Sylvia Syms - (December 2, 1917 - May 10, 1992) was an American jazz singer.
She was born Sylvia Blagman in Brooklyn, New York, United States. As a child, she had polio. As a teenager, she went to jazz-oriented nightclubs on New York's 52nd Street, and received informal training from Billie Holiday. In 1941 she made her debut at a club called 'Kelly's Stable'. In 1948, performing at the Cinderella Club in Greenwich Village, she was seen by Mae West, who gave her a part in a show she was doing. Among others who observed her in nightclubs was Frank Sinatra who considered her the "world's greatest saloon singer." Sinatra subsequently conducted her 1982 album, Syms by Sinatra.
Ann Patchett (born December 2, 1963)[1] is an American author. She received the Orange Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2002 for her novel Bel Canto. Patchett's other novels include Run, The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, and The Magician's Assistant, which was shortlisted for theOrange Prize. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and received the Nashville Banner Tennessee Writer of the Year Award in 1994.
Lucy Alexis Liu (born December 2, 1968) is an American actress, artist, narrator, and film producer. She became known for playing the role of the vicious and ill-mannered Ling Woo in the television series Ally McBeal (1998–2002) for which she was nominated for both a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series, and has also appeared in several hit Hollywood films including Payback, Charlie's Angels, Chicago, Kill Bill, and Kung Fu Panda. In 2012, Liu joined the cast of the TNT original series Southland in the recurring role of Jessica Tang for which she won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Drama Guest Actress.
John Breckinridge (December 2, 1760 – December 14, 1806) was a lawyer and politician from the U.S. state of Virginia. He served in the state legislature of Virginia and later, Kentucky before being elected to the U.S. Senate and appointed United States Attorney General during the second term of President Thomas Jefferson. He is the progenitor of Kentucky's Breckinridge political family and the namesake of Breckinridge County, Kentucky.
Julia Ann "Julie" Harris (born December 2, 1925) is an American stage, screen, and television actress. She has won five Tony Awards, threeEmmy Awards and a Grammy Award, and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1994, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She is a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame and received the 2002 Special Lifetime Achievement Tony Award.
Edwin "Ed" Meese, III (born December 2, 1931) is an attorney, law professor, and author who served in official capacities within the Ronald Reagan Gubernatorial Administration (1967–1974), the Reagan Presidential Transition Team (1980), and the Reagan White House (1981–1985), eventually rising to hold the position of the 75th Attorney General of the United States (1985–1988). He currently holds fellowships and chairmanships with several public policy councils and think tanks, including the Constitution Project and The Heritage Foundation. He is also a Distinguished Visiting Fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.He currently sits on the National Advisory Board of Center for Urban Renewal and Education. He is on the board of directors of The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Harry Mason Reid (/ˈriːd/; born December 2, 1939) is the senior United States Senator from Nevada, serving since 1987. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the Senate Majority Leader since January 2007, having previously served as Minority Leader and Minority and Majority Whip.Previously, Reid was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Nevada's 1st congressional district, and served in Nevada local and state government as city attorney of Henderson, a state legislator, the 25th Lieutenant Governor, and chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission.As Senate Majority Leader and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Harry Reid has achieved a more senior elected position in the United States government than any other Mormon in history. Also, if he completes a full term as Senate Majority Leader of the 113th United States Congress, he will be one of only three Senators to serve at least eight years as Majority Leader along with Mike Mansfield and Alben Barkley. His current term ends in January 2017.
ReplyDeleteJohn Cabell Breckinridge, 14th Vice President (1857-1861)
John C. Breckinridge
I trust that I have the courage to lead a forlorn hope.
--John C. Breckinridge, 1860
The only vice president ever to take up arms against the government of the United States, John Cabell Breckinridge completed four years as vice president under James Buchanan, ran for president as the Southern Democratic candidate in 1860, and then returned to the Senate to lead the remnants of the Democratic party for the first congressional session during the Civil War. Although his cousin Mary Todd Lincoln resided in the White House and his home state of Kentucky remained in the Union, Breckinridge chose to volunteer his services to the Confederate army. The United States Senate formally expelled him as a traitor. When the Confederates were defeated, Breckinridge's personal secession forced him into exile abroad, bringing his promising political career to a bitter end.
