Gladiator is a 2000 epic historical drama film directed by Ridley Scott, starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Ralf Moller, Oliver Reed, Djimon Hounsou, Derek Jacobi, John Shrapnel and Richard Harris. Crowe portrays the fictional character, loyal Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius, who is betrayed when the emperor's ambitious son, Commodus, murders his father and seizes the throne. Reduced to slavery, Maximus rises through the ranks of the gladiatorial arena to avenge the murder of his family and his emperor.

Paul Mauriat (4 March 1925 – 3 November 2006) was a French orchestra leader, conductor of Le Grand Orchestre de Paul Mauriat, who specialized in the easy listening genre. He is best known in the United States for his million selling remake of Andre Popp's "Love is Blue", which was #1 for 5 weeks in 1968. Other recordings for which he is known include El Bimbo, "Toccata" and "Penelope."

Sandra Ann Lauer, stage name Sandra (born 18 May 1962) is a German pop singer, who dominated European charts with eighteen top 20 hits during the 1980s and early 1990s, with the help of her then-husband and musical partner, Michael Cretu. During a brief height of popularity, she even outsold Madonna in a number of countries around the world. At the start of her career, from 1979 to 1984, she was the lead singer of the female disco/dance trio Arabesque, which had a massive following in Japan and Russia.