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 period 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.
Speak is a 2004 American independent coming-of-age teen drama film based on the award-winning 1999 novel of the same name by Laurie Halse Anderson. It stars Kristen Stewart as Melinda Sordino, a high school freshman who practically stops talking after a senior student rapes her. The film's story is told through Melinda's perspective. It was broadcast on Showtime and Lifetime in 2005 after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004.
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.
Lucile Watson was a Canadian actress, long based in the United States. She was "famous for her roles of formidable dowagers."
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.
Ramona and Beezus is a 2010 American comedy-drama film based on the Ramona series of novels written by Beverly Cleary. It was directed by Elizabeth Allen, co-produced by Dune Entertainment, Di Novi Pictures, and Walden Media, written by Laurie Craig and Nick Pustay, and produced by Denise Di Novi and Alison Greenspan with music by Mark Mothersbaugh. The film stars Joey King and Selena Gomez. Though the film's title is derived from Beezus and Ramona, the first of Cleary's Ramona books, the plot is mostly based on the sequels Ramona Forever and Ramona's World.
Marie Ney was a British character actress who had an acting career spanning five decades, from 1919 to 1969, encompassing both stage and screen.
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.
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.
