Paul McCartney. Biography. Famous people in English. Personajes famosos en inglés.

Paul McCartney biography:

Paul McCartney is an English musician and a former member of the legendary music band ‘The Beatles’. A multiple Grammy Award winner, he is also a two-time inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as a member of The Beatles in 1988, and as a solo artist in 1999), and one of the most successful composers and performers of all time. With his unprecedented success as a musician he has achieved a legendary status, and is regarded as one of the icons of 20th century English music. He loved music from a young age and was influenced by his father who was a trumpet player. He began writing songs as a teenager and started playing the guitar. As a young man he met John Lennon in a church festival and Lennon who played with a band invited Paul to join them. Soon other aspiring musicians too joined the group, and thus ‘The Beatles’ was born. Over the next few years ‘The Beatles’ went on to achieve phenomenal fame and all the group members, including Paul McCartney became internationally famous. He was already an influential figure by the time The Beatles broke up and easily embarked on a successful solo career. Along with all his musical achievements, he is also well-known for his philanthropic activities and social activism

He was born as James Paul McCartney on 18 June 1942 in Liverpool, England. His mother Mary Patricia was a midwife while his father James McCartney was a cotton salesman and jazz pianist with a local band. He has one younger brother.

He attended the Stockton Wood Road Primary School where he met and befriended George Harrison.

Paul McCartney’s mother died of breast cancer when he was just 14. The loss of his mother shattered the young boy.

As a teenager, he met John Lennon at a church festival. Since John too had lost his mother at a young age, the two boys bonded quickly and became friends. John had a band called the ‘Quarrymen’ and invited Paul to join the band.

Over the next few years, the band adopted the name, ‘The Beatles’. It also saw many changes in the personnel and by 1962 he line-up consisted of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.

The band’s first single, “Love Me Do”, principally written by Paul McCartney in collaboration with Lennon was released in 1962. The single became a hit and the Beatles became very popular.

In 1965 the group released their album, ‘Help!’ which spawned the hit single “Yesterday” written by Paul McCartney. The song went on to become one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music with more than 2,200 cover versions.

Paul McCartney gave the group an idea for a concept album, ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ which was released in 1976 to immediate success. It performed well commercially and was also critically acclaimed. It spent 27 weeks at the top of the albums chart in the United Kingdom and won four Grammy Awards in 1968.

Even though the band achieved phenomenal popularity and widespread success, the relations between the band members became strained and they started having frequent disagreements. Thus Paul McCartney left the band in 1970.

In 1971, he along with his wife Linda McCartney, session drummer Denny Seiwell, and former Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine formed the rock band ‘Paul McCartney and Wings’.

 

Paul McCartney and Wings released several albums over the next decade including ‘Red Rose Speedway’ (1973), ‘Band on the Run’ (1973), ‘Venus and Mars’ (1975), ‘Wings at the Speed of Sound’ (1976), and ‘Back to the Egg’ (1979). The group disbanded in 1981 following disagreements over royalties and salaries.

The 1980s was a difficult time for Paul McCartney. He had become a drug addict and was arrested for possession of marijuana and fined. The same decade also saw the murder of his former partner, John Lennon, which deeply disturbed him. Even though he continued creating music, he could not achieve much success during this period.

During the 1990s, he collaborated with Martin Glover—popularly known as Youth—who was bassist of the rock band ‘Killing Joke’ and formed the band ‘The Fireman’. They came out with the album ‘Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest’, in 1993. The same year, McCartney released the rock album, ‘Off the Ground’.

He took a break from his solo career to work on ‘The Beatles Anthology’, a documentary TV series, a three-volume set of double albums, and a book focusing on the history of The Beatles. All the three surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, participated in the making of the works.

He continued touring, performing and recording new albums well into the new millennium even though he was now in his sixties. The albums he released during this period include ‘Ecce Cor Meum’ (2006), ‘Memory Almost Full’ (2007), and ‘Electric Arguments’ (2008).

His debut studio album, ‘McCartney’, released in 1970 peaked at No. 1 position on the US Billboard 200 chart and remained there for three weeks; it reached No. 2 in Britain.

The album ‘Band on the Run’ released by Paul McCartney and Wings, became the top-selling studio album of 1974 in the United Kingdom and Australia. It was eventually certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America and remains his most successful album till date.

Awards & Achievements

Paul McCartney is a 21-time Grammy Award winner, including 12 as a member of ‘The Beatles’ and six as a solo artist.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: Class of 1988 as a member of the Beatles and Class of 1999 as a solo artist.

In 1997, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to music.

He received the Gershwin Prize for his contributions to popular music in 2010.

He received the French Légion d’Honneur for his services to music in 2012.

 

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Katharine Hepburn Biography. Famous people in English. Personajes famosos en inglés.

Katharine Hepburn Biography

Hepburn was more a personality than an actress when she took the professional plunge after graduating from Bryn Mawr in 1928; her first stage parts were bits, but she always attracted attention with her distinct New England accent and her bony, sturdy frame. The actress’ outspokenness lost her more jobs than she received, but, in 1932, she finally scored on Broadway with the starring role in The Warrior’s Husband. She didn’t want to sign the film contract offered her by RKO, so she made several «impossible» demands concerning salary and choice of scripts. The studios agreed to her terms, and, in 1932, she made her film debut opposite John Barrymore in A Bill of Divorcement (despite legends to the contrary, the stars got along quite well). Critical reaction to Hepburn’s first film set the tone for the next decade: Some thought that she was the freshest and most original actress in Hollywood, while others were irritated by her mannerisms and «artificial» speech patterns. For her third film, Morning Glory (1933), Hepburn won the first of her four Oscars. But despite initial good response to her films, Hepburn lost a lot of popularity during her RKO stay because of her refusal to play the «Hollywood game.» She dressed in unfashionable slacks and paraded about without makeup; refused to pose for pinup pictures, give autographs, or grant interviews; and avoided mingling with her co-workers. As stories of her arrogance and self-absorption leaked out, moviegoers responded by staying away from her films. The fact that Hepburn was a thoroughly dedicated professional — letter-perfect in lines, completely prepared and researched in her roles, the first to arrive to the set each day and the last to leave each evening — didn’t matter in those days, when style superseded substance.

