'Over 150 Years Old' and still going strong! - Ffestiniog Railway's 'Prince' at Penrhyn - 13.5.2022
George Stephenson Monument IMG_8957
Abbatiale Sainte-Valérie, Chambon-sur-Voueize (23)
Weymouth
Philip's Park Cemetery, Manchester. George Herford 1917
Krabbenwaschbär (Procyon cancrivorus)
Krabbenwaschbär (Procyon cancrivorus)
Krabbenwaschbär (Procyon cancrivorus)
Krabbenwaschbär (Procyon cancrivorus)
Krabbenwaschbär (Procyon cancrivorus)
Krabbenwaschbär (Procyon cancrivorus)
They Come By Appointment
Rupert EverettRupert Everett (1959) grew up in privileged circumstances, but the wry, sometimes arrogant intellectual was a rebel from the very beginning. He had his breakthrough in Another Country (1984) as an openly gay student at an English public school in the 1930s. He has since appeared in many other films including The Comfort of Strangers (1990), My Best Friend's Wedding (1997) and An Ideal Husband (1999).
Rupert James Hector Everett was born in Burnham Deepdale, Great Britain to Major Anthony Michael Everett and his wife Sara née Maclean. He has a brother, Simon Anthony Cunningham Everett. Everett was brought up as a Roman Catholic. From the age of seven, Everett was educated at Farleigh School, Hampshire, and from the age of thirteen was educated by Benedictine monks at Ampleforth College, Yorkshire. At this prestigious Roman Catholic public school. he trained classically on the piano. He dropped out of school at 16 and ran away to London to become an actor. In order to support himself, he worked as a male prostitute for drugs and money. After being dismissed from the Central School of Speech and Drama ((University of London) for clashing with his teachers, he travelled to Scotland and got a job at the avant-garde Citizens' Theatre in Glasgow. Everett's break came in 1981 at the Greenwich Theatre and later West End production of 'Another Country', playing a gay schoolboy opposite Kenneth Branagh. His character, Guy Bennett, is based on the double agent Guy Burgess. The play was filmed, Another Country (Marek Kanievska, 1984) with Cary Elwes and Colin Firth. Brian J. Dillard at AllMovie: “Rupert Everett and Colin Firth give strong, economical performances as the homosexual dandy and the fervent Marxist who, for different reasons, chafe at the restrictions of their society. Both characters are callow and self-absorbed, but Firth's principled thinker and Everett's ambitious romantic undergo subtle transformations that make them ultimately sympathetic.” He followed on with Dance With a Stranger (Mike Newell, 1985), based on the true story of Ruth Ellis (Portrayed by Miranda Richardson), the last woman to be executed in England. In Italy, he starred in the Gabriel Garcia Marquez adaptation Cronaca di una morte annunciata/ Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Francesco Ros, 1987i) with Ornella Muti. Everett began to develop a promising film career until he co-starred with Bob Dylan in the huge flop Hearts of Fire (Richard Marquand, 1987). Around the same time, Everett recorded and released an album of pop songs entitled Generation of Loneliness. Despite being managed by the largely successful pop svengali Simon Napier-Bell (who steered Wham! to international fame), the public didn't take to his change in direction. The shift was short-lived, and he would only return to pop indirectly by providing backing vocals for his friend Madonna on her 1999 cover of 'American Pie' and on the track 'They Can't Take That Away from Me' on Robbie Williams' 'Swing When You're Winning' in 2001. Following this flop, Everett disappeared for a while, taking up residence in Paris and writing a semi-autobiographical novel, 'Hello, Darling, Are You Working?'. He also came out as gay.
Rupert Everett returned to the screen opposite Christopher Walken and Helen Mirren in The Comfort of Strangers (Paul Schrader, 1990). He was successful as the fat and lazy Prince of Wales (the later George IV) in The Madness of King George (Nicholas Hytner, 1994), and appeared among the all star cast of Prêt-à-Porter (Robert Altman, 1994). The Italian comics character Dylan Dog, created by Tiziano Sclavi, is graphically inspired by him. Everett appeared in a film adaptation, Dellamorte Dellamore/Cemetery Man (Michele Soavi, 1994) as a killer of zombies. In 1995 he released a second novel, 'The Hairdressers of St. Tropez'. His film career was revitalized by his award-winning performance in the comedy My Best Friend's Wedding (P.J. Hogan, 1997), playing Julia Roberts's gay friend. Robert Firsching at AllMovie: “Rupert Everett is terrific as Roberts' gay confidant, and there are some surprising scenes, including a woman with her tongue stuck to an ice sculpture in a most untoward location. It was a huge hit at the box office, with enough genuine romance to satisfy purists and enough bite for those with a slightly different attitude.”Everett has since appeared in a number of high-profile film roles, including as Christopher Marlowe in Shakespeare in Love (John Madden, 1998), Lord Arthur Goring in An Ideal Husband (Oliver Parker, 1999) and Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Michael Hoffman, 1999). In 1999, he also played Madonna's best friend in The Next Best Thing (John Schlesinger. 1999), and the villainous Sanford Scolex/Dr. Claw in Disney's Inspector Gadget (David Kellogg, 1999) with Matthew Broderick.
