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Described by film producer Michael Deeley as "the very best eye in the business", director Ridley Scott was born on November 30, 1937 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear. His father was an officer in the Royal Engineers and the family followed him as his career posted him throughout the United Kingdom and Europe before they eventually returned to Teesside. Scott wanted to join the British Army (his elder brother Frank had already joined the Merchant Navy) but his father encouraged him to develop his artistic talents instead and so he went to West Hartlepool College of Art and then London's Royal College of Art where he helped found the film department.

In 1962, he joined the BBC as a trainee set designer working on several high profile series. He attended a trainee director's course while he was there and his first directing job was on an episode of the popular BBC police series Z Cars (1962), Error of Judgement (1965). More TV work followed until, frustrated by the poor financial rewards at the BBC, he went into advertising. With his younger brother, Tony Scott, he formed the advertising production company RSA (Ridley Scott Associates) in 1967 and spent the next 10 years making some of the best known and best loved TV adverts ever shown on British television, including a series of ads for Hovis bread set to the music of Dvorak's New World Symphony which are still talked about today ("'e were a great baker were our dad.")

He began working with producer David Puttnam in the 1970s developing ideas for feature films. Their first joint endeavor, The Duellists (1977) won the Jury Prize for Best First Work at Cannes in 1977 and was nominated for the Palm d'Or, more than successfully launching Scott's feature film career. The success of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) inspired Scott's interest in making science fiction and he accepted the offer to direct Dan O'Bannon's low budget science fiction horror movie Alien (1979), a critical and commercial success that firmly established his worldwide reputation as a movie director.

Blade Runner (1982) followed in 1982 to, at best, a lukewarm reception from public and critics but in the years that followed, its reputation grew - and Scott's with it - as one of the most important sci-fi movies ever made. Scott's next major project was back in the advertising world where he created another of the most talked-about advertising spots in broadcast history when his "1984"-inspired ad for the new Apple Macintosh computer was aired during the Super Bowl on January 22, 1984. Scott's movie career has seen a few flops (notably Legend (1985) and 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)), but with successes like Thelma & Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000) and Black Hawk Down (2001) to offset them, his reputation remains solidly intact.

Ridley Scott was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire at the 2003 Queen's New Year Honours for his "substantial contribution to the British film industry". On July 3, 2015, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Royal College of Art in a ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London. He was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship in 2018. BAFTA described him as "a visionary director, one of the great British film-makers whose work has made an indelible mark on the history of cinema. Forty years since his directorial debut, his films continue to cross the boundaries of style and genre, engaging audiences and inspiring the next generation of film talent."

Eric Idle is an English comedian, actor, author, singer, playwright, director, and songwriter. co-creator of Monty Python on TV, stage, and five films, including The Life of Brian and The Holy Grail, which he later adapted for the stage with John Du Prez as Monty Python's Spamalot, winning the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2005, a Grammy, a Drama Desk Award, and playing for almost five years on Broadway. They also wrote the comic oratorio Not the Messiah, He's a Very Naughty Boy, in 2007, which played round the world and at The Hollywood Bowl and was filmed live at The Royal Albert Hall, and a musical play What About Dick? available soon on iTunes. He created and directed the first mockumentary The Rutles for NBC, starred as Ko-Ko in the English National Opera version of The Mikado in London and Houston, and appeared last year in The Pirates of Penzance in Central Park and in Not the Messiah at Carnegie Hall. He is also one of the conceivers of the musical Seussical. In 2012 he appeared live in front of a billion people worldwide singing his song Always Look on the Bright Side of Life at the Closing Ceremony of the London Olympics. Last year he created, directed, and appeared in the sold-out final Monty Python reunion show One Down Five to Go at London's O2 Arena for 10 nights, whose final performance was broadcast live round the world.

He has also acted in several movies, including Nuns on the Run, Splitting Heirs, Casper, Shrek the Third, and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen; and written two novels, The Greedy Bastard Diary and Pass the Butler, a West End play.