Briefly returning to Broadway in 1933’s The Lake, Hepburn received devastating reviews from the same critics who found her personality so bracing in The Warrior’s Husband. The grosses on her RKO films diminished with each release — understandably so, since many of them (Break of Hearts [1935], Mary of Scotland [1936]) were not very good. She reclaimed the support of RKO executives after appearing in the moneymaking Alice Adams (1935) — only to lose it again by insisting upon starring in Sylvia Scarlett (1936), a curious exercise in sexual ambiguity that lost a fortune. Efforts to «humanize» the haughty Hepburn personality in Stage Door (1937) and the delightful Bringing Up Baby (1938) came too late; in 1938, she was deemed «box-office poison» by an influential exhibitor’s publication. Hepburn’s career might have ended then and there, but she hadn’t been raised to be a quitter. She went back to Broadway in 1938 with a part written especially for her in Philip Barry’s The Philadelphia Story. Certain of a hit, she bought the film rights to the play; thus, when it ended up a success, she was able to negotiate her way back into Hollywood on her own terms, including her choice of director and co-stars. Produced by MGM in 1940, the film version was a box-office triumph, and Hepburn had beaten the «poison» label.

In her next MGM film, Woman of the Year (1942), Hepburn co-starred with Spencer Tracy, a copacetic teaming that endured both professionally and personally until Tracy’s death in 1967. After several years of off-and-on films, Hepburn scored another success with 1951’s The African Queen, marking her switch from youngish sophisticates to middle-aged character leads. After 1962’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Hepburn withdrew from performing for nearly five years, devoting her attention to her ailing friend and lover Tracy. She made the last of her eight screen appearances with Tracy in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), which also featured her niece Katharine Houghton. Hepburn won her second Oscar for this film, and her third the following year for A Lion in Winter; the fourth was bestowed 13 years later for On Golden Pond (1981). When she came back to Broadway for the 1969 musical Coco, Hepburn proved that the years had not mellowed her; she readily agreed to preface her first speech with a then-shocking profanity, and, during one performance, she abruptly dropped character to chew out an audience member for taking flash pictures. Hepburn made the first of her several television movies in 1975, co-starring with Sir Laurence Olivier in Love Among the Ruins — and winning an Emmy award, as well. Her last Broadway appearance was in 1976’s A Matter of Gravity.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Hepburn continued to star on TV and in films, announcing on each occasion that it would be her last performance. She also began writing books and magazine articles, each of them an extension of her personality: self-centered, well-organized, succinct, and brutally frank (especially regarding herself). While she remained a staunch advocate of physical fitness, Hepburn suffered from a genetic condition, a persistent tremor that caused her head to shake — an affliction she blithely incorporated into her screen characters. In 1994, Warren Beatty coaxed Hepburn out of her latest retirement to appear as his aristocratic grand-aunt in Love Affair. Though appearing frailer than usual, Hepburn was in complete control of herself and her craft, totally dominating her brief scenes. And into her nineties and on the threshold of her tenth decade, Katharine Hepburn remained the consummate personality, actress, and star.

On June 29, 2003 Katharine Hepburn died of natural causes in Old Saybrook, Connetticut. She was 96.

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Debbie Reynolds biography. Famous people in English. Personajes famosos en inglés.

Debbie Reynolds biography:

 

Debbie Reynolds (Mary Frances Reynolds, April 1, 1932 – December 28, 2016) was an American actress, singer, businesswoman, film historian, and humanitarian. Her breakout role was the portrayal of Helen Kane in the 1950 film Three Little Words, for which she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer. However, it was her first leading role in 1952 at age 19, as Kathy Selden in Singin’ in the Rain, that set her on the path to fame. By the mid-1950s, she was a major star. Other notable successes include The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953), Susan Slept Here (1954), Bundle of Joy (1956 Golden Globe nomination), The Catered Affair (1956 National Board of Review Best Supporting Actress Winner), and Tammy and the Bachelor (1957), in which her performance of the song «Tammy» reached number one on the music charts. In 1959, she released her first pop music album, entitled Debbie.

She starred in How the West Was Won (1963), and The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964), a biographical film about the famously boisterous Molly Brown. Her performance as Brown earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her other notable films include The Singing Nun (1966), Divorce American Style (1967), What’s the Matter with Helen? (1971), Mother (1996 Golden Globe nomination), and In & Out (1997). Reynolds was also a noted cabaret performer. In 1979 she founded the Debbie Reynolds Dance Studio in North Hollywood, which still operates today.

In 1969 she starred in her own television show The Debbie Reynolds Show, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination. In 1973 Reynolds starred in a Broadway revival of the musical Irene and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical.She was also nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for her performance in A Gift of Love (1999) and an Emmy Award for playing Grace’s mother Bobbi on Will & Grace. At the turn of the millennium, Reynolds reached a new younger generation with her role as Aggie Cromwell in Disney’s Halloweentown series. In 1988 she released her autobiography titled, Debbie: My Life. In 2013, she released an updated version titled Unsinkable: A Memoir.

Reynolds was a noted businesswoman, having operated her own hotel in Las Vegas. She was also a collector of film memorabilia, beginning with items purchased at the landmark 1970 MGM auction. She was the former president of The Thalians, an organization dedicated to mental health causes. Reynolds continued to perform successfully on stage, television, and film into her eighties. In January 2015, Reynolds received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. In 2016 she received the Academy Awards Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. In the same year, a documentary about her life was released titled Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds.
On December 28, 2016, one day after the death of her daughter Carrie Fisher, Reynolds died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles.

 

Reynolds regularly appeared in movie musicals during the 1950s and had several hit records during the period. Her song «Aba Daba Honeymoon» (featured in the film Two Weeks with Love (1950) as a duet with Carleton Carpenter) was a top-three hit in 1951. Her most high-profile film role was in Singin’ in the Rain (1952), a satire on movie making in Hollywood during the transition from silent to sound pictures. It costarred Gene Kelly, whom she called a «great dancer and cinematic genius,» adding, «He made me a star. I was 18 and he taught me how to dance and how to work hard and be dedicated.» In 1956 she appeared in Bundle of Joy with her then-husband, Eddie Fisher.
Her recording of the song «Tammy» (1957; from Tammy and the Bachelor), earned her a gold record, and was the best-selling single by a female vocalist in 1957. It was number one for five weeks on the Billboard pop charts. In the movie (the first of the Tammy film series), she co-starred with Leslie Nielsen.
Reynolds also scored two other top-25 Billboard hits with «A Very Special Love» (#20 in January 1958) and «Am I That Easy to Forget» (#25 in March 1960)—a pop-music version of a country-music hit made famous by both songwriters Carl Belew (in 1959), Skeeter Davis (in 1960), and several years later by singer Engelbert Humperdinck.
During these years, she also headlined in major Las Vegas showrooms. Reynolds’ last album was a Christmas record with the late Donald O’Connor entitled Chrissy the Christmas Mouse.

