Charlie Cox

full name Charlie Thomas Cox
15 December 1982
London, England, United Kingdom


I first seen him in the movie Stardust
he is now the Daredevil on Netflix I been a fan of the Daredevil comics
and was hoping he didnt mess it up like the first two and he didn't he
did a great job as Matt Murdock aka the Daredevil as of now I have seen
both season 1 and 2
he is to be in the Defenders on Netflix Daredevil along with Jessica Jones
and Luke Cage as well as iron Fist not sure when that will be on
Charlie will soon be seen in the movie 'Eat Local'
a few other movies he has been are:
 The Theory of Everything
 Stone of Destiny
 there be dragons
 Casanova
 The Merchant of Venice
 Things to Do Before You're 30
 Stardust


He was also in HBO's
Boardwalk Empire
downton abbey

Jean is off to see the Broncos

My niece won playoff tickets! she off to see the Bronco tomorrow!! Way to go Jean!!

Miles Broncos Mascot ‏@5280Miles

And the winner of the tickets is... Jean Goheen! Here's just one of the pics that caught my eye! Congratulations!

Alan Rickman

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (21 February 1946 – 14 January 2016)
was an English actor and director, known for playing a
 variety of roles on stage and screen, often as a complex
antagonist. Rickman was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company,
 performing in modern and classical theatre productions. His first
 big television part came in 1982, but his big break was as the
Vicomte de Valmont in the stage production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses
in 1985, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award. Rickman gained
 wider notice for his film performances as Hans Gruber in Die Hard
and Severus Snape in the Harry Potter film series.

Rickman's other film roles included the Sheriff of Nottingham in
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply,
Colonel Brandon in Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility, Harry in Love
Actually, P. L. O'Hara in An Awfully Big Adventure, Alexander Dane
in Galaxy Quest, and Judge Turpin in the film adaptation of Stephen
Sondheim's musical of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

In 1995, Rickman earned a Golden Globe Award, an Emmy Award and a
Screen Actors Guild Award for his portrayal of the title character
in Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny. He won a BAFTA Award for his
role in Robin Hood.

Rickman died of cancer on 14 January 2016 at the age of 69.
 His final film, Alice Through the Looking Glass, will be released
in the United States in May 2016.


Rickman's career was filled with a wide variety of roles. He
played romantic leads like Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility
 (1995) and Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991); numerous villains
in Hollywood big-budget films, like German terrorist Hans Gruber in
 Die Hard (1988) and the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince
of Thieves (1991); and the occasional television role such as the
"mad monk" Rasputin in the HBO biopic Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny
(1996), for which he won a Golden Globe and an Emmy.
 He was the "master of ceremonies" on Mike Oldfield's
album Tubular Bells II (1992), on which he read a
list of instruments on the album.

His role in Die Hard earned him a spot on the AFI's 100
Years...100 Heroes & Villains list as the 46th best villain
 in film history, though he revealed he almost did not take
 the role as he did not think Die Hard was the kind of film
 he wanted to make.His performance as the Sheriff of
Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves also earned him
praise as one of the best actors to portray a villain in films.


Rickman took issue with being typecast as a "villain actor",
citing the fact that he had not portrayed a stock villain
character since the Sheriff of Nottingham in 1991.[citation needed]
 His portrayal of Severus Snape, the potions master in the Harry Potter
series (2001–11), was dark, but the character's motivations were not
clear early on.[21] During his career Rickman played comedic roles,
 sending up classically trained British actors[according to whom?]
who take on "lesser roles" as the character Sir Alexander Dane/Dr.
Lazarus in the science fiction parody Galaxy Quest (1999),
portraying the angel Metatron, the voice of God, in Dogma
(also 1999), appearing as Emma Thompson's foolish husband
Harry in Love Actually (2003), providing the voice of Marvin
 the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
(2005), and the egotistical, Nobel Prize-winning father in Nobel Son (2007).


