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INTRO

14 December, 2022

Edward Arthur Wilson

Edward Arthur Wilson was an American illustrator, printmaker and commercial artist best known for his book and magazine illustrations.

Wilson was born on March 4, 1886, in Glasgow, Scotland; one of two sons born to Edward J. Wilson and Euphemia E. Murray. In 1893, the family emigrated to the United States and by no later than 1900, the family had settled in Chicago. Edward attended the Art Institute of Chicago, and later studied with illustrator Howard Pyle.

In 1921, Wilson designed the cover for William McFee's An Engineer's Notebook. His first full-length project was Iron Men and Wooden Ships (1924), a collection of sailor shanties edited by author and bookseller Frank Shay. Over the next two decades, Wilson illustrated many classic novels, including Robinson Crusoe (1930), The Man Without a Country (1936), Treasure Island (1941), and Jane Eyre (1944). Later, he produced illustrations for magazines and a number of World War II propaganda posters; a number of these are included in Thomas Craven's The Book of Edward A. Wilson (1948). In 1945, Wilson's work was featured in Life Magazine.

Wilson was married to Jane Roe and they had two daughters, one of whom was the actress Perry Wilson.

On October 2, 1970, after a long struggle with an undisclosed illness, Wilson died at the age of 84 in Dobbs Ferry.

Anthony Chenevix-Trench

Anthony Chenevix-Trench was a British schoolteacher and classics scholar. 

He was born in British India, educated at Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford, and served in the Second World War as an artillery officer with British Indian units in Malaya. Captured by the Japanese in Singapore, he was forced to work on the Burma Railway.

He taught classics at Shrewsbury, where he became a housemaster, and taught for another year at Christ Church. He was headmaster of Bradfield College, where he raised academic standards and instituted a substantial programme of new building works. Appointed headmaster of Eton College in 1963, he broadened the curriculum immensely and introduced a greater focus on achieving strong examination results, but was asked to leave in 1969 after disagreements with housemasters and an unpopular attitude to caning, which became the subject of a press controversy after his death.

Following a one-year break during which he taught for one term at the prep school Swanbourne House, he was appointed headmaster of Fettes College, where he succeeded in greatly increasing enrolment and in reforming the harsh traditional atmosphere of the school. He died while still headmaster there on June 21, 1979.


Jean Lurçat

Jean Lurçat was a French artist noted for his role in the revival of contemporary tapestry.

He was born in Bruyères, Vosges, the son of Lucien Jean Baptiste Lurçat and Marie Emilie Marguerite L'Hote. He was the brother of André Lurçat, who became an architect. After his secondary education at Épinal, he enrolled at La Faculté des sciences de Nancy and studied medicine. He went to Switzerland and Germany (Munich) and in leaving his educational path, he went to the workshop of Victor Prouvé, the head of the École de Nancy.

In 1912, Jean Lurçat took residence in Paris with his brother André. He enrolled at the Académie Colarossi, then at the workshop of the engraver, Bernard Naudin. He met painters such as Matisse, Cézanne, Renoir; his friends included Rainer Maria Rilke, Antoine Bourdelle, and Elie Faure. Lurçat and three associates founded the Feuilles de Mai (The leaves of May), a journal of art in which these celebrities participated. He then became an apprentice of the painter Jean-Paul Lafitte with whom he had an exhibition at La faculté des sciences de Marseille. His first journey to Italy was interrupted in August by the declaration of war. Back in France, Lurçat joined the infantry, but was evacuated on 15 November after falling ill. During his recovery to health, in 1915, he practised painting and lithography. In July 1916, he returned to the front, but was evacuated once again due to injury. He never returned to the front. In September, his art was put on exhibition in Zürich.

In 1917, Jean Lurçat made his first tapestries: Filles Vertes (Green Girls) and Soirée dans Grenade (Evening in Grenada). At the end of the war in 1918, he returned to Switzerland where he had a holiday in Ticino (Swiss Italy), with Rilke, Busoni, Hermann Hesse and Jeanne Bucher. His second exhibition took place in Zürich in the same year. In 1920, he travelled extensively: Berlin, Munich, Rome, Naples. Then he took up residence in Paris with Marthe Hennebert. It was she who wove two tapestries: Pêcheur (Fisherman) and Piscine (Swimming pool). He unveiled in the same year, at Le Salon des Indépendants, two tapestries and four paintings. He met the art merchant Étienne Bignou.

