Russell Ira Crowe (born April 7, 1964) is a New Zealand-born Australian actor and musician.[1] His acting career began in the late 1980s with roles in Australian television series including Police Rescue and Neighbours. In the early 1990s, Crowe's local prominence peaked when he won the Australian Film Industry Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of an inner-city skinhead in the Geoffrey Wright film, Romper Stomper. In the late 1990s, Crowe transferred his acting ambitions to the USA with his breakout role in L.A. Confidential (1997). Crowe won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Gladiator in 2001 and has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Actor in a Leading Role: The Insider (1999), Gladiator (2000) and A Beautiful Mind (2001). He is also co-owner of National Rugby League team the South Sydney Rabbitohs.
Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE [2] (born Chan Kong-sang, 陳港生; 7 April 1954) is a Hong Kong[3] actor, action choreographer, filmmaker, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer.
In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts. Jackie Chan has been acting since the 1960s and has appeared in over 100 films. Chan has received stars on the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars and the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Janis Ian (born Janis Eddy Fink, April 7, 1951) is an American songwriter, singer, musician, columnist, and science fiction author.[1] Ian first impacted upon the folk music scene while still a teenager in the mid-sixties; most active musically in that decade and the 1970s, she has continued recording into the 21st century. In 1975, Ian won a Grammy Award for her song, "At Seventeen".
Sir David Paradine Frost, OBE (born 7 April 1939) is a British journalist, comedian, writer and media personality, best known for his serious interviews with various political figures, the most notable being Richard Nixon. Since 2006, he has hosted the weekly programme Frost Over the World on Al Jazeera English. He was portrayed by actor Michael Sheen opposite Frank Langella's Richard Nixon in the 2006 Peter Morgan stage play Frost/Nixon, and in Ron Howard's subsequent 2008 film adaptation.
James Garner (born April 7, 1928) is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media.
He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades. These included his roles as Bret Maverick, in the popular 1950s western-comedy series, Maverick; Jim Rockford, in the popular 1970s detective drama, The Rockford Files; and the father of Katey Sagal's character on 8 Simple Rules following the death of John Ritter. He has starred in dozens of movies, including The Great Escape, Paddy Chayefsky's The Americanization of Emily (1964). Blake Edwards' Victor Victoria (1982) and Murphy's Romance (1985), for which he received an Academy Award nomination.
Ravi Shankar (Bengali: রবি শংকর; born 7 April 1920), often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the best known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.[1]
Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent his youth touring Europe and India with the dance group of his brother Uday Shankar. He gave up dancing in 1938 to study sitar playing under court musician Allauddin Khan. After finishing his studies in 1944, Shankar worked as a composer, creating the music for the Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray, and was music director of All India Radio, New Delhi, from 1949 to 1956.
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan,[1] April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo.
Critic John Bush wrote that Holiday "changed the art of American pop vocals forever."[2] She co-wrote only a few songs, but several of them have become jazz standards, notably "God Bless the Child," "Don't Explain," "Fine and Mellow," and "Lady Sings the Blues." She also became famous for singing "Easy Living," "Good Morning Heartache," and "Strange Fruit", a protest song which became one of her standards and was made famous with her 1939 recording.
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