The Blues Brothers Biography

The Blues Brothers Biography

The Blues Brothers Biography

Formed in 1978, this US group was centred on comedians John Belushi (24 January 1949, Chicago, Illinois, USA, d. 5 March 1982, Los Angeles, California, USA) and Dan Aykroyd (b. 1 July 1952, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada). Renowned for contributions to the satirical National Lampoon team and television’s Saturday Night Live, the duo formed this 60s-soul-styled revue as a riposte to disco.

Assuming the epithets Joliet ‘Jake’ Blues (Belushi) and Elwood Blues (Aykroyd), they embarked on live appearances with the assistance of a crack backing group, which included Steve Cropper (guitar), Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn (bass) and Tom Scott (saxophone). Briefcase Full Of Blues topped the US charts, a success that in turn inspired the movie The Blues Brothers (1980). Although reviled by several music critics, there was no denying the refreshing enthusiasm the participants brought to R&B and the venture has since acquired a cult status.

An affectionate, if anarchic, tribute to soul and R&B, it featured cameo appearances by Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, John Lee Hooker and James Brown. Belushi’s death from a drug overdose in 1982 brought the original concept to a premature end, since which time Aykroyd has continued a successful acting career. However, several of the musicians, including Cropper and Dunn, later toured and recorded as the Blues Brothers Band.

The original Blues Brothers have also inspired numerous copy-cat/tribute groups who still attract sizeable audiences, over 20 years after the movie’s release. In August 1991, interest in the concept was again boosted with a revival theatre production in London’s West End. A critically slated sequel, Blues Brothers 2000, was released in 1998, with Belushi replaced by ex-Roseanne star John Goodman.

Bio source…..www.oldies.com

Picture source…..nofilmschool.com

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Ali Campbell Biography

Ali Campbell Biography

Ali Campbell Biography

Ali Campbell was born February 15 1959 in Birmingham, UK. After leaving school he and some friends decided to form a band. In humorous reference to their unemployed status, they named themselves after the unemployment benefit claim form (UB40). The band’s instruments were all purchased thanks to a £4,000 compensation award that Ali received after a bar fight, and the band played their first gig at the Hare & Hounds pub in Birmingham.

Ali grew up in an area of Birmingham with a predominantly afro-Caribbean population, which heavily influenced his musical tastes. Although a huge fan of Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder, (he modelled his singing style on both their voices), his biggest love was reggae, and so UB40 became the first all-white reggae band. This prompted many Ali Campbell tour tickets to be sold, initially for the novelty value alone.

Soon afterward, the boys were spotted by Pretenders’ lead singer Chrissie Hyndes, who invited them to support her band on their upcoming tour. This led to a recording contract, Ali Campbell tickets for promotional gigs, and their debut single, King/Food for Thought. In 1980, their first album, Signing Off, reached number two in the UK, remaining in the charts for seventy-two weeks. Now the best UB40 tickets were hard to get – and more expensive!

In 1983, they released a covers album, Labour of Love, which topped the UK charts, gave them their first US hit and increased demand for UB40 tour tickets. Their most successful singles were (I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You, and Red, Red Wine and even new fans purchasing Ali Campbell tickets clamoured to hear these old classics.

UB40 were still going strong twenty years after the band formed; UB40 tour tickets continued to sell-out, and they even won an Ivor Novello Award for International Achievement. In 2007, the band headlined the Live Earth concert in Johannesburg, performing a 54-minute set – these were some of the best UB40 tickets to get your hands on.

Soon after, blaming disputes with management, Ali quit the band but demand for the best UB40 tickets remained high, prompting Campbell to release a solo album later that year, Running Free, featuring such guest artists as Smoky Robinson and Mick Hucknall, prompting sales of Ali Campbell tickets to rival UB40’s in popularity. In 2008, after forming a new band called Dep with fellow ex-UB40 member Mickey Virtue, he embarked on an international tour, launched with a sell-out concert at the Albert Hall. The demand for Ali Campbell tickets were at this point at an all time high, and would tour tickets often sold out in no time. While in South Africa, Ali helped record the single Many Rivers to Cross on behalf of Nelson Mandela’s Goal4Africa campaign, to fund education for children in rural Africa, again rejuvenating sales of Ali Campbell tickets.