In 1921, Jean Lurçat met Louis Marcoussis, he discovered Picasso and Max Jacob, and created decoration and costumes for Le spectacle de la Compagnie Pitoeff: "He who receives slaps", and then spent the autumn near the Baltic sea. The following year, he created his fifth tapestry, Le Cirque (the circus), for Mme. Cuttoli. His first personal exhibition took place in Paris in April and September. He made a large decoration on a wall (no longer visible today) at the Castle of Villeflix. Then he went to Berlin, where he met Ferruccio Busoni.

During the next two years Lurçat resumed travelling. In 1923 he went to Spain; in 1924 he went to North Africa, the Sahara, Greece and Asia Minor. Upon his return, he signed a contract without exclusivity with his friend, Étienne Bignou. His brother André built his new house, Villa Seurat, in Paris. He devoted a portion of the year 1924 to the making of his sixth tapestry, Les arbres (The trees). On 15 December, Lurçat married Marthe Hennebert and traveled in 1925 to Scotland, then Spain and northern Africa. Upon his return, he took up residence at La Villa Seurat. He participated in several expositions with Raoul Dufy, Marcoussis, Laglenne and others. He revealed, at the home of Jeanne Bucher, elements of decoration (carpets and paintings) of Le Vertige, a film by Marcel l'Herbier. In 1926, he exhibited in Paris and Brussels, and participated in collective exhibitions in Vienna, Paris, and Anvers. His fame began due to several articles devoted to him.

With the company of Marthe, he departed in 1927 for the Orient and spent the summer in Greece and Turkey. He decorated the lounge of the family of David David-Weill. There are four tapestries in developing and implementing L'Orage (The storm), for George Salles (Musée National d'Art Moderne, National Museum of Modern Art). He returned to Greece and Italy (Rome) in 1928 before embarking in October for the United States of America, for his first exhibition in New York. He spent 1929 in Marco. In 1930 he had exhibitions in Paris, London, New York, and Chicago; he created nine drypoint illustrations for Les Limbes (The limbo) by Charles-Albert Cingria; and he made another visit to America. In that same year he divorced Marthe Hennebert. In 1931 he married Rosane Timotheef and they took up residence in Vevey (Switzerland). He wrote several articles about painting, and reduced his production of pictures.

In December, 1932, Lurçat participated in the exhibition Sélections with Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Derain and Raoul Dufy; the event was organised in New York by the Valentine Gallery. Being aligned with the far left, from then on he often mixed his political opinions with his art. In 1933, he was living in New York. He created the decoration and the costumes for the Jardin Public (Public Garden), a ballet by George Balanchine. 1933 also saw his first tapestry sewn at Aubusson, following the new and revolutionary technique that he developed.

In order to fully appreciate and understand the works of Jean Lurçat, one must view them in the context of the history of tapestry, in particular, the downfall of its existence during the rise of the Renaissance. It was during this time that tapestry was somewhat re-invented, where by traditional techniques were misplaced in the likening of tapestry to paintings by artists of the likes of Raphael. Jean Lurçat is largely responsible for its revival in the 20th century when he redefined the importance of designing tapestry in a way that embraced the integrity of authentic tapestry from the Middle Ages, inspiring artists like Picasso to acquire the skills to design for tapestry.

It was in the 15th century that tapestry, in its authentic form, was first recorded as being practiced. By this time the technique had been mastered which gives us no reference as to when it was first put into practice. What we do know is that during the rise of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century, the art of tapestry was alienated by a demand for tapestry to imitate painting as closely as possible. This allowed for traditional techniques, like hachure and hatching, to fall by the wayside allowing the art of tapestry to experience a kind of identity crisis. Techniques like shape-building dominated this new presence, creating an aesthetic dissimilar to that of traditional tapestry in that it achieved shading and implied dimension by building shapes as opposed to blending shapes and colour with the above mentioned techniques. This, in essence, created a new art form; a derivative of tapestry, effectively superseding it.

Western European tapestry history spans the foundation of the Gobelins manufactory 1662 to the beginning of the third republic of France in 1871. It is in this time period where the subservience to painting is observed as being the dominant characteristic of tapestry. The commission by Pope Leo X in the early sixteenth century of The Acts of the Apostles by Raphael, to be woven in the Brussels workshops is thought be the turning point whereby tapestry was to, from that point on, be fashioned after designs supplied by painters.

The relationship of painting to tapestry in fact began in 1476 where the first counts of tapestry weaving were in Belgium, and painters had ostracized weavers for creating their own cartoons. Thus indicating that tapestries were originally made in the likeness of paintings, and is where traditional techniques were formed. Furthermore, in the 1500s, painters (with paint) and later designated specialized glazers (with only ink, wild-grain colour or chalk) were commissioned to touch up and create defined lines around the shapes on the surface of woven tapestry. The need for this integration of painting on tapestry has been observed as being the result of poor tapestry cartoons.