Julia Ann "Julie" Harris
ReplyDeleteHarris continues to work, recently narrating five historical documentaries by Christopher Seufert and Mooncusser Films, as well as being active as a director on the board of the independent Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater. She has also done extensive voice work for documentary maker Ken Burns, in doing the voices of Emily Warren Roebling in Brooklyn Bridge, Ann Lee in The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God, Susan B. Anthony in Not For Ourselves Alone: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and most notably as Southern diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut for Burns' 1990 series The Civil War.
In the summer of 2008, Ms. Harris appeared on-stage again in her hometown of Chatham as Nanny in Monomoy Theater production of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.
I've watched some films with Lucy Liu's participation (Charlie's Angels, Chicago, Kill Bill, Ballistic, Shanghai Noon) and it was rather interesting for me to get to know more information about her, particulary about her early career). So Liu had small roles in films and TV, marking her debut. She was cast in The X-Files in "Hell Money" and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys in "The March to Freedom" before landing a role on Ally McBeal. Liu originally auditioned for the role of 'Nelle Porter' (played by Portia de Rossi), and the character Ling Woo was later created specifically for her. Liu's part on the series was originally temporary, but high audience ratings secured Liu as a permanent cast member. Additionally, she earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy Series.
ReplyDeleteBritney Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American recording artist and entertainer. She began performing as a child, landing acting roles in stage productions and television shows. Her debut album became the best-selling album by a teenage solo artist. During her first decade in the music industry, she became a prominent figure in mainstream popular music and popular culture. Spears was credited with influencing the revival of teen pop during the late 1990s, and became the 'best-selling teenaged artist of all time' before she turned 20, garnering her honorific titles such as "Princess of Pop".
ReplyDeleteSylvia was a repertory player when she was discovered by Herbert Wilcox (already a fairly established director) who really assisted the young actress at the beginning of her career. She began by playing Anna Neagles, (actually Wilcox’s wife), unruly daughter in the film ‘My Teenage Daughter’ (1956). It was, I believe, at that point she signed a contract with Associated British which she notes later that she regretted but it did give her good work at the time. Soon after this film was a second Neagle/Wilcox collaboration in ‘No Time for Tears’ (1957).
ReplyDeleteAlso that year she worked with the great British director J. Lee Thompson in the superb ‘Woman in a dressing gown’. This film told of a middle aged couple played by the great Yvonne Mitchell and the superb Anthony Quayle and the nightmare scenario for a guy when he meets a beautiful young girl (Syms). All the actors were excellent in bringing tremendous characterisation to their roles t and it established the film as a critically acclaimed piece of work.
She was nominated for two British Film Academy Awards at this point of her career one for ‘Woman in a Dressing Gown’ and then again the next year for ‘No Trees in the Street’.
I recommend everyone to read Ann Patchett's State of Wonder!A tale of morality and miracles, science and sacrifice set in the Amazonian jungle, that is both a gripping adventure and a profound look at the difficult choices we make in the name of discovery and love.
ReplyDeletePatchett was born in Los Angeles, California. Her mother is the novelist Jeanne Ray.She moved to Nashville, Tennessee when she was six, where she continues to live. Patchett said she loves her home in Nashville with her doctor husband and dog. If asked if she could go any place, that place would always be home. "Home is ...the stable window that opens out into the imagination.:
ReplyDeletePatchett attended high school at St. Bernard Academy, a private, non-parochial Catholic school for girls run by the Sisters of Mercy.Following graduation, she attended Sarah Lawrence College and took fiction writing classes with Allan Gurganus, Russell Banks, and Grace Paley.She later attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she met longtime friend Elizabeth McCracken. It was also there that she wrote her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars.