Ricky Gervais

Ricky Gervais

 

Ricky Dene Gervais( born 25 June 1961[8] is an English comedian, actor, director, producer, writer and former singer and manager.

 

Gervais worked initially in the music industry, attempting a career as a pop star in the 1980s as the singer of the new wave act Seona Dancing and working as the manager of the then-unknown band Suede before turning to comedy. Gervais appeared on The 11 O’Clock Show on Channel 4 between 1998 and 2000. In 2000, he was given a Channel 4 talk show, Meet Ricky Gervais, and then achieved greater mainstream fame a year later with his BBC television series The Office. It was followed by Extras in 2005. He co-wrote and co-directed both series with Stephen Merchant. In addition to writing and directing the shows, he played the lead roles of David Brent in The Office and Andy Millman in Extras. He will reprise his role as Brent in the upcoming comedy film Life on the Road.

 

He has also starred in the Hollywood films Ghost Town, and Muppets Most Wanted, and wrote, directed and starred in The Invention of Lying and the upcoming Special Correspondents. He has performed on four stand-up comedy tours and written the Flanimals book series. Gervais also starred with Merchant and Karl Pilkington in the podcast The Ricky Gervais Show, which has spawned various spin-offs starring Pilkington and produced by Gervais and Merchant. He hosted the Golden Globe Awards in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2016.

 

Gervais has won seven BAFTA Awards, five British Comedy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, two Emmy Awards and the 2006 Rose d’Or, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. In 2007 he was voted the 11th greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4’s 100 Greatest Stand-Ups and again in the updated 2010 list as the 3rd greatest stand-up comic. In 2010 he was named on the Time 100 list of the world’s most influential people.

 

 

Early Life

 

Gervais was born at Battle Hospital and raised in Whitley, Berkshire in England along with siblings Larry (born 1945), Marsha (born 1948), and Bob (born 1950). His father, Lawrence Raymond «Jerry» Gervais (1919–2002), a Franco-Ontarian from Pain Court, Ontario, Canada, emigrated while on foreign duty during the Second World War and worked as a labourer and hod carrier. He met Gervais’s mother, Eva Sophia (née House; 1925–2000), who was English, during a blackout; they settled in Whitley. She died, aged 74, of lung cancer.

 

He attended Whitley Park Infants and Junior Schools, and received his secondary education at Ashmead Comprehensive School; after a spell as a gardener at the town’s university, he moved on to University College London in 1980. He intended to study biology but changed to philosophy after two weeks, and earned an upper second-class honours degree in the subject. During his time at UCL, he met Jane Fallon, with whom he has been in a relationship since 1982. He is the former boss of Coldplay drummer Will Champion.

 

 

Career

 

Music

 

In 1983, during his final year as a student at UCL (University College London), Gervais and college friend Bill Macrae formed the new wave pop duo, Seona Dancing. They were signed by London Records, which released two of their singles—»More to Lose» and «Bitter Heart». The songs failed to chart inside the UK top 75. Despite not being successful in the UK, Seona Dancing did manage to score a hit in the Philippines with «More to Lose». He also worked as the manager for Suede before they became successful in the 1990s.

 

In 2013, Gervais performed a live tour as David Brent along with a band under the name «Foregone Conclusion». Gervais and the band performed songs written under the Brent character including songs such as «Equality Street» and «Free Love Freeway».

 

 

Radio

 

Gervais later worked as an assistant events manager for the University of London Union (ULU), then moved from ULU to a job as head of speech at the alternative radio station Xfm. Needing an assistant, Gervais interviewed the first person whose curriculum vitae he saw. It belonged to Stephen Merchant. In 1998 Gervais was made redundant when the station was taken over by the Capital Radio group. Around this time he was also a regular contributor to Mary Ann Hobbs’ Radio 1 show, performing vox pop interviews in unlikely locations.

 

After the first series of The Office, Gervais and Merchant returned to Xfm in November 2001 for a Saturday radio show. This was when the pair first worked with Karl Pilkington, who produced the shows and later collaborated with them on their series of podcasts.

 

 

Television

 

Gervais has contributed to the BAFTA-winning The Sketch Show (ITV), penning several sketches. His mainstream-TV debut came in September 1998 as part of Channel 4’s «Comedy Lab» series of pilots. His one-off show Golden Years focused on a David Bowie–obsessed character called Clive Meadows.

