WINSORS! ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED

Today, The Winsors and The Grandma have visited Liverpool, seat of Liverpool FC and Everton FC, and birthplace of The Beatles. They have spent Saint Valentine's Day talking about trobadours and trobairitzes, and enjoying the city. 

 

During the trip to Liverpool, the family has studied some English grammar with Should/Shouldn't, and they have talked about how to protect Núria Winsor from a great admirer named James Bond, 007.

More info: Should-Shouldn't I , II & III

 

More information: Troubadours & Trobairitzes, Occitan Lyric Poetry 

 

More information: Iain MacMillan's Icon, The Beatles' Abbey Road

 

Liverpool is a cathedral and port city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, 286 km northwest of London.

 

Liverpool is the fifth largest city in the United Kingdom and the administrative headquarters of the Liverpool City Region, a combined authority area with a population of over 1.5 million.

 

Established as a borough in Lancashire in 1207, Liverpool became significant in the late 17th century when the Port of Liverpool was heavily involved in the Atlantic slave trade. The port also imported cotton for the Lancashire textile mills, and became a major departure point for English and Irish emigrants to North America. 

 

Liverpool rose to global economic importance at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and was home to the first intercity railway, the first non-combustible warehouse system (the Royal Albert Dock), and a pioneering elevated electrical railway; it was granted city status in 1880 and was moved from Lancashire to the newly created county of Merseyside in 1974.

The economy of Liverpool is diversified and encompasses tourism, culture, maritime, hospitality, healthcare, life sciences, advanced manufacturing, creative, and digital sectors. The city is home to the UK's second highest number of art galleries, national museums, listed buildings, and parks and open spaces, with only London having more.

The name comes from the Old English lifer, meaning thick or muddy water, and pōl, meaning a pool or creek, and is first recorded around 1190 as Liuerpul. According to the Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, The original reference was to a pool or tidal creek now filled up into which two streams drained. The place appearing as Leyrpole, in a legal record of 1418, may also refer to Liverpool. Other origins of the name have been suggested, including elverpool, a reference to the large number of eels in the Mersey. The adjective Liverpudlian was first recorded in 1833.

Although the Old English origin of the name Liverpool is beyond dispute, claims are sometimes made that the name Liverpool is of Welsh origin, but these are without foundation. The Welsh name for Liverpool is Lerpwl, from a former English local form Leerpool. This is a reduction of the form Leverpool with the loss of the intervocalic [v].

 

In the 19th century, some Welsh publications used the name Lle'r Pwll ((the) place (of) the pool), a reinterpretation of Lerpwl, probably in the belief that Lle'r Pwll was the original form.

More information: Liverpool History Society

All You Need Is Love is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released as a non-album single in July 1967.

It was written by John Lennon and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. The song was Britain's contribution to Our World, the first live global television link, for which the band were filmed performing it at EMI Studios in London on 25 June.

The programme was broadcast via satellite and seen by an audience of over 400 million in 25 countries. Lennon's lyrics were deliberately simplistic, to allow for the show's international audience, and captured the utopian ideals associated with the Summer of Love. The single topped sales charts in Britain, the United States and many other countries, and became an anthem for the counterculture's embrace of flower power philosophy.

Our World coincided with the height of the Beatles' popularity and influence, following the release of their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Rather than perform the song entirely live, the group played to a pre-recorded backing track. With an orchestral arrangement by George Martin, the song begins with a portion of the French national anthem and ends with musical quotations from works such as Glenn Miller's In the Mood, Greensleeves, Bach's Invention No. 8 in F major, and the Beatles' 1963 hit She Loves You. Adding to the broadcast's festive atmosphere, the studio was adorned with signs and streamers and filled with guests dressed in psychedelic attire, including members of the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Small Faces. Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager, described the performance as the band's finest moment.

All You Need Is Love was later included on the US Magical Mystery Tour album and served as the moral for the Beatles' 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine. Originally broadcast in black-and-white, the Our World performance was colourised for inclusion in the Beatles' 1995 Anthology documentary series.

While the song remains synonymous with the 1967 Summer of Love ethos and provided the foundation for Lennon's legacy as a humanitarian, numerous critics found the message naive in retrospect, particularly during the 1980s.

