York

Francis Alick "Frankie" Howerd OBE was an English comedian and comic actor whose career, described by fellow comedian Barry Cryer as "a series of... comebacks", spanned six decades. Howerd was born the son of a soldier, Francis Alfred William and Edith Florence Howard at the City Hospital in York, England, in 1917 . He was educated at Shooters Hill Grammar School in Woolwich, London. His first stage appearance was at age 13 but his early hopes of becoming a serious actor were dashed when he failed an audition for RADA. He began to entertain during World War II service in the British Army. It was at this time that he adapted his surname to Howerd "to be different". Despite suffering from stage fright, he continued to work after the war, beginning his professional career in the summer of 1946 in a touring show called For the Fun of It. His act was soon heard on radio, making his debut in early December 1946 on the BBC's Variety Bandbox programme with a number of other ex-servicemen.
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Dame Judith Olivia “Judi” Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English film, stage and television actress. Dench made her professional debut in... 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she played in several of William Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. She branched into film work, and won a BAFTA Award as Most Promising Newcomer; however, most of her work during this period was in theatre. Not generally known as a singer, she drew strong reviews for her leading role in the musical Cabaret in 1968. During the next two decades, she established herself as one of the most significant British theatre performers, working for the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company. In television, she achieved success during this period, in the series A Fine Romance from 1981 until 1984 and in 1992 began a continuing role in the television romantic comedy series As Time Goes By. Her film appearances were infrequent until she was cast as M in GoldenEye , a role she has played in each James Bond film since.
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John Barry Prendergast, OBE was an English conductor and composer of film music. He is best known for composing the soundtracks for 12 of the James... Bond films between 1962 and 1987. He wrote the scores to the award winning films Midnight Cowboy, Dances with Wolves and Out of Africa, in a career which lasted over 50 years. Born in York, North Riding of Yorkshire, Barry spent his early years working in cinemas owned by his father. During his National Service in Cyprus, Barry began performing as a musician having learned to play the trumpet. Upon completing his national service, he formed his own band in 1957, The John Barry Seven. He later developed an interest in composing and arranging music making his début for television in 1958. He came to the notice of the makers of the first James Bond film Dr. No who were dissatisfied with a theme for James Bond given to them by Monty Norman. This started a successful association between Barry and the James Bond films which lasted for 25 years.
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John Vincent "Vince" Cable is a British Liberal Democrat politician and economist who is currently the Business Secretary in the coalition cabinet... of David Cameron. He has been Member of Parliament for Twickenham since 1997. Cable studied economics at university and became an economic advisor to the Kenyan government in 1966. He was an advisor to the British government and to the Commonwealth Secretary-General in the 1970s and 1980s. Later, he served as Chief Economist for the oil company Shell from 1995 to 1997. In 1970s, Cable was active in the Labour Party and became a Glasgow councillor. However in 1982, he joined the Social Democratic Party which would later join the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democrats, and he unsuccessfully contested seats in the elections of 1983, 1987 and 1992 until being elected as the MP for the London constituency of Twickenham in the 1997 general election. Cable was the Liberal Democrats' main economic spokesperson from 2003 to May 2010.
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Peter Woodthorpe was an English film, television and voice actor who supplyed the voice of Gollum in the 1978 Bakshi version of The Lord of the... Rings and BBC's 1981 radio serial. He also provided the voice of Pigsy in the cult series Monkey and was Max the pathologist in early episodes of Inspector Morse. In the summer of 1955 he played Estragon in the first British production of Waiting for Godot. He had then just finished his second year at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and expected to return after a run of a few weeks. When the play was successful, faced with the choice of dropping out either from Cambridge or from the play, he chose to stay with the play and his acting career. He also starred as Oxford in the broadway musical Darling of the Day . In 1960, he played Aston in the first production of Harold Pinter's The Caretaker at the Arts Theatre, in London, prior to transferring to the West End's Duchess Theatre on 30 May 1960. Before going up to Cambridge he served as a national serviceman in the Royal Navy, training at the Joint Services School for Linguists as a Russian interpreter.
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Mark Addy Johnson is an English actor, best known for his roles as Detective Constable Gary Boyle in the UK sitcom The Thin Blue Line, Dave in the... film The Full Monty, father Bill Miller in the U.S. sitcom Still Standing and most recently as King Robert Baratheon in the HBO medieval fantasy epic Game of Thrones. Addy was born in Tang Hall, York, and was educated in the city. In 1982–84 he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He lives with his wife Kelly and three children in Rufforth, close to Upper Poppleton village, near York. Addy's ancestors have lived in York at least since 1910 when his great-grandfather was living there. His father Ian has spent his working life as a glazier at York Minster. Addy made his first TV appearance in 1988 in A Very Peculiar Practice, followed by TV performances in shows such as Heartbeat, Band of Gold, Married with Children , Bruised Fruit, Peak Practice, The Thin Blue Line, Too Much Sun, Sunnyside Farm and most recently Trollied.
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