Who is Laurence Fishburne?

Laurence Fishburne

Laurence John Fishburne is an American actor of screen and stage, as well as a playwright, director, and producer. Fishburne was born in Augusta, Georgia, on July 30, 1961, the son of Hattie Bell, a junior high school mathematics and science teacher, and Laurence John Fishburne, Jr., a juvenile corrections officer. His parents divorced during his childhood and he moved with his mother to Brooklyn, New York.

Career

Layrence Fishburne started acting at the age of twelve, getting his first job in 1973 but his real career started during the 80s when he had a minor role in Steven Spielberg film The Color Purple. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Morpheus in the Matrix science fiction film trilogy, and as singer-musician Ike Turner in the Tina Turner biopic What's Love Got to Do With It. He became the first African American to portray Othello in a motion picture by a major studio when he appeared in Oliver Parker's 1995 film adaption of the Shakespearean play. Currently, he stars as Dr. Raymond Langston on the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Family

Fishburne married actress Hajna O. Moss in 1985, in New York. They have two children together: a son, Langston, born in 1987, and a daughter, Montana, born in 1991, a pornographic actress. Fishburne is now married to actress Gina Torres, whom he wed on September 22, 2002. They have a child, Delilah (born in 2007), and live in Hollywood.

Scandal

Fishburne's daughter became a pornographic actress and released her first adult video. She told the press:

"I hope it's not hurting him. It wasn't done to hurt him," Montana tells PEOPLE. "But I think it will take time and talking through the issues. Eventually, I hope he will be proud of me."

Montana filmed the video, under the alias Chippy D, before telling her family, so they couldn't try to talk her out of it.

"Being in an adult film is not a big deal to me," Montana says. "It's something I always wanted to do. I have always been comfortable in my body and with my sexuality."

Laurence Fishburne reportedly reacted with "stunned silence" when he heard the news.

Project

Fishburne is a big fan of Paulo Coelho and plans to produce a movie based on the novel, The Alchemist.

Who is Aristotle?

Aristotle

Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), whose writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology, was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.

Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics.

Aristotle's life

• Aristotle was born in Stageira, Chalcidice, in 384 BC, about 55 km (34 miles) east of modern-day Thessaloniki. 
• His father Nicomachus was the personal physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. 
• Aristotle was trained and educated as a member of the aristocracy. 
• At about the age of eighteen, he went to Athens to continue his education at Plato's Academy. 
• Aristotle remained at the academy for nearly twenty years before quitting Athens in 348/47 BC.
• He then traveled with Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor. 
• Aristotle married Hermias's adoptive daughter (or niece) Pythias. 
• She bore him a daughter, whom they named Pythias. Soon after Hermias' death, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander the Great in 343 BC
• Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. During that time he gave lessons not only to Alexander, but also to two other future kings: Ptolemy and Cassander. 
• By 335 BC he had returned to Athens, establishing his own school there known as the Lyceum. Aristotle conducted courses at the school for the next twelve years. *
• While in Athens, his wife Pythias died and Aristotle became involved with Herpyllis of Stageira, who bore him a son whom he named after his father, Nicomachus.
• It is during this period in Athens from 335 to 323 BC when Aristotle is believed to have composed many of his works.
• Aristotle not only studied almost every subject possible at the time, but made significant contributions to most of them.
• The works that have survived are in treatise which include Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, De Anima (On the Soul) and Poetics. 
•  Near the end of Alexander's life, Alexander began to suspect plots against himself, and threatened Aristotle in letters. A widespread tradition in antiquity suspected Aristotle of playing a role in Alexander's death, but there is little evidence for this
•  Upon Alexander's death, anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens once again flared. Aristotle fled the city to his mother's family estate in Chalcis, explaining, "I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy, a reference to Athens's prior trial and execution of Socrates.
• However, he died in Euboea of natural causes within the year (in 322 BC). Aristotle named chief executor his student Antipater and left a will in which he asked to be buried next to his wife. 