 

Gervais then came to much wider national attention with an obnoxious, cutting persona featured in a topical slot that replaced Ali G’s segments on the satirical Channel 4 comedy programme The 11 O’Clock Show in early 1999, in which his character used as many expletives as was possible and produced an inordinate amount of politically incorrect statements. Among the other regular featured comedians on the show was Mackenzie Crook, later a co-star of The Office. Two years later, Gervais went on to present his own comedy chat show for Channel 4 called Meet Ricky Gervais; it was poorly received and has since been mocked by Gervais himself.

Throughout this time, Gervais also wrote for the BBC sketch show Bruiser and The Jim Tavare Show.

 

 

The Office

 

The Office started when Stephen Merchant, while on a BBC production course, had to make his own short film. In August 1999 he made a docu-soap parody, set in an office, with help from Ash Atalla, who was shown a 7-minute video called ‘The Seedy Boss’, thus David Brent was created, Merchant passed this tape on to the BBC’s Head of EntertainmentPaul Jackson at the Edinburgh Fringe, who then passed it on to Head of Comedy Jon Plowman, who eventually commissioned a full-pilot script from Merchant and Gervais.

 

The first six-episode series of The Office aired in the UK in July and August 2001 to little fanfare or attention. Word-of-mouth, repeats, and DVDs helped spread the word, building up momentum and anticipation for the second series, also comprising six episodes.

 

In 2004, The Office won the Golden Globes for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy and Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy for Gervais, who said in an 2015 BBC interview that the award was the gateway to America for him.

 

The Office brand has since been remade for audiences in Sweden, France, Germany, Quebec, Brazil and the United States. Gervais and Merchant are producers of the American version, and they also co-wrote the episode «The Convict» for the show’s third season. Gervais has said that the episode «Training» is his favourite, where Brent plays his guitar and sings.

 

 

Derek

 

In November 2011, Gervais filmed in London a 35-minute pilot episode for a potential comedy-drama series called Derek, which aired on Channel 4 on 12 April 2012. The pilot is solely written and directed by Gervais and features him in the title role of Derek Noakes, a 49-year-old retirement home worker, who «loves animals, Rolf Harris, Jesus, Deal or No Deal, Million Pound Drop and Britain’s Got Talent – but his main hobby is autograph hunting». The character first appeared as an aspiring comedian who loves animals and still lives with his mother in a 2001 Edinburgh Festival Fringe sketch. Gervais’s co-host Karl Pilkington makes his acting debut as Derek’s friend and facilities-caretaker Dougie who also works in the retirement home. British comedian Kerry Godliman plays Derek’s best friend Hannah and David Earl plays Kev.

 

Gervais said that the series is about «kindness [being] more important than anything else». He added «It’s about the forgotten – everyone’s forgotten. It’s all these arbitrary people who didn’t know each other, and they’re in there now because they’re in the last years of their life. And it’s about the people who help them, who themselves are losers and have their own problems. It’s about a bunch of people with nothing, but making the most of it, and they’re together.» He chose to set the sitcom in a retirement home after he watched Secret Millionaire – «It was always these people with huge problems who were helping other people. I thought about having Derek help old people because no one cares about old people in this country… I think it’s perfect for now.»

 

Channel 4 commissioned a full series of Derek that aired in early 2013. Derek was re-commissioned for a second series which premiered on 23 April 2014. Derek ended with a one-off final special, broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK 22 December 2014.

 

 

Film

 

Gervais’s film career has included small roles as the voice of a pigeon Bugsy, in 2005’s Valiant, as a studio executive in 2006’s For Your Consideration, as museum director Dr. McPhee in 2006’s Night at the Museum and its sequels Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, and as «Ferdy the Fence» in the 2007 film Stardust.

 

Gervais starred in Ghost Town as a dentist who sees spirits, and was in Lowell, Massachusetts during May 2008 filming his next project, The Invention of Lying, which he starred in along with, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe and Louis C.K.. The social comedy, was co-written and co-directed by Gervais and Matt Robinson.

 

Gervais and co-writer Stephen Merchant made a film called Cemetery Junction, set in 1970s Britain, about class, love and fulfilment. The film was released in April 2010.

 

Gervais will direct and star in two upcoming films; the first, Special Correspondents, began filming in May 2015. The comedy stars Eric Bana as a journalist and Gervais as his assistant. They pretend to report news from a war torn country but in actuality they are safe in New York. The second film, Life on the Road, is a mockumentary following David Brent, a character first seen in The Office series, as he lives his dream of being a rockstar. On 5 November 2015 Gervais signed up to play Ika Chu, a villainous cat, in an animated film Blazing Samurai. The movie is about a dog Hank played by Michael Cera who wants to be a warrior and fights with Ika Chu for the town of Kakamucho.

