Thomas Dolby
Acting
Biography
Thomas Morgan Robertson is an English musician, producer, entrepreneur and educator. Born on October 14, 1958, in London, England, Dolby is a self-taught musician, and his early musical experiences were with choral singing, guitar and then piano. His adopted last name of Dolby was a reference to the audio noise-reduction process invented by Dolby Laboratories, inspired by his fascination with technology and taken on to differentiate him from popular musician Tom Robinson. In 1979, Dolby formed the Camera Club with Bruce Woolley and later performed with Lene Lovich, penning her hit New Toy. He also worked as a session musician with several artists, including Thompson Twins, Foreigner and Def Leppard, before embarking on his solo career. His debut album, The Golden Age of Wireless, was released in 1982 and was later reconfigured to include his follow-up hit single She Blinded Me With Science, a major success in the US and Canada whose music video was a staple of early MTV. He migrated to Los Angeles and released three more albums, featuring the hits Hyperactive!, Airhead and Close But No Cigar. Dolby performed as part of David Bowie's band at the Live Aid festival in 1985 and produced albums by Joni Mitchell and Prefab Sprout. In 1986, Dolby composed songs for the film Howard the Duck and the score for the film Gothic. In 1988, he married actress Kathleen Beller, with whom he has three children. In the 1990s, Dolby migrated to the San Francisco bay area, and in 1993 he co-founded Headspace, Inc., an interactive audio company who produced small sound files for websites and cell phone ringtones. From 2001 to 2012, Dolby supervised the music for the annual TED Conferences held in Monterey and Long Beach, California. In 2006, he reignited his solo career with the Sole Inhabitant Tour, and in 2010 he released three EPs of new music concurrent with a multiplayer online game, A Map of the Floating City, followed in 2011 by an album of the same name. In 2012, he filmed the documentary The Invisible Lighthouse, which won the DIY Film Festival Award for Best Picture. He became Homewood Professor of the Arts at John Hopkins University in 2014, and starting in 2017, he led the four-year degree program Music for New Media at the Peabody Institute.
Known For
A late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels. The show's comedy sketches, which parody contemporary culture and politics, are performed by a large and varying cast of repertory and newer cast members. Each episode is hosted by a celebrity guest, who usually delivers an opening monologue and performs in sketches with the cast, and features performances by a musical guest.
Saturday Night Live
Where Are They Now? was a television series on VH1 that featured past celebrities and updated on their current professional and personal status. Each episode was dedicated to another genre. Though not always in sequence, some episodes were a continuation of the motif of episodes from the past. Those episodes sometimes had Roman numerals in their title to signify their sequel status.
Where Are They Now?
Cachitos de hierro y cromo is a Spanish musical-themed documentary program, directed by Jero Rodríguez and hosted by Virginia Díaz. It is an unapologetic musical display of RTVE's sound legacy in the form of performances on the set of programs such as 'Aplauso', 'Galas del Sábado', 'Mapa Sonoro', 'Zona Franca' or 'Los Conciertos de Radio 3'. For nearly 60 years, artists and other specimens have stormed viewers' screens. The result is a polyphony of images and memories that includes everything from James Brown to Camela, from Perales to REM, from Gabinete to Violent Femmes. And so all the time. Our secret weapon has been the historical archive of TVE, the repository of Spanish collective memory for more than half a century.
Cachitos de hierro y cromo
When a sprite named Crysta shrinks a human boy, Zak, down to her size, he vows to help the magical fairy folk stop a greedy logging company from destroying their home: the pristine rainforest known as FernGully. Zak and his new friends fight to defend FernGully from lumberjacks — and the vengeful spirit they accidentally unleash after chopping down a magic tree.
FernGully: The Last Rainforest
A scientific experiment unknowingly brings extraterrestrial life forms to the Earth through a laser beam. First is the cigar-smoking drake, Howard, from the duck's planet. A few kids try to keep him from the greedy scientists and help him back to his planet, but then a much less friendly being arrives through the beam...
Howard the Duck
Riverside was a TV series broadcast on BBC2 in the United Kingdom featuring musicians, bands, actors, fashion designers, artists and comedians. It consisted of sketches, interviews and live performances. Guests included Alice Cooper, Steve Strange, Martin Rushent, Alan Adler, Clare Grogan, Paul Weller, Martin Fry, The Cure, The Smiths, New Order and Pauline Black.
Riverside
Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.
Koyaanisqatsi
Living on an estate on the shores of Lake Geneva, Lord Byron is visited by Percy and Mary Shelley. Together with Byron's lover Claire Clairmont, and aided by hallucinogenic substances, they devise an evening of ghoulish tales. However, when confronted by horrors, ostensibly of their own creation, it becomes difficult to tell apparition from reality.
Gothic
Music Professionals share their most memorable stories of their career in the Rock N' Roll world.
Rock N' Roll Stories
No description available.
100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 80s
No description available.
100 Greatest Songs of the '80s
A global television broadcast of the event in which former Pink Floyd leader singer and composer Roger Waters led an all-star cast in a mammoth benefit performance of his acclaimed concept album, The Wall. Set in Berlin, Germany less than a year after the destruction of the hated Berlin Wall, Waters was accompanied by disparate talents such as Cyndi Lauper, James Galway, Joni Mitchell and Albert Finney in the classic dark musical tale of a rock star's descent into madness and back.
Roger Waters: The Wall - Live in Berlin
An investigative journalist gets hooked on the subject of his inquiry — organized gambling.
Fever Pitch
Ralph is a sexually frustrated vampire who suffers from a peculiar curse. He's condemned for eternity to watch his one true love, Mona, be murdered by a pirate wielding a ham bone. But now? Now it's 1990, and Ralph is determined to break Mona's cycle of reincarnation. His first order of business is winning her affections, which he does by starting Rockula: a rock band that's sure to stake a claim on her heart.
Rockula
A motley band of suburbanites arrives at a summer school to simulate life in an Iron Age village. However, the village is right in the middle of a modern university campus which somewhat detracts from its air of authenticity.
Summer School
An irreverent survey of British Music.
Ken Russell's ABC of British Music
Imogen Heap decamps to Maui, Hawaii in spring 2007 to start writing her third solo album. With only a video camera for company, she begins documenting its progress and doesn't stop until she's collected a Grammy Award for it. Aided by friend and film maker Justine Pearsall, every moment in the life cycle of the album is captured. From the writing trip; to her return to her family home to build a state of the art studio in her childhood playroom; to the songs themselves, their origins and journey to completion, This is an intimate and comprehensive portrait of the album and the artist. Including interviews with the people who know her best and appearances by Jeff Beck, Nitin Sawhney and Mika, Everything In-Between is part making of, part intimate diary confessional. A rare and inspiring insight into the life and work of a unique and exceptional artist and the creation of an acclaimed album. Filmed over three years and compiled from 374 hours of footage.
Everything In-Between: The Story of Ellipse
A visual compilation of songs from Malcolm McLaren's 1983 album "Duck Rock", including the songs "Buffalo Gals" and "Double Dutch", mixed with interview and documentary footage.
Duck Rock
'Alloy' is faced with a vision of the year: 2075, doom. There is only one way to reverse the madness: collapse the universe into itself and begin again. Witness the rebirth, the awakening and the future of mankind. The regeneration is neither now nor then, but can only be reached through The Gate to the Mind's Eye.
The Gate to the Mind's Eye
Thomas Dolby and his band plus special guests perform a live set at the Riverside Theatre Studios, London, in 1983.