Jean Lurçat himself began as a painter and tapestry weaver in 1915. He became intrigued by tapestry weaving when he was learned of its history. Lurçat was especially influenced by Apocalypse of Angiers (14C) which he viewed in 1937. He came away from this experience more sure that emotional content and reduction of means, or "scale of pre-arranged colour" were of ultimate importance to tapestry design. Lurçat was already practicing these values and was pleased to see them validated by such an illustrious and historically powerful piece. Consequently, his convictions about how tapestry should be designed, regarded and used became stronger.

The opening statement of Lurcat's Designing Tapestry, distinguishes tapestry and easel paintings by their location: tapestries custom made for a specific, large wall. Lurçat later refers to tapestry as a medium whose most authentic form is: 1) embedded with content; 2) is invariably large scale (15 meters X 15 meters), and; 3) is designed and thought of as being forever connected to architecture. The artist asserts: "I want to remind you that Tapestry knew its proudest moments in a time when a style of extremely grandiose architecture reigned supreme".

There are many things about tapestry that Lurçat is sure of, e.g. the emphasis of content in relation to economy; the importance for tapestry to continue to thrive as a partner to architecture. The most recurring theme in his book, Designing Tapestry, is that of the strict design guidelines of which should be followed in order for the weaver, who is presumably not the designer, to have no artistic freedom so as for the designer to be able to design a tapestry cartoon and achieve exactly what they had envisioned as a result. In essence, Lurçat recommends a non-interpretive code in which the weaver would have no question as to what the designer requires of them. Additionally, Lurçat makes it very clear that the idea of fashioning a tapestry after a painting, especially one that had originally been painted with no intention of becoming a tapestry, was to Lurçat misrepresentative and disrespectful to the art form.

In 1934, Lurçat returned to New York where he participated in the creation of new decoration and costumes for a choreography of Balanchine; which he unveiled in Chicago and Philadelphia. Then he returned to Paris and Vevey for the summer. At summer's end, he departed for Moscow, where he had an exhibition at the Musée Occidental (Western Museum), then at the museum of Kiev. In 1935, he painted the Dynamiteros in Spain; with inspiration from the revolution and the War of Spain. In Paris, he participated in the activities of the Association of the revolutionary authors and artists. Then, he followed, with Malraux and Aragon, the Journées d'Amité pour l'Union Soviétique (The Journeys of Friendship for the Soviet Union). In 1936, he exhibited in London and released his first tapestry, made at La Manufacture des Gobelins (The Gobelins Tapestry Manufactory, Paris), Les Illusions d'Icare (The Illusions of Icare). In 1937, he met François Tabard.

In 1936, Jean Lurçat was inspired when he saw the tapestry L'Apocalypse (The Apocalypse), which was woven in the 14th century. In 1938, Moisson was sewn. In 1939, he exhibited in New York and in Paris. In September, he took up residence in Aubusson with Gromaire and Dubreuil in order to renovate the art of tapestry, which at the time had fallen to a low point. His innovative technique used a simplified palette and robust weaving at broad point. During this period he abandoned oil painting in favour of poster paints. The Musée National d'Art Moderne (National Museum of Modern Art) acquired Jardin des Coqs (Garden of Roosters) and L'Homme aux Coqs (The Man of the Roosters), of which the cardboard would be destroyed by the SS in 1944 in Lanzac. In 1940, he collaborated with André Derain and Raoul Dufy.

In June 1944, he associated himself with the fighters of the communist resistance, namely, Tristan Tzara, André Chamson, René Huyghe, Jean Cassou, and Jean Agamemnon. He was put on the Comité de Libération (Committee of Liberation). He also met Simone Selves, who would later become his wife. His adoptive son, Victor, was captured while on an intelligence mission in France and was put to death. Lurçat would not learn of his disappearance until the following year.

Lurçat died on 6 January 1966 in Saint-Paul de Vence.

Arthur Oliver Wheeler

Arthur Oliver Wheeler was a land surveyor and mountaineer in Canada.

Wheeler was born in Ireland and immigrated to Canada in 1876 at the age of 16. He became a land surveyor and surveyed large areas of western Canada, including photo-topographical surveys of the Selkirk Mountains and the British Columbia-Alberta boundary along the continental divide through the Canadian Rockies. In 1906, he and journalist Elizabeth Parker were the principal founders of the Alpine Club of Canada (ACC). He was its first president, from 1906 to 1910, and editor of the Canadian Alpine Journal from 1907 to 1930. He remained Honorary President of the ACC from 1926 until his death in 1945. The Arthur O. Wheeler hut of the ACC is named after him.

