Princess Alice

Princess Alice of Battenberg (Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie; 25 February 1885 – 5 December 1969) was the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and mother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II.

A great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, she was born in Windsor Castle and grew up in the United Kingdom, the German Empire, and the Mediterranean. A Hessian princess by birth, she was a member of the Battenberg family, a morganatic branch of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt. She was congenitally deaf. After marrying Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark in 1903, she adopted the style of her husband, becoming Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark. She lived in Greece until the exile of most of the Greek royal family in 1917. On returning to Greece a few years later, her husband was blamed in part for the country's defeat in the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), and the family was once again forced into exile until the restoration of the Greek monarchy in 1935.

In 1930, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was committed to a sanatorium in Switzerland; thereafter, she lived separately from her husband. After her recovery, she devoted most of her remaining years to charity work in Greece. She stayed in Athens during the Second World War, sheltering Jewish refugees, for which she is recognised as "Righteous Among the Nations" by Israel's Holocaust memorial institution, Yad Vashem. After the war, she stayed in Greece and founded an Orthodox nursing order of nuns known as the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary.

After the fall of King Constantine II of Greece and the imposition of military rule in Greece in 1967, she was invited by her son and daughter-in-law to live at Buckingham Palace in London, where she died two years later. Her remains were transferred from a vault in her birthplace, Windsor Castle, to a Russian Orthodox convent on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem in 1988.
Early life
Alice was born in the Tapestry Room at Windsor Castle in Berkshire in the presence of her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria.[1] She was the eldest child of Prince Louis of Battenberg and his wife Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. Her mother was the eldest daughter of Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, the Queen's second daughter. Her father was the eldest son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine through his morganatic marriage to Countess Julia Hauke, who was created Princess of Battenberg in 1858 by Louis III, Grand Duke of Hesse. Her three younger siblings, Louise, George, and Louis, later became Queen of Sweden, Marquess of Milford Haven, and Earl Mountbatten of Burma, respectively.

She was christened Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie in Darmstadt on 25 April 1885. She had six godparents: her three surviving grandparents, Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse, Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine, and Julia, Princess of Battenberg; her aunts Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia and Princess Marie of Erbach-Schönberg; and her great-grandmother Queen Victoria.[2]

Alice spent her childhood between Darmstadt, London, Jugenheim, and Malta (where her naval officer father was occasionally stationed).[3] Her mother noticed that she was slow in learning to talk, and became concerned by her indistinct pronunciation. Eventually, she was diagnosed with congenital deafness after her grandmother, Princess Battenberg, identified the problem and took her to see an ear specialist. With encouragement from her mother, Alice learned to both lip-read and speak in English and German.[4] Educated privately, she studied French,[5] and later, after her engagement, she learned Greek.[6] Her early years were spent in the company of her royal relatives, and she was a bridesmaid at the marriage of the Duke of York (later King George V) and Mary of Teck in 1893.[7] A few weeks before her sixteenth birthday she attended the funeral of Queen Victoria in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, and shortly afterward she was confirmed in the Anglican faith.[8]

Marriage
Princess Alice met Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (known as Andrea within the family), the fourth son of King George I of Greece and Olga Constantinovna of Russia, while in London for King Edward VII's coronation in 1902.[9] They married in a civil ceremony on 6 October 1903 at Darmstadt. The following day, there were two religious marriage ceremonies; one Lutheran in the Evangelical Castle Church, and one Greek Orthodox in the Russian Chapel on the Mathildenhöhe.[10] She adopted the style of her husband, becoming "Princess Andrew".[11] The bride and groom were closely related to the ruling houses of the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, Denmark, and Greece, and their wedding was one of the great gatherings of the descendants of Queen Victoria and Christian IX of Denmark held before World War I.[3] Prince and Princess Andrew had five children, all of whom later had children of their own.
After their wedding, Prince Andrew continued his career in the military and Princess Andrew became involved in charity work. In 1908, she visited Russia for the wedding of Grand Duchess Marie of Russia and Prince William of Sweden. While there, she talked with her aunt, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna, who was formulating plans for the foundation of a religious order of nurses. Princess Andrew attended the laying of the foundation stone for her aunt's new church. Later in the year, the Grand Duchess began giving away all her possessions in preparation for a more spiritual life.[12] On their return to Greece, Prince and Princess Andrew found the political situation worsening, as the Athens government had refused to support the Cretan parliament, which had called for the union of Crete (still nominally part of the Ottoman Empire) with the Greek mainland. A group of dissatisfied officers formed a Greek nationalist Military League that eventually led to Prince Andrew's resignation from the army and the rise to power of Eleftherios Venizelos.[13]

Successive life crises
With the advent of the Balkan Wars, Prince Andrew was reinstated in the army and Princess Andrew acted as a nurse, assisting at operations and setting up field hospitals, work for which King George V awarded her the Royal Red Cross in 1913.[3] During World War I, her brother-in-law King Constantine I of Greece followed a neutrality policy despite the democratically elected government of Venizelos supporting the Allies. Princess Andrew and her children were forced to shelter in the palace cellars during the French bombardment of Athens on 1 December 1916.[14] By June 1917, the King's neutrality policy had become so untenable that she and other members of the Greek royal family were forced into exile when her brother-in-law abdicated. For the next few years, most of the Greek royal family lived in Switzerland.[15]

The global war effectively ended much of the political power of Europe's dynasties. The naval career of her father, Prince Louis of Battenberg, had collapsed at the beginning of the war in the face of anti-German sentiment in Britain. At the request of King George V, he relinquished the Hessian title Prince of Battenberg and the style of Serene Highness on 14 July 1917 and anglicized the family name to Mountbatten. The following day, the King created him Marquess of Milford Haven in the peerage of the United Kingdom.[16] The following year, two of her aunts, Alix, Empress of Russia, and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna were murdered by Bolsheviks after the Russian revolution. At the end of the war the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian empires had fallen, and Princess Andrew's uncle, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, was deposed
On King Constantine's restoration in 1920, they briefly returned to Greece, taking up residence at Mon Repos on Corfu.[18] But after the defeat of the Hellenic Army in the Greco-Turkish War, a Revolutionary Committee under the leadership of Colonels Nikolaos Plastiras and Stylianos Gonatas seized power and forced King Constantine into exile once again.[19] Prince Andrew, who had served as commander of the Second Army Corps during the war, was arrested. Several former ministers and generals arrested at the same time were shot following a brief trial, and British diplomats assumed that Prince Andrew was also in mortal danger. After a show trial, he was sentenced to banishment, and Prince and Princess Andrew and their children fled Greece aboard a British cruiser, HMS Calypso, under the protection of the British naval attaché, Commander Gerald Talbot.[20]

Illness
The family settled in a small house loaned to them by Princess George of Greece at Saint-Cloud, on the outskirts of Paris, where Princess Andrew helped in a charity shop for Greek refugees.[21] She became deeply religious, and in October 1928 converted to the Greek Orthodox Church.[3] That winter, she translated her husband's defence of his actions during the Greco-Turkish War into English.[22][23] Soon afterward, she began claiming that she was receiving divine messages and that she had healing powers.[24] In 1930, after suffering a severe nervous breakdown, Princess Andrew was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, first by Thomas Ross, a psychiatrist who specialised in shell-shock, and subsequently by Sir Maurice Craig, who treated the future King George VI before he had speech therapy.[25] The diagnosis was confirmed at Dr Ernst Simmel's sanatorium at Tegel, Berlin.[26] She was forcibly removed from her family and placed in Dr Ludwig Binswanger's sanatorium in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland.[27] It was a famous and well-respected institution with several celebrity patients, including Vaslav Nijinsky, the ballet dancer and choreographer, who was there at the same time as Princess Andrew.[28] Binswanger also diagnosed the princess with schizophrenia. Both he and Simmel consulted Sigmund Freud who believed that her delusions were the result of sexual frustration. He recommended "X-raying her ovaries in order to kill off her libido." Princess Andrew protested her sanity and repeatedly tried to leave the asylum.[25]

