Peter Sellers

Richard Henry Sellers (known as Peter Sellers) was an English actor born in 1925. His most famous role was as inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, but also played in films such as, Dr. Strangelove and Lolita. He participated in the BBC radio comedy series, The Goons Show for a good number of years. This is what enabled his rise to fame, thanks to his ability to speak in many different accents and talk in different voices. Despite his award winning career, Sellers was a substance abuser, emotionally unstable and claimed to have no identity outside of the characters he played. He was married a total of four times and had three children, one of which is dead.

It is thought that despite his obvious talent for acting and directing, Sellers was unable to cope with the strain and pressure of fame, this is what many people think, pushed him to an early grave, making him die of a heart-attack at the age of 54.

In his early life, Peter attended Catholic school and was apparently fascinated by the Catholic religion, but after a few years in the school, he 'discovered' that he was in fact, a Jew. This made his years at Catholic school particularly difficult, as well as his integration into the world of show-business where, at the time, Jews were not really tolerated as comedians, actors and directors, the smaller and less significant roles. This did not, however, discourage Sellers from pursuing what he believed to be his calling: to entertain.

After serving as an airman during WWII, he returned to England in 1948 and began performing stand-up routines in various theatres. His first audition for a major role in radio resulted from him telephoning the BBC radio producer, Roy Speer and impersonating Kenneth Horne, a radio star so that the producer would agree to talk to him. Speer labelled him as a 'cheeky young sod' for this daring act, but it got him the audition!

The Goons Show constituted Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan. The shows used words to create 'slapstick' comedy. The humour was often based on bizarre and unlikely concepts such as the idea of an assailant who manages to keep a grand piano concealed on his person, striking the unsuspecting 'Eckles' on the head on numerous occasions. Each of the 'Goons' takes on several recurring characters who all have different voices and their own particular (and whacky) personalities.

The series The Pink Panther gained a cult following and a cartoon series of the same name was equally developed, the story-line, however, is very different to that of the film series. Peter Sellers actually died in the middle of the filming of the last Pink Panther film ever made. He had been the victim of several heart-attacks throughout his later life, but refusing to take the route of conventional medicine, which could have saved his life, he sought out psychic healers instead. The film crew decided to continue with the making of the final Pink Panther film without Sellers, in his memory, although the outcome was somewhat dull and uninspiring compared to the action and comedy packed prequels. It is possible to feel the sadness of the actors as they continue to act without Peter, and this obviously had an effect on the quality of their performance.

Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson in LA in 1926. Her mother was mentally unable to cope with raising Norma, so she spent much of her childhood in foster homes. One day, when Norma was 7, her mother stormed into the foster home and attempted to kidnap the child in a duffel bag. Her mother was then admitted into a mental institute and Norma was put into the care of her best friend, Grace McKee. It was Grace who put the ideas about acting into her head and encouraged her to pursue this career. When Norma was 9, Grace got married and sent the girl into an orphanage. 

She spent several years going from foster home to 

foster home, before finally going back to live with Grace and her family. However, the Norma was the victim of sexual abuse from her foster father and so she was sent to live with one of Grace's aunts in Compton, but even there, she suffered sexual abuse from one of the aunt's sons. She then went to live with another of Grace's aunts and this was, as she later described the most stable period in her live, where she truly felt secure, but unfortunately it was short-lead as the old lady had many health issues and became unable to care for her. So Norma moved back in with Grace and her husband and met James (Jim) Dougherty at middle school, whom she began a relationship with. When Grace and her family wanted to move away, to prevent Norma from going back into care, she pressured her boyfriend into marrying her, even though she was only sixteen. Dougherty was away a lot in the Merchant Marine, and during his absence, Norma worked in the local factory. It was in this factory that she was first noticed for her beauty. 

A photographer encouraged her to apply for a modelling agency and she was accepted. So began her successful modelling career, which then led her to get noticed by the Fox producer, Ben Lyon who then employed her as an actress, performing minor roles in films. It was his idea that she change her name to Marilyn, after Marilyn Miller, she chose the name Monroe, as it was her mother's maiden name. Little by little, Monroe gained more notoriety and the importance of her roles increased until she truly was an international movie star. Her breakthrough was a starring role in the 1949 film, Love Happy, this brought her to the attention of the talent agent, Johnny Hyde. From this point on, she was fully successful in her work. Her love life was very unstable, she was married 3 times and had numerous affairs, her most famous being with President John F Kennedy. It is thought that her traumatic childhood had a huge effect on her romantic life, resulting in excessive sexual activity and emotional insecurity. Like her mother, Monroe was psychologically unstable and suffered from chronic depression throughout her life.