Denis Peploe

Denis Frederic Neal Peploe was a Scottish artist and sculptor known for his landscapes.

Peploe was born in Edinburgh as the younger son of Margaret and Samuel John Peploe. His father was an artist and Denis worked with him. Peploe went to school at the Edinburgh Academy.

Then despite his father's advice he then studied at Edinburgh College of Art resolved to become an artist. He then went on to study with the painter and sculptor Andre Lhote in Paris.

During the war he served with the Royal Artillery and the Special Operations Executive where he was hurt in a motorcycle accident. He had to recover until 1946 although he did not paint during this time. In 1947 he had a one-man show in Edinburgh. His landscapes and other paintings were again shown in Glasgow in London. Possibly due to his mother being from Barra he was known for his work featuring the Hebrides and the Western Highlands.

He was elected ARSA in 1956 and became a full member ten years later. Peploe taught at the Edinburgh College of Art from 1955 to 1977 whilst selling his work and contributing to the annual exhibition of the RSA.

Peploe died in Edinburgh.

Andrew Cruickshank

Andrew John Maxton Cruickshank was a Scottish actor, most famous for his portrayal of Dr Cameron in the long-running UK BBC television series Dr. Finlay's Casebook, which ran for 191 episodes from 1962 until 1971.

Andrew Cruickshank (Junior) was born to Andrew and Annie Cruickshank (Cadger), and was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School. He was to have entered the profession of civil engineering after completing his education, but instead joined provincial repertory theatres,[citation needed] leading to 1930 roles in Othello at the Savoy Theatre in London, as Maudelyn in Richard of Bordeaux at the Empire Theatre on Broadway in 1934, and culminating in his principal appearance (as three characters) on the London stage in 1935, at the Gate Theatre in the play Victoria Regina. In 1939 Cruickshank played Claudius in Tyrone Guthrie's modern-dress and uncut Hamlet at The Old Vic with Alec Guinness in the title role. He returned to Broadway in 1951 until 1952, as the Earl of Warwick in George Bernard Shaw's play Saint Joan, with Uta Hagen in the lead role.

His first film role followed in 1937, as the poet Robert Burns in Auld Lang Syne. Subsequently, however, he would be typecast into portrayals of formal authority figures, such as judges and doctors.

He appeared in many television plays and series, amongst them A. J. Cronin's Dr. Finlay's Casebook, containing his most famous characterisation, Doctor Angus Cameron, a crusty but erudite senior partner in the rural general practice run in Tannochbrae, with the help of the much younger Doctor Alan Finlay (Bill Simpson) and "stiff Presbyterian" housekeeper Janet (Barbara Mullen). The highly popular BBC production ran from 16 August 1962 until 3 January 1971, after which Cruickshank continued with it on BBC Radio 4 for seven years, it having been adapted to that format since 10 March 1970. He finally bade farewell to the character on 18 December 1978, following its parting episode, "Going Home." In 1963 he played the title role in the BBC sitcom Mr Justice Duncannon, having appeared as that character in the final episode of the 1962 sitcom Brothers in Law.

His final performance on the stage was as Justice Treadwell in Beyond Reasonable Doubt at the Queen's Theatre in 1987. His last appearance of any kind was at the age of 80, in the first episode ("Kicks") of series two of the ITV television production, King and Castle, which starred Nigel Planer and Derek Martin as partners in a debt collection agency, and in which Cruickshank played "Mr Hodinett". It was aired on 10 May 1988, just over a week after his death.

John Calvin Stevens

John Calvin Stevens was an American architect who worked in the Shingle Style, in which he was a major innovator, and the Colonial Revival style. He designed more than 1,000 buildings in the state of Maine.

Stevens was the son of Maria Wingate and Leander Stevens, a cabinet maker and builder of fancy carriages. He was born on October 8, 1855 in Boston, Massachusetts, but when he was two, his family moved to Portland, Maine.

Stevens wanted to study architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but lacked the money to attend. Instead, he apprenticed in the Portland office of architect Francis H. Fassett, who in 1880 made him a junior partner to open the firm's new Boston office. Another architect working in the same building was William Ralph Emerson, whose historicist aesthetic in the Queen Anne Style had a profound effect on Stevens. He married Martha Louise Waldron in 1877, and they had four children. Stevens opened his own office in Portland in 1884.

In 1888 Stevens formed a partnership with Albert Winslow Cobb. Together they wrote the book Examples of American Domestic Architecture (1889), an early study of the Shingle Style. Cobb wrote the prose and Stevens provided the illustrations. The partnership was dissolved in 1891. Stevens' son, John Howard Stevens, became an architect and joined his father's firm in 1898. John became a full partner in 1904, and the firm was renamed Stevens Architects.