During Princess Andrew's long convalescence, she and Prince Andrew drifted apart, her daughters all married German princes in 1930 and 1931 (she did not attend any of the weddings), and Prince Philip went to England to stay with his uncles, Lord Louis Mountbatten and George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven, and his grandmother, the Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven.[29]

Princess Andrew remained at Kreuzlingen for two years, but after a brief stay at a clinic in Meran was released and began an itinerant, incognito existence in Central Europe. She maintained contact with her mother, but broke off ties to the rest of her family until the end of 1936.[30] In 1937, her daughter Cecilie, son-in-law and two of her grandchildren were killed in an air accident at Ostend; she and Prince Andrew met for the first time in six years at the funeral (Prince Philip, Lord Louis Mountbatten and Hermann Göring also attended).[31] She resumed contact with her family, and in 1938 returned to Athens alone to work with the poor, living in a two-bedroomed flat near the Benaki Museum.[32]

World War II
During World War II, Princess Andrew was in the difficult situation of having sons-in-law fighting on the German side and a son in the British Royal Navy. Her cousin, Prince Victor zu Erbach-Schönberg,[33] was the German ambassador in Greece until the occupation of Athens by Axis forces in April 1941. She and her sister-in-law, Princess Nicholas of Greece, lived in Athens for the duration of the war, while most of the Greek royal family remained in exile in South Africa.[34][35] She moved out of her small flat and into her brother-in-law George's three-storey house in the centre of Athens. She worked for the Red Cross, helped organise soup kitchens for the starving populace and flew to Sweden to bring back medical supplies on the pretext of visiting her sister, Louise, who was married to the Crown Prince.[36] She organised two shelters for orphaned and stray children, and a nursing circuit for poor neighbourhoods.[37]

The occupying forces apparently presumed Princess Andrew was pro-German, as one of her sons-in-law, Prince Christoph of Hesse, was a member of the NSDAP and the Waffen-SS, and another, Berthold, Margrave of Baden, had been invalided out of the German army in 1940 after an injury in France. Nonetheless, when visited by a German general who asked her, "Is there anything I can do for you?", she replied, "You can take your troops out of my country
After the fall of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in September 1943, the German Army occupied Athens, where a minority of Greek Jews had sought refuge. The majority (about 60,000 out of a total population of 75,000) were deported to Nazi concentration camps, where all but 2,000 died.[38] During this period, Princess Andrew hid Jewish widow Rachel Cohen and two of her five children, who sought to evade the Gestapo and deportation to the death camps.[39] Earlier, in 1913, Rachel's husband, Haimaki Cohen, had aided King George I of Greece. In return, King George had offered him any service that he could perform should Cohen ever need it. Years later, during the Nazi threat, Cohen's son remembered this, and appealed to Princess Andrew, who, with Princess Nicholas, was one of only two remaining members of the royal family left in Greece. Princess Andrew honoured the promise and saved the Cohen family.[39]

When Athens was liberated in October 1944, Harold Macmillan visited Princess Andrew and described her as "living in humble, not to say somewhat squalid conditions".[40] In a letter to her son, she admitted that in the last week before liberation she had had no food except bread and butter, and no meat for several months.[41] By early December the situation in Athens was far from improved; Communist guerrillas (ELAS) were fighting the British for control of the capital. As the fighting continued, Princess Andrew was informed that her husband had died, just as hopes of a post-war reunion of the couple were rising.[35] They had not seen each other since 1939. During the fighting, to the dismay of the British, she insisted on walking the streets distributing rations to policemen and children in contravention of the curfew order. When told that she might have been struck by a stray bullet, she replied "they tell me that you don't hear the shot that kills you and in any case I am deaf. So, why worry about that?"[42]

Widowhood
Princess Andrew returned to Great Britain in April 1947 to attend the November wedding of her only son, Philip, to Princess Elizabeth, the elder daughter and heir presumptive of King George VI. She had some of her remaining jewels used in Princess Elizabeth's engagement ring.[43] On the day of the wedding, her son was created Duke of Edinburgh by George VI. For the wedding ceremony, Princess Andrew sat at the head of her family on the north side of Westminster Abbey, opposite the King, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary. It was decided not to invite Princess Andrew's daughters to the wedding because of anti-German sentiment in Britain following World War II.[44]

In January 1949, the princess founded a nursing order of Greek Orthodox nuns, the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary, modelled after the convent that her aunt, the martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna, had founded in Russia in 1909. She trained on the Greek island of Tinos, established a home for the order in a hamlet north of Athens, and undertook two tours of the United States in 1950 and 1952 in an effort to raise funds. Her mother was baffled by her actions, "What can you say of a nun who smokes and plays canasta?", she said.[45] Her daughter-in-law became queen of the Commonwealth realms in 1952, and Princess Andrew attended her coronation in June 1953, wearing a two-tone grey dress and wimple in the style of her nun's habit. However, the order eventually failed through a lack of suitable applicants.[46]

In 1960, she visited India at the invitation of Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, who had been impressed by Princess Andrew's interest in Indian religious thought, and for her own spiritual quest. The trip was cut short when she unexpectedly took ill, and her sister-in-law, Edwina Mountbatten, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, who happened to be passing through Delhi on her own tour, had to smooth things with the Indian hosts who were taken aback at Princess Andrew's sudden change of plans. She later claimed she had had an out-of-body experience.[47] Edwina continued her own tour, and died the following month.

Increasingly deaf and in failing health, Princess Andrew left Greece for the last time following the 21 April 1967 Colonels' Coup. Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh invited Princess Andrew to reside permanently at Buckingham Palace in London.[3] King Constantine II of Greece and Queen Anne-Marie went into exile that December after a failed royalist counter-coup.[48][49]

Death and burial
Despite suggestions of senility in later life, Princess Andrew remained lucid but physically frail.[50] She died at Buckingham Palace on 5 December 1969. She left no possessions, having given everything away. Initially her remains were placed in the Royal Crypt in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, but before she died she had expressed her wish to be buried at the Convent of Saint Mary Magdalene in Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem (near her aunt Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, a Russian Orthodox saint). When her daughter, Princess George of Hanover, complained that it would be too far away for them to visit her grave, Princess Andrew jested, "Nonsense, there's a perfectly good bus service!"[51] Her wish was realized on 3 August 1988 when her remains were transferred to her final resting place in a crypt below the church.[3][52]

On 31 October 1994 Princess Andrew's two surviving children, the Duke of Edinburgh and Princess George of Hanover, went to Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Memorial) in Jerusalem to witness a ceremony honouring her as "Righteous Among the Nations" for having hidden the Cohens in her house in Athens during the Second World War.[53][54] Prince Philip said of his mother's sheltering of persecuted Jews, "I suspect that it never occurred to her that her action was in any way special. She was a person with a deep religious faith, and she would have considered it to be a perfectly natural human reaction to fellow beings in distress."[55] In 2010, the Princess was posthumously named a Hero of the Holocaust by the British Government

Adam Thomas

Adam Gordon Thomas (born 11 August 1988) is an English actor, and the brother of former Coronation Street actor Ryan Thomas. He is known for playing the roles of Donte Charles in the BBC drama Waterloo Road (2006–2009) and Adam Barton in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale (2009–2018)

Early life

Adam Gordon Thomas was born on 11 August 1988 in Salford, Greater Manchester, England.[2] He is the twin brother of Scott Thomas, who starred in Love Island in 2016[3] and the younger brother of Coronation Street actor, Ryan Thomas.

Career

Early career

Thomas began his television career in 2002 with a guest appearance on the BBC daytime soap opera Doctors. It was another four years before Adam launched to fame in his breakthrough role as Donte Charles in the BBC drama series Waterloo Road of which he was an original cast member upon its inception in 2006 until 2009.

The role of Donte led Thomas to enjoy guest appearances in popular hospital drama Casualty in 2008 in which he played a boxer, as well as a second appearance in Doctors in 2007. He also appeared as himself on ITV gameshow All Star Family Fortunes alongside his older brother and fellow actor Ryan, who played Jason Grimshaw in the soap opera, Coronation Street.

In early 2009, it was confirmed that Thomas was to leave Waterloo Road at the end of the fourth series due to his character having finished his education at the fictional school. Thomas' final episode was broadcast 20 May 2009.[4]

Following his departure from his most famous role, Thomas signed on for his third appearance on daytime soap Doctors, this time playing a character called Ben Hamilton. The episode aired on 26 May 2009.[5]

Later career

It was announced on 21 May 2009 that Thomas had landed the role of Adam Barton in the long-running ITV soap opera, Emmerdale and would appear on screens from July 2009.[6]

Thomas confirmed he will leave Emmerdale in early 2018 after months of reports.

In November and December 2016, Thomas was a contestant on the sixteenth series of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! and achieved third place.[7] Thomas became a property executive for the Kamani Property Group in 2018 alongside former Emmerdale co-star Marc Silcock.[8] In February 2019 he played Rob in an episode of BBC drama Moving On.

On October 10th 2019 it was confirmed that Adam would be co hosting I’m a Celebrity - Extra Camp alongside a jungle pal Joel Dommett and last years runner up Emily Atack

Personal life

In 2014, Thomas and his long-term girlfriend, Caroline Daly, welcomed their first child, a son, Teddy. On 27 August 2017, Adam and Caroline married in Delamere Manor, Cheshire. In December 2017, they announced they were expecting their second child, Elsie-Rose, in May 2018.[9] The couple took part in All Star Mr & Mrs in August 2016

Lord Mountbatten

Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (born Prince Louis of Battenberg; 25 June 1900 – 27 August 1979), was a British Royal Navy officer and statesman, an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and second cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II. During the Second World War, he was Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command (1943–1946). He was the last Viceroy of India (1947) and the first Governor-General of independent India (1947–1948).

From 1954 to 1959, Mountbatten was First Sea Lord, a position that had been held by his father, Prince Louis of Battenberg, some forty years earlier. Thereafter he served as Chief of the Defence Staff until 1965, making him the longest-serving professional head of the British Armed Forces to date. During this period Mountbatten also served as Chairman of the NATO Military Committee for a year.

In 1979, Mountbatten, his grandson Nicholas, and two others were killed by a bomb set by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, hidden aboard his fishing boat in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, Ireland.
Mountbatten was known as His Serene Highness Prince Louis of Battenberg from the time of his birth at Frogmore House in the Home Park, Windsor, Berkshire until 1917, when he and several other relations of King George V dropped their German styles and titles. He was the youngest child and the second son of Prince Louis of Battenberg and his wife Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. His maternal grandparents were Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, who was a daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. His paternal grandparents were Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine and Julia, Princess of Battenberg.[1]

Mountbatten's paternal grandparents' marriage was morganatic because his grandmother was not of royal lineage; as a result, he and his father were styled "Serene Highness" rather than "Grand Ducal Highness", were not eligible to be titled Princes of Hesse and were given the less exalted Battenberg title. His siblings were Princess Alice of Battenberg (mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh), Queen Louise of Sweden, and George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven.[1]

Young Mountbatten's nickname among family and friends was "Dickie", although "Richard" was not among his given names. This was because his great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, had suggested the nickname of "Nicky", but to avoid confusion with the many Nickys of the Russian Imperial Family ("Nicky" was particularly used to refer to Nicholas II, the last Tsar), "Nicky" was changed to "Dickie".[2]

He was baptised in the large drawing room of Frogmore House on 17 July 1900 by the Dean of Windsor, Philip Eliot. His godparents were Queen Victoria, Nicholas II of Russia (represented by his father) and Prince Francis Joseph of Battenberg (represented by Lord Edward Clinton).[3] He wore the original 1841 royal christening gown at the ceremony.[3]

Mountbatten was educated at home for the first 10 years of his life: he was then sent to Lockers Park School in Hertfordshire[4] and on to the Royal Naval College, Osborne in May 1913.[5] His mother's younger sister was Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. In childhood he visited the Imperial Court of Russia at St Petersburg and became intimate with the doomed Russian Imperial Family, harbouring romantic feelings towards his maternal first cousin Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, whose photograph he kept at his bedside for the rest of his life.[6]

Career
Early career
Mountbatten was posted as midshipman to the battlecruiser HMS Lion in July 1916 and, after seeing action in August 1916, transferred to the battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth during the closing phases of the First World War.[5] In June 1917, when the royal family stopped using their German names and titles and adopted the more British-sounding "Windsor", Prince Louis of Battenberg became Louis Mountbatten, and was created Marquess of Milford Haven. His second son acquired the courtesy title Lord Louis Mountbatten and was known as Lord Louis until he was created a peer in 1946.[7] He paid a visit of ten days to the Western Front, in July 1918
He was appointed executive officer (second-in-command) of the small warship HMS P. 31 on 13 October 1918 and was promoted sub-lieutenant on 15 January 1919. HMS P. 31 took part in the Peace River Pageant on 4 April 1919. Mountbatten attended Christ's College, Cambridge for two terms, starting in October 1919, where he studied English literature (including John Milton and Lord Byron) in a programme that was specially designed for ex-servicemen.[9][10][11] He was elected for a term to the Standing Committee of the Cambridge Union Society, and was suspected of sympathy for the Labour Party, then emerging as a potential party of government for the first time.[12]

He was posted to the battlecruiser HMS Renown in March 1920 and accompanied Edward, Prince of Wales, on a royal tour of Australia in her.[7] He was promoted lieutenant on 15 April 1920.[13] HMS Renown returned to Portsmouth on 11 October 1920.[14] Early in 1921 Royal Navy personnel were used for civil defence duties as serious industrial unrest seemed imminent. Mountbatten had to command a platoon of stokers, many of whom had never handled a rifle before, in northern England.[14] He transferred to the battlecruiser HMS Repulse in March 1921 and accompanied the Prince of Wales on a Royal tour of India and Japan.[7][15] Edward and Mountbatten formed a close friendship during the trip.[7] Mountbatten survived the deep defence cuts known as the Geddes Axe. Fifty-two percent of the officers of his year had had to leave the Royal Navy by the end of 1923; although he was highly regarded by his superiors, it was rumoured that wealthy and well-connected officers were more likely to be retained.[16] He was posted to the battleship HMS Revenge in the Mediterranean Fleet in January 1923.[7]

Pursuing his interests in technological development and gadgetry, Mountbatten joined the Portsmouth Signals School in August 1924 and then went on briefly to study electronics at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.[7] Mountbatten became a Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), now the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), which annually awards the Mountbatten Medal for an outstanding contribution, or contributions over a period, to the promotion of electronics or information technology and their application.[17] He was posted to the battleship HMS Centurion in the Reserve Fleet in 1926 and became Assistant Fleet Wireless and Signals Officer of the Mediterranean Fleet under the command of Admiral Sir Roger Keyes in January 1927.[7] Promoted lieutenant-commander on 15 April 1928,[18] he returned to the Signals School in July 1929 as Senior Wireless Instructor.[7] He was appointed Fleet Wireless Officer to the Mediterranean Fleet in August 1931, and having been promoted commander on 31 December 1932,[19] was posted to the battleship HMS Resolution.[7]

In 1934, Mountbatten was appointed to his first command – the destroyer HMS Daring.[7] His ship was a new destroyer, which he was to sail to Singapore and exchange for an older ship, HMS Wishart.[7] He successfully brought Wishart back to port in Malta and then attended the funeral of King George V in January 1936.[20] Mountbatten was appointed a Personal Naval Aide-de-Camp to King Edward VIII on 23 June 1936,[21] and, having joined the Naval Air Division of the Admiralty in July 1936,[22] he attended the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in May 1937.[23] He was promoted captain on 30 June 1937[24] and was then given command of the destroyer HMS Kelly in June 1939.[25]