Flora Robson knew she was no beauty, but her wise and sympathetic face would become a familiar - indeed, shining - ornament of the 1930s and '40s silver screen. Though not sure of acting as a career in her early years, she first appeared on stage when 5 years old. She was educated at Palmer's Green High School and went on still in her teens to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, winning a Bronze Medal in 1921. Between 1921-23 she performed in London and Oxford, but both uncertainty and the unstable income of acting convinced her to spend the next few years working at a factory welfare officer in east London.

Still, her versatility, even in her youth, as a budding character actress of the first water, was noticed. In 1929 a friend urged her to join the Cambridge Festival Theatre where she remained two years.

By 1931 she was in residence at the Old Vic with as varied roles as Herodias in "Salome" (1931), a drunken prostitute in Bridie's "The Anatomist", Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth in "Macbeth", and Gwendolen in "The Importance of Being Earnest" (both in 1933).

She stayed with the Old Vic until 1934, but she was already turning to the film with her debut in A Gentleman of Paris (1931).

Her dexterity as screen monarchs began shortly thereafter as Russian Empress Elisabeth in The Rise of Catherine the Great (1934). Flora even had a place in television history in the pre-WWII British TV production of Anna Christie (1937).

She was a forceful Livia in Josef von Sternberg's ill-fated and unfinished I, Claudius (1937), but gave a hint of her future potential with her rousing Queen Elizabeth I in Alexander Korda's Fire Over England (1937) with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh.

The year 1939 was extremely busy for Robson. It marked her first association with British director Michael Powell in his The Lion Has Wings (1939) and Smith (1939) and the unsurprising call from Hollywood.

There she was lauded quickly for 2 roles that year: as the domineering wife of Paul Muni in We Are Not Alone (1939) and opposite fellow British stars Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon, and David Niven as narrator and housekeeper Ellen Dean in the haunting Wuthering Heights (1939). Her compelling Elizabeth marked her for a reprise of the role in the Errol Flynn swashbuckler The Sea Hawk (1940) in which she played the role to the hilt.

Among early screen Elizabeth standouts, Florence Eldridge in Mary of Scotland (1936) resembled the historical queen and the more famous Bette Davis displayed the manner and temperament with her usual command (though it is hard not to feel it's Bette playing her - albeit - brilliant self and not Elizabeth) in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), but Robson seemed to best personify the total person and spirit of 'good Queen Bess'.

Flora's film career was marked with a character versatility which had and continued to mark precious time for stage work (as in her murderess Ellen Creed in "Ladies in Retirement" (Broadway, 1950). In 1941, she returned to war-torn London to boldly continue theater performances to a grateful country. After the war, it was a full life of crisscrossing the Atlantic. Though some British critics were not impressed with her return to Hollywood to play the overly protective mulatto servant of Ingrid Bergman in Saratoga Trunk (1945), it was an outstanding tour-de-force character performance honored with an Oscar nomination.

Among other memorable roles in the late 1940s, even her reflective Anglican Sister Philippa in Powell's visually stunning and provocative Black Narcissus (1947) displays her depth as a solid character actress. Another quarter of a century of roles was accented with memorable theatrical performances as Lady Macbeth on Broadway (1949) and as Paulina in Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale" (1951), production by John Gielgud, to add to a kaleidoscope mix of movies from 1948 to 1981 and a sprinkling of character pieces on British TV, when she retired from the stage in 1969.

The material success of Hollywood played a part in her much deserved honor as Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1952 and her ascension as Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1960. Kenneth Barrow wrote a biography Flora: The Life of Dame Flora Robson (1981). Flora had the further honor of rating 2 portraits in London's National Portrait Gallery for her full and distinguished life.

Ron Cook was born on 1 December 1948 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, England, UK. He is an actor, known for Hot Fuzz (2007), Chocolat (2000) and Thunderbirds (2004).