In 2009, Ali’s single Out From Under was released, and in 2010, his follow-up album Flying High had a mix of covers and self-penned tracks, featuring Craig David and Shaggy. This received some of the most favourable reviews of Ali’s career to date, and caused a resurgence in Ali Campbell tour tickets sales; one reviewer raved that it captured the authentic contemporary sound of Jamaica.

Bio source…..www.eventim.co.uk

Picture source…..images1.fanpop.com

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Chrissie Hynde Biography

Chrissie Hynde Biography

Chrissie Hynde Biography

The Pretender’s fearsome frontwoman made rock history, but behind the scenes drugs and drama took their toll.

A disillusioned teenage Chrissie Hynde left the United States on a one-way ticket to England where she landed a job as music critic for the NME. She also worked in McLaren’s ‘Sex’ boutique before forming The Pretenders.

The original Pretenders line-up featured Hynde on vocals/guitar, Pete Farndon on bass, James Honeyman-Scott on guitar and Martin Chambers on drums.

Their albums ‘Pretenders I & II’ were huge successes, with hits like ‘Stop Your Sobbing’, ‘Kid’ and ‘Brass in Pocket’.

During an American tour in 1980, Hynde met Ray Davies and the pair began a relationship which led to the birth of a baby daughter. However, in 1981 tragedy struck for the band when James Honeyman-Scott died from a drugs overdose and a year later, Pete Farndon suffered the same fate.

Hynde and the Pretenders regrouped in 1983, with Robbie McIntosh and Malcolm Foster, releasing ‘Learning to Crawl’ in 1984.

By the middle of that year, things were beginning to look up for Hynde and she married Simple Mind singer Jim Kerr. The couple had a daughter, but would later divorce in 1990.

Hynde’s duet with UB40’s on ‘I Got You Babe’ did well in the charts and she continued to make music under the guise of The Pretenders, despite the odd change of line-up. ‘Don’t Get Me Wrong’ and ‘Breakfast in Bed’ marked the end of the bands 80s output.

The 1990s proved less of a success after ‘Packed!’ failed to set the charts alight. In 1994, the album ‘Last of the Independents’, was quite rightly hailed as an impressive comeback and included the hit ‘I’ll Stand by You’.

In 1995, the Pretenders released a live album, ‘Isle of View’, and in 1999 ‘Viva el Amor’ came along. Four years later, the reggae tinged ‘Loose Screw’ (2003) was released and the band set off on a world tour.

Besides making a number of appearances at charity events, Chrissie Hynde is passionate about Animal Rights and is a vocal supporter of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

Bio source…..thebiographychannel.co.uk

Picture source…..biography.com

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Yul Brynner Biography

Yul Brynner Biography

Yul Brynner Biography

There is only one Yul Brynner. No other actor had his looks, his range of talents, his energy – and his capacity to draw others into the spell of his charm. A true sophisticate of deliberately mysterious origins, Brynner was at home in a wide variety of languages and social environments.

Born Yuliy Borisovich Brynner on 11 July 1910 in Russia, his mother Marusya Blagоvidova was the daughter of a Russian doctor and his father, Boris Brynner, was an engineer and inventor. Yul was named after his paternal grandfather, Jules Brynner.

After his father abandoned the family, his mother took Yul and his sister, Vera Bryner to China, where they attended a school run by the YMCA. They relocated again in 1934, this time to Paris.

During World War II, Brynner worked as a French-speaking radio announcer and commentator for the United States Government, broadcasting propaganda throughout occupied France.