In July 1939, Mountbatten was granted a patent (UK Number 508,956) for a system for maintaining a warship in a fixed position relative to another ship.[26]

Second World War

When war broke out in September 1939, Mountbatten became commander of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla aboard HMS Kelly, which became famous for its exploits.[22] In late 1939 he brought the Duke of Windsor back from exile in France and in early May 1940, Mountbatten led a British convoy in through the fog to evacuate the Allied forces participating in the Namsos Campaign during the Norwegian Campaign.[25]

On the night of 9–10 May 1940, Kelly was torpedoed amidships by a German E-boat S 31 off the Dutch coast, and Mountbatten thereafter commanded the 5th Destroyer Flotilla from the destroyer HMS Javelin.[25] On 29 November 1940 the 5th Flotilla engaged three German destroyers off the Lizard. Mountbatten turned to port to match a German course change. This was "a rather disastrous move as the directors swung off and lost target."[27] It also resulted in Javelin being struck by two torpedoes. He rejoined Kelly in December 1940, by which time the torpedo damage had been repaired.[25]

Kelly was sunk by German dive bombers on 23 May 1941 during the Battle of Crete;[28] the incident serving as the basis for Noël Coward's film In Which We Serve.[29] Coward was a personal friend of Mountbatten and copied some of his speeches into the film.[28] Mountbatten was mentioned in despatches on 9 August 1940[30] and 21 March 1941[31] and awarded the Distinguished Service Order in January 1941

In August 1941, Mountbatten was appointed captain of the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious which lay in Norfolk, Virginia, for repairs following action at Malta in the Mediterranean in January.[28] During this period of relative inactivity, he paid a flying visit to Pearl Harbor, three months before the Japanese attack on the US naval base there. Mountbatten, appalled at the base's lack of preparedness, drawing on Japan's history of launching wars with surprise attacks as well as the successful British surprise attack at the Battle of Taranto which had effectively knocked Italy's fleet out of the war, and the sheer effectiveness of aircraft against warships, accurately predicted that the US entry into the war would begin with a Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.[28][33]

Mountbatten was a favourite of Winston Churchill.[34] On 27 October 1941 Mountbatten replaced Roger Keyes as Chief of Combined Operations and was promoted to commodore

opposed landings.[22] Noteworthy technical achievements of Mountbatten and his staff include the construction of "PLUTO", an underwater oil pipeline from the English coast to Normandy, an artificial harbour constructed of concrete caissons and sunken ships, and the development of amphibious tank-landing ships.[22] Another project that Mountbatten proposed to Churchill was Project Habakkuk. It was to be a massive and impregnable 600-metre aircraft carrier made from reinforced ice ("Pykrete"): Habakkuk was never carried out due to its enormous cost

As commander of Combined Operations, Mountbatten and his staff planned the highly successful Bruneval raid, which gained important information and also captured part of a German Würzburg radar installation and one of the machine's technicians on 27 February 1942. It was Mountbatten who recognised that surprise and speed were essential to ensure the radar was captured, and saw that an airborne assault was the only viable method.[35]

In March 1942, he was promoted to the acting rank of vice admiral and given the honorary ranks of lieutenant general and air marshal in order to have the required authority to carryout his duties in Combined Operations; and was placed in the Chiefs of Staff Committee.[36] He was in large part responsible for the planning and organisation of The Raid at St. Nazaire in mid-1942, an operation which put out of action one of the most heavily defended docks in Nazi-occupied France until well after war's end, the ramifications of which contributed to allied supremacy in the Battle of the Atlantic. After these two successes came the Dieppe Raid of 19 August 1942. He was central in the planning and promotion of the raid on the port of Dieppe. The raid was a marked failure, with casualties of almost 60%, the great majority of them Canadians.[28] Following the Dieppe raid Mountbatten became a controversial figure in Canada, with the Royal Canadian Legion distancing itself from him during his visits there during his later career.[37] His relations with Canadian veterans, who blamed him for the losses, "remained frosty" after the war

Mountbatten claimed that the lessons learned from the Dieppe Raid were necessary for planning the Normandy invasion on D-Day nearly two years later. However, military historians such as former Royal Marine Julian Thompson have written that these lessons should not have needed a debacle such as Dieppe to be recognised.[39] Nevertheless, as a direct result of the failings of the Dieppe raid, the British made several innovations, most notably Hobart's Funnies – specialised armoured vehicles which, in the course of the Normandy Landings, undoubtedly saved many lives on those three beachheads upon which Commonwealth soldiers were landing (Gold Beach, Juno Beach, and Sword Beach)

In August 1943, Churchill appointed Mountbatten the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command (SEAC) with promotion to acting full admiral.[28] His less practical ideas were sidelined by an experienced planning staff led by Lieutenant-Colonel James Allason, though some, such as a proposal to launch an amphibious assault near Rangoon, got as far as Churchill before being quashed.[41]

British interpreter Hugh Lunghi recounted an embarrassing episode which occurred during the Potsdam Conference, when Mountbatten, desiring to receive an invitation to visit the Soviet Union, repeatedly attempted to impress Joseph Stalin with his former connections to the Russian imperial family. The attempt fell predictably flat, with Stalin dryly inquiring whether "it was some time ago that he had been there". Says Lunghi, "The meeting was embarrassing because Stalin was so unimpressed. He offered no invitation. Mountbatten left with his tail between his legs."[42]

During his time as Supreme Allied Commander of the Southeast Asia Theatre, his command oversaw the recapture of Burma from the Japanese by General William Slim.[43] A personal high point was the receipt of the Japanese surrender in Singapore when British troops returned to the island to receive the formal surrender of Japanese forces in the region led by General Itagaki Seishiro on 12 September 1945, codenamed Operation Tiderace.[44] South East Asia Command was disbanded in May 1946 and Mountbatten returned home with the substantive rank of rear-admiral.[45] That year, he was made a Knight of the Garter and created Viscount Mountbatten of Burma, of Romsey in the County of Southampton as a victory title for war service.[46]

Following the war, Mountbatten was known to have largely shunned the Japanese for the rest of his life out of respect for his men killed during the war, and as per his will, Japan was not invited to send diplomatic representatives to his funeral in 1979, though he did meet Emperor Hirohito during a state visit to Britain in 1971, reportedly at the urging of the Queen.[47]

Last Viceroy of India and first Governor-General

His experience in the region and in particular his perceived Labour sympathies at that time led to Clement Attlee appointing him Viceroy of India on 20 February 1947[48][49] charged with overseeing the transition of British India to independence no later than 30 June 1948. Mountbatten's instructions were to avoid partition and preserve a united India as a result of the transference of power but authorised him to adapt to a changing situation in order to get Britain out promptly with minimal reputational damage.[50][51] Soon after he arrived, Mountbatten concluded that the situation was too volatile to wait even a year before granting independence to India. Although his advisers favoured a gradual transfer of independence, Mountbatten decided the only way forward was a quick and orderly transfer of independence before 1947 was out. In his view, any longer would mean civil war.[52] The Viceroy also hurried so he could return to his senior technical Navy courses

Mountbatten was fond of Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru and his liberal outlook for the country. He felt differently about the Muslim leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah, but was aware of his power, stating "If it could be said that any single man held the future of India in the palm of his hand in 1947, that man was Mohammad Ali Jinnah."[54] During his meeting with Jinnah on 5 April 1947,[55] Mountbatten tried to persuade Jinnah of a united India, citing the difficult task of dividing the mixed states of Punjab and Bengal, but the Muslim leader was unyielding in his goal of establishing a separate Muslim state called Pakistan.

