Louis marry her daughter Beatrice so that her several grandchildren could be near her. This did not happen though. On January 22, 1901 Victoria died in Osbourn House in the arms of her grandson Kaiser William II. Her children and grandchildren stretched all over the globe, reigning as sovereigns or consorts. From the UK, Germany, Romania, Russia, Greece, and Spain her children and grandchildren would change the face of the world.
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Natasha Parry was born on 2 December 1930 in Kensington, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Romeo and Juliet (1968), Midnight Lace (1960) and Crow Hollow (1952). She was married to Peter Brook. She died on 22 July 2015 in Saint-Nazaire, Loire-Atlantique, France.- Art Department
- Additional Crew
Xavier Swinton Byrne was born in 1997 in Kensington & Chelsea, London, England, UK. He is known for Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Doctor Strange (2016) and Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019).- Simon Gipps-Kent was born on 25 October 1958 in Kensington, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for To Serve Them All My Days (1980), The Emigrants (1976) and The Tomorrow People (1973). He died on 16 September 1987 in London, England, UK.
- Louisa Rix was born on 2 February 1955 in Kensington, London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Kevin & Perry Go Large (2000), Harry Enfield and Chums (1994) and Colin's Sandwich (1988). She has been married to Richard Ommanney since 9 July 1994. She was previously married to Jonathan Coy.
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Henry McGee specialized in comedy and was best known for his 20 year-long association with Benny Hill, on whose show he appeared as announcer and straight man. The son of a Rolls-Royce engineer, McGee was educated at Stonyhurst. After National Service in the Royal Navy, he joined the Italia Conti Stage Academy for two years, then acted with repertory companies in England and Australia.
He returned to England in the 1960's and enjoyed a prolific career on television, especially in comedies. His appearance as an upmarket conman who takes in Leonard Rossiter's Rigsby in The Perfect Gentleman (1975) was considered one of the highlights of the popular ITV sitcom, so much so that the storyline was recycled for the film version, Rising Damp (1980), when McGee's role was taken by Denholm Elliott.
McGee was also recognized for being in the 'Sugar Puffs' breakfast cereal commercials on television alongside The Honey Monster. His hobbies were gliding and collecting old engravings. He left a million pounds in his will.