Rupert Everett became a Vanity Fair contributing editor and wrote a film screenplay on playwright Oscar Wilde's final years. He also appeared in another film adaptation of a Wilde play, The Importance of Being Earnest (Oliver Parker, 2002) with Colin Firth. Later roles include his royal portrayals in To Kill a King (Mike Barker, 2003) and Stage Beauty (Richard Eyre, 2004), In 2006, he published a memoir, 'Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins', in which he revealed he had a six-year affair with British television presenter Paula Yates. Since then, Everett lead the 2007 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, played a double role in the film St. Trinian's (Oliver Parker, Barnaby Thompson, 2007) and the sequel St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold (Oliver Parker, Barnaby Thompson, 2009), and has appeared several times on TV, causing regularly some outrage. In recent years, Everett has returned to his acting roots appearing in several theatre productions; He made his Broadway debut in 2009 in the Noël Coward play 'Blithe Spirit', starring alongside Angela Lansbury. During the summer of 2010, he played in a revival of 'Pygmalion' as Professor Henry Higgins at the Chichester Festival Theatre and reprised this role in 2011, at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End, starring alongside Diana Rigg as Higgins's mother and Kara Tointon as Eliza.
Rupert Everett went on to play Oscar Wilde in 'The Judas Kiss' in 2013 and was about to play George on Broadway in 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' when the play closed before it officially opened due to the COVID pandemic in 2020. On TV, he played the effortlessly suave Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking (2004), the Marquis de Feron in the British series The Musketeers (2014) and Carroll Quinn in a second British series Adult Material (2020). Known for his aloof handsomeness and often smug, piss-elegant characters, he engagingly portrayed a jet-setter in the contemporary film People (2004); provided the voice of the unprincely Prince Charming in the animated features Shrek 2 (2004) and Shrek de 3e (2007); played a British defector opposite Sharon Stone in the romantic thriller A Different Loyalty (2004) and a millionaire playboy involved in a hit-and-run in Separate Lies (2005). He also has a part in the comedy film Wild Target (Jonathan Lynn, 2010), starring Bill Nighy, and the comedy Hysteria (Tanya Wexler, 2011) about the first vibrator. He appeared as King George VI (father of Queen Elizabeth) opposite Emily Watson's Queen Mum in the romantic dramedy A Royal Night Out (2015). He also played a monsignor in If I Had a Heart (2013); and tortured gay playwright Oscar Wilde during his last days in The Happy Prince (2018), which he wrote and directed. Although Rupert Everett urged in 2009 gay stars not to 'come out' and to keep their sexuality a secret as it could end their film career’, he himself is a living testament disproving the theory that a truly talented and successful romantic leading man cannot survive the career-killing stigma of being openly gay.
Sources: Brian J. Dillard (AllMovie), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards .
William HoldenWilliam Holden (1918-1981) was called 'The Golden Boy' thanks to his first starring role as a young man torn between the violin and boxing in Golden Boy (1939). From then on he was typecast as the boy-next-door. After returning from World War II military service, he got two important roles: Joe Gillis, the gigolo, in Sunset Blvd. (1950), and the tutor in Born Yesterday (1950). These were followed by his Oscar-winning role as the cynical sergeant in Stalag 17 (1953). He stayed popular through the 1950s, appearing in such films as Picnic (1955) and The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).
