Famous People From Edinburgh
Reference
List of famous people from Edinburgh, including photos when available. The people below are listed by their popularity, so the most recognizable names are at ...
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Shirley Ann Manson (born 26 August 1966) is a Scottish singer, songwriter and musician. She is the lead singer of the alternative rock band Garbage. For much of her international career, Manson commuted between her home city of Edinburgh and the United States to record with Garbage; she now lives and works in Los Angeles. Manson gained media attention for her forthright style, rebellious attitude, and distinctive voice.Manson's musical career began in her teens when she was approached to perform backing vocals and keyboards for the band Goodbye Mr Mackenzie. Quickly she developed into a prominent member of the group and developed a formidable stage presence. Manson was approached by her band's record label with the idea of launching her as a solo artist, and recorded an album with her band under the Angelfish name. After seeing Manson in an Angelfish video broadcast only once on MTV's 120 Minutes, Garbage invited Manson to audition and record vocals on a couple of unfinished songs; she eventually co-wrote and co-produced an entire album with the band. The resulting self-titled debut album was a critical and commercial success, and was followed by five studio albums, including the multiple Grammy Award-nominated Version 2.0, and a greatest hits album. Garbage toured worldwide and sold 12 million records over 10 years.In 2006, Manson began to write and record solo material after Garbage was put on "hiatus" and in 2008 was cast in her first professional acting role on the second and final season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles as series regular Catherine Weaver, a liquid metal T-1001 Terminator. Manson returned to the recording studio in 2010 to write and produce material for the group's fifth studio album Not Your Kind of People, who have since followed up with a sixth album Strange Little Birds.

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He was Leader of the Opposition from 1994 to 1997. As of 2019, Blair is the last British Labour Party leader to have won a general election. From 1983 to 2007, Blair was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield. He was elected Labour Party leader in July 1994, following the sudden death of his predecessor, John Smith. Under Blair's leadership, the party used the phrase "New Labour", to distance it from previous Labour policies and the traditional conception of socialism. Blair declared support for a new conception that he referred to as "social-ism", involving politics that recognised individuals as socially interdependent, and advocated social justice, cohesion, the equal worth of each citizen, and equal opportunity, also referred to as the Third Way. Critics of Blair denounced him for bringing the Labour Party towards the perceived centre ground of British politics, abandoning 'genuine' socialism and being too amenable to capitalism. Supporters, including the party's public opinion pollster Philip Gould, stated that (after four consecutive general election defeats) the Labour Party had to demonstrate that it had made a decisive break from its left-wing past, in order to win an election again.In May 1997, the Labour Party won a landslide general election victory, the largest in its history. Blair, at 43 years of age, became the youngest Prime Minister since 1812. In September 1997, Blair attained early personal popularity, receiving a 93% public approval rating, after his public response to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. The Labour Party went on to win two more general elections under his leadership: in 2001, in which it won another landslide victory, and in 2005, with a greatly reduced majority. During his first term as Prime Minister, his government oversaw a large increase in public spending and introduced the National Minimum Wage Act, Human Rights Act, and Freedom of Information Act. His government also held referendums in which the Scottish and Welsh electorates voted in favour of devolved administration. In Northern Ireland, Blair was involved in negotiating the Good Friday Agreement. Blair supported the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration, and ensured that the British Armed Forces participated in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and, more controversially, the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Blair has faced criticism for his role in the invasion of Iraq, including calls for having him tried for war crimes and waging a war of aggression; in 2016, the Iraq Inquiry criticised his actions and described the invasion as unjustified and unnecessary.Blair was succeeded as Leader of the Labour Party and as Prime Minister by Gordon Brown in June 2007. On the day that Blair resigned as Prime Minister, he was appointed the official Special Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East, an office which he held until May 2015. He currently runs the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

Ian Charleson (11 August 1949 – 6 January 1990) was a Scottish stage and film actor. He is best known internationally for his starring role as Olympic athlete and missionary Eric Liddell, in the Oscar-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire. He is also well known for his portrayal of Rev. Charlie Andrews in the 1982 Oscar-winning film Gandhi. Charleson was a noted actor on the British stage as well, with critically acclaimed leads in Guys and Dolls, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Fool for Love, and Hamlet, among many others. He performed numerous Shakespearean roles, and in 1991 the annual Ian Charleson Awards were established, particularly in honour of his final Hamlet. The awards reward the best classical stage performances in Britain by actors aged under 30. The Houghton Mifflin Dictionary of Biography describes Charleson as "a leading player of charm and power" and "one of the finest British actors of his generation". Alan Bates wrote that Charleson was "definitely among the top ten actors of his age group". Ian McKellen said Charleson was "the most unmannered and unactorish of actors: always truthful, always honest".Charleson was diagnosed with HIV in 1986, and died in 1990 at the age of 40. He requested that it be announced after his death that he had died of AIDS, in order to publicise the condition. This was the first celebrity death in the United Kingdom openly attributed to AIDS, and the announcement helped to promote awareness and acceptance of the disease.