Showing posts with label Dancers. Show all posts
Fred Astaire
FRED ASTAIRE (born May 10, 1899 – June 22,
1987) was an American film and Broadway stage dancer,
choreographer, singer, musician and actor. His stage and subsequent film and
television careers spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical
films, several award winning television specials, and issued numerous
recordings. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by
the American Film Institute. He is particularly associated with Ginger
Rogers, with whom he made ten films.
Gene Kelly, another major innovator in filmed dance, said that
"the history of dance on film begins with Astaire". Beyond film and
television, many classical dancers and choreographers, Rudolf Nureyev, Sammy
Davis, Jr., Michael Jackson, Gregory Hines,Mikhail Baryshnikov, George
Balanchine and Jerome Robbins among them, also acknowledged his
importance and influence.
Politically,
Astaire was a conservative and a lifelong Republican Party supporter, though
he never made his political views publicly known. Along with Bing
Crosby,George Murphy, Ginger Rogers, and others, he was a charter
(founding) member of the Hollywood Republican Committee. He was
churchgoing, supportive of American military action, and was dismissive of the
more open sexiness of movies in the 1970s.
Always immaculately turned out, he and Cary Grant were
called "the best-dressed actors in American movies". Astaire remained
a male fashion icon even into his later years, eschewing his trademark top hat,
white tie and tails (for which he never really cared) in favor of a breezy
casual style of tailored sports jackets, colored shirts,cravats and
slacks—the latter usually held up by the idiosyncratic use of an old tie in
place of a belt.
Astaire was married for the first time in 1933, to the 25-year-old
Phyllis Potter (née Phyllis Livingston Baker; born 1908, died September 13,
1954), a Boston-born New York socialite and former wife of Eliphalet Nott
Potter III (1906–1981), after pursuing her ardently for roughly two years, and
despite the objections of his mother and sister.Phyllis's death from lung
cancer, at the age of 46, ended 21-years of a blissful marriage and left
Astaire devastated. Astaire attempted to drop out of the film Daddy
Long Legs (1955), which he was in the process of filming, offering to
pay the production costs to date, but was persuaded to stay.
In addition to Phyllis Potter's son, Eliphalet IV (known as
Peter), the Astaires had two children. Fred, Jr. (born January 21, 1936)
appeared with his father in the movie Midas Run, but became a
charter pilot and rancher instead of an actor. He married Gale (born 1938) in
1956. Ava Astaire McKenzie (born March 19, 1942; married Richard MacKenzie)
remains actively involved in promoting her late father's heritage.
His friend, David Niven, described him as "a
pixie—timid, always warm-hearted, with a penchant for schoolboy jokes."
Astaire was a lifelong golf and Thoroughbred horse racing enthusiast.
In 1946 his horse Triplicate won the prestigious Hollywood Gold
Cup and San Juan Capistrano Handicap. He remained physically active
well into his eighties. At age seventy-eight, he broke his left wrist while
riding his grandson's skateboard.
On June 24, 1980, he was married again, to Robyn Smith (born
August 14, 1944), a jockey 45 years his junior, who rode for Alfred G.
Vanderbilt II and was herself, on the cover of Sports Illustrated on
July 31, 1972.
Astaire died from pneumonia on June 22, 1987. He was 88 years old.
He was interred in the Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth,
California. One last request of his was to thank his fans for their years
of support.
Astaire's life has never been portrayed on film. He always
refused permission for such portrayals, saying, "However much they offer
me—and offers come in all the time—I shall not sell." Astaire's will
included a clause requesting that no such portrayal ever take place; he
commented, "It is there because I have no particular desire to have my
life misinterpreted, which it would be."
Tag :
Dancers
Shakira
SHAKIRA ISABEL MEBARAK RIPOLL (born February 2,
1977), known as Shakira, is a Colombian singer-songwriter,
dancer, record producer, choreographer, and model. Born and raised in Barranquilla,
she began performing in school, demonstrating Latin, Arabic,
and rock and roll influences andbelly dancing abilities. Shakira
released her first studio albums, Magia and Peligro,
in the early 1990s, failing to attain commercial success; however, she rose to
prominence in Latin America with her major-label debut, Pies Descalzos (1996),
and her fourth album, Dónde Están los Ladrones? (1998).
Shakira
entered the English-language market with her fifth album, Laundry
Service (2001), which has sold over 20 million copies worldwide.
Its lead single, "Whenever, Wherever", became the best-selling
single of 2002. Her success was solidified with her sixth and seventh
albums Fijación Oral, Vol. 1 and Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 (2005),
the latter of which spawned the best-selling song of the 21st century, "Hips
Don't Lie". Shakira's eighth and ninth albums, She Wolf (2009)
and Sale el Sol (2010), received critical praise but suffered
from limited promotion due to her strained relationship with label Epic
Records. Her official song for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, "Waka Waka
(This Time for Africa)", became the biggest-selling World Cup song of all
time. With over 500 million views, its music video is the sixth
most-watched video on YouTube. Since 2013, Shakira has served as a
coach on the American version of The Voice, although she
temporarily left the series during the fifth season.
Shakira
has won many awards including five MTV Video Music Awards,
two Grammy Awards, ten Latin Grammy Awards, seven Billboard
Music Awards, twenty-eight Billboard Latin Music Awards and has
been Golden Globe-nominated. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame, and she is the highest-selling Colombian artist of all time, having sold
over seventy million albums and fifty million singles.\ Her
U.S. album sales stand at 9.9 million. Outside of her work in the
music industry, Shakira is also involved in philanthropic activities through
charity work and benefit concerts, notably her Pies Descalzos
Foundation, her performance at the "Clinton Global Initiative"
created by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, and her invitation to the
Oval Office by President Barack Obama in February 2010 to discuss
early childhood development.