He made an immediate impact upon launching his film career in 1956, appearing not only in the film version of ‘The King and I’ that year, but also in major roles in ‘The Ten Commandments’ opposite Charlton Heston and ‘Anastasia’ opposite Ingrid Bergman.

However, he found his perfect role in ‘The King And I’. The Academy Award-winning success that might have become a trap for a lesser star became the ongoing glory of his career, from the peak of his stardom to his untimely death. For his role as the King of Siam, Brynner shaved his head and following the success of the film, he continued to shave his head throughout his life but wore wigs for certain roles. This was an unusual and striking look for the time and became known as the ‘Yul Brynner Look’.

He later appeared in such films as the Biblical epic ‘Solomon and Sheba’ (1959), as ‘Solomon’, ‘The Magnificent Seven’ (1960), and ‘Westworld’ (1973).
He also co-starred with Marlon Brando in ‘Morituri’; Katharine Hepburn in ‘The Madwoman of Chaillot’ and William Shatner in a film version of ‘The Brothers Karamazov’.

He starred with Barbara Bouchet in ‘Death Rage’ (1976). His final feature film appearance was in the sequel to Westworld, titled ‘Futureworld’ with Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner, in 1976.

Brynner also appeared in drag in an unbilled role in the Peter Sellers comedy ‘The Magic Christian’.

As well as acting, Brynner was an active photographer and wrote two books on the subject. He published ‘Bring Forth The Children: A Journey To The Forgotten Children of Europe and the Middle East’ in 1960, which featured his own images. In 1983, he released ‘The Yul Brynner Cookbook: Food Fit For The King And You’.

In 1977, Brynner embarked upon a stage revival of ‘The King and I’, and though he was dogged by tales of his outrageous temperament and seemingly petty demands during the tour, audiences loved the show.

He inaugurated a second tour in 1985; this time, however, he knew he was dying of lung cancer, but kept the news from both his fans and co-workers. Unable to perform some parts of the show, Brynner nonetheless played to packed audiences.

Two months after the play closed in 1985, Brynner sadly died in a New York hospital – still insisting that his public not know the severity of his condition until after his death, although he had recorded a dramatic public-service announcement to be broadcast afterwards that blamed the illness on smoking. It included Brynner giving the warning: “Now that I’m gone, I tell you don’t smoke. Whatever you do, just don’t smoke. If I could take back that smoking, we wouldn’t be talking about any cancer. I’m convinced of that.”

Brynner was married four times, the first three ending in divorce. He had three children and adopted two others. He married actress Virginia Gilmore in 1944 and they had a son called Yul Brynner II on 23 December 1946. His father gave him the nickname Rock when he was six-years-old. His parents divorced in 1960.

In 2006, Rock wrote a book about his father and his family history entitled ‘Empire and Odyssey: The Brynners in Far East Russia and Beyond’.

Brynner’s daughter Lark was born out of wedlock in 1959 and was raised by her mother Frankie Tilden, who was 20 when her child was born. Brynner financially supported them. He wed his second wife Chilean model Doris Kleiner in 1960. They had daughter Victoria in 1962 before divorcing in 1967.

In 1971, he married French socialite Jacqueline Thion De La Chaume and they adopted two Vietnamese children – Mia in 1974 and Melody in 1975. They divorced in 1981.

His fourth wife, Kathy Lee, was a dancer in The King and I shows. They married in 1983, when she was 24 and he was 62.

Bio source…..www.thebiographychannel.co.uk

Picture source…..www.born-today.com

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Lou Gehrig Biography

Lou Gehrig Biography

Lou Gehrig Biography

Hall of Fame baseball player Lou Gehrig was born in New York City in 1903. A standout football and baseball player, Gehrig signed his first contract with the New York Yankees in April 1923. Over the next 15 years he led the team to six World Series titles and set the mark for most consecutive games played. He retired in 1939 after getting diagnosed with ALS. Gehrig passed away from the disease in 1941.