Source: Wikipedia

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Who is Antoine de Saint-Exupery

• Saint-Exupery, Antoine de (1900-1944), was a French writer and aviator. He is best known for his novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince), and for his books about aviation adventures, including Night Flight and Wind, Sand and Stars.
• He was a successful commercial pilot before World War II, 
• He joined the Armée de l'Air (French Air Force) on the outbreak of war.
• He disappeared on a reconnaissance flight over the Mediterranean in July 1944.

Early life

• Antoine de Saint Exupéry was born in Lyon to an old family of provincial nobility, the third of five children of Marie de Fonscolombe and Viscount Jean de Saint Exupéry, an insurance broker who died before his son was even four.
• After failing his final exams at preparatory school, Saint-Exupéry entered the École des Beaux-Arts to study architecture.
• In 1921, Saint Exupery began his military service with the 2nd Regiment of Chasseurs (light cavalry), and was then sent to Strasbourg for training as a pilot. 
• The following year, he obtained his license and was offered transfer to the air force. 
• He became one of the pioneers of international postal flight, in the days when aircraft had few instruments.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery's Crash

On 30 December 1935 at 14:45 after a flight of 19 hours and 38 minutes Saint-Exupéry, along with his navigator, André Prévot, crashed in the Libyan Sahara desert en route to Saigon.They survived the crash and Exupéry's fable The Little Prince, which begins with a pilot being marooned in the desert, is in part a reference to this experience.

Selected books

• L'aviateur (The Aviator, 1926)
• Courrier sud (Southern Mail, 1929)
• Vol de nuit (Night Flight, 1931) 
• Terre des Hommes (Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939)
• Pilote de Guerre (Flight to Arras, 1942 )
• Lettre à un Otage (Letter to a Hostage, 1943) 
• Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince, 1943)
• Citadelle (The Wisdom of the Sands, posthumous - 1948),

who is Tahar Benjeloun?

Tahar Benjeloun is a Moroccan novelist and poet. The entirety of his work is written in French, although his first language is Arabic.

Early life and studies

• Tahar benjeloun was born in Fes on December 1st, 1944.
• After first having attended the local coranic school, he switched to the bilingual (French-Moroccan) primary school the age of 6.
• Ben Jalloun studied French in Tangier, Morocco until he was 18 years old.
• He obtained my baccalaureate in 1963 and continued his studies in philosophy at Mohammed-V University in Rabat.
• On March 23, 1965 because of student demonstrations in larger Moroccan cities there were a lot of repression and arrests.
• On July 1966 his philosophy studies were interrupted; he was sent to a disciplinary camp run by the army together with 94 other students suspected of having organized the March 65 demonstrations.
• In January 1968, he was liberated and returned to university.
• In October 1968 he got his first teaching assignment. The same year he published his first poem “l’Aube des dalles” in the magazine “Souffles”. He wrote the poem in secret at the camp.
• After this point, he worked as a teacher in Morocco, teaching philosophy first in Tetouan and then in Casablanca. 
• Then he left teaching after the arabization of the philosophy department, unable or unwilling to teach in Arabic. He moved to Paris to continue his studies in psychology, and began to write more extensively. 
• Starting in 1972, he began to write articles and reviews for the French newspaper [Le Monde], and in 1975 he received his doctorate in social psychiatry. Using his experience with psychotherapy as both a reference and an inspiration, he wrote the book La Réclusion solitaire in 1976.
• n 1985 he published the novel "L'Enfant de sable," which was widely celebrated. He won the Prix Goncourt in 1987 for his novel La Nuit Sacrée. 
• In 1997 he saw his novel Le Racisme expliqué à ma fille published, wherein he "explains racism to his daughter," using his family as inspiration for his novels. Ben Jalloun is regularly asked to give speeches and lectures at universities worldwide - both in Morocco, and all over Europe.
• In 2004 he was awarded the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for This Blinding Absence of Light (translated from the French by Linda Coverdale). He was rewarded the Prix Ulysse in 2005 for the entirety of his work
• In September 2006, he was awarded a special prize for "peace and friendship between people" at Lazio between Europe and the Mediterranean Festival.
• On 1 February 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy awarded him the Cross of Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur.
• Ben Jelloun is married and father of 4 children. He lives in Paris.
• In his novel, Leaving Tangier, Ben Jelloun writes about a Moroccan brother and sister who leave their impoverished home in search of better lives in Spain.
• His novels L'Enfant de sable and La Nuit sacrée are translated into 43 languages. Le racism expliqué à ma fille has been translated into 33 languages. He has participated in translating many of his works.  