Given the British government's recommendations to grant independence quickly, Mountbatten concluded that a united India was an unachievable goal and resigned himself to a plan for partition, creating the independent nations of India and Pakistan.[22] Mountbatten set a date for the transfer of power from the British to the Indians, arguing that a fixed timeline would convince Indians of his and the British government's sincerity in working towards a swift and efficient independence, excluding all possibilities of stalling the process.[57]

Among the Indian leaders, Mahatma Gandhi emphatically insisted on maintaining a united India and for a while successfully rallied people to this goal. During his meeting with Mountbatten, Gandhi asked Mountbatten to invite Jinnah to form a new Central government, but Mountbatten never uttered a word of Gandhi's ideas to Jinnah.[58] And when Mountbatten's timeline offered the prospect of attaining independence soon, sentiments took a different turn. Given Mountbatten's determination, Nehru and Patel's inability to deal with the Muslim League and lastly Jinnah's obstinacy, all Indian party leaders (except Gandhi) acquiesced to Jinnah's plan to divide India,[59] which in turn eased Mountbatten's task. Mountbatten also developed a strong relationship with the Indian princes, who ruled those portions of India not directly under British rule. His intervention was decisive in persuading the vast majority of them to see advantages in opting to join the Indian Union.[60] On one hand, the integration of the princely states can be viewed as one of the positive aspects of his legacy.[61] But on the other, the refusal of Hyderabad, Jammu and Kashmir, and Junagadh to join one of the dominions led to future tension between Pakistan and India.[62]

Mountbatten brought forward the date of the partition from June 1948 to 15 August 1947.[63] The uncertainty of the borders caused Muslims and Hindus to move into the direction where they felt they would get the majority. Hindus and Muslims were thoroughly terrified, and the Muslim movement from the East was balanced by the similar movement of Hindus from the West.[64] A boundary committee chaired by Sir Cyril Radcliffe was charged with drawing boundaries for the new nations. With a mandate to leave as many Hindus and Sikhs in India and as many Muslims in Pakistan as possible, Radcliffe came up with a map that split the two countries along the Punjab and Bengal borders. This left 14 million people on the "wrong" side of the border, and very many of them fled to "safety" on the other side when the new lines were announced

جون بارومان

جون بارومان (بالإنجليزية: John Barrowman) مواليد 11 مارس 1967 في غلاسكو، اسكتلندا، المملكة المتحدة، هو ممثل بريطاني بدأ مسيرته الفنية عام 1989.

أعمال
الممنوع لمسهم
ربات بيوت يائسات
دكتور هو
السهم
زيرو دارك ثيرتي

John Barrowman

John Scot Barrowman MBE (born 11 March 1967) is a British-American actor, singer, presenter, author, and comic book writer. Born in Glasgow, Barrowman moved to the U.S. with his family in 1975. Encouraged by his high school teachers, he studied performing arts at the United States International University in San Diego before landing the role of Billy Crocker in Cole Porter's Anything Goes in London's West End. Since his debut, he has played lead roles in various musicals both in the West End and on Broadway, including Miss Saigon, The Phantom of the Opera, Sunset Boulevard, and Matador. After appearing in Sam Mendes' production of The Fix, he was nominated for the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical and, in the early 2000s, returned to the role of Billy Crocker in the revival of Anything Goes. His most recent West End credit was in the 2009 production of La Cage aux Folles.

Alongside his theatrical career, Barrowman has appeared in various films including the musical biopic De-Lovely (2004) and musical comedy The Producers (2005). Before venturing into British television, he featured in the American television dramas Titans and Central Park West but he is better known for his acting and presenting work for the BBC that includes his work for CBBC in its earlier years, his self-produced entertainment programme Tonight's the Night, and his BAFTA Cymru-nominated role of Captain Jack Harkness in the science fiction series Doctor Who and Torchwood. Barrowman has also had a number of guest roles in television programmes alongside both in the US and the UK. He appeared as a contestant on the first series of celebrity ice skating show Dancing on Ice while his theatrical background allowed him to become a judge on Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical talent shows How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?, Any Dream Will Do and I'd Do Anything. In 2006, he was voted Stonewall's Entertainer of the Year. He hosted the BBC One quiz show Pressure Pad in 2013 and 2014. Barrowman starred in The CW's Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow as Malcolm Merlyn.

Barrowman is also featured on more than a dozen musical theatre recordings, including cover tunes found on his 2007 album, Another Side, and 2008's Music Music Music. Both albums accrued places on the UK Albums Chart, as did his self-titled John Barrowman (2010), which reached number 11, his highest chart placing to date. Furthermore, Barrowman has published two memoirs and autobiographies, Anything Goes (2008) and I Am What I Am (2009), with his sister Carole as co-author. The siblings also teamed up to write a novel, Hollow Earth (2012). The second book in the series, Bone Quill, has been released in the UK and was released in the US in July 2013
Early life
John Scot Barrowman was born in Glasgow on 11 March 1967, the youngest of three children. His older sister, Carole, would later become a university professor. He lived in Glasgow for the first eight years of his life.[2][3] His mother was a singer who also worked in a record shop,[4] while his father was employed by the Caterpillar heavy machinery company in nearby Uddingston. In 1975, his father's company relocated the family to the United States, where his father managed the Caterpillar tractor factory in Aurora, Illinois.[5] The family settled in Joliet, Illinois, where Barrowman attended Joliet West High School in the heart of a "quintessentially middle-class conservative town".[6] Barrowman's high school music and English teachers changed the future course of his life, with his music tutor instilling in him the love of performing, and his English teacher encouraging Barrowman to rise to his true artistic potential. His English teacher moved him into a Gifted Programme and coached him for the school's speech team. With the support of his teacher, he competed with other schools in statewide speech competitions, where he sharpened his skills reading scenes from plays.[6]

After his classmates mocked his native Scottish accent, Barrowman learned to speak with a General American accent,[7] which would later often be said to hint at the Mid-Atlantic accent.[8] As a freshman, he won parts in several musical productions and from 1983 to 1986, he performed in such musical productions as Oliver!, Camelot, Hello, Dolly!, Li'l Abner, and Anything Goes. Looking back, he acknowledged that "without the support he received in high school, chances are that he would not now be appearing in royal command performances in the West End in front of the Royal Family or having Stephen Sondheim ask him to play opposite Carol Burnett".[9] Barrowman spent his senior year shovelling coal for an Illinois power company. His father had arranged the job (and similar jobs for his brother and sister) to give Barrowman the experience of manual labour. His father told him: "If you want to do manual labour for the rest of your life you'll know that when you do it; it's a choice. But if you don't like it, you'll understand the importance of educating yourself and – if you decide what you want to do – being good at your craft or your skill." Barrowman worked for the power company for the entire summer, but did not like the job. Eventually, he convinced the company to move him to work in the storeroom.[10]

Barrowman graduated from high school in 1985, and later became a naturalised U.S. citizen while retaining his British citizenship.[8][11][12] After he graduated from high school, he moved to San Diego, to study performing arts at the United States International University (USIU). As part of an exchange programme, he returned to his native Britain in 1989, to study Shakespeare for six months.[11]

Acting career
Theatre
Barrowman's professional acting career began in London's West End in 1989, playing the role of Billy Crocker in Cole Porter's Anything Goes at the Prince Edward Theatre, alongside Elaine Paige as Reno Sweeney and Bernard Cribbins as Moonface Martin. He continued to appear in West End productions for the next decade, taking the title role of Domingo Hernandez in Matador at the Queen's Theatre in 1991; as Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre in 1992; as Claude in Hair at the Old Vic Theatre in 1993; as Chris in Miss Saigon at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1993; as Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard at the Adelphi Theatre from 1994–1995; and as Beast in Beauty and the Beast at the Dominion Theatre in 1999.[4]

Barrowman was part of the musical Godspell in 1994, and was a soloist in two songs, "We Beseech Thee" and "On The Willows". He was lead vocalist on a rendition of Strike Up the Band in Who Could Ask for Anything More? A Celebration of Ira Gershwin at the Royal Albert Hall in 1996,[13] and he was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical in 1998 for originating the role of Cal Chandler in The Fix,[14] a performance he repeated in Cameron Mackintosh's 1998 gala concert Hey, Mr Producer!. Barrowman played Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard in the West End and, briefly, on Broadway. His only other Broadway credit is in the role of Barry in the Stephen Sondheim revue Putting It Together (1999–2000) at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre opposite Carol Burnett and George Hearn. In a review of Putting It Together, theatre critic Tom Samiljan noted Barrowman's "fine baritone voice and suave looks".[15] In 2002, Barrowman appeared as Bobby in Sondheim's Company in the Kennedy Center's Stephen Sondheim Celebration.[16]

Barrowman returned to the role of Billy Crocker in Trevor Nunn's 2003 West End revival of Anything Goes,[17][18] and appeared in West End non-musical dramas, such as his role as Wyndham Brandon in Rope at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester in 1993, and he starred as Lieutenant Jack Ross opposite Rob Lowe in the 2005 production of A Few Good Men.

