Vivien Leigh, styled as Lady Olivier after 1947, was a British actress. After completing her drama school education, Leigh appeared in small roles in four films in 1935 and progressed to the role of heroine in Fire Over England (1937). She then won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, for her performances as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she had also played on stage in London's West End in 1949. She also won a Tony Award for her work in the Broadway musical version of Tovarich (1963).
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.
Richard Burton was a Welsh actor.
Elizabeth is a 1998 British biographical historical drama film directed by Shekhar Kapur and written by Michael Hirst. It stars Cate Blanchett in the title role of Elizabeth I of England, with Geoffrey Rush, Christopher Eccleston, Joseph Fiennes, John Gielgud, and Richard Attenborough in supporting roles. The film is based on the early years of Elizabeth's reign, where she is elevated to the throne after the death of her half-sister Mary I, who had imprisoned her. As she establishes herself on the throne, she faces plots and threats to take her down.
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.
Joanna Baillie was a Scottish poet and dramatist, known for such works as Plays on the Passions and Fugitive Verses (1840). Her work shows an interest in moral philosophy and the Gothic. She was critically acclaimed in her lifetime, and while living in Hampstead, associated with contemporary writers such as Anna Barbauld, Lucy Aikin, and Walter Scott. She died at the age of 88.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Swordsman of Siena is a 1962 French-Italian adventure film directed by Étienne Périer and Baccio Bandini and starring Stewart Granger, Sylva Koscina and Christine Kaufmann. The film is set in Spanish-controlled Italy during the sixteenth century.
Woman Hater is a 1948 British romantic comedy film directed by Terence Young and starring Stewart Granger, Edwige Feuillère and Ronald Squire. The screenplay concerns Lord Datchett, who, as a consequence of a bet with his friends, invites a French film star to stay at his house but pretends to be one of his employees while he tries to romance her with the help of his butler. When she discovers his subterfuge, she decides to turn the tables on him.
Provan Hall is a historic place composed of two buildings built about the 15th century and situated in Auchinlea Park, Easterhouse, Glasgow. It is owned by the National Trust for Scotland and leased by Glasgow City Council. The two parallel buildings, enclosing a courtyard, are protected as a category A listed building. The building has recently been renovated and now operates as a small museum. It is managed by Provan Hall Community Management Trust. It has been used as a set for filming ‘Outlander’.
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.
Burton & Taylor is a BBC Four TV film written by William Ivory and directed by Richard Laxton, starring Helena Bonham Carter and Dominic West as legendary acting duo and former couple, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton during their preparation for a 1983 theatrical production of the play, Private Lives.
Frances Stewart, Marchioness of Londonderry, was an English aristocrat and mistress of a large landed and politically connected household in late Georgian Ireland. From her husband's mansion at Mount Stewart, County Down, in the 1790s her circle of friends and acquaintances extended to figures engaged in the democratic politics of the United Irishmen. Correspondence with her stepson, Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, and with the English peer and politician John Petty, record major political and social developments of her era.
