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1-50 of 53
- Actress
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This celebrated star of the French stage had a sporadic love-hate affair with early cinema. After her film debut in Le duel d'Hamlet (1900) she declared she detested the medium; yet she consented to appear in another film, La Tosca (1909). Upon seeing the results, she reportedly recoiled in horror, demanding that the negative be destroyed. Her next film appearance, in the Film d'Art production of La dame aux camélias (1912), was a critical and popular success, helping give cinema artistic dignity. The following year she made Les amours de la reine Élisabeth (1912) in Britain. The receipts from this film's distribution in the US provided Adolph Zukor with the funds to found Paramount. Bernhardt, at 69, was offered a fortune to make films with other companies, but stayed with Film d'Art, appearing in Adrienne Lecouvreur (1913). She appeared in two more pictures after losing a leg in 1915, Jeanne Doré (1915) and Mothers of France (1917), both produced as WWI morale boosters. In 1923, when she was 79, her hotel room was turned into a studio so that she could appear in the film La voyante (1924). But her failing health halted production and she died before the film was completed. She was portrayed on the screen by Glenda Jackson in The Incredible Sarah (1976).- Writer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Friedrich Nietzsche was raised having five women around him - his mother, grandmother, two aunts and a sister, all living together. His father, a Lutheran pastor, died when Nietzsche was 5 years old. After a Catholic school he studied music and Greco-Roman culture at the famous Schulpfora from 1858-1864, continued at the universities of Bonn, Leipzig and Basel, where he was a professor of classic philology for 12 years. His influences were: classic history, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, writer Fyodor Dostoevsky and Jesus Christ, whom he called "Superman".
His main books are "The Gay Science", "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", "Beyond Good and Evil", "Twilight of the Idols" and the radical "Antichrist". Nietzsche analyzed foundations of values and morality through transformations of human nature and society. His contention that traditional values, religion and God, are not working in the modernized world, led to his conceptual statement: "God is dead." In replacement of God comes his concept of a superman - a rational, secure and highly independent individual. He lists Jesus, Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci, Shakespeare, Goethe and Napoleon as models or prototypes of a superman. His idealistic superman was often misinterpreted as a role for a dictator in a totalitarian society. Nitzsche's goal for this concept was mainly individualistic because of his despise of any crowd and attention to him. He considered any crowd as a main source of lies and manipulations. According to Nietzsche it is the independence that allows a superman to be truly original and creative.
His sarcastic humor and contradictory ideas, often misunderstood in metaphysical context, caused misinterpretations of his personality and his works. His nihilism resulted from frustrations in search of meaning. For self-liberation Nietzsche terminated his German citizenship and remained a stateless person for the rest of his life. He distanced himself from Richard Wagner being repelled by the banality of the Bayreuth shows and the baseness of the crowd. He suffered from migraine headaches and from shortsightedness to the degree of blindness that caused his retirement from University of Basel. After he saw a brutal beating of a horse on a street, Nitzsche had a mental breakdown at age 44, and he retreated into solitude as a self-defense from crowds and manipulations. He lived with his mother and sister until his death of pneumonia in 1900. Most researchers regard his breakdown as irrelevant to his works. He received postmortem recognition by existentialists and by 20th century postmodern philosophers.
Nietzsche's idea of a day in a life repeating itself again, and again, and again was written at the end of the Book IV of "The Gay Science" (1887). It is used in the film 'Groundhog Day (1993)'.
Nietzsche listed laughter and humor as vital qualities of being a superman. He only failed to add a superwoman on his list of models to make it really serious.- Music Department
- Composer
- Writer
Rimsky-Korsakov was a navy officer but soon discovered his love for music. Since 1861 he belonged to the group of Balakirew but later he returned to the traditional way of composing. He combined uniquely the Russian folk songs with the music of the Orthodox Church. Rimsky-Korsakov wrote the first Russian symphony and Igor Strawinsky was one of his students.- Originally a schoolteacher, Mary Maurice caught the acting bug and joined the Pittsburgh (PA) Stock Company in 1868. After a long and distinguished stage career she signed with Vitagraph and made her film debut in 1909. She appeared in almost 150 films for the company, and played mothers or grandmothers in so many of them that she got the nickname "Grand Old Lady of the Films". She stayed with Vitagraph until shortly before her death in 1918.