Mary Frances Reynolds was born on April 1, 1932, in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of Maxine (née Harmon; 1913–1999) and Raymond Francis Reynolds (1903–1986), a carpenter for the Southern Pacific Railroad. She was of Scottish-Irish and English ancestry, and was raised in a strict Nazarene church. She had a brother two years her senior, and Reynolds was a Girl Scout, once saying that she wanted to die as the world’s oldest living Girl Scout. Her father dug ditches and her mother took in washing clothes for others for income, while they they lived in a «shack» on Magnolia Street, in El Paso. «We may have been poor,» she said, «but we always had something to eat, even if Dad had to go out on the desert and shoot jack rabbits.»

One of the advantages of having been poor is that you learn to appreciate good fortune and the value of a dollar, and poverty holds no fear for you because you know you’ve gone through it and you can do it again…But we were always a happy family and a religious one. And I’m trying to inculcate in my children the same sense of values, the same tone that my mother gave to me.»

Her family moved to Burbank, California, in 1939. At age sixteen, in 1948, while a student at Burbank High School, she won the Miss Burbank beauty contest. Soon after, she had a contract with Warner Bros and acquired a new first name via Jack Warner.

During her teenage years in Burbank, she rarely dated, said one of her closes high school friends. «They never found her attractive in school. She was cute, but sort of tomboyish, and her family never had any money to speak of. She never dressed well or drove a car. And, I think, during all the years in school, she was invited to only one dance.» Her friend adds:

I say this in all sincerity. Debbie can serve as an inspiration to all young American womanhood. She came up the hard way, and she has a realistic sense of values based on faith, love, work and money. Life has been kind to her because she has been kind to life. She’s a young woman with a conscience, which is something rare in Hollywood actresses. She also has a refreshing sense of honesty.

Her starring role in The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964) led to a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She then portrayed Jeanine Deckers in The Singing Nun (1966). In what Reynolds once called the «stupidest mistake of my entire career», she made headlines in 1970 after instigating a fight with the NBC television network over cigarette advertising on her weekly television show. Although she was at the time television’s highest paid female performer, she quit the show for breaking its contract:

I was shocked to discover that the initial commercial aired during the premiere of my new series was devoted to a nationally advertised brand of cigarette (Pall Mall). I fully outlined my personal feelings concerning cigarette advertising … that I will not be a party to such commercials which I consider directly opposed to health and well-being.

Reynolds continued to make appearances in film and television. She played Helen Chappel Hackett’s mother, Deedee Chappel, on an episode of Wings titled, «If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Your Mother», which originally aired on November 22, 1994. From 1999 to its 2006 series finale, she played Grace Adler’s theatrical mother, Bobbi Adler, on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace, which earned her an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series in 2000. She plays a recurring role in the Disney Channel Original Movie Halloweentown film series as Aggie Cromwell. Reynolds made a guest appearance as a presenter at the 69th Academy Awards in 1997. She made a cameo role as herself in the 2004 film Connie and Carla. In 2013 she appeared in Behind the Candelabra, as the mother of Liberace.

With limited film and television opportunities coming her way, Reynolds accepted an opportunity to make her Broadway debut. She starred in the 1973 revival of Irene, a musical first produced 60 years before. When asked why she waited so long to appear in a Broadway play, she explained:

Primarily because I had two children growing up. I could make movies and recordings and play in nearby Las Vegas and handle a television series without being away from them. Now, they are well on the way to being adults. Also, there was the matter of being offered a show that I felt might be right for me … I felt that Irene was it and now was the time.

Along with Reynolds, her daughter Carrie was also making her Broadway debut in the play. The production broke records for the highest weekly gross of any musical. For that production, she received a Tony nomination. Reynolds also starred in a self-titled Broadway revue, Debbie, in 1976. She toured with Harve Presnell in Annie Get Your Gun, then wrapped up the Broadway run of Woman of the Year in 1983. In the late 1980s Reynolds repeated her role as Molly Brown in the stage version of The Unsinkable Molly Brown, first opposite Presnell (repeating his original Broadway and movie role) and later with Ron Raines.

Reynolds amassed a large collection of movie memorabilia, beginning with items from the landmark 1970 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer auction, and displayed them, first in a museum at her Las Vegas hotel and casino during the 1990s and later in a museum close to the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles. On several occasions, she auctioned off items from the collection.

The museum was to relocate to be the centerpiece of the Belle Island Village tourist attraction in the resort city of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, but the developer went bankrupt. The museum filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2009.

Todd Fisher, Reynolds’ son, announced that his mother was «heartbroken» to have to auction off her collection. It was valued at $10.79 million in the bankruptcy filing. The Los Angeles auction firm Profiles in History was given the responsibility of conducting a series of auctions. Among the «more than 3500 costumes, 20,000 photographs, and thousands of movie posters, costume sketches, and props» included in the sales were Charlie Chaplin’s bowler hat and Marilyn Monroe’s white «subway dress», whose skirt is lifted up by the breeze from a passing subway train in the film The Seven Year Itch (1955). The dress sold for $4.6 million; the final auction was held in May 2014.

In 1979, Reynolds opened her own dance studio in North Hollywood. In 1983 she released an exercise video titled Do It Debbie’s Way!.

She purchased the Clarion Hotel and Casino, a hotel and casino in Las Vegas, in 1992 and renamed it the Debbie Reynolds Hollywood Hotel, but it was not a success. In 1997, Reynolds was forced to declare bankruptcy.

In June 2010, she replaced Ivana Trump answering reader queries for the weekly paper Globe.