Selected works

• Solitaire (1976)
• The Sand Child (1985)
• The Sacred Night (1987)
• Silent Day in Tangiers (1990)
• With Downcast Eyes (1991)
• Corruption (1995)
• The Fruits of Hard Work (1996)
• Praise of Friendship (1996)
• L'Auberge des pauvres, (1997)
• Racism Explained to My Daughter (1998)
• Islam Explained (2002)
• This Blinding Absence of Light (2003)
• La Belle au bois dormant, (2004)
• The last friend, (2006)
• Yemma, (2007)
• Leaving Tangier, (2009)
• The Rising of the Ashes, (2009)

Source:Wikipedia and Tahar Benjelloun's official site

Barack Hussein Obama

Early life

• Barack Obama was born to a white American mother, Ann Dunham, and a black Kenyan father, Barack Obama Sr.
• They were both young college students at the University of Hawaii. 
• When his father left for Harvard, Barack Obama and his mother stayed behind
• His father ultimately returned alone to Kenya, where he worked as a government economist. 
• Barack's mother remarried an Indonesian oil manager and moved to Jakarta when Barack was six. 
• He later recounted Indonesia as simultaneously lush and poor.
• He returned to Hawaii, where he was brought up largely by his grandparents. 
• The family lived in a small apartment - his grandfather was a furniture salesman and an unsuccessful insurance agent and his grandmother worked in a bank.
• Barack managed to get into Punahou School, Hawaii's top prep academy. 
• His father wrote to him regularly but, though he traveled around the world on official business for Kenya, he visited only once, when Barack was ten.

University and Politics

• Obama attended Columbia University, where he majored in political science with a specialty in international relations and graduated with a B.A. in 1983.
• After four years in New York City, Obama was hired in Chicago as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland  on Chicago's far South Side. He worked there as a community organizer from June 1985 to May 1988
• He spent these three years helping poor South Side residents cope with a wave of plant closings.
• He then attended Harvard Law School, and in 1990 became the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review. 
• He also began teaching at the University of Chicago Law School, and married Michelle Robinson, a fellow attorney. 
• Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, succeeding State Senator Alice Palmer as Senator from Illinois's 13th District, which at that time spanned Chicago South Side neighborhoods from Hyde Park – Kenwood south to South Shore and west to Chicago Lawn

President

• In 2004 Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat, representing Illinois, and he gained national attention by giving a rousing and well-received keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. 
• On February 10, 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for president of the United States in front of the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois The choice of the announcement site was viewed as symbolic because it was also where Abraham Lincoln delivered his historic "House Divided" speech in 1858. Throughout the campaign, Obama emphasized the issues of rapidly ending the Iraq War, increasing energy independence and providing universal health care.
• A large number of candidates entered the Democratic Party presidential primaries. The field narrowed to a duel between Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
• On June 3, with all states counted, Obama was named the presumptive nominee and delivered a victory speech in St. Paul, Minnesota. Clinton ended her campaign and endorsed him on June 7, 2008.
• Obama proceeded to focus on the general election campaign against Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.
• Barack Obama won the race for presidency. In January 2009, he was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, and the first African-American ever elected to that position.

Gabriel García Márquez

 

Gabriel García Márquez

• Gabriel García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist.  
• García Márquez, affectionately known as Gabo throughout Latin America, is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. 