Rickman was nominated for an Emmy for his work as Dr. Alfred
Blalock in HBO's Something the Lord Made (2004). He also starred
in the independent film Snow Cake (2006) with Sigourney Weaver and
Carrie-Anne Moss, which had its debut at the Berlin International
Film Festival, and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (also 2006),
directed by Tom Tykwer. Rickman appeared as the evil Judge Turpin
in the critically acclaimed Tim Burton film Sweeney Todd: The Demon
Barber of Fleet Street (2007) alongside Harry Potter co-stars Helena
Bonham Carter and Timothy Spall. Rickman provided the voice of Absolem
the Caterpillar in Burton's film Alice in Wonderland (2010).


He performed onstage in Noël Coward's romantic comedy Private Lives,
which transferred to Broadway after its successful run in London
at the Albery Theatre and ended in September 2002; he reunited
 with his Les Liaisons Dangereuses co-star Lindsay Duncan and
director Howard Davies in the Tony Award-winning production.
His previous stage performance was in Antony and Cleopatra in
1998 as Mark Antony with Dame Helen Mirren as Cleopatra, in
the Royal National Theatre's production at the Olivier Theatre
 in London, which ran from 20 October to 3 December 1998.
Rickman appeared in Victoria Wood with All The Trimmings (2000),
a Christmas special with Victoria Wood, playing an aged colonel
in the battle of Waterloo who is forced to break off his engagement
to Honeysuckle Weeks' character.


Rickman also directed The Winter Guest at London's Almeida
Theatre in 1995 and the film version of the same play,
released in 1997, starring Emma Thompson and her real-life
 mother Phyllida Law.[citation needed] With Katharine Viner
he compiled the play My Name Is Rachel Corrie, and directed
the premiere production at the Royal Court Theatre, which
opened in April 2005. He won the Theatre Goers' Choice
Awards for Best Director. Rickman befriended the Corrie
family and earned their trust, and the show was warmly
received in London in 2005. But the next year, its original
 New York production was "postponed" over the possibility
of boycotts and protests from those who saw it as "anti-Israeli
agit-prop". Rickman denounced "censorship born out of fear".
Tony Kushner, Harold Pinter and Vanessa Redgrave, among others,
criticised the decision to indefinitely delay the show. The
one-woman play was put on later that year at another theater
 to mixed reviews, and has since been staged at venues around the world.


In 2009, Rickman was awarded the James Joyce Award by
University College Dublin's Literary and Historical Society.


In October and November 2010, Rickman starred in the eponymous
role in Henrik Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman at the Abbey Theatre,
 Dublin alongside Lindsay Duncan and Fiona Shaw.
The Irish Independent called Rickman's performance breathtaking.
This production subsequently travelled to the Brooklyn Academy
of Music for performances in January and February 2011.[citation needed]
Rickman and Kate Winslet at the 2014 Toronto International Film
Festival.

In 2011, Rickman again appeared as Severus Snape in
 the final instalment in the Harry Potter series,
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.
Throughout the series, his portrayal of Snape
garnered widespread critical acclaim.[
Kenneth Turan of The Los Angeles Times said Rickman
 "as always, makes the most lasting impression,"
 while Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called Rickman
"sublime at giving us a glimpse at last into the secret
 nurturing heart that ... Snape masks with a sneer."


Media coverage characterised Rickman's performance as worthy of
nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
 His first award nominations for his role as Snape came at
 the 2011 Alliance of Women Film Journalists Awards, 2011
Saturn Awards, 2011 Scream Awards and 2011 St. Louis Gateway
 Film Critics Association Awards in the Best Supporting Actor category.


On 21 November 2011, Rickman opened in Seminar, a new play by
Theresa Rebeck, at the John Golden Theatre on Broadway.
 Rickman, who left the production on 1 April, won the
Broadway.com Audience Choice Award for Favorite Actor in a Play
 and was nominated for a Drama League Award.