Reynolds was married three times. Her first marriage was to singer Eddie Fisher in 1955. They were the parents of Carrie and Todd Fisher. The couple divorced in 1959 when Fisher had an affair with Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie Reynolds’ good friend at the time, shortly after the death of Taylor’s husband Mike Todd. The Eddie Fisher-Elizabeth Taylor affair caused a serious public scandal, even leading to the cancellation of Eddie Fisher’s television show at the time. In 2011, on The Oprah Winfrey Show, just weeks before Elizabeth Taylor’s death, Reynolds explained that she and Taylor happened to be traveling at the same time on the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s when they made up. Reynolds sent a note to Taylor’s room, and Taylor sent a note in reply asking to have dinner with Reynolds and end their feud. The two reconciled, and, as Reynolds put it, «… we had a wonderful evening with a lot of laughs». The 1990 film Postcards from the Edge was written by Reynolds’ daughter Carrie Fisher and was semi-autobiographical, with the character of «Doris Mann» based on Reynolds.

Reynolds’ second marriage, to millionaire businessman Harry Karl, lasted from 1960 to 1973. Reynolds later found herself in financial difficulty because of Karl’s gambling and bad investments.

Reynolds’ third marriage was to real estate developer Richard Hamlett from 1984 to 1996.

In 2010, she appeared in her own West End show Debbie Reynolds: Alive and Fabulous. Beginning in 1955, Reynolds was active in The Thalians, a charitable organization devoted to children and adults with mental health issues; In 2011 she stepped down after 56 years of involvement and became an emerita member.

Reynolds was hospitalized in October 2012 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, due to an adverse reaction to medication. She canceled appearances and concert engagements for the next three months.

On December 23, 2016, Reynolds’ daughter, actress and writer Carrie Fisher, suffered a heart attack on a transatlantic flight from London to Los Angeles, and died at the age of 60 on December 27. On December 28 Reynolds was hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, in fair-to-serious condition after a stroke at her son’s home. Later that afternoon, Reynolds died in the hospital.

Reynolds is survived by her son Todd Fisher and her granddaughter Billie Lourd. Her son said that his mother’s stress from the death of her daughter was partly responsible for her stroke. «Reynolds told him she missed her daughter and wanted to be with her,» according to news reports.

Reynolds was the 1955 Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year. Her foot and handprints are preserved at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California. She also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6654 Hollywood Boulevard, for live performance and a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars dedicated to her. In keeping with the celebrity tradition of the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival of Winchester, Virginia, Reynolds was honored as the Grand Marshal of the 2011 ABF that took place from April 26 to May 1, 2011.

In November 2006 Reynolds received the Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award from Chapman University (Orange, California). On May 17, 2007, she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Nevada, Reno, where she had contributed for many years to the film studies program.

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Charles Dickens. Famous people in English. Personajes famosos en inglés.

Charles Dickens biography:

 

Charles Dickens (1812-1870), novelist, was born on 7 February 1812 in Portsmouth, England, son of John Dickens, a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, and his wife Elizabeth, née Barrow. Dickens received intermittent schooling and indifferent care from his parents who were once obliged to take up residence in Marshalsea prison for debt. First apprenticed to the law, he began writing unpaid pieces for popular journals. Sketches by ‘Boz’, Dickens’s pseudonym, were published in two volumes in 1836 and The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club in 1837. Sam Weller and Mr Pickwick created a world-wide furore and Dickens’s imitators were legion. Pickwick parties were held as far apart as Canada and Kangaroo Island, whilst the first pirated edition of Pickwick Papers was printed by Henry Dowling of Tasmania in 1838.

Fame was assured for Dickens with the publication of Oliver Twist in 1838 and Nicholas Nickleby in 1839. As novelist, journalist, public speaker and social critic, his popularity was universal and the world of his novels changed contemporary attitudes. At first aware of Australia only as a place of penal servitude, Dickens in Pickwick Papers has the convict, John Edmunds, transported and sent up country as a shepherd. The infamous Mr Squeers in Nicholas Nickleby is similarly sent to the colony. Always fascinated by crime, Dickens acquired knowledge of Norfolk Island from his friend Alexander Maconochie. He never forgot Australia’s prison origins and in his last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend (1865), Jenny Wren threatens her delinquent father with transportation. Similarly in David Copperfield, Mr Littimer and Uriah Heep are dispatched to Australia to complete their sentences.

In 1849 Dickens was writing David Copperfield and faced with the problem of a satisfactory disposition of Micawber and his family. He had already met Samuel Sidney, who was advocating Australia as a home for working class emigrants, and Mrs Caroline Chisholm through a common friend, Sidney Herbert. The last chapters of David Copperfield embodied material from Sidney’s Australian Hand-Book (1848) and Wilkins Micawber duly became the best known emigrant to Port Middlebay (Melbourne) where he attained affluence and the office of magistrate. Micawber was accompanied by little Em’ly, Peggotty, Martha Endell and Mrs Gummidge. The downtrodden schoolmaster, Mr Mell, founded an academy for boys at Port Middlebay and his fiddling and oratory delighted colonial society.

Household Words, Dickens’s journal, began publication in 1850 and the first article was an approving exposition of Mrs Chisholm’s Family Colonization Loan Society. Later articles and stories in that year were written by Samuel Sidney. The discovery of gold lent feasibility to Micawber’s success and mitigated the country’s reputation as a gaol. In Great Expectations (1861) Dickens created Magwitch, the convict who amassed wealth in New South Wales and so produced an English gentleman.

Dickens had contemplated a lecture tour of Australia in 1862 and intended to write a travel book, ‘The Uncommercial Traveller Upside Down’, but the tour was abandoned. In Australia, as in England, his novels were adapted as stage plays; with Our Emily, Old Curiosity Shop and Cricket on the Hearth as perennial favourites. The articles from Household Words and All the Year Round were widely published in the Australian press and helped to impose Dickens’s own view of Australia on Australian life and society.

Dickens died on 9 June 1870. Of his surviving sons, Alfred D’Orsay Tennyson (b.1845), had migrated to Australia in 1865. He bought a partnership in a stock and station agency in Hamilton, Victoria, but after his wife died left in 1882 to join the Melbourne branch of his brother’s agency. After a lecture tour he died in the United States in 1912. The youngest son, Edward Bulwer Lytton (b.1852), went to Australia in 1869 and settled at Wilcannia where he became manager of Momba station; in 1880 he married Constance Desailly. He opened a stock and station agency, was elected to the local council and bought a share in Yanda station near Bourke. He lost heavily from bad seasons and in 1886 he became a civil servant. He represented Wilcannia in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1889-94. He died on 23 January 1902 at Moree and was buried by a Wesleyan minister.