 

 

Personal Life

 

Gervais lives in Hampstead, having moved from Bloomsbury, with his partner of 33 years, producer and author Jane Fallon. He says they chose not to marry because «there’s no point in us having an actual ceremony before the eyes of God because there is no God» or have children because they «didn’t fancy dedicating 16 years of our lives. And there are too many children, of course».

 

Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same sex marriage in England and Wales, calling it «a victory for all of us» and stated «anything that promotes equality, promotes progress.» He added: «You can’t take equality ‘too far’.»

 

Gervais is an atheist and a humanist, and states he abandoned Christianity at the age of eight. In December 2010 he wrote an editorial for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism. He is a patron of the British Humanist Association, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.

 

Gervais is a music fan and has stated that his hero is David Bowie, and his favourite song «Letter to Hermione». He has also stated that his first experience of a live music gig was watching Iggy Pop. In 2013, he wrote that Lou Reed was «One of the greatest artists of our time» following his death.

 

 

Charity Work

 

Gervais is a supporter of animal rights and has stated that he will leave his fortune to animal charities. He has spoken out against fox hunting and bullfighting, and wrote to Gordon Brown urging him to stop the use of black bear fur as caps for the Foot Guards.

 

In 2013, Gervais was named Person of the Year by PETA for his work on curbing animal abuse. For PETA Gervais voiced a rabbit and Pink played an alligator in an awareness advertisement. Gervais named an Asian black bear, also known as a moonbear, Derek after his character Derek Noakes from his series Derek. In December 2013, Gervais bought a $1000 cake shaped like a moonbear to raise funds for Animal Asia. Gervais is active in the prevention of illegal wildlife trade; he supported the handing over of ivory trinkets to the Metropolitan police in London.

 

Kings and Queens of England and Britain vol VI

Kings and Queens of England and Britain VI

There have been 66 monarchs of England and Britain spread over a period of 1500 years. In today´s post we are going to talk about some other Monarchs of England and Wales, and also talk about the House of Lancaster and start ith the House of York.

EDWARD III 1327 – 1377

Son of Edward II, he reigned for 50 years. His ambition to conquer Scotland and France plunged England into the Hundred Years War, beginning in 1338. The two great victories at Crecy and Poitiers made Edward and his son, the Black Prince, the most renowned warriors in Europe, however the war was very expensive. The outbreak of bubonic plague, the ‘Black Death’ in 1348-1350 killed half the population of England.

RICHARD II 1377 – deposed 1399

The son of the Black Prince, Richard was extravagant, unjust and faithless. In 1381 came the Peasants Revolt, led by Wat Tyler. The rebellion was put down with great severity. The sudden death of his first wife Anne of Bohemia completely unbalanced Richard and his extravagance, acts of revenge and tyranny turned his subjects against him. In 1399 Henry of Lancaster returned from exile and deposed Richard, becoming elected King Henry IV. Richard was murdered, probably by starvation, in Pontefract Castle in 1400.

House of Lancaster

HENRY IV 1399 – 1413

The son of John of Gaunt (third son of Edward III), Henry returned from exile in France to reclaim his estates previously seized by Richard II; he was accepted as king by Parliament. Henry spent most of his 13 year reign defending himself against plots, rebellions and assassination attempts. In Wales Owen Glendower declared himself Prince of Wales and led a national uprising against English rule. Back in England, Henry had great difficulty in maintaining the support of both the clery and Pariament and between 1403-08 the Percy family lauched a series of rebellions against him. Henry, the first Lancastrian king, died exhausted, probably of leprosy, at the age of 45.

HENRY V 1413 – 1422

The son of Henry IV, he was a pious, stern and skilful soldier. Henry had honed his fine soldiering skills putting down the many rebellions launched against his father and had been knighted when aged just 12. He pleased his nobles by renewing the war with France in 1415. In the face of tremendous odds he beat the French at the Battle of Agincourt, losing just 400 of his own soldiers with more than 6,000 Frenchmen killed. On a second expedition Henry captured Rouen, was recognised as the next King of France and married Catherine, the daughter of the lunatic French king. Henry died of dysentery whilst campaigning in France and before he could succeed to the French throne, leaving his 10-month old son as King of England and France.

