1.
Carol Channing
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Carol Elaine Channing is an American actress, singer, dancer, comedian, and voice artist. Notable for starring in Broadway and film musicals, her characters typically radiate a fervent expressiveness and an easily identifiable voice, whether singing or for comedic effect. She began as a Broadway musical actress, starring in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in 1949, and Hello, Dolly. in 1964 and she revived both roles several times throughout her career, most recently playing Dolly in 1995. Channing was nominated for her first Tony Award in 1956 for The Vamp followed by a nomination in 1961 for Show Girl and she received her fourth Tony Award nomination for the musical Lorelei in 1974. As a film actress, she won the Golden Globe Award and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Muzzy in Thoroughly Modern Millie, other film appearances include The First Traveling Saleslady and Skidoo. On television, she appeared as an entertainer on variety shows and she had a standout performance as The White Queen in the TV production of Alice in Wonderland, and had the first of many TV specials in 1966, An Evening with Carol Channing. Channing was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981 and she continues to perform and make appearances, singing songs from her repertoire and sharing stories with fans, cabaret style. She released an autobiography, titled Just Lucky I Guess, in 2002, and Larger Than Life, a documentary film about her career, was released in 2012. Channing was born in Seattle, Washington, on January 31,1921, the child of George and Adelaide Channing Her mother was of German-Jewish descent. Her father was born George Christian Stucker but changed his surname before his daughters birth, a city editor at the Seattle Star, he took a job in San Francisco and the family moved when Channing was two weeks old. He became a Christian Science practitioner, editor, and teacher, Channing attended Aptos Junior High School and Lowell High School San Francisco, graduating in 1938. She won the Crusaders Oratorical Contest and a trip to Hawaii with her mother in June 1937. When she was 16, she left home to attend Bennington College in Vermont, and her mother told her for the first time that her fathers mother was African American and his father was German-American. Her mother felt that the time was right to tell her since now that she was going off to college and would be on her own, Channing writes, I know its true the moment I sing and dance. Its one of the strains in show business. My father was a dignified man and as white as I am. My grandparents were Nordic German, so apparently I took after them and she majored in drama at Bennington, and during an interview in 1994 admitted that she first wanted to perform on stage as a singer when she was in the fourth grade. She recalls being emotionally drawn to the stage after seeing Ethel Waters perform and she has stated that in the fourth grade she ran for and was elected class secretary, I stood up in class and campaigned by kidding the teachers
2.
Broadway theatre
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Along with Londons West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. The Theater District is a popular tourist attraction in New York City, the great majority of Broadway shows are musicals. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggars Opera, in 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice, the company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, by the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblos Garden opened, the 3, 000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmos Opera House opened and presented opera for four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as a venue for plays under the name Burtons Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847, booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865, and would later revive the role at his own Booths Theatre. Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, lydia Thompson came to America in 1868 heading a small theatrical troupe, adapting popular English burlesques for middle-class New York audiences. Thompsons troupe called the British Blondes, was the most popular entertainment in New York during the 1868–1869 theatrical season, the six-month tour ran for almost six extremely profitable years. Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown beginning around 1850, in 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Broadways first long-run musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857, New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keenes musical burletta The Seven Sisters shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keenes troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, the production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a musical comedy, Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham. They starred high quality singers, instead of the women of repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits, as in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women
3.
