Jessica Tandy

Country of origin: England

Jessie Alice "Jessica" Tandy (June 7, 1909 – September 11, 1994) was an English - American stage and film actress. She first appeared on the London stage in 1926 at the age of 16, playing, among others, Katherine opposite Laurence Olivier's Henry V, and Cordelia opposite John Gielgud's King Lear. She also worked in British films. Following the end of her marriage to Jack Hawkins, she moved to New York, where she met Canadian actor Hume Cronyn. He became her second husband and frequent partner on stage and screen. She won the Tony Award for her performance as Blanche Dubois in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948, sharing the prize with Katherine Cornell (who won for Antony and Cleopatra) and Judith Anderson (for the latter's portrayal of Medea). Over the following three decades, her career continued sporadically and included a substantial role in Alfred Hitchcock's film, The Birds (1963), and a Tony Award-winning performance in The Gin Game (playing in the two-character play opposite her husband, Cronyn) in 1977. She, along with Cronyn was a member of the original acting company of The Guthrie Theater. In the mid 1980s she enjoyed a career revival. She appeared opposite Hume Cronyn in the Broadway production of Foxfire in 1983 and its television adaptation four years later, winning both a Tony Award and an Emmy Award for her portrayal of Annie Nations. During these years, she appeared in films such as Cocoon (1985), also with Cronyn. She became the oldest actress to receive the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Driving Miss Daisy (1989), for which she also won a BAFTA and a Golden Globe, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Fried Green Tomatoes (1991). At the height of her success, she was named as one of People's "50 Most Beautiful People". She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1990, and continued working until shortly before her death.

To read more about Jessica Tandy, visit her page on Wikipedia.

Cleng Peerson

Country of origin: Norway

Cleng Peerson (17 May 1783 – 16 December 1865) was a Norwegian-American pioneer who led the first group of Norwegians to emigrate to the United States, traveling on the Norwegian sloop Restauration.

To read more about Cleng Peerson, read his page on Wikipedia here.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Country of origin: Germany

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, CBE (born 7 May 1927) is a Booker prize-winning novelist, short story writer, and two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter. She is perhaps best known for her long collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions, made up of director James Ivory and the late producer Ismail Merchant. Their films won six Academy Awards.

To read more about Ruth Prawer Jhabvala visit her page on Wikipedia.

Eileen Chang

Country of origin: China

Eileen Chang (simplified Chinese: 张爱玲; traditional Chinese: 張愛玲; pinyin: Zhāng Ailíng; Cantonese Yale: Zoeng Oiling) (September 30, 1920 – September 8, 1995) was a Chinese writer. Her most famous works include Lust, Caution and Love in a Fallen City. She is noted for her fiction writings that deal with the tensions between men and women in love, and are considered by some scholars to be among the best Chinese literature of the period. Chang's portrayal of life in 1940s Shanghai and occupied Hong Kong is remarkable in its focus on everyday life and the absence of the political subtext which characterised many other writers of the period. Taiwanese author Yuan Qiongqiong drew inspiration from Eileen Chang. Poet and University of Southern California professor Dominic Cheung commented "had it not been for the political division between the Nationalist and Communist Chinese, she would have almost certainly won a Nobel Prize".

To read more about Eileen Chang, visit her page on Wikipedia.

Dan Aykroyd

Country of origin: Canada

Daniel Edward "Dan" Aykroyd, CM (born July 1, 1952) is a Canadian comedian, actor, screenwriter, musician, winemaker and ufologist. He was an original cast member of Saturday Night Live, an originator of The Blues Brothers (with John Belushi) and Ghostbusters and has had a long career as a film actor and screenwriter.

To read more about Dan Aykroyd, visit his page on Wikipedia.

Nasser J. Kazeminy

Country of origin: Iran

Mr. Nasser J. Kazeminy was born in Iran and educated in England where he met his wife. After designing the worldwide logistics and management information system for Honeywell, Mr. Kazeminy was recruited away by Control Data Corporation. Together with two small children and a salary advance of $250 from his new employer; Mr. Kazeminy relocated to the United States in 1969 to design and implement a worldwide logistics and management information system.

To find out more about Nasser J. Kazeminy, visit this link at neco.org.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Country of origin: Poland

Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski (Polish: Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzeziński, pronounced [ˈzbʲiɡɲiɛf kaˈʑimʲiɛʐ bʐɛˈʑiɲski]; born March 28, 1928) is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981.

To read more about Zbigniew Brzezinski, visit his page on Wikipedia.