His most-acclaimed early house — the James Hopkins Smith house in Falmouth Foreside, Maine (1886) — was featured in George William Sheldon's Artistic Country Seats (1886–87). In The Shingle Style (1955), Vincent Scully described the Smith house as a "pièce de résistance" and a "masterpiece", "a more sweeping and coherent version of Stevens' own house". Sheldon also praised his "powerful alterations" to a summer hotel called the Poland Springs House.

Houses designed by Stevens can be found along the Maine coast, as well as in Portland (particularly the West End) and its suburbs. He also designed public libraries, municipal buildings, hotels, and churches, as well as nine buildings for the campus of Hebron Academy, including the Psi Upsilon Fraternity House on the Bowdoin College campus.

In one of his rare commissions outside of Maine, he created a master plan for and designed a chapel and at least six barracks buildings at the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers (Southern Branch) in Hampton, Virginia.

Stevens was a landscape painter. He belonged to the Brushians, a Portland art group which went on weekend outings. He exhibited his work with the Boston Art Club, the Portland Society of Art, and elsewhere. His oil painting Delano Park, Cape Elizabeth (1904) is in the collection of Blaine House, the Maine governor's official residence.

He was an avid art collector. He lent Afternoon Fog by Winslow Homer to the L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Galleries, now part of the Portland Museum of Art. In 1889, Stevens was named a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.

Stevens died on January 25, 1940, aged 84. He is buried in Portland's Evergreen Cemetery.

Arnold Akberg

Arnold Akberg  was an Estonian painter.

Akberg was born on February 4, 1894 in Võipere, Haljala Parish, Virumaa (now in Kadrina Parish, Lääne-Viru County). He studied at a Teacher's College in Rakvere in 1920, then began teaching in Tallinn. He was mostly a self-taught person, but he had help from Ants Laikmaa, who was also an Estonian painter. 

Akberg held many exhibitions throughout his career, some solo and some with other artists. Among his most successful solo exhibitions were the 1968 Museum of Applied Arts (Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design), the 1967 exhibition in Tallinn, his exhibition in the Pärnu Museum of Art in 1973. In 1984 he exhibited at the USSR State Art Museum.

Akberg also held group exhibitions with other famous artists. He was a participant at the 1929 exhibition of Estonian art in Helsinki, the Estonian exhibition in Cologne and Copenhagen in 1930, and the 1935 Estonian art exhibition in Moscow, Russia. Akberg was the recipient of the 1984 Konrad Hilltop Medal. He died on October 7,1984 at the age of 90, in Tallinn.

Semyon Nomokonov

Semyon Danilovich Nomokonov was a Soviet sniper during World War II credited with 367 kills. An ethnic Hamnigan Evenk, Nomokonov was among the indigenous peoples of Russia who fought in the war. He received the nickname "Taiga Shaman" from enemies.

Nomokonov was born in the settlement of Delyun in Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia (then Russian Empire), to a poor family of hunters, and from childhood lived in the Taiga. Nomokonov first used a rifle at the age of 7. He hunted Sable, Manchurian wapiti and Elk, and was nicknamed Eye of the Kite. Nomokonov was baptized at the age of 15 and received the name Semyon. In 1928 Nomokonov moved to the settlement of Nizhny Stan in the Russian Shilkinsky District. He continued hunting and also practiced carpentry.

Nomokonov started his military service in August 1941, initially in a subsistence farm of a regiment. Then he made crutches for the wounded. Nomokonov became a sniper by chance. In the fall of 1941 he was evacuating one of the wounded, when he noticed a German, aiming at him. Nomokonov killed him with his own rifle. According to another version, in October 1941 Nomokonov received a rifle and decided to test it. To avoid wasting the rounds, Nomokonov tested the rifle on a German, who was moving along the wooded lake shore, bending down. After that Nomokonov was transferred to a sniper platoon. He started to shoot from a Mosin–Nagant rifle without a telescopic sight. Nomokonov fought at the Valdai Heights, Karelian Isthmus, Ukraine, Lithuania, East Prussia and then in Manchuria. He initially marked the number of kills on his smoking pipe. Nomokonov was wounded eight times and suffered a blast injury twice. As a sniper instructor, Nomokonov trained over 150 soldiers.

Nomokonov returned home on a horse. He continued practicing carpentry in Nizhny Stan, but then moved to the settlement of Zugalay, where his elder sons were living. He built a house and continued hunting during free time. In the fall of 1945 Nomokonov received a horse, binoculars and a rifle no. 24638 for his military service. According to Nomokonov's daughter Zoya Babuyeva, he was a taciturn person and did not like to talk much about the war.

