Television movie based on the autobiography of Patty Duke. Tells the story of her turbulent life as a child star and adult actress, and of her ultimate triumph over mental illness.
Category: Biography
The year is 1919. German troops retreat from Ukraine. The Directory, the Ukrainian national government lead by Symon Petliura, takes control of Kyiv. Meanwhile, the Bolshevik division commanded by Mykola Shchors is marching on the capital. The Bolsheviks capture the cities of Vinnytsia, Zhmerynka, and others one by one, but lose Berdychiv to Petliura’s forces. They are demoralized by the defeat. By his personal example of courage and military skill, Shchors inspires the retreating Red troops and leads them to victory over the enemy.
Year 1930. Young Andrei Bashkirtsev, just graduated from school, goes to Moscow with drawings of a self-constructed airplane. Illiterate drawings are rejected, but Bashkirtsev does not abandon his dream – to build a jet-engine aircraft. But life disposes differently, and Bashkirtsev becomes the first person in Soviet rocket engineering.
The childhood and early adulthood of Li Tien-lu, an 84-year-old Taiwanese puppet master, comes to life using a combination of documentary technique and elegant dramatization, while the real Li functions as on-and-off-screen narrator, as the film travels from 1908 to 1945.
On Jan and Dean’s rise to the top of the music industry, a horrible car accident leaves Jan Berry incapacitated and their dreams shattered. With the help of Dean and others, Jan slowly recovers, learning again to walk and talk. A comeback to the music industry seems impossible, but Jan’s willingness to try and with Dean the duo aim for another chance.
George “Babyface” Nelson became one of the most important gangsters of 1920s Chicago by making brutal robberies. In order to compete with Al Capone, he allied himself with John Dillinger.
The film was actually based on a touring stage play, which itself was based on the life of Dr Mary McLeod Bethune, the pioneering educator and civil rights activist who became an adviser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.