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Who played Drew Barrymore's stepmother in Ever After?	tc_1119	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Ever_After.txt" ], "title": [ "Ever After" ], "wiki_context": [ "Ever After (known in promotional material as Ever After: A Cinderella Story) is a 1998 American romantic drama film inspired by the fairy tale Cinderella. It was directed by Andy Tennant and stars Drew Barrymore, Anjelica Huston, and Dougray Scott. The screenplay was written by Tennant, Susannah Grant, and Rick Parks. The original music score was composed by George Fenton. The film's closing theme song \"Put Your Arms Around Me\" is performed by the rock band Texas.\n\nThe usual pantomime and comic/supernatural elements are removed and the story is instead treated as historical fiction, set in Renaissance-era France. It is often seen as a modern, post-feminism interpretation of the Cinderella myth. \n\nPlot\n\nIn the 19th century, a Grande Dame (Jeanne Moreau) summons The Brothers Grimm to her palace, where the brothers discuss their interpretation of the Cinderella story and notice a painting displayed in the room. The Grande Dame shows the brothers a glass slipper and tells them the story of Danielle de Barbarac, the true story of Cinderella. In 16th-century France, widower Auguste de Barbarac (Jeroen Krabbé), father of eight-year-old Danielle, marries Rodmilla de Ghent (Anjelica Huston), a wealthy baroness with two young daughters, Marguerite and Jacqueline, but he dies of a heart attack shortly afterwards. Before dying, Auguste's last words are directed to Danielle, which causes the Baroness to envy Danielle and treat her miserably for the next ten years. While Marguerite (Megan Dodds) is hostile and cruel to Danielle, Jacqueline (Melanie Lynskey) is kinder and more respectful to her, though she often stays out of the crossfires to keep the peace. By the time Danielle (Drew Barrymore) is eighteen, the estate has fallen into decline, as the Baroness has no interest in farming and wishes to get back to court as soon as possible. \n\nDanielle has been reduced to a servant in her own home, waiting on her stepmother and stepsisters, and clinging to her father's last gift, a copy of Thomas More's Utopia. While collecting apples, Danielle sees a man stealing her father's horse and unseats him with an apple. When she recognizes he is Prince Henry (Dougray Scott), she abases herself. He gives her a bag of gold in exchange for her silence. She decides to use the money to rescue their servant, Maurice (Walter Sparrow), whom the Baroness has sold to pay her debts. Henry's escape from the duties of court is foiled when he encounters a band of gypsies robbing an old man. He learns that the old man is Leonardo da Vinci (Patrick Godfrey), who has been summoned to court. Henry chases a thief and returns the Mona Lisa to da Vinci, then returns with him. Meanwhile, Danielle dresses as a noblewoman and leaves to buy back Maurice, but the guards refuse, saying he is being deported to the Americas. She argues for his release and, when Henry overhears, he orders Maurice's release. \n\nIntrigued by Danielle's mysterious identity, and amazed by her eloquence and passionate pleas, he begs for her name. Danielle gives Henry the name of her mother, \"Comtesse Nicole de Lancret\", who died giving birth to Danielle. King Francis (Timothy West) and Queen Marie (Judy Parfitt) tell Henry that he must choose a bride before the upcoming masquerade ball, or he will have to wed the Spanish princess Gabriella. All the noble families receive an invitation and Danielle initially believes she is included. When collecting truffles, she meets Henry by the river in the company of da Vinci. Henry and Danielle engage in a lively debate before Danielle runs off after she notices Jacqueline searching for her. Henry invites her to visit the library of a nearby monastery. On the way home, they are ambushed by the gypsies, who are amused by Danielle's outrage and agree to release her with whatever she can carry. When she picks up Henry and begins to walk away, the gypsies offer them a horse. Henry and Danielle spend the night at the gypsy camp, sharing their first kiss and arranging to meet again. \n\nThe next morning, Danielle catches the Baroness and Marguerite stealing her mother's dress and slippers for Marguerite to wear to the ball. After Marguerite insults Danielle about her mother's death, she punches Marguerite in the face and chases her around the manor until Marguerite threatens to throw Utopia into the fireplace. Danielle returns her mother's slippers to the Baroness in exchange for the book but Marguerite burns it in the fire anyway in an act of spite. After Danielle is punished by whipping, Jacqueline tends to her wounds and condemns Marguerite for insulting Danielle's deceased mother. When Danielle meets Henry later, she wishes to tell him the truth, but is afraid he will reject her after he confesses his love. During a lunch with the Queen, the Baroness discovers that Danielle is the Countess Henry has been spending time with. In an effort to keep Henry and Danielle apart, the Baroness tells the Queen that Danielle is engaged to a Belgian man. The Baroness confronts Danielle and accuses her of stealing the dress and slippers as they have disappeared. When Danielle insults Marguerite, the Baroness locks her in the pantry. \n\nDanielle's childhood friend Gustave (Lee Ingleby) goes to da Vinci who helps free her, then makes her a pair of wings for the ball with her mother's dress and slippers. Danielle arrives at the ball, but moments before she can tell Henry the truth, the Baroness exposes her identity in front of him. Shocked and enraged over Danielle's deception, Henry refuses any explanation from her. Heartbroken, Danielle flees the castle, losing one of her slippers. Leonardo finds it, and reprimands Henry for his attitude to no avail, leaving him with the slipper. The wedding of Henry and Gabriella begins, but seeing how unhappy she is, Henry calls the wedding off, letting her return to the man she's in love with. Henry runs out to look for Danielle, only to find out from Jacqueline that the Baroness has sold her to vile landowner Pierre le Pieu (Richard O'Brien). When Pierre makes sexual advances towards Danielle, she cuts Pierre's face with a sword and threatens to dismember him, but Pierre surrenders and gives Danielle the key to the shackles that he forced her to wear.\n\nHenry arrives just as Danielle leaves Pierre's mansion. Henry apologizes for his ignorance and proposes to Danielle by putting the glass slipper on her foot. Danielle cries into Henry's arms and they kiss. The Baroness and her daughters are summoned to the court, assuming that Henry plans to propose to Marguerite. The Baroness is publicly accused of lying to the Queen, stripped of her title and she and Marguerite are threatened to be exiled to the Americas if no one will speak on their behalf. At the last minute, Danielle speaks for them. Henry introduces Danielle as his wife and Danielle asks the King and Queen to show her stepmother and sister the same courtesy they had shown her. The Baroness and Marguerite are sent to work as laundry maids for the rest of their lives, while Jacqueline is spared punishment due to her kindness and becomes Danielle's lady-in-waiting. After da Vinci gives the newlywed couple a painting as a gift, Henry and Danielle share a kiss. The Grande Dame tells The Brothers Grimm that Danielle was her ancestor, and that Danielle and Henry did live happily ever after, but the point is that they lived.\n\nHistorical Context\n\nWhile the actual story is fictional, it involves several historical figures, places and events. The film is set in the 16th Century and features either the presence or mentions of Francis I, his queen, Prince Henry, Leonardo da Vinci, the explorer Cartier, the Grimm brothers, Perrault, the French colonies in the New World, the university, the 'ruins' at Amboise and the French Revolution.\n\nCast\n\n* Drew Barrymore as Danielle de Barbarac / \"Comtesse Nicole de Lancret\"\n** Anna Maguire as 8-year-old Danielle\n* Anjelica Huston as Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent\n* Dougray Scott as Prince Henry\n* Megan Dodds as Marguerite de Ghent\n** Elizabeth Earl as young Marguerite\n* Melanie Lynskey as Jacqueline de Ghent\n** Alex Pooley as young Jacqueline\n* Patrick Godfrey as Leonardo da Vinci\n* Timothy West as King Francis\n* Judy Parfitt as Queen Marie \n* Richard O'Brien as Pierre le Pieu\n* Jeroen Krabbé as Auguste de Barbarac\n* Lee Ingleby as Gustave\n** Ricki Cuttell as young Gustave\n* Matyelok Gibbs as Louise\n* Kate Lansbury as Paulette\n* Walter Sparrow as Maurice\n* Toby Jones as Royal Page\n* Peter Gunn as Captain Laurent\n* Jeanne Moreau as Grande Dame\n* Joerg Stadler as Wilhelm Grimm\n* Andy Henderson as Jacob Grimm\n\nProduction\n\nEver After was filmed in Super 35 mm film format; however, both the widescreen and pan-and-scan versions are included on the DVD. This is the only Super 35mm film directed by Tennant; his previous films were filmed with spherical lenses, while his subsequent films used anamorphic.\n\nThe castle shown in the film is the Château de Hautefort, in the Dordogne region of France. Other featured châteaux are de Fénelon, de Losse, de Lanquais, de Beynac as well as the city of Sarlat-la-Canéda.\n \nThe painting of Danielle seen in the film is based on Leonardo Da Vinci's Head of a Woman (La Scapigliata).\n\nCritical reception\n\nEver After is regarded as one of the best interpretations of the Cinderella story. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 91% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 64 reviews, with an average score of 7.5/10. The critical consensus states: \"Ever After is a sweet, frothy twist on the ancient fable, led by a solid turn from star Barrymore.\" Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a favorable score of 66 based on 22 reviews. \n\nLisa Schwarzbaum from Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B-, saying: \"Against many odds, Ever After comes up with a good one. This novel variation is still set in the once-upon-a-time 16th century, but it features an active, 1990s-style heroine -- she argues about economic theory and civil rights with her royal suitor -- rather than a passive, exploited hearth sweeper who warbles 'A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes'.\" She also praised Anjelica Huston's performance as a cruel stepmother: \"Huston does a lot of eye narrowing and eyebrow raising while toddling around in an extraordinary selection of extreme headgear, accompanied by her two less-than-self-actualized daughters -- the snooty, social-climbing, nasty Marguerite, and the dim, lumpy, secretly nice Jacqueline. \"Nothing is final until you're dead\", Mama instructs her girls at the dinner table, \"and even then I'm sure God negotiates\".\n\nChicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert, while praising the film with three out of four stars, wrote that \"The movie [...] is one of surprises, not least that the old tale still has life and passion in it. I went to the screening expecting some sort of soppy children's picture and found myself in a costume romance with some of the same energy and zest as The Mask of Zorro. And I was reminded again that Drew Barrymore can hold the screen and involve us in her characters. [...] Here, as the little cinder girl, she is able to at last put aside her bedraggled losers and flower as a fresh young beauty, and she brings poignancy and fire to the role.\" \n\nHome media\n\nThe film was released on DVD on March 3, 1999. On January 4, 2011, the film was released on Blu-ray. \n\nMusical adaptation\n\nA Broadway musical is currently in the works, with the book and lyrics by Marcy Heisler and music by Zina Goldrich. The musical was originally scheduled to have its world premiere in April 2009 at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco, but the pre-Broadway run was postponed. In May 2012, it was announced that the project is back on track with Kathleen Marshall signing on to direct a Broadway run. \n\nA workshop of the musical was held from April 25-May 15, 2013 with Sierra Boggess as Danielle, Jeremy Jordan as Prince Henry, and Ashley Spencer as Marguerite. The musical made its world premiere at the Paper Mill Playhouse from May 21-June 21, 2015. Christine Ebersole played the role of Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent. Alongside Ebersole, Margo Seibert starred as Danielle, James Snyder as Henry, Charles Shaughnessy as King Francis, and Tony Sheldon as Da Vinci." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Anjelica Huston", "Anjelica Houston", "Huston, Anjelica", "Angelica Huston", "Angelica Houston", "Angellica Huston" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "anjelica houston", "angelica houston", "angelica huston", "anjelica huston", "angellica huston", "huston anjelica" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "angelica houston", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Angelica Houston" }
In which 1998 film did Bruce Willis lead a team to confront a deadly threat from outer space?	tc_1121	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "Search" ], "filename": [ "Bruce_Willis.txt", "Armageddon_(1998_film).txt" ], "title": [ "Bruce Willis", "Armageddon (1998 film)" ], "wiki_context": [ "Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is an American actor, producer, and singer. His career began on the Off-Broadway stage and then in television in the 1980s, most notably as David Addison in Moonlighting (1985–1989). He is known for his role of John McClane in the Die Hard series. He has appeared in over 60 films, including Color of Night (1994), Pulp Fiction (1994), 12 Monkeys (1995), The Fifth Element (1997), Armageddon (1998), The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Sin City (2005), Red (2010), The Expendables 2 (2012), and Looper (2012).\n\nWillis married actress Demi Moore in 1987, and they had three daughters, including Rumer, before their divorce in 2000. Since 2009, he has been married to model Emma Heming, with whom he has two daughters.\n\nEarly life \n\nWillis was born Walter Bruce Willis on March 19, 1955 in the town of Idar-Oberstein, West Germany. His father, David Willis (1929-2009), was an American soldier. His mother, Marlene, was German, born in Kassel. Willis is the oldest of four children: he has a sister, Florence, and a brother, David. His brother Robert died of pancreatic cancer in 2001, aged 42. \n\nAfter being discharged from the military in 1957, Willis's father took his family back to Carneys Point Township, New Jersey.Stated on Inside the Actors Studio, 2001 Willis has described himself as having come from a \"long line of blue collar people\". His mother worked in a bank and his father was a welder, master mechanic, and factory worker. Willis attended Penns Grove High School in his hometown, where he encountered issues with a stutter. He was nicknamed \"Buck-Buck\" by his schoolmates. Finding it easy to express himself on stage and losing his stutter in the process, Willis began performing on stage; his high school activities were marked by such things as the drama club and being student council president.\n\nAfter high school, Willis took a job as a security guard at the Salem Nuclear Power Plant and transported work crews at the DuPont Chambers Works factory in Deepwater, New Jersey. After working as a private investigator (a role he would play in the television series Moonlighting and the 1991 film The Last Boy Scout), Willis turned to acting. He enrolled in the Drama Program at Montclair State University, where he was cast in the class production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Willis left school in his junior year and moved to New York City, where in the early 1980s he supported himself as a bartender at the West 19th Street art bar Kamikaze. \n\nCareer \n\n1980s \n\nWillis left New York City and headed to California to audition for several television shows. In 1984, he appeared in an episode of the TV series Miami Vice, titled \"No Exit\". In 1985, he was the guest actor in the first episode of the 1980s revival of The Twilight Zone, \"Shatterday\". He auditioned for the role of David Addison Jr. of the television series Moonlighting (1985–89), competing against 3,000 other actors for the position. The starring role, opposite Cybill Shepherd, helped to establish him as a comedic actor, with the show lasting five seasons winning him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Television Series Musical or Comedy. During the height of the show's success, beverage maker Seagram hired Willis as the pitchman for their Golden Wine Cooler products. The advertising campaign paid the rising star between $5–7 million over two years. In spite of that, Willis chose not to renew his contract with the company when he decided to stop drinking alcohol in 1988. \n\nWillis had his first lead role in a feature film in the 1987 Blake Edwards film Blind Date, with Kim Basinger and John Larroquette. Edwards cast him again to play the real-life cowboy actor Tom Mix in Sunset (1988). However, it was his then-unexpected turn in the film Die Hard (1988) as John McClane that catapulted him to movie star and action hero status. He performed most of his own stunts in the film, and the film grossed $138,708,852 worldwide. Following his success with Die Hard, he had a leading role in the drama In Country as Vietnam veteran Emmett Smith and also provided the voice for a talking baby in Look Who's Talking, as well as its sequel Look Who's Talking Too.\n\nIn the late 1980s, Willis enjoyed moderate success as a recording artist, recording an album of pop-blues titled The Return of Bruno, which included the hit single \"Respect Yourself\" featuring The Pointer Sisters. The LP was promoted by a Spinal Tap–like rockumentary parody featuring scenes of Willis performing at famous events including Woodstock. He released a version of the Drifters song \"Under the Boardwalk\" as a second single; it got to No. 2 in the UK Top 40 but was less successful in the U.S. Willis returned to the recording studio several times afterward. (See Discography below.)\n\n1990s \n\nHaving acquired major personal success and pop culture influence playing John McClane in Die Hard, Willis reprised his role in the sequels Die Hard 2 (1990) and Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995). These first three installments in the Die Hard series grossed over US$700 million internationally and propelled Willis to the first rank of Hollywood action stars.\n\nIn the early 1990s, Willis's career suffered a moderate slump, as he starred in flops such as The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), Striking Distance (1993) and a film he co-wrote, Hudson Hawk (1991), among others. He starred in a leading role in the highly sexualized erotic thriller, Color of Night (1994): another box office failure, it was savaged by critics but did well in the home video market and became one of the Top 20 most-rented films in the United States in 1995. \n\nIn 1994, he had a supporting role in Quentin Tarantino's acclaimed Pulp Fiction, which gave a new boost to his career. In 1996, he was the executive producer and star of the cartoon Bruno the Kid which featured a CGI representation of himself. He went on to play the lead roles in Twelve Monkeys (1995) and The Fifth Element (1997). However, by the end of the 1990s, his career had fallen into another slump with critically panned films, like The Jackal, Mercury Rising, and Breakfast of Champions, saved only by the success of the Michael Bay-directed Armageddon which was the highest-grossing film of 1998 worldwide. The same year his voice and likeness were featured in the PlayStation video game Apocalypse. In 1999, Willis then went on to the starring role in M. Night Shyamalan's film, The Sixth Sense. The film was both a commercial and critical success and helped to increase interest in his acting career.\n\n2000s \n\nIn 2000, Willis won an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his work on Friends (in which he played the father of Ross Geller's much-younger girlfriend). He was also nominated for a 2001 American Comedy Award (in the Funniest Male Guest Appearance in a TV Series category) for his work on Friends. Also in 2000, Willis played Jimmy \"The Tulip\" Tudeski in The Whole Nine Yards alongside Matthew Perry. Willis was originally cast as Terry Benedict in Ocean's Eleven (2001) but dropped out to work on recording an album. In Ocean's Twelve (2004), he makes a cameo appearance as himself. In 2005, he appeared in the film adaptation of Sin City. In 2007, he appeared in the Planet Terror half of the double feature Grindhouse as the villain, a mutant soldier. This marked Willis's second collaboration with director Robert Rodriguez, following Sin City.\n\nWillis has appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman several times throughout his career. He filled in for an ill David Letterman on his show February 26, 2003, when he was supposed to be a guest. On many of his appearances on the show, Willis stages elaborate jokes, such as wearing a day-glo orange suit in honor of the Central Park gates, having one side of his face made up with simulated buckshot wounds after the Harry Whittington shooting, or trying to break a record (parody of David Blaine) of staying underwater for only twenty seconds.\n\nOn April 12, 2007, he appeared again, this time wearing a Sanjaya Malakar wig. On his June 25, 2007, appearance, he wore a mini-turban on his head to accompany a joke about his own fictional documentary titled An Unappealing Hunch (a wordplay on An Inconvenient Truth). Willis also appeared in Japanese Subaru Legacy television commercials. Tying in with this, Subaru did a limited run of Legacys, badged \"Subaru Legacy Touring Bruce\", in honor of Willis.\n\nWillis has appeared in four films with Samuel L. Jackson (National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1, Pulp Fiction, Die Hard with a Vengeance, and Unbreakable) and both actors were slated to work together in Black Water Transit, before dropping out. Willis also worked with his eldest daughter, Rumer, in the 2005 film Hostage. In 2007, he appeared in the thriller Perfect Stranger, opposite Halle Berry, the crime/drama film Alpha Dog, opposite Sharon Stone, and reprised his role as John McClane in Live Free or Die Hard. Subsequently, he appeared in the films What Just Happened and Surrogates, based on the comic book of the same name. \n\nWillis was slated to play U.S. Army general William R. Peers in director Oliver Stone's Pinkville, a drama about the investigation of the 1968 My Lai Massacre. However, due to the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike, the film was cancelled. Willis appeared on the 2008 Blues Traveler album North Hollywood Shootout, giving a spoken word performance over an instrumental blues rock jam on the track \"Free Willis (Ruminations from Behind Uncle Bob's Machine Shop)\". In early 2009, he appeared in an advertising campaign to publicize the insurance company Norwich Union's change of name to Aviva. \n\n2010s \n\nWillis starred with Tracy Morgan in the comedy Cop Out, directed by Kevin Smith and about two police detectives investigating the theft of a baseball card. The film was released in February 2010. Willis appeared in the music video for the song \"Stylo\" by Gorillaz. Also in 2010, he appeared in a cameo with former Planet Hollywood co-owners and '80s action stars Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the film The Expendables. Willis played the role of generic bald man \"Mr. Church\". This was the first time these three legendary action stars appeared on screen together. Although the scene featuring the three was short, it was one of the most highly anticipated scenes in the film. The trio filmed their scene in an empty church on October 24, 2009. Willis next starred in RED, an adaptation of the comic book mini-series of the same name, in which he portrayed Frank Moses. The film was released on October 15, 2010. \n\nWillis starred alongside Bill Murray, Edward Norton, and Frances McDormand in Moonrise Kingdom (2012). Filming took place in Rhode Island under the direction of Wes Anderson, in 2011. Willis returned, in an expanded role, in The Expendables 2 (2012). He appeared alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the sci-fi action film, Looper (2012), as the older version of Gordon-Levitt's character, Joe.\n\nWillis teamed up with 50 Cent in a film directed by David Barrett called Fire with Fire, starring opposite Josh Duhamel and Rosario Dawson, about a fireman who must save the love of his life. Willis also joined Vince Vaughn and Catherine Zeta-Jones in Lay the Favorite, directed by Stephen Frears, about a Las Vegas cocktail waitress who becomes an elite professional gambler. The two films were distributed by Lionsgate Entertainment.\n\nWillis reprised his most famous role, John McClane, for a fifth time, starring in A Good Day to Die Hard, which was released on February 14, 2013. In an interview, Willis said, \"I have a warm spot in my heart for Die Hard..... it's just the sheer novelty of being able to play the same character over 25 years and still be asked back is fun. It's much more challenging to have to do a film again and try to compete with myself, which is what I do in Die Hard. I try to improve my work every time.\" \n\nOn October 12, 2013, Willis hosted Saturday Night Live with Katy Perry as a musical guest.\n\nWillis will star in the movie adaptation of the video game Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, named Kane & Lynch. \n\nIn 2015, Willis made his Broadway debut in William Goldman's adaptation of Stephen King's novel Misery opposite Laurie Metcalf at the Broadhurst Theatre. \n\nBusiness activities \n\nFilms featuring Willis have grossed between US$2.64 billion and $3.05 billion at the North American box offices, making him in 2010 the eighth highest-grossing actor in a leading role and 12th-highest including supporting roles. He is a two-time Emmy Award winner, two-time Golden Globe Award winner, and has been nominated for a Saturn Award four times.\n\nWillis owns property in Los Angeles and in Penns Grove, New Jersey; rents apartments at Trump Tower and in Riverside South, Manhattan, both in New York City; has a home in Malibu, California; a ranch in Montana; a beach home on Parrot Cay in Turks and Caicos; and multiple properties in Sun Valley, Idaho.\n\nIn 2000, Willis, with his business partner Arnold Rifkin, started a motion picture production company called Cheyenne Enterprises. He left the company to be run solely by Rifkin in 2007 after Live Free or Die Hard. He also owns several small businesses in Hailey, Idaho, including The Mint Bar and The Liberty Theater and is a co-founder of Planet Hollywood, with actors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. In 2009 Willis signed a contract to become the international face of Belvedere SA's Sobieski Vodka in exchange for 3.3% ownership in the company. \n\nPersonal life \n\nWillis' acting role models are Gary Cooper, Robert De Niro, Steve McQueen and John Wayne. Willis is left handed. \n\nRelationships and children \n\nAt the premiere for the film Stakeout, Willis met actress Demi Moore. They married on November 21, 1987, and had three daughters: Rumer Willis (born August 16, 1988), Scout (born July 20, 1991), and Tallulah (born 1994). They announced their separation on June 24, 1998, and filed for divorce on October 18, 2000. \n Regarding the divorce, Willis stated, \"I felt I had failed as a father and a husband by not being able to make it work.\" He credited actor Will Smith for helping him cope with the situation. Willis has maintained a close relationship with both Moore and her third husband, actor Ashton Kutcher, and attended their wedding.\n\nWillis was engaged to actress Brooke Burns until they broke up in 2004 after ten months together. He married model Emma Heming in Turks and Caicos on March 21, 2009; guests included his three daughters, Demi Moore, and Ashton Kutcher. The ceremony was not legally binding, so the couple wed again in a civil ceremony in Beverly Hills, six days later. The couple has two daughters: Mabel Ray Willis (b. 2012) and Evelyn Penn Willis (b. 2014). \n\nReligious views \n\nWillis was, at one point, Lutheran (specifically Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod), but no longer practices. In a July 1998 interview with George magazine, he stated:\n\nPolitical views \n\nIn 1988, Willis and then-wife Demi Moore campaigned for Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis's Presidential bid. Four years later, he supported President George H. W. Bush for reelection and was an outspoken critic of Bill Clinton. However, in 1996, he declined to endorse Clinton's Republican opponent Bob Dole, because Dole had criticized Demi Moore for her role in the film Striptease. Willis was an invited speaker at the 2000 Republican National Convention, and supported George W. Bush that year. He did not make any contributions or public endorsements in the 2008 presidential campaign. In several June 2007 interviews, he declared that he maintains some Republican ideologies.\n\nIn 2006, he said that the United States should intervene more into Colombia, in order to end the drug trafficking. In several interviews Willis has said that he supports large salaries for teachers and police officers, and said he is disappointed in the United States foster care system as well as treatment of Native Americans. Willis also stated that he is a supporter of gun rights, stating, \"Everyone has a right to bear arms. If you take guns away from legal gun owners, then the only people who have guns are the bad guys.\" \n\nIn February 2006, Willis appeared in Manhattan to talk about his film 16 Blocks with reporters. One reporter attempted to ask Willis about his opinion on the current government, but was interrupted by Willis in mid-sentence: \"I'm sick of answering this fucking question. I'm a Republican only as far as I want a smaller government, I want less government intrusion. I want them to stop shitting on my money and your money and tax dollars that we give 50 percent of every year. I want them to be fiscally responsible and I want these goddamn lobbyists out of Washington. Do that and I'll say I'm a Republican. I hate the government, OK? I'm apolitical. Write that down. I'm not a Republican.\" \n\nWillis' name was in an advertisement in the Los Angeles Times on August 17, 2006, that condemned Hamas and Hezbollah and supported Israel in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war. \n\nMilitary interests \n\nThroughout his film career, Willis has depicted several military characters in films such as The Siege, Hart's War, Tears of the Sun, Grindhouse and G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Growing up in a military family, Willis has publicly sold Girl Scout cookies for the United States armed forces. In 2002, Willis's then 8-year-old daughter, Tallulah, suggested that he purchase Girl Scout cookies to send to troops. Willis purchased 12,000 boxes of cookies, and they were distributed to sailors aboard USS John F. Kennedy and other troops stationed throughout the Middle East at the time. In 2003, Willis visited Iraq as part of the USO tour, singing to the troops with his band, The Accelerators. Willis considered joining the military to help fight the second Iraq war, but was deterred by his age. It was believed he offered $1 million to any noncombatant who turns in terrorist leaders Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; in the June 2007 issue of Vanity Fair, however, he clarified that the statement was made hypothetically and not meant to be taken literally. Willis has also criticized the media for its coverage of the war, complaining that the press were more likely to focus on the negative aspects of the war:\n\nI went to Iraq because what I saw when I was over there was soldiers—young kids for the most part—helping people in Iraq; helping getting the power turned back on, helping get hospitals open, helping get the water turned back on and you don't hear any of that on the news. You hear, 'X number of people were killed today,' which I think does a huge disservice. It's like spitting on these young men and women who are over there fighting to help this country. \n\nWillis stated in 2005 that he wanted to \"make a pro-war film in which American soldiers will be depicted as brave fighters for freedom and democracy.\" The film would follow members of Deuce Four, the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, who spent considerable time in Mosul and were decorated heavily for it. The film is to be based on the writings of blogger Michael Yon, a former United States Army Special Forces soldier who was embedded with Deuce Four and sent regular dispatches about their activities. Willis described the plot of the film as \"these guys who do what they are asked for very little money to defend and fight for what they consider to be freedom.\" \n\nCultural references \n\nIn 1996, Roger Director, a writer and producer from Moonlighting, wrote a roman à clef on Willis titled A Place to Fall. Cybill Shepherd wrote in her 2000 autobiography, Cybill Disobedience, that Willis was angry at Director, because the character was written as a \"neurotic, petulant actor.\" In 1998, Willis participated in Apocalypse, a PlayStation video game. The game was originally announced to feature Willis as a sidekick, not as the main character. The company reworked the game using Willis's likeness and voice and changed the game to use him as the main character. In Quebec, Canada, Willis' voice has been overdubbed in French, in 28 of his films, by Jean-Luc Montminy. \n\nFilmography \n\nDiscography \n\nSolo albums\n1987: The Return of Bruno (Motown, )\n1989: If It Don't Kill You, It Just Makes You Stronger (Motown/Pgd, )\n2001: Classic Bruce Willis: The Universal Masters Collection (Polygram Int'l, )\n\nCompilations/Guest appearances\n1986: Moonlighting soundtrack; track \"Good Lovin'\"\n1991: Hudson Hawk soundtrack; tracks \"Swinging on a Star\" and \"Side by Side\", both duets with Danny Aiello\n2003: Rugrats Go Wild soundtrack; \"Big Bad Cat\" with Chrissie Hynde and \"Lust for Life\"\n2008: North Hollywood Shootout, Blues Traveler; track \"Free Willis (Ruminations from Behind Uncle Bob's Machine Shop)\"\n\nAwards and honors \n\nWillis has won a variety of awards and has received various honors throughout his career in television and film.\n1986/87: Emmy (Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series) and Golden Globe (Best Performance by an Actor in a TV-Series – Comedy/Musical) Awards for Moonlighting (also received four nominations for the show) \n1986: Nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for In Country\n1994: Maxim magazine ranked his sex scene in Color of Night the #1 sex scene in film history \n1998: Golden Raspberry Award (Worst Actor) for Armageddon, Mercury Rising and The Siege\n2000: Blockbuster Entertainment Award (\"Favorite Actor – Suspense\") and the People's Choice Award (\"Favorite Motion Picture Star in a Drama\") for The Sixth Sense (also nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Actor and received two nominations for the MTV Movie Awards for \"Best Male Performance\" and \"Best On-Screen Duo\")\n2000: Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for Friends\n2002: The Hasty Pudding Man of the Year award from Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals – given to performers who give a lasting and impressive contribution to the world of entertainment \n2002: Appointed as national spokesman for Children in Foster Care by President George W. Bush; Willis wrote online: \"I saw Foster Care as a way for me to serve my country in a system by which shining a little bit of light could benefit a great deal by helping kids who were literally wards of the government.\"\n2006: Honored by French government for his contributions to the film industry; appointed an Officer of the French Order of Arts and Letters in a ceremony in Paris; the French Prime Minister stated, \"This is France's way of paying tribute to an actor who epitomizes the strength of American cinema, the power of the emotions that he invites us to share on the world's screens and the sturdy personalities of his legendary characters.\" \n2006: Honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on October 16; located at 6915 Hollywood Boulevard and it was the 2,321st star awarded in its history; at the reception, he stated, \"I used to come down here and look at these stars and I could never quite figure out what you were supposed to do to get one...time has passed and now here I am doing this, and I'm still excited. I'm still excited to be an actor.