Rickman starred with Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz in a remake of 1966's
Gambit by Michael Hoffman.
 In 2013, he played Hilly Kristal, the
founder of the famous East Village punk-rock club CBGB, in the CBGB
film with Rupert Grint

In the media
Rickman posing for a fan after a performance of John Gabriel Borkman in 2011

Rickman was chosen by Empire as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in
film history (No. 34) in 1995 and ranked No. 59 in Empire's "The
Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list in October 1997. In 2009
and 2010 Rickman ranked once again as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars
 by Empire, both times placing No. 8 out of the 50 actors chosen.
 Rickman was elected to the Council of the Royal Academy of Dramatic
 Art (RADA) in 1993; he was subsequently RADA's Vice-Chairman and a
member of its Artistic Advisory and Training committees and Development
 Board.
He was voted No. 19 in Empire magazine's Greatest Living Movie
Stars over the age of 50 and was twice nominated for Broadway's
Tony Award as Best Actor (Play): in 1987 for Les Liaisons Dangereuses,
 and in 2002 for a revival of Noël Coward's Private Lives. The Guardian
named Rickman as an "honourable mention" in a list of the best actors
never to have received an Academy Award nomination.


Two researchers, a linguist and a sound engineer, found
"the perfect [male] voice" to be a combination of Rickman's
and Jeremy Irons's voices based on a sample of 50 voices.


Rickman featured in several musical works, including a song
composed by Adam Leonard entitled "Not Alan Rickman".
 The actor played a "Master of Ceremonies" part,
announcing the various instruments in Mike Oldfield's
Tubular Bells II on the track The Bell.
 Rickman was one of the many artists
who recited Shakespearian sonnets on the 2002
album When Love Speaks, and is also featured
prominently in a music video by Texas entitled
"In Demand",
 which premiered on Europe MTV in August 2000.
Personal life

In 1965, at the age of 19, Rickman met 18-year-old
Rima Horton, who became his first girlfriend and would
later be a Labour Party councillor on the Kensington and
Chelsea London Borough Council (1986–2006) and an economics
lecturer at the nearby Kingston University.
They lived
together from 1977 until his death. In 2015,
 Rickman confirmed that they had married in a private
 ceremony in New York City in 2012.


He was an active patron of the research foundation Saving Faces;
 and honorary president of the International Performers'
 Aid Trust, a charity that works to fight poverty amongst
performing artists all over the world.
When discussing politics, Rickman said he "was born
a card-carrying member of the Labour Party".


Rickman was the godfather of fellow actor Tom Burke.

On 14 January 2016, Rickman died of cancer in London.
 Soon after, his fans created a memorial underneath the
"Platform 9¾" sign at London King's Cross railway station.

   

David Bowie dies of cancer aged 69

David Bowie, the infinitely changeable, fiercely forward-looking songwriter who taught generations of musicians about the power of drama, images and personas, died on Sunday, two days after his 69th birthday.

His death was confirmed by his publicist, Steve Martin, on Monday morning. No other details were provided.

Mr. Bowie had been treated for cancer for the last 18 months, according to a statement on his social-media accounts. “David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family,” a post on his Facebook page read.

His last album, “Blackstar,” a collaboration with a jazz quartet that was typically enigmatic and exploratory, was released on Friday — his birthday. He is to be honored with a concert at Carnegie Hall on March 31 featuring the Roots, Cyndi Lauper and the Mountain Goats.

He had also collaborated on an Off Broadway musical, “Lazarus,” which was a surreal sequel to the 1976 film that featured his definitive screen role, “The Man Who Fell to Earth.”

Mr. Bowie wrote songs, above all, about being an outsider: an alien, a misfit, a sexual adventurer, a faraway astronaut. His music was always a mutable blend — rock, cabaret, jazz and what he called “plastic soul” — but it was suffused with genuine soul. He also captured the drama and longing of everyday life, enough to give him No. 1 pop hits like “Let’s Dance.”

In concerts and videos, Mr. Bowie’s costumes and imagery traversed styles, eras and continents, from German Expressionism to commedia dell’arte to Japanese kimonos to spacesuits. He set an example, and a challenge, for every arena spectacle in his wake.