Since 2009, Global Beatles Day, an international celebration of the Beatles' music and social message, takes place on 25 June each year in tribute to their Our World performance.

In the decades following the record's release, Beatles biographers and music journalists criticised the lyrics as naive and simplistic and detected a smugness in the message; the song's musical content was similarly dismissed as unimaginative.

More information: The History Press

Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love, love

There's nothing you can do that can't be done (love)
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung (love)
Nothing you can say, but you can learn how to play the game (love)

It's easy

Nothing you can make that can't be made (love)
No one you can save that can't be saved (love)
Nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be you in time (love)

It's easy

All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love

Love is all you need

Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love, love

Love is all you need

Nothing you can know that isn't known (love)
Nothing you can see that isn't shown (love)
There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be, it's easy

The Beatles

JUDITH OLIVIA DENCH, FROM THE OLD VIC COMPANY TO M

Today, The Grandma has watched some films interpreted by one of her favourite actresses, Judi Dench.

Dame Judith Olivia Dench (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress.

 

She made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years, she performed in several of Shakespeare's plays, in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. Although most of Dench's work during this period was in theatre, she also branched into film work and won a BAFTA Award as Most Promising Newcomer. She drew rave reviews for her leading role in the musical Cabaret. She has also received critical acclaim for her work on television starring in the hit BBC sitcom As Time Goes By from 1992–2005.

Over the next two decades, Dench established herself as one of the most significant British theatre performers, working for the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

She received critical acclaim for her work on television during this period, in the series A Fine Romance (1981–1984) and As Time Goes By (1992–2005), in both of which she held starring roles. Her film appearances were infrequent, and included supporting roles in major films, such as A Room with a View (1986), before she rose to international fame as M in GoldenEye (1995), a role she continued to play in James Bond films until her final appearance in Skyfall (2012).

A seven-time Academy Award nominee, Dench won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love (1998); her other Oscar-nominated roles were in Mrs Brown (1997), Chocolat (2000), Iris (2001), Mrs Henderson Presents (2005), Notes on a Scandal (2006) and Philomena (2013).

She has also received many other accolades for her acting in theatre, film, and television; her other competitive awards include six British Academy Film Awards, four BAFTA TV Awards, seven Olivier Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Tony Award. She has also received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2001, and the Special Olivier Award in 2004. In June 2011, she received a fellowship from the British Film Institute (BFI).

More information: The Guardian

Dench was born in Heworth, York. Her mother, Eleanora Olive, was born in Dublin, Ireland. Her father, Reginald Arthur Dench (1897–1964), a doctor, was born in Dorset, England, and later moved to Dublin, where he was brought up. He met Dench's mother while he was studying medicine at Trinity College, Dublin.

Dench attended the Mount School, a Quaker independent secondary school in York, and became a Quaker.

Through her parents, Dench had regular contact with the theatre. Her father, a physician, was also the GP for the York theatre, and her mother was its wardrobe mistress. Actors often stayed in the Dench household. During these years, Judi Dench was involved on a non-professional basis in the first three productions of the modern revival of the York Mystery Plays in 1951, 1954 and 1957. In the third production she played the role of the Virgin Mary, performed on a fixed stage in the Museum Gardens.

Though she initially trained as a set designer, she became interested in drama school as her brother Jeff attended the Central School of Speech and Drama. She applied and was accepted by the School, then based at the Royal Albert Hall, London, where she was a classmate of Vanessa Redgrave, graduating and being awarded four acting prizes, including the Gold Medal as Outstanding Student.

In September 1957, she made her first professional stage appearance with the Old Vic Company, at the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool, as Ophelia in Hamlet. According to the reviewer for London Evening Standard, Dench had talent which will be shown to better advantage when she acquires some technique to go with it.

Dench then made her London debut in the same production at the Old Vic. She remained a member of the company for four seasons, 1957–1961, her roles including Katherine in Henry V in 1958 (which was also her New York City debut) and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in 1960, both directed and designed by Franco Zeffirelli.

She joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in December 1961, playing Anya in The Cherry Orchard at the Aldwych Theatre in London and made her Stratford-upon-Avon debut in April 1962 as Isabella in Measure for Measure. She subsequently spent seasons in repertory both with the Playhouse in Nottingham from January 1963, (including a West African tour as Lady Macbeth for the British Council) and with the Playhouse Company in Oxford from April 1964.

In 1964, Dench appeared on television as Valentine Wannop in Theatre 625's adaptation of Parade's End, shown in three episodes. That same year, she made her film debut in The Third Secret, before featuring in a small role in the Sherlock Holmes thriller A Study in Terror (1965) with her Nottingham Playhouse colleague John Neville. She performed again on BBC's Theatre 365 in 1966, as Terry in the four-part series Talking to a Stranger, for which she won a BAFTA for Best Actress.

More information: The Guardian

After the long period between James Bond films Licence to Kill (1989) and GoldenEye (1995), the producers brought in Dench to take over as the role of M, James Bond's boss. The character was reportedly modeled on Dame Stella Rimington, the real-life head of MI5 between 1992 and 1996; Dench became the first woman to portray M, succeeding Robert Brown. The seventeenth spy film in the series and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 officer, GoldenEye marked the first Bond film made after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, which provided the plot's back story

Dench, in her role as M, was the only cast member carried through from the Brosnan films to appear in Casino Royale (2006), Martin Campbell's reboot of the James Bond film series, starring Daniel Craig in his debut performance as the fictional MI6 agent. The thriller received largely positive critical response, with reviewers highlighting Craig's performance and the reinvention of the character of Bond.

Dench was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1970 Birthday Honours and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 1988 New Year Honours. She was appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in the 2005 Birthday Honours.

Dench is the Patron and President of the alumni foundation of Drama Studio London and a Vice-president of wildlife conservation NGO Fauna and Flora International. She has participated multiple times in the Explorers against Extinction wildlife conservation fundraiser Sketch For Survival, in which celebrity artists join prominent wildlife artists in sketching wildlife as best as they can in 26 minutes, and the results are auctioned off.

More information: Vogue

 I don't think anybody can be told how to act.
I think you can give advice.
But you have to find your own way through it.

Judi Dench

JUDITH OLIVIA DENCH, FROM THE OLD VIC COMPANY TO M

Today, The Grandma has finished her Communication Skills course with Els Tintorers in Gavà. She has been working very hard during the last months and she appreciates a free afternoon to watch a good movie, read a good book or listen to good music.

She has chosen some films of one of her favourite actresses, Judi Dench, who was born on a day like today in 1934.

Dame Judith Olivia Dench (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress.

 

She made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years, she performed in several of Shakespeare's plays, in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. Although most of Dench's work during this period was in theatre, she also branched into film work and won a BAFTA Award as Most Promising Newcomer. She drew rave reviews for her leading role in the musical Cabaret. She has also received critical acclaim for her work on television starring in the hit BBC sitcom As Time Goes By from 1992–2005.

Over the next two decades, Dench established herself as one of the most significant British theatre performers, working for the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

She received critical acclaim for her work on television during this period, in the series A Fine Romance (1981–1984) and As Time Goes By (1992–2005), in both of which she held starring roles. Her film appearances were infrequent, and included supporting roles in major films, such as A Room with a View (1986), before she rose to international fame as M in GoldenEye (1995), a role she continued to play in James Bond films until her final appearance in Skyfall (2012).

A seven-time Academy Award nominee, Dench won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love (1998); her other Oscar-nominated roles were in Mrs Brown (1997), Chocolat (2000), Iris (2001), Mrs Henderson Presents (2005), Notes on a Scandal (2006) and Philomena (2013).

She has also received many other accolades for her acting in theatre, film, and television; her other competitive awards include six British Academy Film Awards, four BAFTA TV Awards, seven Olivier Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Tony Award. She has also received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2001, and the Special Olivier Award in 2004. In June 2011, she received a fellowship from the British Film Institute (BFI).

More information: The Guardian

Dench was born in Heworth, York. Her mother, Eleanora Olive, was born in Dublin, Ireland. Her father, Reginald Arthur Dench (1897–1964), a doctor, was born in Dorset, England, and later moved to Dublin, where he was brought up. He met Dench's mother while he was studying medicine at Trinity College, Dublin.