Early life

• Gabriel José de la Concordia "Gabo" García Márquez was born March 6, 1927.
• When his parents fell in love, their relationship met with resistance from Luisa Santiaga Marquez's father, the Colonel. 
• Gabriel Eligio García was not the man the Colonel had envisioned winning the heart of his daughter: he (Gabriel Eligio) was a Conservative, and had the reputation of being a womanizer.
• He was brought up by his grandparents who had an important influence on his education.
  

Success

• In 1958, he married Mercedes Barcha; they have two sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo.
•  He pursued a self-directed education that resulted in his leaving law school for a career in journalism.
•  He started as a journalist, and has written many acclaimed non-fiction works and short stories, but is best-known for his novels, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985).
• From early on, he showed no inhibitions in his criticism of Colombian and foreign politics.
• Gabriel García Márquez was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. 
• His works have achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing a literary style labeled as magical realism, which uses magical elements and events in otherwise ordinary and realistic situations. 
• Some of his works are set in a fictional village called Macondo, and most of them express the theme of solitude.

Illness

• Gabriel García Márquez was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in 1999. 
• His impeding death was was incorrectly announced by Peruvian daily newspaper in 2000. 
• Later newspapers published Garcia Marquez’s alleged farewell poem, “La Marioneta” (“the puppet”). 
• However shortly afterwards García Márquez denied being the author of the poem. 
• In fact, it was was the work of a Mexican ventriloquist. The poem is republished below. I think it may constitute a very good piece of material to teach English.

Works

Novels

• In Evil Hour 1962
• One Hundred Years of Solitude 1967
• The Autumn of the Patriarch 1975
• Love in the Time of Cholera 1985
• The General in His Labyrinth 1989
• Of Love and Other Demons 1994

Novellas

• Leaf Storm 1955
• No One Writes to the Colonel published 1961 in Spanish (written in 1956-1957)
• Chronicle of a Death Foretold 1981
• Memories of My Melancholy Whores 2004

Short Story Collections

• Innocent Eréndira, and Other Stories 1978
• Collected Stories 1984
• Strange Pilgrims 1993

Non Fiction

• The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor 1970
• The Solitude of Latin America 1982
• The Fragrance of Guava 1982, with Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza
• Clandestine in Chile 1986
• News of a Kidnapping 1996
• A Country for Children 1998
• Living to Tell the Tale 2002

Related Links about Gabriel García Márquez

• Wikipedia
• Gabriel García Márquez - Alleged poem

Who is Lionel Andrés Messi?

Lionel Andrés Messi

• Lionel Andrés Messi was born on June 24th 1987.
• He is an Argentine footballer who currently plays for Barcelona and the Argentine national team. 
• He is one of the best football players of his generation.
• Lionel Messi is frequently considered as the world's best contemporary player. 
• Lionel Messi, whose playing style and ability have drawn comparisons to Diego Maradona, received Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year nominations by the age of 21 and won both by the age of 22.  
• Diego Maradona once declared that Messi was his "successor."

Early life

• Lionel Messi's talent was early detected by his father. When he began playing with the local team, his potential was quickly identified by Barcelona . 
• At the age of 11, he was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency, which is a medical condition in which the body does not produce enough growth hormone and whose treatment nessecitates a lot of money.

Barcelona

• He left Rosario-based Newell's Old Boys's youth team in 2000 and moved with his family to Europe, as Barcelona offered treatment for his growth hormone deficiency. 
• Making his debut in the 2004–05 season, he broke the La Liga record for the youngest footballer to play a league game, and also the youngest to score a league goal. 
• Major honours soon followed as Barcelona won La Liga in Messi's debut season, and won a double of the league and Champions League in 2006. 
• His breakthrough season was in 2006–07; he became a first team regular, scoring a hat-trick in El Clásico and finishing with 14 goals in 26 league games. 
• Perhaps his most successful season was the 2008–09 season, in which Messi scored 38 goals to play an integral part in a treble-winning campaign.