- Director
- Animation Department
- Producer
Émile Reynaud was a French inventor born in Montreuil, Paris to Brutus Reynaud, an engineer who moved to Paris from Le Puy-en-Velay in 1842, and Marie-Caroline Bellanger, a former schoolteacher who educated Émile at home and taught him drawing and painting techniques. By 1862 he started his own career as a photographer in Paris. When his father died, him and mother both left Paris for Le Puy-en-Velay. He was taught Latin, Greek, physics, chemistry, mechanics, and natural sciences by his uncle, a doctor in the area. After reading a series of 1876 articles about optical illusion devices, he created the praxinoscope (an animation device) out of a cookie box and patented it in 1877. He started production on the device in Paris and was a financial success. He perfected the praxinoscope and invented Théâtre Optique (Optical Theatre), an animated moving picture system, which is also notable for the first known use of film perforations, and patented it in 1888. Its first regular public screenings started on 28 October 1892 with his series of animated films called Pantomimes Lumineuses. In 1895 he created the photo-scénographe, a version of the théâtre optique that could take photographs, but it was overshadowed by the cinematograph of Auguste Lumière and Louis Lumière. Later, due to the success of other filmmakers the popularity of Reynaud's showings was reduced and they ended on 1 March 1900. He destroyed the théâtre optique during a fit of despair and years later he threw most of his films into the Siene. On 16 October 1902 he patented the stéréo-cinéma, a stereo camera that could take 3D film. He made several films with the camera, but was unable to find financial backing. During World War I he lived in hospitals and nursing homes before dying on 9 January 1918.- St. Bernadette of Lourdes was born on 7 January 1844 in Lourdes, France. She died on 16 April 1879 in Nevers, France.
- Anatole France, the 1921 Nobel laureate for literature, was born Jacques Anatole Thibault in Paris on April 16, 1844, the son of a Paris book dealer. He attended the Parisian boys' school Collège Stanislas, where he received a classical education, and later matriculated at the École des Chartes. For 20 years after finishing his education, he worked at various positions, including the post of assistant librarian of the French Senate from 1876 to 1890, before devoting himself full-time to writing. He was able to write even when he worked, and in his life-time in which he became the premier French man of letters, he produced a vast output of novels, as well as works in every genre. A story-teller in the French classical style, his literary precursors were Voltaire and Fénélon. His urbane skepticism and enlightened hedonism were in the spirit and tradition of the French enlightenment of the 18th century. His epicurean philosophy was limned in his 1895 book of aphorisms, "The Garden of Epicurus."
France's first great success was the novel "Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard (1881), which was honored by the Académie Française. France later became a member of the Académie in 1896. He published an autobiographical novel in 1885, "Le Livre de mon ami" ["My Friend's Book"], which he followed up with "Pierre Nozière" (1899), "Le Petit Pierre" (1918), and "La Vie au fleur" (1922) ["The Bloom of Life"].
France was the literary critic on the "Le Temps" newspaper, and his reviews were published in a four-volume collection entitled "La Vie littéraire" [On Life and Letters] between 1888 and 1892. It was in this period that France wrote historical fiction about past civilizations, focusing particularly on the transition from paganism to Christianity. He published "Balthazar" (1889), a story of the conversion of one of the Magi, and "Thaïs" (1890), about the conversion of an Alexandrian courtesan. In 1891, he published "L'Étui de nacre" ["Mother of Pearl"], the story of a hermit and a faun. It was during this period that the classicist France reacted strongly against Emile Zola's naturalism.
Approximately half of France's output appeared in periodicals and newspapers. The style of his novels was rooted in elegance and a subtle irony. "La Rôtisserie de la Reine Pédauque" ["At the Sign of the Reine Pédauque], a historical novel about life in 18th century France, was published in 1893. It proved to be the most celebrated of France's novels; that same year, he used the central character of the novel, the Abbé Coignard, in "Les Opinions de Jérôme Coignard." The Abbé again appeared in "Le Puits de Sainte Claire" ["The Well of Saint Claire"], a collection of stories published in 1895.