Henry Louis Gehrig was born in the Yorkville section of Manhattan in New York City, on June 19, 1903. His parents, Heinrich and Christina Gehrig, were German immigrants who’d moved to their new country just a few years before their son’s birth.

The only one of the four Gehrig children to survive infancy, Lou faced a childhood that was shaped by poverty. His father struggled to stay sober and keep a job, while his mother, a strong woman who was intent on creating a better life for her son, worked constantly, cleaning houses and cooking meals for wealthy New Yorkers.

A devoted parent, Christina pushed hard for her son to get a good education and got behind her son’s athletic pursuits, which were many. From an early age, Gehrig showed himself to be a gifted athlete, excelling in both football and baseball.

After graduating from high school, Gehrig enrolled at Columbia University, where he studied engineering and played fullback on the football team. In addition, he made the school’s baseball team, pitching solidly for the club and earning the nickname Columbia Lou from adoring fans. In one famous game, the young hurler struck out 17 batters.

But it was Gehrig’s bat that appealed to the New York Yankees, who in April 1923, the same year Yankee Stadium first opened, signed Gehrig to his first professional contract. The deal included a $1,500 signing bonus, a fantastic sum for Gehrig and his family, which allowed him to move his parents to the suburbs and, more important, play baseball full-time. Read More…..Biography.com

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Naomi Campbell Biography

Naomi Campbell biography

Naomi Campbell Biography

Supermodel Naomi Campbell was born in London on May 22, 1970. She began modeling at age 15, becoming the first black woman on the cover of French Vogue at 18, and the first black model on the cover of Time. On a few occasions, Campbell’s hot temper got her in trouble with the law. In addition to modelling, Campbell launched a singing career and a perfume.

Supermodel and actress Naomi Campbell was born May 22, 1970, in London, England. The daughter of a Jamaican-born dancer and unnamed father, Naomi Campbell attended Dunraven School and the London Academy for Performing Arts as a youngster.

She studied at Italia Conti Academy stage school and appeared in music videos for            Bob Marley and Culture Club before signing with Synchro modeling agency at age 15.

One of the world’s most renowned supermodels, Naomi Campbell was the first black woman to appear on the covers of French and British Vogue and the first black model to appear on the cover ofTime.

While the exquisitely exotic leggy supermodel began her career on the catwalk, she quickly segued to high-profile advertising campaigns for such fashion icons as              Ralph Lauren and Francois Nars. Naomi Campbell has also posed for more erotic fare, including Playboy magazine and Madonna’s book Sex.

In addition to modeling, Campbell has pursued acting and music careers, the latter of which has been particularly successful in Japan. Her singing career peaked with the hit “Love and Tears.” Though her debut album Baby Woman sold over 1 million copies, it was a critical flop.

Campbell has appeared in several music videos and films, including Cool As Ice and Miami Rhapsody. She is the co-author of the novel Swan and has published a self-titled photo book. An ambitious businesswoman, Naomi Campbell has created two spin-off companies, NC Connect and a perfume line. Read More……..biography.com

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Charlie Chaplin Biography

Charlie Chaplin Biography

Charlie Chaplin Biography

Born on April 16, 1889, in London, England, Charlie Chaplin worked with a children’s dance troupe before making a huge mark on the big screen. His character “The Tramp” relied on pantomime and quirky movements to become an iconic figure of the silent-film era. Chaplin went on to become a director, making films like City Lights and Modern Times, and co-founded the United Artists Corporation. He died in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland, on December 25, 1977.

Early Life

Famous for his character “The Tramp,” the sweet little man with a bowler hat, mustache and cane, Charlie Chaplin was an iconic figure of the silent-film era and one of film’s first superstars, elevating the industry in a way few could have ever imagined.

Born Charles Spencer Chaplin in London, England, on April 16, 1889, Charlie Chaplin’s rise to fame is a true rags-to-riches story. His father, a notorious drinker, abandoned Chaplin, his mother and his older half-brother, Sydney, not long after Chaplin’s birth. That left Chaplin and his brother in the hands of their mother, a vaudevillian and music hall singer who went by the stage name Lily Harley.