If he had an anthem, it was “Changes,” from his 1971 album “Hunky Dory,” which proclaimed:

Turn and face the strange,

Ch-ch-changes,

Oh look out now you rock and rollers,

Pretty soon now you’re gonna get older.

Mr. Bowie earned admiration and emulation across the musical spectrum — from rockers, balladeers, punks, hip-hop acts, creators of pop spectacles and even classical composers like Philip Glass, who based two symphonies on Mr. Bowie’s albums “Low” and “Heroes.”

Samples of David Bowie’s Hits

His music, always a mutable blend suffused with genuine soul, was in many ways about being an outsider.

Mr. Bowie’s constantly morphing persona was a touchstone for performers like Madonna and Lady Gaga; his determination to stay contemporary introduced his fans to Philadelphia funk, Japanese fashion, German electronica and drum-and-bass dance music.

Nirvana chose to sing “The Man Who Sold the World,” the title song of Mr. Bowie’s 1970 album, in its brief set for “MTV Unplugged in New York” in 1993. “Under Pressure,” a collaboration with the glam-rock group Queen, supplied a bass line for the 1990 Vanilla Ice hit “Ice Ice Baby.”

Yet throughout Mr. Bowie’s metamorphoses, he was always recognizable. His voice was widely imitated but always his own; his message was that there was always empathy beyond difference.

Angst and apocalypse, media and paranoia, distance and yearning were among Mr. Bowie’s lifelong themes. So was a penchant for transgression coupled with a determination to push cult tastes toward the mainstream.

    David Bowie Allowed His Art to Deliver a Final MessageJan. 12, 2016
    Celebrating David Bowie, a Star Who Burned Bright to the LastJan. 12, 2016
    David Bowie in the MoviesJan. 11, 2016
    Fans Pay Tribute to David BowieJan. 11, 2016
    Share Your Memories of David BowieJan. 11, 2016
    Deep Affection in the Place Where It All StartedJan. 12, 2016
    Around the World, Tributes and MemoriesJan. 11, 2016
    Review: ‘Blackstar,’ David Bowie’s Emotive and Cryptic New AlbumJan. 07, 2016


Mr. Bowie produced albums and wrote songs for some of his idols — Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Mott the Hoople — that gave them pop hits without causing them to abandon their individuality. And he collaborated with musicians like Brian Eno during the late-1970s period that would become known as his Berlin years and, in his final recordings, with the jazz musicians Maria Schneider and Donny McCaslin, introducing them to many new listeners.

Mr. Bowie was a person of relentless reinvention. He emerged in the late 1960s with the voice of a rock belter but with the sensibility of a cabaret singer, steeped in the dynamics of stage musicals.

He was Major Tom, the lost astronaut in his career-making 1969 hit “Space Oddity.” He was Ziggy Stardust, the otherworldly pop star at the center of his 1972 album, “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars.”

He was the self-destructive Thin White Duke and the minimalist but heartfelt voice of the three albums he recorded in Berlin in the ’70s.
Continue reading the main story
Bowie, From Past Pages of The Times
Source: The New York Times

By CLAIRE BARTHELEMY

The arrival of MTV in the 1980s was the perfect complement to Mr. Bowie’s sense of theatricality and fashion. “Ashes to Ashes,” the “Space Oddity” sequel that revealed, “We know Major Tom’s a junkie,” and “Let’s Dance,” which offered, “Put on your red shoes and dance the blues,” gave him worldwide popularity.

Mr. Bowie was his generation’s standard-bearer for rock as theater: something constructed and inflated yet sincere in its artifice, saying more than naturalism could. With a voice that dipped down to baritone and leapt into falsetto, he was complexly androgynous, an explorer of human impulses that could not be quantified.

He also pushed the limits of “Fashion” and “Fame,” writing songs with those titles and also thinking deeply about the possibilities and strictures of pop renown.

Mr. Bowie was married for more than 20 years to the international model Iman, with whom he had a daughter, Alexandria Zahra Jones. They survive him, as does his son from his marriage to the former Mary Angela Barnett, Duncan Jones, a director best known for the 2009 film “Moon.”