Success

• Messi was the top scorer of the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championship with six goals, including two in the final game. 
• Shortly thereafter, he became an established member of Argentina's senior international team. 
• In 2006, he became the youngest Argentine to play in the FIFA World Cup and he won a runners-up medal at the Copa América tournament the following year. 
• In 2008, in Beijing, he won his first international honour, an Olympic gold medal, with the Argentina Olympic football team.

Source: Wikipedia

Who is Charles Darwin?

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist who showed that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection. He published his theory with compelling evidence for evolution in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species

Early life

• Charles Robert Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England on 12 February 1809 at his family home, the Mount.
• Charles darwin was the fifth of six children of wealthy society doctor and financier Robert Darwin, and Susannah Darwin

Education

• In september 1818, he joined his older brother Erasmus attending the nearby Anglican Shrewsbury School as a boarder.
• In 1825, Darwin joined the University of Edinburgh in order to attend medical school. Not very enthusiastic about what he learns, he will leave the institution in 1827.
• In 1828, Darwin entered the University of Cambridge in order to become pastor of the Anglican Church. It was during this course that he will meet Adam Sedgwick and John Stevens Henslow. The two men awaken in him a passion for natural science.  

The Beagle expedition, the theory and the marriage

• On December 27, 1831, Darwin boarded the Beagle expedition for 5 years. The young naturalist traveling for 5 years on board the ship, taking a huge amount of information, observations and specimens. He set foot on many places like the islands of Cape Verde, Brazil, the southern coasts of America, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Tahiti, the Galapagos Islands, New Zealand, Australia, Tasmania, the Mauritius and the Azores. The voyage allowed him to make observations from which later he will develop the theory of evolution of species and natural selection.   
•  In January 1839, Darwin married his cousin  Emma Wedgwood with whom he had ten children. Tired of the turbulent world of London, Darwin decided, three years later to move with his family to a more peaceful place, to Down, Kent where he lived for the rest of his life.
• In January, 1839,  Darwin joined the Royal Society in London, after publishing the diary of his journey, entitled "Voyage of a naturalist around the world." 
• In January, 1839,  Darwin joined the Royal Society in London, after publishing the diary of his journey, entitled "Voyage of a naturalist around the world." 
• In 1858, Pressured by his friends Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker, Darwin argues, by mutual agreement with Alfred Russel Wallace, the theory on the evolution of species in the Linnean Society. Shortly before, Wallace had written a letter from Indonesia, which contained a text entitled "On the tendency of species to stand out indefinitely from the original model. When  Darwin received the mail and discovered that his colleague at the other end of the world, explained exactly or almost his own theory, they joint effortes to work together. 
• On November 24, 1859, Darwin publishes "On the Origin of Species" The British naturalist Charles Darwin publishes "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the struggle for existence in nature" which is recieved a tremendous success. .He explained that the species descended from the same ancestors and have evolved according to the principle of natural selection. Darwin meant by "natural selection" the fact that nature selects the fittest to survive in the environment, to improve the species. This natural process thus determines the evolution of each species, since the characteristics that have promoted survival are constantly transmitted from generation to generation. 

Who is Michael Jackson?

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson (also refered to as the king of pop) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, actor, choreographer, poet, businessman, philanthropist and record producer. He was born on August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana, an industrial suburb of Chicago.

Early Life

His mother, Katherine used to work in a store. His father, Joseph Jackson, was a minor and also a musician in a band called The Falcons. He was a violent and authoritarian father. Michael, his five brothers (Tito, Jackie, Marlon, Jermaine and Randy) and his 3 three sisters (Maureen, Janet and La Toya) were strictly educated and did not have much freedom. Michale reported that his father used to whip him and sometimes abused him verballyJackson, saying that he had a fat nose on numerous occasions.