With "Le Lys rouge" ["The Red Lily"], a tragic love story published in 1894, France returned to contemporary fiction. In 1896, he began a cycle of prose works focused on the character of Professor Bergeret, one of his most famous literary creations, in the "Histoire contemporaine," published between 1896 and 1901.
He protested the unjust conviction of Captain Alfed Dreyfuss for treason and the anti-semitism of the French establishment that permitted his persecution, and developed an empathy for socialism. After the Dreyfus Affair, in which he came out in support of Zola, Dreyfus' great champion, France's work became more engaged socially and slanted increasingly towards political satire. In 1908, he published a satire about the Dreyfus Affair, "L'Île des pingouins" ["Penguin Island"]. Also that year, his biography of Joan of Arc was published. His other major works of his later period include "Les Dieux ont soif (1912) ["The Gods are Athirst"], a novel about the French Revolution, and "La Révolte des anges" (1914) ["The Revolt of the Angels].
Anatole France was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1921, "in recognition of his brilliant literary achievements, characterized as they are by a nobility of style, a profound human sympathy, grace, and a true Gallic temperament." In the presentation Speech by E.A. Karlfeldt, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, the author of historical novels about the transition from paganism to Christianity was praised for limning "a faith purified by healthy doubts, by the spirit of clarity, a new humanism, a new Renaissance, a new Reformation."
Karlfeldt would go on to praise rance as "the faithful servant of truth and beauty, the heir of humanism, of the lineage of Rabelais, Montaigne, Voltaire, [and ]Renan," but first, he would honor him as embodying the best of French civilization and letters:
"Sweden cannot forget the debt which, like the rest of the civilized world, she owes to French civilization," Karlfeldt said. "Formerly we received in abundance the gifts of French Classicism like the ripe and delicate fruits of antiquity. Without them, where would we be? This is what we must ask ourselves today. In our time Anatole France has been the most authoritative representative of that civilization; he is the last of the great classicists. He has even been called the last European. And indeed, in an era in which chauvinism, the most criminal and stupid of ideologies, wants to use the ruins of the great destruction for the building of new walls to prevent free intellectual exchange between peoples, his clear and beautiful voice is raised higher than that of others, exhorting people to understand that they need one another. Witty, brilliant, generous, this knight without fear is the best champion in the sublime and incessant war which civilization has declared against barbarism. He is a marshal of the France of the glorious era in which Corneille and Racine created their heroes.
France used the occasion to himself honor the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, the Swedish Prime Minister Karl Hjalmar Branting, a diplomat who worked for disarmament and helped draft the Geneva Protocol, a proposed international security system mandating arbitration between belligerent nations. France also denounced the Versailles Treaty as being unjust and a continuation of the Great War and called for the instillation of common sense among diplomats lest Europe meet its doom. After France received his Prize from the King of Sweden, after all the laureates had again ascended the rostrum, France turned to Professor Walther Nernst, the German Nobel laureate for chemistry, and shook his hand cordially for an extended time. The gesture profoundly moved the crowd as the symbolism of the meeting of the heart (literature) and the head (science) and of two nations so recently engaged in waging a ruinous war against each other was not missed. The audience applauded the gesture as a symbol of reconciliation between France, the nation, and Germany.
Anatole France's writings were put on the Index of Forbidden Books of the Roman Catholic Church in the 1920s. Between 1925 and 1935, France's collected works were published in 25 volumes.
Anatole France died on October 12, 1924 in Tours, Indre-et-Loire, France and was buried in the Ancient Cemetery of Neuilly, Hauts-de-Seine. - Music Department
- Soundtrack
Pablo de Sarasate was born on 10 March 1844 in Pamplona, Navarra, Spain. He is known for The Wind Rises (2013), Rhapsody (1954) and Ladies in Lavender (2004). He died on 20 September 1908 in Biarritz, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France.- Ruby Lafayette was born on 22 July 1844 in Augusta, Kentucky, USA. She was an actress, known for The Man Trap (1917), Toby's Bow (1919) and Beauty in Chains (1918). She was married to John T. Curran. She died on 3 April 1935 in Bell, California, USA.
