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Sturges, Preston

(Encyclopedia)Sturges, Preston stûrˈjĭs [key], 1898–1959, American film director, screenwriter, and producer, b. Chicago as Edmond Preston Biden. Educated in the United States and Europe, he turned to playwrit...

Pudovkin, Vsevolod Ilarionovich

(Encyclopedia)Pudovkin, Vsevolod Ilarionovich fsyĕˈvələt ēləryônˈəvĭch po͞odôfˈkĭn [key], 1893–1953, Russian film director. He used new techniques of film editing, particularly intercutting, in his ...

Clair, René

(Encyclopedia)Clair, René rənāˈ klâr [key], 1898–1981, French film director, writer, and producer. Beginning as a film critic, Clair first received international attention in the 1930s with his early sound f...

Tati, Jacques

(Encyclopedia)Tati, Jacques zhäk tätēˈ [key], 1907–82, French film writer, director, and actor, b. Jacques Tatischeff. As a semiprofessional rugby player, he entertained his teammates with physical, nonverbal...

Brando, Marlon

(Encyclopedia)Brando, Marlon, 1924–2004, American film actor, often described as the greatest of his generation, b. Omaha, Nebr. Regarded as the foremost practitioner of “method” acting as taught by American ...

Bernstein, Leonard

(Encyclopedia)Bernstein, Leonard bûrnˈstīn, –stēn [key], 1918–90, American composer, conductor, and pianist, b. Lawrence, Mass., grad. Harvard, 1939, and Curtis Institute of Music, 1941. A highly versatile ...

Hastings, Thomas, American architect

(Encyclopedia)Hastings, Thomas, 1860–1929, American architect, b. New York City, grad. École des Beaux-Arts, Paris. He worked in the office of McKim, Mead, and White, New York City, and in 1886 commenced practic...

American Ballet Theatre

(Encyclopedia)American Ballet Theatre (ABT), one of the foremost international dance companies of the 20th and 21st cents. It was founded in 1937 as the Mordkin Ballet and reorganized as the Ballet Theatre in 1940 ...

Billings, John Shaw

(Encyclopedia)Billings, John Shaw, 1838–1913, American surgeon and librarian, b. Indiana. In the Civil War he was medical inspector of the Army of the Potomac. After the war he was given charge of the Surgeon Gen...

Hou Hsiao-hsien

(Encyclopedia)Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1947–, Taiwanese film director, b. Guangdong, China. His first feature film, Cute Girl (1980), and subsequent ones were generally saccharine romances until the semibiographical A Ti...