The Jackson 5

Michael and Marlon joined the Jackson Brothers – a band formed by brothers Jackie, Tito, and Jermaine. When he was eight, Jackson began sharing the lead vocals with his older brother Jermaine, and the group's name was changed to The Jackson 5. They participated in many contests and won all the prizes. The band toured the Midwest extensively from 1966 to 1968, frequently performing at a string of black clubs known as the "chitlin' circuit". The Jackson 5 recorded several songs, including "Big Boy", for the local record label Steeltown in 1967, before signing with Motown Records in 1968. Rolling Stone magazine later described the young Michael as "a prodigy" with "overwhelming musical gifts," writing that he "quickly emerged as the main draw and lead singer.
In June 1975, the Jackson 5 signed with Epic Records, a subsidiary of CBS Records and renamed themselves the Jacksons. Younger brother Randy formally joined the band around this time, while Jermaine left to pursue a solo career. They continued to tour internationally, releasing six more albums between 1976 and 1984, during which Jackson was the lead songwriter, writing hits such as "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)", "This Place Hotel," and "Can You Feel It"

Solo career

he teamed up with Quincy Jones, who agreed to produce Jackson's next solo album, Off the Wall. It was the first album to generate four U.S. top 10 hits, including the chart-topping singles "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough" and "Rock with You." In 1982, Jackson released what proved to be by far the biggest album of his career, and arguably the biggest pop album ever by any artist - Thriller. It was the first album to have seven Billboard Hot 100 top 10 singles, including "Billie Jean", "Beat It," and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'."
Later, he debuted his signature dance move, the moonwalk.
On January 27, 1984, Michael and other members of the Jacksons filmed a Pepsi Cola commercial.  In front of a full house of fans during a simulated concert, pyrotechnics accidentally set Jackson's hair on fire. He suffered second-degree burns to his scalp. Jackson underwent treatment to hide the scars on his scalp, and he also had his third rhinoplasty shortly thereafter.
A release of  Bad (1987), was highly anticipated. Although  Bad was a great success in its own right, it did not top Thriller as a commercial or artistic triumph. Then a series of success and tours followed.

The media

The media couldn't remain indiferrent to these successes.They reported extensively on  his private lifewhich they displayed for the public. There were a lot of reports and comments on his physical transformations and disease. The rumors were revived in May 2009, when the singer went on numerous occasions in institutions specializing in the treatment of skin cancers.
His private life was also under a lot of speculations. The media were interestd in his a brief marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, his union with his nurse, Deborah Rowe who gave him two children, a boy, named Prince and a little girl named Paris, allegation about child sexual abuse.

The end of an eventful life

On March 5, 2009, the center of financial problems, Michael Jackson finally announced a series of 50 concerts in London starting in July 2009. This event would mark his return on stage for the first time since 2002. Nevertheless, many pessimistic voices expressed in the media about the singer's ability to provide these concerts. In May 2009, Michael Jackson decided to postpone the first concerts to better prepare''shows.''

Unfortunately, while his fans were looking foward to attending the event, the joy of finding Michael in concert will nevr occur agian. Michael suffered a heart attack on Thursday, June 25, 2009. Despite resuscitation performed by the emergency medical team, he has unfortunately not survived. It's the end of a beautiful and great musical history ...

Who is Rowan Sebastian Atkinson?

Rowan Sebastian Atkinson

The son of a farmer, the young Rowan Atkinson grew up in the family farm with his two brothers Rupert and Rodney. He subsequently joined the University of Newcastle and the prestigious University of Oxford, where he graduated in electrical engineering. During this period he met screenwriter Richard Curtis, with whom he co wrote many comedies which he performed throughout his career.

Radio and TV

In 1979, he co-wrote and made his debut as an actor in the program 'Not the Nine O'Clock News' which was a huge success. He then won an Emmy Award and a British Academy Award in 1980. Rowan Atkinson became a very popular British television comic .