- Gerard Manley Hopkins was born on 28 July 1844 in Stratford, London, England, UK. Gerard was a writer, known for Camera Three (1954), The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo (1955) and Spring: An Animation of the Hopkins Poem (2010). Gerard died on 8 June 1889 in Dublin, Ireland, UK [now Republic of Ireland].
- Queen Alexandra was born Princess Alexandra Caroline Mary Charlotte Louisa Julia on December 1, 1844. She was the granddaughter of the king of Denmark. She lived an uneventful childhood in the palaces of Denmark with her sister, Marie, who became the mother of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. When Alex, as she was called, turned 16 she was considered a great beauty, and won the hand of the heir to the throne of England. She and Prince Albert Edward, or "Bertie", were married on March 10, 1863. They had six children including the future King George V. The first 40 years of marriage were very turbulent for Alexandra. As well as the six children, she had to contend with a brother-in-law (the husband of Bertie's sister Helena) whose family wanted a stake in the Schleswig-Holstein lands that had belonged to the kings of Denmark for generations. Finally in 1901 her mother-in-law, Queen Victoria, died, making her husband King Edward VII and she, in turn, Queen Consort. During her time as Queen she did many things to make England better, including the establishment of The Red Cross.
In 1910, however, something happened to change everything. Her husband of almost 50 years died. On his death bed she did a very magnanimous thing: she allowed his mistress, Alice Keppel, to say goodbye to him. After his death she lived at the house in which she had lived during her marriage. Unfortunately, she also lived with the increasing deafness that plagued her life as well as that of her son Albert Victor, who would have become king if he had not died. Alexandra died in 1925 of a heart attack and is buried at Windsor near her husband and mother and father-in-law. - Soundtrack
Charles Marie Widor was born on 21 February 1844 in Lyon, France. He was married to Mathilde de Montesquiou-Fézensac. He died on 12 March 1937 in Paris, France.- Elizabeth Stuart Phelps was born on 31 August 1844 in Andover, Massachusetts, USA. She was a writer, known for Pull for the Shore, Sailor! (1911). She was married to Herbert Dickinson Ward. She died on 28 January 1911 in Newton, Massachusetts, USA.
- Sultan Mehmed V was born on 2 November 1844 in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire [now Istanbul, Turkey]. He died on 3 July 1918 in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire [now Istanbul, Turkey].
- Henri Rousseau (Le Douanier) was born on May 21, 1844, in Laval, Northern France. His father was a plumber. Young Rousseau finished the Lycee in Laval and started as a lawyer's clerk. From 1863-1868 he served in the French Army. From 1869-1893 Russeau worked in a toll booth on the edge of Paris, as a municipal toll collector. For that job he was called "Le Douanier." He never really was a customs officer, but a second-class clerk; he was never promoted on his job and basically collected a fee from farmers coming to Paris markets.
Rousseau began painting in his forties. In 1884 he obtained a permit to sketch in the national museums and spent many hours sketching classical art masterpieces in the Louvre. His job as a toll collector gave him little income, but much time to paint. He also earned some cash as a street musician. Rousseau was self-taught, although he admitted he had received some advice from established Academic artists, including that of Jean-Leon Gerome. Rousseau was inspired by the jungle, but he never was there. His sources of imagination were illustrated books and visits to the Zoo and Botanical Gardens in Paris. He also used images from a drawing book of his daughter. He could paint bananas growing upside-down and in a few paintings he grouped animals from different continents, that in reality could never have been seen together. It was the genuine feeling and high decorative quality of his paintings that brought him attention from other artists. Pablo Picasso saw a painting by Rousseau being sold on the street as a canvas to be painted over. Picasso bought Rousseau's paintings in recognition of his genius.
