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Kupala, Janka

(Encyclopedia)Kupala, Janka yängˈkä ko͞opäˈlä [key], 1888–1942, Belorussian poet and writer, whose original name was Ivan Lutsevich. Kupala was a major figure of the Belorussian national and cultural reviv...

Berle, Milton

(Encyclopedia)Berle, Milton, 1908–2002, American entertainer, b. New York City as Milton Berlinger. Berle first performed in vaudeville and on (1939–48) radio. His great success, however, came as television's f...

Powell, William

(Encyclopedia)Powell, William, 1892–1984, American movie actor, b. Pittsburgh. Powell made his stage debut in 1912. He played the dapper villain in such early films as Sherlock Holmes (1921), Romola (1924), and B...

Held, Anna

(Encyclopedia)Held, Anna, 1873?–1918, American musical comedy actress, b. Paris. She is remembered for her beauty and charm and for her tempestuous off-stage life. After she had small singing and dancing parts in...

Courteline, Georges

(Encyclopedia)Courteline, Georges zhôrzh ko͞orˌtəlēnˈ [key], 1858–1929, French writer. His prolific humorous and satiric works include sketches, plays, tales, and novels. Bourgeois attitudes are ridiculed i...

Alamanni, Luigi

(Encyclopedia)Alamanni or Alemanni, Luigi lo͞oēˈjē älämänˈnē, älā– [key], 1495–1556, Italian poet and patriot. He was a friend of Macchiavelli, who may have encouraged his conspiracy (1522) against C...

Freytag, Gustav

(Encyclopedia)Freytag, Gustav go͝oˈstäf frīˈtäkh [key], 1816–95, German novelist and playwright. He taught at the Univ. of Breslau and edited the Grenzboten (1848–70). His most successful play, The Journa...

Simon, Neil

(Encyclopedia)Simon, Neil (Marvin Neil Simon), 1927–2018, American playwright, b. the Bronx, New York City. His plays, nearly all of them popular with audiences, if not always with critics, are comedies treating ...

Livius Andronicus

(Encyclopedia)Livius Andronicus lĭˈvēəs ăndrənīˈkəs [key], fl. 3d cent. b.c., Roman poet, a Greek, b. Tarentum (Taranto). He was captured and made a slave at the fall of Tarentum and was freed by his maste...

Tucholsky, Kurt

(Encyclopedia)Tucholsky, Kurt ko͝ort to͞okhôlˈskē [key], 1890–1935, German political satirist and journalist. Ranging over a wide variety of subjects and styles, Tucholsky's pacifist, antifascist writing mar...