Barrowman starred in pantomime productions of Cinderella at the New Wimbledon Theatre (Christmas, 2005–06) and in Jack and the Beanstalk at Cardiff's New Theatre (Christmas, 2006–07). He played the title role in Aladdin at the Birmingham Hippodrome over Christmas 2007–8[19] and as a guest act for the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium in 2008.[20] Barrowman played the lead in the Robin Hood pantomime at the Birmingham Hippodrome for the 2008–09 season.[21] He presented Andrew Lloyd Webber's 60th birthday party in London's Hyde Park on 14 September 2008. Exactly one year later, Barrowman succeeded Roger Allam as Zaza/Albin in the West End revival of La Cage aux Folles, at the Playhouse Theatre.[22]

Television presenter
Barrowman was one of the original hosts of Live & Kicking, a children's Saturday morning variety show on the BBC. During this time, he became known for his catchphrase, "it's a dirty rat!", which he used during a phone-in game set in a haunted house. From 1993–1994, Barrowman reported on technology news as the host of the Electric Circus segment of the show. He appeared on the children's television game show, The Movie Game from 1994–1996, taking over from Jonathon Morris.

Barrowman was one of the regular presenters on Channel 5's afternoon show 5's Company from 1997–1999.[23] Barrowman read bedtime stories on the CBeebies channel between 1 and 5 May 2006. That summer, Barrowman was on a Judges panel with Andrew Lloyd Webber, David Ian, and Zoe Tyler on BBC One's music talent show How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?.[24]

In the same year, Barrowman made two television appearances on New Year's Eve: He talked about spirituality and civil partnerships on BBC Television's Heaven & Earth, hosted by Gloria Hunniford,[25] and he appeared as a guest on Graham Norton's one-off BBC Television programme, The Big Finish,[25] teaming up with Craig Revel Horwood and Louis Walsh to take a lighthearted look at news stories in 2006. On 11 February 2007, Barrowman co-presented coverage of the BAFTA Film Awards, along with Ruby Wax for E!: Entertainment Television.[26] On 11 and 18 February 2007, Barrowman guest-presented two editions of Elaine Paige on Sunday, a pre-recorded BBC Radio 2 weekly musical theatre and film music showcase.[27]

In 2007, Barrowman was a judge on the BBC One TV series Any Dream Will Do, hosted by Graham Norton. The show searched for a new, unknown actor to play the role of Joseph in a West End revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, eventually choosing Lee Mead.[28] He guested on the BBC Two comedy panel quiz show Never Mind the Buzzcocks (Series 19, Episode 5), challenging host Simon Amstell to a "gay-off". He also guested on Al Murray's Happy Hour, The Charlotte Church Show, and Friday Night with Jonathan Ross.

On 27 July 2007, Barrowman guest hosted The Friday Night Project, on Channel 4.[29] In 2008 Barrowman presented a primetime BBC game show called The Kids Are All Right. On the show, four adults compete against seven "smart and sassy" children for cash in four rounds "testing their brainpower, knowledge and speed of response".[30] On 16 and 23 February 2008, he presented the National Lottery Draw.

On 1 March 2008, Barrowman appeared as a panellist of the Eurovision Song Contest selection show, Eurovision: Your Decision on BBC 1 with Carrie Grant and Terry Wogan. From 29 April to 1 May, he presented This Morning. Barrowman began featuring as a judge on the Canadian version of How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? in June 2008. In 2008, Barrowman became the presenter for Animals at Work, a children's television show on CBBC that showcases "animals with extraordinary skills that make people's lives easier and safer";[31] Animals at Work began in 2009 with 26 episodes.[32] In February 2010, Barrowman appeared as a guest host on UK shopping channel QVC[33]

In 2012, Barrowman guest presented three episodes of This Morning with Kate Thornton.[34]

In July 2012, Barrowman co-hosted the G4's 2012 Live Comic Con in San Diego with Candace Bailey.

In 2013, Barrowman began hosting the BBC One game show Pressure Pad and in 2014, he hosted Channel 4 show Superstar Dogs: Countdown to Crufts, which began airing on 17 February 2014.[35]

In 2014, Barrowman hosted the Channel 4 programme Small Animal Hospital and in October 2016, he was a guest team captain for an episode of Celebrity Juice and he guest presented an episode of The One Show.[36]

Prime time drama
Barrowman's television career began with several appearances in short-lived prime-time soap operas. Barrowman first starred as Peter Fairchild in Central Park West (1995)[37] a show American film critic Ken Tucker calls "a tale of ritzy, ditsy New York City careerists—some struggling to make it, others plotting to retain their status and power."[38] Television critic David Hiltbrand called Barrowman's character a "Prince Charming ... a virtuous, hardworking assistant DA who keeps getting distracted by women who swoon in his path."[39] Tucker noted Barrowman's character of Peter Fairchild to be "physically an eye-widening cross between John Kennedy Jr. and Hugh Grant".[38] The show lasted for two seasons on CBS, from September 1995 to June 1996. Barrowman then appeared as Peter Williams in Titans (2000). According to writer Joanna Bober, in Titans, Barrowman plays a "ruthless mogul" who gains "control of the family's private aviation company (a fleet of 'Titans') from his semi-retired father" while increasing the profitability of the company amidst a series of soap opera intrigues.[40] Titans was cancelled after airing eleven episodes. Barrowman was also considered for the role of Will in Will and Grace, but the producers reportedly felt he was "too straight" and the role eventually went to straight actor Eric McCormack instead. Commenting on the decision, Barrowman remarked, "The sad thing is it's run by gay men and women."[41]

On 25 March 2008, Barrowman made a guest appearance in episode 22 of the BBC's Hotel Babylon.[42] Entertainment Weekly reported that Barrowman would appear in the 2010 season of Desperate Housewives, "for a minimum of five episodes, portraying Patrick Logan, the ex-boyfriend at the center of the Angie Bolen (Drea de Matteo) mystery."[43] On 23 February 2010 Barrowman announced on The One Show that his contract had been extended to a total of six episodes.

Barrowman starred in the ABC drama series pilot Gilded Lillys created and produced by Shonda Rhimes.[44]

Since 2012, Barrowman has portrayed Malcolm Merlyn, one of the main antagonists in The CW series Arrow. Barrowman was a recurring cast member for the first two seasons and was promoted to a main cast member beginning with the third season. By July 2016, he signed a deal that allows him to continue being a series regular on Arrow as well as the other superhero shows produced by Greg Berlanti, including The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow.[45] In the Flash third-season episode "Duet", he plays gangster Cutter Moran in the dreamworld the Music Meister sets up. Despite announcing in May 2017 that he is leaving the Arrowverse television franchise,[46] Barrowman returned as Malcolm Merlyn in the second part of the Elseworlds crossover, hallucinated by Barry Allen, situated in a universe rewritten by the Book of Destiny where Allen is perceived to be Oliver Queen. When reality is rewritten again, Merlyn is situated as a Central City Police officer who arrests Barry and Oliver, rewritten as the Trigger Twins.

Film and reality television
Barrowman appeared as Ben Carpenter in the low-budget film Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (2002). His musical abilities are featured in several film roles: as Jack in the Cole Porter biopic De-Lovely (2004), singing a duet with Kevin Kline on the song "Night and Day";[17] and as the lead tenor Stormtrooper in The Producers (2005), singing "Springtime for Hitler". Barrowman co-presented and performed in the BBC One series The Sound of Musicals (2006).[47]

Barrowman took part in the reality television series Dancing on Ice on ITV1 in January and February 2006. Resembling a real ice skating competition, ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean trained celebrities to compete on the show.[48] His skating partner was World Junior Gold Medalist and three-time Russian champion Olga Sharutenko.[49] On 4 February, despite being one of the favourites to win, Barrowman and Sharutenko faced Stefan Booth and his partner Kristina Lenko in the skate off and were eliminated by the judges' by a vote of 3 to 2.[50] He was one of five celebrity guests on the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special (2010), and achieved both the top score and also first place when the audience vote had been counted. His professional partner was Kristina Rihanoff and they danced the Quickstep. In September 2012 Barrowman was a guest host on Attack of the Show!.

On 12 November 2018, Barrowman was confirmed to be participating in that year's series of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!.[51] He eventually finished third behind Emily Atack and Harry Redknapp.[52]

Also in 2018, Barrowman provided the voice of the villainous Hollywood star Flex Dexter in Fireman Sam: Set for Action! a special of the Welsh long running children's animated series. He got the role when he was introduced to his friend's partner who was a Mattel employee at a restaurant in Palm Springs, California.

Doctor Who and Torchwood
Barrowman is best known in the UK for his role in the BBC science fiction drama Doctor Who. When the series was revived in 2005, Barrowman came on board as recurring guest character Captain Jack Harkness, a pansexual time traveller from the 51st century. His first appearance as Harkness was in the two-part story "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances". He went on to appear in the next three episodes, "Boom Town", "Bad Wolf" and "The Parting of the Ways". Jack became so popular, he was given his own show – Torchwood, a Doctor Who spin-off series featuring a team of alien hunters based in modern-day Cardiff, which premiered in 2006. American film and television critic Ken Tucker describes Barrowman's role on Torchwood as "dashing", "utterly fabulous", "celestially promiscuous", and "like Tom Cruise with suspenders, but minus the Scientology". In the show, Jack "tracks down—and occasionally beds—ETs with the help of his quartet of bedazzled groupies—slash—Experts in Their Fields: One's a doctor, one's a cop, one's a scientist, and one... makes coffee and late nights piping hot. It's like the Justice League of Extended-Pinkie Nerds."[53]

Barrowman continued to guest star in Doctor Who in 2007, appearing in "Utopia", "The Sound of Drums", and "Last of the Time Lords". He also participated in a Doctor Who special on the BBC's The Weakest Link.[54] In 2008, Barrowman appeared in the two-part 2008 series finale, "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End" and reprised the role of Captain Jack Harkness in the "Doctor Who: Tonight's the Night" special.[55] In 2010, Barrowman returned to Doctor Who with a cameo in The End of Time along with other previous stars.

Series 3 of Torchwood was broadcast in July 2009 as a miniseries of five episodes called Children of Earth.[56] Filming of Series 4 called Torchwood: Miracle Day began on 11 January 2011 primarily in Los Angeles, and in and around Cardiff, Wales. The first episode of Miracle Day aired on Starz Network in the United States on 8 July 2011 and was broadcast on BBC One in the UK on 14 July 2011.[57][58] Both Doctor Who and Torchwood became popular in the United States on the BBC America network.[59] In November 2013 he appeared in the one-off 50th anniversary comedy homage The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot.[60] Since 2015 he has continued to appear in an ongoing series of Torchwood audio plays for Big Finish Productions.

Books
Barrowman's memoir and autobiography, Anything Goes, was published in 2008 by Michael O'Mara Books.[61] His sister, English professor and journalist Carole Barrowman, helped write the book using her brother's dictations.[62] In 2009, Barrowman published I Am What I Am,[63] his second memoir detailing his recent television work and musings on fame.

Barrowman's first published work of original fiction was a Torchwood comic strip, titled Captain Jack and the Selkie, co-written with sister Carole. Commenting on the characterisation of Jack Harkness in the comic strip Barrowman states: "We'd already agreed to tell a story that showed a side of Jack and a part of his history that hadn't been explored too much in other media. I wanted to give fans something original about Jack."[64][65] Barrowman's début fantasy novel titled Hollow Earth, co-written with his sister Carole, was published in the United Kingdom on 2 February 2012 by Buster Books. The novel is about twins Matt and Emily ("Em") Calder who share an ability that allows them to make artwork come to life, due to their powerful imaginations. Their ability is sought after by antagonists who wish to use it to breach Hollow Earth—a realm in which all demons and monsters are trapped.[66] Two sequels from the same team concerning Hollow Earth followed - The Bone Quill (2013) and The Book of Beasts (2014) - and Conjuror (2016), the first in a new series (the "Orion Chronicles") featuring the same twins, as well as a separate novel Torchwood: Exodus Code (2013).

Charity and activism
Barrowman worked with Stonewall, a gay rights organisation in the UK, on the "Education for All" campaign against homophobia in schools. In April 2008, the group placed posters on 600 billboards that read, "Some people are gay. Get over it!" Barrowman contributed his support to the project asking people to join him: "Help exterminate homophobia. Be bold. Be brave. Be a buddy, not a bully."[9][67] That same month, Barrowman spoke at the Oxford Union about his career, the entertainment industry, and gay rights issues. The event was filmed for the BBC programme The Making of Me, in an episode exploring the science of homosexuality.[68] He was voted Entertainer of the Year in 2006 by Stonewall,[69] and placed on the "Out 100" list for 2008,[70] an annual list of notable LGBT people compiled by Out magazine. In June 2010, Barrowman met with then-Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister David Cameron as a representative of the LGBT community.[71]

Barrowman was one of 48 British celebrities who signed a public notice warning voters against Conservative Party policy towards the BBC prior to the 2010 general election.[72] In the 2012 presidential election, Barrowman endorsed Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama, who was running for re-election.[73] Barrowman publicly supported Scotland remaining in the United Kingdom in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum,[74] and was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence.[75]

Personal life
Barrowman is openly gay; he met his husband, Scott Gill, during a production of Rope at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 1993, after Gill came to see Barrowman in the play.[76] They share homes in London, Cardiff, and Palm Springs. Barrowman and Gill entered into a civil partnership on 27 December 2006. A small ceremony was held in Cardiff with friends and family,[77] with the cast of Torchwood and executive producer Russell T Davies as guests.[76] The pair were legally married in California on 2 July 2013, following the Supreme Court's decision to deny an appeal to overturning California Proposition 8.[78]

On 30 November 2008, Barrowman exposed himself during an episode of Radio 1's Switch programme.[79] Although the act was not seen (a show staff member had covered the webcam), the BBC and Barrowman subsequently apologized for any offense caused.[80]

In 2011, Barrowman released his own skin care line, entitled HIM.[81]

In mid-March 2017, Barrowman and his husband held a "big bad garage sale" in their Palm Springs home. The garage sale was packed with Doctor Who and Torchwood memorabilia. Neighbours and fans showed up for the occasion and Barrowman documented most of the day on his social media accounts via pictures and short videos.

شارلوت كروسبي

شارلوت كروسبي (بالإنجليزية: Charlotte Crosby) هي مقدمة تلفزيونية بريطانية، ولدت في 16 مايو 1990 في سندرلاند في المملكة المتحدة.

Charlotte-Letitia

Charlotte-Letitia Crosby (born 17 May 1990[1]) is an English television personality, known for appearing in the MTV reality series Geordie Shore and winning the twelfth series of Celebrity Big Brother.[2] In 2017, she began presenting Just Tattoo of Us, and in 2018, Crosby began starring in her own reality series, The Charlotte Show
Early life
Crosby was born in Sunderland and educated at St Anthony's Girls' Catholic Academy, where she completed her A level exams.[5] Originally considering studying criminology at university, she successfully auditioned and was cast to appear in the Tyne and Wear based reality series, Geordie Shore.[6]

Career
Geordie Shore
Charlotte was an original cast member of MTV's reality series Geordie Shore, which she had starred in since 2011.[7] She featured in twelve series of the show. She became known for an on/off relationship with fellow cast member Gaz Beadle.[8] In June 2016, she announced her departure from the show via Twitter.