Dench attended the Mount School, a Quaker independent secondary school in York, and became a Quaker.

Through her parents, Dench had regular contact with the theatre. Her father, a physician, was also the GP for the York theatre, and her mother was its wardrobe mistress. Actors often stayed in the Dench household. During these years, Judi Dench was involved on a non-professional basis in the first three productions of the modern revival of the York Mystery Plays in 1951, 1954 and 1957. In the third production she played the role of the Virgin Mary, performed on a fixed stage in the Museum Gardens.

Though she initially trained as a set designer, she became interested in drama school as her brother Jeff attended the Central School of Speech and Drama. She applied and was accepted by the School, then based at the Royal Albert Hall, London, where she was a classmate of Vanessa Redgrave, graduating and being awarded four acting prizes, including the Gold Medal as Outstanding Student.

In September 1957, she made her first professional stage appearance with the Old Vic Company, at the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool, as Ophelia in Hamlet. According to the reviewer for London Evening Standard, Dench had talent which will be shown to better advantage when she acquires some technique to go with it.

Dench then made her London debut in the same production at the Old Vic. She remained a member of the company for four seasons, 1957–1961, her roles including Katherine in Henry V in 1958 (which was also her New York City debut) and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in 1960, both directed and designed by Franco Zeffirelli.

She joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in December 1961, playing Anya in The Cherry Orchard at the Aldwych Theatre in London and made her Stratford-upon-Avon debut in April 1962 as Isabella in Measure for Measure. She subsequently spent seasons in repertory both with the Playhouse in Nottingham from January 1963, (including a West African tour as Lady Macbeth for the British Council) and with the Playhouse Company in Oxford from April 1964.

In 1964, Dench appeared on television as Valentine Wannop in Theatre 625's adaptation of Parade's End, shown in three episodes. That same year, she made her film debut in The Third Secret, before featuring in a small role in the Sherlock Holmes thriller A Study in Terror (1965) with her Nottingham Playhouse colleague John Neville. She performed again on BBC's Theatre 365 in 1966, as Terry in the four-part series Talking to a Stranger, for which she won a BAFTA for Best Actress.

More information: The Guardian

After the long period between James Bond films Licence to Kill (1989) and GoldenEye (1995), the producers brought in Dench to take over as the role of M, James Bond's boss. The character was reportedly modeled on Dame Stella Rimington, the real-life head of MI5 between 1992 and 1996; Dench became the first woman to portray M, succeeding Robert Brown. The seventeenth spy film in the series and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 officer, GoldenEye marked the first Bond film made after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, which provided the plot's back story

Dench, in her role as M, was the only cast member carried through from the Brosnan films to appear in Casino Royale (2006), Martin Campbell's reboot of the James Bond film series, starring Daniel Craig in his debut performance as the fictional MI6 agent. The thriller received largely positive critical response, with reviewers highlighting Craig's performance and the reinvention of the character of Bond.

Dench was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1970 Birthday Honours and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 1988 New Year Honours. She was appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in the 2005 Birthday Honours.

Dench is the Patron and President of the alumni foundation of Drama Studio London and a Vice-president of wildlife conservation NGO Fauna and Flora International. She has participated multiple times in the Explorers against Extinction wildlife conservation fundraiser Sketch For Survival, in which celebrity artists join prominent wildlife artists in sketching wildlife as best as they can in 26 minutes, and the results are auctioned off.

More information: Vogue

 I don't think anybody can be told how to act.
I think you can give advice.
But you have to find your own way through it.

Judi Dench

ALBERT R. BROCCOLI, THE PRODUCER OF JAMES BOND

Albert R. Broccoli

After visiting L'Aranyó, a beautiful town in La Segarra, Lleida, The Grandma has returned to Barcelona. During her travel she has been reading about Albert R. Broccoli, the American film producer well-known as the producer of many of the James Bond films.

The Grandma loves James Bond's books and films and she wants to discover more things about Broccoli and his influence in 007 films.

Albert Romolo Broccoli (April 5, 1909-June 27, 1996), nicknamed Cubby, was an American film producer who made more than 40 motion pictures throughout his career. Most of the films were made in the United Kingdom and often filmed at Pinewood Studios. Co-founder of Danjaq, LLC and Eon Productions, Broccoli is most notable as the producer of many of the James Bond films.

