Monday, April 22, 2013

Biography: Audrey Hepburn

 


Birthdate and Place:
Audrey Hepburn was born May 4, 1929 in a large and pleasantly secluded house in the outer suburbs of Brussels.  She was baptized Edda ( after her mothers Dutch ancestors), Kathleen (after her fathers putative Irish ones) Hepburn-Ruston.

Birth Date and Place:
Audrey Hepburn was born May 4, 1929 in a large and pleasantly secluded house in the outer suburbs of Brussels. She was baptized Edda (after her mother’s Dutch ancestors) Kathleen (after her father’s putative Irish ones) Hepburn-Ruston.

 Family Members:
Audrey’s family members were her mother Ella van Heemstra. On her mother’s side of the family she was a Dutch and related to a long line of aristocratic landowners, high-ranking military officers, public servants and royal courtiers.  Her father Joseph Victor Anthony Hepburn-Ruston was a British financial advisor.  Her grandmother Frau Anna Van Foregger who was Audrey’s paternal Grandmother.  Her two brothers, Arnoud Robert Alexander Quarles van Ufford and Ian Edgar Bruce Quarles van Ufford who were not much close to Audrey.

 Childhood and School Life:
When Audrey was 6 years old her father walked out on her mother and her in 1935. Audrey loved her father and her parents’ divorce was the first big blow in her life.  Her mother took her children home to Arnhem after the separation.  In 1937, Audrey and her mother moved to Ket, where she was educated at a tiny independent girl’s school in the village in Elham.  After two years her mother decided to relocate back home in Arnhem, in the belief that the Netherlands would remain neutral and be spared a German attack during World War 1.  There she attended the Arnhem Conservatory from 1939-1945 where, in addition the standard school curriculum, she was trained in ballet with Winja Marova.

 Hobbies, Interests, and Activities:
Audrey liked to take ballet lessons.  She started at a Russian Dancing school in Amsterdam. Audrey’s dancing lessons were brought to an end when the schools municipal subsidy was drastically cut.  After the liberation, Audrey went to a ballet school in London on a scholarship and later began a modeling career.  As a model, she was graceful and, it seemed, she had found her niche in life.

After being spotted modeling by a producer, she was signed to a bit part in the European film “Dutch in Seven Lessons” in 1948.  She liked acting a lot and it definitely was her calling.  During her acting career she still pursued her love for dancing.

Anecdotes:
Audrey visited the Netherlands on a Dutch plane.  Bring Audrey home to the Netherlands was the worst thing the baroness could have done.  It was the start of WW1 and she was between the battles.  The opening months of the offensive it was hard to believe that war would overlap into their country with its long established ties of trade and blood with the older, pre-Hitlerite Germany.  Audrey showed an early liking to dancing in 1939, just before her tenth birthday during the war.  Daily life in Arnhem was calm; though increasingly tense the following year, during the period known officially as “the phony war”.  As Audrey danced in the studio she could hear distant sounds of gunfire, Audrey shot up over 5 feet 6 inches on a diet that was insufficient to sustain such accelerated development, and her slow descent to malnutrition began.  She became anemic and her sluggish bloodstream, failing to disparities, silted them up in her lower limbs so that he legs and feet became painfully swollen with edema.  Dancing was a thing of the past.  Audrey’s mother had a friend, Michael Burn who was captured in the naval commando raid on St Nazaire.  Fast forward to the liberation, Audrey was critically ill.  There was a new wonder drug “Penicillin” but was hard to come by in Netherlands.  Michael sent cartons of Cigarettes which at the time cost a lot of money.  Ella sold the carton of cigarettes and raised enough money to buy the medicine and save Audrey’s life.