Further television and media appearances
In November 2012, alongside her Geordie Shore cast members, Crosby guest appeared in the 2012 MTV Europe Music Awards where they presented the award for Best Male, which Justin Bieber won.[9] In February 2013, Crosby appeared on The Sarah Millican Television Programme, alongside her Geordie Shore cast members Gary Beadle, James Tindale and Holly Hagan.[10]

On 23 August 2013, Crosby participated in the twelfth series of Celebrity Big Brother. On 13 September, she was crowned winner of the series.[11]

In 2013, Crosby hosted the BBC Radio 1 Teen Awards. Crosby was also a regular panellist on This Morning, panel for the fashion strand 'Rate or Slate', and regularly appeared on panels for ITV series including Britain's Got More Talent, Xtra Factor and Celebrity Juice. In January 2014, it was confirmed that Crosby would have her own reality series on TLC, where she would spend time in different cultures and live with some of the world's unique communities. "I am bursting with excitement about my new show with TLC. I literally want to run around shouting about it from the rooftops!"[12] The series was titled The Charlotte Crosby Experience.[13]

In January 2015, MTV UK announced that Crosby was set to star in the second series of reality series Ex on the Beach. The series premiered later that month. Crosby joined the cast in the villa in the series fifth episode, appearing as an ex of fellow Geordie Shore cast member Gary Beadle.[14][15]

Crosby occasionally hosts MTV News and also had a regular column in Star Magazine. On 19 September 2015, Crosby and her home appeared on comedy panel game show Through the Keyhole. She has also made guest appearances on programmes such as Staying In, Fake Reaction, Most Shocking Celebrity Moments, 50 Funniest Moments and Utterly Outrageous Moments.

Crosby's autobiography, ME ME ME, was published in July 2015.[16] The book topped the Sunday Times bestseller list.[17] On 4 August 2015, Crosby appeared on BBC Radio 1's Innuendo Bingo.[18]

In 2016, Crosby had her own special on Chart Show TV, titled Charlotte Crosby's Propa Mint Party, where she played a collection of her favourite music videos. In 2016, she was a contributor to the Channel 4 documentary series A Granny's Guide to the Modern World. She offered insight on life as a celebrity to the older generation.[19] In August 2016, Crosby narrated Channel 5 documentary-reality series Tattoo Disasters U.K. In August 2016, she announced that she was set to appear in E4 dating series Celebs Go Dating. The series ran from the end of August until the middle of September 2016.[20] In October 2016, Crosby appeared on Celebrity Storage Hunters UK and later that month, she appeared on Tipping Point: Lucky Stars.[21]

In December 2016, Crosby was the star of MTV Asks Charlotte Crosby, set in her house in the North East of England. Later that month, she made a guest appearance on the Christmas special of In Bed with Jamie on E4, which was also set in her home. On 25 December 2016, Crosby made her radio presenting debut on Heat Radio where she co-presented an afternoon show with Lucie Cave.

From 27 February to 3 March 2017, Crosby was a stand-in presenter on the Capital North East breakfast show whilst the regular hosts took a week off. She reprised this role in February 2018, June 2018 and September 2018. In June 2017, Crosby published her second autobiography, Brand New Me. In contrast to her first book, it was published in a diary format. The book became a Sunday Times bestseller, the second of Crosby’s books to peak at number 1.[22][23]

In January 2019, Crosby appeared on the fourth series of Celebrity Coach Trip, alongside boyfriend Josh Ritchie. The couple reached the final and finished as runner-ups. In August 2019, Crosby began appearing in the seventh series of Celebs Go Dating to undergo ‘couples coaching’ alongside Ritchie. She had previously starred in the first series.[24]

The Charlotte Show
In 2018, it was confirmed Crosby would star in her own MTV reality series. The series, titled The Charlotte Show, premiered on 28 March 2018.[25] In July 2018, it was confirmed that The Charlotte Show had been renewed for a second series.[26] The second series premiered on 30 January 2019.[27] After the series finale, it was confirmed that The Charlotte Show would return for a third series, which premiered on 18 June 2019.[28][29]

Clothing range
In 2014, Crosby launched a fashion line titled "Nostalgia", in association with British online fashion retailer In The Style.[30] Since then, she has continued to launch regular collections; however, it is no longer marketed under the "Nostalgia" brand, simply being referred to by Crosby’s name.[31][32]

Fitness DVDs and books
On 26 December 2014, Crosby released her first fitness DVD, Charlotte's 3 Minute Belly Blitz.[33] The workout DVD featured Richard Callendar and weight loss expert David Souter. It became the UK's fastest selling fitness DVD, selling 101,000 copies in its first four weeks on sale. Within a month, it became the sixth best-selling fitness DVD of the decade.[34] At the end of 2015, it was the 31st biggest selling DVD of the year.[35] Since the release of the DVD, it has continually remained at the top ends of the Sports & Fitness DVD charts.[36]

In 2015, Crosby released her second fitness DVD, Charlotte's 3 Minute Bum Blitz. The object of the DVD is to get a 'more peachy bum'.[37] It uses the same trainers as 3 Minute Belly Blitz.

In April 2016, Crosby published her first health and fitness book, Live Fast, Lose Weight: Fat to Fit. The book details her tips and tricks on keeping fit and 80 recipes for a healthy lifestyle.[38]

In January 2018, Crosby published her second health and fitness book, 30 Day Blitz. She promoted the book with a series of signings throughout the UK.[39][40]

Personal life
From December 2015 to April 2016, Crosby and Gaz Beadle started a relationship outside of filming Geordie Shore. This came to an end following Crosby's ectopic pregnancy. Crosby had surgery at St John and Elizabeth hospital, in London, which involved the removal of her left Fallopian tube.[41] At this same time, Beadle had been unfaithful to her in Thailand whilst filming Ex on the Beach, leading to the end of their relationship.[42][43][44] Since 2018, Crosby has been in a relationship with Josh Ritchie
Guest appearances
The Sarah Millican Television Programme (5 February 2013)
Big Brother's Bit on the Side (22 August–13 September 2013; 3 January 17 June 11 September 2014; 23 January 2015, 8 January 28 July 2016)
The Wright Stuff (17 September 2013, 8 January 2015)
Celebrity Juice (19 September 2013; 8 May, 23 October 2014; 31 March 2016)
This Morning (24 September 5 November 2013; 7 January 2014; 4 January 19 April 2016, 3 April 2017, 19–23 June 2017,[a] 3 July 2017, 2 October 2017, 3 January 2018, 28 March 2018, 30 July 2018)
Celebrity Wedding Planner (18 October 2013)
The Xtra Factor (10 November 15 December 2013, December 2015, September 2016)
Fake Reaction (9 January 2014)
Viral Tap (4 May 2014)
Britain's Got More Talent (29 May 2014, May 2015, 22 May 2016, 6 May 2017, 28 May 2018)
Tricked (23 September 2014)
Safeword (30 July 2015)
Through the Keyhole (19 September 2015)
Release the Hounds (28 October 2015)
Up Late with Rylan (9–11, 31 May 2016)
Loose Women (10 May 2016, 13 July 2017)
A Granny's Guide to the Modern World (17 August 2016)
Tipping Point: Lucky Stars (15 October 2016)
In Bed with Jamie at Christmas (26 December 2016)
Drunk History UK (as Isaac Newton's mother; 12 April 2017)
Ireland AM (23 August 2017)
Celebrity Psych Test (25 September 2017)
The 6 O'Clock Show (27 October 2017)
Pointless Celebrities (4 November 2017)
The Reality TV Story (June 2018)
The Crystal Maze (22 June 2018)
CelebAbility (4 July 2018)
MTV TOP 100 Germany (13 July 2018)
Good Morning Britain (25 January 2019)