William 'Bill' Holden was born William Franklin Beedle Jr. in O'Fallon, Illinois, in 1918. Holden grew up in a wealthy family, which moved to Pasadena when Holden was three. His father, William Franklin Beedle, Sr., was an industrial chemist, head of the George W. Gooch Laboratories in Pasadena and his mother, Mary Blanche (Ball), a teacher. His father, a keen physical fitness enthusiast, taught young Bill the art of tumbling and boxing. He went to study chemistry at Pasadena Junior College. A trip to New York and Broadway set Bill's path firmly toward an acting career. He had already performed in school plays and lent his voice to several radio plays in Los Angeles. When he played the part of octogenarian Eugene Curie at the Pasadena Workshop Theatre, he was spotted by a Paramount talent scout. In 1938, he made his feature film debut with a role in Prison Farm. Having joined Paramount's Golden Circle Club of promising young actors, Bill was now groomed for stardom. However, it was a loan-out to Columbia that secured him his breakthrough role. He was the sixty-sixth actor to audition for the part of an Italian violinist forced to become a boxer in Golden Boy (Rouben Mamoulian, 1939) opposite Barbara Stanwyck and Adolphe Menjou. The picture was a minor hit and Columbia consequently acquired half his contract. Since then, he was cast many times as the 'boy-next-door' or a rookie serviceman in pictures like Our Town (Sam Wood, 1940), I Wanted Wings (Mitchell Leisen, 1941) opposite 'peek-a-boo' star Veronica Lake, and The Fleet's In (Victor Schertzinger, 1942). His salary had been enhanced and he now earned $150 a week. In July 1941, he married 25-year old actress Brenda Marshall, who commanded five times his income. In 1942, he enlisted in the Officers Candidate School in Florida, graduating as an Air Force second lieutenant. He spent the next three years on P.R. duties and making training films for the Office of Public Information. One of his brothers, a naval pilot, was shot down and killed over the Pacific in 1943.
After the war, William Holden got two very important roles. He played caddish, down-on-his-luck scriptwriter Joe Gillis in Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950) and a teacher in Born Yesterday (George Cukor, 1950). I.S. Mowis at IMDb: "Holden had effectively graduated from leading man to leading actor. No longer typecast, he was now allowed more hard-edged or even morally ambiguous roles." His Oscar-winning role was that of a self-serving, cynical prisoner-of-war in Stalag 17 (Billy Wilder, 1953). Throughout the 1950s, Holden remained popular, thanks in part to films such as Sabrina (Billy Wilder, 1954) with Audrey Hepburn, The Bridges at Toko-Ri (Mark Robson, 1954), and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (Henry King, 1955). In Picnic (Joshua Logan, 1955) he played an unemployed drifter who disrupts and changes the lives (particularly of the women) in a small Kansas town. Already one of the highest paid stars of the 1950s, Holden received 10% of the gross for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), making him an instant multi-millionaire. He invested much of his earnings in various enterprises, even a radio station in Hong Kong. At the end of the decade, he relocated his family to Geneva, Switzerland, but spent more and more of his own time globetrotting. In the 1960s, Holden founded the exclusive Mount Kenya Safari Club with oil billionaire Ray Ryan and Swiss financier Carl Hirschmann. His fervent advocacy of wildlife conservation now consumed more of his time than his acting. His films, consequently, dropped in quality. I.S. Mowis: "Drinking ever more heavily, he also started to show his age. By the time he appeared as the leader of an outlaw gang on their last roundup in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969), his face was so heavily lined that someone likened it to "a map of the United States. He still had a couple more good performances in him", in The Towering Inferno (John Guillermin, 1974) with Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, and Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976) opposite Faye Dunaway. His last film was the excellent comedy S.O.B. (Blake Edwards, 1981) with Julie Andrews. William Holden married actress Brenda Marshall in 1941, from whom he divorced in 1971. They had two children, born in 1943 (Peter) and 1946 (Scott). Holden also had a daughter, Virginia, from a previous marriage. Virginia was not Holden's child, but he adopted her. Holden was good friends with fellow actor Ronald Reagan. In 1952, he and his wife were best men at the wedding of Reagan and Nancy Davis. However, he had no interest in politics. In 1981, William Holden died from a head injury caused by a fall. Holden had drunk too much and remained conscious for at least half an hour after his fall. He did not realise that he had to call an ambulance, otherwise, he would certainly have survived.
Sources: I.S. Mowis (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards .
USA vintage matchbook covers circa 1955 featuring Budweiser Clydesdales and 'Seahorse' outboard motors - "Fine Equines"
St Mary's Walking Day, Cadishead.
5/12 George
Northern Ireland's Greatest Footballers.
"Sandy Chance" center, George Harrison Marks & Monique Devereaux UK (1967) Hi Rezzz
"Sandy Chance" far right, George Harrison Marks & Monique Devereaux, UK (1967) HI REZZ
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