原作者
List activity
0 views
• 0 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
4 people
- Writer
- Actor
- Art Department
Arthur C. Clarke was born in the seaside town of Minehead, Somerset, England in December 16, 1917. In 1936 he moved to London, where he joined the British Interplanetary Society. There he started to experiment with astronautic material in the BIS, write the BIS Bulletin and science fiction. During World War II, as a RAF officer, he was in charge of the first radar talk-down equipment, the Ground Controlled Approach, during its experimental trials. His only non-science-fiction novel, Glide Path, is based on this work. After the war, he returned to London and to the BIS, which he presided in 46-47 and 50-53. In 1945 he published the technical paper "Extra-terrestrial Relays" laying down the principles of the satellite com- communication with satellites in geostationary orbits - a speculation realized 25 years later. His invention has brought him numerous honors, such as the 1982 Marconi International Fellowship, a gold medal of the Franklin Institute, the Vikram Sarabhai Professorship of the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, the Lindbergh Award and a Fellowship of King's College, London. Today, the geostationary orbit at 36,000 kilometers is named The Clarke Orbit by the International Astronomical Union. The first story Clarke sold professionally was "Rescue Party", written in March 1945 and appearing in Astounding Science in May 1946. He obtained first class honors in Physics and Mathematics at the King's College, London, in 1948.
In 1953 he met an American named Marilyn Torgenson, and married her less than three weeks later. They split in December 1953. As Clarke says, "The marriage was incompatible from the beginning. It was sufficient proof that I wasn't the marrying type, although I think everybody should marry once". Clarke first visited Colombo, Sri Lanka (at the time called Ceylon) in December 1954. In 1954 Clarke wrote to Dr Harry Wexler, then chief of the Scientific Services Division, U.S. Weather Bureau, about satellite applications for weather forecasting. Of these communications, a new branch of meteorology was born, and Dr. Wexler became the driving force in using rockets and satellites for meteorological research and operations. In 1954 Clarke started to give up space for the sea. About the reasons, he said: "I now realise that it was my interest in astronautics that led me to the ocean. Both involve exploration, of course - but that's not the only reason. When the first skin-diving equipment started to appear in the late 1940s, I suddenly realized that here was a cheap and simple way of imitating one of the most magical aspects of spaceflight - weightessness." In the book Profiles of the Future (1962) he looks at the probable shape of tomorrow's world. In this book he states his three Laws: 1."When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." 2."The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible." 3."Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." In 1964, he started to work with Stanley Kubrick in a SF (Science Fiction) movie script. After 4 years, he shared an Oscar Academy Award nomination with him for the film version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. He co-broadcasted the Apollo 11 , 12 and 15 missions with Walter Cronkite and Wally Schirra for CBS. In 1985, He published a sequel to 2001 : 2010: Odyssey Two. He worked with Peter Hyams in the movie version of 2010. They work was done using a Kaypro computer and a modem, for Arthur was in Sri Lanka and Peter Hyams in Los Angeles. Their communications turned into the book The Odyssey File - The Making of 2010. His thirteen-part TV series Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World in 1981 and Arthur C. Clarke's World of strange Powers in 1984 has now been screened in many countries. He made part of other TV series about the space, as Walter Cronkite's Universe series in 1981. He has lived in Colombo, Sri Lanka since 1956 and has been doing underwater exploration along that coast and the Great Barrier Reef. So far it has been to over 70 books, almost as many non-fiction, as science fiction. In March 1998, his latest, and probably last, novel: 3001: The Final Odyssey was released.- Writer
- Actor
Philip Kindred Dick was born in Chicago in December 1928, along with a twin sister, Jane. Jane died less than eight weeks later, allegedly from an allergy to mother's milk. Dick's parents split up during his childhood, and he moved with his mother to Berkeley, California, where he lived for most of the rest of his life. Dick became a published author in 1952. His first sale was the short story "Roog." His first novel, "Solar Lottery," appeared in 1955. Dick produced an astonishing amount of material during the 1950s and 1960s, writing and selling nearly a hundred short stories and some two dozen or so novels during this period, including "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," "Time Out Of Joint," "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch," and the Hugo-award winning "The Man In The High Castle." A supremely chaotic personal life (Dick was married five times) along with drug