Born in the Simonside area of South Shields, he left the North East when he was five, but went back for holidays with his grandparents. As he grew older he had it in his mind to be an actor, but had no idea how to go about it, so did various jobs before being called up for National Service in the RAF. On being demobbed he still wanted to be an actor, but was still unaware of how to become one, so worked for wool merchants for three years, during which he became a keen amateur actor. When the wool merchant went bankrupt, he managed to get a grant from Essex County Council to go to drama school. On completing the course his first job was with a company that traveled around in a bus doing shows at military camps. He then joined The Old Vic doing walk on parts and small speaking parts then spent 2 years in America and on his return joined the Bristol Old Vic. After about 12 years in the business he went to Newcastle to appear in 'Close the Coalhouse Door' at the Jesmond Playhouse - written by Alan Plater and also featuring fellow North East actors Colin Douglas and Alan Browning - which he considered made him a better actor. He appeared in the TV series 'Z Cars' as a Geordie police inspector but didn't enjoy it. There was then a 90 minute play for Granada Television which was done live.

In 2024, Richard will be seen starring and producing in the New Zealand feature "Mysterious Ways" about a homosexual vicar at war with the Anglican hierarchy, which will be seen globally at festivals. Most recently seen in Joel Coen's "The Tragedy of Macbeth" (2021) alongside Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, as well as "Jack Ryan: Season 3" (2022) for Amazon and will be seen at festivals worldwide in the short film "The Night Passenger".

Globally, he is also starring in the original TV series Mary Kills People, now airing the third and final season. For his role as the very complex surgeon Des Bennett, Short was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award (for Best Lead Actor in a Drama series) in 2018.

His most recent stage appearance was as 'Richard Burton' in the hugely acclaimed World Premiere of "CLEO", a play directed by Bob Balaban and written by Pulitzer Prize winner Lawrence Wright, set during the filming of the 1963 movie Cleopatra.

In 2016, Short co-starred in HBO's Vinyl opposite Olivia Wilde. In 2015, he co-starred in Agent Carter, where he played Marvel's first ever gay comic book character, Pinky Pinkerton. Short's diverse range of television credits include appearances in Code Black, Time After Time, Training Day, American Horror Story, Blue Bloods, White Collar, Fringe, Bored to Death, Vera and Covert Affairs among others but it was in 2013 he really came to the attention of audiences worldwide as the villainous "Harlan Moore" in ABC's '666 Park Avenue'.

In film, Short recently took the title of role of King Arthur in "Arthur & Merlin", screening on Amazon, as well as the UK horror feature film 'The Dare' and can now be seen on Amazon in the indie film 'Crazy Famous', as well as in the short-film Abe, directed by Steve Brett. He also starred in the indie films 'Cockroaches' and 'Not Welcome' still awaiting release. He made his debut in the Sundance hit 'Delirious' for director Tom DiCillo. Additional credits include The Exhibitionists alongside Laverne Cox, A New York Love Story, The Guitar (Amy Redford), Public Enemies (Michael Mann), Choose (Rob Legato), The Butterflies of Bill Baker and Café.

In theater, Short co-starred on Broadway in Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem alongside Mark Rylance. Prior to that, he created the role of Eric Saunders in Roberto Aguirre Sacasa's King of Shadows. Additional highlights include An Evening with Simon Gray at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Centre, a hugely acclaimed performance in Mary Rose for the Vineyard Theatre and as John Eastman in the National Theatre of London transfer of The Night Season, directed by Lonny Price. He made his theater debut in 1996 in the UK production of Grease.

An avid writer, Short has published books, articles and screenplays across the worlds of sports and travel. He divides his time between Los Angeles, Santa Fe and London with his wife and has just set up a production company with the aim of producing challenging and artistic film projects by using some of the incredible, diverse talent with which he's shared a career.

Craig Conway was born in 1975 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, England, UK. He is an actor and producer, known for Doomsday (2008), Dog Soldiers (2002) and Broken (2016). He has been married to Brooke Laing since 2016. He was previously married to Jill Halfpenny.

Sarah Millican was born on 29 May 1975 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, England, UK. She is a writer and actress, known for QI (2003), The Sarah Millican Television Programme (2012) and Sarah Millican: Bobby Dazzler (2023). She has been married to Gary Delaney since December 2013. She was previously married to Andrew Millican.

Jean Southern was born on 14 January 1927 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001), Finney (1994) and Vera (2011).