HENRY VI 1422 – deposed 1461 Beginning of the Wars of the Roses.

Gentle and retiring, he came to the throne as a baby and inherited a losing war with France, the Hundred Years War finally ending in 1453 with the loss of all French lands except for Calais. The king had an attack of mental illness that was hereditary in his mother’s family in 1454 and Richard Duke of York was made Protector of the Realm. The House of York challenged Henry VI’s right to the throne and England was plunged into civil war. The Battle of St Albans in 1455 was won by the Yorkists. Henry was restored to the throne briefly in 1470. Henry’s son, Edward, Prince of Wales was killed at the Battle of Tewkesbury one day before Henry was murdered in the Tower of London in 1471. Henry founded both Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge, and every year the Provosts of Eton and King’s College lay roses and lilies on the altar which now stands where he died.

House of York

EDWARD IV 1461- 1483

He was the son of Richard Duke of York and Cicely Neville, and not a popular king. His morals were poor (he had many mistresses and had at least one illegitimate son) and even his contemporaries disapproved of him. Edward had his rebellious brother George, Duke of Clarence, murdered in 1478 on a charge of treason. During his reign the first printing press was established in Westminster by William Caxton. Edward died suddenly in 1483 leaving two sons aged 12 and 9, and five daughters.

Steve McQueen

06 Sep 2011 — Steve McQueen — Image by © Xavier Torres-Bacchetta/Corbis Outline

Steven McQueen

Steven Rodney «Steve» McQueen CBE (born 9 October 1969) is an English film director, producer, screenwriter, and video artist. For his 2013 film, 12 Years a Slave, a historical drama adaptation of an 1853 slave narrative memoir, he won an Academy Award, BAFTA Award for Best Film, and Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama, as a producer, and he also received the award for Best Director from the New York Film Critics Circle. McQueen is the first black filmmaker to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. McQueen is known for his collaborations with actor Michael Fassbender, who has starred in all three of McQueen’s feature films as of 2014. McQueen’s other feature films are Hunger (2008), a historical drama about the 1981 Irish hunger strike, and Shame (2011), a drama about an executive struggling with sex addiction.

For his artwork, McQueen has received the Turner Prize, the highest award given to a British visual artist. In 2006 he produced Queen and Country, which commemorates the deaths of British soldiers in Iraq by presenting their portraits as a sheet of stamps. For services to the visual arts, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2011.

In April 2014, TIME magazine included McQueen in its annual TIME 100 as one of the «Most Influential People in the World

Early years

McQueen was born in London and is of Grenadian and Trinidadian descent. He grew up in Hanwell, West London and went to Drayton Manor High School. In a 2014 interview, McQueen stated that he had a very bad experience in school, where he had been placed into a class for students believed best suited «for manual labour, more plumbers and builders, stuff like that.» Later, the new head of the school would admit that there had been «institutional» racism at the time. McQueen added that he was dyslexic and had to wear an eyepatch due to a lazy eye, and reflected this may be why he was «put to one side very quickly».

He was a keen football player, turning out for the St. George’s Colts football team. He took A level art at Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College, then studied art and design at Chelsea College of Arts and then fine art at Goldsmiths College, University of London, where he first became interested in film. He left Goldsmiths and studied briefly at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in the United States. He found the approach there too stifling and insufficiently experimental, complaining that «they wouldn’t let you throw the camera up in the air».

His artistic influences include Andy Warhol, Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, Jean Vigo, Buster Keaton, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Robert Bresson, and Billy Wilder.

Selected short films

Bear (1993) was McQueen’s first major film, presented at the Royal College of Art in London. Although not an overtly political piece, for many it raised questions about race, sexual attraction to men, and violence. It shows a wrestling match between two men who alternate ambiguous relations and gestures of aggression and erotic attraction. The film’s protagonists, one of them McQueen, are both black, but issues of race, he has said, do not take priority in his work. Like all McQueen’s early films, Bear is black-and-white, and was shot on 16-millimetre film.

Five Easy Pieces (1995) is a short film by McQueen. It follows a woman across a tight-rope; McQueen has stated that he finds a tight-rope walker to be «the perfect image of a combination of vulnerability and strength.»

Just Above My Head (1996) is a short film which shares close ties with McQueen’s preceding film with the key theme of walking. A man – played by McQueen – is shot in a way so as to crop out his body, but his head appears small at the bottom of the image, rising and falling with his step and coming in and out of frame according to the movement of the camera.

