Celebrity Roll of Honor

[Geek44]

This is Charles 'Bud' Tingwell who is a much loved actor in Australia. Born in New South Wales in 1923, Bud flew photo reconnaisance Spitfires and Mosquitos during WW2. With around 60 operational missions to his credit, the book I mentioned above also cites his most memorable.
He'd been asked to go and photograph Salonika which everybody thought was crawling with Germans at the time. It was considered a suicide mission. Dutifully, Bud got into his Spitfire and flew to the target. On arrival, it became clear that the Germans had left. On one photography pass, Bud noticed a single man on the ground...and he appeared to be waving to him. During his return flight, Bud's fuel gauge began to show low fuel. He arrived back at base on fumes. On closer inspection of the aircraft, it became apparent that the man waving had in fact been shooting at Bud's plane with his pistol and had hit the plane once...severing a fuel line.
Bud lived in the UK after the war and returned home to Oz in 1970. Bud appeared as a voice in 'The Thunderbirds' (yay!) series and as the kindly QC (Queen's Councel...a kind of 'Überlawyer') in 'The Castle.'

tingwell_1.jpg
This is Bud now.

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And during the war.

[Panzermacher]

Nice one Nick,and thanks for adding!

This Months Celeb hails from England and is known as SIR Alec Guiness.

Alec Guinness
operated a British Royal Navy landing craft on D-Day.

Guinness, Sir Alec (1914-2000), considered one of the best of the 20th century.
In his roles in motion pictures and on the stage Guinness won acclaim for his ability
to portray a wide range of characters.
He was born in London and studied acting at the Fay Compton Studio of Dramatic Art.
Guinness made his stage debut in 1933, and beginning in 1936 he played Shakespearean roles
at the Old Vic Theatre in London, notably the title role in Hamlet (1938).
After service in the Royal Navy, he returned to the Old Vic for the 1945 and 1946 seasons.
Guinness's On stage roles in England, Canada,
and the United States in The Cocktail Party (1950),
Ross (1960), and Dylan (1964).

Guinness achieved international success for his masterly character portrayals
in such films as Oliver Twist (1948)
and the comedies Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949),
in which he played eight roles; The Man in the White Suit (1951);
The Lavender Hill Mob (1951),
for which he received an Academy Award nomination for best actor;
and The Captain's Paradise (1953).
For his performance in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957),
he received an Academy Award for best actor.
His later projects include the films Star Wars (1977)
and Little Dorrit (1988),
both of which earned him Oscar nominations for best supporting actor,
and the television series Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979)
and Smiley's People (1982).
He wrote an autobiography, Blessings in Disguise (1985),
and a collection of anecdotes and reflections on his career,
My Name Escapes Me: The Diary of a Retiring Actor (1997)
and A Positively Final Appearance: A Journal 1996-98 (1999).
Guinness was knighted in 1959.



Sir Alec Guinness

Alec Guinness (born Alec Guinness de Cuffe) was born April 2, 1914 in London to Agnes de Cuffe and a father he never knew. He was 5' 11" tall.

Young Guinness was discouraged by his headmaster at Pembroke Lodge (a boarding school), from attending school theatrical performances. While enrolled in Roborough School in Eastbourne, his role as the 'urgent messenger' in the schools' production of Macbeth rekindled his passion for acting. His peers and teachers praised him on his small but powerful performance.

In 1932 Guinness finished his schooling then worked as an apprentice copywriter for an advertising agency in London. In 1933 he applied to the Fay Compton Studio of Dramatic Arts which had granted him a scholarship, he was accepted but, he found the classes tedious and boring. He left seven months later, with a major award presented by the judges, one of them John Gielgud.

In 1934 Guinness got three small bit parts in a production called Queer Cargo, and a walk-on part in Libel. With little money and less food he braved the odds and called Gielgud, at the time very successful and ten years his senior. Gielgud cast him as Osric and the Third Player in his production of Hamlet at the New Theatre. This added to his credits and spawned other parts.