His child-like art was created in the Post-Impressionist period and was categorized as Naive or Primitive. From 1886 Rousseau exhibited every year at the Salon des Independants along with the works of Georges Seurat, Armand Guillaumin, Odilon Redon, Paul Signac, Paul Gauguin, and other Post-Impressionists. His greatest wish was to master an academic style, and he genuinely believed that his pictures were real and convincing. Rousseau himself was such a sincere and genuine person, that he interpreted even sarcastic remarks literally and took them as praise. His positive disposition helped him endure great poverty. His working class background was seen as his big drawback by many contemporary critics. Finally the innocence and charm of his works won him the admiration of the leading artists. In 1905 he exhibited his large jungle composition 'The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope' along with Henri Matisse at the first showing of Les Fauves (The Wild Ones).
Rousseau had an influence on such artists as Pablo Picasso, Robert Delaunay, Wassily Kandinsky, Félix Vallotton, Paul Gauguin, and many others. In 1908 Pablo Picasso bought a few works from Rousseau and gave a banquet at his studio in Rousseau's honor. At the banquet Rousseu was praised by Guillaume Apollinaire, Robert Delaunay, Max Jacob and by other artists in a manner, which was half-serious, half-burlesque. Rousseau sincerely believed in the serious half, and later told Picasso: "There are only two real artists in the world, you in "Egyptian style" and I am in "Classical." That's how different and naive was the world of Rousseau, whose genuine views impressed Pablo Picasso as much as his works. During 1909 and 1910 many of Rousseau's paintings were acquired by the dealers Ambroise Vollard and Joseph Brummer. Rousseau's paintings were shown posthumously in 1911, in a retrospective exhibition at the Salon des Independants. Rousseau's works were chosen by Wassily Kandinsky for the first exhibitions of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) in 1911 and 1912 that toured Germany. The surrealist movement later considered Rousseau as one of their forerunners.
Henri Rousseau died on September 2, 1910, in Paris, and was laid to rest in the Cimetiere de Bagneux, in Paris, France.
Guillaume Apollinaire wrote the epitaph on Rousseau's tombstone:
We salute you Gentile Rousseau you can hear us
Delaunay his wife Monsier Queval and myself
Let our luggage pass duty free through the gates of heaven
We will bring you brushes paints and canvas
That you may spend your sacred leisure in the light of truth
Painting as you once did my portrait
Facing the stars - Music Department
Eugène Gigout was born on 23 March 1844 in Nancy, France. He is known for Nothing But Lies (1991) and YouHumour (2008). He was married to Caroline-Mathilde Niedermeyer. He died on 9 December 1925 in Paris, France.- When Carl Benz was two years old, his father died. After finishing school with a high school diploma, he attended the scientifically oriented Lyceum in Karlsruhe from 1853 onwards. From 1860 to 1864 he studied mechanical engineering. Benz began his professional life in 1864 as a locksmith. After a few months he left Karlsruhe and got a job as a designer in vehicle construction in Mannheim. Here he and a partner founded an iron foundry for industrial components in 1871. After a short time, the collaboration broke down and Benz was able to maintain the business with the financial help of his fiancée Berta Ringer, who more than trusted his abilities. In 1872 he married Berta, who gave him two sons. Benz's vision was to design a vehicle that could drive under its own power and without rails.
After many years of development work, in 1877 he succeeded in building a 0.9 hp gas engine in the 2-stroke system. This unit was used because the four-stroke engine that already existed was protected by the patent of Nikolaus August Otto. After the engine had achieved the desired level of reliability after further perfection, Benz founded a stock corporation in 1880 in which he held a five percent stake. With the capital at his disposal, nothing stood in the way of further development work, which Benz now undertook with the construction of a 4-horsepower gas engine. After differences arose with shareholders over the design, Benz left the company in 1883 to found "Benz & Cie. Rheinische Gasmotorenfabrik" in Mannheim with new shareholders. Here he further developed the now patent-free Otto engine. The focus of the work was on solving the problem that the previous engines were too heavy for a car.