Deadpan (1997) is a four-minute black and white short film directed by and starring McQueen showing a multitude of angles on a reenactment of a stunt from Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill Jr.. Frieze Magazine noted his lack of shoelaces and inferred a multitude of depth and commentary on the prison system. Media Art noted that his use of black and white emulates 1920s film style. The film was exhibited on loop in the Museum of Modern Art’s Contemporary Galleries, 1980-Now from 17 November 2011 – 17 February 2014.

Exodus (1997) is a 65-second colour video that takes the title of a record by Bob Marley as its starting point. It records a found event, two black men carrying potted palms whom McQueen followed down a London street, the greenery waving precariously above their heads. Then they get on a bus and leave.

Western Deep (2002), commissioned for documenta 11, constitutes a powerful exploration of the sensory experience of the TauTona Gold Mine in South Africa, showing migrant labourers working in dark, claustrophobic environments and the ear-splitting noise of drilling.

Rolling Thunder (2007), an 11-minute short film of a dead horse in a meadow. It was bought by the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 2014.

Career

McQueen’s films as an artist were typically projected onto one or more walls of an enclosed space in an art gallery, and often in black-and-white and minimalistic. He has cited the influence of the nouvelle vague and the films of Andy Warhol. He often appeared in the films himself.

His first major work was Bear (1993), in which two naked men (one of them McQueen) exchange a series of glances that might be taken to be flirtatious or threatening. Deadpan (1997) is a restaging of a Buster Keaton stunt in which a house collapses around McQueen, who is left unscathed because he is standing where there is a missing window.

As well as being in black-and-white, both these films are silent. The first of McQueen’s films to use sound was also the first to use multiple images: Drumroll (1998). This was made with three cameras, two mounted to the sides, and one to the front of an oil drum which McQueen rolled through the streets of Manhattan. The resulting films are projected on three walls of an enclosed space. McQueen has also made sculptures such as White Elephant (1998), as well as photographs.

He won the Turner Prize in 1999, although much of the publicity went to Tracey Emin, who was also a nominee. In 2006, he went to Iraq as an official war artist. The following year he presented Queen and Country, a piece that commemorated the deaths of British soldiers who died in the Iraq War by presenting their portraits as a sheet of stamps. His 2007 short film Gravesend depicted the process of Coltan refinement and production. It premiered at The Renaissance Society in the United States.

His 2008 feature film Hunger, about the 1981 Irish hunger strike, premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. McQueen received theCaméra d’Or (first-time director) Award at Cannes, the first British director to win the award. The film was also awarded the inaugural Sydney Film Festival Prize, for «its controlled clarity of vision, its extraordinary detail and bravery, the dedication of its cast and the power and resonance of its humanity». The film also won the 2008 Diesel Discovery Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. The award is voted on by the press attending the festival. Hunger also won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award for a New Generation film in 2008 and the best film prize at the London Evening Standard Film Awards in 2009.

McQueen represented Britain at the 2009 Venice Biennale. In 2009, it was announced that McQueen has been tapped to direct Fela, a biopic about the Nigerian musician and activist Fela Kuti. Despite this, McQueen’s second major theatrical release came in 2011 with the film Shame. Set in New York City, it stars Michael Fassbender as a sex addict whose life is suddenly turned upside-down when his estranged sister (Carey Mulligan) reappears.

McQueen’s most recent film is 12 Years a Slave (2013). Based on the 1853 autobiography of the same name by Solomon Northup, the film tells the story of a free black man who is kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery, working on plantations in the state of Louisiana for twelve years before being released. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture in March 2014, becoming the first Best Picture winner to have a black director or producer.

McQueen is also developing a drama for HBO, which he has cowritten with Matthew Michael Carnahan and intends to direct. McQueen is working on a BBC drama about the lives of black Britons, which follows the lives of a group of friends and their families from 1968 to 2014.

In November 2014, it was reported that McQueen’s next film would be a biopic about the black actor, singer and activist Paul Robeson. The film subsequently received its American premiere at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in July 2015.

Personal Life

In addition to London, since 1997 McQueen has a home in Amsterdam, with his Dutch wife, cultural critic Bianca Stigter, and their two children. Already having been appointedOfficer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2002, he was created Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to the visual arts.

Kings and Queens of England and Britain vol V

There have been 66 monarchs of England and Britain spread over a period of 1500 years. In today´s post we are going to talk about the Plantagenent Kings and start with the some other Monarchs of England and Wales.