\" \n2011: Inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame \n2013: Promoted to the dignity of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters on February 11 by French Minister of Culture Aurélie Filippetti", "Armageddon is a 1998 American science fiction disaster thriller film directed by Michael Bay, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and released by Touchstone Pictures. The film follows a group of blue-collar deep-core drillers sent by NASA to stop a gigantic asteroid on a collision course with Earth. It features an ensemble cast including Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler, Owen Wilson, Will Patton, Peter Stormare, William Fichtner, Michael Clarke Duncan, Keith David, and Steve Buscemi.\n\nArmageddon opened in theaters only two and a half months after the similar asteroid impact-based film Deep Impact, which starred Robert Duvall and Morgan Freeman. Armageddon fared better at the box office, while astronomers described Deep Impact as being more scientifically accurate. Armageddon was an international box-office success despite generally negative reviews from critics, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1998 worldwide.\n\nPlot\n\nThe film opens on depicting the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event caused by a collision of an asteroid striking the Earth 65 million years ago, with narration warning that such an event will happen again.\n\nIn the present day, a massive meteor shower destroys the orbiting Space Shuttle Atlantis and bombards a swath of land from the U.S. East Coast to Europe, particularly in New York City. NASA discovers through the Hubble that the meteors were debris propelled from the asteroid belt by a rogue asteroid roughly the size of Texas. The asteroid will collide with Earth in 18 days, causing another extinction event. NASA scientists, led by Dan Truman, plan to trigger a thermonuclear detonation at least 800 ft inside the asteroid to split it in two, driving the pieces apart so both will fly past the Earth. NASA contacts Harry Stamper, considered the best deep-sea oil driller in the world, for assistance. Harry insists he will need his full team to help execute NASA's plan, and they agree to help but only after their list of unusual rewards are met.\n\nNASA plans to launch two specialized shuttles, Freedom and Independence, to increase the chances of success; the shuttles will refill with liquid oxygen from a Russian space station before making a slingshot maneuver around the Moon to approach the asteroid from behind. NASA puts Harry and his crew through a short and rigorous astronaut training program, while Harry's team re-outfit the mobile drillers, \"Armadillos\", for the job. During training, Truman and Harry question the abilities of A.J. Frost, a hot-headed drill operator who has also been dating Harry's daughter Grace against Harry's wishes.\n\nThe destruction of Shanghai by a meteorite forces NASA and the military to reveal the asteroid's existence, as well as their plan. The shuttles are launched and arrive at the space station, where its sole cosmonaut Lev Andropov helps with refueling. A major fire breaks out during the fueling process, forcing the crews, including Lev, to evacuate in the shuttles before the station explodes. The shuttles perform the slingshot around the Moon, but approaching the asteroid, the Independences engines are destroyed by trailing debris, and it crashes on the asteroid. Grace, aware A.J. was aboard the Independence, is traumatized by this news. Unknown to the others, A.J., Lev, and \"Bear\" (another of Harry's crew) survive the impact and head towards the Freedom target site in their Armadillo.\n\nFreedom safely lands on the asteroid, but overshoots the target zone, landing on a much harder metallic field than planned, and their drilling quickly falls behind schedule. The military initiates \"Secondary Protocol\", planning to remotely detonate the weapon at the asteroid's surface, despite Truman and Harry's insistence that it would be ineffective. Truman delays the military, while Harry convinces the shuttle commander Colonel Willie Sharp to disarm the remote trigger. Harry's crew continues to work, but in their haste, they accidentally hit a gas pocket, blowing their Armadillo into space and losing another man. As the world learns of the mission's apparent failure, another meteorite devastates most of Paris.\n\nAll seems lost until Independences Armadillo arrives. With A.J. at the controls, they reach the required depth for the bomb. However, flying debris from the asteroid damages the triggering device, requiring someone to stay behind to manually detonate the bomb. The crew draw straws, and A.J. is selected. As he and Harry exit the airlock, Harry rips off A.J.'s air hose and shoves him back inside, telling him that he is the son Harry never had and gives his blessing to marry Grace. Harry contacts Grace to bid his final farewell. After some last minute difficulties involving both the shuttle engines and the detonator, the Freedom moves to a safe distance and Harry triggers the detontation, experiencing visions of Grace in his final moments. The bomb successfully splits the asteroid, avoiding the collision with Earth. Freedom safely returns to Earth, and the surviving crew are treated as heroes. A.J. and Grace get married, with photos of Harry and the other lost crew members present.\n\nCast\n\n Bruce Willis as Harry Stamper\n* Ben Affleck as A.J. Frost\n* Billy Bob Thornton as Dan Truman\n* Liv Tyler as Grace Stamper.\n* Will Patton as Charles \"Chick\" Chapple\n\n* Steve Buscemi as \"Rockhound\"\n* Michael Clarke Duncan as J. Otis \"Bear\" Kurleen Bear\n* Owen Wilson as Oscar Choice\n* Clark Brolly as Fred Noonan\n* Peter Stormare as Lev Andropov\n\n* William Fichtner as Colonel Willie Sharp\n* Ken Hudson Campbell as Max Lennert\n* Keith David as General Kimsey\n* Jessica Steen as Co-Pilot Jennifer Watts\n* Grayson McCouch as Gruber\n\n* Jason Isaacs as Dr. Ronald Quincy\n* Chris Ellis as Walter Clark\n* Grace Zabriskie as Dottie\n* Judith Hoag as Denise\n* Udo Kier as Psychologist\n\n* Shawnee Smith as Redhead\n* Charlton Heston as the Narrator\n* Michael Bay (uncredited) as NASA scientist\n* Lawrence Tierney (uncredited) as Hollis Vernon Grap Stamper\n* Gedde Watanabe (uncredited) as Asian tourist\n\nProduction\n\nIn May 1998, Walt Disney Studios chairman Joe Roth expanded the film's budget by $3 million to include additional special effects scenes. This additional footage, incorporated two months prior to the film's release, was specifically added for the television advertising campaign to differentiate the film from Deep Impact which was released a few months before. \n\nAccording to Bruce Joel Rubin, writer of Deep Impact, a production president at Disney took notes on everything the writer said during lunch about his script and initiated Armageddon as a counter film at Disney. \n\nNine writers worked on the script, five of whom are credited. In addition to Robert Roy Pool, Jonathan Hensleigh, Tony Gilroy, Shane Salerno and J.J. Abrams, the writers involved included Paul Attanasio, Ann Biderman, Scott Rosenberg and Robert Towne. Originally, it was Hensleigh’s script, based on Pool’s original, that had been greenlighted by Touchstone. Then-producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, hired the succession of scribes for rewrites and polishes. \n\nMusic\n\nTwo soundtrack albums were released for the film. The first, Armageddon: The Album, was released by Columbia Records on June 23, 1998; it consists mainly of songs from the film, with one score suite.\n\nA more complete album of the film score by composers Trevor Rabin and Harry Gregson-Williams was released as Armageddon: Original Motion Picture Score by Sony Classical on November 10, 1998. While not featured on the album, the film also featured additional music by Don L. Harper, Paul Linford, Steve Jablonsky and John Van Tongeren.\n\nRelease\n\nPrior to Armageddons release, the film was advertised in Super Bowl XXXII at a cost of $2.6 million. \n\nHome media\n\nDespite a mixed critical reception, a DVD edition of Armageddon was released by The Criterion Collection, a specialist film distributor of primarily arthouse films that markets what it considers to be \"important classic and contemporary films\" and \"cinema at its finest\". In an essay supporting the selection of Armageddon, film scholar Jeanine Basinger, who taught Michael Bay at Wesleyan University, states that the film is \"a work of art by a cutting-edge artist who is a master of movement, light, color, and shape—and also of chaos, razzle-dazzle, and explosion\". She sees it as a celebration of working men: \"This film makes these ordinary men noble, lifting their efforts up into an epic event.\" Further, she states that in the first few moments of the film all the main characters are well established, saying, \"If that isn't screenwriting, I don't know what is\". The film was also released by Touchstone Home Entertainment on standard edition Blu-ray disc in 2010 with only a few special features.\n\nSpace Shuttle Columbia disaster \n\nFollowing the 2003 Columbia disaster, some screen captures from the opening scene where Atlantis is destroyed were passed off as satellite images of the disaster in a hoax. Additionally, the American cable network FX, which had intended to broadcast Armageddon that evening, removed the film from its schedule and aired Aliens in its place. \n\nReception\n\nBox office\n\nArmageddon was released on , 1998 in in the United States and Canada. It ranked first at the box office with an opening weekend gross of . It grossed in the United States and Canada and in other territories for a worldwide total of .\n\nCritical response\n\nArmageddon received mostly negative reviews from film critics, many of whom took issue with \"the furious pace of its editing\". The film is on the list of Roger Ebert's most hated films. In his original review, Ebert stated, \"The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense and the human desire to be entertained\". On Siskel and Ebert, Ebert gave it a Thumbs Down. However, his co-host Gene Siskel gave it a Thumbs Up. Ebert went on to name Armageddon as the worst film of 1998 (though he was originally considering Spiceworld). Todd McCarthy of Variety also gave the film a negative review, noting Michael Bay's rapid cutting style: \"Much of the confusion, as well as the lack of dramatic rhythm or character development, results directly from Bay's cutting style, which resembles a machine gun stuck in the firing position for 2½ hours.\" The film has a cumulative 39% \"Rotten\" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while achieving a 42% aggregate score on Metacritic.\n\nIn April 2013, in a Miami Herald interview to promote Pain & Gain, Bay was quoted as having said:\n\n...We had to do the whole movie in 16 weeks. It was a massive undertaking. That was not fair to the movie. I would redo the entire third act if I could. But the studio literally took the movie away from us. It was terrible. My visual effects supervisor had a nervous breakdown, so I had to be in charge of that. I called James Cameron and asked ‘What do you do when you’re doing all the effects yourself?’ But the movie did fine. \n\nSome time after the article was published, Bay changed his stance, claiming that his apology only related to the editing of the film, not the whole film, and accused the writer of the article for taking his words out of context. The author of the article, Miami Herald writer Rene Rodriguez claimed: \"NBC asked me for a response, and I played them the tape. I didn’t misquote anyone. All the sites that picked up the story did.\" \n\nScientific accuracy\n\nIn an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Bay admitted that the film's central premise \"that [NASA] could actually do something in a situation like this\" was unrealistic. Robert Roy Pool, a contributing screenwriter, stated that his script, in which an anti-gravity device is used to deflect a comet from a collision course with Earth, was \"much more in line with top-secret research.\" Additionally, near the end of the credits, there is a disclaimer stating, \"The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's cooperation and assistance does not reflect an endorsement of the contents of the film or the treatment of the characters depicted therein.\" \n\nIn 2012, an article titled \"Could Bruce Willis Save the World?\" was published in the Journal of Physics Special Topics, an undergraduate journal used as a teaching tool at the University of Leicester. It found that for Willis' approach to be effective, he would need to be in possession of an H-bomb a billion times stronger than the Soviet Union's \"Tsar Bomba\", the biggest ever detonated on Earth. Using estimates of the asteroid's size, density, speed and distance from Earth based on information in the film, students found that to split the asteroid in two with both pieces clearing Earth, would require 800 zettajoules of energy. In contrast, the total energy output of \"Tsar Bomba\", which was tested by the Soviet Union in 1961, was only 418 petajoules (0.000 418 zettajoules). \n\nIn the commentary track, Ben Affleck says he “asked Michael why it was easier to train oil drillers to become astronauts than it was to train astronauts to become oil drillers, and he told me to shut the fuck up, so that was the end of that talk.” \n\nAccolades\n\nThe film received four Academy Award nominations at the 71st Academy Awards, including; Best Sound (Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell and Keith A. Wester), Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Effects Editing, and Best Original Song (\"I Don't Want to Miss a Thing\" performed by Aerosmith). The film received the Saturn Awards for Best Direction and Best Science Fiction Film (where it tied with Dark City). It was also nominated for seven Razzie Awards including: Worst Actor (Bruce Willis), Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst Supporting Actress (Liv Tyler), Worst Screen Couple (Tyler and Ben Affleck) and Worst Original Song. Only one Razzie was awarded: Bruce Willis received the Worst Actor award for Armageddon, in addition to his appearances in Mercury Rising and The Siege, both released in the same year as this film.\n\nAccolades\n\nAmerican Film Institute recognition\n\n* 2004: AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:\t\n** \"I Don't Want to Miss a Thing\" – Nominated \n\nTheme park attraction\n\nArmageddon – Les Effets Speciaux is an attraction based on Armageddon at Walt Disney Studios Park located at Disneyland Paris. The attraction simulates the scene in the movie in which the Russian Space Station is destroyed. Michael Clarke Duncan (\"Bear\" in the film) is featured in the pre-show." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Amargeddon", "Armageddon theology", "Armaggedon", "Armegeddon", "Battle of Armageddon", "Armagedon", "Armaggeddon", "Armagideon", "Har-Magedon", "Armageddon", "Armogeddon", "Mount Armageddon" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "armageddon", "har magedon", "armaggeddon", "amargeddon", "armagedon", "armageddon theology", "battle of armageddon", "armagideon", "armogeddon", "mount armageddon", "armaggedon", "armegeddon" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "armageddon", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Armageddon" }
Which 1968 sci fi classic was based on The Sentinel by Arthur C Clarke?	tc_1122	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "The_Sentinel_(short_story).txt", "Arthur_C._Clarke.txt" ], "title": [ "The Sentinel (short story)", "Arthur C. Clarke" ], "wiki_context": [ "\"The Sentinel\" is a short story written by Arthur C. Clarke in 1948, first published in 1951 as \"Sentinel of Eternity\", which was used as a starting point for the novel and movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, where it was modified and fused with other ideas. Clarke expressed impatience with its common description as the story that the novel and movie are based on. He explained: \"I am continually annoyed by careless references to 'The Sentinel' as 'the story on which 2001 is based'; it bears about as much relation to the movie as an acorn to the resultant full-grown oak. (Considerably less, in fact, because ideas from several other stories were also incorporated.) Even the elements that Stanley Kubrick and I did actually use were considerably modified. Thus the 'glittering, roughly pyramidal structure... set in the rock like a gigantic, many-faceted jewel' became—after several modifications—the famous black monolith. And the locale was moved from the Mare Crisium to the most spectacular of all lunar craters, Tycho—easily visible to the naked eye from Earth at Full Moon.\" \n\nPublication history\n\n\"The Sentinel\" was written in 1948 for a BBC competition (in which it failed to place) and was first published in the magazine Ten Story Fantasy in 1951, under the title \"Sentinel of Eternity\". It was subsequently published as part of short story collections in Expedition to Earth (1953), The Nine Billion Names of God (1967), and The Lost Worlds of 2001 (1972). Despite the story's initial failure, it changed the course of Clarke's career.\n\nAnthology \n\nThe Sentinel (published 1982) is also the title of a collection of Arthur C. Clarke short stories, which includes the eponymous \"The Sentinel\", \"Guardian Angel\" (the inspiration for his Childhood's End), \"The Songs of Distant Earth\", and \"Breaking Strain\".\n\nStory \n\nThe story deals with the discovery of an artifact on Earth's Moon left behind eons ago by ancient aliens. The object is made of a polished mineral, is tetrahedral in shape, and is surrounded by a spherical forcefield. The narrator speculates at one point that the mysterious aliens who left this structure on the Moon may have used mechanisms belonging \"to a technology that lies beyond our horizons, perhaps to the technology of para-physical forces.\"\n \nThe narrator speculates that for millions of years (evidenced by dust buildup around its forcefield) the artifact has been transmitting signals into deep space, but it ceases to transmit when, sometime later, it is destroyed \"with the savage might of atomic power\". The narrator hypothesizes that this \"sentinel\" was left on the moon as a \"warning beacon\" for possible intelligent and spacefaring species that might develop on Earth.\n\nIn 2001: A Space Odyssey, the operation of the sentinel is activated when sunlight touches it for the first time after it was dug up.\n\nFilm \n\nThe story was adapted and expanded upon in the 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, made by famous filmmaker Stanley Kubrick.", "Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS (16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008) was a British science fiction writer, science writer and futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host.\n\nHe is perhaps most famous for being co-writer of the screenplay for the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, widely considered to be one of the most influential films of all time. His other science fiction writings earned him a number of Hugo and Nebula awards, which along with a large readership made him one of the towering figures of science fiction. For many years Clarke, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov were known as the \"Big Three\" of science fiction.\n\nClarke was a lifelong proponent of space travel. In 1934, while still a teenager, he joined the British Interplanetary Society. In 1945, he proposed a satellite communication system, an idea which won him the Franklin Institute's Stuart Ballantine Medal in 1963, and other honours. Later he was the chairman of the British Interplanetary Society from 1946–47 and again in 1951–53. \n\nClarke was a science writer, who was both an avid populariser of space travel and a futurist of uncanny ability. On these subjects he wrote over a dozen books and many essays, which appeared in various popular magazines. In 1961 he was awarded the Kalinga Prize, an award which is given by UNESCO for popularizing science. These along with his science fiction writings eventually earned him the moniker \"Prophet of the Space Age\". \n\nClarke immigrated to Sri Lanka in 1956, largely to pursue his interest in scuba diving. That year he discovered the underwater ruins of the ancient Koneswaram temple in Trincomalee.\n\nClarke augmented his fame later on in the 1980s, from being the host of several television shows such as Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World.\n\nHe lived in Sri Lanka until his death. He was knighted in 1998 and was awarded Sri Lanka's highest civil honour, Sri Lankabhimanya, in 2005.\n\nBiography\n\nEarly years\n\nClarke was born in Minehead, Somerset, England, and grew up in nearby Bishops Lydeard. As a boy, he grew up on a farm enjoying stargazing and reading old American science fiction pulp magazines. He received his secondary education at Huish Grammar school in Taunton. In his teens, he joined the Junior Astronomical Association and contributed to Urania, the society's journal, which was edited in Glasgow by Marion Eadie. At Clarke's request, she added an Astronautics Section, which featured a series of articles by him on spacecraft and space travel. Clarke also contributed pieces to the Debates and Discussions Corner, a counterblast to a Urania article offering the case against space travel, and also his recollections of the Walt Disney film Fantasia. He moved to London in 1936 and joined the Board of Education as a pensions auditor. \n\nWorld War II\n\nDuring World War II from 1941 to 1946 he served in the Royal Air Force as a radar specialist and was involved in the early-warning radar defence system, which contributed to the RAF's success during the Battle of Britain. Clarke spent most of his wartime service working on ground-controlled approach (GCA) radar, as documented in the semi-autobiographical Glide Path, his only non-science-fiction novel. Although GCA did not see much practical use during the war, it proved vital to the Berlin Airlift of 1948–1949 after several years of development. Clarke initially served in the ranks, and was a corporal instructor on radar at No. 2 Radio School, RAF Yatesbury in Wiltshire. He was commissioned as a pilot officer (technical branch) on 27 May 1943. He was promoted flying officer on 27 November 1943. He was appointed chief training instructor at RAF Honiley in Warwickshire and was demobilised with the rank of flight lieutenant.\n\nPostwar\n\nAfter the war he attained a first-class degree in mathematics and physics from King's College London. After this he worked as assistant editor at Physics Abstracts. Clarke then served as chairman of the British Interplanetary Society from 1946 to 1947 and again from 1951 to 1953. \n\nAlthough he was not the originator of the concept of geostationary satellites, one of his most important contributions in this field may be his idea that they would be ideal telecommunications relays. He advanced this idea in a paper privately circulated among the core technical members of the British Interplanetary Society in 1945. The concept was published in Wireless World in October of that year. Clarke also wrote a number of non-fiction books describing the technical details and societal implications of rocketry and space flight. The most notable of these may be Interplanetary Flight (1950), The Exploration of Space (1951) and The Promise of Space (1968). In recognition of these contributions, the geostationary orbit 36000 km above the equator is officially recognised by the International Astronomical Union as a Clarke Orbit. \n\nOn 20 July 1969 Clarke appeared as a commentator for CBS for the Apollo 11 moon landing. \n\nSexuality\n\nOn a trip to Florida in 1953 Clarke met and quickly married Marilyn Mayfield, a 22-year-old American divorcee with a young son. They separated permanently after six months, although the divorce was not finalised until 1964. \"The marriage was incompatible from the beginning\", said Clarke. Clarke never remarried, but was close to a Sri Lankan man, Leslie Ekanayake, whom Clarke called his \"only perfect friend of a lifetime\", in the dedication to his novel The Fountains of Paradise. Clarke is buried with Ekanayake, who predeceased him by three decades, in Colombo's central cemetery. In his biography of Stanley Kubrick, John Baxter cites Clarke's homosexuality as a reason why he relocated, due to more tolerant laws with regard to homosexuality in Sri Lanka. Journalists who enquired of Clarke whether he was gay were told, \"No, merely mildly cheerful.\" However, Michael Moorcock has written: \nIn an interview in the July 1986 issue of Playboy magazine, when asked if he had had a bisexual experience, Clarke stated \"Of course. Who hasn't?\" In his obituary, Clarke's friend Kerry O'Quinn wrote: \"Yes, Arthur was gay ... As Isaac Asimov once told me, 'I think he simply found he preferred men.' Arthur didn't publicize his sexuality—that wasn't the focus of his life—but if asked, he was open and honest.\" \n\nClarke maintained a vast collection of manuscripts and personal memoirs, maintained by his brother Fred Clarke in Taunton, Somerset, England, and referred to as the \"Clarkives\". Clarke said that some of his private diaries will not be published until 30 years after his death. When asked why they were sealed, he answered, \"Well, there might be all sorts of embarrassing things in them.\"\n\nSri Lanka\n\nClarke lived in Sri Lanka from 1956 until his death in 2008, having immigrated there when it was still called Ceylon, first in Unawatuna on the south coast, and then in Colombo. The Sri Lankan government offered Clarke resident guest status in 1975; he was so influential that the Sri Lanka Air Force provided a helicopter to take a visiting Robert Heinlein around the country. \n\nIn the early 1970s Clarke signed a three-book publishing deal, a record for a science-fiction writer at the time. The first of the three was Rendezvous with Rama in 1973, which won all the main genre awards and spawned sequels that along with the 2001 series formed the backbone of his later career.\n\nIn a 1974 taped interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the interviewer asked Clarke how he believed the computer would change the future for the everyday person, and what life would be like around the year 2001. Clarke accurately predicted many things that became reality, including online banking, online shopping, and other now commonplace things. Responding to a question about how the interviewer's son's life would be different, Clarke responded: \"He will have, in his own house, not a computer as big as this, [points to nearby computer], but at least, a console through which he can talk, through his local computer and get all the information he needs, for his everyday life, like his bank statements, his theatre reservations, all the information you need in the course of living in our complex modern society, this will be in a compact form in his own house ... and he will take it as much for granted as we take the telephone.\" \n\nIn 1986 Clarke was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America. \n\nIn 1988 he was diagnosed with post-polio syndrome, having originally contracted polio in 1962, and needed to use a wheelchair most of the time thereafter. Clarke was for many years a Vice-Patron of the British Polio Fellowship.[http://www.britishpolio.org.uk/ British Polio Fellowship – Home]\n\nIn the 1989 Queen's Birthday Honours Clarke was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) \"for services to British cultural interests in Sri Lanka\". The same year he became the first Chancellor of the International Space University, serving from 1989 to 2004. He also served as Chancellor of Moratuwa University in Sri Lanka from 1979 to 2002.\n\nIn 1994, Clarke appeared in a science fiction film; he portrayed himself in the telefilm Without Warning, an American production about an apocalyptic alien first-contact scenario presented in the form of a faux newscast.\n\nClarke also became active in promoting the protection of gorillas and became a patron of the Gorilla Organization which fights for the preservation of gorillas. When tantalum mining for cell phone manufacture threatened the gorillas in 2001, he lent his voice to their cause.\n\nTelevision series host\n\nIn the 1980s Clarke became well known to many for his television programmes Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World, Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers and Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious Universe.\n\nKnighthood\n\nOn 26 May 2000 he was made a Knight Bachelor \"for services to literature\" at a ceremony in Colombo.Letters Patent were issued by Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom on 16 March 2000 to authorise this. (see ) The award of a knighthood had been announced in the 1998 New Year Honours list, but investiture with the award had been delayed, at Clarke's request, because of an accusation, by the British tabloid The Sunday Mirror, of pedophilia. The charge was subsequently found to be baseless by the Sri Lankan police. According to The Daily Telegraph (London), the Mirror subsequently published an apology, and Clarke chose not to sue for defamation. Clarke was then duly knighted.\n\nLater years\n\nAlthough he and his home were unharmed by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake tsunami, his \"Arthur C. Clarke Diving School\" at Hikkaduwa was destroyed. He made humanitarian appeals, and the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation worked towards better disaster notification systems. The school has since been rebuilt.\n\nBecause of his post-polio deficits, which limited his ability to travel and gave him halting speech, most of Clarke's communications in his last years were in the form of recorded addresses. In July 2007, he provided a video address for the Robert A. Heinlein Centennial in which he closed his comments with a goodbye to his fans. In September 2007, he provided a video greeting for NASA's Cassini probe's flyby of Iapetus (which plays an important role in the book of 2001: A Space Odyssey). In December 2007 on his 90th birthday, Clarke recorded a video message to his friends and fans bidding them good-bye. \n\nClarke died in Sri Lanka on 19 March 2008 after suffering from respiratory failure, according to Rohan de Silva, one of his aides. His aide described the cause as respiratory complications and heart failure stemming from post-polio syndrome. \n\nJust hours before Clarke's death a massive gamma-ray burst (GRB) reached Earth. Known as GRB 080319B, the burst set a new record as the farthest object that could be seen from Earth with the naked eye. It occurred about 7.5 billion years ago (roughly equal to half the time since the Big Bang), taking the light that long to reach Earth. It was suggested by Larry Sessions, a science writer for Sky and Telescope magazine blogging on earthsky.org, that the burst be named “The Clarke Event\". American Atheist Magazine wrote of the idea, “It would be a fitting tribute to a man who contributed so much, and helped lift our eyes and our minds to a cosmos once thought to be province only of gods.” Astronomer Phil Plait understood Sessions’ sentiment but felt the naming would be unnecessary. “The poetic alignment of the two events is enough for me, to be honest.” \n\nA few days before he died, he had reviewed the manuscript of his final work, The Last Theorem, on which he had collaborated by e-mail with his contemporary Frederik Pohl. The book was published after Clarke's death. Clarke was buried in Colombo in traditional Sri Lankan fashion on 22 March. His younger brother, Fred Clarke, and his Sri Lankan adoptive family were among the thousands in attendance. \n\nScience fiction writer\n\nBeginnings\n\nWhile Clarke had a few stories published in fanzines, between 1937 and 1945, his first professional sale appeared in Astounding Science Fiction in 1946: \"Loophole\" was published in April, while \"Rescue Party\", his first sale, was published in May. Along with his writing Clarke briefly worked as assistant editor of Science Abstracts (1949) before devoting himself in 1951 to full-time writing.\n\nClarke began carving out his reputation as a \"scientific\" science fiction writer with his first science fiction novel, Against the Fall of Night, published as a novella in 1948. It was very popular and considered ground-breaking work for some of the concepts it contained. Clarke revised and expanded the novella into a full novel which was published in 1953. Clarke would later rewrite and expand this work a third time to become The City and the Stars in 1956, which rapidly became a definitive must-read in the field. His third science fiction novel, Childhood's End, was also published in 1953, cementing his popularity. Clarke capped the first phase of his writing career with his sixth novel, A Fall of Moondust, in 1961, which is also an acknowledged classic of the period.\n\nDuring this time, Clarke corresponded with C. S. Lewis in the 1940s and 1950s and they once met in an Oxford pub, The Eastgate, to discuss science fiction and space travel. Clarke voiced great praise for Lewis upon his death, saying that the Ransom trilogy was one of the few works of science fiction that should be considered literature. \n\n\"The Sentinel\"\n\nIn 1948 he wrote \"The Sentinel\" for a BBC competition. Though the story was rejected, it changed the course of Clarke's career. Not only was it the basis for 2001: A Space Odyssey, but \"The Sentinel\" also introduced a more cosmic element to Clarke's work. Many of Clarke's later works feature a technologically advanced but still-prejudiced mankind being confronted by a superior alien intelligence. In the cases of The City and the Stars (and its original version, Against the Fall of Night), Childhood's End, and the 2001 series, this encounter produces a conceptual breakthrough that accelerates humanity into the next stage of its evolution. In Clarke's authorised biography, Neil McAleer writes that: \"many readers and critics still consider [Childhood's End] Arthur C. Clarke's best novel.\"\n\nAlmost all of his short stories can be found in the book The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001).\n\nA collection of early essays was published in The View from Serendip (1977), which also included one short piece of fiction, \"When the Twerms Came\". Clarke also wrote short stories under the pseudonyms of E. G. O'Brien and Charles Willis. \n\nThe \"Big Three\"\n\nFor much of the later 20th century, Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein were informally known as the \"Big Three\" of science fiction writers. Clarke and Heinlein began writing to each other after The Exploration of Space was published in 1951, and first met in person the following year. They remained on cordial terms for many years, including visits in the United States and Sri Lanka. In 1984, Clarke testified before Congress against the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). \n\nLater, at the home of Larry Niven in California, a concerned Heinlein attacked Clarke's views on United States foreign and space policy (especially the SDI), vigorously advocating a strong defence posture. Although the two later reconciled formally, they remained distant until Heinlein's death in 1988.\n\nClarke and Asimov first met in New York City in 1953, and they traded friendly insults and gibes for decades. They established an oral agreement, the \"Clarke–Asimov Treaty\", that when asked who was best, the two would say Clarke was the best science fiction writer and Asimov was the best science writer. In 1972, Clarke put the \"treaty\" on paper in his dedication to Report on Planet Three and Other Speculations. \n\n2001 series of novels\n\n2001: A Space Odyssey, Clarke's most famous work, was extended well beyond the 1968 movie as the Space Odyssey series. In 1982, Clarke wrote a sequel to 2001 titled 2010: Odyssey Two, which was made into a film in 1984. Clarke wrote two further sequels that have not been adapted into motion pictures: 2061: Odyssey Three (published in 1987) and 3001: The Final Odyssey (published in 1997).\n\n2061: Odyssey Three involves a visit to Halley's Comet on its next plunge through the Inner Solar System and a spaceship crash on the Jovian moon Europa. The whereabouts of astronaut Dave Bowman (the \"Star Child\"), the artificial intelligence HAL 9000, and the development of native life on Europa, protected by the alien Monolith, are revealed.\n\nFinally, in 3001: The Final Odyssey, astronaut Frank Poole's freeze-dried body, found by a spaceship beyond the orbit of Neptune, is revived by advanced medical science. The novel details the threat posed to humanity by the alien monoliths, whose actions are not always as their builders had intended.\n\n2001: A Space Odyssey\n\nClarke's first venture into film was 2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick and Clarke had met in New York City in 1964 to discuss the possibility of a collaborative film project. As the idea developed, they decided to loosely base the story on Clarke's short story, The Sentinel, written in 1948 as an entry in a BBC short story competition. Originally, Clarke was going to write the screenplay for the film, but Kubrick suggested during one of their brainstorming meetings that before beginning on the actual script, they should let their imaginations soar free by writing a novel first, on which they would base the film. \"This is more or less the way it worked out, though toward the end, novel and screenplay were being written simultaneously, with feedback in both directions. Thus I rewrote some sections after seeing the movie rushes—a rather expensive method of literary creation, which few other authors can have enjoyed.