 

 

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J. R. R. Tolkien. Famous people in English. Personajes famosos en inglés.

J.R. R. Tolkien biography:

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892, the son of English-born parents in Bloemfontein, in the Orange Free State of South Africa, where his father worked as a bank manager. To escape the heat and dust of southern Africa and to better guard the delicate health of Ronald (as he was called), Tolkien’s mother moved back to a small English village with him and his younger brother when they were very young boys. Tolkien would later use this village as a model for one of the locales in his novels. Within a year of this move their father, Arthur Tolkien, died in Bloemfontein, and a few years later the boys’ mother died as well.

The Tolkien boys lodged at several homes from 1905 until 1911, when Ronald entered Exeter College, Oxford. Tolkien received a bachelor’s degree from Oxford in 1915 and a master’s degree in 1919. During this time he married his longtime sweetheart, Edith Bratt, and served for a short time on the Western Front with the Lancashire Fusiliers (a regiment in the British army that used an older-style musket) during World War I (1914–18), when Germany led forces against much of Europe and America).

Begins writing

In 1917, Tolkien was in England recovering from «trench fever,» a widespread disease transmitted through fleas and other bugs in battlefield trenches. While bedridden Tolkien began writing «The Book of Lost Tales,» which eventually became The Silmarillion (1977) and laid the groundwork for his stories about Middle Earth, the fictional world where Tolkien’s work takes place.

After the war Tolkien returned to Oxford, where he joined the staff of the Oxford English Dictionary and began work as a freelance tutor. In 1920 he was appointed Reader in English Language at Leeds University. The following year, having returned to Oxford as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, Tolkien became friends with the novelist C. S. Lewis (1898–1963). They shared an intense enthusiasm for the myths, sagas, and languages of northern Europe, and to better enhance those interests, both attended meetings of the «Coalbiters,» an Oxford club, founded by Tolkien, at which Icelandic sagas were read aloud.

During the rest of Tolkien’s years at Oxford—twenty as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, fourteen as Merton Professor of English Language and Literature—Tolkien published several well-received short studies and translations. Notable among these are his essays «Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics» (1936), «Chaucer as a Philologist [a person who studies language as it relates to culture]: The Reeve’s Tale» (1934), and «On Fairy-Stories»(1947); his scholarly edition of Ancrene Wisse (1962); and his translations of three medieval poems: «Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,» «Pearl,» and «Sir Orfeo» (1975).

The Hobbit

As a writer of imaginative literature, though, Tolkien is best known for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, tales which were formed during his years attending meetings of the «Inklings,» an informal gathering of like-minded friends and writers, that began after the Coalbiters dissolved. The Inklings, which was formed during the late 1930s and lasted until the late 1940s, was a weekly meeting held in Lewis’s sitting room at Magdalen College, at which works-in-progress were read aloud and discussed and critiqued by the attendees. Inklings, Lewis urged Tolkien to publish The Hobbit, which appeared in 1937.

Tolkien retired from his professorship in 1959. While the unauthorized publication of an American edition of The Lord of the Rings in 1965 angered him, it also made him a widely admired cult figure in the United States, especially among high school and college students. Uncomfortable with this status, he and his wife lived quietly in Bournemouth for several years, until Edith’s death in 1971. In the remaining two years of his life, Tolkien returned to Oxford, where he was made an honorary fellow of Merton College and awarded a doctorate of letters. He was at the height of his fame as a scholarly and imaginative writer when he died in 1973, though critical study of his fiction continues and has increased in the years since.

The world of Middle Earth

Tolkien, a devoted Roman Catholic throughout his life, began creating his own languages and mythologies at an early age and later wrote Christian-inspired stories and poems to provide them with a narrative framework. Based on bedtime stories Tolkien had created for his children, The Hobbit concerns the efforts of a hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, to recover a treasure stolen by a dragon. During the course of his mission, Baggins discovers a magical ring which, among other powers, can render its bearer invisible. The ability to disappear helps Bilbo fulfill his quest; however, the ring’s less obvious powers prompt the evil Sauron, Dark Lord of Mordor, to seek it. The hobbits’ attempt to destroy the ring, thereby denying Sauron unlimited power, is the focal point of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which consists of the novels The Fellowship of the Ring (1954), The Two Towers (1954), and The Return of the King (1955). In these books Tolkien rejects such traditional heroic qualities as strength and size, stressing instead the capacity of even the humblest creatures to win against evil.

Throughout Tolkien’s career he composed histories, genealogies (family histories), maps, glossaries, poems, and songs to supplement his vision of Middle Earth. Among the many works published during his lifetime were a volume of poems, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book (1962), and a fantasy novel, Smith of Wootton Major (1967). Though many of his stories about Middle Earth remained incomplete at the time of Tolkien’s death, his son, Christopher, rescued the manuscripts from his father’s collections, edited them, and published them. One of these works, The Silmarillion, takes place before the time of The Hobbit and tells the tale of the first age of Holy Ones (earliest spirits) and their offspring.

Nonetheless, Tolkien implies, to take The Lord of the Rings too seriously might be a mistake. He once stated that fairy stories in itself should be taken as a truth, not always symbolic of something else. He went on to say, «but first of all [the story] must succeed just as a tale, excite, please, and even on occasion move, and within its own imagined world be accorded literary belief. To succeed in that was my primary object.»

Nearly thirty years after his death, the popularity of Tolkien’s work has hardly slowed. In 2001 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was released as a major motion picture. The magic of Tolkien’s world won over both the critics and public alike as the movie was nominated in thirteen categories, including Best Picture, at the Academy Awards; it won four awards. Two more films are scheduled for release by the end of 2003.

 

 

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Mickey Rooney. Famous people in English. Personajes famosos en inglés.

Mickey Rooney Biography.

Mickey Rooney was born Joe Yule Jr. on September 23, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York, and took the stage as a toddler in his parents’ vaudeville act at 17 months old. He made his first film appearance in 1926. The following year, he played the lead character in the first Mickey McGuire short film. It was in this popular film series that he took the stage name Mickey Rooney. Rooney reached new heights in 1937 with A Family Affair, the film that introduced the country to Andy Hardy, the popular all-American teenager. This beloved character appeared in nearly 20 films and helped make Rooney the top star at the box office in 1939, 1940, and 1941. Rooney also proved himself an excellent dramatic actor as a delinquent in Boys Town starring Spencer Tracy. In 1938, he was awarded a juvenile Academy Award.

Teaming up with Judy Garland, Rooney also appeared in a string of musicals, including Babes in Arms (1939)–the first teenager to be nominated for an Oscar in a leading role–Strike up the Band (1940), Babes on Broadway (1941), and Girl Crazy (1943). He and Garland immediately became best of friends. “We weren’t just a team, we were magic,” Rooney once said. During that time, he also appeared with Elizabeth Taylor in the now classic National Velvet (1944). Rooney joined the service that same year, where he helped to entertain the troops and worked on the American Armed Forces Network. He returned to Hollywood after 21 months in Love Laughs at Andy Hardy (1946), did a remake of a Robert Taylor film, The Crowd Roars called Killer McCoy (1947), and portrayed composer Lorenz Hart in Words and Music (1948). He also appeared in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard. Rooney played Hepburn’s Japanese neighbor, Mr. Yunioshi. A sign of the times, Rooney played the part for comic relief, which he later regretted feeling the role was offensive. He once again showed his incredible range in the dramatic role of a boxing trainer with Anthony Quinn and Jackie Gleason in Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962). In the late 1960s and 1970s Rooney showed audiences and critics alike why he was one of Hollywood’s most enduring stars. He gave an impressive performance in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film The Black Stallion, which brought him an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor. He also turned to the stage in 1979 in Sugar Babies with Ann Miller and was nominated for a Tony Award. During that time, he also portrayed the Wizard in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with Eartha Kitt at New York’s Madison Square Garden, which also had a successful run nationally.

Rooney appeared in four television series: The Mickey Rooney Show (1954-1955), a comedy sit-com in 1964 with Sanunee Tong called Mickey, One of the Boys in 1982 with Dana Carvey and Nathan Lane, and the Adventures of the Black Stallion from 1990-1993. In 1981, Rooney won an Emmy Award for his portrayal of a mentally challenged man in Bill. The critical acclaim continued for the veteran performer, with Rooney receiving an honorary Academy Award “in recognition of his 60 years of versatility in a variety of memorable film performances.” More recently, he appeared in such films as Night at the Museum (2006) with Ben Stiller, and The Muppets (2011) with Amy Adams and Jason Segel.

Rooney’s personal life, including his frequent trips to the altar, proved to be just as epic as his on-screen performances. His first wife was one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, actress Ava Gardner. Mickey permanently and legally separated from his eighth wife Jan in June of 2012. In 2011, Rooney filed elder abuse and fraud charges against stepson Christopher Aber and Aber’s wife. At Rooney’s request, the Superior Court issued a restraining order against the Abers, demanding that they stay 100 yards from Rooney, Mickey’s stepson Mark Rooney, and Mark’s wife Charlene. Just prior, Rooney had mustered the strength to break his silence and appeared before the Senate in Washington D.C. telling of his own heartbreaking story of abuse in an effort to live a peaceful, full life and help others who may also be suffering in silence.

Rooney requested through the Superior Court to permanently reside with his son Mark (a musician) and Charlene Rooney (an artist) in the Hollywood Hills. Ironically, after eight failed marriages, he never looked or felt better and finally found happiness in the single life. Rooney passed away April 6, 2014 at the age of 93.

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Thomas S. Eliot. Famous people in English. Personajes famosos en inglés. Fotos.

Thomas S. Eliot biography.

Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. on September 26, 1888 to Henry Ware (a businessman) and Charlotte Stearns Eliot (a poetess). Eliot’s family line can be traced back to the earliest of New England settlers, and the family produced many a distinguished male in letters and religion throughout their long history in Boston, Massachusetts, where «America’s cultural aristocracy» ruled. The influence of this family also extended to St. Louis, where Eliot’s paternal grandfather established and presided over Washington University.

Endowed with and proud of their social connections and respectability, the Eliot family made the most of it.  Accordingly, Eliot went to only the very best schools: Smith Academy in St. Louis (grammar school), Milton Academy in Massachusetts (secondary school). By 1906 he was a freshman at Harvard University.  This is not to say that Eliot was only there because of who he knew; quite the contrary–he finished his bachelor’s degree in only 3 years, was a grad. student in philosophy from 1910-1914, and even studied at the Sorbonne in Paris for a year.

Eliot never received his doctoral degree however, as he had taken up residence in England and liked it so much he decided not to return to America. Part of this decision had to do with his falling in love with a beautiful English girl named Vivienne Haigh-Wood.  Eliot only returned home for occasional visits, and became a British citizen in 1927 after a period of much soul-searching.  This explains why Eliot can be found in both the English Poets and American Poets section of one’s local libraries and bookstores.  Nevertheless, Eliot has said that he should be considered an American rather than an English poet.

In 1915 Eliot married Vivienne, a relationship chronicled in the recent movie Tom and Viv starring Willem Dafoe as Eliot and Miranda Richardson as Vivienne.  Vivienne would later die in 1945 after a long period of increasingly degenerate health (both physical and mental).  Eliot would not remarry until 1957 to Valerie Fletcher, a happy marriage for both.

Eliot held many different kinds of jobs throughout his lifetime, as writing poetry was not and still is not the most lucrative of occupations when one is not well-known.  His occupations varied from schoolmaster, bank clerk, free-lance writer, assistant editor (of the Egoist), editor (of The Criterion), publisher (with Faber and Faber) and even professor of poetry at Harvard.

Being an introspective kind of person, as most poets are, Eliot underwent a profound religious calling.  After much soul-searching and inner turmoil, Eliot was confirmed as a member of the Anglican church in 1927.  This brought him a much more positive attitude towards life that can be seen in his writings after this date.

It is rather difficult to find much information on T. S. Eliot, which is quite hard to understand, considering the profound impact he had on American and English literature.  However, it can be explained that since Eliot was a very private man and also forbade in his will an official biography, the dearth of information on Eliot is justifiable.

Eliot diedon  January 4, 1965.

 

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Peter O’Tool. Famous people in English. Personajes famosos en inglés. Fotos.

Peter O’Tool biography.

Born in Connemara, Galway, on August 2, 1932, Peter departed Irish shores when his family relocated to Leeds. As a teenager he set his heart on becoming a journalist, and dropped out of school at the age of 14 to join the Yorkshire Evening Post as a copy boy. It wasn’t long before the desire to perform struck, however.