Career in cinema

Rowan Arkinson makes his first appearance in cinema, in the James Bond "Never Say Never Again" in 1983. Alternating between television, stage and film, he returns to the big screen in 1989 with the movie "The Tall Guy". But it was with his awkward role as a priest in "Four Weddings and a Funeral, alongside Hugh Grant and Kristin Scott Thomas in 1994, taht the international public discovers Rowan Atkinson.
Mr Bean series, which is based on a character developed by Rowan Atkinson at university, is a huge success. The series followed the exploits of Mr. Bean, described by Atkinson as "a child in a grown man's body", who tries to solve problems presented by everyday tasks and often causes disruption in the process.
A movie, 'Bean', based on the series was produced in 1997. In 2002, he plays a villain in "Scooby-Doo" and portrays a hapless secret agent in "Johnny English". More films followed subsequently.

Who is Charlie Chaplin?

Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin

Early life

• Sir Charles Spencer (Charlie Chaplin) was an English comic actor and film director of the silent film era, and became one of the most well-known film stars in the world.
• He is well-known for his performances as the tramp and won, a sympathetic comic character with ill-fitting clothes and a moustach.
• He was born in a family of artists on 16 April 1889 in East Street, Walworth, London, England.
• His father, Charles Spencer Chaplin Sr, was a vocalist and an actor and his mother, Hannah Chaplin, was a singer and an actress.
• Chaplin's father, Charles Chaplin Sr., was an alcoholic and had little contact with his son. He died of cirrhosis of the liver when Charlie was twelve in 1901.
• Because their mother was mentally ill, Charlie and his half brother, Sydney, had to unite and struggle desperate poverty in order to survive.
• The two brothers gravitated to the Music Hall while still very young. They proved their natural stage talent.
• Chaplin's mother died in 1928 in Hollywood, seven years after having been brought to the U.S. by her sons.
• Charlie and Sydney didin't know that they had another half-brother through their mother until later until years later, Wheeler Dryden (1892–1957). The latter was briought up abroad by his father. He later joined Chaplin and Sydney and worked for them.

The United States

• During one of his tours to the United Staes, Chaplin was hired by Mac Sennet for his studio, the Keystone Film Company as a replacement for Ford Sterling.
• He performed in Making a living and later invented the tramp character which has become famous all over the world.
• The tramp was associated with the silent era and haplin resisted to make talking films until later in his career when he Chaplin made the tramp sing a nonesense song at the end of the movie.

The Tramp

"The Tramp" is a vagrant with the refined manners, clothes, and dignity of a gentleman. Charlie devised himself the costumes of the tramp.

"I had no idea what makeup to put on. I did not like my get-up as the press reporter [in Making a Living]. However on the way to the wardrobe I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a derby hat. I wanted everything to be a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large. I was undecided whether to look old or young, but remembering Sennett had expected me to be a much older man, I added a small moustache, which I reasoned, would add age without hiding my expression. I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the makeup made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked on stage he was fully born."

McCarthy era

Chaplin was accused of "un-American activities" as a suspected communist during the McCarthy era and some FBI officials kept extensive secret files on him and tried to end his United States residency. In 1952, Chaplin left the US for what was intended as a brief trip home to the United Kingdom for the London premiere of Limelight. But Chaplin decided not to re-enter the United States. He wrote:

".....Since the end of the last world war, I have been the object of lies and propaganda by powerful reactionary groups who, by their influence and by the aid of America's yellow press, have created an unhealthy atmosphere in which liberal-minded individuals can be singled out and persecuted. Under these conditions I find it virtually impossible to continue my motion-picture work, and I have therefore given up my residence in the United States."

Chaplin settled in Switzerland but later in 1972 retuned triumphantly to the United States to recieve an Honorary Oscar.

A list of the greatest films by Charlie Chaplin

1. Limelight
2. City Lights
3. The Great Dictator
4. Shoulder Arms
5. The Adventurer
6. Gold Rush
7. Monsieur Verdoux
8. A King in New York
9. Easy Street
10. One AM

Related links

• Wikipedia:Charlie Chaplin
  
• Revealed: The dark secrets about Charlie Chaplin's mother that fired his genius
• Biography for Charles Chaplin
  

Who is Ernest Hemingway?