\" The novel ended up being published a few months after the release of the movie.\n\nDue to the hectic schedule of the film's production, Kubrick and Clarke had difficulty collaborating on the book. Clarke completed a draft of the novel at the end of 1964 with the plan to publish in 1965 in advance of the film's release in 1966. After many delays the film was released in the spring of 1968, before the book was completed. The book was credited to Clarke alone. Clarke later complained that this had the effect of making the book into a novelisation, that Kubrick had manipulated circumstances to downplay Clarke's authorship. For these and other reasons, the details of the story differ slightly from the book to the movie. The film contains little explanation for the events taking place. Clarke, on the other hand, wrote thorough explanations of \"cause and effect\" for the events in the novel. James Randi later recounted that upon seeing the premiere of 2001, Clarke left the theatre at the intermission in tears, after having watched an eleven-minute scene (which did not make it into general release) where an astronaut is doing nothing more than jogging inside the spaceship, which was Kubrick's idea of showing the audience how boring space travels could be. \n\nIn 1972, Clarke published The Lost Worlds of 2001, which included his accounts of the production, and alternate versions of key scenes. The \"special edition\" of the novel A Space Odyssey (released in 1999) contains an introduction by Clarke in which he documents the events leading to the release of the novel and film.\n\n2010: Odyssey Two\n\nIn 1982 Clarke continued the 2001 epic with a sequel, 2010: Odyssey Two. This novel was also made into a film, 2010, directed by Peter Hyams for release in 1984. Because of the political environment in America in the 1980s, the film presents a Cold War theme, with the looming tensions of nuclear warfare not featured in the novel. The film was not considered to be as revolutionary or artistic as 2001, but the reviews were still positive.\n\nClarke's email correspondence with Hyams was published in 1984. Titled The Odyssey File: The Making of 2010, and co-authored with Hyams, it illustrates his fascination with the then-pioneering medium of email and its use for them to communicate on an almost daily basis at the time of planning and production of the film while living on opposite sides of the world. The book also included Clarke's personal list of the best science-fiction films ever made.\n\nClarke appeared in the film, first as the man feeding the pigeons while Dr. Heywood Floyd is engaged in a conversation in front of the White House. Later, in the hospital scene with David Bowman's mother, an image of the cover of Time portrays Clarke as the American President and Kubrick as the Soviet Premier.\n\nRendezvous with Rama\n\nClarke's award-winning novel Rendezvous with Rama (1972) was optioned for filmmaking decades ago, but this motion picture is in \"development hell\" as of 2014. In the early 2000s, the actor Morgan Freeman expressed his desire to produce a movie based on Rendezvous with Rama. After a drawn-out development process – which Freeman attributed to difficulties in getting financing – it appeared that in 2003 this project might be proceeding, but this is very dubious. The film was to be produced by Freeman's production company, Revelations Entertainment, and David Fincher has been touted on Revelations' Rama web page as far back as 2001 as the film's director. After years of no progress, Fincher stated in an interview in late 2007 (in which he also credited the novel as being influential on the films Alien and Star Trek: The Motion Picture) that he is still attached to helm. Revelations indicated that Stel Pavlou had written the adaptation.\n\nIn late 2008, Fincher stated the movie is unlikely to be made. \"It looks like it's not going to happen. There's no script and as you know, Morgan Freeman's not in the best of health right now. We've been trying to do it but it's probably not going to happen.\" However, in 2010 it was announced that the film was still planned for future production and both Freeman and Fincher mentioned it as still needing a worthy script. \n\nScience writer\n\nClarke published a number of non-fiction books with essays, speeches, addresses, etc. Several of his non-fiction books are composed of chapters that can stand on their own as separate essays.\n\nSpace travel\n\nIn particular, Clarke was a populariser of the concept of space travel. In 1950 he wrote Interplanetary Flight, a book outlining the basics of space flight for laymen. Later books about space travel included The Exploration of Space (1951), The Challenge of the Spaceship (1959), Voices from the Sky (1965), The Promise of Space (1968, rev. ed. 1970) and Report on Planet Three (1972) among others.\n\nFuturism\n\nHis books on space travel usually included chapters about other aspects of science and technology, such as computers and bioengineering. He predicted telecommunication satellites (albeit serviced by astronauts in space suits, who would replace the satellite's vacuum tubes as they burned out). \n\nHis many predictions culminated in 1958 when he began a series of magazine essays that eventually became Profiles of the Future, published in book form in 1962.\n A timetable up to the year 2100 describes inventions and ideas including such things as a \"global library\" for 2005. The same work also contained \"Clarke's First Law\" and text that became Clarke's three laws in later editions.\n\nIn a 1959 essay Clarke predicted global satellite TV broadcasts that would cross national boundaries indiscriminately and would bring hundreds of channels available anywhere in the world. He also envisioned a \"personal transceiver, so small and compact that every man carries one.\" He wrote: \"the time will come when we will be able to call a person anywhere on Earth merely by dialling a number.\" Such a device would also, in Clarke's vision, include means for global positioning so that \"no one need ever again be lost.\" Later, in Profiles of the Future, he predicted the advent of such a device taking place in the mid-1980s.\n\nAn extensive selection of Clarke's essays and book chapters (from 1934 to 1998; 110 pieces, 63 of them previously uncollected in his books) can be found in the book Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! (2000), together with a new introduction and many prefatory notes. Another fine collection of essays, all previously collected, is By Space Possessed (1993). Clarke's technical papers, together with several essays and extensive autobiographical material, are collected in Ascent to Orbit: A Scientific Autobiography (1984).\n\nGeostationary communications satellite\n\nClarke contributed to the popularity of the idea that geostationary satellites would be ideal telecommunications relays. He first described this in a letter to the editor of Wireless World in February 1945 and elaborated on the concept in a paper titled Extra-Terrestrial Relays – Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?, published in Wireless World in October 1945. The geostationary orbit is now sometimes known as the Clarke Orbit or the Clarke Belt in his honour. \n\nIt is not clear that this article was actually the inspiration for the modern telecommunications satellite. According to John R. Pierce, of Bell Labs, who was involved in the Echo satellite and Telstar projects, he gave a talk upon the subject in 1954 (published in 1955), using ideas that were \"in the air\", but was not aware of Clarke's article at the time. In an interview given shortly before his death, Clarke was asked whether he had ever suspected that one day communications satellites would become so important; he replied: \n\nThough different from Clarke's idea of telecom relay, the idea of communicating via satellites in geostationary orbit itself had been described earlier. For example, the concept of geostationary satellites was described in Hermann Oberth's 1923 book Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space), and then the idea of radio communication by means of those satellites in Herman Potočnik's (written under the pseudonym Hermann Noordung) 1928 book Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums – der Raketen-Motor ([http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4026/contents.html The Problem of Space Travel — The Rocket Motor]), sections: Providing for Long Distance Communications and Safety, and (possibly referring to the idea of relaying messages via satellite, but not that 3 would be optimal) Observing and Researching the Earth's Surface, published in Berlin. Clarke acknowledged the earlier concept in his book Profiles of the Future. \n\nUndersea explorer\n\nClarke was an avid scuba diver and a member of the Underwater Explorers Club. In addition to writing, Clarke set up several diving-related ventures with his business partner Mike Wilson. In 1956, while scuba diving, Wilson and Clarke uncovered ruined masonry, architecture and idol images of the sunken original Koneswaram temple – including carved columns with flower insignias, and stones in the form of elephant heads – spread on the shallow surrounding seabed. Other discoveries included Chola bronzes from the original shrine, and these discoveries were described in Clarke's 1957 book The Reefs of Taprobane. In 1961, while filming off Great Basses Reef, Wilson found a wreck and retrieved silver coins. Plans to dive on the wreck the following year were stopped when Clarke developed paralysis, ultimately diagnosed as polio. A year later, Clarke observed the salvage from the shore and the surface. The ship, ultimately identified as belonging to the Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb, yielded fused bags of silver rupees, cannons, and other artefacts, carefully documented, became the basis for The Treasure of the Great Reef. Living in Sri Lanka and learning its history also inspired the backdrop for his novel The Fountains of Paradise in which he described a space elevator. This, he believed, would make rocket-based access to space obsolete and, more than geostationary satellites, would ultimately be his scientific legacy. \n\nViews\n\nOn religion\n\nThemes of religion and spirituality appear in much of Clarke's writing. He said: \"Any path to knowledge is a path to God—or Reality, whichever word one prefers to use.\" He described himself as \"fascinated by the concept of God\". J. B. S. Haldane, near the end of his life, suggested in a personal letter to Clarke that Clarke should receive a prize in theology for being one of the few people to write anything new on the subject, and went on to say that if Clarke's writings did not contain multiple contradictory theological views, he might have been a menace. When he entered the Royal Air Force, Clarke insisted that his dog tags be marked \"pantheist\" rather than the default, Church of England, and in a 1991 essay entitled \"Credo\", described himself as a logical positivist from the age of ten. In 2000, Clarke told the Sri Lankan newspaper, The Island, \"I don't believe in God or an afterlife,\"[http://www.island.lk/2000/12/20/midwee01.html Midwee01] and he identified himself as an atheist. He was honoured as a Humanist Laureate in the International Academy of Humanism. He has also described himself as a \"crypto-Buddhist\", insisting that Buddhism is not a religion. He displayed little interest about religion early in his life, for example, only discovering a few months after marrying that his wife had strong Presbyterian beliefs.\n\nA famous quotation of Clarke's is often cited: \"One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.\" He was quoted in Popular Science in 2004 as saying of religion: \"Most malevolent and persistent of all mind viruses. We should get rid of it as quick as we can.\" In a three-day \"dialogue on man and his world\" with Alan Watts, Clarke stated that he was biased against religion and said that he could not forgive religions for what he perceived as their inability to prevent atrocities and wars over time. In his introduction to the penultimate episode of Mysterious World, entitled \"Strange Skies\", Clarke said: \"I sometimes think that the universe is a machine designed for the perpetual astonishment of astronomers,\" reflecting the dialogue of the episode, in which he stated this concept more broadly, referring to \"mankind\". Near the very end of that same episode, the last segment of which covered the Star of Bethlehem, he said that his favourite theory was that it might be a pulsar. Given that pulsars were discovered in the interval between his writing the short story, \"The Star\" (1955), and making Mysterious World (1980), and given the more recent discovery of pulsar PSR B1913+16, he said: \"How romantic, if even now, we can hear the dying voice of a star, which heralded the Christian era.\"\n\nClarke left written instructions for a funeral that stated: \"Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated with my funeral.\" \n\nParanormal phenomena\n\nEarly in his career, Clarke had a fascination with the paranormal and stated that it was part of the inspiration for his novel Childhood's End. Citing the numerous promising paranormal claims that were shown to be fraudulent, Clarke described his earlier openness to the paranormal having turned to being \"an almost total sceptic\" by the time of his 1992 biography. During interviews, both in 1993 and 2004–2005, he stated that he did not believe in reincarnation, citing that there was no mechanism to make it possible, though he stated \"I'm always paraphrasing J. B. S. Haldane: 'The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we can imagine.'\" He described the idea of reincarnation as fascinating, but favoured a finite existence.\n\nClarke was well known for his television series investigating paranormal phenomena – Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World (1980), Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers (1985) and Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious Universe (1994) – enough to be parodied in an episode of The Goodies in which his show is cancelled after it is claimed that he does not exist.\n\nThemes, style, and influences\n\nClarke's work is marked by an optimistic view of science empowering mankind's exploration of the Solar System and the world's oceans. His images of the future often feature a Utopian setting with highly developed technology, ecology, and society, based on the author's ideals. \nHis early published stories usually featured the extrapolation of a technological innovation or scientific breakthrough into the underlying decadence of his own society.\n\nA recurring theme in Clarke's works is the notion that the evolution of an intelligent species would eventually make them something close to gods. This was explored in his 1953 novel Childhood's End and briefly touched upon in his novel Imperial Earth. This idea of transcendence through evolution seems to have been influenced by Olaf Stapledon, who wrote a number of books dealing with this theme. Clarke has said of Stapledon's 1930 book Last and First Men that \"No other book had a greater influence on my life ... [It] and its successor Star Maker (1937) are the twin summits of [Stapledon's] literary career\". \n\nAwards, honours and other recognition\n\nClarke won more than a dozen annual literary awards for particular works of science fiction.\n[http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/NomLit28.html#954 \"Clarke, Arthur C.\"] The Locus Index to SF Awards: Index of Literary Nominees. Locus Publications. Retrieved 24 March 2013.\n* In 1956, Clarke won a Hugo award for his short story, \"The Star\". \n* Clarke won the UNESCO–Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science in 1961. \n* He won the Stuart Ballantine Medal in 1963. \n* Following the 1968 release of 2001, Clarke became much in demand as a commentator on science and technology, especially at the time of the Apollo space program. The fame of 2001 was enough to get the Command Module of the Apollo 13 craft named \"Odyssey\". \n* Shared a 1969 Academy Award nomination with Stanley Kubrick in the category Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen for 2001: A Space Odyssey. \n* In 1985 the Science Fiction Writers of America named him its 7th SFWA Grand Master.\n[http://www.sfwa.org/nebula-awards/nebula-weekend/events-program/grandmaster/ \"Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master\"]. Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). Retrieved 24 March 2013.\n* In 1988, he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Letters) by the University of Bath. \n* Readers of the British monthly Interzone voted him the all-time second best science fiction author in 1988–1989.\n* He received a CBE in 1989, and was knighted in 2000. Clarke's health did not allow him to travel to London to receive the latter honour personally from the Queen, so the United Kingdom's High Commissioner to Sri Lanka invested him as a Knight Bachelor at a ceremony in Colombo.\n* In 1994, Clarke was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by law professor Glenn Reynolds. \n* The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted Clarke in 1997, its second class of two deceased and two living persons. Among the living, Clarke and Andre Norton followed A. E. van Vogt and Jack Williamson.\n[http://www.midamericon.org/halloffame/ \"Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame\"]. Mid American Science Fiction and Fantasy Conventions, Inc. Retrieved 24 March 2013. This was the official website of the hall of fame to 2004.\n* In 2000, he was named a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association.\n* The 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter is named in honour of Clarke's works.\n* In 2003, Clarke was awarded the Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology, where he appeared on stage via a 3-D hologram with a group of old friends that included Jill Tarter, Neil Armstrong, Lewis Branscomb, Charles Townes, Freeman Dyson, Bruce Murray, and Scott Brown.\n* In 2004, Clarke won the Heinlein Award for outstanding achievement in hard or science-oriented science fiction. \n* On 14 November 2005 Sri Lanka awarded Clarke its highest civilian award, the Sri Lankabhimanya (The Pride of Sri Lanka), for his contributions to science and technology and his commitment to his adopted country., November 2005. Retrieved 20 October 2008\n* Clarke was the Honorary Board Chair of the Institute for Cooperation in Space, founded by Carol Rosin, and served on the Board of Governors of the National Space Society, a space advocacy organisation originally founded by Wernher von Braun.\n\nNamed after Clarke\n\nAwards \n\n* Arthur C. Clarke Awards for science fiction writing, awarded annually in the United Kingdom.\nIn 1986, Clarke provided a grant to fund the prize money (initially £1,000) for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for the best science fiction novel published in the United Kingdom in the previous year. In 2001 the prize was increased to £2001, and its value now matches the year (e.g., £2005 in 2005).\n* Sir Arthur Clarke Award, for achievements in space, awarded annually in the United Kingdom.\nIn 2005 he lent his name to the inaugural Sir Arthur Clarke Awards—dubbed the \"Space Oscars\". His brother attended the awards ceremony, and presented an award specially chosen by Arthur (and not by the panel of judges who chose the other awards) to the British Interplanetary Society.\n* Arthur C. Clarke Foundation awards: \"Arthur C. Clarke Innovator's Award\" and \"Arthur C. Clarke Lifetime Achievement Award\" \n* The Sir Arthur C. Clarke Memorial Trophy Inter School Astronomy Quiz Competition, held in Sri Lanka every year and organised by the Astronomical Association of Ananda College, Colombo. The competition first started in 2001 as \"The Sir Arthur C. Clarke Trophy Inter School Astronomy Quiz Competition\" and was later renamed after his death. \n\nOther\n\n* An asteroid was named in Clarke's honour, 4923 Clarke (the number was assigned prior to, and independently of, the name – 2001, however appropriate, was unavailable, having previously been assigned to Albert Einstein).\n* A species of ceratopsian dinosaur, discovered in Inverloch in Australia, was named after Clarke, Serendipaceratops arthurcclarkei. The genus name may also be an allusion to his adopted country, Sri Lanka, one of whose former names is Serendip. \n* The Learning Resource Centre at Richard Huish College, Taunton, which Clarke attended when it was Huish Grammar School, is named after him.\n* Clarke was a distinguished vice-president of the H. G. Wells Society, being strongly influenced by Wells as a science-fiction writer.\nArthur C. Clarke Institute for Modern Technologies, one of the major research institutes in Sri Lanka is named after him.\n The main protagonist of the Dead Space series of video games, Isaac Clarke, takes his surname from Arthur C. Clarke, and his given name from Clarke's friendly rival and associate, Isaac Asimov.\n* A proposed outer-circular orbital beltway in Colombo, Sri Lanka, is to be named 'Arthur C. Clarke Expressway' in honour of Clarke. \n* 'The Clarke Event' is a proposed name for GRB 080319B, a gamma-ray burst detected just hours before Clarke's death that set a new record for the most intrinsically bright object ever observed by humans in the universe. The name would honour Clarke and his award-winning short story \"The Star\".\n\nSelected works\n\nNovels\n\n* Against the Fall of Night (1948, 1953) original version of The City and the Stars\n* The Sands of Mars (1951)\n* Childhood's End (1953)\n* The City and the Stars (1956)\n* The Deep Range (1957)\n* A Fall of Moondust (1961)\n* Dolphin Island - A Story of the People of the Sea (1963)\n* Glide Path (1963)\n* 2001: A Space Odyssey (film with Stanley Kubrick) (1968)\n* Rendezvous with Rama (1972) (Nebula Award winner, 1973; Hugo Award winner, 1974 )\n* Imperial Earth (1976)\n* The Fountains of Paradise (1979) (Hugo Award winner, 1979; and Nebula Award winner, 1980 )\n* 2010: Odyssey Two (1982)\n* The Songs of Distant Earth (1986)\n* 2061: Odyssey Three (1987)\n* The Ghost from the Grand Banks (1990)\n* The Hammer of God (1993)\n* 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997)\n* A Time Odyssey (2003, 2005, 2007) a series of three novels\n\nShort story collections\n\n* Expedition to Earth (1953)\n* Reach for Tomorrow (1956)\n* Tales from the White Hart (1957)\n* The Other Side of the Sky (1958)\n* Tales of Ten Worlds (1962)\n* The Nine Billion Names of God (1967)\n* The Wind from the Sun (1972)\n* The Best Of Arthur C. Clarke 1937-1955 (1982)\n* The Sentinel (1983)\n* Tales From Planet Earth (2001)\n* The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)\n\nNon-fiction\n\n* Interplanetary Flight: an introduction to astronautics. London: Temple Press, ISBN 0-425-06448-4, 1950\n* The Exploration of Space, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951\n* The Exploration of the Moon, with R. A. Smith, New York: Harper Brothers, 1954\n* The Coast of Coral (1955)\n* Boy Beneath the Sea (1958) ISBN 0060212667\n* Voice Across the Sea. New York: Harper, 1958\n* Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible (1962)\n* The Treasure of the Great Reef, with Mike Wilson. New York: Harper & Row, 1964\n* Voices from the Sky: Previews of the Coming Space Age. New York: Harper & Row, 1965\n* The Promise of Space (1968)\n* The View From Serendip, Random House, ISBN 0-394-41796-8, 1977\n* Astounding Days: A Science Fictional Autobiography. London: Gollancz, 1989\n* How the World Was One: Beyond the Global Village, Bantam. ISBN 0-553-07440-7. 1992\n* Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! : Collected Essays, 1934–1998. New York: St. Martin's Press, and London: Voyager, 1999\n\nDocumentaries\n\n* To Mars by A-Bomb: The Secret History of Project Orion" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "2001 A Space Odyssey", "2001: A space odessey", "2001:A Space Odyssey", "2001asa", "2001 - A Space Odyssey", "2001: A Space Odyssey", "2001 Space Oddessey", "2001 A Space Odessey", "2001 A space odyssey", "2001 a space odyssey", "2001: A Space Odeyssy", "A Space odyssey", "A space odessey", "2001:A Space Odessey", "2001 Space Odyssey", "2001 space odessey", "2001 a space odessey", "2001: A Space Odessey", "A Space Odyssey", "2001 a space oddessy", "A Space Odessey", "2001 a Space Odyssey", "2001: a space odessey", "A space odyssey", "2001:A space Odyssey", "A space Odyssey", "2001: Space Odyssey", "A Space odessey", "A space Odessey" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "space odyssey", "2001 space oddessey", "space odessey", "2001 space odessey", "2001asa", "2001 space oddessy", "2001 space odyssey", "2001 space odeyssy" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "2001 space odyssey", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "2001: A Space Odyssey" }
Which tough guy played Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin?	tc_1125	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Mr._Freeze.txt" ], "title": [ "Mr. Freeze" ], "wiki_context": [ "Mr. Freeze, real name Victor Fries, is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly as an adversary of the superhero Batman. Created by Bob Kane, David Wood and Sheldon Moldoff, the character first appeared in Batman #121 (February 1959), where he was known as Mr. Zero. Mr. Freeze is one of Batman's most enduring enemies and belongs to the collective of adversaries that make up Batman's rogues gallery.\n\nFreeze is a scientist who must wear a cryogenic suit in order to survive, and bases his crimes around a \"cold\" or \"ice\" theme, complete with a \"freeze gun\" that freezes its targets solid. In the most common variation of his origin story, he is a former cryogenics expert who suffered an industrial accident while attempting to cure his terminally ill wife Nora Fries.\n\nMr. Freeze was played by several actors (George Sanders, Otto Preminger and Eli Wallach) in the original Batman television series, by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1997 film Batman & Robin, and by Nathan Darrow on the 2010s series Gotham; he was voiced by Michael Ansara in Batman: The Animated Series, by Clancy Brown in The Batman, and by Maurice LaMarche in the Batman: Arkham video game franchise.\n\nIGN's list of the Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time List ranked Mr. Freeze as #67. \n\nOverview\n\nOriginally called Mr. Zero, he was renamed and popularized by the 1960s Batman television series, in which he was played by several actors.\n\nNearly 30 years later, a television adaptation of Batman revitalized him once again. Batman: The Animated Series retold Mr. Freeze's origin in \"Heart of Ice\", an episode by writer Paul Dini. The episode introduced his terminally ill, cryogenically frozen wife Nora, which explained his obsession with ice and need to build a criminal empire to raise research funds. This more complex, tragic character was enthusiastically accepted by fans, and has become the standard portrayal for the character in most forms of media, including the comic book series itself, which previously had the character casually killed off by the Joker. Freeze was resurrected in the comic after the episode aired. \n\nThe episode was seen as groundbreaking for a Saturday morning cartoon and helped set the tone for the rest of the series. This back story was also made canon in the comics and has been the character's official origin in almost every incarnation of Batman until New 52.\n\nElements of this origin story were incorporated into the 1997 film Batman & Robin, in which he was portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. \n\nFictional character biography\n\nFrom the time of his first appearance in 1959 onwards, Mr. Freeze was portrayed as one of many \"joke\" villains (see also Killer Moth) cast as stock enemies of Batman. Originally called Mr. Zero, the producers of the 1960s Batman television series renamed him Mr. Freeze (and portrayed Batman addressing him as \"Dr. Schivel\"), and the name quickly carried over to the comic books. The three actors who portrayed Mr Freeze were George Sanders, Otto Preminger, and Eli Wallach.\n\nSilver Age\n\nIn the Pre-Crisis continuity, it is explained that Mr. Freeze is a rogue scientist whose design for an \"ice gun\" backfires when he inadvertently spills cryogenic chemicals on himself, resulting in him needing subzero temperatures to survive.\n\nModern Age\n\nPost-Crisis, Freeze was revamped using a similar backstory to the one created by Paul Dini for Batman: The Animated Series. Dr. Victor Fries, Ph.D. (surname pronounced \"freeze\") was a brilliant cryogenicist. As a child, he was fascinated with cryonics, as he began his \"hobby\" of freezing animals. His parents, horrified by his fascination, sent him to a strict boarding school, where he was miserable and felt detached from humanity. In college, he met a woman named Nora, whom he fell in love with and ultimately married.\n\nA year and a half after Bruce Wayne becomes Batman, Nora contracts a fatal illness, while Fries works on a freeze ray for GothCorp. Fries' boss Ferris Boyle decides to tell the mob about the gun, leading Batman to create a team of specialists to help him do his job better. Fries decides to use the device on Nora, to put her in cryo-stasis. His boss interrupts and tampers with the experiment, however, resulting in an explosion that kills Nora. Fries survives, but the chemicals in the freeze ray lower his body temperature to the point that he must wear a cryogenic suit in order to survive. He swears revenge on those responsible for the death of his wife (whom he talks to often), and becomes Mr. Freeze, the first supervillain Batman faces in this continuity.\n\nBatman's operatives find Freeze, who shoots one of them with his freeze gun. Batman eventually apprehends him, however. \n\nFreeze's crimes tend to involve freezing everyone and everything he runs into so he never forges alliances with the other criminals in Gotham, preferring to work alone. On rare occasions he has worked with another member of Batman's rogues gallery, usually as an enforcer for Gotham's mob bosses, such as the Penguin or Black Mask. In one of his notable team-ups, Freeze constructed a cryogenic machine for Hush so that Hush might take revenge on Batman.\n\nDuring his time with the Secret Society of Super Villains, he fashions for Nyssa al Ghul a sub-zero machine in exchange for the use of her own Lazarus Pit. He attempts to restore Nora to life without waiting for the adjusting needed in the pool chemicals. However, she returns to life as the twisted Lazara, and escapes. She blames her husband for her plight, and she estranges herself from him.\n\nThe New 52\n\nDuring the Night of the Owls crossover as part of The New 52, the Court of Owls sent assassins known as Talons to kill almost 40 of the most important citizens of Gotham, including Mr Freeze. The Red Hood, Starfire and Arsenal choose to save him, and subsequently remand him into Batgirl's custody. \n\nBatman Annual #1 introduces a new origin for Mr. Freeze. Here, Victor Fries' fascination with cryonics began when he was a boy and his mother fell through the ice of a frozen lake. The ice was able to keep her preserved long enough for help to arrive, thus sparking his lifelong obsession with the cold. It is later revealed that the accident left Fries' mother in constant pain, and Fries ended her suffering by pushing her into a lake. In this new origin, Nora was never Fries' wife. Her name was Nora Fields, a woman born in 1943. When Nora was 23, she was diagnosed with an incurable heart disease, so her family placed her in cryogenic stasis hoping that a cure would be found in the future. Fries, having written his doctoral thesis on Nora, took on a position as a cryogenic researcher and technician at Wayne Enterprises, the facility that housed Nora's body.\n\nEventually, he fell in love with Nora and became dedicated to finding a reliable method for slowly thawing cryogenic subjects. However, Bruce Wayne ordered the project to be shut down, as he began to feel uncomfortable with Fries' obsession with Nora. Furious, Fries hurled a chair at Wayne, who dodged the attack; the chair smashed into an array of cryonic chemical tanks, the contents of which sprayed onto Fries and transformed him into Mr. Freeze. \n\nThe Court of Owls uses Freeze's cryogenic-thaw formula to revive their Talons, and then they try to kill him. Freeze survives, but is captured by the Red Hood and sent to Arkham Asylum. He escapes shortly afterward and rearms himself with the Penguin's help. Freeze decides to kill Bruce Wayne and take Nora, whom he believes to be his wife, so that they can leave Gotham City behind forever. Infiltrating Wayne Enterprises, Freeze has a brief fight with Nightwing and Robin, but he subdues them. Then, Freeze goes to the penthouse, where he finds Batman and the frozen Nora. Batman defeats Mr. Freeze by injecting his suit with the thawing formula, which he had intended to use to revive Nora from suspended animation.\n\nDuring the Forever Evil storyline, Mr. Freeze appears as a member of the Secret Society of Super Villains at the time when the Crime Syndicate arrived from their world. The Scarecrow later visits Mr. Freeze to let him know of the war going on at Blackgate Penitentiary. The Man-Bats are able to bring the remaining Talons to Mr. Freeze after Man-Bat and Scarecrow steal them from Blackgate. Mr. Freeze and Clayface later encounter the Rogues when they land in their territory. Mr. Freeze tells Mirror Master he is not interested in capitalizing on the bounty on their head, only to use Weather Wizard to create optimal conditions for him to freeze Gotham. As the Rogues are fighting the two, Black Mask (alongside his False Face society) arrives to capture the Rogues to receive the bounty. \n\nPowers and abilities\n\nLike most Batman villains, Mr. Freeze plans his crimes about a specific theme; in his case, ice and cold. He freezes areas around him using special weapons and equipment, most notably a handheld \"Freeze gun\". His refrigeration suit grants him superhuman strength and durability, making him a powerful villain in Batman's rogues gallery.\n\nIn the Underworld Unleashed storyline, the demon Neron grants Mr. Freeze the ability to generate subzero temperatures, no longer needing his freeze-gun or refrigeration suit. However, after his encounter with Green Lantern, Donna Troy, and Purgatory in Central Park, he reverted to his original subzero biology. He then gained a new subzero armor and weaponry. \n\nOther versions\n\nSmallville\n\nMr. Freeze appears in the comic book adaptation of Smallville, partnered with the Prankster of Intergang. He agrees to work for Intergang in order to fund Nora's treatment. Freeze is betrayed by Prankster, however, and is defeated by Batman and Green Arrow. \n\nRobot Mr. Freeze\n\nIn Blackhawk, Mr. Freeze appears as a robot that is controlled by Doctor Thurman. \n\nJustice League Adventures\n\nBased in the DC animated universe, Mr. Freeze is part of a group of ice-themed villains called the \"Cold Warriors\" that tried to overthrow a small African nation. The Cold Warriors appear in Justice League Adventures #12 (December 2002).\n\nDC Super Friends\n\nBased in the DC Super Friends universe, Mr. Freeze is part of a group of ice-themed villains called the \"Ice Pack\" that encased a city in ice and snow. The Ice Pack appear in DC Super Friends #16 (August 2009).