David Bowie’s Career Milestones

    Jan. 8, 1947David Bowie is born in London.
    1969The breakthrough single “Space Oddity,” is released.
    1972Plays his first New York show.
    1976Stars in the movie “The Man Who Fell To Earth.”
    1981Collaborates with the band Queen on the single “Under Pressure.”
    1985Covers “Dancing in the Street” with Mick Jagger to raise money for the famine-relief charity Live Aid.
    1989His newly formed band, Tin Machine, releases its first album.
    2000Performs a headliner act at the Glastonbury Festival.
    2006Gives his final public concert, a three-song set at a charity fund-raiser in New York.
    2015“Lazarus,” a musical featuring new music by Mr. Bowie, opens off Broadway at the New York Theater Workshop
    2016“Blackstar,” his final album, is released days before his death.

In a post on Twitter, Mr. Jones said: “Very sorry and sad to say it’s true. I’ll be offline for a while. Love to all.”

David Robert Jones was born in London on Jan. 8, 1947, where as a youth he soaked up rock ’n’ roll. He took up the saxophone in the 1960s and started leading bands as a teenager, singing the blues in a succession of unsuccessful groups and singles. He suffered a blow in a teenage brawl that caused his left pupil to be permanently dilated.

In the late 1960s, Lindsay Kemp, a dancer, actor and mime, became a lasting influence on Mr. Bowie, focusing his interest in movement and artifice. Mr. Bowie’s music turned toward folk-rock and psychedelia. The release of “Space Oddity,” shortly before the Apollo 11 mission put men on the moon in 1969, gained him a British pop audience and, when it was rereleased in 1973 in the United States, an American one.

By then, with the albums “Hunky Dory,” “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars” and “Aladdin Sane,” Mr. Bowie had become a pioneer of glam rock and a major star in Britain, playing up an androgynous image. But he also had difficulties separating his onstage personas from real life and succumbed to drug problems, particularly cocaine use. In 1973, he abruptly announced his retirement — though it was the retirement of Ziggy Stardust, not of Mr. Bowie.

He moved to the United States in 1974 and made “Diamond Dogs,” which included the hit “Rebel Rebel.” In 1975, he turned toward funk with the album “Young Americans,” recorded primarily in Philadelphia with collaborators, including a young Luther Vandross. John Lennon joined Mr. Bowie in writing and singing the hit “Fame.” Mr. Bowie’s 1976 album “Station to Station” yielded more hits, but drug problems were making Mr. Bowie increasingly unstable; in interviews, he made pro-fascist pronouncements that he would soon disown.

For a far-reaching change of environment, and to get away from drugs, Mr. Bowie moved in 1976 to Switzerland and then to West Berlin, part of a divided city with a sound that fascinated him: the Krautrock of Kraftwerk, Can, Neu! and other groups. Mr. Bowie shared a Berlin apartment with Iggy Pop, and he helped produce and write songs for two Iggy Pop albums, “The Idiot” and “Lust for Life.”

He also made what is usually called his Berlin trilogy — “Low,” “Heroes” and “Lodger” — working with Mr. Eno and Mr. Bowie’s collaborator over decades, the producer Tony Visconti. They used electronics and experimental methods, like having musicians play unfamiliar instruments, yet songs like “‘Heroes’” conveyed romance against the bleakest odds.

As the 1980s began, Mr. Bowie turned to live theater, performing in multiple cities (including a Broadway run) in the demanding title role of “The Elephant Man.” Yet he would also reach his peak as a mainstream pop musician in that decade — particularly with his 1983 album “Let’s Dance,” which he produced with Nile Rodgers of Chic; the Texas blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan also performed on the album. By 1989 Mr. Bowie was determined to change again; he recorded, without top billing, as a member of the rock band Tin Machine.