He and Harry Saltzman saw the films develop from relatively low-budget origins to large-budget, high-grossing extravaganzas, and Broccoli's heirs continue to produce new Bond films.

Broccoli was born in the borough of Queens, New York City, the younger of two children of immigrants from the Calabria region of Italy, Giovanni Broccoli and Kristina Vence. He acquired his nickname after his cousin, mobster Pat DiCicco, began calling him Kabibble, after a similarly-named cartoon character. This was eventually shortened to Kubbie and adopted by Broccoli as Cubby. The family later bought a farm in Smithtown, New York, on Long Island, near their relatives the DiCiccos.

The family moved to Florida, and on the death of his father Giovanni, Broccoli moved to live with his grandmother in Astoria, Queens, in New York City. Having worked many jobs, including casket maker, Broccoli then became involved in the film industry.

Albert R. Broccoli & Roger Moore

He started at the bottom, working as a gofer on Howard Hughes' The Outlaw (1941), which starred Jane Russell. Here he met his lifelong friend Howard Hughes for the first time, while Hughes was overseeing the movie's production after director Howard Hawks was fired.

Broccoli rose quickly to the level of assistant director by the time the U.S. entered World War II. At the beginning of the 1950s, Broccoli moved once more, this time to London, where the British government provided subsidies to film productions made in the UK with British casts and crews. Together with Irving Allen, Broccoli formed Warwick Films that made a prolific and successful series of films for Columbia Pictures.

When Broccoli became interested in bringing Ian Fleming's James Bond character into features, he discovered that the rights already belonged to the Canadian producer Harry Saltzman, who had long wanted to break into film, and who had produced several stage plays and films with only modest success. 

More information: 007

When the two were introduced by a common friend, screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz, Saltzman refused to sell the rights, but agreed to partner with Broccoli and co-produce the films, which led to the creation of the production company EON Productions and its parent company Danjaq, LLC, named after their two wives' first names—Dana and Jacqueline.

Saltzman and Broccoli produced the first Bond movie, Dr. No, in 1962. Their second, From Russia with Love, was a break-out success and from then on the films grew in cost, action, and ambition. With larger casts, more difficult stunts and special effects, and a continued dependence on exotic locations, the franchise became essentially a full-time job.

Broccoli made one notable attempt at a non-Bond film, an adaptation of Ian Fleming's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in 1968, and due to legal wrangling over the rights to story elements, ceded producer credit on Thunderball to Kevin McClory. 

Nonetheless, by the mid-1960s, Broccoli had put nearly all of his energies into the Bond series. Saltzman's interests continued to range apart from the series, including production of a loose trilogy of spy films based on Len Deighton's Harry Palmer, a character who operates in a parallel universe to Bond, with all the danger but none of the glamour and gadgets.

Albert R. Broccoli & Moonraker Cast

Saltzman and Broccoli had differences over Saltzman's outside commitments; however, in the end, it was Saltzman who withdrew from Danjaq and EON after a series of financial mishaps.

While Saltzman's departure brought the franchise a step closer to corporate control, Broccoli lost relatively little independence or prestige in the bargain. From then until his death, the racy credits sequence to every EON Bond film would begin with the words Albert R. Broccoli Presents. 

Although from the 1970s onward the films became lighter in tone and looser in plot -and, at times, less successful with critics- the series distinguished itself in production values and continued to appeal to audiences.

More information: James Bond 007

In 1966, Albert was in Japan with other producers scouting locations to film the next James Bond film You Only Live Twice. Albert had a ticket booked on BOAC Flight 911. He cancelled his ticket on that day so he could see a ninja demonstration. Flight 911 crashed after clear-air turbulence.

Broccoli married three times. In 1940, at the age of 31, he married actress Gloria Blondell, the younger sister of Joan Blondell. They later divorced amicably in 1945 without having had children.

In 1951, he married Nedra Clark, widow of the singer Buddy Clark, and the couple were told they had fertility problems and would never have children. They adopted a son, Tony Broccoli, after which Nedra became pregnant. She died in 1958, soon after giving birth to their daughter, Tina.

