Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was a British and American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. She then became the world's highest-paid movie star in the 1960s, remaining a well-known public figure for the rest of her life. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked her seventh on its greatest female screen legends list.
Lady Grizel Baillie, née Hume, was a Scottish gentlewoman and songwriter. Her accounting ledgers, in which she kept details about her household for more than 50 years, provide information about social life in Scotland in the eighteenth century.
Speak is a 2004 American coming-of-age teen drama film written and directed by Jessica Sharzer in her feature directorial debut, based on the 1999 novel of the same name by Laurie Halse Anderson. Starring Kristen Stewart, Michael Angarano, Robert John Burke, Eric Lively, Elizabeth Perkins, D. B. Sweeney, and Steve Zahn, the film follows Melinda Sordino (Stewart), a high school freshman who stops talking after senior student Andy Evans (Lively) rapes her at a party.
Donald Duart Maclean was a British diplomat and Soviet double agent who participated in the Cambridge Five spy ring. After being recruited by a Soviet agent as an undergraduate student, Maclean entered the civil service. In 1938, he was appointed as Third Secretary at the British embassy in Paris. He served in London and Washington, D.C., achieving promotion to First Secretary. He was subsequently posted to Egypt, and then was appointed head of the American Department in the Foreign Office.
Secret Ceremony is a 1968 British drama-thriller film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow and Robert Mitchum.
Phyllis Hannah Murray-Hill, known professionally as Phyllis Calvert, was an English film, stage and television actress. She was one of the leading stars of the Gainsborough melodramas of the 1940s such as The Man in Grey (1943) and was one of the most popular movie stars in Britain in the 1940s. She continued her acting career for another 50 years.
Pride and Prejudice is a 1940 American film adaptation of Jane Austen's 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice, starring Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier. Directed by Robert Z. Leonard, the screenplay was written by Aldous Huxley and Jane Murfin, adapted specifically from the stage adaptation by Helen Jerome, in addition to Jane Austen's novel.
Fire Over England is a 1937 London Film Productions film drama, notable for providing the first pairing of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. It was directed by William K. Howard and written by Clemence Dane, nominally from the 1936 novel Fire Over England by AEW Mason. Leigh's performance in the film helped to convince David O. Selznick to cast her as Scarlett O'Hara in his 1939 production of Gone with the Wind. The film is a historical drama set during the reign of Elizabeth I focusing on England's victory over the Spanish Armada.
Mona Lee Washbourne was an English actress of stage, film, and television. Her most critically acclaimed role was in the film Stevie (1978), late in her career, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award.
Helen Haye was a British stage and film actress.
Eleanor Audrey Summerfield was an English actress who appeared in many plays, films and television series. She is known for her roles in Laughter in Paradise (1951), Final Appointment (1954), Odongo (1956), Dentist in the Chair (1960), On the Fiddle (1961), The Running Man (1963) and Some Will, Some Won't (1970).
The Adventures of Quentin Durward, known also as Quentin Durward, is a 1955 British historical film released by MGM. It was directed by Richard Thorpe and produced by Pandro S. Berman. The screenplay was by Robert Ardrey, adapted by George Froeschel from the 1823 novel Quentin Durward by Sir Walter Scott.
An Ideal Husband, also known as Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband, is a 1947 British comedy film adaptation of the 1895 play by Oscar Wilde. It was made by London Film Productions and distributed by British Lion Films (UK) and Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (USA). It was produced and directed by Alexander Korda from a screenplay by Lajos Bíró from Wilde's play. The music score was by Arthur Benjamin, the cinematography by Georges Périnal, the editing by Oswald Hafenrichter and the costume design by Cecil Beaton. This was Korda's last completed film as a director, although he continued producing films into the next decade.
British Agent is a 1934 American romantic espionage film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Leslie Howard and Kay Francis. It is based on Memoirs of a British Agent, the 1932 autobiography of R. H. Bruce Lockhart, who worked for the British Secret Service during the Russian Revolution and had an affair with a Russian agent, later known as Moura Budberg. The film was produced by First National, then a division of Warner Bros.
Olive, Lady Baillie was an Anglo-American heiress, landowner and hostess. She is best known as the owner of Leeds Castle, near Maidstone, Kent, England. On her death the castle was bequeathed to a charitable trust to enable it to be open to the public.
Lady Myra Idina Sackville was an English aristocrat and member of the Happy Valley set. Divorced five times, Lady Idina's behaviour and lifestyle scandalised upper-class Edwardian society.
Family of Spies, also known as Family of Spies: The Walker Spy Ring is a 1990 TV movie based on the espionage of John A. Walker Jr. The film was directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal and starred Powers Boothe as John Walker.
Belle is a 2013 British period drama film directed by Amma Asante, written by Misan Sagay and produced by Damian Jones. It stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Tom Wilkinson, Miranda Richardson, Penelope Wilton, Sam Reid, Matthew Goode, Emily Watson, Sarah Gadon, Tom Felton, and James Norton.
In Secret is a 2013 American erotic thriller romance film written and directed by Charlie Stratton. Based on Émile Zola's classic 1867 novel Thérèse Raquin and the 2009 stage play by the same name penned by Neal Bell, the film stars Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Felton, Oscar Isaac and Jessica Lange. It was screened in the Special Presentation section at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. The film received a regional release on February 21, 2014.
Acrimony is a 2018 American psychological thriller film written, produced and directed by Tyler Perry. The film stars Taraji P. Henson, Lyriq Bent, and Crystle Stewart. It follows a betrayed wife who stalks and nearly kills her ex husband when he becomes successful after she spent her whole life supporting him. Principal photography began in October 2016 in Pittsburgh. Acrimony was released in the United States by Lionsgate on March 30, 2018. It received generally negative reviews and grossed $46 million worldwide.