Nomokonov died in Zugalay and was interred there.

Alberto Lattuada

Alberto Lattuada was an Italian film director.

Lattuada was born in Vaprio d'Adda, the son of composer Felice Lattuada. He was initially interested in literature, becoming, while still a student, a member of the editorial staff of the antifascist fortnightly Camminare... (1932) and part of the artists' group Corrente di Vita (1938).

Before entering the film industry, Lattuada's father made him complete his studies as an architect even though he recognized his desire to make movies. He began his film career as a screenwriter and assistant director on Mario Soldati's Piccolo mondo antico ("Old-Fashioned World", 1940). The first film he directed was Giacomo l'idealista (1943). Luci del Varietà (1950), co-directed with Federico Fellini, was the latter's first directorial endeavour. Lattuada's film La steppa (1962) was entered into the 12th Berlin International Film Festival. In 1970, he was a member of the jury at the 20th Berlin International Film Festival. New Line Cinema released his erotic film Stay As You Are theatrically in the United States in 1979.

He was married to actress Carla Del Poggio. He died at 90 years old

Lyle Talbot

Lyle Florenz Talbot was an American stage, screen and television actor. 

His career in films spanned three decades, from 1931 to 1960, and he performed on a wide variety of television series from the early 1950s to the late 1980s. Among his notable roles on television was his portrayal of Ozzie Nelson's friend and neighbor Joe Randolph, a character he played for ten years on the ABC sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.

Talbot began his film career under contract with Warner Bros. during the early years of the sound era. Ultimately, he appeared in more than 175 productions with various studios, first as a young matinee idol, then as the star of many B movies, and later as a character actor. He was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild and in 1933 served on that organization's first board of directors. His long career is recounted in the 2012 book The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and My Father's Twentieth Century by his youngest daughter Margaret Talbot, a staff writer for The New Yorker.

Gilbert Harding

Gilbert Charles Harding was a British journalist and radio and television personality. His many careers included schoolmaster, journalist, policeman, disc jockey, actor, interviewer and television presenter. He also appeared in several films, sometimes in character parts but usually as himself – for example in Expresso Bongo (1959).

Harding had a sizeable role alongside John Mills in the 1952 film The Gentle Gunman, and narrated the introduction to the film Pacific Destiny (1956). He also made a couple of comedy records in the 1950s.

Harding was born in Hereford where his parents were employed as "master" and "matron" of the city's workhouse. His father, also called Gilbert Harding, died in 1911 aged 30 following an appendicitis operation, and so his mother placed their son into the care of the Royal Orphanage of Wolverhampton.

Harding's education continued at Queens' College, Cambridge, after which he took jobs teaching English in Canada and France. He returned to Britain and worked as a policeman in Bradford, before taking a position as The Times correspondent in Cyprus. In 1936 he again returned to Britain and began a long-term career with the BBC.

He was a regular on BBC Radio's Twenty Questions and was voted Personality of the Year in the National Radio Awards of 1953-4. Harding regularly appeared on the BBC television panel game What's My Line? as a panellist, having been the presenter of the very first episode in 1951.

Harding was notorious for his irascibility and was at one time characterised in the tabloid press as "the rudest man in Britain". His fame sprang from an inability to suffer fools gladly, and many 1950s TV viewers watched What's My Line? less for the quiz elements than for the chance of a live Harding outburst. An incident on an early broadcast started this trend when Harding became annoyed with a contestant, and told him that he was getting bored with him. Harding's rudeness off-screen was also commented upon; at a wedding reception at which a guest remarked that the bride and groom would make an ideal couple, Harding replied "You should know, you've slept with both of them".[citation needed] He became increasingly unable to move anywhere in public without being accosted by adoring viewers. On one occasion he asked a mother with two children if "your children are crippled", because they had stayed seated on a railway bench.

In 1960 he was reduced to tears on an edition of the Face to Face series, after being questioned by the host John Freeman. As the focus of the interview moved on to the subject of death, Freeman asked Harding if he had ever been in the presence of a dead person. At this point, in replying in the affirmative, Harding's voice began to break and his eyes watered. Freeman later said he had not anticipated the effect this would have; Harding had witnessed his mother's death in 1954. Freeman appeared to be unaware that Harding was referring to his mother, for later in the interview he asserted that Harding's mother was still alive. Harding contradicted him, and Freeman moved quickly on. This version of events has been contradicted by the producer, Hugh Burnett.