In 1959, Broccoli married actress and novelist Dana Wilson. They had a daughter, Barbara Broccoli. Albert Broccoli became a mentor to Dana's teenage son, Michael G. Wilson. The children grew up around the Bond film sets, and his wife's influence on various production decisions is alluded to in many informal accounts.

Michael Wilson worked his way up through the production company to co-write and co-produce. Barbara Broccoli, in her turn, served in several capacities under her father's tutelage from the 1980s on. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli have co-produced the films since Albert Broccoli's death.

More information: Getty Images

I love looking at the old Bond films.

Maybe it's purely out of reminiscence,

the nostalgic things you think about.

But there were some very good films made,

and I think that the public has enjoyed them, too.

Albert R. Broccoli

SEAN CONNERY: FROM FOUNTAINBRIDGE TO 007'S DR.NO

Sean Connery aka James Bond

Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930) is a retired Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, one of them being a BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, and three Golden Globes, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award and a Henrietta Award.

Connery was the first actor to portray the character James Bond in film, starring in seven Bond films between 1962 and 1983. In 1988, Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Untouchables. His film career also includes such films as Marnie, The Name of the Rose, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Hunt for Red October, Finding Forrester, Highlander, Murder on the Orient Express, Dragonheart, and The Rock.

More information: The Official Website of Sir Sean Connery

Connery has been polled as The Greatest Living Scot and Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure. In 1989, he was proclaimed Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine, and in 1999, at age 69, he was voted Sexiest Man of the Century. 

Sean Conney aka Guillem de Baskerville

Sean Connery was born in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh, Scotland on 25 August 1930. His mother, Euphemia McBain was a cleaning woman, and his father, Joseph Connery, was a factory worker and lorry driver. His paternal grandfather's parents emigrated to Scotland from Ireland in the mid-19th century. The remainder of his family was of Scottish descent, and his maternal great-grandparents were native Scottish Gaelic speakers from Fife, unusually, for a speaker of the language, and Uig on the Isle of Skye.

Looking to pick up some extra money, Connery helped out backstage at the King's Theatre in late 1951. Connery first met Michael Caine at a party during the production of South Pacific in 1954, and the two would later become close friends.

More information: Biography.com

Connery's breakthrough came in the role of British secret agent James Bond. He was reluctant to commit to a film series, but understood that if the films succeeded, his career would greatly benefit. 

Sean Conney aka Dr. Henry Jones

He played 007 in the first five Bond films: Dr. No (1962), From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), and You Only Live Twice (1967), then appeared again as Bond in Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and Never Say Never Again (1983). All seven films were commercially successful. James Bond, as portrayed by Connery, was selected as the third-greatest hero in cinema history by the American Film Institute.

Following the successful European production The Name of the Rose (1986), for which he won a BAFTA award, Connery's interest in more commercial material was revived.

More information: The Official James Bond 007 Website

Connery is a member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), a centre-left political party campaigning for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom, and has supported the party financially and through personal appearances. 

To cultivate an English accent is already 

a departure away from what you are. 

Sean Connery

IAN FLEMING, THE SPY WHO CREATED JAMES BOND

Ian Lancaster Fleming

Ian Lancaster Fleming (28 May 1908-12 August 1964) was an English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer who is best known for his James Bond series of spy novels. 

Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., and his father was the Member of Parliament for Henley from 1910 until his death on the Western Front in 1917. 

Educated at Eton, Sandhurst and, briefly, the universities of Munich and Geneva, Fleming moved through several jobs before he started writing.

More information: Ian Fleming

While working for Britain's Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War, Fleming was involved in planning Operation Goldeneye and in the planning and oversight of two intelligence units, 30 Assault Unit and T-Force. His wartime service and his career as a journalist provided much of the background, detail and depth of the James Bond novels.

Sean Connery and Ian Fleming

Fleming wrote his first Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1952. It was a success, with three print runs being commissioned to cope with the demand. Eleven Bond novels and two collections of short-stories followed between 1953 and 1966. The novels revolved around James Bond, an officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. Bond was also known by his code number, 007, and was a commander in the Royal Naval Reserve. The Bond stories rank among the best-selling series of fictional books of all time, having sold over 100 million copies worldwide. Fleming also wrote the children's story Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang and two works of non-fiction. In 2008, The Times ranked Fleming 14th on its list of The 50 greatest British writers since 1945.