HENRY II 1154-1189

Henry of Anjou was a strong king. A brilliant soldier, he extended his French lands until he ruled most of France. He laid the foundation of the English Jury System and raised new taxes (scutage) from the landholders to pay for a militia force. Henry is mostly remembered for his quarrel with Thomas A Becket, and Becket’s subsequent murder in Canterbury Cathedral on 29th December 1170. His sons turned against him, even his favourite John.

RICHARD I (The Lionheart) 1189 – 1199

Richard was the third son of Henry II. By the age of 16, he was leading his own army putting down rebellions in France. Although crowned King of England, Richard spent all but 6 months of his reign abroad, preferring to use the taxes from his kingdom to fund his various armies and military ventures. He was the leading Christian commander during the Third Crusade. On his way back from Palestine, Richard was captured and held for ransom. The amount paid for his safe return almost bankrupt the country. Richard died from an arrow-wound, far from the kingdom that he so rarely visited. He had no children.

JOHN 1199 -1216

John Lackland was the fourth child of Henry II. Short and fat, he was jealous of his dashing brother Richard I whom he succeeded. He was cruel, self-indulgent, selfish and avaricious, and the raising of punitive taxes united all the elements of society, clerical and lay, against him. The Pope excommunicated him. On 15th June 1215 at Runnymede the barons compelled John to sign Magna Carta, the Great Charter, which reinstated the rights of all his subjects. John died – from over-eating – a fugitive from all his enemies. He has been termed «the worst English king».

HENRY III 1216 -1272

Henry was 9 years old when he became king. Brought up by priests he became devoted to church, art and learning. He was a weak man, dominated by churchmen and easily influenced by his wife’s French relations. In 1264 Henry was captured during the rebellion of barons led by Simon de Montfort and was forced to set up a ‘Parlement’ at Westminster, the start of the House of Commons. Henry was the greatest of all patrons of medieval architecture and ordered the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey in the Gothic style.

Monarchs of England and Wales

EDWARD I 1272 – 1307

Edward Longshanks was a statesman, lawyer and soldier. He formed the Model Parliament in 1295, bringing the knights, clergy and nobility, as well as the Lords and Commons together for the first time. Aiming at a united Britain, he defeated the Welsh chieftains and created his eldest son Prince of Wales. He was known as the ‘Hammer of the Scots’ for his victories in Scotland and brought the famous coronation stone from Scone to Westminster. When his first wife Eleanor died, he escorted her body from Grantham in Lincolnshire to Westminster, setting up Eleanor Crosses at every resting place. He died on the way to fight Robert Bruce.

EDWARD II 1307 – deposed 1327

Edward was a weak and incompetent king. He had many ‘favourites’, Piers Gaveston being the most notorious. He was beaten by the Scots at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. Edward was deposed and held captive in Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. His wife joined her lover Mortimer in deposing him: by their orders he was murdered in Berkley Castle – as legend has it, by having a red-hot poker thrust up his anus! His beautiful tomb in Gloucester Cathedral was erected by his son, Edward III.

Guy Ritchie

Guy Ritchie

Guy Stuart Ritchie is an English filmmaker known for his crime films. He left secondary school and got entry-level jobs in the film industry in the mid-1990s. He eventually graduated to directing commercials. He directed his first film in 1995, a 20-minute short which impressed investors who backed his first feature film, the crime comedy Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). He then directed another crime comedy, Snatch (2000). His next two films, the romantic comedy Swept Away (2002) and the crime drama Revolver (2005) were not commercial or critical successes. The next crime drama, RocknRolla (2008), received mixed reviews and a modest box office return. In 2009, he directed his first films in the action mystery genre, with Sherlock Holmes (2009) and its sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011). Both films were major box office successes, and the two films received positive, and moderately positive reviews, respectively.

Early Life

Ritchie was born in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, the second of two children of Amber (née Parkinson) and Captain John Vivian Ritchie (b. 1928), former Seaforth Highlanders serviceman and advertising executive. John’s father was Major Stewart Ritchie, who died in France, in 1940, during World War II. John’s mother was Doris Margaretta McLaughlin (b. 1896), daughter of Vivian Guy McLaughlin (b. 1865) and Edith Martineau (b. 1866), this last by whom she shares close common ancestors with Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. The McLaughlins have a pedigree going back to King Edward I of England. Ritchie’s mother, Amber, later married a baronet. His father’s second marriage was to Shireen Ritchie, Baroness Ritchie of Brompton, a former model and later Conservative politician and life peer.