Anita Loos
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Anita Loos was an American screenwriter, playwright and author, best known for her blockbuster comic novel, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. She wrote film scripts from 1912, and became arguably the first-ever staff scriptwriter and she went on to write many of the Douglas Fairbanks films, as well as the stage adaptation of Colette’s Gigi. Anita Loos was born Corinne Anita Loos in Sisson, California, to Richard Beers Loos, Loos had two siblings, Gladys and Clifford, a physician and co-founder of the Ross-Loos Medical Group. On pronouncing her name, Loos is reported to have said, however, I myself pronounce my name as if it were spelled luce, since most people pronounce it that way and it was too much trouble to correct them. Loos father, R. Beers Loos, founded a tabloid for which her mother, while living in San Francisco, Loos followed her dissolute alcoholic father as they explored the citys underbelly. Together they would sit on the pier, fishing and making friends with the locals, feeding into Loos lifelong fascination with lowlifes, in 1897, at their fathers urging, she and her sister performed in the San Francisco stock company production of Quo Vadis. Gladys died, aged eight, of appendicitis while their father was on one of his drinking and philandering fishing trips, Anita continued appearing on stage, sometimes being the familys sole breadwinner. Eventually Beers Loos spendthrift ways caught up with them, and in 1903, there, Anita performed simultaneously in her fathers stock company, and under another name with the more legitimate stock company in town. It was around this time that she started shaving years off her true age, Loos had known she wanted to be a writer since she was six, and she also wanted to free herself of the shackles of stock performance. Her father had turned out some one-act plays for the stock company and she wrote The Ink Well, a successful piece for which she would receive periodic royalties. In 1911, the theater was running one-reel films after each nights performances, Anita would take a perfunctory bow and she sent her first attempt at a screenplay, He Was A College Boy, to the Biograph Company, for which she received $25. The New York Hat, starring Mary Pickford and Lionel Barrymore and directed by D. W. Griffith, was her third screenplay, by 1912, Loos had sold scripts to both the Biograph and Lubin studios. Between 1912 and 1915, she turned out 105 scripts, only four of which went unproduced and her mother had objected to Loos working in Hollywood. In 1915, trying to escape her influence, Loos married her first husband, Frank Pallma, Jr. the son of the band conductor. But Frank proved to be penniless and dull – after six months, Anita sent him out for hair pins, after that, Minnie rethought her position on a Hollywood career. Many of the scripts she turned out for Griffith went unproduced, some he considered unfilmable because the laughs were all in the lines, there was no way to get them onto the screen, but he encouraged her to continue, because reading them amused him. Her first screen credit was for an adaptation of Macbeth in which her billing came right after Shakespeares, when Griffith asked her to write the subtitling for his epic Intolerance, she traveled to New York City for the first time to attend its premiere. Instead of returning to Hollywood, Loos spent the fall of 1916 in New York and they had an instant rapport, and Loos would remain a Vanity Fair contributor for several decades
4.
Marilyn Monroe
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Marilyn Monroe was an American actress and model. Famous for playing comic dumb blonde characters, she one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s. Although she was an actress for only a decade, her films grossed $200 million by the time of her unexpected death in 1962. She continues to be considered a popular culture icon. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Monroe spent most of her childhood in foster homes, while working in a factory in 1944 as part of the war effort, she was introduced to a photographer from the First Motion Picture Unit and began a successful pin-up modeling career. The work led to short-lived film contracts with Twentieth Century-Fox and Columbia Pictures, after a series of minor film roles, she signed a new contract with Fox in 1951. Over the next two years, she became an actress with roles in several comedies, including As Young as You Feel and Monkey Business. Monroe faced a scandal when it was revealed that she had posed for photos before becoming a star, but rather than damaging her career. Although she played a significant role in the creation and management of her public image throughout her career, she was disappointed at being typecast and underpaid by the studio. She was briefly suspended in early 1954 for refusing a film project, when the studio was still reluctant to change her contract, Monroe founded a film production company in late 1954, she named it Marilyn Monroe Productions. She dedicated 1955 to building her company and began studying acting at the Actors Studio. In late 1955, Fox awarded her a new contract, which gave her more control and a larger salary. After a critically acclaimed performance in Bus Stop and acting in the first independent production of MMP, The Prince and her last completed film was the drama The Misfits. Monroes troubled private life received much attention and she struggled with substance abuse, depression, and anxiety. She had two highly publicized marriages, to retired baseball star Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller, both of which ended in divorce and she died at the age of 36 on August 5,1962, from an overdose of barbiturates at her home in Los Angeles. Although Monroes death was ruled a suicide, several conspiracy theories have been proposed in the decades following her death. Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson at the Los Angeles County Hospital on June 1,1926, Gladys, the daughter of two poor Midwestern migrants to California, was a flapper and worked as a film negative cutter at Consolidated Film Industries. When she was fifteen, Gladys married a man nine years her senior, John Newton Baker and she filed for divorce in 1921, and Baker took the children with him to his native Kentucky
5.