More information: Creative Writing Software

Fleming wrote great famous titles as Live and Let Die (1954), Moonraker (1955), Diamonds Are Forever (1956), From Russia, with Love (1957), The Diamond Smugglers (1957), Dr. No (1958), Goldfinger (1959), For Your Eyes Only (1960), Thunderball (1961), The Spy Who Loved Me (1962), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963), Thrilling Cities (1963), You Only Live Twice (1964), Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang (1964), The Man with the Golden Gun (1965), Octopussy and The Living Daylights (1966).

Ian Fleming

Fleming was a heavy smoker and drinker throughout his adult life, and suffered from heart disease. In 1961, aged 53, he suffered a heart attack and struggled to recuperate. On 11 August 1964, while staying at a hotel in Canterbury, Fleming went to the Royal St George's Golf Club for lunch and later dined at his hotel with friends. The day had been tiring for him, and he collapsed with another heart attack shortly after the meal. Fleming died at age 56 in the early morning of 12 August 1964.

Fleming's creation has appeared in film twenty-six times, portrayed by seven actors.

Download Casino Royale Script

I don't regard James Bond precisely as a hero, 

but at least he does get on and do his duty, 

in an extremely corny way. 

  

Ian Fleming

ROGER MOORE & 007: THE SPY WHO LOVED ME

Roger Moore playing The Saint

Sir Roger George Moore (October 1927 – 23 May 2017) was an English actor. He played the British secret agent James Bond in seven feature films between 1973 and 1985. He is also known for playing Simon Templar in the television series The Saint between 1962 and 1969.

Moore took over the role of Bond from Sean Connery in 1972, and made his first appearance as 007 in Live and Let Die (1973). The longest serving Bond to date, Moore portrayed the spy in six more films.

Worldwide fame arrived after Simon Templar in a new adaptation of The Saint, based on the novels by Leslie Charteris. Moore said in an interview in 1963, that he wanted to buy the rights to Leslie Charteris's character and the trademarks. 

It was only after Sean Connery had declared in 1966 that he would not play Bond any longer that Moore became aware that he might be a contender for the role. However, after George Lazenby was cast in 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Connery played Bond again in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Moore did not consider the possibility until it seemed abundantly clear that Connery had in fact stepped down as Bond for good. At that point Moore was approached, and he accepted producer Albert Broccoli's offer in August 1972. In his autobiography Moore writes that he had to cut his hair and lose weight for the role. Although he resented having to make those changes, he was finally cast as James Bond in Live and Let Die (1973).

Roger Moore playing James Bond

After Live and Let Die, Moore continued to portray Bond in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974); The Spy Who Loved Me (1977); Moonraker (1979); For Your Eyes Only (1981); Octopussy (1983); and A View to a Kill (1985).

Moore was the oldest actor to have played Bond, he was 45 in Live and Let Die (1973), and 58 when he announced his retirement on 3 December 1985.

In 1976, he played the character of Sherlock Holmes in the film Sherlock Holmes in New York.

Moore's friend Audrey Hepburn had impressed him with her work for UNICEF, and consequently he became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1991. He was the voice of Father Christmas or 'Santa' in the 2004 UNICEF cartoon The Fly Who Loved Me.

His family announced his death in Switzerland on 23 May 2017.

More information: Roger Moore

Over the next two years UNICEF will focus on improving access to and the quality of education to provide children who have dropped out of school or who work during school hours the opportunity 

to gain a formal education! 

Roger Moore

PIERCE BROSNAN: FROM DROGHEDA TO 007's GOLDENEYE

Pierce Brosnan aka James Bond

Pierce Brendan Brosnan OBE (born 16 May 1953) is an Irish actor, film producer, and activist who after leaving comprehensive school at age 16, began training in commercial illustration. He then went on to train at the Drama Centre in London for three years. Following a stage acting career he rose to popularity in the television series Remington Steele (1982–87), which blended the genres of romantic comedy, drama, and detective procedural. 

