Grace Kelly

Grace, Princess of Monaco, was born on November 12, 1929 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as an American citizen. When Kelly reached the age of 22, she became a fashion model and starred in her first film, Fourteen Hours. Following her first film were many successful films starring and co-starring her (also as a supporting actress), films including: High Noon, Mogambo, and The Country Girl (the film that won her an Academy Award for Best Actress).

Her acting career came to a halt when she married Prince Rainer III of Monaco. Once they were married, she was surprised to find out that the Prince wished for her to give up her acting career completely for him, and she did so grudgingly. Throughout her marriage, many biographers claimed that the marriage wasn't of a happy one, but Kelly remained married to Rainer until her death in 1982.

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Princess Grace died from a stroke while driving her Rover at the age of 52, September 1982. Before her death, she made many lasting impacts on popular culture and fashion. Such impacts include: the first actress to appear on a postage stamp, named as one of the products of the French 'haute couture' fashion called the "Kelly Bag" (expensively custom made bags of various skins), and she was notably referenced in many songs of the era (one example is Elton John's "Wrap Her Up").

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Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Kelly

Dante and Beatrice

Dante and Beatrice both lived in Florence, Italy for all of their lives. For two periods of nine years apart, Dante had only glimpsed at Beatrice each time, but the moment Dante saw Beatrice, he instantly fell in love with her, and his poems and writings reflected upon this.

"She has ineffable courtesy, is my beatitude, the destroyer of all vices and the queen of virtue, salvation." This is a quote from one of his works describing her as his savior, one who removed all evil intentions from her. It seemed he was not attracted to her physical aspects, but her divine stance, that is she was a holy catholic believer.

Throughout his whole life, he was utterly mesmerized by her beauty; and although he had never openly admitted to his obsession with Beatrice, there are obvious clues in his poems that related specifically to Beatrice and to no other women.

Beatrice was a magnificent inspiration to Dante’s work, as she had influenced him in many of his works including two of his greatest - La Vita Nuova and La Divina Commedia. After Beatrice's death, Dante retired into intense study and began writing poems dedicated to her memory. She was his beauty, his burning flame, his undying salvation.

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Portinari

El Dorado

*Cultural Reference List 8-9*

El Dorado is a legend about a South American tribal chief who covered himself with gold dust and dove into a lake of pure mountain water. As the story was told by multiple variations, El Dorado (Spanish for "the golden one") is particularly known as the city of wealth, inspiring many explorers from the 1500s and on.

The story of El Dorado was brought by rituals of the Muisca and was then arose up the legend of El Dorado. This magical place was later told as a kingdom, an empire, the city of a legendary golden king.

El Dorado is often portrayed as a metaphor in the mythology of the Muisca today. El Dorada represents the energy contained in the trinity of Chimingagua, which constitutes the create power of everything that exists. And in other terms, El Dorada can simply be used metaphorically as any place where wealth can easily be obtained. The modern location of this place is Columbia.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Dorado

Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was most famous as a poet. She was also a novelist, short story writer, and an essayist.

Sylvia is known for The Bell, the semi-autobiographical novel describing her struggle with depression. Throughout her life since the age of 11, Plath had been keeping a diary and kept her journals until her suicide on February 11th, 1963. Once Sylvia started her freshman year at Smith College in 1950, she began writing the adulthood of her diaries. Frances McCullough and her husband Ted Hughes published her diaries as The Journals of Sylvia Plath. Later the project was passed onto Freida and Nicholas, who passed it onto Karen Kukil. The final published version is called "The Unabridged Jornals of Sylvia Plath", and in this book was her dark thoughts and her constant struggle with depression.

On the morning of February 11, 1963, Sylvia Plath took her own life by placing her head in an oven with the gas turned on. Even though her journals hinted at her sad and painful life, many were still shocked that she would take her own life.

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Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_plath

Auntie Mame

Auntie Mame is a 1955 novel by Patrick Dennis about the adventures he had growing up as the ward of his dead father's strange sister. Many reffered to Auntie Mame as an autobiographical work, but the author said it wasn't anything other than fiction; he claimed he did have a strange aunt, Marion Tanner, who resembled Mame in many ways, but instead of a dead father, was raised by both his parents.

The novel was a best seller, selling more than two million copies during its initial publication. A sequel was later written by Patrick Dennis called Around The World With Auntie Mame. Unsurprisingly, this novel was adapted to the stage and put into a Broadway production. Later, Warner Brothers released a film version of the novel based on the play.

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Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auntie_Mame

Spartacus

According to Roman histories, Spartacus was gladiator-slave who became the leader of a slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Little is known about Spartacus beyond certain events but there are historical documents written for about Spartacus that many historians have agreed on, despite some contradictory and sketchiness.

Spartacus was a native Thracian who served in the Roman army, but was disgraced and sold into slavery. Since he was a former Roman mercenary, they considered his strength to be suitable for combat and afterwards he was assigned as a gladiator.

Spartacus was trained at a gladiatorial school near Capua. Once the time came, Spartacus and about 70 followers escaped from the school and seized knives from the cook's shop and a wagon full of weapons, and fled to the Caldera of Mount Vesuvius (near modern day Naples) where other slaves joined them.

The slaves led by Spartacus managed to overcome many battles of the Roman Legions. Many details from various stories add to Spartacus's heroic status and his violent revolt against slavery; but all of them are similar, that is he was known for his malevolent approach to end slavery and how he died for his own belief and courage.

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Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus

Comden and Green

*Cultural Reference List 4-7*

Betty Comden, along with Adolph Green, were the musical duo writing team who created many successful screenplays and songs for some of the most memorable movie musicals. They also collaborated on numerous Broadway productions. Albeit they were not married, many considered as a married couple for their genius and sophisticated wit that together formed a six-decade-long partnership that produced many of Hollywood and Broadway's greatest hits.

Before Comden and Green met each other, both attended school in hopes of becoming actors. But once they met each other, they formed a troupe called the Revuers because of the same interest they had and performed at the Village Vanguard, a club in Greenwich Village. Once they were noticed they earned a movie role, which later turned out to be too small of a significant and they turned back to New York to begin writing Lyrics for nonsuccessful musicals such Billion Dollar Baby, and Bonanza Bound. But luck was on their side and they immediately fround work at MGM.

From then on, they continued to write screenplays for musicals and broadways such as Good News, The Band Wagon, and their most sucessful project: the classic Singin' in the Rain.

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Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comden_and_Green