Jane Russell
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Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell was an American film actress and one of Hollywoods leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s. Russell moved from the Midwest to California, where she had her first film role in 1943 in The Outlaw, in 1947, Russell delved into music before returning to films. After starring in films in the 1950s, Russell again returned to music while completing several other films in the 1960s. She starred in more than 20 films throughout her career, Russell married three times, adopted three children, and in 1955 founded Waif, the first international adoption program. Russell was born on June 21,1921, in Bemidji and she was the eldest child and only daughter of the five children of Geraldine and Roy William Russell. Her brothers are Thomas, Kenneth, Jamie, and Wallace, russells parents lived in Edmonton, Canada until shortly before her birth and returned to that city nine days after her birth, where they lived for the first one or two years of her life. The family then moved to Southern California where her father worked as an office manager, russells mother arranged for her to take piano lessons. In addition to music, she was interested in drama and participated in productions at Van Nuys High School. Her early ambition was to be a designer of some kind, until the death of her father in his mid-40s, when she decided to work as a receptionist after graduation. She also modeled for photographers, and, at the urging of her mother, studied drama and acting with Max Reinhardts Theatrical Workshop, the movie was completed in 1941, but it was not released until 1943 in a limited release. Problems occurred with the censorship of the code over the way her ample cleavage was displayed. When the movie was passed, it had a general release in 1946. During that time, she was busy doing publicity and became known nationally. Russells measurements were 38D-24-36, and she stood 5 ft 7 in and her favorite co-star Bob Hope once introduced her as the two and only Jane Russell. He joked, Culture is the ability to describe Jane Russell without moving your hands, howard Hughes said, There are two good reasons why men go to see her. A publicity still for the movie showed her lying on a pile of straw and her right hand was behind her head of black hair and her left hand held a revolver. The image was a popular pin-up photo with servicemen during World War II and she did not appear in another movie until 1946, when she played Joan Kenwood in Young Widow for RKO. Speaking about her sex appeal, Russell said, Sex appeal is not in bad taste
6.
Kylie Minogue
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Kylie Ann Minogue, OBE, often known simply as Kylie, is an Australian singer, songwriter, dancer and actress. She achieved recognition starring in the Australian soap opera Neighbours, where she played tomboy mechanic Charlene Robinson, since then, Minogue has been a recording artist and has achieved commercial success and critical acclaim in the entertainment industry. Minogue has been recognised with several nicknames including Princess of Pop. She is recognised as the highest-selling Australian artist of all time by the Australian Recording Industry Association, born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, Minogue has for many years worked and lived in London. She signed to PWL in 1987 and released her first studio album Kylie the next year, in 1992, she left PWL and signed with Deconstruction Records and where she created her self-titled studio album and Impossible Princess, both of which received positive reviews from critics. Returning to more mainstream dance-oriented music, Minogue signed to Parlophone and her 2001 single Cant Get You Out of My Head became one of the most successful singles during the 2000s, selling over ten million units. It is recognised as her song and was named the catchiest song ever by Yahoo. Her album Fever was a hit in countries, including the United States. In 2005, while Minogue was on her Showgirl, The Greatest Hits Tour, after treatment, she resumed the tour under the title Showgirl, The Homecoming Tour, which critics viewed as a triumph. Minogue resumed work as an actress and appeared in the films Moulin Rouge, Jack & Diane, and Holy Motors. In 2014, she appeared as a judge on the series of The Voice UK. Her other ventures include product endorsements, children books and fashion, as of 2015, Minogue has had worldwide record sales of more than 80 million. She has mounted several successful and critically acclaimed concert world tours and she was appointed OBE by Charles, Prince of Wales in 2008. She was appointed by the French government as a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for her contribution to the enrichment of French culture, Minogue was awarded an honorary Doctor of Health Science degree by Anglia Ruskin University for her work in raising awareness for breast cancer. In November 2011, on the 25th anniversary of the ARIA Music Awards, in December 2016, Billboard ranked her as the 18th most successful dance artist of all-time. Kylie was born to Ronald Charles Minogue and Carol Ann Jones in Melbourne, Australia and her father is a fifth generation Australian, and has Irish ancestry, while her mother came from Maesteg, Wales. Jones had lived in Wales until age ten when her mother and father, Millie and Denis Jones, just before Kylies birth, Ron qualified as an accountant and worked through several jobs while Carol worked as a professional dancer. Kylies younger brother, Brendan, is a cameraman in Australia, while her younger sister Dannii Minogue is also a singer
7.