Shakira was born on February 2, 1977 in Barranquilla,
Colombia. She is the only child of Nidia Ripoll and William Mebarak Chadid. Her
paternal grandparents emigrated fromLebanon to New York City, where her
father was born. From her mother, Nidia Ripoll, she has Spanish (Catalan and Castilian)
and Italian descent. She has eight older half-siblings from her father's
previous marriage. Shakira spent much of her youth in Barranquilla, a
city located in northern Caribbean coast of Colombia. Shakira wrote her first
poem, titled "La Rosa De Cristal" ("The Crystal Rose") when
she was only four years old. As she was growing up, she was fascinated watching
her father writing stories on a typewriter, and asked for one as a
Christmas gift. She got her wish at age seven and continued writing poetry.
These poems eventually evolved into songs. When Shakira was two years old, an
older half-brother was killed in a motorcycle accident and at the age of eight,
Shakira wrote her first song, titled "Tus gafas oscuras" ("Your
dark glasses"), which was inspired by her father, who for years wore dark
glasses to hide his grief.
When Shakira was four, her father took her to a local Middle
Eastern restaurant, where Shakira first heard the doumbek, a traditional
drum used in Arabic music and which typically accompanied belly
dancing. She started dancing on the table, and the experience made her
realize that she wanted to be a performer. She enjoyed singing for schoolmates
and teachers (and even the nuns) at her Catholic school, but in the second
grade was rejected for the school choir because her vibrato was too
strong. The music teacher told her that she sounded "like a
goat". At school, she says she had been known as "the belly
dancer girl", as she would demonstrate every Friday at school a number she
had learned. "That's how I discovered my passion for live
performance," she says. To instill gratitude for her upbringing in
Shakira, her father took her to a local park to see orphans who lived there.
The images stayed with her and she said to herself "one day I'm going to
help these kids when I become a famous artist."
Between the ages of ten and thirteen, Shakira was invited to
various events in Barranquilla and gained some recognition in the area. It
was at about this time that she met local theater producer Monica Ariza, who
was impressed with her and as a result tried to help her career. During a
flight from Barranquilla to Bogotá, Ariza convinced SonyColombia
executive Ciro Vargas to hold an audition for Shakira in a hotel lobby. Vargas
held Shakira in high regard and, returning to the Sony office, gave the
cassette to a song and artist director. However, the director was not overly
excited and thought Shakira was something of "a lost cause". Vargas,
not daunted, was still convinced that Shakira had talent, and set up an
audition in Bogotá. He arranged for Sony Colombia executives to arrive at the
audition, with the idea of surprising them with Shakira's performance. She
performed three songs for the executives and impressed them enough for her to
be signed to record three albums.
Shakira
is a native Spanish speaker who speaks fluent English and Portuguese, as well
as some Italian, French, Catalan and Arabic. Shakira is
a Roman Catholic, and met Pope John Paul II in 1998. She is
interested in world history, and she frequently studies the history and
languages of the countries she visits.After her Oral Fixation tour ended in the
summer of 2007, Shakira attended a summer school class in Los Angeles at UCLA Extensions,
where she took courses in History of Western Civilization. She used her middle
and last names, Isabel Mebarak, and told the professor she was visiting from
Colombia so as to avoid being recognized as a celebrity. Shakira is a
cousin of model and 2005–2006 Miss Colombia, Valerie Domínguez.. In an
interview on The Paul O'Grady Show, she referred to herself as
a mutt due to her diverse ancestry, which she noted as a theme behind
her song "Gypsy".
Chris Brown
CHRISTOPHER MAURICE "CHRIS" BROWN (born
May 5, 1989) is an American recording artist, dancer, and actor.
Born inTappahannock, Virginia, he taught himself to sing and dance at a young
age and was involved in his church choir and several local talent shows. Having
signed with Jive Records in 2004, Brown released his self-titled debut
studio album the following year. It peaked at number two on the US Billboard 200 and
was later certified double platinum by the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA). With his first single "Run It!"
peaking atop the US Billboard Hot 100, Brown became the first
male artist as a lead since Diddy in 1997 to have his debut single
top the chart. His second album Exclusive (2007) spawned his
second Hot 100 number one "Kiss Kiss", in addition to "With You"
and "Forever". The album was also certified double platinum by the
RIAA.
In 2009, Brown received much media attention after pleading guilty
to felony assault of singer and his then-girlfriend Rihanna; he was
sentenced to five years of probation and six months of community
service. His third album Graffiti was released later that
year, and included the top-twenty single "I Can Transform Ya".
Brown's fourth album F.A.M.E. (2011) became his first to top
the Billboard 200; it spawned hit singles "Yeah 3x",
"Look at Me Now", and "Beautiful People". F.A.M.E. earned
Brown his first Grammy Award for Best R&B Album at the 54th
Grammy Awards. His fifth album Fortune was released in
2012. However, apart from Exclusive, Brown's albums were not well
received by music critics.
Apart from his work in the music industry, Brown has pursued an
acting career. In 2007, he made his on-screen feature film debut in Stomp
the Yard, and appeared as a guest on the television series The O.C. Other
films Brown has appeared in, include This Christmas (2007), Takers (2010)
and Think Like a Man (2012). Throughout his career, Brown has
won numerous awards, including two NAACP Image Awards, three American
Music Awards and nine BET Awards.
Tag :
Dancers