 Career:
After being spotted by an ABPC casting director in Sauce Piquante, the unknown Hepburn appeared in minor roles in the 1951 films: One Wild Oat, Laughter in Paradise, Young Wives Tale, and The Lavender Hill.  Her first major supporting role in Thorold Dickinson’s, “The Secret People”, in which she played a ballerina and performed all her dancing.  Hepburn was offered a small role in the film being shot in English and French(Monte Carlo Baby).  Audrey was noticed during the filming of Monte Carlo and played the main character Gigi.  In the Italian-set Roman Holiday (1953).  Hepburn had her first starring role as Princess Ann, an incognito European princess.  Following her success in Roman Holiday, she starred in Billy Wilder’s, “Sabrina” (1954).  Natasha Rostova in “War and Peace” (1956),  Funny Face (1957), She played Sister Luke in “The Nuns Story” (1959),  Green Mansion (1959),  Unforgiven (1960),  Blake Edwards “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1961),  The Children’s Hour (1961),  Charde (1963),  Paris when it Sizzles (1964),  My Fair Lady (1964),  How to steal a Million (1966).

Reason for Fame:
While she was taking ballet lessons in Amsterdam she appeared in her first film in 1948.  Audrey then traveled to London to study ballet at Ballet Rambert.  She supported herself with part-time modeling.  Her career as being a professional Ballerina was fading because of her height and poor nutrition.  Audrey was spotted by an ABPC in the musical Sauce Piovuante, which was the start of her career.

Later Life/Old Age:
From 1980 until her death, Hepburn lived romantically involved with Dutch actor Robert Wolders.  She met Wolders through a friend in the later stage of her marriage to Dotti.  When the divorce from Dotti finalized, Wolders and Hepburn started their lives together, although they never married.  In 1989, she called the nine years she had spent with him the happiest years of her life.

Death:
Upon her Somalia to Switzerland in late September 2992, Hepburn began suffering from abdominal pains.  On November1, doctors performed a laparoscopy and discovered abdominal cancer that had spread to her appendix, a very rare form of cancer.  On the evening of January 20, 1993, at her home in Tolochenaz, vaud, Switzerland, Hepburn died in her sleep of appendiceal cancer.  Hepburn was interred at the Tolochenaz cemetery atop a hill overlooking a village.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Inside a Vet Assistant Classroom

Inside a Vet Assistant Classroom

    Interviewing now, the students of Ms.Wiemeyer in their everyday R.O.P Vet Class.  She is the teacher for R.O.P Vet Assistant class and has been teaching this course for  the past 3 years.  I am going to ask some of her students a couple of questions pertaining to the  vet assistant field.

  1. Why did you choose this R.O.P vet assistant class?I want to become a vet someday and this will look good going into college but will give me learning experience.                                           
  2. What knowledge will you gain from this?To know how to care for animals, prepare equipment in the vet field, the parasites and infections an animal can get, and how to cure them.                                       
  3. How much do you enjoy this class?I like the class a lot because the teacher is very hands on with all the students and the environment is great. 
  4. What are some of the negative inputs on this course?That some of the veterinarian videos are not up to date, so some of the equipment that they use is different.
  5. Do you think that with the knowledge you have now, that you can become a certified vet assistant at an animal hospital?There is still a lot for me to learn and I am not all there yet.  I know the basics but not the critical information.
  6. Now you are in this vet assistant class, so wouldn't that mean that you have to work with drugs and needles?We have been learning how to use needles and how much to inject in an animal but nothing too critical.       
  7. Have you used a needle on a live animal yet?No, i am looking forward to doing some injection but we are not at the that part of the class.
  8. Does this class help to show different animals anotomys that you may have to deal with as a vet?Yes, it opens my eyes to all the different parts in an animals body and how everything works.  We learn what type of surgeries a doctor performs.  
  9. With the knowledge you have about the vet field, would you still be comfortable with having to put an animal down or be responsible for an animal's death?I know that when i become a vet I have to make hard decisions.  The hard part would not be to put down the animal but to tell the owner, and how upset and distraught they would
  10. Would you recommend this class to any next year juniors and seniors, that want to be vets?I would definitely recommend this class because it shows you what you’d be doing in the vet field.  It would give you a jumpstart on your career.
   





Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Coraline Review


The starange and bizzare film Coraline brings new ground as the first stop motion film shot in 3D.  Director Henry Selick, who made The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach which were a success.  Coraline however shows that his skills have reached a whole new level with stop motion.  It's deffinetly not a movie for everyone, like children it is easily scary.

It starts off with a strange little girl named Coraline Jones( voiced by Dakota Fanning) who moves into a housing complex with her absent -minded parents.  Her parents are busy writing garden catalogs and dont have time for Coraline, which leads her to explore her new surroundings.  She stumbles onto an old well in the woods and meets a strange boy, Wybie who gives a horrible first impression.  Coraline goes back to the house and starts exploring each of the rooms and finds a very small, out of sight hidden door.  She goes through the small door and finds a passage way to a house that looks just like hers, where she meets the exact replica of her parents that are known as the other mother and other father.  The only difference is that the other mother and father have buttons for eyes.  They want Coraline to stay, so they can love her and give her everything she want's, which her own parents have been neglecting to do.


The target audience is anyone who enjoys stop motion animation and is a fan of Tim Burton.  This is a strange and particular movie that might not be appropriate for young viewers, because of its detailed and vived world of secret doors leading to evil mothers with buttons for eyes.  It's a tough call for parents on whether or not to let anyone younger than 13 to see this movie. It has scenes with horrifying creatures and is very grusome.  It might be rated PG but there are scenes that are mostly just for adults to understand.

Coraline is goregous and visually fascinating, with it's use of colors showing stop motion at it's very best.  There have been many different techniques used to make this stop-motion film such as camera sliding, 15 different models of Coralines house anda whole wardrobe just for Coraline doll.

I think this movie was great and well animated. A lot of time and effort has gone into this film and it is a masterpiece.  The budget of this movie was 60 million. it hit the box office at 124,596,398.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Wilfred:Secrets


Just when you thought this show couldnt get anymore confusing, bizzare and hillarious. Jason Gann, Elijah Wood and Fiona Gubelmann were great in the Season Finale of Wilfred.  Last nights season premier is what i would like to call a shocker, a new twist to this very funny and brilliant series.

And the perfect character to produce this shocker would be Jason Gann as Wilfred.  In this episode Wilfred and Elijah Wood as Ryan are confronted by shocking exisential questions about life and love.  It is the day of Jenna's wedding and everything has gone according to plan.

As Jenna is getting ready, Wilfred pulls Ryan aside and confronts him about a drawing he made as a child, that has Wilfred hiding behind a tree.  Ryan denies it and accuses Wilfred of drawing the picture.

At this time the party has started and the wedding was a success, Jenna is so happy and thanks Ryan for all that he has done.  We all know that in Season 2, Episode 2 is where Ryan met Amanda and hit it off together.  Ryan now must make a critical decision of telling Amanda about Wilfred.

As the party goes on, Ryan is watching Jenna have a great time and enjoying herself, when all of the sudden , one of Rayn's Co-Workers shows up and is very out of place.  Ryan soon finds out that there is evidence on him for selling his companys secrets and putting the moneyin an offshore account.  Ryan confronts Wilfred and accuses him of framing him but Wilfred knows nothing about this.

Right when Jenna is about to throw her bouquet, Allison Mack as Amanda wispers into Ryan's ear and admits to selling the companys secrets, and wants them to run away together.  Soon after the party ends Ryan takes Amanda to a hospital to get critical syciactric help.

Ryan goes in the kitchen and admires the picture of him and his mom painting a picture and then notices something strange.  He takes a magnifying glass and looks at the photo and sees a drawing that has Wilfred in the background hiding behind a tree.



I absolutly loved this episode and liked all the characters in it.  This deffinetly raised a lot of question's and was very shocking.  Ryan's girlfriend is obviously crazy and needed serious help.  I am deffinetly looking forward to more of Wilfred.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012