Catherine Cookson was born on 27 June 1906 in Tyne Dock, South Shields, England, UK. She was a writer, known for Jacqueline (1956), Colour Blind (1998) and The Secret (2000). She was married to Tom Cookson. She died on 11 June 1998 in London, England, UK.

Perrie Edwards was born on 10 July 1993 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, England, UK. She is an actress and director, known for Pitch Perfect 2 (2015), Little Mix Feat. Sharaya J: Strip (2018) and The Best Man Holiday (2013).

George Irving was born on 6 May 1954 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, England, UK. He is an actor, known for This Year Next Year (1977), Midsomer Murders (1997) and EastEnders (1985). He has been married to Jan Sargent since 1978. They have one child.

Berwick Kaler was born in 1946 in South Shields, England, UK. He is an actor, known for A Knight's Tale (2001), Bloodthirsty Butchers (1970) and Spender (1991).

Jade Amelia Thirlwall was born on December 26, 1992 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, England. She is a member of the British girl group Little Mix, along with Perrie Edwards and Leigh-Anne Pinnock. The band won The X Factor 2011, but she had actually auditioned for the show in both 2008 and 2010. She was sent home both times due to lack of confidence.

Lindsay Kemp was born on 3 May 1938 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, England, UK. He was an actor and writer, known for The Wicker Man (1973), Velvet Goldmine (1998) and Pierrot in Turquoise or The Looking Glass Murders (1970). He died on 25 August 2018 in Livorno, Tuscany, Italy.

Anna Foster was born on 28 November 1979 in South Shields, Tyne & Wear, England, UK. She is an actress, known for One Night (2012), Spoof! (2004) and Bulletin (2014). She has been married to Steven Foster since July 2003. They have three children.

Sophie Kasaei was born on 8 November 1989 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, England, UK.

Edward was educated at South Shields Grammar Tech1958 -65, Manchester University 1967 -1970 BA Hons 1970 and is the chair of the Northern Electric Arts Awards, On the board of Northern Stage Co .,Royal Overseas League, British Actors Equity, Directors Guild of Great Britain. He appeared in the television series When the Boat Comes In and Rockcliffes Babies

Geoffrey Davion was born on 27 January 1940 in South Shields, Tyne & Wear, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Miss Marple: The Moving Finger (1985), The Stars Look Down (1974) and Clockwise (1986). He died on 13 February 1996 in Westminster, London, England, UK.

Dale Meeks was born in 1975 in South Shields, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Catherine Cookson's Tilly Trotter (1999), The Wingless Bird (1997) and Emmerdale Farm (1972). He died on 22 April 2023 in South Shields, Tyneside, England, UK.

Joe is from South Shields in North East England. He is a keen runner and has participated in the Great North Run 3 times along with the Sport Relief Mile. He is highly involved in many charities including Variety UK, The Hunger Project and The Teenage Cancer Trust. Due to this, he is the youngest ever recipient of Variety's "Silver Heart" Award. Despite spending much of his time traveling the country or in London, he still often returns to South Shields and owns a house in the town. Joe is an accomplished songwriter and has worked with many highly respected artists such as Marcella Detroit and Ludovico Eunialdi.

Hal Walters was born on 29 January 1892 in South Shields, Durham, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Yes, Madam (1933), The Vulture (1937) and The Viper (1938). He died on 7 September 1940 in London, England, UK.

Bill Gavin was born on 8 January 1915 in South Shields, Tyne & Wear, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Theban Plays by Sophocles (1986), Biography (1970) and Killer (1983). He died on 24 December 1995 in Bracknell, Berkshire, England, UK.

Frank Williams was born on 16 April 1942 in South Shields, County Durham, England, UK. He is known for Senna (2010), Horizon (1964) and Williams (2017). He was married to Virginia Berry. He died on 28 November 2021 in Surrey, England, UK.

Leslie Randall was born on 19 October 1924 in South Shields, Durham, England, UK. He was an actor and director, known for Goal! The Dream Begins (2005), Joan and Leslie (1969) and Goal II: Living the Dream (2007). He was married to Brenda Hart and Joan Reynolds. He died on 2 August 2020.