Tuesday, 29 October 2024

1636) Milva

Maria Ilva Biolcati (1939 – 2021), known as Milva. Italian singer, stage and film actress, and television personality. She was also known as La Rossa (Italian for "The Redhead"), due to the characteristic colour of her hair, and additionally as La Pantera di Goro ("The Panther of Goro"), which stemmed from the Italian press having nicknamed the three most popular Italian female singers of the 1960s, combining the names of animals and the singers' birthplaces. The colour also characterised her leftist political beliefs, claimed in numerous statements. Popular in Italy and abroad, she performed on musical and theatrical stages the world over, and received popular acclaim in her native Italy, and particularly in Germany and Japan, where she often participated in musical events and televised musical programmes. She released numerous albums in France, Japan, Korea, Greece, Spain, and South America.

She collaborated with European composers and musicians including Ennio Morricone in 1965, Francis Lai in 1973, Mikis Theodorakis in 1978 (Was ich denke became a best selling album in Germany), Enzo Jannacci in 1980, Vangelis in 1981 and 1986, and Franco Battiato in 1982, 1986 and 2010.

Her stage productions of Bertolt Brecht's recitals and Luciano Berio's operas toured the world's theatres. She performed at La Scala in Milan, at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, at the Paris Opera, in the Royal Albert Hall in London and at the Edinburgh Festival, amongst others.

Having had success both in Italy and internationally, she remained one of the most popular Italian personalities in the fields of music and theatre. Her artistic stature was officially recognised by the Italian, German and French Republics, each of which bestowed her with the highest honours. She was the only Italian artist in contemporary times who was simultaneously: Chevalier of the National Order of the Legion of Honour of the French Republic (Paris, 11 September 2009), Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (Rome, 2 June 2007), Officer of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Berlin, 2006), and Officier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Paris, 1995).


As she got older, she began to dye her hair a bright red, but in photos and videos of her as a young woman, her hair looks a more natural auburn.






 One of her most famous songs, Alexanderplatz.


 

 

1635) Sergey Petrovich Botkin

Sergey Petrovich Botkin (1832 – 1889). Russian clinician, therapist, and activist, one of the founders of modern Russian medical science and education. He introduced triage, pathological anatomy, and post mortem diagnostics into Russian medical practice.
In early 1860s, Botkin was assigned as an advising member of the medical board of the Imperial Ministry of Internal Affairs. In 1873 he was also made Head Surgeon to the Emperor, having been among the court physicians for Tsars Alexander II and Alexander III. Furthermore, the same year he was elected president of the Medical Association of St. Petersburg.
His brother Vasily was a prominent writer and his brother Mikhail was a painter and well-known art collector. His son, Dr. Eugene Botkin, was murdered with Nicholas II and the Tsar's family on 16/17 July 1918 by the Bolsheviks.

- "His head... being quite big, was fringed by strands of very thin light auburn hair with some gray..." https://historymedjournal.com/HOM/index.php/medicine/article/download/182/155/301 


 

Saturday, 5 October 2024

1634) Maggie Smith

Maggie Smith (born Margaret Natalie Smith, 1934 – 2024). British actress known for her wit in both comedic and dramatic roles.
She had an extensive career on stage and screen for over seven decades and was one of Britain's most recognisable and prolific actresses. She received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards, four Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award, as well as nominations for six Olivier Awards. Smith is one of the few performers to earn the Triple Crown of Acting.
Smith began her stage career as a student, performing at the Oxford Playhouse in 1952, and made her professional debut on Broadway in New Faces of '56. Over the following decades she established herself alongside Judi Dench as one of the most significant British theatre performers, working for the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. On Broadway, she received Tony Award nominations for Noël Coward's Private Lives (1975) and Tom Stoppard's Night and Day (1979), and won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for Lettice and Lovage (1990).
Smith won Academy Awards for Best Actress for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and Best Supporting Actress for California Suite (1978). She was Oscar-nominated for Othello (1965), Travels with My Aunt (1972), A Room with a View (1985) and Gosford Park (2001).
She married actor Robert Stephens in 1967. They had two sons, actors Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens and were divorced in 1975. Later that year Smith married playwright Alan Beverly Cross and they remained married until his death in 1998.
Smith was made a dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990.

- "She was very striking with that red hair, very thin, very tall." https://www.vogue.com/article/dame-maggie-smith-obituary

- "Smith was red-haired, wore braces as a kid and had a lot of freckles." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/maggie-smith-oscar-favourite-is-a-glorious-antidote-to-the-selfabsorption-of-so-many-in-her-profession-a6734096.html

- "“Maggie Smith’s red-haired Desdemona is a beautifully vibrant, sensitive lass who accepts the realization of her doom with pathetic submissiveness.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/maggie-smith-has-died-at-89-after-iconic-career-in-harry-potter-movies-and-downton-abbey

- "A master at classical and contemporary roles who was as renowned for her subtlety as for her broad-stroke mannerisms, the red-haired Smith delighted several generations of theatergoers on both sides of the Atlantic..." https://variety.com/2024/legit/news/maggie-smith-dead-harry-potter-1236157839/

- "The girl who effects this contrast is a British actress with dark red hair, a smile that could win a war or at least make one worth losing, and “a light in her eyehttps://time.com/archive/6833053/actresses-maggie-maggie/