Vivien Leigh, styled as Lady Olivier after 1947, was a British actress. She 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). Although her career had periods of inactivity, in 1999 the American Film Institute ranked Leigh as the 16th-greatest female movie star of classic Hollywood cinema.
Henry Warren Beatty is an American actor and filmmaker. His career has spanned over six decades, and he has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award and three Golden Globe Awards. He also received the Irving G. Thalberg Award in 1999, the BAFTA Fellowship in 2002, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2007, and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2008.
Henry Graham Greene was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century.
Sir Carol Reed was an English film director and producer, best known for Odd Man Out (1947), The Fallen Idol (1948), The Third Man (1949), and Oliver! (1968), for which he was awarded the Academy Award for Best Director.
Natalie Clifford Barney was an American writer who hosted a literary salon at her home in Paris that brought together French and international writers. She influenced other authors through her salon and also with her poetry, plays, and epigrams, often thematically tied to her lesbianism and feminism.
The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion is a 1915 novel by the British writer Ford Madox Ford. It is set just before World War I, and chronicles the tragedy of Edward Ashburnham and his seemingly perfect marriage, along with that of his two American friends. The novel is told using a series of flashbacks in non-chronological order, a literary technique that formed part of Ford's pioneering view of literary impressionism. Ford employs the device of the unreliable narrator to great effect, as the main character gradually reveals a version of events that is quite different from what the introduction leads the reader to believe. The novel was loosely based on two incidents of adultery and on Ford's messy personal life, specifically “the agonies Ford went through with his wife and his mistress in the six preceding years."
Stella Adler was an American actress and acting teacher.
Second lady and second gentleman are honorary titles often used in reference to the spouse of a vice president, or spouse of a lieutenant governor or other second-ranked government official. The title is styled after first lady or first gentleman, which are used to describe the spouse of a president or governor. In discussing both spouses, they may be referred to as the second couple, and if they have children, they are known collectively as the second family.
Elective Affinities, also translated under the title Kindred by Choice, is the third novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, published in 1809. Situated around the city of Weimar, the book relates the story of Eduard and Charlotte, an aristocratic couple enjoying an idyllic but somewhat mundane life on a secluded estate; although it is the second marriage for both, their relationship deteriorates after they invite Eduard's friend Captain Otto and Charlotte's orphaned niece, Ottilie, to live with them in their mansion. The invitation to Ottilie and the Captain is described as an "experiment", as it indeed is. The house and its surrounding gardens are described as "a chemical retort in which the human elements are brought together for the reader to observe the resulting reaction." As if in a chemical reaction, each of the spouses experiences a strong new attraction, which is reciprocated: Charlotte, who represents reason, to the sensible and energetic Captain Otto; the impulsive and passionate Eduard to the adolescent and charming Ottilie. The conflict between passion and reason leads to chaos and ultimately to a tragic end.
Cakes and Ale, or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930) is a novel by the British author W. Somerset Maugham. Maugham exposes the misguided social snobbery levelled at the character Rosie Driffield, whose frankness, honesty, and sexual freedom make her a target of conservative opprobrium. Her character is treated favourably by the book's narrator, Ashenden, who understands that she was a muse to the many artists who surrounded her, and who himself enjoyed her sexual favours.
Renata Adler is an American author, journalist, and film critic. Adler was a staff writer-reporter for The New Yorker for over thirty years and the chief film critic for The New York Times from 1968 to 1969. She has also published several fiction and non-fiction books, and has been awarded the O. Henry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the PEN/Hemingway Award.
David Abraham Adler is an American writer of 265 books for children and young adults, most notably the Cam Jansen mystery series, the "Picture Book of..." series, and several acclaimed works about the Holocaust for young readers.
A Yank at Oxford is a 1938 comedy-drama film directed by Jack Conway and starring Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Vivien Leigh and Edmund Gwenn. The screenplay was written by John Monk Saunders and Leon Gordon. The film was produced by MGM-British at Denham Studios.
The Man in the Iron Mask is a 1939 American historical adventure film very loosely adapted from the last section of the 1847–1850 novel The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas, père, which is itself based on the French legend of the Man in the Iron Mask.
Sidewalks of London, also known as St Martin's Lane, London After Dark, and Partners of the Night, is a 1938 British black-and-white comedy drama starring Charles Laughton as a busker or street entertainer who teams up with a talented pickpocket, played by Vivien Leigh. The film co-stars Rex Harrison and Tyrone Guthrie in a rare acting appearance. It also features Ronald Shiner as the barman (uncredited). It was produced by Mayflower Pictures Corporation.
Loving Frank is a 2007 American novel by Nancy Horan. It tells the story of Mamah Borthwick's illicit love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright and the public shame they experienced in early twentieth century America. It is a fictionalised account told from Borthwick's perspective, based on research conducted by Horan, and it is her debut novel. It depicts Borthwick’s life as it became intertwined with Wright's between the years of 1907 through 1914. By following the artistic aspirations and travels of the two main protagonists, the novel portrays the social mores of the times in the United States and Europe.
Random Hearts is a 1999 American romantic drama film directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas. Based on the 1984 novel of the same name by Warren Adler, the film is about a police officer and a Congresswoman who discover that their spouses were having an affair prior to being killed in an air disaster.
Warren Adler was an American author, playwright and poet. His novel The War of the Roses was turned into a dark comedy starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito.
Calico Joe is John Grisham's first baseball novel. It was released on April 10, 2012.
Dear Edward is an American drama television series developed by Jason Katims, based on the novel of the same name by Ann Napolitano. It premiered on February 3, 2023 on Apple TV+. In April 2023, the series was canceled after one season.