After the conclusion of Remington Steele, Brosnan appeared in films such as the Cold War spy film The Fourth Protocol (1987) and the comedy Mrs. Doubtfire (1993).

In 1994, Brosnan became the fifth actor to portray secret agent James Bond in the Eon Productions film series, starring in four films from 1995 to 2002 (GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day). During this period, he also took the lead in other films including the epic disaster adventure film Dante's Peak (1997) and the remake of the heist film The Thomas Crown Affair (1999).

Since leaving the role of Bond, he has starred in such films as the musical/romantic comedy Mamma Mia! (2008), the Roman Polanski-directed political thriller The Ghost Writer (2010) and the action spy thriller The November Man (2014).

More information: The Official Website of Pierce Brosnan

On 7 June 1994, Brosnan was announced as the fifth actor to play Bond. Brosnan was signed for a three-film Bond deal with the option of a fourth.

He participated in Goldeneye and returned in 1997's Tomorrow Never Dies and 1999's The World Is Not Enough, which were also successful. In 2002, Brosnan appeared for his fourth time as Bond in Die Another Day, receiving mixed reviews similarly to the former two, but was a success at the box office.

In 1996, along with Beau St. Clair, Brosnan formed Irish DreamTime, a Los Angeles-based production company. In later years, he has become known for his charitable work and environmental activism. He was married to Australian actress Cassandra Harris from 1980 until her death in 1991. He married American journalist and author Keely Shaye Smith in 2001, and became an American citizen in 2004, holding dual citizenship in the U.S. and Ireland. He has earned two Golden Globe Award nominations, first for the television miniseries Nancy Astor (1982) and next for the dark comedy film The Matador (2005).

Pierce Brosnan has been an Ambassador for UNICEF Ireland since 2001 and recorded a special announcement to mark the launch of UNICEF's Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS Campaign with Liam Neeson.

More information: The Official James Bond 007

 

I'm first and foremost an Irishman, by birth, by nature, by soul, 

but an American citizen through and through as well.

Pierce Brosnan

PREPARING EUROVISION: PROFILES AND COUNTRY SPOTS

The Bonds with their star stunt, David Bond

Today, The Bonds are still in Paris. While David Bond is working in some scenes of James Bond's A View to a Kill, the rest of the family visited some important places during the French Revolution.

After that, the family has practised some exercises about Past Simple vs. Present Perfect and has read a new chapter of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Finally, The Bonds have created some oral stories talking about things without saying which they were.

More information: Past Simple vs. Present Perfect

Tomorrow, they are going to visit The Louvre Museum and The Orsay Museum. It will be the last day in the capital of France because next Thursday, the family is going to travel to Kiev to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. Today, they've prepared their personal profiles and they've created some spots about their countries.

All of the stunt men, these are the unsung heroes. They really are. 

Nobody is giving them any credibility. They're risking their necks. 

Jason Statham

BUILDING CITIES: PAST IS FUTURE

James Bond

Tonight, The Holmes are in the theatre watching The Phantom of The Opera. They’re excited and they’re enjoying the show.

This morning, the family has received the visit of a mysterious man called Bond, James Bond, who has offered his service to them. The family has been grateful with him but they needn’t anyone because M. Carmen is a great professional and it’s enough.

They continue working with their English classes and they’ve revised The Passive and some connectors. They’ve worked with long and difficult texts to practise in better conditions thinking in their future PET exam.

More information: PET Listening

More information: PET Reading

More information: PET Writing

More information: PET Speaking 

Finally, they’ve studied Third Conditional and they’ve talked about Ildefons Cerdà, a very important engineer who created “L’Eixample” in Barcelona a very beautiful design plenty of octagonal groups of houses which remind the ancient Roman cities with Cardum and Decumanum.

More information: Third Conditional Exercises 

More information: Because/Because of Exercises

Great effects do not always arise from great causes. Small causes especially when they provide mutual support and assistance, often manage to produce effects of the greatest significance, as much within the physical as in the moral order. The challenge, in such cases, lies in finding and identifying there small causes and knowing how to give them the importance they deserve. This cannot be impoverished but is always the product of time, observation, and study.

Ildefons Cerdà, The Five Bases of the General Theory of Urbanization