Ritchie, who is dyslexic, was expelled from Stanbridge Earls School at the age of 15. He has stated that drug use was the reason for the expulsion; his father has said that it was because his son was caught «cutting class and entertaining a girl in his room.»

In addition to his elder sister, Tabitha, a dance instructor, Ritchie has a half-brother, Kevin Bayton, who was born to Amber Parkinson when she was a teenager and given up for adoption. From 1973 until 1980, when they divorced, Ritchie’s mother was married to Sir Michael Leighton, 11th baronet. As a divorcée, she is correctly styled as Amber, Lady Leighton.

Directing Career

In 1998, Ritchie and his dad contacted their friend Peter Morton, of the Hard Rock Cafe chain, wondering if he had any potential investors for a debut film. Morton’s nephew, Matthew Vaughn, had been studying film production in Los Angeles. Peter informed Vaughn of Ritchie’s new film idea, and Vaughn agreed to produce. Matthew, John, Guy and Peter asked their mutual acquaintance, Trudie Styler, to invest in the production of Ritchie’s second film. Styler had seen The Hard Case, and decided that co-funding the project would be a worthwhile opportunity. The production of the film, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was completed in about eight months. It was released in Great Britain in 1998, and after positive reviews, became an international success. Richie was introduced to Madonna, whom he would later wed, when the soundtrack for the film was issued on her Maverick Records label. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, which starred Nick Moran, also introduced actors Jason Statham (The Transporter), Jason Flemyng and Dexter Fletcher to worldwide audiences, as well as introducing former footballer Vinnie Jones to a new acting career. In 2000 Ritchie won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Motion Picture Screenplay. Ritchie created and produced a spin-off television series called Lock, Stock.

His second feature film was Snatch, released in the year 2000. Originally known as Diamonds, it was another caper comedy, this time backed by a major studio. The cast featured such Hollywood big names as Brad Pitt, Benicio del Toro and Dennis Farina, along with the returning Vinnie Jones and Statham. Similar to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in featuring a complex and inventive storyline in which the characters weave in and out of each other’s lives, the film also plays with time, depicting events from various perspectives. It currently has a rating of 73% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Following his marriage to Madonna, Ritchie began focusing his filmmaking on his wife, directing her in both a music video (for the song «What It Feels Like for a Girl», a controversial video that showed Madonna engaging in violent behaviour, ostensibly directed at men, including T-boning a car with three men in it, tasering and robbing a man at an ATM, scratching a police car and shooting two officers with a water gun, driving her car through a group of men playing street hockey and incinerating a man by throwing a lighter into a pool of gasoline) and a short film, Star, for the BMW films series. Ritchie’s next film, also featuring Madonna, was a remake of the 1974 Lina Wertmüller hit Swept Away (also entitled Swept Away). Ritchie cast Madonna as a rich, rude socialite who, after a shipwreck, is trapped on a deserted island with a slovenly Communist sailor who humiliates her. Ritchie renamed the woman Amber Leighton after his mother. This film was both a critical and commercial disappointment.

Ritchie’s next project was a Vegas-themed heist film entitled Revolver, which was critically panned in the US and UK. Ritchie was involved with a hidden camera show calledSwag, for Channel Five in the UK, which turned the table on criminals and opportunists by using stunts to trap them in the act. Ritchie has also written and directed RocknRollastarring Gerard Butler. It scores 60% on Rotten Tomatoes and was generally received well.

In 2008, Ritchie directed a commercial for Nike called «Take It To The Next Level», about a young Dutch footballer who signs for Arsenal, showing the progression of his career from his viewpoint, until he makes his debut for the Netherlands. The commercial features cameo appearances from some football players with music by Eagles of Death Metal. Ritchie’s movie Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law, received its theatrical release on 25 December 2009. The film was given generally positive reviews and grossed more than $520 million worldwide, becoming Ritchie’s most successful film financially. The sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, was released on 16 December 2011. In June 2012 it was announced that Ritchie would direct an adaptation of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. On 29 October 2012, Ritchie produced a game trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops II.
Ritchie directed Warner Bros.’ The Man From U.N.C.L.E., which was filmed in 2013 in London and Italy, and was released in August 2015. In January 2014, Warner Bros set Ritchie to direct a new multi-film version of the King Arthur legend titled Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur, which is scheduled for an 24 March 2017 release. Idris Elba is in talks to play a Merlin-esque figure who trains and mentors Arthur. Charlie Hunnam will play King Arthur by Ritchie’s choice

Personal Life

On 18 May 2000, Ritchie was arrested by the police after he assaulted a 20-year-old man outside the Kensington home he shared with Madonna, causing actual bodily harm. Ritchie started training in Shotokan karate at the age of seven at the Budokwai in London, where he later achieved a black belt in judo. He also has a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

In February 2011 a £6m house he owns in London’s Fitzrovia was occupied briefly by members of The Really Free School, a squatter organization.