Monroe's last film was entitled The Misfits. During this time, Marilyn suffered from insomnia and alcoholism and was frequently rushed to hospital after collapsing on film sets. On the 5^th of August 1962, she was found dead in her home in LA, the cause being 'acute barbiturate poisoning'. It is unknown how exactly she managed to ingest such large quantities of sleeping pills. The main theory is that she committed suicide, however there are many conspiracy theories involving people like John and Robert Kennedy.

Dr. Strangelove

Dr. Strangelove is a 1964 black comedy film that was written to give a satyrical view of the nuclear scare. It was co-written, directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick and starred actors such as: Peter Sellers and George C. Scott. The story is about a crazy American Air Force officer who orders a nuclear attack on the USSR, and then various Western heads of State attempt to recall the bombers in order to prevent a potential nuclear apocalypse. In 1989, the film was called 'culturally significant' by the United States Library of congress and was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry. In this film, the four main characters are all played by Peter Sellers, this in fact, was the condition that was set by Columbia Pictures in order to finance the film's production.

The film is vaguely based on Peter George's novel: Red Alert, although the character, Dr Strangelove, does not actually feature in the original novel. The film won various BAFTA and Academy Awards including: Best actor, best British art direction and best film from any source.

David Byrne

David Byrne was born in Scotland in 1952 and was most famous for being the principal songwriter of the New Wave band: The Talking Heads. He has also released several solo albums and has won a Grammy, a Golden Globe Award and an Oscar for his work in film, opera, photography and non-fiction writing. He now lives and works in New York, but remains a British citizen. He has composed music for ballets such as The Catherine Wheel which appeared on Broadway and In Spite of Wishing and Waiting which was for a Belgian dance company. On top of that, he is a film-soundtrack composer and has written for films such as: Young Adam and Something Wild. He even wrote, directed and starred in the musical True Stories. Byrne has also worked with charities, contributing songs to five AIDS benefit album compilations.  

Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret) was born in Switzerland in 1887. He later became a French citizen and was famous for being an architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter. He designed buildings of the Modernist style that were constructed throughout the world. The main points that he adopted in his architectural designs were: the idea of supporting pilotis (Concrete or metal stilts that reinforced the structure of the building. This enabled the walls to be non-supporting which made them more flexible as far as their design goes, meaning that the façade could be almost any shape the architect desired, or even contain huge windows without being a safety hazard. With these three points, he also used open floor-plans which made the rooms versatile and meant that their purposes could be changed. The final point that he utilised was the concept of roof-gardens to compensate for the green areas lost in the construction of the buildings. These are all points that are still used today in contemporary architectural design. His most famous building is probably the Villa Savoye. 

Marion Deuchars

Marion Deuchars is an illustrator living and working in Britain. She studied illustration and print-making at Duncan of Jordanstone in Dundee and then at the Royal College of Art in London.

Deuchars has worked in illustration, publishing, editorial, packaging, interior design, brand development, web design, corporate literature and brand development. Her work generally includes a substantial amount of handwriting an line drawings but she also creates collages and uses photography as a basis for quite a lot of her work. She has recently written, illustrated and published a book called “Let's Make Some Great Art” in which she gives ideas of pictures and paintings to her readers and encourages them to make their own versions.

Michael Graves

Michael Graves was born in 1934 and is an American architect who participated in a famous architectural exhibition in 1972, gaining him a status as one of 'The New York Five' along with Peter Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey, John Hejduk and Richard Meier. He is a pioneer of architectural modernism and is greatly inspired by the work of Le Corbusier. His work did receive a lot of harsh critique, notably by a group of essayists who called themselves 'the greys' and claimed to be attacking the modernist architects whom they called 'the whites'. They refused the aesthetic of the modernist style and said that it created buildings that only provoked feelings of 'indifference' amongst their onlookers. Graves did, however remain faithful to the Corsbusian style and even today he stays active in his work, despite being paralysed from the waist down after contracting Meningitis.  

Amy Bloom

Amy Bloom is an author who was born in the USA in 1953. Bloom initially studied to be a social worker and practiced psychotherapy for a number of years. She is now the writer in residence at Wesleyan University and has also been a lecturer of creative writing at Yale University. Amy regularly writes features for newspapers such as: The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine and Vogue. Her novels had been nominated for The National Book Award and The National Book Critics Award. She is also head-writer and producer of a television series called: State of Mind which appears on the Lifetime Television Network.