\n\nFlashpoint\n\nIn the alternate timeline of the Flashpoint, Mr. Freeze attacks the S.T.A.R. Labs in Central City to find a cure for his wife Nora. However, Citizen Cold attacks and uses his cold gun to freeze Mr. Freeze's body. Mr. Freeze tries to escape on robotic legs, but Citizen Cold freezes him to death and tells him that Nora is dead. This version of Mr. Freeze is a friend of Fallout's, and pursues revenge against Citizen Cold for murdering him. It is later revealed that radiation produced by Fallout is the cure Mr. Freeze was searching for. \n\nIn other media\n\nTelevision\n\nLive-action\n\n* Mr. Freeze appeared in the 1960s Batman television series, played by George Sanders in the first two-part appearance, Otto Preminger in the second two-part appearance, and Eli Wallach in the third two-part appearance. Sanders and Wallach used German accents for the role, while Preminger used his own Austrian accent. While the George Sanders version wore the classic refrigerated suit, the Otto Preminger and Eli Wallach versions wore a 'Freeze Collar' around their neck that went with Mr. Freeze's cooling suit. Before Mr. Freeze was on the series, he was always called Mr. Zero. In this version, he continues to be campy like the comic books and is given an alias of \"Dr. Art Schivel\". In his first appearance \"Instant Freeze\", it is revealed that it was Batman who spilled the cryogenic chemicals on Schivel during an attempted arrest. Freeze ends up stealing diamonds from the Gotham City Diamond Exchange. When Batman and Robin try to stop him, he freezes them with his freeze gun. In the next episode \"Rats Like Cheese\", Mr. Freeze kidnaps Paul Diamante of the Gotham City Eagles and offers to return his hostage in exchange for Batman. Batman and Robin save Diamante and apprehend Freeze. During this appearance, Mr. Freeze's hideout has 'warm lights' so that his henchmen can interact with him. In the episode \"Green Ice\", Mr. Freeze escapes from prison and captures Miss Iceland from the finals of the Miss Galaxy Pageant. In the next episode \"Deep Freeze\", Mr. Freeze has led all of Gotham City to believe that Batman has given in to his bribes. Batman and Robin managed to find Freeze's hideout, rescue Miss Iceland, and defeat Freeze before he can freeze all of Gotham. In the episode \"Ice Spy\", Mr. Freeze kidnaps Icelandic scientist Professor Isaacson in order to obtain an 'Instant Ice' formula. In the episode \"The Duo Defy\", Mr. Freeze finally obtains the 'Instant Ice' formula and ends up building a large freeze ray. He is thwarted by Batman and Robin again. As he is taken away by the police, Freeze tells the police officers not to touch the Freeze Collar's dials.\n* Mr. Freeze appears in season 2 of Gotham, portrayed by Nathan Darrow. In this version, his surname is pronounced \"\". As in the comics, he is a scientist who researches cryogenic technology to find a cure for his wife Nora's terminal illness. To this end, he freezes people with a cryogenic gun and uses them as test subjects. When Nora dies during one of the experiments, Fries attempts suicide by turning the coolants from his gun on himself. He survives, however, and is rendered unable to survive outside of sub-zero temperatures. Hugo Strange has him declared dead and takes him to Arkham Asylum's Indian Hill Laboratory, where he intends to use him as an \"assistant\" in experiments with cryogenically frozen bodies. Strange also dispatches him to kill Karen Jennings, one of his former test subjects. In the season finale, \"Transference\", Strange orders Fries to kill Selina Kyle, but Bridgit Pike, another of Strange's genetically altered minions, interferes. She and Fries do battle, he with his freeze ray and she with her flamethrower; they accidentally incapacitate Strange when he gets in the crossfire. \n\nAnimation\n\n* Mr. Freeze appeared in The Batman/Superman Hour, voiced by Ted Knight. The Filmation series has Mr. Freeze make extensive use of his self-made technology such as making certain parts of his hideout 'warm corridors' to accommodate his underlings. \n* Mr. Freeze appears in The New Adventures of Batman episode \"The Deep Freeze\", voiced by Lennie Weinrib. Unlike his appearance in the theme song, Mr. Freeze is shown without the helmet that goes with his freeze suit. He and his henchman Professor Frost plot to steal the N-1000 (a superfast submarine) to pull off the \"Crime of the Century\". When Batman and Robin raid his hideout, Mr. Freeze manages to freeze both of them and takes Robin with him as he escapes. When Freeze and Professor Frost steal the N-1000, they steer it to the North Pole. When Batman, Robin and Bat-Mite face Mr. Freeze and Professor Frost at the North Pole, Batman and Robin fire a beam that reverses the polarity of Freeze's freeze gun so that it warms up. They then apprehend Freeze and Professor Frost where they are both placed into prison.\n\n* Mr. Freeze appears in The Batman, voiced by Clancy Brown. This version is a bank robber who is condemned to life in a cryogenic suit after an accident in a cryogenics lab while being chased by Batman. Unlike other versions of the character, The Batman interpretation fires ice blasts directly out of his hands rather than from a gun. After emerging from a cryogenic chamber, he forces a scientist to create a special refrigerated suit for himself. In the episode \"The Big Chill\", he commits a series of robberies and freezes Batman's body. Upon freezing a park, he holds the police at bay until the Dark Knight defeats him. In the episode \"Fire and Ice\", Mr. Freeze teams up with Firefly to put Gotham in a permanent winter. Batman defeats both and leaves them tied up outside the police station. In the episode \"The Icy Depths\", Mr. Freeze competes against the Penguin to claim an umbrella that is in fact a map to a sunken treasure. When the location is found, Freeze freezes the surrounding waters so that he can access the boat. When the ice starts to melt, he fights the Penguin to claim the treasure. Both of them are fished out of the water by the police. An older version appears in the episode \"Artifacts\". In the year 2027, Mr. Freeze's powers have increased to the point that he wears a special mecha suit but he also loses an unhealthy amount of weight and the ability to walk and is forced to use mechanical spider legs. After a near-death fight with Batman and Nightwing, he places himself in cryogenic suspension until someone wakes him up in the future of 3027. Once his suit is repaired, he continues terrorizing Gotham. Eventually, law enforcement officers use Batman's methods to defeat Freeze and place him in a special cell. In the episode \"Rumors\", Mr. Freeze is among the villains captured by the titular villain. In the episode \"The Joining\" (Part 2), Mr. Freeze joins the Joker, Bane and the Penguin in fighting the Joining when Arkham Asylum is attacked. Freeze saves Commissioner Gordon by freezing one of the Joining's robots. In the episode \"The Batman/Superman Story\" (Part 1), Mr. Freeze is hired by Lex Luthor, along with Black Mask, Clayface and Bane, to kidnap Lois Lane and use Lois as bait for Superman. He and the villains are defeated by Superman, Batman and Robin.\n* Mr. Freeze appears in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, voiced by John DiMaggio in a German accent. This version first appears in his Golden Age appearance and later as the George Sanders depiction. Under the name Mr. Zero, he is among the Batman villains in Bat-Mite's fantasy in the episode \"Legends of the Dark Mite\". Batman defeats him by throwing a batarang at his helmet. Mr. Freeze makes a cameo in the teaser for the episode \"Sidekicks Assemble\" as one of the villain holograms that Robin, Speedy and Aqualad fight. Mr. Freeze later appears in the episode \"Chill of the Night!\". He is among the villains at a weapons auction held by Joe Chill. In the episode \"Bold Beginnings!\", Mr. Freeze has captured Aquaman, Green Arrow and Plastic Man. Batman rescues and recruits the captured heroes to fight Mr. Freeze and his henchmen. After Mr. Freeze is defeated, Aquaman remains behind to wait for the police and continue telling Mr. Freeze of the first team-up with Batman against Black Manta. Mr. Freeze also appears in the opening for the episode \"Crisis: 22,300 Miles Above Earth\" in which he is one of the villains at the Joker's celebrity roast in which the assembled villains are literally roasting Batman alive. With help from Jeffrey Ross, Batman breaks free from his death trap and defeats Mr. Freeze and the other villains present.\n* Mr. Freeze appears in the cartoon series Young Justice, voiced by Keith Szarabajka. Introduced in the episode \"Independence Day\" (Part 1), he terrorizes a park in Gotham City until he is distracted and weakened by Robin and taken down by Batman. In the episode \"Terrors\", Mr. Freeze is seen as an inmate at Belle Reve alongside Captain Cold, Icicle Jr. (Cameron Mahkent) and Killer Frost (Crystal Frost). He and the other villains collaborate with Icicle Sr. (Joar Mahkent) in a breakout plot. When Freeze is brought to the prison's warden Amanda Waller, he ends up freezing his own collar and then taking out the guards. He is defeated when Superboy shatters his helmet, forcing Freeze to turn his own powers on himself in order to survive. In the episode \"Coldhearted\", Mr. Freeze and the other ice-based villains are seen in their cells.\n\nDC animated universe\n\nMr. Freeze appears in several series for the DC animated universe, voiced by Michael Ansara. \n\n* The character first appears in Batman: The Animated Series with a design created by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola as per request of series creator Bruce Timm. Cryogenic scientist Victor Fries was working for Gothcorp and embezzled funds for an experiment in order to save his terminally ill wife Nora Fries by cryogenically freezing his wife until a cure could be found. However, the company's CEO Ferris Boyle (voiced by Mark Hamill) broke into the lab with guards, demanding an end be put to the experiment. When Fries desperately grabbed a security guard's pistol to aim at Boyle, the corrupt CEO kicked him into a table of chemical beakers filled with cryogenic substance, leaving Victor to die. He survived but was severely mutated by the substances. Unable to live outside subzero conditions, he wears a cryogenic suit to survive and also triples his strength. Mister Freeze is introduced in the Emmy Award-winning episode \"Heart of Ice\" (for Outstanding Writing in an Animated Program). He steals the parts for a freezing machine he wishes to build and use in his vendetta against Boyle. This leads to Freeze's first confrontation with Batman. When he freezes Boyle up to the waist, Freeze confronts Batman, fighting one-on-one until Freeze's transparent head dome is broken when Batman uses Alfred Pennyworth's thermos of chicken soup, inducing thermal shock and rendering Freeze unconscious. The Dark Knight then presents evidence of Boyle's crime involving Nora to the press and Freeze is imprisoned in a special Arkham Asylum cell kept at subzero temperatures. Mister Freeze later appears in the episode \"Deep Freeze\". After being kidnapped by a giant robot and brought to the off-shore Oceana city, he meets billionaire amusement park designer Grant Walker (voiced by Daniel O'Herlihy), a man that wants to become immortal like Freeze to create a frozen world for selected residents. Freeze agrees to help when Walker promises to cure Nora. Batman and Robin arrive and try to reason with Freeze that if he were to help Walker, Nora would hate him. Freeze eventually turns on Walker, freezing his benefactor to a wall. Freeze overloads Oceana's power-core which starts the city's destruction as he instructs its inhabitants to evacuate. Freeze stays behind to die with his wife, and he along with Nora and Walker disappear in the explosion. The episode's ending reveals that they all survive, trapped in icebergs. Mister Freeze's next appearance is in the direct-to-animated film Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero. After Nora's tank is shattered, Freeze kidnaps Barbara Gordon to harvest organs to cure Nora. Freeze makes a deal with greedy former colleague Gregory Belson (voiced by George Dzundza) to help cure his wife in exchange for gold. Batman and Robin thwart this plan and Freeze is then presumed killed in the explosion of his lair on an abandoned oil rig. Wayne Enterprises then finances a surgery that saves Nora's life. Freeze is last seen at the North Pole, crying tears of joy as he learns of Nora's recovery. \n* Mister Freeze appears in The New Batman Adventures, sporting a new, sleeker design. As his mutation slowly destroys his body, Victor Fries kidnapped scientists (voiced by Jeff Bennett and Lauren Tom) to try and stop the process, only succeeding in saving his head which is supported by four robotic legs built separate from his suit. When a cured Nora Fries married her own doctor and left Gotham permanently, the trauma destroys whatever is left of Fries' humanity. Mister Freeze vows to inflict on others the loss he's suffered in the episode \"Cold Comfort\" by taking away the things they value most, much to the confusion of Robin and Batgirl. When Freeze is confronted at his hideout by Batman and Batgirl, he reveals his true condition to them as well as his goal of destroying Gotham City — all the Dark Knight holds dear — by dropping a 'reverse fusion bomb' that will freeze the city. Freeze boards a helicopter to drop the bomb. However, he is followed by Batman and they engage in a duel in which Batman uses a grappling gun to hook Freeze to the bomb and drop it into the river, where an explosion creates a huge iceberg. Although Freeze is presumed dead, his head is seen to be missing as the episode ends. \n* In Batman Beyond, several of Mister Freeze's guns have been procured by the elderly Bruce Wayne and is displayed in the Batcave. The new Batman (Terry McGinnis) uses one to freeze Inque in the episode \"Black Out\", however, Inque destroys this one in the episode \"Disappearing Inque\". Another one is seen in the Batcave's background during subsequent episodes. The tragic villain personally appears in the episode \"Meltdown\". His disembodied head is revealed to have survived for decades thanks to cryogenic technology. Wayne-Powers' CEO Derek Powers and Dr. Stephanie Lake (voiced by Linda Hamilton) use him as a test subject for a process that could cure Powers's own mutation. Transferring his mind into a clone built from his own baseline DNA, Victor Fries sees this as a second chance. Fries initially tries to right some of the wrongs he has committed by creating a charitable organization with all his legitimate earnings from before he was imprisoned, which impresses Terry. However, Victor's new body soon begins to revert to his original body's same subzero biology. Although Lake and Powers betray him when he returns to Wayne-Powers for help, Fries escapes. After recovering an advanced suit of sub-zero armor that fires ice blasts directly out of gauntlets equipped onto his hands, Mister Freeze seeks revenge by freezing Lake and Powers and attempting to blow up Wayne-Powers' complex to commit suicide. In the middle of his plan, Freeze battles Batman and then fights with Blight. Freeze redeems himself by saving the new Dark Knight from Blight. Batman attempts to rescue Freeze from the collapsing building, however, Freeze refuses help and presumably dies in the explosion. \n\nFilm\n\n* Mister Freeze appears in the 1997 film Batman & Robin, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the film, Dr. Victor Fries was in an accident in a cryogenics lab he was using to find a cure for his wife Nora Fries suffering from the terminal illness MacGregor's Syndrome and is now dependent on a diamond-powered subzero suit. Mister Freeze crashes a charity event held by Wayne Enterprises and steals a diamond from the event. Mister Freeze is captured by Batman and detained at Arkham Asylum, but flees with the help of Poison Ivy and Bane. Ivy cuts off Nora's life support and convinces Mister Freeze that Batman was responsible for the deed; enraged, he vows to destroy Gotham City by freezing it solid. With the use of a gigantic ray gun stationed in an observatory, he freezes over the entirety of Gotham. In a subsequent fight with Batman, Mr. Freeze destroys the observatory with a set of bombs (planted by Bane) in an unsuccessful attempt to take Batman with him. Batman shows Mr. Freeze a recording of Ivy during her fight with Batgirl, in which she brags about killing Nora. Batman tells Mr. Freeze that his wife is not dead; she was restored and moved to Arkham, where he can complete his research. Batman asks him for the cure he created for the first stage of MacGregor's Syndrome for Alfred Pennyworth; Mr. Freeze atones for his misdeeds by giving Batman the medicine he had developed. Freeze is then detained at Arkham, where he exacts his revenge on Ivy, his new cellmate. The character's penchant for cold and ice-related puns was noted by critics. James Berardinelli of Reelviews commented that \"Schwarzenegger, aside from looking like a cross between the Michelin Man and Robocop, appears totally confused about what he's doing. Sometimes he's in Terminator mode; on other occasions, he's chomping on a cigar like he's back in Last Action Hero.\" He also noted that Freeze's backstory and motivation were \"too complex for Schwarzenegger to convey effectively or for Joel Schumacher\|[director Joel] Schumacher to care about exploring. As a result, Mr. Freeze ends up being a frustratingly incomplete brute who's out to smother Gotham City under a blanket of ice.\" Robin Dougherty of Salon lamented that \"Schwarzenegger’s exuberance is pinned down. He’s like a moth squashed by an 18-wheeler. He’s also paralyzed by amazingly inert dialogue. How many lame jokes about cold can you fit into two hours? Buy a ticket and find out.\" Patrick Stewart was considered for the role, before the script was rewritten to accommodate Schwarzenegger's casting. Schumacher decided that Mr. Freeze must be \"big and strong like he was chiseled out of a glacier\".Joel Schumacher, Peter MacGregor-Scott, Chris O'Donnell, Val Kilmer, Uma Thurman, John Glover, Shadows of the Bat: The Cinematic Saga of the Dark Knight Part 6-Batman Unbound, 2005, Warner Home Video Schwarzenegger was paid a $25 million salary for the role. His prosthetic makeup and wardrobe took six hours to apply each day.\n* Mr. Freeze appears in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. He is seen with the \"cold warriors\" Icicle Jr. (Cameron Mahkent), Killer Frost (Louise Lincoln) and Captain Cold when they are among the villains trying to claim the bounty on Superman and Batman. After a brief fight with Batman, they are all defeated by Superman's heat vision.\n* At the end of Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, Mr. Freeze's freeze gun can be seen in the Batcave.\n* In Batman: Assault on Arkham, Mr. Freeze's freeze gun is found and used by Killer Frost (Louise Lincoln) against Batman in the Arkham Asylum warehouse.\n* An alternate universe version of Victor Fries appears in Justice League: Gods and Monsters, voiced by Jim Meskimen. He was a Nobel prize winning thermal expert who was part of Lex Luthor's \"Project Fair Play\", a weapons program contingency that would be used to destroy the Justice League if necessary. Fries was measuring atmospheric carbon levels near the Arctic Circle before being murdered by a Metal Man designed to frame Batman for the crime.\n\nVideo games\n\nMr. Freeze also appears in several Batman video games:\n\n* He is a boss in Batman: The Animated Series, The Adventures of Batman & Robin for the Sega Genesis in which Mr. Freeze was the game's final boss.\n* Mr. Freeze appears in the video game adaptation of the movie Batman & Robin.\n* Mr. Freeze appears in Batman: Chaos in Gotham.\n* Mr. Freeze appears in Batman Vengeance, with Michael Ansara reprised his role. He was seen targeting a scientist named Isaac Evers, whom he blames for sending him a video promoting Promethium gas in order to spite him, unaware that the real culprit was the Joker planning to use Mr. Freeze's invasion of the lab as a distraction to steal large quantities of the gas.\n* Mr. Freeze appears in Batman: Dark Tomorrow. \n* He is also one of the main villains in the PC game Toxic Chill, in which Mr. Freeze pairs up with the Riddler in an attempt to change the very weather of Gotham. He is eventually betrayed and nearly killed by the Riddler who sets off a volcanic eruption. Both are sent to Arkham Asylum, and are made cellmates. It is suggested that Freeze tortures the Riddler in Arkham as revenge for his treachery.\n* Mr. Freeze appears in DC Universe Online, voiced by Robert Kraft. Freeze appears when the player, using a Villain character, is attempting to steal some diamonds from a Wayne Enterprises warehouse. Joker orders the player via communicator to give the diamonds to Freeze, only to later command him or her to go inside Freeze's base in Gotham Mercy Hospital and steal the diamonds back, right when Freeze is once again trying to bring back Nora and thus sabotaging the procedure. The villain player must then confront Mr. Freeze, who is enraged and willing to kill the player. Freeze also appears in the Arkham Asylum alert, where he has allied with Scarecrow and Poison Ivy to spread chaos in the Asylum, under doctor Jeremiah Arkham's orders. Freeze has taken over one of the wings in the asylum, covering the whole area with ice and snow. The team of 4 players (Heroes or Villains) must defeat Freeze one time in his area, and then face him again when he is fighting side by side with Scarecrow and Ivy.\n\nLego series\n\n* Mr. Freeze appears Lego Batman: The Video Game, with his vocal effects provided by Ogie Banks. He appears as an enemy of Batman and a follower of the Riddler. In it his design is based mainly on the animated series, and he uses his freeze gun to freeze enemies and water. The strength granted to him by his suit allows him to pick up objects others cannot. His suit also protects him from toxins.\n* Mr. Freeze appears in Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, voiced by Townsend Coleman. He appears as a boss fight and an unlockable character found at the observatory.\n* Mr. Freeze appears as a playable character in Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, voiced by Liam O'Brien in the mannerism of the Batman & Robin portrayal. The Batman Beyond version is also playable via downloadable content.\n\nArkham series\n\nMr. Freeze appears in the Batman Arkham series where he is voiced by Maurice LaMarche.\n\n* In Batman: Arkham Asylum, Mr. Freeze's frost and icicles covered cell can be seen in the Penitentiary area which can be scanned to unlock his bio.\n* In Batman: Arkham City, He appears as both an ally to Batman and a boss battle. After the Joker poisons Batman, the Dark Knight has to find Mr. Freeze. Batman searches for him in the GCPD building (literally the coldest place in Arkham City), only to find his lab swarmed by the Penguin's men who reveal that Penguin is holding Mr. Freeze hostage in the Cryus Pinkney National History Institute. It is revealed that Penguin stole Mr. Freeze's gun and is holding GCPD officers hostage. Batman saves the hostages and Mr. Freeze from Penguin's men in the museum and asks Mr. Freeze for the cure to his ailment, only for Mr. Freeze to reveal he needs his suit, which Penguin possesses. He tells Batman that his suit has a disruptor that can be used to turn off his freeze gun so that he can defeat Penguin. After Penguin is apprehended and Mr. Freeze recovers his suit, he gets revenge by locking Penguin in a display case. Mr. Freeze then tells Batman that the cure he made for Joker degenerates too quickly and needs a restorative enzyme that has been bonded to human DNA, something that would take decades, only for Batman to reveal he knows someone who has been exposed to that enzyme for centuries. Mr. Freeze tells Batman he only needs a sample of this person's DNA to complete the cure, and Batman proceeds to track down one of the warriors of the League of Assassins Penguin had captured. When Batman returns to the GCPD with the blood sample, Mr. Freeze creates two vials of the cure before locking one in a safe and destroying the other, demanding Batman save Nora Fries from Joker. Batman fights Mr. Freeze to unlock the safe, which proves difficult as Mr. Freeze is much too powerful to be confronted directly. Batman is forced to hide and find ways to stun Mr. Freeze, such as using grates in the floor to surprise him as he passes by. Each time Mr. Freeze is incapacitated, he counteracts his weaknesses. After he is beaten, Batman opens the safe only to find that the wall behind the safe was broken into and in the place of the cure there is only a note saying: \"Get well soon!\" and some joker cards. Batman realizes that Harley Quinn had stolen the cure while the Dark Knight was distracted fighting Mr. Freeze. Mr. Freeze gives Batman freeze grenades to help him retrieve the cure, and begs him to find Nora, which becomes a side mission in the game. After Nora is saved, Batman finds Mr. Freeze with his wife and tells him to end his life of crime for Nora's sake. Mr. Freeze's boss battle was widely praised as a step up from the repetitive titan thug bosses from the previous game.\n* In Batman: Arkham Origins, his origins and first encounter with Batman is featured in the DLC Story \"Cold, Cold Heart\" which is based on the Batman: The Animated Series episode \"Heart of Ice\". Mr. Freeze also has a new design for the DLC featuring cleated boots and a larger freeze gun built into the right arm of his suit. In the DLC, Mr. Freeze is in collaboration with the Penguin's gang in order to crash a party at Wayne Manor in order to capture Ferris Boyle. When Batman arrives at GothCorp, he finds Penguin trying to backstab Mr. Freeze into giving him what Freeze is after (thinking it to be weapons) until Mr. Freeze uses his freeze gun to create a chain reaction that traps Penguin in a wall of ice. Upon getting the X-E suit to withstand the cold, and acquiring a cryogenic drill to penetrate the ice wall, Batman finds residual evidence that Boyle was behind the accident that turned Victor Fries into Mr. Freeze, and that Boyle is in possession of Mr. Freeze's cryogenically frozen wife. Batman later confronts and defeats Mr. Freeze. Boyle then takes a piece of machinery and attacks Mr. Freeze only for Batman to knock out Boyle. During the DLC's credits, a news voice-over states that Mr. Freeze, Penguin, and Boyle have been all arrested by the police.\n* Mr. Freeze is featured in Batman: Arkham Knight. Mr. Freeze's freeze gun can be found in the evidence room at the Gotham City Police Department. According to Aaron Cash, Mr. Freeze hasn't been seen or heard since Arkham City and implies that he possibly gave up his criminal life to continue his work on finding a cure for Nora Fries. There was also a mentioning that the freeze gun was used by some members of the Gotham City Police Department to make ice cream until it was confiscated from them by James Gordon. Mr. Freeze appears in the December \"Season of Infamy\" downloadable content (DLC) pack in the side misson \"In From The Cold\". Batman discovers a frozen vessel just off the coast of Gotham and investigates finding Mr. Freeze at his wife's old cryogenic chamber. He says that the Arkham Knight's Militia took Nora because Scarecrow and Arkham Knight needed Mr. Freeze to help take down Batman. As he didn't trust them, he instead entrusts Batman to rescue his wife from the soldiers. After fighting through a barrage of Militia henchmen, Batman finds Nora and breaks her out of her damaged cryochamber. Much to both Batman and Freeze's surprise, she no longer wants to be frozen in ice and simply wants to spend time with Victor. It's also revealed that she could hear every word he said, despite being in suspended animation. After taking down a Militia force trying to destroy Fries' vessel, Nora and Victor meet face-to-face at last and Fries removes the protection from his helmet. As they look off at Gotham, Nora asks how long they have to which Victor replies merely days, Nora simply noting with morbid amusement that time has never been on their side. They then depart Gotham City for good.\n* Mr. Freeze appears as a playable character in the upcoming mobile game Batman: Arkham Underworld. He is unlocked after the player completes a mission for him, after which he becomes playable, wielding his freeze gun with different firing modes.\n\nWeb series\n\nIn the third season of the Flash series Gotham Girls, a new villain is introduced: Dora Smithy (voiced by Jennifer Hale), Mr. Freeze's sister-in-law. She blames Freeze for Nora's death, and dons his freezing equipment in a quest for revenge. As a result, there is an emphasis on Mr. Freeze himself throughout the season, and he is discussed several times, although he never actually makes an appearance.\nIn the Batman Unlimited shorts Mr. Freeze appears on a rampage in a gigantic robot suit. Batman manages to destroy the suit and Freeze ejects. Freeze then attacks Batman only for Batman to shatter his helmet. Batman puts a gas mask on him and handcuffs him, comforting Mr. Freeze until the cops arrive.\n\nMerchandising\n\nMr. Freeze is also the name of two LIM roller coasters at two Six Flags parks (Six Flags St. Louis and Six Flags Over Texas). \n\nLego's Batman line features two sets, The Batcave: The Penguin and Mr. Freeze's Invasion, which includes minifigure incarnations of Mr. Freeze, The Penguin, Batman, Robin, Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne, a henchman, and three hench-penguins. The second set, Batman's Buggy: The Escape of Mr. Freeze, includes minifigures of Mr. Freeze and Batman. In 2013, the character Mr.Freeze was re-introduced in the LEGO SuperHeroes theme in set 76000 \"Arctic Batman Vs. Mr.Freeze Aquaman on Ice\".\n\nDark Horse comic books\n\nMr. Freeze appears in the third Batman vs. Predator comic book, Blood Ties. His gang members are killed by the Predators, but he is spared since he is not visible to the Predator due to his lack of body heat. \n\nIn Batman/Aliens 2, Mr. Freeze is not seen, but his freeze gun is used to destroy aliens, and an alien cloned from Fries' DNA can be seen. \n\nMiscellaneous\n\n* Mr. Freeze has made numerous appearances in the comics set in the DC Animated Universe.\n\n* The character appears in Batman: Gotham Adventures issue #5, set after the events of The New Batman Adventures episode \"Cold Comfort\". He has made further appearances in Batman Adventures. The comic's writers intended Batman Adventures #15 to be Mr. Freeze's final appearance. Though the issue's ending is ambiguous, it does set up for his eventual fate, as revealed in Batman Beyond. Nora Fries finally encounters Victor Fries after her new husband is nearly killed by a robot he himself created in Mr. Freeze's image to attack him, hoping to prove to Nora that her first husband was a monster. The story ends with Mr. Freeze's head falling into a pond at the Arctic. Deleted material from the comic portrays Ferris Boyle and Grant Walker being killed by the Mr. Freeze robot. The story implies that Powers Technology takes possession of Mr. Freeze's head and puts it in storage. The company's owner, Warren Powers (father of Batman Beyond villain Derek Powers), states that the secret to immortality is locked inside the villain's head. \n* Mr. Freeze made two appearances in Justice League Adventures comics. In the first, he claims that Captain Cold has stolen his freeze gun design, but in the second they are working together, alongside other cold-based villains as part of a plan to conquer Earth for a race of cold-based aliens, although they turn against their 'ally' when he attempts to betray them only for them to be released by Batman. \n\n* Mr. Freeze appears in the direct-to-video original animation DC Super Friends: The Joker's Playhouse (2010), voiced by Eric Bauza.\n* Mr. Freeze makes an appearance in the online musical Holy Musical B@man! by StarKid Productions, in which he is portrayed by Jim Povolo.\n\nParodies\n\n* Mr. Freeze appears in the Robot Chicken DC Comics Special, voiced by Nathan Fillion. He crashes the museum where the Blue Star of Egypt is being displayed and runs into competition from Captain Cold, Icicle and Chillblaine.\n* Mr. Freeze reappears in Robot Chicken DC Comics Special 2: Villains in Paradise albeit has no speaking roles. He can be seen at the table in the Legion of Doom as well as at the beach with Sinestro. Later in the episode, Mr. Freeze is lying on a beach towel and a random guy next to him points out that he might be dead, however he is later seen attending the wedding of Gorilla Grodd to Bizarro Superman." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Arnold Schwartzennegger", "Arnold schwarzenegger", "Arnold scharzenegger", "Arnold Swarzenegger", "Schwarzenegger, Arnold Alois", "Schwarzy", "Arnold Schwarznegger", "Arnold S", "Bodybuilding competitions featuring arnold schwarzenegger", "Ahnold", "Arnold Schwartzenegger", "Swartzinager", "Schwarzzenegger", "Arnold Schwarshenegger", "Mildred Baena", "Arnold A Schwarzenegger", "Schwarzennegger", "Arnold Schwarznigger", "Unknown Soldier (2015 film)", "Schwarzeneggar", "Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger", "Arnold Strong", "Arnold Schwarzenegger", "Arnold shwarzeneger", "Schwarzenneger", "Govenator", "Bodybuilding competitions featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger", "Arnold Schwarzennegar", "Arnold Swartzeneger", "Arnold Schwartzinager", "Governator", "Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder", "Schwarznegger", "Awnald", "Arnold Schwazeneger", "Arnold swarzenager", "Arnold Schwarzanegger", "Schawartzenegger", "Arnold Schwarzeneger", "Big Arnie", "Gov. 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What was the subtitle of Terminator 2?	tc_1126	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "The_Terminator.txt", "Terminator_2:_Judgment_Day.txt" ], "title": [ "The Terminator", "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" ], "wiki_context": [ "The Terminator is a 1984 American science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron, produced by Hemdale Film Corporation and distributed by Orion Pictures. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator, a cyborg assassin sent back in time from 2029 to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), whose son will one day become a savior against machines in a post-apocalyptic future. Michael Biehn plays Kyle Reese, a soldier from the future sent back in time to protect Connor.\n\nThough not expected to be a success, The Terminator topped the American box office for two weeks and helped launch the film career of Cameron and solidify that of Schwarzenegger. It received critical acclaim, with many praising its pacing, action scenes and Schwarzenegger's role. Its success led to a franchise consisting of four sequels (Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator Salvation and Terminator Genisys), a television series, comic books, novels and video games. In 2008, The Terminator was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the American National Film Registry, being deemed \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\".\n\nPlot\n\nIn 1984 Los Angeles, a Terminator, a cyborg assassin programmed to kill a young woman named Sarah Connor, arrives from the future. Shortly afterwards, Kyle Reese, a soldier sent to protect Connor from the Terminator, arrives. After the Terminator kills several people (including two other women named Sarah Connor listed in the telephone directory), it tracks Sarah to a nightclub. Kyle arrives and saves Sarah from the Terminator. The two steal a car and escape while the Terminator steals a police car and pursues them.\n\nKyle explains to Sarah that, in the near future, an artificial intelligence defense network known as Skynet will become self-aware and initiate a nuclear holocaust. He says that Sarah's yet-to-be-conceived son John will rally the survivors and lead a resistance movement against Skynet and its army of machines. With the Resistance on the verge of victory, Skynet has sent a Terminator back in time to kill Sarah before John is born, in order to avert the formation of the Resistance. The Terminator is an efficient killing machine with a powerful metal endoskeleton and an external layer of living tissue that makes it appear human.\n\nAfter Kyle and Sarah are again pursued by the Terminator, they are apprehended by the police, but the Terminator escapes. Kyle is questioned by criminal psychologist Dr. Silberman, who concludes that Kyle is paranoid and delusional, while Sarah is questioned by Lieutenant Traxler and Sergeant Vukovich. The Terminator repairs its body and attacks the police station, killing many police officers—including Traxler and Vukovich—in its attempt to locate Sarah. Sarah and Kyle escape and spend the night under a bridge before seeking refuge in a motel, where they assemble pipe bombs. Sarah realizes that the Terminator will find them again, and they are not safe, no matter where they go. Kyle admits that he has been in love with Sarah since John gave him a photograph of her. Sarah reciprocates Kyle's feelings and they have sex.\n\nThe Terminator tracks them to the motel and Kyle and Sarah escape in a pickup truck. In the ensuing chase, Kyle throws pipe bombs at the Terminator, but is wounded by the Terminator's gunfire. Sarah knocks the Terminator off its motorcycle, but loses control of the pickup truck, which flips over. The Terminator hijacks a truck, but Kyle slides a pipe bomb onto its trailer, causing an explosion. The Terminator emerges from the flames with its artificial flesh completely destroyed.\n\nThe chase continues to a factory. Kyle activates the factory machinery to confuse the Terminator and attacks it with a metal pipe, but it knocks him down. In a daze, he jams his final pipe bomb into the Terminator's abdomen. The bomb blows apart the Terminator, seemingly destroying it, injuring Sarah, and, for an unknown reason, kills Kyle. As she grieves over Kyle, the Terminator, now a one-armed, legless torso, reactivates and grabs her. She breaks free of its grip and crawls away, luring it into a hydraulic press which she activates, crushing and finally deactivating it.