Chaplin’s mother, who would later suffer severe mental issues and have to be committed to an asylum, was able to support her family for a few years. But in a performance that would introduce her youngest boy to the world of performance, Hannah inexplicably lost her voice in the middle of a show, prompting the stage manager to push the five-year-old Chaplin, whom he’d heard sing, onto the stage to replace her.

Chaplin lit up the audience, wowing them with his natural presence and comedic angle (at one point he imitated his mother’s cracking voice). But the episode meant the end for Hannah. Her singing voice never returned and she eventually ran out of money. For a time, Charlie and Sydney had to make a new, temporary home for themselves in London’s tough workhouses. Read More….biography.com

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Richard Branson Biography

Richard Branson Biography

Richard Branson Biography

Born July 18, 1950, in Surrey, England, Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson struggled in school and dropped out at age 16, a decision that ultimately lead to the creation of Virgin Records. His entrepreneurial projects started in the music industry and expanded into other sectors making Branson a billionaire. His Virgin Group holds more than 200 companies, including the recent Virgin Galactic,a space tourism company. Branson is also known for his adventurous spirit and sporting achievements such as crossing oceans in a hot-air-balloon.

Early Life

Richard Charles Nicholas Branson was born on July 18, 1950, in Surrey, England. His father, Edward James Branson, worked as a barrister. His mother, Eve Branson, was employed as a flight attendant. Richard, who struggled with dyslexia, had a hard time with educational institutions. He nearly failed out of the all-boys Scaitcliffe School, which he attended until the age of 13. He then transferred to Stowe School, a boarding school in Stowe, Buckinghamshire, England.

Still struggling, Branson dropped out at the age of 16 to start a youth-culture magazine called Student. The publication, run by students, for students, sold $8,000 worth of advertising in its first edition, which was launched in 1966. The first run of 50,000 copies was disseminated for free, after Branson covered the costs with advertising.

By 1969, Branson was living in a London commune, surrounded by the British music and drug scene. It was during this time that Branson had the idea to begin a mail-order record company called Virgin to help fund his magazine efforts. The company performed modestly, but made Branson enough that he was able to expand his business venture, adding a record shop in Oxford Street, London. With the success of the record shop, the high school drop-out was able to build a recording studio in 1972 in Oxfordshire, England.

Virgin Records

His first artist on the Virgin Records label, Mike Oldfield, recorded his single “Tubular Bells” in 1973 with the help of Branson’s team. The song was an instant smash, staying on the UK charts for 247 weeks. Using the momentum of Oldfield’s success, Branson then signed other aspiring musical groups to label, including the Sex Pistols. Artists such as the Culture Club, the Rolling Stones, and Genesis would follow, helping to make Virgin Music one of the top six record companies in the world. Read More…..biography.com

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Hugh Jackman Biography

Hugh Jackman Biography

Hugh Jackman Biography

Born in Australia in 1968, Hugh Jackman began his acting career on stage, appearing in several Melbourne musicals, and later won a Tony Award for his role as Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz. Additionally, Jackman has won international recognition for his roles as superheroes, most notably as Wolverine in the X-Men film series, as well as parts in such films as Kate & LeopoldVan HelsingThe PrestigeAustralia and Les Miserables. He was named People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” in 2008.

Acting Debut

Hugh Michael Jackman was born on October 12, 1968, in Sydney, Australia. The youngest of five children, Jackman was 8 when his mother left the family, and he and his siblings were largely raised by their father. He attended the exclusive Knox Grammar School and graduated from the University of Technology, Sydney. He got his first taste of professional acting on the stage, appearing in several Melbourne musicals. He soon entered the international scene, earning critical praise for his portrayals of Curly in Oklahoma! in London and Billy Bigelo in Carousel in New York City.