Fernand Léger

Fernand Léger was born in 1881 and was a French painter, sculptor and film-maker. He lived in a time where the industrial revolution had completely overrun society and machines were becoming increasingly indispensable to the lives of factory workers, and even in the home. Unlike many of the artists of his time, Léger did not revolt against the industrial world surrounding him, but embraced it and portrayed it in a positive light in his paintings. He would seek to illustrate a friendship between man and machine by showing the two working together. His work is very colourful and is said to be a predecessor of Pop-Art.

Jackson Pollock

Jackson Pollock was born in 1912. He studied art in New York and after suffering with alcoholism for some years, he underwent psychotherapy based on the ideas of Carl Jung. He was encouraged to use his art as a way of expressing his feelings and thoughts and many of the Jungian principles he acquired are visible in his paintings. Pollock's particular style of painting, called “dripping”, or “all-over” consisted of splattering paint on very large canvases in a seemingly random way. This technique is quite typical of the abstract expressionist movement to which Pollock belonged. It is thought that this technique brought about the concept of “action-painting”. A film was made about him in 2000 featuring actors like Ed Harris, Marcia Gay Harden and Jennifer Connelly.

Patricia Neal

Patricia Neal was an actress born in Tennessee in 1926. She starred in many Broadway movies such as: The voice of the Turtle, Another Part of the Forest and The Fountainhead. She won several Academy and BAFTA awards during her career. The actress was married to English writer Roald Dahl for 30 years. And they had 5 children together. She worked with actors such as: Ronald Reagan, John Wayne and Andy Griffith. In 1978, a rehabilitation centre was dedicated to her for her support for victims of paralysis. She died in 2010 from lung cancer.

All the President's Men

All the President's Men is a political thriller based on a non-fiction novel that was written by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who were journalists and are the main characters of the film.

It is about the scandal of the Watergate affair when President Nixon was in power. These two journalists worked to uncover the secrets that the government was holding back and eventually ended up writing a book about the affair. This 1976 film won the Academy Awards, various other awards and was nominated for awards such as the BAFTA Film and Golden Globe Awards.  

George Harrison

Former lead guitarist of The Beatles, George Harrison was also known as a songwriter, actor and film and record producer. He was often called 'the quiet Beatle' and he introduced the other members of the band to Indian mysticism which soon became an obvious influence in their songwriting and musical style; he was an advocate of the Hare Krishna movement.

His career as a solo artist, after the breakup of the Beatles became increasingly angled towards a style that combined the sounds of traditional Indian music and a more electronic/Western atmosphere. He played in lots of different artists' songs during this time and became fully engaged in promoting Indian chanting in the Western world. He died in 2001 at the age of 58.

Einstein on the Beach

Einstein on the Beach is an opera that was written by Phillip Glass in 1976. It is unlike any other opera of its time as it has no storyline, no hero and no obvious link between different scenes, or even between what is seen and heard. It is said to have irreparably changed the image of opera.

Glass had some difficulty in defining the nature of Einstein on the Beach, originally as it did not seem to fall comfortably into the niche of a dance, or a musical, or a painting. So Glass chose to call it an opera, coming from the Latin, opus, meaning work. In that way, it is the perfect word to describe this unconventional spectacle. The opera plays with using different speeds and moods, created by the sounds of the music, the dancers and singers and by the occasional bit of spoken text.

David Carson

David Carson is a world-famous American graphic designer. He is best known for his experimental typography (associated with the 'grunge' typography era) and his innovative magazine design.

Some say that he was the most influential graphic designer of the 1990's.

Carson actually studied sociology, but was exposed to graphic design as a part of his course. After attending a workshop, he started to experiment with his own style of graphics and soon became famous for this inventive style, which mainly consists of distorting typefaces to create 'fractured imagery'. He has worked for many important clients over the years such as: Nike, Levis, British Airways, Microsoft and Pepsi. 

Sonia Gandhi

Sonia Gandhi is an Italian born Indian politician, who is the widow of former Indian Prime-minister, Rajiv Gandhi. She decided to stay away from politics after the assassination of her husband in 1991, despite all of the efforts of her late husbands colleagues to persuade her to do otherwise. Finally in 1997, she caved in and a year later, she had been elected as President of the National Congress Party, she is the longest serving president in the history of the party, and the fifth foreign-born president of the party. This has been subject to much controversy over the course of her career, but despite this, she has been named the third most powerful woman in the world and the ninth most powerful person.