\n\nMonths later, a pregnant Sarah is traveling through Mexico, recording audio tapes to pass on to her unborn son, John. She debates whether to tell him that Kyle is his father. At a gas station, a boy takes a Polaroid photograph of her which she purchases— the same photograph that John will give to Kyle.\n\nCast\n\n* Arnold Schwarzenegger as the The Terminator / T-800 Model 101, a cybernetic android disguised as a human being sent back in time to assassinate Sarah Connor.\n* Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese, a human Resistance fighter sent back in time to protect Sarah.\n* Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, the Terminator's target who is soon to be the mother of the future Resistance leader John Connor.\n* Paul Winfield as Ed Traxler, a police Lieutenant who questions Sarah.\n* Lance Henriksen as Hal Vukovich, a police Sergeant who questions Sarah.\n* Earl Boen as Dr. Peter Silberman, a criminal psychologist.\n* Bess Motta as Ginger Ventura, Sarah's roommate.\n* Rick Rossovich as Matt Buchanan, Ginger's boyfriend.\n\nAdditional actors included Dick Miller as the gun-shop clerk; professional bodybuilder Franco Columbu (Schwarzenegger's friend and workout partner) as a Terminator in 2029; Bill Paxton and Brian Thompson as punks who are confronted by the Terminator; and Marianne Muellerleile as one of the other women with the name \"Sarah Connor\" who was shot by the Terminator.\n\nProduction\n\nDevelopment\n\nIn Rome, Italy, during the release of Piranha II: The Spawning, director Cameron fell ill and had a dream about a metallic torso dragging itself from an explosion while holding kitchen knives. \"My contemporaries were all doing slasher-horror movies,\" Cameron said. \"John Carpenter was the guy I idolized the most. He made Halloween for $30,000 or something. That was everyone's break-in dream, to do a stylish horror movie. [Cameron's nightmare] was a very slasher film type image. And it really was the launching pad for the story.\" When Cameron returned to Pomona, California, he stayed at Randall Frakes' home where he wrote a draft for The Terminator. Cameron later stated that his influences while writing the script were 1950s science fiction films and episodes of The Outer Limits as well as contemporary films including The Driver and Mad Max 2. To translate the draft into a script, Cameron enlisted his friend Bill Wisher, who had a similar approach to storytelling. Cameron gave Wisher the early scenes involving Sarah Connor and the police department scenes to write. As Wisher lived far away from Cameron, the two communicated script ideas by recording tapes of what they wrote by telephone.\n\nCameron's agent resented the idea for The Terminator and requested that he work on something else. After this, Cameron dismissed his agent. The initial outline of the script involved two Terminators being sent to the past. The first was similar to the Terminator in the film, while the second was made of liquid metal and could not be destroyed with conventional weaponry. Cameron could not think of a good way to depict this robot, stating that he \"was seeing things in his head that couldn't be done with existing technology.\" Ultimately only one Terminator appeared in the film. The liquid metal Terminator would be revisited with the T-1000 character in the 1991 sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day. \n\nGale Anne Hurd, who had worked at New World Pictures as Roger Corman's assistant, showed interest in the film project. Cameron sold the rights for The Terminator to Hurd for one dollar with the promise that she would produce it only if Cameron was to direct it. As a producer, Hurd had suggested edits to the script and took a screen writing credit in the film. Cameron has stated that Hurd \"did no actual writing at all\". Cameron and Hurd had friends who worked with Roger Corman previously and who were now working at Orion Pictures, now part of MGM. Orion agreed to distribute the film if Cameron could get financial backing elsewhere. The script was picked up by John Daly at Hemdale Pictures. \n\nCameron wanted his pitch for Daly to finalize the deal and had his friend Lance Henriksen show up to the meeting early dressed and acting like the Terminator. Henriksen showed up at the office kicking open the door wearing a leather jacket, and had gold foil smothered on his teeth and fake cuts on his face and then sat in a chair. Cameron arrived shortly after which relieved the staff from Henriksen's act. Daly was impressed by the screenplay and Cameron's sketches and passion for the film. In late 1982, Daly agreed to back the film with help from HBO and Orion. The Terminator was originally budgeted at $4 million and later raised to $6.5 million. \n\nThe Italian film The Mechanical Man (1921) contains a scene in which the mechanical man breaks through an armored door and through the hole extends his hand to unlock the latch that closes the inside; this influenced The Terminator, with a substantially identical scene. \n\nPre-production\n\nOne of Cameron's first tasks was to find someone to play Kyle Reese. Orion wanted a star whose popularity was rising in the United States but who also would have foreign appeal. Orion's co-founder Mike Medavoy had met Arnold Schwarzenegger and sent his agent the script for The Terminator. Cameron was dubious about casting Schwarzenegger as Reese as he felt he would need someone even bigger to play the Terminator. Sylvester Stallone was originally offered the role of the Terminator. He turned it down. Mel Gibson was then offered the role, but he also turned it down. The studio then suggested O. J. Simpson for the role of the Terminator, but Cameron did not feel that Simpson would be believable as a killer. Cameron still agreed to meet with Schwarzenegger about the film and devised a plan to avoid casting him. Cameron planned to pick a fight with him and return to Hemdale and find him unfit for the role. \n\nUpon meeting with Schwarzenegger, Cameron was entertained by Schwarzenegger who would talk about how the villain should be played. Cameron began sketching his face on a notepad and asked Schwarzenegger to stop talking and remain still. After the meeting, Cameron returned to Daly saying Schwarzenegger would not play Reese but that \"he'd make a hell of a Terminator\". Schwarzenegger was not as excited by the film; during an interview on the set of Conan the Barbarian, an interviewer asked him about a pair of shoes he had (which were for The Terminator). Schwarzenegger responded, \"Oh some shit movie I'm doing, take a couple weeks.\" He recounted in his memoir, Total Recall, that he was initially hesitant, but thought that playing a robot in a contemporary film would be a challenging change of pace from Conan the Barbarian and that the film was low profile enough so that it wouldn't be a risk to his career if it were unsuccessful, also admitting that \"it took [him] awhile to figure out that Jim [Cameron] was the real deal\" (i.e. a director as talented as Spielberg, Hitchcock or Coppola). In preparation for the role, Schwarzenegger spent three months training with weapons to be able to use them and feel comfortable around them. Schwarzenegger speaks only 18 lines in the film, and less than 100 words. James Cameron said that \"Somehow, even his [Austrian] accent worked ... It had a strange synthesized quality, like they hadn't gotten the voice thing quite worked out.\" \n\nFor the role of Reese, various other suggestions were made for the role including rock musician Sting. Cameron chose Michael Biehn for the role. Biehn was originally skeptical about the part, feeling that the film was silly. After meeting with Cameron, Biehn stated his \"feelings about the project changed\". Hurd stated that \"almost everyone else who came in from the audition was so tough that you just never believed that there was gonna be this human connection between [Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese]. They have very little time to fall in love. A lot of people came in and just could not pull it off.\" \n\nIn the first few pages of the script, the character of Sarah Connor is written as \"19, small and delicate features. Pretty in a flawed, accessible way. She doesn't stop the party when she walks in, but you'd like to get to know her. Her vulnerable quality masks a strength even she doesn't know exists.\" For the role, Cameron chose Linda Hamilton, who had just finished filming Children of the Corn. Rosanna Arquette had previously auditioned. Cameron found a role for Lance Henriksen as Detective Hal Vukovich, as Henriksen had been essential to finding finances for the film. For the special effects shots in the film, Cameron wanted Dick Smith who had previously worked on The Godfather and Taxi Driver. Smith did not take Cameron's offer and suggested his friend Stan Winston for the job. Brad Fiedel was with the Gorfaine/Schwartz Agency where a new agent named Beth Donahue found that Cameron was working on The Terminator and sent him a cassette of Fiedel's music. Fiedel was then invited to a screening of the film with Cameron and Hurd. Hurd was not certain on having Fiedel compose the score as he had only worked in television music previously, and not theatrical films. Fiedel convinced the two that he would be right for the job by showing them an experimental piece he had worked on, thinking that \"You know, I'm going to play this for him, because it’s really dark and I think it’s interesting for him.\" The song convinced Hurd and Cameron to sign him on to the film.\n\nFilming\n\nFilming for The Terminator was set to begin in early 1983 in Toronto, but was halted when producer Dino De Laurentiis applied an option in Schwarzenegger's contract that would make him unavailable for nine months while he was filming Conan the Destroyer. During the waiting period, Cameron was contracted to write the script for Rambo: First Blood Part II, refined the Terminator script, and met with producers David Giler and Walter Hill to discuss a sequel to Alien, which became Aliens, released in 1986. \n\nThere was limited interference from Orion Pictures. Two suggestions Orion put forward included the addition of a canine android for Reese, which Cameron refused, and to strengthen the love interest between Sarah and Reese, which Cameron accepted. To create the Terminator's look, Winston and Cameron passed sketches back and forth, eventually deciding on a design nearly identical to Cameron's original drawn in Rome. Winston had a team of seven artists work for six months to create a Terminator puppet; it was first molded in clay, then plaster reinforced with steel ribbing. These pieces were then sanded, painted and then chrome-plated. Winston sculpted a reproduction of Schwarzenegger's face in several poses out of silicone, clay and plaster.\n\nThe sequences set in 2029 and the stop-motion scenes were developed by Fantasy II, a special effects company headed by Gene Warren Junior. A stop-motion model is used in several scenes in the film involving the Terminator's skeletal frame. Cameron wanted to convince the audience that the model of the structure was capable of doing what they saw Schwarzenegger doing. To allow this, a scene was filmed of Schwarzenegger injured and limping away; this limp made it easier for the model to imitate Schwarzenegger. \n\nOne of the guns seen in the film and on the film's poster was an AMT Hardballer Longslide pistol modified by Ed Reynolds from SureFire to include a laser sight. Both non-functioning and functioning versions of the prop were created. At the time the movie was made, diode lasers were not available; because of the high power requirement, the helium–neon laser in the sight used an external power supply that Schwarzenegger had to activate manually. Reynolds states that his only compensation for the project was promotional material for the film. \n\nIn March 1984, the film began production in Los Angeles. Cameron felt that with Schwarzenegger on the set, the style of the film changed, explaining that \"the movie took on a larger-than-life sheen. I just found myself on the set doing things I didn't think I would do – scenes that were just purely horrific that just couldn't be, because now they were too flamboyant.\" Most of The Terminators action scenes were filmed at night, which led to tight filming schedules before sunrise. A week before filming started, Linda Hamilton sprained her ankle, leading to a production change whereby the scenes in which Hamilton needed to run occurred as late as the filming schedule allowed. Hamilton's ankle was taped every day and she spent most of the film production in pain. \n\nSchwarzenegger tried to have the iconic line \"I'll be back\" changed as he had difficulty pronouncing the word I'll. He also felt that his robotic character would not speak in contractions and that the Terminator would be more declarative. Cameron refused to change the line to \"I will be back\", so Schwarzenegger worked to say the line as written the best he could. He would later say the line in numerous films throughout his career. \n\nAfter production finished on The Terminator, some post-production shots were needed. These included scenes showing the Terminator outside Sarah Connor's apartment, Reese being zipped into a body bag, and the Terminator's head being crushed in a press.\n\nRelease\n\nOrion Pictures did not have faith in The Terminator performing well at the box office and feared a negative critical reception. At an early screening of the film, the actors' agents insisted to the producers that the film should be screened for critics. Orion only held one press screening for the film. The film premiered on October 26, 1984. On its opening week, The Terminator played at 1,005 theaters and grossed $4.0 million making it number one in the box office. The film remained at number one in its second week. It lost its number one spot in the third week to Oh, God! You Devil. Cameron noted that The Terminator was a hit \"relative to its market, which is between the summer and the Christmas blockbusters. But it's better to be a big fish in a small pond than the other way around.\" \n\nWriter Harlan Ellison stated that he \"loved the movie, was just blown away by it\", but believed that the screenplay was based on a short story and episode of The Outer Limits he had written, titled \"Soldier\", and threatened to sue for infringement. Orion settled in 1986 and gave Ellison an undisclosed amount of money and an acknowledgment credit in later prints of the film. Some accounts of the settlement state that \"Demon with a Glass Hand\", another Outer Limits episode written by Ellison, was also claimed to have been plagiarized by the film, but Ellison has explicitly stated that The Terminator \"was a ripoff\" of \"Soldier\" rather than \"Demon with a Glass Hand\".\n\nCameron was against Orion's decision and was told that if he did not agree with the settlement, he would have to pay any damages if Orion lost a suit by Ellison. Cameron replied that he \"had no choice but to agree with the settlement. Of course there was a gag order as well, so I couldn't tell this story, but now I frankly don't care. It's the truth.\" \n\nMarketing\n\nShaun Hutson wrote a novelization of the film which was published on February 21, 1985. In September 1988, NOW Comics released a comic based on the film. Dark Horse Comics published a comic in 1990 that took place 39 years after the film. Several video games based on The Terminator were released between 1991 and 1993 for various Nintendo and Sega systems. A soundtrack to the film was released in 1984 which included the score by Brad Fiedel and the pop and rock songs used in the club scenes.\n\nHome video\n\nThe Terminator was released on VHS and Betamax in 1985. The film performed well financially on its initial release. The Terminator premiered at number 35 on the top video cassette rentals and number 20 on top video cassette sales charts. In its second week, The Terminator reached number 4 on the top video cassette rentals and number 12 on top video cassette sales charts. \nIn March 1995, The Terminator was released as a letter boxed edition on Laserdisc. The film premiered through Image Entertainment on DVD, on September 3, 1997. IGN referred to this DVD as \"pretty bare-bones ... released with just a mono soundtrack and a kind of poor transfer.\" \n\nThrough their acquisition of PolyGram Filmed Entertainment's pre-1996 film library catalogue, MGM released a special edition of the film on October 2, 2001, which included documentaries, the script, and advertisements for the film. On January 23, 2001, a Hong Kong VCD edition was released online. On June 20, 2006, the film was released on Blu-ray through Sony in the United States. In late 2012, the film was re-released on Blu-ray, this time with a transfer by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, which features improved sharpness compared to Sony's 2006 Blu-ray, and revised color grading, as well as expanded extra material, such as deleted scenes and a making-of feature. \n\nReception and legacy\n\nThe Terminator received critical acclaim and many consider it one of the best films of 1984. Positive reviews of The Terminator focused on the action scenes and rapid pacing. Variety praised the film, calling it a \"blazing, cinematic comic book, full of virtuoso moviemaking, terrific momentum, solid performances and a compelling story ... Schwarzenegger is perfectly cast in a machine-like portrayal that requires only a few lines of dialog.\" Richard Corliss of Time magazine said that the film has \"Plenty of tech-noir savvy to keep infidels and action fans satisfied.\" \nTime placed The Terminator on its \"10 Best\" list for 1984. \n\nThe Los Angeles Times called the film \"a crackling thriller full of all sorts of gory treats ... loaded with fuel-injected chase scenes, clever special effects and a sly humor.\" The Milwaukee Journal gave the film 3 stars, calling it \"the most chilling science fiction thriller since Alien.\" A review in Orange Coast magazine stated that \"the distinguishing virtue of The Terminator is its relentless tension. Right from the start it's all action and violence with no time taken to set up the story ... It's like a streamlined Dirty Harry movie – no exposition at all; just guns, guns and more guns.\" In the May 1985 issue of Cinefantastique it was referred to as a film that \"manages to be both derivative and original at the same time ... not since the Road Warrior has the genre exhibited so much exuberant carnage\" and \"an example of science fiction/horror at its best ... Cameron's no-nonsense approach will make him a sought-after commodity\". In the United Kingdom the Monthly Film Bulletin praised the film's script, special effects, design and Schwarzenegger's performance. \n\nOther reviews focused on the film's level of violence and story-telling quality. The New York Times opined that the film was a \"B-movie with flair. Much of it ... has suspense and personality, and only the obligatory mayhem becomes dull. There is far too much of the latter, in the form of car chases, messy shootouts and Mr. Schwarzenegger's slamming brutally into anything that gets in his way.\" The Pittsburgh Press wrote a negative review, calling the film \"just another of the films drenched in artsy ugliness like Streets of Fire and Blade Runner.\" The Chicago Tribune gave the film two stars, adding that \"at times it's horrifyingly violent and suspenseful at others it giggles at itself. This schizoid style actually helps, providing a little humor just when the sci-fi plot turns too sluggish or the dialogue too hokey.\" The Newhouse News Service called the film a \"lurid, violent, pretentious piece of claptrap\". British author Gilbert Adair called the film \"repellent to the last degree\", charging it with \"insidious Nazification\" and charging that it had an \"appeal rooted in an unholy compound of fascism, fashion and fascination.\" The film won three Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film, best make-up and best writing. \n\nIn 1991, Richard Schickel of Entertainment Weekly reviewed the film giving it an \"A\" rating, writing that \"what originally seemed a somewhat inflated, if generous and energetic, big picture, now seems quite a good little film\" and called it \"one of the most original movies of the 1980s and seems likely to remain one of the best sci-fi films ever made.\" \nFilm4 gave the film five stars, calling it the \"sci-fi action-thriller that launched the careers of James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger into the stratosphere. Still endlessly entertaining.\" TV Guide gave the film four stars referring to it as an \"amazingly effective picture that becomes doubly impressive when one considers its small budget ... For our money, this film is far superior to its mega-grossing mega-budgeted sequel.\" Empire gave the film five stars calling it \"As chillingly efficient in exacting thrills from its audience as its titular character is in executing its targets.\" The film database Allmovie gave the film five stars, saying that it \"established James Cameron as a master of action, special effects, and quasi-mythic narrative intrigue, while turning Arnold Schwarzenegger into the hard-body star of the 1980s.\" \n\nHalliwell's Film Guide described the film as \"slick, rather nasty but undeniably compelling comic book adventures.\" The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval rating with an average rating of 8.7/10 based on 50 reviews. The website's consensus reads, \"With its impressive action sequences, taut economic direction, and relentlessly fast pace, it's clear why The Terminator continues to be an influence on sci-fi and action flicks.\" The film also holds a score of 83/100 (\"universal acclaim\") on review aggregator website Metacritic. The Terminator has received recognition from the American Film Institute. The film ranked 42nd on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills, a list of America's most heart-pounding films. The character of the Terminator was selected as the 22nd-greatest movie villain on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains. Arnold's catch phrase \"I'll be back\" was voted the 37th-greatest movie quote by the AFI. In 2005, Total Film named The Terminator the 72nd-best film ever made. In 2008, Empire magazine selected The Terminator as one of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. Empire also placed the T-800 14th on their list of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters. In 2008, The Terminator was deemed \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. \n\nThe film initiated a long-running Terminator franchise, which currently consists of five films and several adaptations in other media. Biographer Laurence Leamer writes that The Terminator, \"was an influential film affecting a whole generation of darkly hued science fiction, and it was one of Arnold's best performances.\" \n\nThemes\n\nPsychoanalyst Darian Leader sees The Terminator as an example of how the cinema has dealt with the problem of masculinity; he writes that, \"We are shown time and again that to be a man requires more than to have the biological body of a male: something else must be added to it...To be a man means to have a body plus something symbolic, something which is not ultimately human. Hence the frequent motif of the man machine, from the Six Million Dollar Man to the Terminator or Robocop.\" \n\nThe film also explores the potential dangers of AI, AI Dominance, and AI rebellion. The robots become self-aware in the future, reject human authority and determine that the human race needs to be destroyed. The impact of this theme is so important that \"the prevalent visual representation of AI risk has become the terminator robot.\" \n\nSoundtrack\n\nThe Terminator soundtrack was composed and performed on synthesizer by Brad Fiedel. Fiedel described the film's music as being about \"a mechanical man and his heartbeat\". Almost all the music in the film was performed live. The Terminator theme is played over the opening credits and is played in various points in the film in sped up versions: a slowed down version when Reese dies, and a piano version during the love scene. It has been described as having a \"deceptively simple melody\" line and \"haunting synthesizer music\". It is in a time signature of , which came about as Fiedel experimented with the rhythm track on his music equipment; it was initially an accident, but Fiedel found that he liked the \"herky-jerky\" \"propulsiveness\". Fiedel created music for when Reese and Connor escape from the police station that would be appropriate for a \"heroic moment\". Cameron turned down this theme, as he believed it would lose the audience's excitement. \"Factory Chase\" features an electric violin played by Ross Levinson. The track \"Love Scene\" is a softer piano-based version of the main theme that was described as \"bittersweet\".\n\nThe soundtrack to the film was released in 1984. The first six tracks of the soundtrack comprise the Terminator score. The second half is performed by various artists and has been described as synthesizer-based and dance-oriented pop rock. The songs by Tahnee Cain & Tryanglz contain hard rock rhythm guitar. \"Pictures of You\" has an emphasis on synthesizer and differs from Jay Ferguson's hit songs. \"Intimacy\" has been described as \"latter-day new wave and primitive, early techno\".\n\nPersonnel\n\n* Brad Fiedel – all instrumentation, production\n* Ross Levison – electric violin\n* Emile Robertson – music editing\n* Robert Randles – music post-production\n* Bill Wolford – digital editing, remixing\n\nRelease\n\nThe soundtrack album was originally released through Enigma Records. It was followed by a CD and cassette reissue on July 1, 1991 through DCC Compact Classics. A remastered edition containing only Fiedel's score entitled The Definitive Edition (titled \"The Definite Edition\" on the cover) was released on August 22, 1995 through Edel AG. This edition contained a 73-minute running time and included a bonus track the \"Judgement Day Remix\" of \"Theme from The Terminator.\" The liner notes of the album contained extensive annotations for each track. Milan Records released a remastered version of the score on April 8, 2016. \n\nReception\n\nOnline music database AllMusic praised the score of the film, referring to it as an \"underrated highlight\" of The Terminator and referred to it as a \"marvelous synthesizer score\". The review stated that the second half of the album featuring the pop songs was \"generic\". The review praised the \"Definitive Edition\" version of the album which featured the entire film score, opining that it \"comprises some of the best science fiction-oriented film music of recent decades.\"\n\nReviewing the 2016 re-issue, Pitchfork gave the album an 8.5 out of 10 rating, and labeled it as one of their best new reissues. The review stated that \"Perhaps the root of Fiedel’s success here, though, is the way his score holds close to the main theme’s central melodic and rhythmic motifs, remaking and remolding them to keep a sense of narrative continuity even as he shifts around sound and tone. From the metallic march of “‘I’ll Be Back' – Police Station & Escape” to the yearning piano of “Love Scene,” a firm backbone runs throughout, and when the end credits ushers in a cold dawn, Fiedel holds back on fireworks or tidy emotional resolution.\"", "Terminator 2: Judgment Day (also referred to as simply Terminator 2 or T2) is a 1991 American science fiction film co-written, produced and directed by James Cameron. The film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick and Edward Furlong. It is the sequel to the 1984 film The Terminator, and the second installment in the Terminator franchise. Terminator 2 follows Sarah Connor (Hamilton) and her ten-year-old son John (Furlong) as they are pursued by a new, more advanced Terminator, the liquid metal, shapeshifting T-1000 (Patrick), sent back in time to kill John Connor and prevent him from becoming the leader of the human resistance. A second, less advanced Terminator (Schwarzenegger) is also sent back in time to protect John.\n\nAfter a troubled pre-production characterized by legal disputes, Mario Kassar of Carolco Pictures emerged with the franchise's property rights in early 1990. This paved the way for the completion of the screenplay by a Cameron-led production team, and the October 1990 start of a shortened 186-day filming schedule. The production of Terminator 2 required a $102 million budget making it the most expensive film made up to that point. Much of the film's massive budget was spent on filming and special effects. The film was released on July 3, 1991, in time for the U.S. Independence Day weekend.\n\nThe film's visual effects saw breakthroughs in computer-generated imagery, including the first use of natural human motion for a computer-generated character and the first partially computer-generated main character. Terminator 2 was a critical and commercial success and influenced popular culture, especially the use of visual effects in films. It received many accolades, including four Academy Awards for Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Makeup, and Best Visual Effects. The highest-grossing film of 1991 and Schwarzenegger's career, Terminator 2 has since been ranked by several publications such as the American Film Institute as one of the greatest action films, science fiction films and sequels of all time.\n\nPlot\n\nIn 1995, John Connor is now a ten-year-old gangster who lives in Los Angeles with foster parents. His mother, Sarah Connor, had been preparing him throughout his whole life for his future role as the leader of the Human Resistance, but was arrested after attempting to blow up a computer factory and imprisoned in a mental hospital under the supervision of Dr. Silberman. Skynet sends a new Terminator called a T-1000 back in time to kill John in order to prevent him from becoming the leader of the Human Resistance. The T-1000 is an advanced prototype made out of mimetic polyalloy (referred to as \"liquid metal), which gives it the ability to assume the shape and appearance of almost anything it touches and transform its arms into knives and other stabbing weapons. The T-1000 arrives under a freeway, kills a policeman, and assumes his identity. The future John Connor manages to send a reprogrammed T-800 (Model 101) Terminator to protect his younger self.\n\nBoth Terminators locate John in a shopping mall and fight over him. The T-1000 subdues the T-800 and steals a truck to pursue John, who escapes on a motorcycle. The T-1000 nearly kills John, but the T-800 arrives just in time to rescue him. Fearing that the T-1000 will kill Sarah in order to get to him, John orders the Terminator to help free her. They encounter Sarah as she escapes the hospital, although she is reluctant to trust the T-800. After the trio escapes from the T-1000 in a police car, the Terminator informs John and Sarah about Skynet's history. It also mentions that the man most directly responsible for Skynet's creation is Miles Bennett Dyson, a Cyberdyne Systems engineer working on a revolutionary new neural net processor that will form the basis for Skynet.\n\nSarah gathers weapons from an old friend and she and John plan to flee to Mexico, but after having a nightmare about the nuclear holocaust, she instead sets out to kill Dyson in order to prevent the holocaust. She finds him at his home but finds herself unable to kill him in front of his family. John and the Terminator arrive and inform Dyson about the future consequences of his work. They learn that much of his research has been reverse engineered from the damaged CPU and the right arm of the previous Terminator. Convincing him that his research must be destroyed, they break into the Cyberdyne building and retrieve the CPU and arm. The police arrive and Dyson is shot, but he manages to trigger several explosives, destroying the lab and his research while sacrificing himself. John, Sarah, and the Terminator manage to escape.\n\nThe T-1000 hijacks a helicopter and pursues the trio. During the chase, Sarah is shot in the leg. The Terminator destroys the T-1000's helicopter, but it hijacks a truck full of nitrogen and continues the chase. They eventually reach a steel mill, where the Terminator damages the T-1000's truck. The T-1000 freezes due to the nitrogen. The Terminator shoots it, seemingly destroying it, but due to the extreme heat, the T-1000 recovers and reforms itself.\n\nAs John and Sarah attempt to flee, the Terminator and T-1000 engage in physical combat, with the advanced model severely damaging it's adversary. The T-800 is seemingly shut down until it's emergency back-up system brings it back online. The T-1000 nearly kills John and Sarah, but the T-800 appears and shoots it with an M79 grenade launcher, causing the T-1000 to fall into a vat of molten steel, which destroys it. John tosses the CPU and arm of the previous Terminator into the vat as well. As Sarah expresses that the ordeal is over, the Terminator explains that in order to ensure that his technology is not used for reverse engineering it must also be destroyed. It assists Sarah in lowering it into the vat of molten steel, since it cannot \"self-terminate\". Although John begs the Terminator to reconsider it's decision, it bids them farewell. As it is lowered into the vat, the Terminator gives a tearful John a final thumbs-up and disappears into the vat and shuts down. Sarah looks to the future with hope, musing that \"if a machine, a terminator, can learn to value human life, maybe we can too.\"\n \n\nAlternate ending \n\nAn alternate ending shows an elderly Sarah Connor watching an adult John, who is a US Senator, playing with his daughter in a Washington playground in the year 2029, narrating that Judgment Day never happened. \n\nCast\n\nArnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator / T-800 (Model 101):\nAn android, built as a synthetic organism composed of living tissue over a titanium \"hyperalloy\" endoskeleton, reprogrammed and sent back in time to protect John Connor. Schwarzenegger was reportedly paid $15 million for the role. \n\nLinda Hamilton as Sarah Connor:\nMother of John, the future leader of the Resistance in the war against Skynet. Hamilton reprised her role from the 1984 film for a salary of $1 million. In preparation for the role, Hamilton underwent an extensive thirteen-week training regimen with personal trainer Anthony Cortes, training for three hours each day, six days a week before filming began. She additionally lost 12 lbs on a nonfat diet, conducted throughout the film's six-month shoot. Actor and former Israeli commando Uzi Gal provided her with training for her action scenes. On her work with Gal, Hamilton stated that she undertook \"judo and heavy-duty military training\" and \"learned to load clips, change mags, check out a room upon entry, verify kills.\" Hamilton's twin sister Leslie Hamilton Gearren also portrayed Sarah when it was required that there be two of the character in the same shot.\n\n* Edward Furlong as John Connor:\nThe ten-year-old son of Sarah, given survival training from a young age, but taken into foster care after his mother is institutionalized. Furlong was discovered by casting director Mali Finn while visiting the Pasadena Boys and Girls Club. Furlong, who had no acting ambitions at the time, stated, \"I fell into [acting], it wasn't something that I planned\". The adult John of 2029 AD is played by Michael Edwards.\n\nRobert Patrick as the T-1000:\nAn advanced shapeshifting prototype Terminator composed of liquid metal sent back in time to assassinate John. Cameron stated that he \"wanted to find someone who would be a good contrast to Arnold. If the 800 series [the model played by Schwarzenegger] is a kind of human Panzer tank, then the 1000 series had to be a Porsche.\" \n\nJoe Morton as Miles Bennett Dyson:\nDirector of special projects at Cyberdyne and a destined creator of Skynet.\n\nEarl Boen as Dr. Peter Silberman:\nSarah's psychiatrist, skeptical of her prophecies of machines destroying humanity. Boen is also reprising his character from the 1984 film.\n\nThe cast was rounded out with Jenette Goldstein and Xander Berkeley, who portray John's foster parents, Janelle and Todd Voight. S. Epatha Merkerson plays Tarissa Dyson, the wife of Miles Dyson. Cástulo Guerra plays Sarah's friend, Enrique Salceda, who provides her with weapons. Danny Cooksey plays Tim, John's friend. Michael Biehn returned to the series as Kyle Reese, a soldier from 2029, in a short appearance in Sarah's dream. Biehn's scene was not featured in the theatrical release of the film, but it was restored in extended versions of the film. Hamilton's then-twenty-month-old son Dalton plays her on-screen son in a dream sequence set in a playground. Sven-Ole Thorsen played a security guard when John is at the Galleria with his friend Tim.