Geri Halliwell
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Geraldine Estelle Geri Horner is an English pop singer-songwriter, clothes designer, author and actress. In 1998 Halliwell left the Spice Girls, though she rejoined the group when they reunited in 2007, Halliwell reportedly amassed a $30 million fortune during her last two years in the group. She released her studio album Passion in 2005. Halliwell has been nominated for four Brit Awards, after a few years of relative obscurity, in April 2010, Halliwell announced that she had started working on new music. In April 2013, the Nine Network announced that she would become the judge on Australias Got Talent. On 12 September 2013, it was announced that Halliwell would return to the industry in Australia with the release of her first solo single in nearly eight years. With 11 number-one singles, she is the singer with the third-most number-one singles in UK Singles Chart history. Halliwell grew up on an estate in North Watford. She was educated at Watford Grammar School for Girls and Camden School for Girls, before starting her music career, Halliwell had worked as a nightclub dancer in Majorca, as a presenter on the Turkish version of Lets Make a Deal, and as a glamour model. At the age of 19, she appeared in The Sun as a Page 3 girl, following her rise to fame with the Spice Girls, nude photos of Halliwell were republished in a number of magazines in 1992 and 1996 including Playboy and Penthouse. In 1994 Halliwell, along with Melanie Chisholm, Melanie Brown and Victoria Beckham, around 400 women answered the ad and auditioned at Dance Works studios. After a couple of initial line-up changes, Halliwell, Chisholm, Brown, due to the large interest in the group, the Herberts quickly set about creating a binding contract for the group. Encouraged by the reaction they had received at the Nomis showcase, all five members delayed signing contracts on the advice from, amongst others. In March 1995, because of the frustration at their managements unwillingness to listen to their visions and ideas. The group began a relationship with Simon Fuller of 19 Entertainment, during the summer of that year the group toured record labels in London and Los Angeles with Fuller and finally signed a deal with Virgin Records in September 1995. On 7 June 1996, the Spice Girls released their single, Wannabe. In the weeks leading up to the release, the video for Wannabe got a trial airing on The Box music channel, the song proved to be a global hit, reaching number 1 in 37 countries, becoming the biggest-selling single by an all-female group of all time. It was followed by nine further singles from their albums Spice, Spiceworld
8.
Material Girl
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Material Girl is a song recorded by American singer Madonna for her second studio album Like a Virgin. It was released on January 23,1985, by the Sire label as the single from Like a Virgin. It also appears remixed on the 1990 greatest hits compilation, The Immaculate Collection. The song was written by Peter Brown and Robert Rans, while Nile Rodgers produced the track, Madonna explained that the concept of the song was indicative of her life at that time. She felt that Material Girl was provocative in its content and was attracted to it, Material Girl consists of synth arrangements with a robotic voice repeating the hook. The lyrics identify with materialism, with Madonna asking for a rich and affluent life, rather than romance, contemporary critics have frequently identified Material Girl along with Like a Virgin as the songs that established Madonna as an icon. Material Girl was a success, reaching the top-five in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Japan. It reached the two position on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, becoming her third top-five single there. The music video was a mimicry of Marilyn Monroes performance of the song Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend from the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the mimicked scenes are interspersed with scenes of a Hollywood director trying to win the heart of an actress, played by Madonna herself. Discovering that, contrary to her song, the woman was not impressed by money and expensive gifts, he pretended to be penniless. She has performed the song in five of her world tours, Material Girl has been covered by a number of artists, including Britney Spears, The Chipettes and Hilary and Haylie Duff. It has appeared in the films Moulin Rouge, and Bridget Jones, The Edge of Reason. Madonna has often remarked that she regrets recording Material Girl as its title became a nickname for her in the mainstream media, the song has been labeled an empowering influence for women, and was the subject of debates. Material Girl was written by Peter Brown and Robert Rans, while Nile Rodgers produced the track. In 1986, Madonna told Company magazine, that although she did not write or create the song and you are attracted to people who are ambitious that way, too, like in the song Material Girl. You are attracted to men who have material things because thats what pays the rents, during a 2009 interview with Rolling Stone, Madonna was asked by interviewer Austin Scaggs, regarding her first feelings, after listening to the demos of Like a Virgin and Material Girl. Madonna responded by saying, I liked them both because they were ironic and provocative at the time but also unlike me. I am not a person, and I certainly wasnt a virgin
9.
Nicole Kidman
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Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an Australian actress and film producer. Kidmans breakthrough roles were in the 1989 feature film thriller Dead Calm, other successful films followed in the late 1990s. Her performance in the musical Moulin Rouge, earned her a second Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical and her first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her performances in the drama Birth and the thriller The Paperboy earned her Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress and her performance in the 2010 drama Rabbit Hole, which she also produced, earned Kidman further accolades, including a third nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 2012, she earned her first Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for her role in the biopic Hemingway & Gellhorn. Kidmans performance in Lion earned her a fourth Academy Award nomination, Kidman has been a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF since 1994 and for UNIFEM since 2006. In 2006, Kidman was made a Companion in the Order of Australia, as a result of being born to Australian parents in Hawaii, Kidman has dual citizenship in Australia and the United States. Kidman founded and owns the production company Blossom Films, Kidman was born 20 June 1967 in Honolulu, Hawaii, while her Australian parents were temporarily in the United States on educational visas. Her father was Antony Kidman, a biochemist, clinical psychologist and author and her mother, Janelle Ann, is a nursing instructor who edited her husbands books and was a member of the Womens Electoral Lobby. Kidmans ancestry includes Irish, Scottish, and English heritage, being born in Hawaii, she was given the Hawaiian name Hōkūlani. The inspiration for the name came from a baby elephant born around the time at the Honolulu Zoo but the name is also a commonly used Hawaiian name for girls. At the time of Kidmans birth, her father was a student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He became a fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health of the United States. Opposed to the war in Vietnam, Kidmans parents participated in anti-war protests while living in Washington, the family returned to Australia when Kidman was four and her mother now lives on Sydneys North Shore. Kidman has a sister, Antonia Kidman, a journalist. Kidman attended Lane Cove Public School and North Sydney Girls High School and she was enrolled in ballet at three and showed her natural talent for acting in her primary and high school years. She says that she was first inspired to become an actress upon seeing Margaret Hamiltons performance as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. Kidman has revealed that she was timid as a child, saying, I am very shy – really shy – I even had a stutter as a kid, which I slowly got over, but I still regress into that shyness
10.
Moulin Rouge
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Moulin Rouge is a cabaret in Paris, France. The original house, which burned down in 1915, was co-founded in 1889 by Charles Zidler and Joseph Oller, close to Montmartre in the Paris district of Pigalle on Boulevard de Clichy in the 18th arrondissement, it is marked by the red windmill on its roof. The closest métro station is Blanche, Moulin Rouge is best known as the spiritual birthplace of the modern form of the can-can dance. Today, the Moulin Rouge is a tourist attraction, offering musical dance entertainment for visitors from around the world, the clubs decor still contains much of the romance of fin de siècle France. The Belle Époque was a period of peace and optimism marked by progress. The Expositions Universelles of 1889 and 1900 are symbols of this period, the Eiffel Tower was also constructed in 1889, epitomising the spirit of progress along with the culturally transgressive cabaret. Japonism, a movement inspired by the Orient, with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as its most brilliant disciple, was also at its height. Montmartre, which, at the heart of an increasingly vast and impersonal Paris, managed to retain a village atmosphere, festivities and artists mixed, with pleasure. On 6 October 1889, the Moulin Rouge opened in the Jardin de Paris and its creator Joseph Oller and his Manager Charles Zidler were formidable businessmen who understood the publics tastes. The aim was to allow the rich to come and slum it in a fashionable district. The extravagant setting – the garden was adorned with a gigantic elephant – allowed people from all walks of life to mix, workers, residents of the Place Blanche, artists, the middle classes, businessmen, elegant women and foreigners passing through Paris rubbed shoulders. Nicknamed The First Palace of Women by Oller and Zidler, the quickly became a great success. His posters and paintings secured rapid and international fame for the Moulin Rouge, the early years of the Moulin Rouge are marked by extravagant shows, inspired by the circus, and attractions that are still famous such as Pétomane. Concert-dances are organised every day at 10pm, 1886–1910, Footit and Chocolat, a comic act of a white, authoritarian clown and a black, long-suffering Auguste, are very popular and often appear on the Moulin Rouge poster. 19 April 1890, 1st review, Circassiens et Circassiennes,26 October 1890, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, who on a private visit to Paris, booked a table to see this quadrille whose reputation had already crossed the Channel. Recognising him, La Goulue, with her leg in the air and her head in her skirts, spontaneously called out Hey, Wales,1891, La Goulue, Toulouse-Lautrecs first poster for the Moulin Rouge. 1893, The Bal des QuatzArts caused a scandal with its procession of a nude Cleopatra surrounded by naked women. 12 November 1897, The Moulin Rouge closed its doors for the first time for the funeral of its manager and cofounder,1900, visitors from around the world, attracted by the Universal Exhibition, flock to the Moulin Rouch
11.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
12.
Harry Winston
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Harry Winston was an American jeweler. He donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958 after owning it for a decade and he also traded the Portuguese Diamond to the Smithsonian in 1963. Winstons father Jacob started a jewelry business after his mother. While growing up, he worked in his fathers shop, when he was twelve years old, he recognized a two-carat emerald in a pawn shop, bought it for 25 cents, and sold it two days later for $800. Winston started his business in 1920 and opened his first store in New York City in 1932, winstons jewelry empire began in 1926, with his acquisition of Arabella Huntingtons jewelry collection, for $1.2 million. The wife of railroad magnate Henry E. Huntington, Arabella amassed one of the worlds most prestigious collections of jewelry, when Winston bought the collection after her death, the designs of the jewelry in the collection were quite old fashioned. Winston redesigned the jewelry into more styles and showcased his unique skill at jewelry crafting. According to the Huntington museum, He frequently boasted that Arabellas famous necklace of pearls now adorned the necks of at least two dozen women around the world. When he died, Winston left the company to his two sons, Ronald and Bruce, who entered into a decade-long battle over the control of the company. In 2000, Ronald along with new partner, Fenway Partners. Winston was among the most noted jewelers in the world, well-known to the general public, in the 1953 musical film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the song Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend includes the spoken interjection Talk to me, Harry Winston, tell me all about it. The Lauren Weisberger comic novel, Chasing Harry Winston, was published in May 2008, reference, The Arcots, first 33.70 and 23.65 carats, recut by Winston to 31.01 and 18.85 carats, respectively. Both were either colorless or near-colorless, and antique pear-shaped brilliants, the Anastasia, three emerald cuts weighing 42.95,30.90 and 22.88 carats, all D color and Flawless clarity. Cut from a rough crystal weighing 307.30 carats Winston had purchased in 1972, largest gem named after Anastasia Nikolaevna, the Ashoka, originally a 42.47 carats, colorless, modified elongated cushion brilliant. Purchased by Winston from a Chinese dealer in 1947, subsequently sold, stone was recut slightly in 1977 from its original weight of 42.47 carats before it was sold again as a ring. The Blue Heart, a 30.82 carats, blue, after the cut was made, Cartier sold it to the Unzue family of Argentina in 1910. It reappeared in Paris in 1953 where it was purchased by an important European titled family, Winston mounted it in a ring and sold it to Marjorie Merriweather Post, who later donated it to the Smithsonian Institution. The Briolette of India, a 90.38 carats, colorless, the Cornflower Blue,31.93 carats pear brilliant,12.39 carats round brilliant, blue, cut from 158 carats South African rough which Winston purchased in 1958
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