Following a stint as a radio man in the Royal Navy, the youngster won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where his peers included Albert Finney, Richard Harris and Alan Bates. After Peter joined the Bristol Old Vic in 1955 at the age of 23 his reputation grew, with critic Kenneth Tynan commenting on his role in The Long, The Short And The Tall: «In the case of Mr O’Toole I sense a technical authority that may, given discipline and purpose, presage greatness.» It wasn’t long before the prediction came to fruition when, in 1962, Peter landed a part that would change his life forever.

His performance in David Lean’s desert tribesmen epic Laurence Of Arabia earned him a best actor Bafta and an Oscar nomination while making him a global star. The Academy Award that year went to Sydney Poitier, though, and despite Peter’s numerous nominations the coveted gong was a long time in coming. It was to be 2003 before he took an Honorary statuette home with him, and then he initially turned down the offer, saying: «I’m still in the game and might win the lovely bugger outright. Would is be possible to defer the honour until I’m 80?». Eventually persuaded to change his mind, he declared, «Always a bridesmaid, never a bride, my foot!», as he accepted the honour, adding: «I have my very own Oscar now, to be with me ‘til death do us part.»

Going hand in hand with his career was his reputation as a hell raiser. «I can’t stand light. I hate weather. My idea of heaven is moving from one smoke-filled room to another,» he once joked. The boozing which accompanied such a lifestyle was to nearly cost the actor his life, however, and in 1975 after undergoing extensive surgery for pancreatitis he stopped drinking. His personal life also suffered, and his marriage to Welsh actress Sian Phillips, with whom he has two children Pat and Kate, ended in the Seventies.

«I was a willing accomplice,» says Sian of the years she spent putting up with her husband’s misadventures. «I did a lot of things I would never have done on my own. I owe him a lot.» For his part, the actor was equally understanding: «Thank God for the tolerance shown to me by ladies with whom I’ve had long stretches, because I’m quite hopeless with women.»

In 1982 came his seventh Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a star who disappears into the bottle in My Favourite Year. At the end of that decade, and again in 1999, he won further plaudits for his theatre performances playing the notoriously pickled title character in Jeffrey Barnard Is Unwell. But in spite of triumphs such as these and his turn as an English tutor in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor, Peter’s career came to be characterised by minor roles in prestigious productions and larger parts in smaller flicks.

While years of hard living have taken their toll on his health and former good looks «If you’d been any prettier, it would have been Florence of Arabia,» legendary playwright Noel Coward once told him the actor seems to have survived almost in spite of himself. Now he teams up with a new generation of cine hunks, sharing the screen for 2004’s Troy with Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom.

Accepting his honorary gong at the 2003 Oscars he told the audience how his craft continues to inspire him: «The magic of the movies enraptured me when I was a child. As I totter into antiquity, movie magic enraptures me still.» Indeed he is as committed to movie-making as ever. While making the 2006 British black comedy Venus the 74-year-old actor fell and broke his hip. After a hip replacement he was back on set within a month, determined to get the job done.

It was worth the effort – the role won him his eighth Oscar nomination. His daughter Kate, who describes him as «the same as ever, still naughty» is convinced it won’t be the last time he’s nominated either. «Actors don’t retire, they die with their boots on, and Peter has got a lot of projects in the pipeline,» she promises.

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Olivia de Havilland biography. Famous people in English. Personajes famosos en inglés. Fotos.

Olivia de Havilland biography.

Olivia Mary de Havilland (born July 1, 1916) is a British-American actress whose career spanned from 1935 to 1988. She appeared in 49 feature films, and was one of the leading movie stars during the golden age of Classical Hollywood. She is best known for her early screen performances in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Gone with the Wind (1939), and her later award-winning performances in To Each His Own (1946), The Snake Pit (1948), and The Heiress (1949).

Born in Tokyo to English parents, de Havilland and her younger sister, actress Joan Fontaine, moved to California in 1919. They were raised by their mother Lilian, a former stage actress who taught them dramatic art, music, and elocution. De Havilland made her acting debut in amateur theatre in Alice in Wonderland and later appeared in a local production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which led to her playing Hermia in Max Reinhardt’s stage production of the same play and a movie contract with Warner Bros.

Olivia de Havilland made her screen debut in Reinhardt’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1935. She began her career playing demure ingénues opposite popular leading men, including Errol Flynn, with whom she made nine films. They became one of Hollywood’s most popular romantic on-screen pairings. She achieved her initial popularity in romantic comedy films, such as The Great Garrick (1937), and in Westerns, such as Dodge City (1939).

Her natural beauty and refined acting style made her particularly effective in historical period dramas, such as Anthony Adverse (1936), and romantic dramas, such as Hold Back the Dawn (1941). In her later career, she was most successful in drama films, such as Light in the Piazza (1962), and unglamorous roles in psychological dramas including Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964).

As well as her film career, de Havilland continued her work in the theatre, appearing three times on Broadway, in Romeo and Juliet (1951), Candida (1952), and A Gift of Time (1962). She also worked in television, appearing in the successful miniseries, Roots: The Next Generations (1979), and television feature films, such as Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna, for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.

During her film career, de Havilland won two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, two New York Film Critics Circle Awards, the National Board of Review Award for Best Actress, and the Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup. For her contributions to the motion picture industry, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. For her lifetime contribution to the arts, she received the National Medal of Arts from President George W. Bush, and was appointed a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

After romantic relationships with Howard Hughes, James Stewart, and John Huston, de Havilland married author Marcus Goodrich, with whom she had a son, Benjamin. Following her divorce from Goodrich in 1953, she moved to Paris and married Pierre Galante, an executive editor for the French journal Paris Match, with whom she had a daughter, Gisèle. In 1962, she published Every Frenchman Has One, an account of her life in France. De Havilland and Joan Fontaine are the only siblings to have won Academy Awards in a lead acting category. A lifelong rivalry between the two resulted in an estrangement that lasted over three decades. She has lived in Paris since 1956, and celebrated her 100th birthday on July 1, 2016.

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Susan Hayward Biography. Famous people in English. Personajes famosos en inglés. Fotos.

Susan Hayward Biography (1917-1975)

Susan Hayward was a talented and beautiful red headed American actress who began her career in sweet leading lady or in supporting roles, but who developed into an alluring temptress and later in her career gave several top drawer performances portraying strong women battling life-threatening problems. The top films from her golden period include ‘With a Song in My Heart’ in 1952, ‘I’ll Cry Tomorrow’ in 1955 and ‘I Want to Live’ in 1957, for which she won an Oscar for her outstanding and moving portrayal of convicted murderer Barbara Graham.