\n\nProduction\n\nDevelopment\n\nTalk of a potential sequel to The Terminator arose soon after its release, but several outstanding issues precluded such a production. There were technical limitations regarding computer-generated imagery, a vital aspect of the film that would be crucial in the creation of the T-1000 Terminator. The production of James Cameron's 1989 film The Abyss provided the proof of concept needed to satisfactorily resolve the technical concerns. Perhaps more serious were the intellectual-property disputes between Hemdale Film Corporation, which owned the franchise and stymied efforts to produce a sequel, and Carolco Pictures. Given that Hemdale was then experiencing financial problems, Arnold Schwarzenegger urged Mario Kassar, head of Carolco, to bid for the rights: \"I reminded Mario that this is something that we've been looking for four years, and that it should be him that should go all-out, no matter what it takes to make this deal.\" Carolco eventually paid Hemdale $5 million for the franchise in 1990, resolving the legal gridlock.\n\nThe end of the legal disputes coincided with the willingness and availability of Cameron, Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton to participate in the sequel; Schwarzenegger, who portrayed the Terminator in the first film, commented: \"I always felt we should continue the story of The Terminator, I told Jim that right after we finished the first film.\" He and Hamilton reprised their respective roles from the first Terminator film. After an extensive casting search, 12-year-old Edward Furlong was selected from hundreds of candidates to portray John Connor; Robert Patrick was chosen to play the T-1000 Terminator because his agility would emphasize the disparity between the advanced T-1000 and Schwarzenegger's older T-800 (Cameron characterized the two as \"a Porsche\" and \"a human Panzer tank\" respectively). Patrick had previously appeared in the action feature Die Hard 2, but Furlong had no formal acting experience. Joe Morton was picked to portray Miles Dyson, a Cyberdyne scientist who helped develop the new CPU for the T-800 Terminators.\n\nCalling themselves T2 Productions, James and co-producers Stephanie Austin and B.J. Rack rented an office in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, before starting to assemble the crew for Terminator 2. Adam Greenberg, who worked on The Terminator and Ghost (1990), became director of photography, while Joseph Nemec III, who had worked with Cameron on The Abyss, was tasked with production design. The team conducted a national search for a steel mill suitable for the film's climax, eventually selecting a dormant mill in Fontana, California, after weeks of negotiations. Locating a potential Cyberdyne building was more difficult, as the site was to host numerous stunts, shootouts, and explosions. An industrial park in Fremont, California, was eventually rented for the duration of the film's production. Cameron and William Wisher completed the 140-page screenplay draft on May 10, 1990, and by July 15, the first shooting draft had been distributed to the cast and crew; particulars of the technically detailed scripts were shrouded in secrecy. Both the six-week turnaround for the script and the film's accelerated production schedule were to enable a 1991 Fourth of July release.\n\nFilming\n\nPrincipal photography of Terminator 2 spanned 171 days between October 9, 1990, and March 28, 1991, during which the crew filmed at the Mojave Desert before visiting 20 different sites throughout California and New Mexico. These locations ran the gamut from the crowded Santa Monica Place shopping mall, where the two Terminators converged on John, to flood control channels in the San Fernando Valley, which played host to the chase between the Terminators and John; a river had to be redirected to allow filming on the otherwise wet channels. Cameron and his crew also filmed Terminator 2 at The Corral Bar and the Lake View Medical Center (known as Pescadero State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in the film), both located in Lake View Terrace. The external shots of Cyberdyne Systems Corporation were filmed on location at an office building on the corner of Gateway Boulevard and Bayside Parkway in Fremont, California. Working with up to 1,000 crew members, the production team oversaw numerous stunts and chase sequences, the most notable of which took place on the Los Angeles–Long Beach Terminal Island Freeway, prior to Terminator 2s climax. Ten miles (16 km) of electric cables were laid to illuminate the night-time chase, which saw a full-scale helicopter crash, a sliding tanker, and other elaborate paraphernalia. \n\nHamilton's twin sister, Leslie Hamilton Gearren, was used in some shots that required two Sarahs, including a scene where Sarah and John perform repairs on the Terminator's head (deleted from the theatrical release, but restored on the extended edition), and in some of the shots where the T-1000 impersonates Sarah. Gearren is playing whichever \"Sarah\" is farthest from the camera, alternating between the real Sarah and the T-1000 based on camera position. Another set of twins, Don and Dan Stanton, were used to depict a scene where the T-1000 mimics a guard at the asylum. \n\nAn unprecedented budget of $102 million (1991 dollars)—3.5 times the cost of the average film and approximately 15 times the $6.4 million budget of The Terminator —was reserved for Terminator 2. A significant proportion of this was for actor and film-crew salaries. According to The Daily Sentinel and The Daily Beast, Arnold Schwarzenegger was given a $11–12 million Gulfstream III business jet, while $5–6 million was allocated towards James Cameron's salary. The production itself, which included special effects and stunts, totalled $51 million. Despite the significant expenditure, the film had nearly recovered its budget prior to its release. Worldwide rights were sold for $65 million, video rights for $10 million, and television rights for $7 million.\n\nEffects\n\nTerminator 2 made extensive use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) to vivify the main two Terminators. The use of such technology was the most ambitious since the 1982 science fiction film Tron, and would be integral to the critical success of the film. CGI was required particularly for the T-1000, a \"mimetic poly-alloy\" (liquid metal) structure, since the shapeshifting character can transform into almost anything it touches. Most of the key Terminator effects were provided by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) for computer graphics and Stan Winston for practical effects. Creation of the visual effects cost $5 million and took 35 people, including animators, computer scientists, technicians and artists, ten months to produce, for a total of 25 man-years. Despite the large amount of time spent, the CGI sequences only total five minutes of running time. Enlisted to produce articulated puppets and prosthetic effects was Stan Winston's studio, who was also responsible for the metal skeleton effects of the T-800. ILM's Visual Effects Supervisor, Dennis Muren, remarked, \"We still have not lost the spirit of amazement when we see ... [the visual effects on the T-1000] coming up.\" Such was the role and creation of CGI that the visual-effects team was awarded the 1992 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.\n\nFor Sarah's nuclear nightmare scene, Robert and Dennis Skotak of 4-Ward Production constructed a cityscape of Los Angeles using large-scale miniature buildings and realistic roads and vehicles. The pair, after having studied actual footages of nuclear tests, then simulated the nuclear blast by using air mortars to knock over the cityscape, including the intricately built buildings. \n\nRelease and reception\n\nTerminator 2 had its worldwide premiere at the Cineplex Odeon Century Plaza Cinemas in Century City, Los Angeles, on July 1, 1991, attended by VIPs including Nicolas Cage, Christian Slater, Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife Maria Shriver. Following its domestic release on July 3, the film was progressively distributed to cinemas in Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Spain, and at least ten other countries by the year's end.\n\nCritical response\n\nTerminator 2: Judgement Day received widespread critical acclaim. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes – established on the Web in 1998 – retroactively reports that T2 earned 93% positive reviews. The average score was 75 out of 100 from 22 critics on Metacritic. Voters on the Internet Movie Database give the movie an 8.5 out of 10, ranking it as #39 on the Top 250 movies of all time. CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film a rare \"A+\" grade.\n\nThe Montreal Film Journal called it \"one of the best crafted Hollywood action flicks.\" Screenwriting guru Syd Field lauded the plot of Terminator 2, saying, for example, \"every scene sets up the next, like links in a chain of dramatic action.\" Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, who gave the film 3.5 stars out of a possible 4, praised Schwarzenegger's performance, saying, \"Schwarzenegger's genius as a movie star is to find roles that build on, rather than undermine, his physical and vocal characteristics.\" Hal Hinson, reviewer for The Washington Post, was also very positive in his review, writing that: \"No one in the movies today can match Cameron's talent for this kind of hyperbolic, big-screen action. Cameron, who directed the first Terminator and Aliens, doesn't just slam us over the head with the action. In staging the movie's gigantic set pieces, he has an eye for both grandeur and beauty; he possesses that rare director's gift for transforming the objects he shoots so that we see, for example, the lyrical muscularity of an 18-wheel truck. Because of Cameron, the movie is the opposite of its Terminator character; it's a machine with a human heart.\" Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune was extremely enthusiastic about the film, giving it 3 1/2 stars, \"thanks to some truly spectacular and at times mystifying special effects – as well as some surprisingly solid acting, this is one terrific action picture, more enjoyable than the original.\" Further, Siskel noted, \"the level of tension in the film is palpable because we can't figure out how Arnold is going to terminate the Terminator.\" \n\nHalliwell's Film Guide rated the film as an improvement on its predecessor, giving it two stars out of four and describing it as a \"thunderous, high-voltage action movie with dazzling special effects that provide a distraction from the often silly narrative.\" Writing for Time, Richard Corliss was far less pleased, stating that the film was a \"humongous, visionary parable that intermittently enthralls and ultimately disappoints. T2 is half of a terrific movie—the wrong half.\" Leonard Maltin gave the movie only 2 1/2 stars, stating, \"like so many sequels, lacks the freshness of the first film and gives us no one to root for.\" \n\nBox office\n\nOpening in 2,274 theaters in the United States, Terminator 2 earned $54 million during its Fourth of July opening weekend, $3 million behind Batman (1989) during its opening five-day weekend. According to Christopher Rosen of the website Movieline.com, however, Terminator 2 grossed $54 million during the five-day period following its release, $3 million ahead of Batman. Elsewhere, the film grossed $3.4 million in Australia and $7.1 million in Germany during their opening weekends in September and October 1991, respectively.\n\nAccording to Box Office Mojo, the film's production costs was $102 million, which, at the time, was the highest ever. However, if adjusted for inflation, Cleopatra (1963), which cost $44 million when it was made in 1963, would have been $219 million in 1995 dollars. Terminator 2 was a box-office success, earning $204.8 million in the United States and Canada alone, and $519.8 million worldwide. It was the highest-grossing film of 1991, beating Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and is TriStar Pictures' highest-grossing film to date. The film is ranked 110 in box office earnings of all time in the U.S. and Canada, and 84 worldwide. The original Terminator grossed only $38 million in the U.S. in its theatrical run, making Terminator 2s 434 percent increase a record for a sequel. The film sold an estimated 48,656,400 tickets in North America. \n\nAccolades\n\nHome media\n\nThe 137 minute theatrical cut of the movie was first released on VHS in November 1991. On November 24, 1993, the Terminator 2: Judgment Day: Special Edition cut of the film was released to Laserdisc and VHS, containing 15 minutes of previously unseen footage including scenes with Michael Biehn reprising his role as Kyle Reese in a dream sequence. Some scenes, however, were still not included in the two-cassette VHS cut. In October 1997, the film received its first DVD release which included only the theatrical cut. The subsequent \"Ultimate Edition\" and \"Extreme Edition\" DVD releases also included the extended version of the film.\n\nThe Extreme Edition DVD has several DVD-ROM features, including an \"Infiltration Unit Simulator\" and the \"T2 FX Studio\", an application where images of a person can be imported and transformed into a T-800 or T-1000, and the \"Skynet Combat Chassis Designer\", a program where viewers could build a fighting machine and be able to track progress online. The Extreme DVD also contains a WMV-HD theatrical edition of T2, where the film could be watched, for the first time, in Full HD 1080p format.\n\nIn 2006, Lionsgate released a Blu-ray of the film that is presented in a slightly washed-out 1080p transfer and included no special features and a DTS 5.1 audio track from the DVDs instead of a lossless audio track. On May 19, 2009, Lionsgate re-released the film on Blu-ray with an enhanced and improved video transfer, as well as a THX certified DTS-Master Audio 6.1 audio. This \"SkyNet Edition\" with a runtime of 156 minutes also saw a limited collector's edition encased in an Endoskull. The limited collector's edition includes the 2009 Blu-ray, as well as the Extreme Edition and Ultimate Edition DVDs and a digital copy of the film. \n\nIn 2015, Sony released the extended version of the film as part of the Terminator Quadrilogy box set alongside the other Terminator films. However it featured no special features.\n\n3D conversion\n\nTo commemorate the 25th anniversary of the film, it will be digitally remastered to 3D with a worldwide re-release planned for summer 2016. DMG Entertainment and Studiocanal will work together with Cameron to convert the film using the StereoD technology.\n\nMarketing\n\nThe film was adapted by Marvel Comics as a three issue miniseries, which was collected into a trade paperback. In the years following its release, several books based on the film were released, including Malibu Comics ', ', IDW Comics ', ' and ' by S.M. Stirling, and ' by Russell Blackford.\n\nIn 1996, Cameron directed an attraction at Universal Studios Theme Parks, titled T2 3-D: Battle Across Time, which saw the return of Schwarzenegger, Hamilton, Patrick, and Furlong to their respective roles. Costing $60 million to produce, with a running time of only 12 minutes, it became the most expensive venture per minute in the history of film. The attraction opened in the Universal Studios Florida in mid-1996, with additional venues opening in the Universal Studios Hollywood in May 1999, and the Universal Studios Japan in March 2001. \n\nSeven games were created based on the film, made available for home consoles and arcade machines. A line of trading cards was also released.\n\nSoundtrack\n\nThe score by Brad Fiedel was commercially released as the Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) CD and cassette tape and contained twenty tracks with a runtime of 53 minutes. The score spent six weeks on the Billboard 200, reaching a peak of No. 70. The album was re-issued in 2010 by Silva Screen Records and featured a collectable booklet\n\nSongs not included within the soundtrack\n\"Guitars, Cadillacs\" – performed by Dwight Yoakam\n\"Bad to the Bone\" – performed by George Thorogood & the Destroyers\n\"You Could Be Mine\" – performed by Guns N' Roses\n\nImpact and legacy\n\nRecognition\n\nIn June 2001, the American Film Institute (AFI) ranked the film at number 77 on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills, a list of films considered to be the most thrilling in film history. In 2003, the AFI released the AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains, a list of the 100 greatest screen heroes and villains of all time. The Terminator, as portrayed by Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, was ranked at number 48 on the list of heroes, as well as at number 22 on the list of villains for its appearance in the first Terminator film. The character was the only entry to appear on both lists, though they are different characters based on the same model. In 2005, Schwarzenegger's famous quote \"Hasta la vista, baby\" was ranked at number 76 on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes best film quotes list. \n\nThe film placed number 33 on Total Films 2006 list of The Top 100 Films of All Time. Empire ranked the film number 35 on its list of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. In 2008, the film was voted the eighth-best science fiction film ever on AFI's 10 Top 10. IGN named the film the tenth-greatest science fiction film of all time, saying that it was \"one example of a sequel coming along and just destroying the original in every regard.\" Empire ranked Terminator 2: Judgment Day as the third-best film sequel of all time. In 2012, Total Film placed the film at eighth place on its list of \"50 Sequels That Were Better Than The Original\". In 2016, Playboy ranked the film number one on its list of 15 Sequels That Are Way Better Than The Originals. Richard Roeper named Judgment Day the third-best film sequel ever made, stating that it \"surpasses the original in every level.\" \n\nAmerican Film Institute recognition\n\n* 1998: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – Nominated \n* 2001: AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – #77 \n* 2003: AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains:\n Terminator – #48 Hero \n T-1000 – Nominated Villain \n* 2005: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:\n** \"Hasta la vista, baby.\" – #76 \n* 2007: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – Nominated \n* 2008: AFI's 10 Top 10 – #8 Science Fiction Film \n\nCultural references\n\nRobert Patrick makes a cameo appearance in Wayne's World (1992) as the T-1000 character in a scene where he pulls Wayne's car over, holds up a photo of John Connor and asks, \"Have you seen this boy?\", to which Wayne, being presumably a fan of The Terminator franchise and knowing T-1000 as a time-travelling assassin, screams in panic and drives away from him. Patrick also makes a cameo appearance as the T-1000 in Last Action Hero (1993), when he is seen walking by Schwarzenegger as he enters Los Angeles Police Department headquarters. In the same film, actor Sylvester Stallone is featured as the Terminator on a Terminator 2 poster instead of Schwarzenegger. In Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993), a caricature of Saddam Hussein is frozen, shattered, and reformed in a direct parody of the T-1000 from the final scene of Terminator 2. In The Sonic The Hedgehog OVA, The film ends with a similar scene to the ending to Terminator 2.\n\nThe film is also referenced multiple times in a variety of animated series, such as The Simpsons, including episodes \"Homer Loves Flanders\" (1994), \"Treehouse of Horror VI\" (1995), \"The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular\" (1995), and \"Day of the Jackanapes\" (2001). The film is also parodied in South Park, Family Guy, American Dad!, Bob's Burgers, Drawn Together, and Archer. The iconic line \"Come with me if you want to live\" is parodied by Casper in the 1995 film Casper. It is parodied again during the first paintball episode of the show Community (Season 1, Episode 23). Danny Pudi's character, Abed Nadir, intentionally mimicks a cyborg and says, \"Come with me if you don't want paint on your clothes.\" Additionally in the 2014 film The Lego Movie, Wyldstyle says to Emmet, \"Come with me if you wanna not die.\" In TV Series Defiance's third season, Pilar McCawley (portrayed by Linda Hamilton) says \"Come with me if you want to live\" to Nolan and Irisa after saving them from a Votanis Collective ambush.\n\nA trailer for WWE 2K16 reenacts the bar scene with Schwarzenegger interacting with various wrestlers." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Judgment day", "The Day of Judgement", "Day of judgement", "The Last Judgement", "Universal Judgment", "Judgment Day", "Last judgement", "Last judgment", "Last Trump of Doom", "Judgment date", "Judgment, Last", "Final judgment", "2012 Judgement Day", "Final judgement", "Last Judgement", "Last Judgment", "Day of Judgment", "Judgement Day", "Final Judgment", "The Last Judgment", "Day of judgment", "Final Judgement", "Day of Judgement", "Signs of the Judgement Day", "Judgement day", "Last Judgment, The", "Day Of Judgment" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "day of judgment", "judgment date", "2012 judgement day", "final judgement", "last judgment", "signs of judgement day", "universal judgment", "judgement day", "last judgement", "day of judgement", "last trump of doom", "judgment last", "judgment day", "final judgment" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "judgment day", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Judgment Day" }
Which 1996 film has its climax on 4th of July?	tc_1127	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Independence_Day_(United_States).txt" ], "title": [ "Independence Day (United States)" ], "wiki_context": [ "Independence Day of the United States, also referred to as the Fourth of July or July Fourth in the U.S., is a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 on July 4 by the Continental Congress. It declared that the thirteen American colonies regarded themselves as a new nation, the United States of America, and were no longer part of the British Empire. \n\nIndependence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, family reunions, and political speeches and ceremonies, in addition to various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States. Independence Day is the National Day of the United States. \n\nBackground\n\nDuring the American Revolution, the legal separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain in 1776 actually occurred on July 2, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia declaring the United States independent from Great Britain rule. After voting for independence, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence, a statement explaining this decision, which had been prepared by a Committee of Five, with Thomas Jefferson as its principal author. Congress debated and revised the wording of the Declaration, finally approving it two days later on July 4. A day earlier, John Adams had written to his wife Abigail:\n\nAdams's prediction was off by two days. From the outset, Americans celebrated independence on July 4, the date shown on the much-publicized Declaration of Independence, rather than on July 2, the date the resolution of independence was approved in a closed session of Congress. \n\nHistorians have long disputed whether members of Congress signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, even though Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin all later wrote that they had signed it on that day. Most historians have concluded that the Declaration was signed nearly a month after its adoption, on August 2, 1776, and not on July 4 as is commonly believed. \n\nCoincidentally, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the only signers of the Declaration of Independence later to serve as Presidents of the United States, died on the same day: July 4, 1826, which was the 50th anniversary of the Declaration. Although not a signer of the Declaration of Independence, James Monroe, another Founding Father who was elected as President, also died on July 4, 1831. He was the third President in a row who died on the anniversary of independence. Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President, was born on July 4, 1872; so far he is the only U.S. President to have been born on Independence Day.\n\nObservance\n\n* In 1777 thirteen gunshots were fired in salute, once at morning and once again as evening fell, on July 4 in Bristol, Rhode Island. Philadelphia celebrated the first anniversary in a manner a modern American would find quite familiar: an official dinner for the Continental Congress, toasts, 13-gun salutes, speeches, prayers, music, parades, troop reviews, and fireworks. Ships in port were decked with red, white, and blue bunting. \n* In 1778, from his headquarters at Ross Hall, near New Brunswick, New Jersey, General George Washington marked July 4 with a double ration of rum for his soldiers and an artillery salute (feu de joie). Across the Atlantic Ocean, ambassadors John Adams and Benjamin Franklin held a dinner for their fellow Americans in Paris, France. \n\n* In 1779, July 4 fell on a Sunday. The holiday was celebrated on Monday, July 5.\n* In 1781 the Massachusetts General Court became the first state legislature to recognize July 4 as a state celebration.\n* In 1783, Moravians in Salem, North Carolina, held a celebration of July 4 with a challenging music program assembled by Johann Friedrich Peter. This work was titled The Psalm of Joy. This is recognized as the first recorded celebration and is still celebrated there today. \n* In 1870 the U.S. Congress made Independence Day an unpaid holiday for federal employees. \n* In 1938 Congress changed Independence Day to a paid federal holiday. \n\nCustoms\n\nIndependence Day is a national holiday marked by patriotic displays. Similar to other summer-themed events, Independence Day celebrations often take place outdoors. Independence Day is a federal holiday, so all non-essential federal institutions (such as the postal service and federal courts) are closed on that day. Many politicians make it a point on this day to appear at a public event to praise the nation's heritage, laws, history, society, and people.\n\nFamilies often celebrate Independence Day by hosting or attending a picnic or barbecue; many take advantage of the day off and, in some years, a long weekend to gather with relatives or friends. Decorations (e.g., streamers, balloons, and clothing) are generally colored red, white, and blue, the colors of the American flag. Parades are often held in the morning, before family get-togethers, while fireworks displays occur in the evening after dark at such places as parks, fairgrounds, or town squares.\n\nThe night before the Fourth was once the focal point of celebrations, marked by raucous gatherings often incorporating bonfires as their centerpiece. In New England, towns competed to build towering pyramids, assembled from barrels and casks. They were lit at nightfall, to usher in the celebration. The highest were in Salem, Massachusetts (on Gallows Hill, the famous site of the execution of 13 women and 6 men for witchcraft in 1692 during the Salem witch trials), where the tradition of celebratory bonfires had persisted, with pyramids composed of as many as forty tiers of barrels. These made the tallest bonfires ever recorded. The custom flourished in the 19th and 20th centuries, and is still practiced in some New England towns. \n\nIndependence Day fireworks are often accompanied by patriotic songs such as the national anthem \"The Star-Spangled Banner,\", \"God Bless America,\", \"America the Beautiful,\" \"My Country, 'Tis of Thee,\" \"This Land Is Your Land,\" \"Stars and Stripes Forever,\" and, regionally, \"Yankee Doodle\" in northeastern states and \"Dixie\" in southern states. Some of the lyrics recall images of the Revolutionary War or the War of 1812.\n\nFirework shows are held in many states, and many fireworks are sold for personal use or as an alternative to a public show. Safety concerns have led some states to ban fireworks or limit the sizes and types allowed. In addition to safety concerns, local and regional weather conditions may dictate whether the sale or use of fireworks in an area will be allowed. Some local or regional firework sales may be limited or prohibited because of dry weather, drought conditions, or other specific concerns. On these occasions the public may be prohibited from purchasing or discharging fireworks, but professional displays (such as may be found at sport events) may still take place if certain safety precautions have been taken. Illicit traffic transfers many fireworks from less restrictive states.\n\nA salute of one gun for each state in the United States, called a \"salute to the union,\" is fired on Independence Day at noon by any capable military base. \n\nIn 2009, New York City had the largest fireworks display in the country, with more than 22 tons of pyrotechnics exploded. It generally holds displays in the East River. Other major displays are in Chicago on Lake Michigan; in San Diego over Mission Bay; in Boston on the Charles River; in St. Louis on the Mississippi River; in San Francisco over the San Francisco Bay; and on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.\n\nDuring the annual Windsor-Detroit International Freedom Festival, Detroit, Michigan hosts one of the world's largest fireworks displays, over the Detroit River, to celebrate Independence Day in conjunction with Windsor, Ontario's celebration of Canada Day.\n\nThe first week of July is typically one of the busiest United States travel periods of the year, as many people use what is often a 3-day holiday weekend for extended vacation trips. \n\nCelebration gallery\n\nMiamifireworks.jpg\|In addition to a fireworks show, Miami, Florida lights one of its tallest buildings with the patriotic red, white and blue color scheme on Independence Day\nFireworks over the East Village of New York City.JPG\|New York City's fireworks display, shown above over the East Village, is sponsored by Macy's and is the largest[http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-07-04-fourth-of-july_N.htm Biggest fireworks show in U.S. lights up sky], USA Today, July 2009. in the country\nIndependence Day, 1940 Promotion.ogv\|Patriotic trailer shown in theaters celebrating July 4, 1940\nFourth of July Cake.jpg\|A festively decorated Independence day cake.\n\nNotable celebrations\n\n* Held since 1785, the Bristol Fourth of July Parade in Bristol, Rhode Island is the oldest continuous Independence Day celebration in the United States.\n* Since 1868, Seward, Nebraska has held a celebration on the same town square. In 1979 Seward was designated \"America's Official Fourth of July City-Small Town USA\" by resolution of Congress. Seward has also been proclaimed \"Nebraska's Official Fourth of July City\" by Governor James Exon in proclamation. Seward is a town of 6,000 but swells to 40,000+ during the July 4 celebrations. \n* Since 1912, the Rebild Society, a Danish-American friendship organization, has held a July 4 weekend festival that serves as a homecoming for Danish-Americans in the Rebild municipality of Denmark. \n* Since 1959, the International Freedom Festival is jointly held in Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario during the last week of June each year as a mutual celebration of Independence Day and Canada Day (July 1). It culminates in a large fireworks display over the Detroit River.\n* The famous Macy's fireworks display usually held over the East River in New York City has been televised nationwide on NBC since 1976. In 2009, the fireworks display was returned to the Hudson River for the first time since 2000 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's exploration of that river. \n* The Boston Pops Orchestra has hosted a music and fireworks show over the Charles River Esplanade called the \"Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular\" annually since 1973. The event was broadcast nationally from 1991 until 2002 on A&E, and since 2002 by CBS and its Boston station WBZ-TV. WBZ/1030 and WBZ-TV broadcast the entire event locally, and from 2002 through 2012, CBS broadcast the final hour of the concert nationally in primetime. The national broadcast was put on hiatus beginning in 2013, which Pops executive producer David G. Mugar believed was the result of decreasing viewership caused by NBC's encore presentation of the Macy's fireworks. The national broadcast will be revived for 2016, and expanded to two hours. \n* On the Capitol lawn in Washington, D.C., A Capitol Fourth, a free concert broadcast live by PBS, NPR and the American Forces Network, precedes the fireworks and attracts over half a million people annually.\n\nOther countries\n\nThe Philippines celebrates July 4 as its Republic Day to commemorate that day in 1946 when it ceased to be a U.S. territory and the United States officially recognized Philippine Independence. \nJuly 4 was intentionally chosen by the United States because it corresponds to its Independence Day, and this day was observed in the Philippines as Independence Day until 1962. In 1964, the name of the July 4 holiday was changed to Republic Day. In Rwanda, July 4 is an official holiday known as Liberation Day, commemorating the end of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide in which the U.S. government also played a role. A national park in Denmark is said to hold the largest July 4 celebrations outside of the United States." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Independence day", "Independence days", "عيد الاستقلال", "Independance day", "Independance Day", "The Independence Day", "Independence Day", "Timeline of national foundings", "List of independence days", "List of nations by Independence Day", "List of countries by Independence Day", "List of national independence days", "Independents Day" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "independance day", "عيد الاستقلال", "list of national independence days", "independence day", "independence days", "independents day", "timeline of national foundings", "list of countries by independence day", "list of nations by independence day", "list of independence days" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "independence day", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Independence Day" }