In 1885, Benz succeeded in installing a horizontal single-cylinder four-stroke gasoline engine with electric ignition, water cooling and surface carburetor in a three-wheeled wooden car. This solution was implemented because it allowed for better steering. It was the first motor vehicle in which the engine and chassis formed a single unit. Benz created the first automobile in 1885. This Benz vehicle already had a differential gear on the drive axle and solid rubber tires for even power transmission. In the same year, Wilhelm Maybach installed a 0.5 hp unit in a so-called Reitwagen in Gottlieb Daimler's workshop in Stuttgart, which can now be viewed as the world's first motorcycle. On January 29, 1886, Benz made industrial history when he applied for a patent for the first "automobile" at the Reich Patent Office under number 37435. However, he still received scorn and ridicule from the public for his work: "A carriage without horses".
In 1888, Benz presented his motor car for two hours a day at the Munich "Power and Work Machinery Exhibition", where the development was applauded by the press. The trade fair committee awarded his patent the gold medal for the most outstanding innovation. This did not change the cautious public opinion. After Benz had visited the Paris World Exhibition of 1889 in search of recognition, he returned and continued working on the design of a four-wheeled motor car. At the beginning of 1893 the steering system was perfected for installation and a patent was applied for in the same year. When the first orders followed, Benz, who built the first two-cylinder engines in 1896, was making a profit with his company. When production needed to be further increased, he founded Benz & Cie in 1899 as a capital measure. Aktiengesellschaft, with a third of the shares remaining with Benz.
As early as 1900, Benz was able to offer over 600 different model designs from standard to sports cars for sale. In 1903, at the age of 60, Benz retired from the company, although he remained a voting shareholder. In 1926 Benz & Cie. merged. with Daimler-Motoren Aktiengesellschaft from Gottlieb Daimler to Daimler-Benz AG.
Carl Friedrich Benz died on April 4, 1929 in Ladenburg near Mannheim. - John Hare was born on 16 May 1844 in Giggleswick, Yorkshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Vicar of Wakefield (1916), Caste (1915) and A Pair of Spectacles (1916). He was married to Mary Adela Elizabeth Holmes. He died on 28 December 1921 in London, England, UK.
- King Umberto was born on 14 March 1844 in Turin, Kingdom of Sardinia. He was married to Queen Margherita. He died on 29 July 1900 in Monza, Italy.
- Charles King was born on 12 October 1844 in Albany, New York, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for A Daughter of the Sioux (1925), Tonio, Son of the Sierras (1925) and Warrior Gap (1925). He was married to Adelaide Yorke. He died on 17 March 1933 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.
- Born in Lambeth, London. Hughly Popular comedian in Music Hall theatre and Pantomime theatre from 1868 became known as the greatest Pantomime 'Dame' artist of all time, often teamed as the over-weight stooge on stage and screen to the legendary Music Hall star Dan Leno. made his debut film in Herbert Campbell as Little Bobby in 1899 followed by a number of films with Dan Leno in The Rat in 1900 and Dan Leno and Herbert Campbell Edit 'The Sun' in 1902.
- Mary Evelyn Moore Davis was born on 12 April 1844 in Talladega, Alabama, USA. Mary Evelyn Moore was a writer, known for The Little Chevalier (1917). Mary Evelyn Moore died on 1 January 1909.
- Actor
- Director
W.H. Burton was born on 11 April 1844. He was an actor and director, known for The High Cost of Flirting (1915), Radio-Mania (1923) and Thou Shalt Not Steal (1917). He died on 15 March 1926 in New York City, New York, USA.- Maggie Breyer was born on 6 August 1844 in Fort Recovery, Ohio, USA. She was an actress, known for Kildare of Storm (1918), The Voice of Conscience (1917) and The Sunbeam (1916). She died on 11 March 1931 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.
- Although born in England, lightweight boxer Billy Edwards had his greatest successes in America, and was the American lightweight champion in the late 1860s and early 1870s. After retiring from fighting, Edwards remained active as a trainer and writer. He trained the renowned John L. Sullivan for several fights, and also wrote about boxing. Well after his retirement from the ring, Edwards appeared in the Edison Company film Billy Edwards and the Unknown (1895), in which he fought a brief exhibition match.