His experiments continued in the 1990s. In 1995, he reconnected with Mr. Eno on an album, “1. Outside,” — influenced by science fiction and film noir — that was intended to be the start of a trilogy. Mr. Bowie toured with Nine Inch Nails in an innovative concert that had his band and Nine Inch Nails merging partway through. Mr. Bowie’s 1997 album, “Earthling,” turned toward the era’s electronic dance music.

By the 21st century, Mr. Bowie was an elder statesman. He had been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. In 2001, he sang “Heroes” at the Concert for New York City after the Sept. 11 attacks.

His last tour, after the release of his album “Reality,” ended when he experienced heart problems in 2004. But he continued to lend his imprimatur to newer bands like Arcade Fire, joining them onstage, and TV on the Radio, adding backup vocals in the studio.

In 2006, he performed three songs in public for what would be the final time, at the Keep a Child Alive Black Ball fund-raiser at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York.

His final albums were a glance back and a new excursion. “The Next Day,” released in 2013, returned to something like the glam-rock sound of his 1970s guitar bands, for new songs suffused with bitter thoughts of mortality. And “Blackstar,” released two days before his death, had him backed by a volatile jazz-based quartet, in songs that contemplated fame, spirituality, lust, death and, as always, startling transformations.
Correction: January 11, 2016
An earlier version of this obituary referred incorrectly to the group Mr. Bowie collaborated with on “Blackstar.” It is a jazz quartet, not quintet.

Michael Malarkey
Actor, singer

Birth date June 21, 1983
he is a British-American actor and singer that plays the role of Enzo
on The Vampire Diaries.
Born in Beirut, Lebanon to an Irish-American father and an
English mother, he grew up in Yellow Springs, Ohio and moved to London
in 2006 where he studied at LAMDA and has been working in the UK since

 

Michael singing

godfrey gao

Godfrey Gao was born on September 22, 1984 in Taiwan.
Height     6' 4"

Gao was born in Taipei, Taiwan, to a Taiwanese father and
a mother from Malaysia. He moved to Vancouver, Canada,
during his childhood, and later studied at Capilano
University in North Vancouver. Gao's father is
Shanghainese but grew up in Taiwan while his mother
is a Peranakan from George Town.

Since returning to Taiwan to work as a model in 2004,
Gao has appeared in several TV dramas and films. He
played Magnus Bane in the film adaption of The Mortal
Instruments: City of Bones (2013). He is also the first
Asian male to model for the fashion brand Louis Vuitton.
He is managed by JetStar Entertainment,
and joined Korean actress Yoo In-na for Wedding Bible.

The 3 musketeers

I have all ways been of the 3 Musketeers for as long as I can remember
Athos, Aramis, Porthos, D'Artagnan tried to see every movie that has came out on them read the books more than once out of all the movies and shows I am really enjoying this new take one it "The Musketeers" from BBC1 I have the first season on DVD need to get the 2nd and the 3rd when it comes out,
Tom Burke is Athos  
Luke Pasqualino is D'Artagnan
Santiago Cabrera is Aramis   
Howard Charles is Porthos

they are doing an awesome job making the characters their own and I love how their not like any of the other in the past they are the new improved Musketeers

The Three Musketeers By Alexandre Dumas

D'Artagnan, a poor but noble young man from Gascony, leaves his home to make his fortune in Paris; he is carrying a letter of introduction to his father's friend, Monsieur de Treville, captain of the King's Musketeers. On the way to Paris, d'Artagnan's impulsive nature gets him into trouble; he is beaten and the letter of introduction is taken from him. In Paris, he nevertheless is granted an interview with Monsieur de Treville, and is promised acceptance in the Royal Academy free of charge, where he can learn fencing, riding, and good manners; later, with experience, d'Artagnan, can expect to become a musketeer.

While Treville, is writing a new letter of introduction, d'Artagnan glances out the window and, by accident, sees the person who robbed him. He runs after him, and while pursuing him, he offends three musketeers: first, he collides with Athos, reinjuring Athos's wounded shoulder; then he jostles Porthos and reveals a partly counterfeit golden shoulder belt that he is wearing; and finally, he offends Aramis by ungallantly and unintentionally bringing attention to a lady's handkerchief. He is challenged to a duel by each of the musketeers. After he meets the musketeers and begins dueling with Athos, they are all threatened with arrest by the dreaded cardinal's guards because of a law against dueling. D'Artagnan joins forces with the musketeers and helps drive the cardinal's men away. Thus, almost immediately after his arrival in Paris, D'Artagnan becomes an intimate friend of the three musketeers.