Ernest Hemingway

• Ernest Hemingway was born and raised in Oak Park, Illinois on July 21, 1899.
• He was an American writer and journalist.
• When he left high school, he worked for a few months as a reporter.
• He later became an ambulance driver during World War I.
• His first novel, The Sun Also Rises>, was written in 1924.
• He returned to the United Sates in the following year because he was seriously wounded.
• Ernest Hemingway married 4 times.
  
• He first married Hadley Richardson in 1922 with whom he travelled to Paris.
• In Paris he met famous expatriate who who formed a community called the lost generation.
• After divorcing Hadley Richardson in 1927 Hemingway married Pauline Pfeiffer.
• They divorced following Hemingway's return from covering the Spanish Civil War.
• After the Spanish Civil war he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls.
• He then married Martha Gellhorn in 1940, but he left her for Mary Welsh Hemingway after World War II,
• During World War II, was present at D-Day and the liberation of Paris.
• In 1952 Hemingway went on safari to Africa, where he was almost killed in a plane crash that left him in pain or ill-health for much of the rest of his life.
• Before he went to Africa, he published The Old Man and the Sea. for which he got a Nobel Prize in 1954.
  
• In 1959 he moved from Cuba to Idaho, where he committed suicide in the summer of 1961.
• Hemingway's distinctive writing is called the iceberg theory is characterized by economy and understatement.
• Hemingway's fiction is considered successful because the characters he presents exhibit an authenticity that reverberates with the audience.

Works

Some of Ernest hemingway's works:

• "Indian Camp" (1926)
• The Sun Also Rises (1927)
• A Farewell to Arms (1929)
• "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" (1935)
• For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
• The Old Man and the Sea (1951)
• True at First Light (1999)

Who is Charles Baudelaire?

Charles Pierre Baudelaire

• Charles Baudelaire was born on April 9, 1821.
• He died on August 31, 1867.
• He was a nineteenth-century French poet, critic, and translator.
• Famous for his book of poetry Les fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil)
• Baudelaire's father, François Baudelaire, a senior civil servant and amateur artist, was 34 years older than his mother, Caroline.
  
• Baudelaire's father died during his childhood and remained very close to his mother.
• Charles Baudelaire's relationship with his mother was comlex and dominated his life.
• His mother married Lieutenant Colonel Jacques Aupick a year after his father's death.
• Charles Baudelaire was forced to to board away from his mother (even during holidays) and accept his stepfather's rigid methods.
• Baudelaire
  
• Baudelaire's stepfather was concerned about his future.
• At 18 years old, Charles was still undecided about his future.
• He began to frequent prostitutes.
  
• Trying to change Charles' mind and behavior, his stepfather sent him to India.
• The arduous trip, however, did nothing to turn Baudelaire's mind away from a literary career or from his casual attitude toward life.
• He retuned home and spent a life of and squandred his money and his inheritance and even gone into depth.
• The most important work Baudelaire wrote was "Les fleurs du mal". When it was first published it was criticised and found a small, appreciative audience. But later "Les fleurs du mal" was supported by a number of notables like Victor Hugo and Flaubert
  

Charles Baudelaire's Work

BEAUTY
by: Charles Baudelaire

AM as lovely as a dream in stone,

And this my heart where each finds death in turn,

Inspires the poet with a love as lone

As clay eternal and as taciturn.




Swan-white of heart, a sphinx no mortal knows,

My throne is in the heaven's azure deep;

I hate all movements that disturb my pose,

I smile not ever, neither do I weep.




Before my monumental attitudes,

That breathe a soul into the plastic arts,

My poets pray in austere studious moods,




For I, to fold enchantment round their hearts,

Have pools of light where beauty flames and dies,

The placid mirrors of my luminous eyes.

'Beauty' is reprinted from The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire. Ed. James Huneker. New York: Brentano's, 1919.
More poems here:
Poems by Charles Baudelaire