Freeman publicly expressed regret about this line of questioning; its emphasis on Harding's "closeness" to his mother has since been seen by at least one commentator as a tactless attempt to expose his homosexuality, though the viewing public did not become aware of it, and he was seen as merely a lonely bachelor. Harding kept his sexuality secret because male homosexual behaviour was a criminal offence in the UK. Harding also admitted in the programme that his bad manners and temper were "indefensible". "[I'm] profoundly lonely", he stated, later adding, "I would very much like to be dead."

Harding died a few weeks after the Face to Face programme was broadcast, collapsing outside Broadcasting House as he was about to climb into a taxi. The cause was an asthma attack. He was 53 years old.

Hallvard Rieber-Mohn

Hallvard Rieber-Mohn was a Norwegian Dominican priest and author.

He was born on October 2, 1922 at Molde in Møre og Romsdal, Norway. His parents were Christian Joachim Rieber-Mohn (1891–1959) and Sophie Amalie Rosendahl (1892–1963). Rieber-Mohn grew up in Hamar, where his father was an editor of Hamar Stiftstidende. Rieber-Mohn was a student at Saulchoir, the Dominican school of theology in Paris from 1945–53. He was then assigned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oslo to St. Dominican Church and Monastery at Neuberggata 15 in the neighborhood of Majorstuen in Oslo. 

Rieber-Mohn was an official spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church in Norway. From 1959–66, he was the editor of the magazine St. Olav. Besides being a columnist at Arbeiderbladet (now Dagsavisen), Rieber-Mohn was a regular contributor on NRK radio programs. Rieber-Mohn debuted as an author in 1959 with a study of French poet and dramatist Paul Claudel (1868–1955). In 1982, he completed an essay featuring Norwegian author Sigrid Undset (1882–1949).

He won the Riksmål Society Literature Prize (Riksmålsforbundets litteraturpris) in 1967 and in 1982 he was awarded the Fritt Ord Award.

He died on August 4, 1982.

Adolf Muschg

Adolf Muschg (born 13 May 1934) is a Swiss writer and professor of lite
rature. Muschg was a member of the Gruppe Olten.

Adolf Muschg was born in Zollikon, canton of Zürich, Switzerland. He studied German studies, English studies and philosophy at the universities of Zürich and Cambridge and earned his doctoral degree with a work about Ernst Barlach.

Between 1959 and 1962, he worked as a teacher in Zürich. Different engagements as a teacher followed in (Göttingen), Japan and the US. From 1970 to 1999 Muschg was professor of German language and literature at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zürich.

He wrote the foreword to Fritz Zorn’s controversial memoirs Mars. The book pointed out the supposedly "cancer-causing" lifestyle of Zurich's wealthy gold coast and provoked a scandal in Switzerland; its author died of cancer before its release. Muschg was also provocative with works like Wenn Auschwitz in der Schweiz liegt ("If Auschwitz were in Switzerland"). His detractors[who?] suggest that Muschg was writing without direct experience. A theme of his newer works is often love in old age.

Since 1976 he has been a member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin; he is also a member of the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz and the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung, Darmstadt. In 2003 he was elected president of the Berlin Academy but left the presidency in December 2005 because of disagreements with the academy's senate about public relations.

Muschg lives in Männedorf near Zürich. His estate is archived in the Swiss Literary Archives in Bern.

Konstantin Simonov

Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov was a Soviet author, war poet, playwright and wartime correspondent, arguably most famous for his 1941 poem "Wait for Me".

Simonov was born in Petrograd in 1915. His mother, Princess Aleksandra Leonidovna Obolenskaya, came of the Rurikid Obolensky family. His father, Mikhail Agafangelovich Simonov, an officer in the Tsar's army, left Russia after the Revolution of 1917 and died in Poland sometime after 1921. Konstantin's mother, Alexandra, remained in Russia with Konstantin. In 1919 his mother married Alexander Ivanishev, a Red Army officer and veteran of World War I.

Konstantin spent several years as a child in Ryazan while his stepfather worked as an instructor at a local military school. They later moved to Saratov, where Konstantin spent the remainder of his childhood. After completing a basic seven-year education in 1930 in Saratov, he went into the factory workshop school (Fabrichno-Zavodskoe Uchilishche-FZU) to become a lathe-turner. In 1931 his family moved to Moscow. After completing his precision-engineering course, Simonov went to work in a factory, where he remained until 1935. During these years he changed his given name from Kirill to Konstantin because he could not pronounce the sound "r" with an aristocratic lisp.

The first of Simonov's poems were published in 1936 in the journals Young Guard and October. After completing schooling at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in 1938, Simonov entered the Moscow Institute of History, Philosophy, and Literature. His time there was interrupted when he was sent as a war correspondent to cover the Battle of Khalkhin Gol of May–September 1939 in Mongolia. Simonov returned to the Institute in 1939.