experimentation, sidetracked Dick's career in the early 1970s. Dick would later maintain that reports of his drug use had been greatly exaggerated by sensationalistic colleagues. In any event, after a layoff of several years, Dick returned to action in 1974 with the Campbell award-winning novel "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said." Perhaps more importantly, though, this same year Dick would have a profound religious experience that would forever alter his life. Dick's final years were haunted by what he alleged to be a 1974 visitation from God, or at least a God-like being. Dick spent the rest of his life writing copious journals regarding the visitation and his interpretations of the event. At times, Dick seemed to regard it as a divine revelation and, at other times, he believed it to be a sign of extreme schizophrenic behaviour. His final novels all deal in some way with the entity he saw in 1974, especially "Valis," in which the title-character is an extraterrestrial God-like machine that chooses to make contact with a hopelessly schizophrenic, possibly drug-addled and decidedly mixed-up science fiction writer named Philip K. Dick. Despite his award-winning novels and almost universal acclaim from within the science-fiction community, Dick was never especially financially successful as a writer. He worked mainly for low-paying science-fiction publishers and never seemed to see any royalties from his novels after the advance had been paid, no matter how many copies they sold. In fact, one of the reasons for his extreme productivity was that he always seemed to need the advance money from his next story or novel in order to make ends meet. But towards the very end of his life, he achieved a measure of financial stability, partly due to the money he received from the producers of Blade Runner (1982) for the rights to his novel "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?" upon which the film was based. Shortly before the film premiered, however, he died of a heart attack at the age of 53. Since his death, several other films have been adapted from his works (incuding Total Recall (1990)) and several unpublished novels have been published posthumously.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II was born on June 9, 1963 in Owensboro, Kentucky, to Betty Sue Palmer (née Wells), a waitress, and John Christopher Depp, a civil engineer. He was raised in Florida. He dropped out of school when he was 15, and fronted a series of music-garage bands, including one named 'The Kids'. When he married Lori A. Depp, he took a job as a ballpoint-pen salesman to support himself and his wife. A visit to Los Angeles, California, with his wife, however, happened to be a blessing in disguise, when he met up with actor Nicolas Cage, who advised him to turn to acting, which culminated in Depp's film debut in the low-budget horror film, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), where he played a teenager who falls prey to dream-stalking demon Freddy Krueger.
In 1987 he shot to stardom when he replaced Jeff Yagher in the role of undercover cop Tommy Hanson in the popular TV series 21 Jump Street (1987). In 1990, after numerous roles in teen-oriented films, his first of a handful of great collaborations with director Tim Burton came about when Depp played the title role in Edward Scissorhands (1990). Following the film's success, Depp carved a niche for himself as a serious, somewhat dark, idiosyncratic performer, consistently selecting roles that surprised critics and audiences alike. He continued to gain critical acclaim and increasing popularity by appearing in many features before re-joining with Burton in the lead role of Ed Wood (1994). In 1997 he played an undercover FBI agent in the fact-based film Donnie Brasco (1997), opposite Al Pacino; in 1998 he appeared in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), directed by Terry Gilliam; and then, in 1999, he appeared in the sci-fi/horror film The Astronaut's Wife (1999). The same year he teamed up again with Burton in Sleepy Hollow (1999), brilliantly portraying Ichabod Crane.
Depp has played many characters in his career, including another fact-based one, Insp. Fred Abberline in From Hell (2001). He stole the show from screen greats such as Antonio Banderas in the finale to Robert Rodriguez's "mariachi" trilogy, Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003). In that same year he starred in the marvelous family blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), playing a character that only the likes of Depp could pull off: the charming, conniving and roguish Capt. Jack Sparrow. The film's enormous success has opened several doors for his career and included an Oscar nomination. He appeared as the central character in the Stephen King-based movie, Secret Window (2004); as the kind-hearted novelist James Barrie in the factually-based Finding Neverland (2004), where he co-starred with Kate Winslet; and Rochester in the British film, The Libertine (2004). Depp collaborated again with Burton in a screen adaptation of Roald Dahl's novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and later in Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Dark Shadows (2012).