In 1938 he played Hamlet in a Tyrone Guthrie production at the Old Vic. Between 1938 and 1941 he played 34 roles in 23 plays. In 1941 he enlisted in the Royal Navy becoming a landing-craft operator. After the war Guinness resumed his stage and newfound writing career portraying the role of Mitya in his own rendition of Dostoyevski's Brothers Karamazov.

Other roles included Sartre's Vicious Circle, the Dauphin in Shaw's Saint Joan and, in the title role of Shakespeare's Richard II. Within the year after the war Guinness decided to try film....and what an impressive start. The director David Lean cast him as Pocket in Dickens' Great Expectations. He then played Fagin in Oliver Twist another Dickens classic. In 1949 he made A Run for Your Money and Kind Hearts and Coronets (in which he played eight different characters), it was this performance that really brought him the most recognition and exploited his tremendous skill at playing a large variety of roles. Other roles in 1949 include, a ruminative psychiatrist in T.S. Elliot's Cocktail Party (so successful he took it to Broadway). There are a few performances that were small yet memorable: a bank clerk who masterminds the smuggling of gold bullion out of England in The Lavender Hill Mob 1951, a flirtatious skipper in the comedy The Captain's Paradise 1953 and as a sly sleuth in The Detective 1954.

One of the most appealing roles was as Colonel Nicholson in Bridge on the River Kwai, the second film he did for David Lean, for which he won an Oscar in 1958 ( he also starred in two other David Lean films: Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago). In the same year he was Oscar nominated for his screenplay for The Horse's Mouth AND knighted by Queen Elizabeth.

Guinness did not leave the stage altogether, in 1964 he played the title role in Dylan (about the last months of poet Dylan Thomas), so well was this role played that Guinness won nearly every stage award given for that year. In 1977 Guinness was cast by George Lucas in Star Wars, another small yet memorable role, he was Oscar-nominated for the part of Obi-Wan Kenobi the following year. The part of Kenobi made Guinness famous to a whole new generation.

In 1980 he was awarded an honorary Oscar for acting. He played Kenobi two more times in, The Empire Strikes Back 1980 and The Return of the Jedi 1983. He made appearances in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People on television, again small roles with a lasting impression.

Sir Alec Guinness died of cancer at the King Edward VII Hospital in Midhurst, West Sussex on Saturday, August 5, 2000, after being in ill health for a number of years. He was aged 86 and was survived by his wife (married June 20, 1938) actress/playwright Merula Salaman (who died just two months later) and his son Matthew (Born 1939), who is an actor.

Awards, Honors and Nominations
Academy Awards (Oscar):
Nom 1988 Actor in a Supporting Role - Little Dorrit
Rec'd 1979 Honorary Award for Acting
Nom 1977 Actor in a Supporting Role - Star Wars
Nom 1958 Writing/Screenplay - The Horse's Mouth
Rec'd 1957 Actor - Bridge on the River Kwai
Rec'd 1957 Actor - Bridge on the River Kwai
Nom 1958 Writing/Screenplay for The Horse's Mouth
Rec'd 1957 Actor - Bridge on the River Kwai
Rec'd 1957 Actor - Bridge on the River Kwai
Nom 1952 Actor for The Lavender Hill Mob
Rec'd 1957 Actor - Bridge on the River Kwai
Nom 1952 Actor - The Lavender Hill Mob
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror Films (Saturn Award):
Rec'd 1978 Best Supporting Actor for Star Wars
Rec'd 1978 Best Supporting Actor for Star Wars
Berlin Film Festival:
Rec'd 1988 Honorary Golden Berlin Bear
British Academy Awards (BAFTA):
Nom 1956 Best British Actor for The Prisoner
Rec'd 1958 Best British Actor Bridge on the River Kwai
Rec'd 1958 Best British Actor for Bridge on the River Kwai
"BookNom 1960 Best British Screenplay for The Horse's Mouth Nom 1960 Best British Screenplay for The Horse's Mouth
Nom 1961 Best British Actor for Tunes of Glory
Nom 1961 Best British Actor Tunes of Glory
Golden Globes:
Nom 1989 - Little Dorrit, Parts I and II
Nom 1978 - Star Wars
Rec'd 1958 - Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for Bridge on the River Kwai
Grammy Awards:
Nom 1964 Spoken Word for A Personal Choice (collection of selected favorite poems)
European Film Awards:
Rec'd 1996 Lifetime Achievement Award
Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists:
Rec'd Silver Ribbon 1952 Best Actor Foreign Film for The Lavender Hill Mob
Laurel Awards:
Rec'd 3rd Place Golden Laurel Top Male Comedy Performance for The Horse's Mouth
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards (LAFCA):
Rec'd 1988 Best Supporting Actor for Little Dorrit
Nation Board of Review (NBR Award):
Rec'd 1957 Best Actor Bridge on the River Kwai
Rec'd 1950 Best Actor Kind Hearts and Coronets
New York Film Critics Awards (NYFCA):
Rec'd 1957 Best Actor for Bridge on the River Kwai
Venice Film Festival:
Rec'd 1958 Volpi Cup Best Actor for The Horse's Mouth
Emmy:
Nom 1983 Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Special for Smiley's People
Honors
1991 - Honorary LittD by Cambridge University
1977 - DLitt by Oxford University
1955 - dubbed a Commander of the British Empire (OBE)
1959 - Knighted by Queen Elizabeth