Simonov's first play, The History of One Love, was written in 1940, and performed on stage at the Memorial Lenin Komsomol Theater in Leningrad. He wrote his second play, A Lad from Our Town, in 1941.That same year he was impressed by Soviet resistance in this place, during which 39 German tanks have been destroyed in one day, and described this episode in The Living and the Dead trilogy.

Studying war correspondence at the Lenin Military-Political Academy, Simonov obtained the service rank of quartermaster of the second rank. At the beginning of World War II Simonov received a job with the official army newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda. Simonov rose through the army ranks becoming a senior battalion commissar in 1942, lieutenant colonel in 1943, and a colonel after the war.

During the war years, he wrote the plays Russian People, Wait for Me, So It Will Be, the short novel Days and Nights, and two books of poems, With You and Without You and War. His poem "Wait for Me", about a soldier in the war asking his beloved to wait for his return, remains one of the best-known poems in Russian literature. The poem was addressed to his future wife, the actress Valentina Serova. Many of his poems for Valentina were included in the book With You and Without You.

As a war correspondent, Simonov served in Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Poland, and Germany, where he was present at the Battle of Berlin. After the war his collected reports appeared in Letters from Czechoslovakia, Slav Friendship, Yugoslavian Notebook and From the Black to the Barents Sea: Notes of a War Correspondent.

For three years after the war ended, Simonov served in foreign missions in Japan, the United States and China. From 1958 to 1960 he worked in Tashkent as the Central Asia correspondent for Pravda. His novel Comrades in Arms was published in 1952, and his longer novel, The Living and the Dead, in 1959. In 1961 his play, The Fourth, was performed at the Sovremennik Theatre. In 1963–64 he wrote the novel Soldatami ne rozhdaiutsia, which can be translated as "Soldiers Are Made, Not Born" or "One Isn't Born a Soldier." In 1970–71 he wrote a sequel The Last Summer.

For two spells, 1946–50 and 1954–58, Simonov was editor in chief of the journal Novy Mir. From 1950 through 1953, he was editor in chief of the Literary Gazette; from 1946 through 1959 and from 1967 through 1979, secretary of the Union of Writers of the USSR. In the year before his death, Simonov tried to create a special archive of memories of soldiers in the archives of the Defense Ministry in Podolsk, Moscow Region, but leaders of the army, in the high echelons, blocked the idea. Simonov died on 28 August 1979 in Moscow. According to his last will, he was cremated, and his ashes were scattered in Buynichi fields near Mogilev.

Rolf Recknagel

Rolf Recknagel was a German literary scholar. 

He studied in Jena and Leipzig. From 1954 he was a lecturer in contemporary foreign literature at the technical school for librarians in Leipzig. In 1973 he received his doctorate.

Recknagel became known above all for being able to identify the Munich author, actor, council revolutionary and editor and sole author of the magazine Der Ziegelbrenner (1917–1921) “Ret Marut” on the basis of stylistic comparisons in B. Traven. Recknagel also published biographies on Jack London and Oskar Maria Graf.

In 1970 Recknagel was awarded the Heinrich Heine Prize by the Ministry of Culture of the GDR and in 1978 the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze .

The singer-songwriter Gerulf Pannach was his son-in-law.

Björn Engholm

Björn Engholm is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). He was Federal Minister for Education and Science from 1981 to 1982, and in 1982 also Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Forests. From 1988 to 1993 he was the Minister-President of Schleswig-Holstein and from 1991 to 1993 the leader of the Social Democratic Party.

Engholm was educated at University of Hamburg. He was elected Minister-President of Schleswig-Holstein in 1988, in the wake of the Barschel affair/Waterkantgate: he had been spied on and was a victim of severe defamation (HIV infection, tax evasion, etc.) by the Barschel campaign. The Social Democrats won an impressive 54.2% (up almost 10%) and gained an absolute majority for the first time ever. Engholm served as President of the Bundesrat in 1988/89.

While Engholm was popular with the electorate, he was forced to resign as party leader and Minister-President in 1993 after discrepancies surfaced over the testimonies he gave in the Barschel affair (Schubladenaffäre, drawer affair). A party official had paid 50,000 Deutsche Mark (kept in a kitchen drawer) to the spy of the Barschel affair to keep the espionage a secret for several weeks, to reveal the scandal on election weekend with a bigger impact and then present Engholm as a victim.

He was succeeded by Rudolf Scharping as party chairman and by Heide Simonis as Minister-President.

Since 1964, Engholm has been married to painter Barbara Engholm (born 1940); they have two daughters.