Person of the Year 2007

His final year as Russia's President has been his most successful yet. At home, he secured his political future. Abroad, he expanded his outsize—if not always benign—influence on global affairs

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If you hate mimes (it's a common prejudice), blame the poor imitators of this eloquent pantomime artist, not the man himself. A hero of the French Resistance, Marceau was an international postwar sensation playing the silent Everyman trapped in a cage or walking against the wind. In Mel Brooks' Silent Movie he spoke the film's only word: Non! But his life was one long affirmative, revealing the possibilities in a smile, a shrug, the will to move on.

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