Alfred Hawthorne "Benny" Hill was an English comedian, actor, singer and writer. He is remembered for his television programme The Benny Hill Show, an amalgam of slapstick, burlesque and double entendre in a format that included live comedy and filmed segments, with Hill at the focus of almost every segment.
Alan Ross McWhirter was, with his twin brother, Norris, the cofounder of the 1955 Guinness Book of Records and a contributor to the television programme Record Breakers. He was killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1975.
Estelle Louise Fletcher was an American actress. She is best known for her portrayal of the antagonist Nurse Ratched in the psychological drama film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), which earned her numerous accolades including, the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.
The siege of Boston was the opening phase of the American Revolutionary War. New England militiamen prevented the British Army from moving by land, and it was garrisoned in Boston, Massachusetts Bay. Both sides had to deal with resource, supply, and personnel issues over the course of the siege. British resupply and reinforcement was limited to sea access, which was impeded by American vessels. The British abandoned Boston after 11 months and transferred their troops and equipment to Nova Scotia.
Matthew Steven LeBlanc is an American actor. He garnered global recognition with his portrayal of Joey Tribbiani in the NBC sitcom Friends and in its spin-off series, Joey. For his work on Friends, LeBlanc received three nominations at the Primetime Emmy Awards. He has also starred as a fictionalized version of himself in Episodes (2011–2017), for which he won a Golden Globe Award and received four additional Emmy Award nominations. He co-hosted Top Gear from 2016 to 2019. From 2016 to 2020, he played patriarch Adam Burns in the CBS sitcom Man with a Plan.
Children's Hour, initially The Children's Hour, was the BBC's principal recreational service for children which began during the period when radio was the only medium of broadcasting.
The Iranian Embassy siege took place from 30 April to 5 May 1980, after a group of six armed men stormed the Iranian embassy on Prince's Gate in South Kensington, London. The gunmen, Iranian Arabs campaigning for sovereignty of Khuzestan Province, took 26 people hostage, including embassy staff, several visitors, and a police officer who had been guarding the embassy. They demanded the release of prisoners in Khuzestan and their own safe passage out of the United Kingdom. The British government quickly decided that safe passage would not be granted and a siege ensued. Subsequently, police negotiators secured the release of five hostages in exchange for minor concessions, such as the broadcasting of the hostage-takers' demands on British television.
Lee J. Cobb was an American actor, known both for film roles and his work on the Broadway stage, as well as for his television role as the star of the TV series The Virginian. He often played arrogant, intimidating and abrasive characters, but he also acted as respectable figures such as judges and police officers. Cobb originated the role of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's 1949 play Death of a Salesman under the direction of Elia Kazan, and was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for On the Waterfront (1954) and The Brothers Karamazov (1958).
Catherine Tyson is an English actress. She won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film Mona Lisa (1986), which also earned her Best Supporting Actress nominations at the Golden Globes and BAFTA Awards. She has starred in The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988), Priest (1994), and Band of Gold (1995–1997). She won the British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2022 for her performance in the film Help.
Leonard Meyer Sachs was a South African-born British actor.
The Fortification of Dorchester Heights was a decisive action early in the American Revolutionary War that precipitated the end of the siege of Boston and the withdrawal of British troops from that city.
Ian McNeice is an English film and television actor. He found fame portraying government agent Harcourt in the 1985 television series Edge of Darkness, and went on to feature in popular films such as The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls and Frank Herbert's Dune.
Marta Victoria Moya Peggo Burges, known professionally as Linda Cristal, was an Argentinian actress. She appeared in a number of Western films during the 1950s, before winning a Golden Globe Award for her performance in the 1958 comedy film The Perfect Furlough.
James Peter Maxwell Dornan is an actor, model, and musician from Northern Ireland. The recipient of two Irish Film and Television Awards, he has been nominated for a BAFTA Television Award and a Golden Globe Award. In 2020, he was named one of Ireland's greatest film actors by The Irish Times.
Simon Beaufoy is a British screenwriter. Born in Keighley, West Riding of Yorkshire, he was educated at Malsis School in Cross Hills, Ermysted's Grammar School and Sedbergh School, he read English at St Peter's College, Oxford and graduated from Arts University Bournemouth. In 1997, he earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay for The Full Monty. He went on to win the 2009 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Slumdog Millionaire as well as winning a Golden Globe and a BAFTA award.
Quality television is a term used by television scholars, television critics, and broadcasting advocacy groups to describe a genre or style of television programming that they argue is of higher quality due to its subject matter, style, or content. For several decades after World War II, television that was deemed to be "quality television" was mostly associated with government-funded public television networks; however, with the development of cable TV network specialty channels in the 1980s and 1990s, US cable channels such as HBO made a number of television shows during the turn of the century that some television critics argued were "quality television", such as Angels in America, Sex and the City, The Sopranos, The Wire and Six Feet Under.
Eric Fellner, is a British film producer. He is the co-chairman of the production company Working Title Films.
The 69th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and television of 2011, were broadcast live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California on January 15, 2012, by NBC. The host was Ricky Gervais, for the third consecutive year. The musical theme for the year was composed by Yoshiki, leader of the Japanese band X Japan. The nominations were announced by Woody Harrelson, Sofía Vergara, Gerard Butler and Rashida Jones on December 15, 2011. Multiple winners for the night included the silent film The Artist which won three awards and The Descendants winning two awards. Freshman television series Homeland also won two awards.
The 2012 British Academy Television Awards were held on 27 May 2012 at the Royal Festival Hall in London. The nominees were announced on 24 April 2012.
Gerald Joseph Duggan was an Irish-born Australian character actor. Although he never achieved stardom, he was a familiar face in small roles in film and television, both in Australia and Britain. His trademarks were his Irish brogue, pronounced lisp and prominent jaw.