One day, d'Artagnan's elderly landlord, Bonacieux, comes to ask him for help; the landlord's young wife, Constance, has been kidnapped — probably by the cardinal's men because she is the queen's linen maid and knows many of the queen's secrets, secrets which the cardinal desperately wants revealed so that he can discredit the queen, who earlier rejected his romantic advances. D'Artagnan is able to rescue Madame Bonacieux from her abductors and, while doing so, falls in love with her. Later, when he inadvertently sees her cross a bridge with a strange man, he stops them and discovers that the man is an English nobleman, the duke of Buckingham, the queen's secret lover; being an Englishman, the man is also an enemy of France. That night, the queen gives the duke an elegant gift of twelve diamond tags in a rosewood box.

When the cardinal, through his extended and vast network of spies (one of whom is among the queen's ladies-in-waiting) discovers that the queen has given Buckingham the diamond tags, he asks the king to give a fabulous ball and demand that the queen wear the king's gift to her: the twelve diamond tags.

The queen is terrified when she learns about the ball and hears her husband order her to wear the diamond tags. She knows very well that they are in London, in the possession of the duke of Buckingham. Meanwhile, the cardinal sends one of his spies — the elegant and beautiful Milady — to London; he instructs her to dance with the duke, snip off at least two of the diamond tags, and return them to the cardinal so that he can use them in a blackmail scheme.

Ready to help the queen regain the diamond tags, whatever the cost, Constance Bonacieux pleads with d'Artagnan to undertake the dangerous trip to London in order to retrieve the diamond tags from the duke before the ball and thereby save the queen's reputation. D'Artagnan readily accepts Constance's request, and accompanied by the three musketeers, he begins the hazardous trip to London. On the way, they are continually ambushed by the cardinal's spies, and one by one, the musketeers are foiled from accompanying d'Artagnan to London.

When d'Artagnan reaches London, he reports the situation to Buckingham, who discovers in horror that two of the tags are missing. Immediately, he calls in his personal jeweler and instructs him to work furiously in order to make exact copies. He gives the copies to d'Artagnan, along with the remaining ten tags, and a superb, prearranged series of horses that will take d'Artagnan from London to Paris in twelve hours. Thus, the queen is able to appear in what seems to be all twelve of the diamond tags — to the utter astonishment of the cardinal. For d'Artagnan's heroic efforts, the queen secretly presents him with a large, magnificent diamond ring.

After agreeing to a rendezvous with Constance (which never takes place because she is again abducted by the cardinal's men), d'Artagnan is told that it is dangerous to remain in Paris: the cardinal knows everything that happens in Paris; it will not be long, before he learns about d'Artagnan's role in the diamond tag escapade. D'Artagnan therefore decides that this would be a good time to discover what happened to his musketeer friends.

He returns to each of the places where he left them, and finding them all safe, they return to Paris — only to discover that they must buy equipment for the king's next military maneuver: the siege of La Rochelle. Each of the musketeers must find some way of getting money — something they are always short of.

While pondering how to get some cash, d'Artagnan sees Milady by accident and is overwhelmed by her beauty; he follows her and tries to protect her from a bothersome man who turns out to be her brother-in-law. The brother-in-law challenges d'Artagnan to a duel and they fight. D'Artagnan overpowers him, but spares his life. In appreciation for his life, the brother-in-law — Lord de Winter — introduces d'Artagnan to Milady, Lady de Winter. Meanwhile, Milady's maid sees d'Artagnan and falls in love with him, and later she tells him that Milady is madly in love with Count de Wardes, the man whom d'Artagnan wounded just before sailing to London. She also gives d'Artagnan a love note which Milady has written to de Wardes. D'Artagnan is so furious that he forges de Wardes' signature on a return letter to Milady, arranging a dark, nighttime rendezvous with Milady. While she thinks that she's making love to de Wardes, d'Artagnan will be making passionate love to her.

The plan works, and afterward Milady is so satisfied that she gives d'Artagnan an elegant sapphire ring surrounded with diamonds, promising to have "that stupid d'Artagnan" killed for having wounded de Wardes, the man she thinks she's been making love to in the darkness.

Later, d'Artagnan is furious, and, in order to get revenge against her, he answers another love note of hers to de Wardes, signing de Wardes' name under a flippant reminder that Milady has to "wait her turn." Milady is so incensed that she asks d'Artagnan to kill de Wardes, and as prepayment she goes to bed with him. d'Artagnan is so enamored by Milady's loveliness that he impulsively reveals that this is not the first time that he has made love to her: earlier, when she thought that she was making love in the dark to de Wardes — she wasn't. D'Artagnan was in bed with her.

Milady rears up and tries to kill d'Artagnan and as they scuffle, her nightgown is torn and d'Artagnan sees the mark of a convict branded on one of her shoulders. The discovery of this secret is so terrible that Milady vows that d'Artagnan will die. By a stroke of good fortune, however, and some help from Kitty, d'Artagnan escapes.

Relating the adventure to Athos later, the two men discover that Milady is Athos's wife, a woman whom he thought he hanged after he discovered that she was a branded criminal. Athos and d'Artagnan decide to sell Milady's "tainted" ring — which originally belonged to Athos's family — and now they are both able to buy their equipment for the siege of La Rochelle. Meantime, Porthos has obtained his equipment from his aging, miserly mistress, and Aramis has obtained his equipment from his beloved friend, Madame de Chevreuse.

Before d'Artagnan and the musketeers leave in their separate regiments for the siege, the king becomes ill, and d'Artagnan's group moves out first, leaving the musketeers behind for the time being to await the king. d'Artagnan is lonesome for his friends and, one day, he wanders off alone — not a wise decision, because he is fired at by two of Milady's hired assassions. Later, during a dangerous mission that d'Artagnan is leading, the same two assassins again try to kill him. When this attempt fails, Milady decides to have some poisoned wine delivered to d'Artagnan -compliments of "the three musketeers." D'Artagnan does not realize that the wine is poisoned, and he is so busy talking that he fails to drink the wine immediately. Instead, another soldier drinks the wine — and falls dead.

Meanwhile, the three musketeers are enjoying their leisure time, drinking and joking, and, by chance, they meet the cardinal, who is going to a meeting with Milady, who is staying at the inn which the musketeers just left. The musketeers accompany the cardinal and listen through a broken stovepipe to the conversation.

Milady, they learn, is going to London to make sure that the duke of Buckingham is killed; in return, the cardinal will take revenge against d'Artagnan. The musketeers immediately decide on a plan to warn d'Artagnan and Buckingham. Thus, when Milady arrives in England, she is taken prisoner by her brother-in-law, de Winter. However, she cleverly corrupts her jailer, convinces him (a religious puritan fanatic) that Buckingham deserves to be put to death, and he obeys her.

She then escapes to France, where she is determined to complete her revenge against d'Artagnan. She goes to the convent where the queen has placed Constance Bonacieux, d'Artagnan's beloved, for protection, and there Milady wins the young girl's confidence. Precisely when d'Artagnan and the musketeers arrive to rescue Constance, Milady poisons her and escapes.

D'Artagnan and the musketeers track her down, accuse her of her many crimes — and execute her. When the entire story is revealed later to the cardinal, he is horrified at the extent of Milady's evil web of death, and he is extremely impressed with d'Artagnan's laudable actions. Consequently, he writes out a commission for d'Artagnan to become a lieutenant in the King's Musketeers. After offering the commission to Athos, Porthos, and Aramis and being refused by all three, d'Artagnan accepts the prestigious commission at the early age of twenty-one.