[DocCasualty]

Actor Paul Newman was decorated WWII sailor

Most Americans know actor Paul Newman had an Academy Award to his credit, but few know his list of awards also include a Navy Combat Action Ribbon and the coveted Combat Aircrew Wings he got while serving as an aviation radioman and aerial gunner during World War II.

Newman, 83, died Sept. 26 after a long battle with cancer.

According to information provided by Navy Personnel Command and the Naval Historical Center, the future blue-eyed actor enlisted in the Navy on Jan. 22, 1943 — four days before his 18th birthday — with the hopes of becoming an officer and an aviator flying off carriers.

While waiting for his application for officer training to go through, Newman attended Ohio University in Athens.

When his approval came through, he was ordered to report on July 1 to the Navy V-12 program at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. His hopes for a commission and pilot’s wings were dashed four months later after a flight physical discovered he was colorblind.

Instead, he was shipped a few miles down the road to the Navy’s boot camp at Newport, R.I. Graduating three days after Christmas, Newman was selected to train as an aviation radioman and reported to the Naval Air Technical Training Center in Jacksonville, Fla., on Jan. 8, 1944.

He would not leave Jacksonville until July 20, having completed radio school and qualified as an aerial gunner — enabling him to be aircrew on carrier-based aircraft.

Aviation Radioman 3rd Class Newman spent a few months at Naval Air Station Miami before transferring to NAS Barber’s Point, Hawaii, where he would serve in three Pacific-based replacement torpedo squadrons, VT-98, VT-99, and VT-100.

While he was with VT-99, training personnel in TBM-1Cs, TBM-3s and TBF-1cs, the squadron moved to Eniwetok, then to Guam, and in January 1945 on to Saipan. The squadron would ferry replacement pilots and aircraft to carriers around the fleet.

Though Newman did see scattered combat, his closest brush with death came in May 1945.

Operating from Saipan, Newman and a number of other aircrews from his squadron had been ordered with their TBM Avenger aircraft to be replacements onboard the Essex-class aircraft carrier Bunker Hill operating off Okinawa. But Newman’s pilot got sick, grounding the aircraft and crew until he could recover.

Just days later, on May 11, two Japanese kamikaze aircraft hit the ship within 30 seconds and in the resulting fires and explosions 346 sailors were killed — among them, the entire contingent from Newman’s squadron.

A VT-99 contingent including Newman was aboard the escort carrier Hollandia, which was operating about five hundred miles off Japan when the Enola Gay dropped its atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Returning home after the Japanese surrender, Newman served with Carrier Aircraft Service Unit 7 in Seattle, Wash. before being discharged Jan. 21, 1946.

Along with his aircrew wings and CAR, he was also awarded the Good Conduct Medal, the American Area Campaign Medal, the Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal.