Taurus Celebrity

Al Pacino (born 1940) has been called one of the best actors in film history. He established himself as a Hollywood icon when he burst onto the scene in The Godfather and followed that critically acclaimed performance with eight Academy Award nominations and more than 20 movies over 30 years. Through it all, Pacino stayed grounded in his first love: theater. But despite three decades of fame and success, the man behind the actor, who cherished his privacy, remained something of a mystery.

He played gangsters in Coppola's Godfather trilogy (1972, 1974, 1990), Scarface (1983), and Donnie Brasco (1997), and a cartoonish villain opposite Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy (1990). He has also played roles on the other side of the law, as a cop in Serpico (1973) Sea of Love (1989), and Heat (1995), and a lawyer in …And Justice for All (1979) and Devil's Advocate (1997). He continues work in the “ legitimate” theater, winning a Tony for Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? (1969) and playing Shakespeare's Richard III (filmed as Looking for Richard, 1996). He won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Actor in Scent of a Woman (1992) and received Oscar nominations for six other performances. Other films include Carlito's Way (1993), Heat (1995), Donnie Brasco (1997) and The Insider (1999).

Crosby, Bing , 1904–77, American singer and film actor, b. Tacoma, Wash., as Harry Lillis Crosby. He sang with dance bands from 1925 to 1930 and in 1931 began work in radio and films. Crosby gained enormous popularity for his “crooning” style and was an important influence on the development of American popular singing. In 1944 he won an Academy Award for his performance in Going My Way. Crosby's other notable films include numerous “Road” movies costarring Bob Hope, The Country Girl (1955), High Society (1956), and Stagecoach (1966). Fred Astaire (1899-1987) was a preeminent dancer and choreographer who worked in vaudeville, revue, musical comedy, television, radio, and Hollywood musicals. He achieved admiring recognition not only from his peers in the entertainment world, but also from major figures in ballet and modern dance.

After 1911 he and his sister Adele formed a successful Broadway vaudeville team. After his sister retired, Astaire became a film actor (1933). He became known as a debonair song-and-dance man, particularly in the films he made with Ginger Rogers, which elevated the tap dance to an elegant, disciplined art. He also danced in movies with Eleanor Powell, Rita Hayworth, and Cyd Charisse, and on television with Barrie Chase. Among his most notable films are The Gay Divorcee (1934), Top Hat (1935), Swing Time (1936), Easter Parade (1948), Funny Face (1956), Silk Stockings (1957). A number of classical dancers, notably Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov, have acknowledged an artistic debt to him. Gary Cooper (1901-1961) possessed a distinctive screen image that mirrored much that was worthy in the American character. By box office figures, Cooper was the most popular male film star of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Although he had great limitations, such accomplished performers as Charles Laughton, John Barrymore, and Charles Chaplin considered him America's most skilled film actor.

Cooper's first talking-picture success was The Virginian (1929), in which he developed his trademark taciturn, laconic speech patterns.

In 1941, he was honoured with an Oscar for Sergeant York. One year later, Cooper scored in another film biography, Pride of the Yankees, despite never having played baseball.

Consigned mostly to Westerns by the 1950s (including the classic High Noon (1952), Cooper retained his box-office stature. Privately, however, he was plagued with painful, recurring illnesses, including eventually with lung cancer. A star of both stage and screen for more than 50 years, Henry Fonda (1905-1982) was known for portraying the average "every man" with sincerity, integrity, and decency. Though Fonda occasionally played characters with a dark or impatient side, critics considered most all of his performances to be natural and unassuming. Despite spectacular performances in films such as The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Fonda did not receive an Academy Award until a shortly before his death.

He had considerable stage experience, appearing in such plays as Mr. Roberts (1948), The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (1958), and Two for the Seesaw (1959). Fonda played honest, homespun young men in such films as The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936) and The Grapes of Wrath (1940). His comedic talents were revealed in such films as The Lady Eve (1941) and Rings on Her Fingers (1942). Later in his career he often portrayed heroic figures. His other films include The Wrong Man (1956), Twelve Angry Men (1957), Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), and On Golden Pond (1982), for which he won the Academy Award. He was the father of Jane Fonda and Peter Fonda. Nicholson, Jack, 1937–, American film actor, b. Neptune, N.J. After appearing in a series of low-budget movies for some 10 years, he scored his first success with Easy Rider (1969). One of Hollywood's most accomplished actors, adept at both drama and comedy and known for his versatility, charm, and debonair rebelliousness, Nicholson has won Academy Awards for his work in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Terms of Endearment (1983), and As Good as It Gets (1997). His other films include Five Easy Pieces (1970), Chinatown (1974), The Shining (1980), Prizzi's Honor (1985), Ironweed (1987), Batman (1989), A Few Good Men (1992), Hoffa (1992), and About Schmidt (2002). Nicholson has also directed several films, including The Two Jakes (1990), a sequel to Chinatown, in which he also starred. The French Revolutionary leader Maximilien Francois Marie Isidore de Robespierre (1758-1794) was the spokesman for the policies of the dictatorial government that ruled France during the crisis brought on by civil and foreign war.

Robespierre was elected to the States-General of 1789, and his influence in the Jacobin Club grew steadily until he became its leader. In the National Constituent Assembly (June, 1789–Sept., 1791), he unsuccessfully championed democratic elections and successfully backed the law that made members of the Constituent Assembly ineligible to sit in the Legislative Assembly, which succeeded it.

In the spring of 1792 Robespierre opposed the war proposals of the Girondists, and his opposition made him lose popularity. This was only temporary, however, and he was elected to the insurrectionary Commune of Paris set up on Aug. 10, 1792. As a deputy from Paris in the National Convention, he played an important part in the struggle for power between the Girondists and the Mountain, as the Jacobins in the assembly were known. He demanded the execution of the king and was instrumental in finally purging (May–June, 1793) the Girondists. The Spanish painter Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was one of the best-known and most flamboyant surrealist artists. Possessed with an enormous facility for drawing, he painted his dreams and bizarre moods in a precise illusionistic fashion.

Dali was very good at making himself as much of a spectacle as his art. There are accounts of him arriving in diving outfits at parties and speeches. He would pull stunts like filling his limousine with cauliflower and have them pouring out as he stepped out of the car. He marketing himself in such a way that would always keep the newspapers and art reviewer scrambling to figure out what they've just witnessed.

Salvador Dali died January 23, 1989. He is the only artist in history to have two separate museums dedicated entirely to his works while still alive. Sugar Ray Robinson (1921-1989) was one of the first African American athletes who became well-known outside the boxing arena. has been universally acclaimed as one of the greatest boxers in the history of the sport.

His real name was Walker Smith. He began boxing after three years of high school in New York City. Having won all his amateur fights (about 90), including the Golden Gloves featherweight title, Robinson turned professional in 1940. He won the welterweight championship in 1946 by defeating Tommy Bell and the middleweight championship for the first time in 1951 by knocking out Jake La Motta. When Robinson retired from boxing as middleweight champion in 1952 he had lost only three times in 137 bouts. Returning to boxing in 1955, he was the first boxer ever to regain a title after retiring. Robinson became the first man in boxing history to win a divisional (weight class) world championship five times when he regained the middleweight title in 1958 by defeating Carmen Basilio; he lost the title in 1960 to Paul Pender. In his prime, the swift, hard-punching Robinson was rated the best boxer, pound for pound, of his time.