To mainstream audiences, Jackman is perhaps best known for the role of Wolverine in the American film X-Men (2000). Other films include Swordfish, Kate and Leopold and Van Helsing. Despite his growing big-screen career, Jackman remains true to his stage roots. In 2004, he won a Tony Award for his lead role in Broadway’s The Boy from Oz. The following year, he won an Emmy Award for his turn as host of the 2005 Tony Awards.

Biography Source…….biography.com

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Marilyn Monroe Biography

Marilyn Monroe Biography

Marilyn Monroe Biography

Norma Jean Baker endured a fatherless childhood of sexual abuse and poverty and was put in a string of orphanages and foster homes after mother Gladys Baker (nee Monroe), who suffered mental illness, was institutionalised.

She was born on 1 June 1926 in the Los Angeles County Hospital, the third child of Gladys Baker. She lived with a number of foster parents, as her mother was mentally unstable, until her mum’s best friend Grace Mckee became her guardian.

Mckee was inspired by Jean Harlow and allowed the nine-year-old Norma to wear makeup and curl her hair until McKee married and sent Norma to an orphanage.

She was then sent to live with her great aunt Olive Brunings and it is thought that Norma was sexually assaulted by Olive’s son, which some biographers have claimed led to her later behaviour, including substance abuse.

At 16, she escaped her old life by marrying a 21-year-old aircraft plant worker, Jim Dougherty, who she divorced four years later. By this time she had begun modelling bathing suits and, after bleaching her hair blonde, posed for pin-ups and glamour photos.

Howard Hughes tried to get her a screen test but was beaten to the punch by 20th Century-Fox, who signed her to a contract – at $125 per week for six months – and changed her name to Marilyn Monroe.

After appearing in small parts in films including ‘Love Happy’ and ‘All About Eve’, Monroe found fame in 1953 with ‘Niagara’, ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ and ‘How To Marry a Millionaire’. That same year, she began dating baseball player Jo DiMaggio, and a nude spread of her appeared in the debut issue of Playboy magazine. Monroe had hit stardom.The nude spread caused a scandal with her studio so she agreed to admit she had posed for the photo as she was struggling to pay her rent. The resulting publicity created some sympathy for the struggling actress.

In 1954, she eloped with DiMaggio – a union which was only to last eight months – before filming ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’ and ‘The Seven-Year Itch’, with the classic scene in which she stood over a subway grating, skirt billowing. She applied for divorce from DiMaggio on the grounds of mental cruelty. Despite this, he secured her release from the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Mental Clinic in 1961.

Monroe’s work began to slow down but, after undergoing psychoanalysis, critics praised her acting in 1956 film ‘Bus Stop’. She married playwright Arthur Miller the same year, divorcing him four years on. In the meantime, she fell prey to alcohol and pills, and suffered two miscarriages.

After a year off in 1958, Marilyn returned to the silver screen for smash comedy, ‘Some Like It Hot’. In 1960, she appeared in ‘Let’s Make Love’, with Yves Montand, with whom she had an affair.

‘The Misfits’, written by husband Miller, was to be her final film. Work was interrupted by exhaustion, and she was then fired from ‘Something’s Got to Give’ for not turning up for filming.

On 19 May 1962, the actress attended the early birthday celebration of John F Kennedy at Madison Square Gardens and sang ‘Happy Birthday Mr President’ in a now iconic manner.

She went into seclusion and on 5 August 1962, she was found dead at her home of an overdose of sleeping pills, aged 36. The verdict was suicide but has always been disputed, with countless conspiracy theories triggered by alleged affairs with brothers John F and Robert Kennedy.

Monroe has been portrayed by a number of actresses over the years, with the latest being Michelle Williams.

Williams will be playing Monroe in the BBC TV film ‘My week with Marilyn’ this year (2011), which portrays the seven days Monroe spent in England in 1957 filming ‘The Prince and the Showgirl’ with Laurence Olivier. Biography Source…..The Biography Channel

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