On 22 December 2000, Guy married American singer Madonna at Skibo Castle in Scotland. They have a son, Rocco John Ritchie (born 11 August 2000 in Los Angeles) and adopted a Malawian baby boy in 2006, David (born 24 September 2005). On 15 October 2008, British media reported that a split was «imminent» between Ritchie and Madonna.

On 15 December 2008, it was announced by Madonna’s spokeswoman that the singer had agreed to a divorce settlement with Ritchie, the terms of which grant him between £50 million and £60 million, a figure that includes the value of the couple’s London pub and residence and Wiltshire estate in England.

On 30 July 2015, Ritchie married model Jacqui Ainsley, with whom he has three children: son Rafael (born September 2011), daughter Rivka, (born November 2012) and son Levi (born June 2014).

 

Kings and Queens of England and Britain vol IV

Kings and Queens of England and Britain

There have been 66 monarchs of England and Britain spread over a period of 1500 years. In today´s post we are going to talk about the last two Saxon Kings and start with the Norman Kings.

EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 1042-1066

Following the death of Harthacanute, Edward restored the rule of the House of Wessex to the English throne. A deeply pious and religious man, he presided over the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey, leaving much of the running of the country to Earl Godwin and his son Harold. Edward died childless, eight days after the building work on Westminster Abbey had finished. With no natural successor, England was faced with a power struggle for control of the throne.

HAROLD II 1066

Despite having no royal bloodline, Harold Godwin was elected king by the Witan (a council of high ranking nobles and religious leaders), following the death of Edward the Confessor. The election result failed to meet with the approval of one William, Duke of Normandy, who claimed that his relative Edward had promised the throne to him several years earlier. Harold defeated an invading Norwegian army at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire, then marched south to confront William of Normandy who had landed his forces in Sussex. The death of Harold at the Battle Of Hastings meant the end of the English Anglo-Saxon kings and the beginning of the Normans.

NORMAN KINGS

WILLIAM I (The Conqueror) 1066- 1087

Also known as William the Bastard (but not normally to his face!), he was the illigitimate son of Robert the Devil, whom he succeeded as Duke of Normandy in 1035. William came to England from Normandy, claiming that his second cousin Edward the Confessor had promised him the throne, and defeated Harold II at the Battle of Hastings on 14th October 1066. In 1085 the Domesday Survey was begun and all of England was recorded, so William knew exactly what his new kingdom contained and how much tax he could raise in order to fund his armies. William died at Rouen after a fall from his horse whilst beseiging the French city of Nantes. He is buried at Caen.

WILLIAM II (Rufus) 1087- 1100

William was not a popular king, given to extravagance and cruelty. He never married and was killed in the New Forest by a stray arrow whilst out hunting, maybe accidentally, or possibly shot deliberately on the instructions of his younger brother Henry. Walter Tyrrell, one of the hunting party, was blamed for the deed. The Rufus Stone in The New Forest, Hampshire, marks the spot where he fell.

HENRY I 1100-1135

Henry Beauclerc was the fourth and youngest son of William I. Well educated, he founded a zoo at Woodstock in Oxfordshire to study animals. He was called the ‘Lion of Justice’ as he gave England good laws, even if the punishments were ferocious. His two sons were drowned in the White Ship so his daughter Matilda was made his successor. She was married to Geoffrey Plantagenet. When Henry died of food poisoning, the Council considered a woman unfit to rule and so offered the throne to Stephen, a grandson of William I.

STEPHEN 1135-1154

Stephen was a very weak king and the whole country was almost destroyed by the constant raids by the Scots and the Welsh. During Stephen’s reign the Norman barons wielded great power, extorting money and looting town and country. A decade of civil war known as The Anarchy ensued when Matilda invaded from Anjou in 1139. A compromise was eventually decided, under the terms of theTreaty of Westminster Matilda’s son Henry Plantagenet would succeed to the throne when Stephen died.