Biography

She was born Edythe Marrenner in the Brooklyn district of New York on June 30, 1917. Her father was a transportation worker and she had an elder brother and sister. The family lived in a tenement in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn and were extremely poor. Edythe and her brother, Wally, used to collect recyclable bottles and cans littered around the area, and sell them, to provide money to help feed the family.

When she was seven years old Edythe was involved in a car accident and fractured her hip. She was in a body cast for months and it was a year before she recovered fully. The injury left her with one leg an inch and half shorter than the other, and for the rest of her life she walked with a limp.

Schooling

Hayward attended Public School 181 in Brooklyn, and went on to The Girls’ Commercial High School. She had a difficult time at school, having few friends, and being the butt of other pupils’ taunts about her limp and poor clothes. All this changed when she was twelve and was cast in the lead role in the school production of ‘Cinderella in Flowerland’. She developed a love for acting and a dream to become a Hollywood actress.

For her success in school plays she was named «Most Dramatic» by her classmates and she furthered her interest in Hollywood by going to the movies at any chance she got, She was inspired particularly by Barbara Stanwyck, a Brooklyn girl who had found great screen success.

By the time Edythe graduated in 1935 aged eighteen, she had developed into a rare beauty with a shapely figure. Her setbacks had made her a very determined young lady and she was resolute about attaining fame and fortune.

Photographic Modeling

She began her working life as a photographer’s model for the Thornton Modeling Agency in New York. Colored photography was just becoming popular and Edythe’s red hair and peaches and cream complexion were perfect for the new colored advertisements. In 1937 the agency did a feature in the national weekly magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, and Edythe’s fame began to spread.

Early Hollywood Career 1938

Edythe stayed on in Hollywood and got herself an agent who quickly obtained a six-month contract for her with Warner Brothers. The studio changed her name to Susan Hayward and she began her movie career with bit parts in minor films, learning her new profession, and refusing, as her son later put it, to «play that casting couch game». She appeared as Ronald Reagan’s girlfriend in ‘Girls on Probation’ in 1938 but otherwise all her appearances were uncredited.

In March 1938 her father died and soon afterwards Warners decided not to renew her contract. Susan faced up to her problems and began a period of self-education, spending much time on improving her accent and pronunciation. Her hard work paid off and she secured a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures, becoming part of a group of fresh young talent including Evelyn Keyes, William Holden and Robert Preston.

Paramount 1939

Her first movie with the new studio was ‘Beau Geste’ in 1939, starring Gary Cooper and William Holden. It was a major step up in film quality for Susan and her performance was well received. She appeared in two more films in 1939, ‘Our Leading Citizen’ and ‘$1000 a Touchdown’. Neither film made an impact but she performed well and she began to be noticed by Hollywood producers.

The next few years showed Susan’s dramatic talent in a number of different movies. In 1941 she played a supporting role to Ingrid Bergman and Fay Wray in ‘Adam Had Four Sons’ and then stole the show in an unusual horror film, ‘Among the Living’, later the same year.

Hollywood Success 1942

Susan was appearing in better films with some of the cream of Hollywood stars. Her rise continued with ‘Reap the Wild Wind’ in 1942, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, in which she co-starred with John Wayne, Paulette Goddard and William Holden. Later in 1942 she played a witch in the comedy ‘I Married a Witch’ and after several unmemorable movies including performing a skit in Paramount’s war-effort movie, ‘Star Spangled Rhythm’, she appeared again with Wayne in 1944 in ‘The Fighting Seabees’. She continued to give a good account of herself in such movies as ‘Young and Willing’ and ‘Jack London’ in 1943, and ‘The Hairy Ape’ and ‘And Now Tomorrow’ in 1944 but she was still waiting for the roles which would propel her into the big league of leading ladies. She did not have to wait long.

Hollywood Star 1947

Between 1947 and 1958 Susan was nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award on five occasions, winning it once. Her first nomination was for her performance in ‘Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman’ in 1947 and she soon was nominated again for ‘My Foolish Heart’ in 1949. She was now one of the top names in Hollywood and she was able to pick and choose her scripts. She played the female lead Bathsheba opposite Gregory Peck in the Biblical epic ‘David and Bathsheba’ in 1951 and then received her third Best Actress nomination in 1952 for ‘With a Song in My Heart’.

In 1953 she was praised for her performance as Rachel Jackson, the wife of Andrew Jackson, in ‘The President’s Lady’ and after another well received Biblical epic, ‘Demetrius and the Gladiators’ in 1954, she received her fourth Oscar nomination in the same year, playing alcoholic singer Lillian Roth in ‘I’ll Cry Tomorrow’.

Best Actress Oscar 1958

Susan had come very close on four occasions but with her fifth nomination she finally won the Best Actress Award for her strong and moving performance as real-life killer, Barbara Graham, in ‘I Want to Live!’ released in 1957.

Susan’s career had definitely peaked and she made fewer films each year, devoting more of her time to domestic life with her second husband, Floyd Eaton Chalkley.

In 1961 she co-starred with Dean Martin in ‘Ada’ but in general the movies in the last part of her career were not up to the standard of her earlier ones. She continued making movies until 1972 when she made her final film, ‘The Revengers’.

Personal

Susan married twice. Her first husband was actor, Jess Barker, whom she married in 1944. They had two children, fraternal twin boys, Gregory and Timothy. The couple divorced in 1954 after a stormy marriage. The following year Susan took an overdose of sleeping pills in an apparent suicide attempt. She was rushed to hospital and fully recovered.

At Christmas of 1955 Susan met wealthy rancher Floyd Eaton Chalkley. They married in 1957 and settled into a happy and quiet life on Chalkley’s farm in Carrollton, in western Georgia. When Chalkley died in 1966 Susan was grief-stricken and went into mourning for three years.

Susan’s last appearance in public was when she presented the Best Actress Oscar at the 1974 Awards Ceremony. She was very ill and had to be physically supported by her friend, Charlton Heston.

She had been diagnosed with brain cancer in 1972 and given three months to live. Typically, she battled on.

Susan Hayward died on March 14, 1975, in Hollywood. She was 57. She was buried at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cemetery in Carrollton, Georgia.

 

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