Off-screen, Depp has dated several female celebrities, and has been engaged to Sherilyn Fenn, Jennifer Grey, Winona Ryder and Kate Moss. He was married to Lori Anne Allison in 1983, but divorced her in 1985. Depp has two children with his former long-time partner, French singer/actress Vanessa Paradis: Lily-Rose Melody, born in 1999 and John Christopher "Jack" III, born in 2002. He married actress/producer Amber Heard in 2015, divorcing a few years later.- Art Department
- Additional Crew
- Writer
Pablo Picasso, one of the most recognized figures of 20th century art, who co-created such styles as Cubism and Surrealism, was also among most innovative, influential, and prolific artists of all time.
He was born Pablo Ruiz Picasso on October 6, 1881, in Malaga, Spain. He was the first child of Jose Ruiz y Blasco and Maria Picasso y Lopez. His father was an artist and professor of art at the School of Fine Arts, and also a curator of museum in Malaga, Spain. Picasso began studying art under his father's tutelage, continued at the Academy of Arts in Madrid for a year, and went on his ingenious explorations of the new horizons. He went to Paris in 1901 and found the environment conducive for his experiments with new art styles. Gertrude Stein, Guillaume Apollinaire, and André Breton were among his friends and collectors.
Constantly updating his style from the Blue Period, to the Rose Period, to the African-influenced Period, to Cubism, to Realism and Surrealism he was a pioneer with a hand in every art movement of the 20th century. He made some softer and neo-classic artworks during his cooperation with the Russian Ballet of Sergei Diaghilev in Paris. In 1917 Picasso joined the Russian Ballet on tour in Rome, Italy. There he fell in love with Olga Khokhlova, a classical ballerina from the Russian nobility (her father was a General to the Russian Tsar Nickolas II). Picasso painted Olga as a Spanish girl in his painting "Olga Khokhlova in Mantilla" to convince his parents for their blessing, and his idea worked. Picasso and Olga Khokhlova wed in Paris, in 1918, and had one son, Paolo. After their marriage, Olga's high society lifestyle clashed with Picasso's bohemian manners. They separated in 1935, but remained officially married until her death in 1954. Meanwhile, his most famous lovers, Marie Therese Walter and Dora Maar, were also his inspirational models for a series of experimental portraits.
Picasso was a pacifist. His outcry for peace was expressed in large-scale painting Guernica (1937), created after the German bombing of this Spanish city. This powerful composition, showing the brutal inhumanity of war, became his most famous work and turned him into a political celebrity. In 1940 Picasso applied for French citizenship, but was denied it, and remained Spanish. Protected by his fame, he was untouchable even to the Nazis in the occupied Paris. A skillful self-promoter, he used politics, eccentricity, and provocation as a selling tool. Sarcastic harlequin and dominating minotaur were his personal symbols, frequently used in his artworks. His life turned into a PR campaign, playing with scandals; viciousness to his own children, exaggerated virility and beastly treatment of his women. However, he was forgiven by the public. Even his membership in the Communist party and his controversial comments about Joseph Stalin, who awarded Picasso the Stalin Prize for Peace in 1950, were ignored by his admirers. His life-long extraordinary artistic dialogue with Henri Matisse took a form of a "visual conversation" and exchange of their paintings with mutual respect. After WWII he returned to "classical" style and created the "Dove of Peace".
An innovator and a multi-faceted personality, Picasso dominated the 20th century Western Art, spreading his influence beyond art into many aspects of culture and life. In his several film appearances Picasso always played himself. His lifestyle remained as bohemian and vivacious as it was in his youth. Picasso died in style while entertaining his guests at a dinner party, on April 8, 1973, in Mouglins, in southeastern France. Picasso's last words were "Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can't drink any more." He was interred at Castle Vauvenargues' park, in Vauvenargues, Bouches-du-Rhone, in the South of France.
Pablo Picasso's paintings rank among the most expensive artwork in the world, establishing a price record with $104 million sale of "Garçon a la pipe" in 2004. Picasso produced over 13 thousand paintings or designs, 100,000 prints and engravings, 34 thousand book illustrations and 300 sculptures, becoming the most prolific artist ever.