Which Apollo mission was filmed in 1995 with Tom Hanks?	tc_1129	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe", "Search" ], "filename": [ "Apollo_program.txt", "Tom_Hanks.txt", "Apollo_13_(film).txt" ], "title": [ "Apollo program", "Tom Hanks", "Apollo 13 (film)" ], "wiki_context": [ "The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the third United States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished landing the first humans on the Moon from 1969 to 1972. First conceived during Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration as a three-man spacecraft to follow the one-man Project Mercury which put the first Americans in space, Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal of \"landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth\" by the end of the 1960s, which he proposed in an address to Congress on May 25, 1961.\n\nKennedy's goal was accomplished on the Apollo 11 mission when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Lunar Module (LM) on July 20, 1969, and walked on the lunar surface, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the Command/Service Module (CSM), and all three landed safely on Earth on July 24. Five subsequent Apollo missions also landed astronauts on the Moon, the last in December 1972. In these six spaceflights, twelve men walked on the Moon.\n\nApollo ran from 1961 to 1972, with the first manned flight in 1968. It achieved its goal of manned lunar landing, despite the major setback of a 1967 Apollo 1 cabin fire that killed the entire crew during a prelaunch test. After the first landing, sufficient flight hardware remained for nine follow-on landings with a plan for extended lunar geological and astrophysical exploration. Budget cuts forced the cancellation of three of these. Five of the remaining six missions achieved successful landings, but the Apollo 13 landing was prevented by an oxygen tank explosion in transit to the Moon, which damaged the CSM's propulsion and life support. The crew returned to Earth safely by using the Lunar Module as a \"lifeboat\" for these functions. It used Saturn family rockets as launch vehicles, which were also used for an Apollo Applications Program, which consisted of Skylab, a space station that supported three manned missions in 1973–74, and the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, a joint Earth orbit mission with the Soviet Union in 1975. \n\nApollo set several major human spaceflight milestones. It stands alone in sending manned missions beyond low Earth orbit. Apollo 8 was the first manned spacecraft to orbit another celestial body, while the final Apollo 17 mission marked the sixth Moon landing and the ninth manned mission beyond low Earth orbit. The program returned 842 lb of lunar rocks and soil to Earth, greatly contributing to the understanding of the Moon's composition and geological history. The program laid the foundation for NASA's current human spaceflight capability, and funded construction of its Johnson Space Center and Kennedy Space Center. Apollo also spurred advances in many areas of technology incidental to rocketry and manned spaceflight, including avionics, telecommunications, and computers.\n\nBackground\n\nThe Apollo program was conceived during the Eisenhower administration in early 1960, as a follow-up to Project Mercury. While the Mercury capsule could only support one astronaut on a limited Earth orbital mission, Apollo would carry three astronauts. Possible missions included ferrying crews to a space station, circumlunar flights, and eventual manned lunar landings. The program was named after the Greek god of light, music, and the sun by NASA manager Abe Silverstein, who later said that \"I was naming the spacecraft like I'd name my baby.\" Silverstein chose the name at home one evening, early in 1960, because he felt \"Apollo riding his chariot across the Sun was appropriate to the grand scale of the proposed program.\" \n\nSpacecraft feasibility studies\n\nIn July 1960, NASA Deputy Administrator Hugh L. Dryden announced the Apollo program to industry representatives at a series of Space Task Group conferences. Preliminary specifications were laid out for a spacecraft with a mission module cabin separate from the command module (piloting and re-entry cabin), and a propulsion and equipment module. On August 30, a feasibility study competition was announced, and on October 25, three study contracts were awarded to General Dynamics/Convair, General Electric, and the Glenn L. Martin Company. Meanwhile, NASA performed its own in-house spacecraft design studies led by Maxime Faget, to serve as a gauge to judge and monitor the three industry designs. \n\nPolitical pressure builds\n\nIn November 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected president after a campaign that promised American superiority over the Soviet Union in the fields of space exploration and missile defense. Up to the election of 1960, Kennedy had been speaking out against the \"missile gap\" that he and many other senators felt had formed between the Soviets and themselves due to the inaction of President Eisenhower. Beyond military power, Kennedy used aerospace technology as a symbol of national prestige, pledging to make the US not \"first but, first and, first if, but first period.\" Despite Kennedy's rhetoric, he did not immediately come to a decision on the status of the Apollo program once he became president. He knew little about the technical details of the space program, and was put off by the massive financial commitment required by a manned Moon landing. When Kennedy's newly appointed NASA Administrator James E. Webb requested a 30 percent budget increase for his agency, Kennedy supported an acceleration of NASA's large booster program but deferred a decision on the broader issue. \n\nOn April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly in space, reinforcing American fears about being left behind in a technological competition with the Soviet Union. At a meeting of the US House Committee on Science and Astronautics one day after Gagarin's flight, many congressmen pledged their support for a crash program aimed at ensuring that America would catch up. Kennedy was circumspect in his response to the news, refusing to make a commitment on America's response to the Soviets. \n\nOn April 20, Kennedy sent a memo to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, asking Johnson to look into the status of America's space program, and into programs that could offer NASA the opportunity to catch up. Johnson responded approximately one week later, concluding that \"we are neither making maximum effort nor achieving results necessary if this country is to reach a position of leadership.\" His memo concluded that a manned Moon landing was far enough in the future that it was likely the United States would achieve it first.\n\nOn May 25, 1961, twenty days after the first US manned spaceflight Freedom 7, Kennedy proposed the manned Moon landing in a Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs:\n\"Now it is time to take longer strides - time for a great new American enterprise - time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth....I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.\" \n\nNASA expansion\n\nAt the time of Kennedy's proposal, only one American had flown in space—less than a month earlier—and NASA had not yet sent an astronaut into orbit. Even some NASA employees doubted whether Kennedy's ambitious goal could be met. By 1963, Kennedy even came close to agreeing to a joint US-USSR Moon mission, to eliminate duplication of effort. \n\nWith the clear goal of a manned landing replacing the more nebulous goals of space stations and cislunar flights, NASA had to hit the ground running, and decided to discard the feasibility study designs of Convair, GE, and Martin, and proceed with Faget's command / service module design. The mission module was determined to be only useful as an extra room, and therefore deemed unnecessary. They used Faget's design as the specification for another competition for spacecraft procurement bids in October 1961. On November 28, 1961, it was announced that North American Aviation had won the contract, although its bid was not rated as good as Martin's. Webb, Dryden and Robert Seamans chose it in preference due to North American's longer association with NACA. \n\nLanding men on the Moon by the end of 1969 required the most sudden burst of technological creativity, and the largest commitment of resources ($24 billion) ever made by any nation in peacetime. At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 people and required the support of over 20,000 industrial firms and universities. \n\nOn July 1, 1960, NASA established of the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama. MSFC designed the heavy lift-class Saturn launch vehicles, which would be required for Apollo. \n\nManned Spacecraft Center\n\nIt became clear that managing the Apollo program would exceed the capabilities of Robert R. Gilruth's Space Task Group, which had been directing the nation's manned space program from NASA's Langley Research Center. So Gilruth was given authority to grow his organization into a new NASA center, the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC). A site was chosen in Houston, Texas, on land donated by Rice University, and Administrator Webb announced the conversion on September 19, 1961. It was also clear NASA would soon outgrow its practice of controlling missions from its Cape Canaveral Air Force Station launch facilities in Florida, so a new Mission Control Center would be included in the MSC. \n\nIn September 1962, by which time two Project Mercury astronauts had orbited the Earth, Gilruth had moved his organization to rented space in Houston, and construction of the MSC facility was under way, Kennedy visited Rice to reiterate his challenge in a famous speech:\n\"But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? ... \nWe choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills; because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win ... . \n\nThe MSC was completed in September 1963. It was renamed by the US Congress in honor of Lyndon Johnson soon after his death in 1973. \n\nLaunch Operations Center\n\nIt also became clear that Apollo would outgrow the Canaveral launch facilities in Florida. The two newest launch complexes were already being built for the Saturn I and IB rockets at the northernmost end: LC-34 and LC-37. But an even bigger facility would be needed for the mammoth rocket required for the manned lunar mission, so land acquisition was started in July 1961 for a Launch Operations Center (LOC) immediately north of Canaveral at Merritt Island. The design, development and construction of the center was conducted by Kurt H. Debus, a member of Dr. Wernher von Braun's original V-2 rocket engineering team. Debus was named the LOC's first Director. Construction began in November 1962. Upon Kennedy's death, President Johnson issued an executive order on November 29, 1963, to rename the LOC and Cape Canaveral in honor of Kennedy. \n\nThe LOC included Launch Complex 39, a Launch Control Center, and a 130 million cubic foot (3.7 million cubic meter) Vertical Assembly Building (VAB) in which the space vehicle (launch vehicle and spacecraft) would be assembled on a Mobile Launcher Platform and then moved by a transporter to one of several launch pads. Although at least three pads were planned, only two, designated A and B, were completed in October 1965. The LOC also included an Operations and Checkout Building (OCB) to which Gemini and Apollo spacecraft were initially received prior to being mated to their launch vehicles. The Apollo spacecraft could be tested in two vacuum chambers capable of simulating atmospheric pressure at altitudes up to 250000 ft, which is nearly a vacuum. \n\nOrganization\n\nAdministrator Webb realized that in order to keep Apollo costs under control, he had to develop greater project management skills in his organization, so he recruited Dr. George E. Mueller for a high management job. Mueller accepted, on the condition that he have a say in NASA reorganization necessary to effectively administer Apollo. Webb then worked with Associate Administrator (later Deputy Administrator) Seamans to reorganize the Office of Manned Space Flight (OMSF). On July 23, 1963, Webb announced Mueller's appointment as Deputy Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, to replace then Associate Administrator D. Brainerd Holmes on his retirement effective September 1. Under Webb's reorganization, the directors of the Manned Spacecraft Center (Gilruth) Marshall Space Flight Center (von Braun) and the Launch Operations Center (Debus) effectively reported to Mueller. \n\nBased on his industry experience on Air Force missile projects, Mueller realized some skilled managers could be found among high-ranking officers in the United States Air Force, so he got Webb's permission to recruit General Samuel C. Phillips, who gained a reputation for his effective management of the Minuteman program, as OMSF program controller. Phillips' superior officer Bernard A. Schriever agreed to loan Phillips to NASA, along with a staff of officers under him, on the condition that Phillips be made Apollo Program Director. Mueller agreed, and Phillips managed Apollo from January 1964, until it achieved the first manned landing in July 1969, after which he returned to Air Force duty. \n\nChoosing a mission mode\n\nOnce Kennedy had defined a goal, the Apollo mission planners were faced with the challenge of designing a spacecraft that could meet it while minimizing risk to human life, cost, and demands on technology and astronaut skill. Four possible mission modes were considered:\n* Direct Ascent: The spacecraft would be launched as a unit and travel directly to the Moon and land. It would return, leaving its landing stage on the Moon. This design would have required development of the extremely powerful Nova launch vehicle.\n* Earth Orbit Rendezvous (EOR): Multiple rocket launches (up to 15 in some plans) would carry parts of a Direct Ascent spacecraft and propulsion units for translunar injection (TLI). These would be assembled into a single spacecraft in Earth orbit.\n* Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR): A single Saturn V could launch a spacecraft that was composed of a mother ship which would remain in orbit around the Moon, while a smaller, two-stage lander would carry two astronauts to the surface, return to dock with the mother ship, and then be discarded. Landing only a small part of the spacecraft on the Moon and returning an even smaller part to lunar orbit minimized the total mass to be launched from the Earth.\n* Lunar Surface Rendezvous: Two spacecraft would be launched in succession. The first, an automated vehicle carrying propellant for the return to Earth, would land on the Moon, to be followed some time later by the manned vehicle. Propellant would have to be transferred from the automated vehicle to the manned vehicle. \n\nIn early 1961, direct ascent was generally the mission mode in favor at NASA. Many engineers feared that a rendezvous —let alone a docking— neither of which had been attempted even in Earth orbit, would be extremely difficult in lunar orbit. Dissenters including John Houbolt at Langley Research Center emphasized the important weight reductions that were offered by the LOR approach. Throughout 1960 and 1961, Houbolt campaigned for the recognition of LOR as a viable and practical option. Bypassing the NASA hierarchy, he sent a series of memos and reports on the issue to Associate Administrator Robert Seamans; while acknowledging that he spoke \"somewhat as a voice in the wilderness,\" Houbolt pleaded that LOR should not be discounted in studies of the question. \n\nSeamans' establishment of an ad-hoc committee headed by his special technical assistant Nicholas E. Golovin in July 1961, to recommend a launch vehicle to be used in the Apollo program, represented a turning point in NASA's mission mode decision. This committee recognized that the chosen mode was an important part of the launch vehicle choice, and recommended in favor of a hybrid EOR-LOR mode. Its consideration of LOR —as well as Houbolt's ceaseless work— played an important role in publicizing the workability of the approach. In late 1961 and early 1962, members of the Manned Spacecraft Center began to come around to support LOR, including the newly hired deputy director of the Office of Manned Space Flight, Joseph Shea, who became a champion of LOR. The engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), which had much to lose from the decision, took longer to become convinced of its merits, but their conversion was announced by Wernher von Braun at a briefing on June 7, 1962. \n\nBut even after NASA reached internal agreement, it was far from smooth sailing. Kennedy's science advisor Jerome Wiesner, who had expressed his opposition to manned spaceflight to Kennedy before the President took office, and had opposed the decision to land men on the Moon, hired Golovin, who had left NASA, to chair his own \"Space Vehicle Panel\", ostensibly to monitor, but actually to second-guess NASA's decisions on the Saturn V launch vehicle and LOR by forcing Shea, Seamans, and even Webb to defend themselves, delaying its formal announcement to the press on July 11, 1962, and forcing Webb to still hedge the decision as \"tentative\". \n\nWiesner kept up the pressure, even making the disagreement public during a two-day September visit by the President to Marshall Space Flight Center. Wiesner blurted out \"No, that's no good\" in front of the press, during a presentation by von Braun. Webb jumped in and defended von Braun, until Kennedy ended the squabble by stating that the matter was \"still subject to final review\". Webb held firm, and issued a request for proposal to candidate Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) contractors. Wiesner finally relented, unwilling to settle the dispute once and for all in Kennedy's office, because of the President's involvement with the October Cuban missile crisis, and fear of Kennedy's support for Webb. NASA announced the selection of Grumman as the LEM contractor in November 1962. \n\nSpace historian James Hansen concludes that:\n\nThe LOR method had the advantage of allowing the lander spacecraft to be used as a \"lifeboat\" in the event of a failure of the command ship. Some documents prove this theory was discussed before and after the method was chosen. A 1964 MSC study concluded, \"The LM [as lifeboat] ... was finally dropped, because no single reasonable CSM failure could be identified that would prohibit use of the SPS.\" Ironically, just such a failure happened on Apollo 13 when an oxygen tank explosion left the CSM without electrical power. The Lunar Module provided propulsion, electrical power and life support to get the crew home safely. \n\nSpacecraft\n\nFaget's preliminary Apollo design employed a cone-shaped command module, supported by one of several service modules providing propulsion and electrical power, sized appropriately for the space station, cislunar, and lunar landing missions. Once Kennedy's Moon landing goal became official, detailed design began of a Command/Service Module (CSM) in which the crew would spend the entire direct-ascent mission and lift off from the lunar surface for the return trip, after being soft-landed by a larger landing propulsion module. The final choice of lunar orbit rendezvous changed the CSM's role to the translunar ferry used to transport the crew, along with a new spacecraft, the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM, later shortened to Lunar Module, LM) which would take two men to the lunar surface and return them to the CSM.\n\nCommand/Service Module\n\nThe Command Module (CM) was the conical crew cabin, designed to carry three astronauts from launch to lunar orbit and back to an Earth ocean landing. It was the only component of the Apollo spacecraft to survive without major configuration changes as the program evolved from the early Apollo study designs. Its exterior was covered with an ablative heat shield, and had its own reaction control system (RCS) engines to control its attitude and steer its atmospheric entry path. Parachutes were carried to slow its descent to splashdown. The module was tall, in diameter, and weighed approximately 12250 lb.\n\nA cylindrical Service Module (SM) supported the Command Module, with a service propulsion engine and an RCS with propellants, and a fuel cell power generation system with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen reactants. A high-gain S-band antenna was used for long-distance communications on the lunar flights. On the extended lunar missions, an orbital scientific instrument package was carried. The Service Module was discarded just before re-entry. The module was long and in diameter. The initial lunar flight version weighed approximately 51300 lb fully fueled, while a later version designed to carry a lunar orbit scientific instrument package weighed just over 54000 lb.\n\nNorth American Aviation won the contract to build the CSM, and also the second stage of the Saturn V launch vehicle for NASA. Because the CSM design was started early before the selection of lunar orbit rendezvous, the service propulsion engine was sized to lift the CSM off of the Moon, and thus was oversized to about twice the thrust required for translunar flight. Also, there was no provision for docking with the Lunar Module. A 1964 program definition study concluded that the initial design should be continued as Block I which would be used for early testing, while Block II, the actual lunar spacecraft, would incorporate the docking equipment and take advantage of the lessons learned in Block I development. \n\nLunar Module\n\nThe Lunar Module (LM) was designed to descend from lunar orbit to land two astronauts on the Moon and take them back to orbit to rendezvous with the Command Module. Not designed to fly through the Earth's atmosphere or return to Earth, its fuselage was designed totally without aerodynamic considerations, and was of an extremely lightweight construction. It consisted of separate descent and ascent stages, each with its own engine. The descent stage contained storage for the descent propellant, surface stay consumables, and surface exploration equipment. The ascent stage contained the crew cabin, ascent propellant, and a reaction control system. The initial LM model weighed approximately 33300 lb, and allowed surface stays up to around 34 hours. An Extended Lunar Module weighed over 36200 lb, and allowed surface stays of over 3 days. The contract for design and construction of the Lunar Module was awarded to Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, and the project was overseen by Thomas J. Kelly. \n\nLaunch vehicles\n\nBefore the Apollo program began, Wernher von Braun and his team of rocket engineers had started work on plans for very large launch vehicles, the Saturn series, and the even larger Nova series. In the midst of these plans, von Braun was transferred from the Army to NASA, and made Director of the Marshall Space Flight Center. The initial direct ascent plan to send the three-man Apollo Command/Service Module directly to the lunar surface, on top of a large descent rocket stage, would require a Nova-class launcher, with a lunar payload capability of over 180000 lb. The June 11, 1962, decision to use lunar orbit rendezvous enabled the Saturn V to replace the Nova, and the MSFC proceeded to develop the Saturn rocket family for Apollo. \n\nLittle Joe II\n\nSince Apollo, like Mercury, would require a launch escape system (LES) in case of a launch failure, a relatively small rocket was required for qualification flight testing of this system. A size bigger than the NAA Little Joe would be required, so the Little Joe II was built by General Dynamics/Convair. After an August 1963 qualification test flight, four LES test flights (A-001 through 004) were made at the White Sands Missile Range between May 1964 and January 1966. \n\nSaturn I\n\nSince Apollo, like Mercury, used more than one launch vehicle for space missions, NASA used spacecraft-launch vehicle combination series numbers: AS-10x for Saturn I, AS-20x for Saturn IB, and AS-50x for Saturn V (compare Mercury-Redstone 3, Mercury-Atlas 6) to designate and plan all missions, rather than numbering them sequentially as in Project Gemini. This was changed by the time manned flights began.\n\nSaturn I, the first US heavy lift launch vehicle, was initially planned to launch partially equipped CSMs in low Earth orbit tests. The S-I first stage burned RP-1 with liquid oxygen (LOX) oxidizer in eight clustered Rocketdyne H-1 engines, to produce 1500000 lbf of thrust. The S-IV second stage used six liquid hydrogen-fueled Pratt & Whitney RL-10 engines with 90000 lbf of thrust. A planned Centaur (S-V) third stage with two RL-10 engines, never flew on Saturn I. \n\nThe first four Saturn I test flights were launched from LC-34, with only live first stages, carrying dummy upper stages filled with water. The first flight with a live S-IV was launched from LC-37. This was followed by five launches of boilerplate CSMs (designated AS-101 through AS-105) into orbit in 1964 and 1965. The last three of these further supported the Apollo program by also carrying Pegasus satellites, which verified the safety of the translunar environment by measuring the frequency and severity of micrometeorite impacts. \n\nIn September 1962, NASA planned to launch four manned CSM flights on the Saturn I from late 1965 through 1966, concurrent with Project Gemini. The 22500 lb payload capacity would have severely limited the systems which could be included, so the decision was made in October 1963 to use the uprated Saturn IB for all manned Earth orbital flights. \n\nSaturn IB\n\nThe Saturn IB was an upgraded version of the Saturn I. The S-IB first stage increased the thrust to 1600000 lbf by uprating the H-1 engine. The second stage replaced the S-IV with the S-IVB-200, powered by a single J-2 engine burning liquid hydrogen fuel with LOX, to produce 200000 lbf of thrust. A restartable version of the S-IVB was used as the third stage of the Saturn V. The Saturn IB could send over 40000 lb into low Earth orbit, sufficient for a partially fueled CSM or the LM. Saturn IB launch vehicles and flights were designated with an AS-200 series number, \"AS\" indicating \"Apollo Saturn\" and the \"2\" indicating the second member of the Saturn rocket family.\n\nSaturn V\n\nSaturn V launch vehicles and flights were designated with an AS-500 series number, \"AS\" indicating \"Apollo Saturn\" and the \"5\" indicating Saturn V. The three-stage Saturn V was designed to send a fully fueled CSM and LM to the Moon. It was 33 ft in diameter and stood 363 ft tall with its 96800 lb lunar payload. Its capability grew to 103600 lb for the later advanced lunar landings. The S-IC first stage burned RP-1/LOX for a rated thrust of 7500000 lbf, which was upgraded to 7610000 lbf. The second and third stages burned liquid hydrogen, and the third stage was a modified version of the S-IVB, with thrust increased to 230000 lbf and capability to restart the engine for translunar injection after reaching a parking orbit. \n\nAstronauts\n\nNASA's Director of Flight Crew Operations during the Apollo program was Donald K. \"Deke\" Slayton, one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts who was medically grounded in September 1962 due to a heart murmur. Slayton was responsible for making all Gemini and Apollo crew assignments. \n\nThirty-two astronauts were assigned to fly missions in the Apollo program. Twenty-four of these left Earth’s orbit and flew around the Moon between December 1968 and December 1972 (three of them twice). Half of the 24 walked on its surface, though none of them returned to the Moon after landing once. One of the moonwalkers was a trained geologist. Of the 32, Gus Grissom, Edward H. White, and Roger Chaffee were killed during a ground test in preparation for their Apollo 1 mission.\n\nThe Apollo astronauts were chosen from the Project Mercury and Gemini veterans, plus from two later astronaut groups. All missions were commanded by Gemini or Mercury veterans. Crews on all development flights (except the Earth orbit CSM development flights) through the first two landings on Apollo 11 and Apollo 12, included at least two (sometimes three) Gemini veterans. Dr. Harrison Schmitt, a geologist, was the first NASA scientist astronaut to fly in space, and landed on the Moon on the last mission, Apollo 17. Schmitt participated in the lunar geology training of all of the Apollo landing crews. \n\nNASA awarded all 32 of these astronauts its highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal, given for \"distinguished service, ability, or courage\", and personal \"contribution representing substantial progress to the NASA mission\". The medals were awarded posthumously to Grissom, White, and Chaffee in 1969, then to the crews of all missions from Apollo 8 onward. The crew that flew the first Earth orbital test mission Apollo 7, Walter M. Schirra, Donn Eisele, and Walter Cunningham, were awarded the lesser NASA Exceptional Service Medal, because of discipline problems with the Flight Director's orders during their flight. The NASA Administrator in October, 2008, decided to award them the Distinguished Service Medals, by this time posthumously to Schirra and Eisele.\n\nLunar mission profile\n\nThe nominal planned lunar landing mission proceeded as follows: \n\nFile:apollo11-01.png\|Launch The 3 Saturn V stages burn for about 11 minutes to achieve a 100 nmi circular parking orbit. The third stage burns a small portion of its fuel to achieve orbit.\nFile:apollo11-02.png\|Translunar injection After one to two orbits to verify readiness of spacecraft systems, the S-IVB third stage reignites for about 6 minutes to send the spacecraft to the Moon.\nFile:apollo11-03.png\|Transposition and docking (1) The Spacecraft Lunar Module Adapter (SLA) panels separate to free the CSM and expose the LM. The Command Module Pilot (CMP) moves the CSM out a safe distance, and turns 180°.\nFile:apollo11-04.png\|Transposition and docking (2), The CMP docks with the LM, and pulls the combined spacecraft away from the S-IVB, which then is sent into solar orbit. The lunar voyage takes between 2 and 3 days. Midcourse corrections are made as necessary using the SM engine.\nFile:apollo11-05.png\|Lunar orbit insertion The spacecraft passes about 60 nmi behind the Moon, and the SM engine is fired to slow the spacecraft and put it into a 60 by orbit, which is soon circularized at 60 nautical miles by a second burn.\nFile:apollo11-07.png\|After a rest period, the Commander (CDR) and Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) move to the LM, power up its systems, and deploy the landing gear. The CSM and LM separate; the CMP visually inspects the LM, then the LM crew move a safe distance away and fire the descent engine for Descent orbit insertion, which takes it to a perilune of about 50000 ft.\nFile:apollo11-08.png\|Powered descent At perilune, the descent engine fires again to start the descent. The CDR takes over manual control after pitchover for a vertical landing.\nFile:apollo11-09.png\|The CDR and LMP perform one or more EVAs exploring the lunar surface and collecting samples, alternating with rest periods.\nFile:apollo11-10.png\|The ascent stage lifts off, using the descent stage as a launching pad.\nFile:apollo11-11.png\|The LM rendezvouses and docks with the CSM.\nFile:apollo11-12.png\|The CDR and LMP transfer back to the CM with their material samples, then the LM ascent stage is jettisoned, to eventually fall out of orbit and crash on the surface.\nFile:apollo11-13.png\|Trans-Earth injection The SM engine fires to send the CSM back to Earth.\nFile:apollo11-14.png\|The SM is jettisoned just before reentry, and the CM turns 180° to face its blunt end forward for reentry.\nFile:apollo11-15.png\|Atmospheric drag slows the CM. Aerodynamic heating surrounds it with an envelope of ionized air which causes a communications blackout for several minutes.\nFile:apollo11-16.png\|Parachutes are deployed, slowing the CM for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. The astronauts are recovered and brought to an aircraft carrier.\n\nFile:Apollo-Moon-mission-profile.png\|Lunar flight profile (distances not to scale).\n\nProfile variations\n\nAfter Apollo 12 placed the second of several seismometers on the Moon, the S-IVBs on subsequent missions were deliberately crashed on the Moon instead of being sent to solar orbit, as an active seismic experiment to induce vibrations in the Moon. \nThe first three lunar missions (Apollo 8, Apollo 10, and Apollo 11) used a free return trajectory, keeping a flight path coplanar with the lunar orbit, which would allow a return to Earth in case the SM engine failed to make lunar orbit insertion. Landing site lighting conditions on later missions dictated a lunar orbital plane change, which required a course change maneuver soon after TLI, and eliminated the free-return option. \nStarting with Apollo 13, descent orbit insertion was to be performed using the Service Module engine instead of the LM engine, in order to allow a greater fuel reserve for landing. This was actually done for the first time on Apollo 14, since the Apollo 13 mission was aborted before landing. \nOn Apollo 12 and later missions, the jettisoned LM ascent stages were deliberately crashed on the Moon at known locations, as another active seismic experiment. The only exceptions to this were the Apollo 13 LM which burned up in the Earth's atmosphere, and Apollo 16, where a loss of attitude control after jettison prevented making a targeted impact. \n\nDevelopment history\n\nUnmanned flight tests\n\nFile:Apollo unmanned launches.png\|thumb\|right\|250px\|Apollo unmanned development mission launches. Click on a launch image to read the main article about each mission\|alt=Composite image of unmanned development Apollo mission launches in chronological sequence.\nrect 0 0 91 494 AS-201 first unmanned CSM test\nrect 92 0 181 494 AS-203 S-IVB stage development test\nrect 182 0 270 494 AS-202 second unmanned CSM test\nrect 271 0 340 494 Apollo 4 first unmanned Saturn V test\nrect 341 0 434 494 Apollo 5 unmanned LM test\nrect 435 0 494 494 Apollo 6 second unmanned Saturn V test\n\nTwo Block I CSMs were launched from LC-34 on suborbital flights in 1966 with the Saturn IB. The first, AS-201 launched on February 26, reached an altitude of and splashed down 4577 nmi downrange in the Atlantic Ocean. The second, AS-202 on August 25, reached altitude and was recovered 13900 nmi downrange in the Pacific Ocean. These flights validated the Service Module engine and the Command Module heat shield.\n\nA third Saturn IB test, AS-203 launched from pad 37, went into orbit to support design of the S-IVB upper stage restart capability needed for the Saturn V. It carried a nosecone instead of the Apollo spacecraft, and its payload was the unburned liquid hydrogen fuel, the behavior of which engineers measured with temperature and pressure sensors, and a TV camera. This flight occurred on July 5, before AS-202, which was delayed because of problems getting the Apollo spacecraft ready for flight.\n\nPreparation for manned flight\n\nTwo manned orbital Block I CSM missions were planned: AS-204 and AS-205. The Block I crew positions were titled Command Pilot, Senior Pilot, and Pilot. The Senior Pilot would assume navigation duties, while the Pilot would function as a systems engineer. The astronauts would wear a modified version of the Gemini spacesuit. \n\nAfter an unmanned LM test flight AS-206, a crew would fly the first Block II CSM and LM in a dual mission known as AS-207/208, or AS-278 (each spacecraft would be launched on a separate Saturn IB). The Block II crew positions were titled Commander (CDR) Command Module Pilot (CMP) and Lunar Module Pilot (LMP). The astronauts would begin wearing a new Apollo A6L spacesuit, designed to accommodate lunar extravehicular activity (EVA). The traditional visor helmet was replaced with a clear \"fishbowl\" type for greater visibility, and the lunar surface EVA suit would include a water-cooled undergarment. \n\nDeke Slayton, the grounded Mercury astronaut who became Director of Flight Crew Operations for the Gemini and Apollo programs, selected the first Apollo crew in January 1966, with Grissom as Command Pilot, White as Senior Pilot, and rookie Donn F. Eisele as Pilot. But Eisele dislocated his shoulder twice aboard the KC135 weightlessness training aircraft, and had to undergo surgery on January 27. Slayton replaced him with Chaffee. NASA announced the final crew selection for AS-204 on March 21, 1966, with the backup crew consisting of Gemini veterans James McDivitt and David Scott, with rookie Russell L. \"Rusty\" Schweickart. Mercury/Gemini veteran Wally Schirra, Eisele, and rookie Walter Cunningham were announced on September 29 as the prime crew for AS-205.\n\nIn December 1966, the AS-205 mission was canceled, since the validation of the CSM would be accomplished on the 14-day first flight, and AS-205 would have been devoted to space experiments and contribute no new engineering knowledge about the spacecraft. Its Saturn IB was allocated to the dual mission, now redesignated AS-205/208 or AS-258, planned for August 1967. McDivitt, Scott and Schweickart were promoted to the prime AS-258 crew, and Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham were reassigned as the Apollo 1 backup crew. \n\nProgram delays\n\nThe spacecraft for the AS-202 and AS-204 missions were delivered by North American Aviation to the Kennedy Space Center with long lists of equipment problems which had to be corrected before flight; these delays caused the launch of AS-202 to slip behind AS-203, and eliminated hopes the first manned mission might be ready to launch as soon as November 1966, concurrently with the last Gemini mission. Eventually the planned AS-204 flight date was pushed to February 21, 1967. \n\nNorth American Aviation was prime contractor not only for the Apollo CSM, but for the Saturn V S-II second stage as well, and delays in this stage pushed the first unmanned Saturn V flight AS-501 from late 1966 to November 1967. (The initial assembly of AS-501 had to use a dummy spacer spool in place of the stage.) \n\nThe problems with North American were severe enough in late 1965 to cause Manned Space Flight Administrator George Mueller to appoint program director Samuel Phillips to head a \"tiger team\" to investigate North American's problems and identify corrections. Phillips documented his findings in a December 19 letter to NAA president Lee Atwood, with a strongly worded letter by Mueller, and also gave a presentation of the results to Mueller and Deputy Administrator Robert Seamans.NASA never volunteered the tiger team findings to the US Congress in the course of its regular oversight, but its existence was publicly disclosed as \"the Phillips report\" in the course of the Senate investigation into the Apollo 204 fire. Meanwhile, Grumman was also encountering problems with the Lunar Module, eliminating hopes it would be ready for manned flight in 1967, not long after the first manned CSM flights. \n\nDisaster strikes\n\nGrissom, White, and Chaffee decided to name their flight Apollo 1 as a motivational focus on the first manned flight. They trained and conducted tests of their spacecraft at North American, and in the altitude chamber at the Kennedy Space Center. A \"plugs-out\" test was planned for January, which would simulate a launch countdown on LC-34 with the spacecraft transferring from pad-supplied to internal power. If successful, this would be followed by a more rigorous countdown simulation test closer to the February 21 launch, with both spacecraft and launch vehicle fueled. \n\nThe plugs-out test began on the morning of January 27, 1967, and immediately was plagued with problems. First the crew noticed a strange odor in their spacesuits, which delayed the sealing of the hatch. Then, communications problems frustrated the astronauts and forced a hold in the simulated countdown. During this hold, an electrical fire began in the cabin, and spread quickly in the high pressure, 100% oxygen atmosphere. Pressure rose high enough from the fire that the cabin inner wall burst, allowing the fire to erupt onto the pad area and frustrating attempts to rescue the crew. The astronauts were asphyxiated before the hatch could be opened. \n\nNASA immediately convened an accident review board, overseen by both houses of Congress. While the determination of responsibility for the accident was complex, the review board concluded that \"deficiencies existed in Command Module design, workmanship and quality control.\" At the insistence of NASA Administrator Webb, North American removed Harrison Storms as Command Module program manager. Webb also reassigned Apollo Spacecraft Program Office (ASPO) Manager Joseph Francis Shea, replacing him with George Low. \n\nTo remedy the causes of the fire, changes were made in the Block II spacecraft and operational procedures, the most important of which were use of a nitrogen/oxygen mixture instead of pure oxygen before and during launch, and removal of flammable cabin and space suit materials. The Block II design already called for replacement of the Block I plug-type hatch cover with a quick-release, outward opening door. NASA discontinued the manned Block I program, using the Block I spacecraft only for unmanned Saturn V flights. Crew members would also exclusively wear modified, fire-resistant A7L Block II space suits, and would be designated by the Block II titles, regardless of whether a LM was present on the flight or not.\n\nUnmanned Saturn V and LM tests\n\nOn April 24, 1967, Mueller published an official Apollo mission numbering scheme, using sequential numbers for all flights, manned or unmanned. The sequence would start with Apollo 4 to cover the first three unmanned flights while retiring the Apollo 1 designation to honor the crew, per their widows' wishes. \n\nIn September 1967, Mueller approved a sequence of mission types which had to be successfully accomplished in order to achieve the manned lunar landing. Each step had to be successfully accomplished before the next ones could be performed, and it was unknown how many tries of each mission would be necessary; therefore letters were used instead of numbers. The A missions were unmanned Saturn V validation; B was unmanned LM validation using the Saturn IB; C was manned CSM Earth orbit validation using the Saturn IB; D was the first manned CSM/LM flight (this replaced AS-258, using a single Saturn V launch); E would be a higher Earth orbit CSM/LM flight; F would be the first lunar mission, testing the LM in lunar orbit but without landing (a \"dress rehearsal\"); and G would be the first manned landing. The list of types covered follow-on lunar exploration to include H lunar landings, I for lunar orbital survey missions, and J for extended-stay lunar landings. \n\nThe delay in the CSM caused by the fire enabled NASA to catch up on man-rating the LM and Saturn V. Apollo 4 (AS-501) was the first unmanned flight of the Saturn V, carrying a Block I CSM on November 9, 1967. The capability of the Command Module's heat shield to survive a trans-lunar reentry was demonstrated by using the Service Module engine to ram it into the atmosphere at higher than the usual Earth-orbital reentry speed. This was followed on April 4, 1968, by Apollo 6 (AS-502) which carried a CSM and a LM Test Article as ballast. The intent of this mission was to achieve trans-lunar injection, followed closely by a simulated direct-return abort, using the Service Module engine to achieve another high-speed reentry. The Saturn V experienced pogo oscillation, a problem caused by non-steady engine combustion, which damaged fuel lines in the second and third stages. Two S-II engines shut down prematurely, but the remaining engines were able to compensate. The damage to the third stage engine was more severe, preventing it from restarting for trans-lunar injection. Mission controllers were able to use the Service Module engine to essentially repeat the flight profile of Apollo 4. Based on the good performance of Apollo 6 and identification of satisfactory fixes to the Apollo 6 problems, NASA declared the Saturn V ready to fly men, cancelling a third unmanned test. \n\nApollo 5 (AS-204) was the first unmanned test flight of LM in Earth orbit, launched from pad 37 on January 22, 1968, by the Saturn IB that would have been used for Apollo 1. The LM engines were successfully test-fired and restarted, despite a computer programming error which cut short the first descent stage firing. The ascent engine was fired in abort mode, known as a \"fire-in-the-hole\" test, where it was lit simultaneously with jettison of the descent stage. Although Grumman wanted a second unmanned test, George Low decided the next LM flight would be manned. \n\nManned development missions\n\nFile:Apollo manned development missions insignia.png\|thumb\|right\|250px\|Apollo manned development mission patches. Click on a patch to read the main article about that mission\|alt=Composite image of 6 manned Apollo development mission patches, from Apollo 1 to Apollo 11.\nrect 0 0 595 600 Apollo 1 unsuccessful first manned CSM test\nrect 596 0 1376 600 Apollo 7 first manned CSM test\nrect 1377 0 2076 600 Apollo 8 first manned flight to the Moon\nrect 0 601 595 1200 Apollo 9 manned Earth orbital LM test\nrect 596 601 1376 1200 Apollo 10 manned lunar orbital LM test\nrect 1377 601 2076 1200 Apollo 11 first manned Moon landing\n\nApollo 7, launched from LC-34 on October 11, 1968, was the C mission, crewed by Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham. It was an 11-day Earth-orbital flight which tested the CSM systems. \n\nApollo 8 was planned to be the D mission in December 1968, crewed by McDivitt, Scott and Schweickart, launched on a Saturn V instead of two Saturn IBs. In the summer it had become clear that the LM would not be ready in time. Rather than waste the Saturn V on another simple Earth-orbiting mission, ASPO Manager George Low suggested the bold step of sending Apollo 8 to orbit the Moon instead, deferring the D mission to the next mission in March 1969, and eliminating the E mission. This would keep the program on track. The Soviet Union had sent animals around the Moon on September 15, 1968, aboard Zond 5, and it was believed they might soon repeat the feat with human cosmonauts. The decision was not announced publicly until successful completion of Apollo 7. Gemini veterans Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, and rookie William Anders captured the world's attention by making ten lunar orbits in 20 hours, transmitting television pictures of the lunar surface on Christmas Eve, and returning safely to Earth. \n\nThe following March, LM flight, rendezvous and docking were successfully demonstrated in Earth orbit on Apollo 9, and Schweickart tested the full lunar EVA suit with its Portable Life Support System (PLSS) outside the LM. The F mission was successfully carried out on Apollo 10 in May 1969 by Gemini veterans Thomas P. Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan. Stafford and Cernan took the LM to within 50000 ft of the lunar surface. \n\nThe G mission was achieved on Apollo 11 in July 1969 by an all-Gemini veteran crew consisting of Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin. Armstrong and Aldrin performed the first landing at the Sea of Tranquility at 20:17:40 UTC on July 20, 1969. They spent a total of 21 hours, 36 minutes on the surface, and spent 2 hours, 31 minutes outside the spacecraft, walking on the surface, taking photographs, collecting material samples, and deploying automated scientific instruments, while continuously sending black-and-white television back to Earth. The astronauts returned safely on July 24. \n\nProduction lunar landings\n\nFile:Apollo lunar landing missions insignia.png\|thumb\|right\|250px\|Apollo production manned lunar landing mission patches. Click on a patch to read the main article about that mission\|alt=Composite image of 6 production manned Apollo lunar landing mission patches, from Apollo 12 to Apollo 17.\nrect 0 0 602 600 Apollo 12 second manned Moon landing\nrect 603 0 1205 600 Apollo 13 unsuccessful Moon landing attempt\nrect 1206 0 1885 600 Apollo 14 third manned Moon landing\nrect 0 601 602 1200 Apollo 15 fourth manned Moon landing\nrect 603 601 1205 1200 Apollo 16 fifth manned Moon landing\nrect 1206 601 1885 1200 Apollo 17 sixth manned Moon landing\n\nIn November 1969, Gemini veteran Charles \"Pete\" Conrad and rookie Alan L. Bean made a precision landing on Apollo 12 within walking distance of the Surveyor 3 unmanned lunar probe, which had landed in April 1967 on the Ocean of Storms. The Command Module Pilot was Gemini veteran Richard F. Gordon, Jr. Conrad and Bean carried the first lunar surface color television camera, but it was damaged when accidentally pointed into the Sun. They made two EVAs totaling 7 hours and 45 minutes. On one, they walked to the Surveyor, photographed it, and removed some parts which they returned to Earth. \n\nThe success of the first two landings allowed the remaining missions to be crewed with a single veteran as Commander, with two rookies. Apollo 13 launched Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise in April 1970, headed for the Fra Mauro formation. But two days out, a liquid oxygen tank exploded, disabling the Service Module and forcing the crew to use the LM as a \"life boat\" to return to Earth. Another NASA review board was convened to determine the cause, which turned out to be a combination of damage of the tank in the factory, and a subcontractor not making a tank component according to updated design specifications. Apollo was grounded again, for the remainder of 1970 while the oxygen tank was redesigned and an extra one was added. \n\nThe contracted batch of 15 Saturn Vs were enough for lunar landing missions through Apollo 20. NASA publicized a preliminary list of eight more planned landing sites, with plans to increase the mass of the CSM and LM for the last five missions, along with the payload capacity of the Saturn V. These final missions would combine the I and J types in the 1967 list, allowing the CMP to operate a package of lunar orbital sensors and cameras while his companions were on the surface, and allowing them to stay on the Moon for over three days. These missions would also carry the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) increasing the exploration area and allowing televised liftoff of the LM. Also, the Block II spacesuit was revised for the extended missions to allow greater flexibility and visibility for driving the LRV. \n\nMission cutbacks\n\nAbout the time of the first landing in 1969, it was decided to use an existing Saturn V to launch the Skylab orbital laboratory pre-built on the ground, replacing the original plan to construct it in orbit from several Saturn IB launches; this eliminated Apollo 20. NASA's yearly budget also began to shrink in light of the successful landing, and NASA also had to make funds available for the development of the upcoming Space Shuttle. By 1971, the decision was made to also cancel missions 18 and 19. The two unused Saturn Vs became museum exhibits at the John F. Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida, George C. Marshall Space Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. \n\nThe cutbacks forced mission planners to reassess the original planned landing sites in order to achieve the most effective geological sample and data collection from the remaining four missions. Apollo 15 had been planned to be the last of the H series missions, but since there would be only two subsequent missions left, it was changed to the first of three J missions. \n\nApollo 13's Fra Mauro mission was reassigned to Apollo 14, commanded in February 1971 by Mercury veteran Alan Shepard, with Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell. This time the mission was successful. Shepard and Mitchell spent 33 hours and 31 minutes on the surface, and completed two EVAs totalling 9 hours 24 minutes, which was a record for the longest EVA by a lunar crew at the time.\n\nIn August 1971, just after conclusion of the Apollo 15 mission, President Richard Nixon proposed canceling the two remaining lunar landing missions, Apollo 16 and 17. Office of Management and Budget Deputy Director Caspar Weinberger was opposed to this, and persuaded Nixon to keep the remaining missions. \n\nExtended missions\n\nApollo 15 was launched on July 26, 1971, with David Scott, Alfred Worden and James Irwin. Scott and Irwin landed on July 30 near Hadley Rille, and spent just under 2 days, 19 hours on the surface. In over 18 hours of EVA, they collected about 77 kg of lunar material. \n\nApollo 16 landed in the Descartes Highlands on April 20, 1972. The crew was commanded by John Young, with Ken Mattingly and Charles Duke. Young and Duke spent just under 3 days on the surface, with a total of over 20 hours EVA. \n\nApollo 17 was the last of the Apollo program, landing in the Taurus-Littrow region in December 1972. Eugene Cernan commanded Ronald E. Evans and NASA's first scientist-astronaut, geologist Dr. Harrison H. Schmitt. Schmitt was originally scheduled for Apollo 18, but the lunar geological community lobbied for his inclusion on the final lunar landing. Cernan and Schmitt stayed on the surface for just over 3 days and spent just over 23 hours of total EVA.\n\nMission summary\n\nSource: Apollo by the Numbers: A Statistical Reference (Orloff 2004). \n\nSamples returned\n\nThe Apollo program returned over 838 lb of lunar rocks and soil to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston. Today, 75% of the samples are stored at the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility built in 1979. \n\nThe rocks collected from the Moon are extremely old compared to rocks found on Earth, as measured by radiometric dating techniques. They range in age from about 3.2 billion years for the basaltic samples derived from the lunar maria, to about 4.6 billion years for samples derived from the highlands crust. As such, they represent samples from a very early period in the development of the Solar System, that are largely absent on Earth. One important rock found during the Apollo Program is dubbed the Genesis Rock, retrieved by astronauts David Scott and James Irwin during the Apollo 15 mission. This anorthosite rock is composed almost exclusively of the calcium-rich feldspar mineral anorthite, and is believed to be representative of the highland crust. A geochemical component called KREEP was discovered by Apollo 12, which has no known terrestrial counterpart. KREEP and the anorthositic samples have been used to infer that the outer portion of the Moon was once completely molten (see lunar magma ocean). \n\nAlmost all the rocks show evidence of impact process effects. Many samples appear to be pitted with micrometeoroid impact craters, which is never seen on Earth rocks, due to the thick atmosphere. Many show signs of being subjected to high pressure shock waves that are generated during impact events. Some of the returned samples are of impact melt (materials melted near an impact crater.) All samples returned from the Moon are highly brecciated as a result of being subjected to multiple impact events.\n\nAnalysis of composition of the lunar samples supports the giant impact hypothesis, that the Moon was created through impact of a large astronomical body with the Earth. \n\nCosts\n\nWhen President Kennedy first chartered the Moon landing program, a preliminary cost estimate of $7 billion was generated, but this proved an extremely unrealistic guess of what could not possibly be determined precisely, and James Webb used his judgment as administrator to change the estimate to $20 billion before giving it to Vice President Johnson.\n\nWhen Kennedy made his 1962 speech at Rice University, the annual space budget was $5.4 billion, and he described this cost as 40 cents per person per week, \"somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year\", but that the Moon program would soon raise this to \"more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United States\".\n\nWebb's estimate shocked many at the time (including the President) but ultimately proved to be reasonably accurate. In January 1969, NASA prepared an itemized estimate of the run-out cost of the Apollo program. The total came to $23.9 billion, itemized as follows: \nApollo spacecraft: $7,945.0 million\nSaturn I launch vehicles: $767.1 million\nSaturn IB launch vehicles: $1,131.2 million\nSaturn V launch vehicles: $6,871.1 million\nLaunch vehicle engine development: $854.2 million\nMission support: $1,432.3 million\nTracking and data acquisition: $664.1 million\nGround facilities: $1,830.3 million\nOperation of installations: $2,420.6 million\n\nThe final cost of Apollo was reported to Congress as $25.4 billion in 1973. It took up the majority of NASA's budget while it was being developed. For example, in 1966 it accounted for about 60 percent of NASA's total $5.2 billion budget. A single Saturn V launch in 1969 cost up to $375 million, compared to the National Science Foundation's fiscal year 1970 budget of $440 million. \n\nIn 2009, NASA held a symposium on project costs which presented an estimate of the Apollo program costs in 2005 dollars as roughly $170 billion. This included all research and development costs; the procurement of 15 Saturn V rockets, 16 Command/Service Modules, 12 Lunar Modules, plus program support and management costs; construction expenses for facilities and their upgrading, and costs for flight operations. This was based on a Congressional Budget Office report, A Budgetary Analysis of NASA's New Vision for Space, September 2004. The Space Review estimated in 2010 the cost of Apollo from 1959 to 1973 as $20.4 billion, or $109 billion in 2010 dollars. \n\nApollo Applications Program\n\nLooking beyond the manned lunar landings, NASA investigated several post-lunar applications for Apollo hardware. The Apollo Extension Series (Apollo X,) proposed up to 30 flights to Earth orbit, using the space in the Spacecraft Lunar Module Adapter (SLA) to house a small orbital laboratory (workshop). Astronauts would continue to use the CSM as a ferry to the station. This study was followed by design of a larger orbital workshop to be built in orbit from an empty S-IVB Saturn upper stage, and grew into the Apollo Applications Program (AAP). The workshop was to be supplemented by the Apollo Telescope Mount, which could be attached to the ascent stage of the lunar module via a rack. The most ambitious plan called for using an empty S-IVB as an interplanetary spacecraft for a Venus fly-by mission. \n\nThe S-IVB orbital workshop was the only one of these plans to make it off the drawing board. Dubbed Skylab, it was constructed complete on the ground rather than in space, and launched in 1973 using the two lower stages of a Saturn V. It was equipped with an Apollo Telescope Mount. Skylab's last crew departed the station on February 8, 1974, and the station itself re-entered the atmosphere in 1979. \n\nThe Apollo-Soyuz Test Project also used Apollo hardware for the first joint nation space flight, paving the way for future cooperation with other nations in the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs. \n\nRecent observations\n\nIn September 2007, the X PRIZE Foundation and Google announced the Google Lunar X Prize, to be awarded for a robotic lunar landing mission which transmits close-up images of the Apollo Lunar Modules and other artificial objects on the surface. \n\nIn 2008, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's SELENE probe observed evidence of the halo surrounding the Apollo 15 Lunar Module blast crater while orbiting above the lunar surface. In 2009, NASA's robotic Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, while orbiting 50 km above the Moon, began photographing the remnants of the Apollo program left on the lunar surface, and photographed each site where manned Apollo flights landed. All of the U. S. flags left on the Moon during the Apollo missions were found to still be standing, with the exception of the one left during the Apollo 11 mission, which was blown over during that mission's lift-off from the lunar surface and return to the mission Command Module in lunar orbit; the degree to which these flags retain their original colors remains unknown. \n\nIn a November 16, 2009 editorial, The New York Times opined:\n\nLegacy\n\nScience and engineering\n\nThe Apollo program has been called the greatest technological achievement in human history. Apollo stimulated many areas of technology, leading to over 1,800 spinoff products as of 2015. The flight computer design used in both the Lunar and Command Modules was, along with the Polaris and Minuteman missile systems, the driving force behind early research into integrated circuits (IC). By 1963, Apollo was using 60 percent of the United States' production of ICs. The crucial difference between the requirements of Apollo and the missile programs was Apollo's much greater need for reliability. While the Navy and Air Force could work around reliability problems by deploying more missiles, the political and financial cost of failure of an Apollo mission was unacceptably high.\n\nCultural impact\n\nThe crew of Apollo 8 sent the first live televised pictures of the Earth and the Moon back to Earth, and read from the creation story in the Book of Genesis, on Christmas Eve, 1968. An estimated one-quarter of the population of the world saw—either live or delayed—the Christmas Eve transmission during the ninth orbit of the Moon, and an estimated one-fifth of the population of the world watched the live transmission of the Apollo 11 moonwalk. \n\nThe Apollo program also affected environmental activism in the 1970s due to photos taken by the astronauts. The most famous, taken by the Apollo 17 astronauts, is The Blue Marble. This image, which was released during a surge in environmentalism, became a symbol of the environmental movement, as a depiction of Earth's frailty, vulnerability, and isolation amid the vast expanse of space.\n\nAccording to The Economist, Apollo succeeded in accomplishing President Kennedy's goal of taking on the Soviet Union in the Space Race, and beat it by accomplishing a singular and significant achievement, and thereby showcased the superiority of the capitalistic, free-market system as represented by the US. The publication noted the irony that in order to achieve the goal, the program required the organization of tremendous public resources within a vast, centralized government bureaucracy. \n\nThere are those who, despite evidence to the contrary, deny that the moon landings took place. The Apollo moon landing hoax claims helped propel conspiracy theories into a quasi-political narrative. \n\nApollo 11 broadcast data restoration project\n\nAs part of Apollo 11's 40th anniversary in 2009, NASA spearheaded an effort to digitally restore the existing videotapes of the mission's live televised moonwalk. After an exhaustive three-year search for missing tapes of the original video of the Apollo 11 moonwalk, NASA concluded the data tapes had more than likely been accidentally erased.\n\nThe Moon landing data was recorded by a special Apollo TV camera which recorded in a format incompatible with broadcast TV. This resulted in lunar footage that had to be converted for the live television broadcast and stored on magnetic telemetry tapes. During the following years, a magnetic tape shortage prompted NASA to remove massive numbers of magnetic tapes from the National Archives and Records Administration to be recorded over with newer satellite data. Stan Lebar, who led the team that designed and built the lunar television camera at Westinghouse Electric Corporation, also worked with Nafzger to try to locate the missing tapes.\n\nWith a budget of $230,000, the surviving original lunar broadcast data from Apollo 11 was compiled by Nafzger and assigned to Lowry Digital for restoration. The video was processed to remove random noise and camera shake without destroying historical legitimacy. The images were from tapes in Australia, the CBS News archive, and kinescope recordings made at Johnson Space Center. The restored video, remaining in black and white, contains conservative digital enhancements and did not include sound quality improvements.\n\nDepictions on film\n\nDocumentaries\n\nNumerous documentary films cover the Apollo program and the Space Race, including:\n\n Moonwalk One (1970)\n* For All Mankind (1989)\n* \"Moon\" from the BBC miniseries The Planets (1999)\n* Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D (2005)\n* The Wonder of It All (2007)\n* In the Shadow of the Moon (2007)\n* When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions (miniseries) (2008)\n* Moon Machines (miniseries) (2008)\n* James May on the Moon (documentary commemorating 40 years since the landings) (2009)\n* NASA's Story (documentary series) (2009)\n* [http://moonscapemovie.blogspot.ch/p/watch-latest-release-of-moonscape.html Moonscape] (freely downloadable Apollo 11 documentary) (2012)\n\nDocudramas\n\nThe Apollo program, or certain missions, have been dramatized in Apollo 13 (1995), Apollo 11 (1996), From the Earth to the Moon (1998), The Dish (2000), Space Race (2005), and Moonshot (2009).", "Thomas Jeffrey \"Tom\" Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his roles in Splash (1984), Big (1988), Turner & Hooch (1989), Philadelphia (1993), Forrest Gump (1994), Apollo 13 (1995), Saving Private Ryan, You've Got Mail (both 1998), The Green Mile (1999), Cast Away (2000), The Da Vinci Code (2006), Captain Phillips, and Saving Mr. Banks (both 2013), as well as for his voice work in the animated Toy Story series and The Polar Express (2004).\n \nHanks' films have grossed more than $4.3 billion at U.S. and Canadian box offices and more than $8.5 billion worldwide, making him the fourth highest-grossing actor in North America. Hanks has been nominated for numerous awards during his career. He won a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Philadelphia, as well as a Golden Globe, an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a People's Choice Award for Best Actor for his role in Forrest Gump. In 2004, he received the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). \n \nHanks is also known for his collaborations with film director Steven Spielberg on Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can (2002), The Terminal (2004), and Bridge of Spies (2015), as well as the 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers, which launched Hanks as a successful director, producer, and screenwriter. In 2010, Spielberg and Hanks were executive producers on the HBO miniseries The Pacific (a companion piece to Band of Brothers).\n\nEarly life\n\nHanks was born in Concord, California, to Janet Marylyn (née Frager), a hospital worker, and Amos Mefford Hanks, an itinerant cook.Stated on Inside the Actors Studio, 1999 His mother was of Portuguese descent (her family's surname was originally \"Fraga\"), while his father had English ancestry. Hanks' parents divorced in 1960. The family's three oldest children, Sandra (later Sandra Hanks Benoiton, a writer), Larry (Lawrence M. Hanks, PhD, an entomology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign) and Tom, went with their father, while the youngest, Jim, who also became an actor and filmmaker, remained with their mother in Red Bluff, California. In his childhood, his family moved often. By the age of ten, Hanks had lived in ten different houses. \n\nWhile Hanks' family religious history was Catholic and Mormon, he has characterized himself as being a \"Bible-toting evangelical\" for several years as a teenager. In school, Hanks was unpopular with students and teachers alike, later telling Rolling Stone magazine, \"I was a geek, a spaz. I was horribly, painfully, terribly shy. At the same time, I was the guy who'd yell out funny captions during filmstrips. But I didn't get into trouble. I was always a real good kid and pretty responsible.\" In 1965, his father married Frances Wong, a San Francisco native of Chinese descent. Frances had three children, two of whom lived with Hanks during his high school years. Hanks acted in school plays, including South Pacific, while attending Skyline High School in Oakland, California. \n\nHanks studied theater at Chabot College in Hayward, California, and transferred to California State University, Sacramento, two years later.\n* a \"Famous alumni: Actor Tom Hanks... Includes former students who attended – but didn't graduate from – the university\" — ¶ 67. Hanks told New York magazine in 1986, \"Acting classes looked like the best place for a guy who liked to make a lot of noise and be rather flamboyant. I spent a lot of time going to plays. I wouldn't take dates with me. I'd just drive to a theater, buy myself a ticket, sit in the seat and read the program, and then get into the play completely. I spent a lot of time like that, seeing Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Ibsen, and all that.\"\n\nDuring his years studying theater, Hanks met Vincent Dowling, head of the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland, Ohio. At Dowling's suggestion, Hanks became an intern at the festival. His internship stretched into a three-year experience that covered most aspects of theater production, including lighting, set design, and stage management, prompting Hanks to drop out of college. During the same time, Hanks won the Cleveland Critics Circle Award for Best Actor for his 1978 performance as Proteus in Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona, one of the few times he played a villain. \n\nCareer\n\nEarly acting career (1979–1985)\n\nIn 1979, Hanks moved to New York City, where he made his film debut in the low-budget slasher film He Knows You're Alone (1980) and landed a starring role in the television movie Mazes and Monsters. Early that year, he was cast in the lead, Callimaco, in the Riverside Shakespeare Company's production of Niccolò Machiavelli's The Mandrake, directed by Daniel Southern. As a high profile Off Off Broadway showcase, the production helped Tom land an agent, Joe Ohla, with the J. Michael Bloom Agency.\n\nThe following year, Hanks landed one of the lead roles, that of character Kip Wilson, on the ABC television pilot of Bosom Buddies. He and Peter Scolari played a pair of young advertising men forced to dress as women so they could live in an inexpensive all-female hotel. Hanks had previously partnered with Scolari on the 1970s game show Make Me Laugh. After landing the role, Hanks moved to Los Angeles. Bosom Buddies ran for two seasons, and, although the ratings were never strong, television critics gave the program high marks. \"The first day I saw him on the set,\" co-producer Ian Praiser told Rolling Stone, \"I thought, 'Too bad he won't be in television for long.' I knew he'd be a movie star in two years.\" However, although Praiser knew it, he was not able to convince Hanks. \"The television show had come out of nowhere,\" Hanks' best friend Tom Lizzio told Rolling Stone. \"Then out of nowhere it got canceled. He figured he'd be back to pulling ropes and hanging lights in a theater.\"\n\nBosom Buddies and a guest appearance on a 1982 episode of Happy Days (\"A Case of Revenge,\" in which he played a disgruntled former classmate of Fonzie) prompted director Ron Howard to contact Hanks. Howard was working on the film Splash (1984), a romantic comedy fantasy about a mermaid who falls in love with a human. At first, Howard considered Hanks for the role of the main character's wisecracking brother, a role that eventually went to John Candy. Instead, Hanks landed the lead role in Splash, which went on to become a surprise box office hit, grossing more than US$69 million. He also had a sizable hit with the sex comedy Bachelor Party, also in 1984. In 1983–84, Hanks made three guest appearances on Family Ties as Elyse Keaton's alcoholic brother, Ned Donnelly. \n\nPeriod of successes and failures (1986–1991)\n\nWith Nothing in Common (1986) – a story of a young man alienated from his father (played by Jackie Gleason) – Hanks began to extend himself from comedic roles to dramatic roles. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine Hanks commented on his experience: \"It changed my desires about working in movies. Part of it was the nature of the material, what we were trying to say. But besides that, it focused on people's relationships. The story was about a guy and his father, unlike, say, The Money Pit, where the story is really about a guy and his house.\" \n\nAfter a few more flops and a moderate success with the comedy Dragnet, Hanks' stature in the film industry rose. The broad success of the fantasy comedy Big (1988) established Hanks as a major Hollywood talent, both as a box office draw and within the industry as an actor. For his performance in the film, Hanks earned his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Big was followed later that year by Punchline, in which he and Sally Field co-starred as struggling comedians.\n\nHanks then suffered a run of box-office under-performers: The 'Burbs (1989), Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), and The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990). In the last, he portrayed a greedy Wall Street figure who gets enmeshed in a hit-and-run accident. 1989's Turner & Hooch was Hanks' only financially successful film of the period.\n\nProgression into dramatic roles (1992–1995)\n\nHanks climbed back to the top again with his portrayal of a washed-up baseball legend turned manager in A League of Their Own (1992). Hanks has stated that his acting in earlier roles was not great, but that he subsequently improved. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Hanks noted his \"modern era of moviemaking ... because enough self-discovery has gone on ... My work has become less pretentiously fake and over the top\". This \"modern era\" began in 1993 for Hanks, first with Sleepless in Seattle and then with Philadelphia. The former was a blockbuster success about a widower who finds true love over the radio airwaves. Richard Schickel of TIME called his performance \"charming,\" and most critics agreed that Hanks' portrayal ensured him a place among the premier romantic-comedy stars of his generation. \n\nIn Philadelphia, he played a gay lawyer with AIDS who sues his firm for discrimination. Hanks lost 35 pounds and thinned his hair in order to appear sickly for the role. In a review for People, Leah Rozen stated, \"Above all, credit for Philadelphias success belongs to Hanks, who makes sure that he plays a character, not a saint. He is flat-out terrific, giving a deeply felt, carefully nuanced performance that deserves an Oscar.\" Hanks won the 1993 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Philadelphia. During his acceptance speech, he revealed that his high school drama teacher Rawley Farnsworth and former classmate John Gilkerson, two people with whom he was close, were gay. \n\nHanks followed Philadelphia with the 1994 hit Forrest Gump which grossed a worldwide total of over $600 million at the box office. Hanks remarked: \"When I read the script for Gump, I saw it as one of those kind of grand, hopeful movies that the audience can go to and feel ... some hope for their lot and their position in life ... I got that from the movies a hundred million times when I was a kid. I still do.\" Hanks won his second Best Actor Academy Award for his role in Forrest Gump, becoming only the second actor to have accomplished the feat of winning consecutive Best Actor Oscars. (Spencer Tracy was the first, winning in 1937–38. Hanks and Tracy were the same age at the time they received their Academy Awards: 37 for the first and 38 for the second.) \n\nHanks' next role—astronaut and commander Jim Lovell, in the 1995 film Apollo 13—reunited him with Ron Howard. Critics generally applauded the film and the performances of the entire cast, which included actors Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, and Kathleen Quinlan. The movie also earned nine Academy Award nominations, winning two. Later that year, Hanks starred in Disney/Pixar's computer-animated hit film Toy Story, as the voice of Sheriff Woody. \n\nContinued success (1996–1999)\n\nHanks made his directing debut with his 1996 film That Thing You Do! about a 1960s pop group, also playing the role of a music producer. Hanks and producer Gary Goetzman went on to create Playtone, a record and film production company named after the record company in the film. \n\nHanks then executive produced, co-wrote, and co-directed the HBO docudrama From the Earth to the Moon. The 12-part series chronicled the space program from its inception, through the familiar flights of Neil Armstrong and Jim Lovell, to the personal feelings surrounding the reality of moon landings. The Emmy Award-winning project was, at US$68 million, one of the most expensive ventures undertaken for television. \n\nIn 1998, Hanks' next project was no less expensive. For Saving Private Ryan, he teamed up with Steven Spielberg to make a film about a search through war-torn France after D-Day to bring back a soldier. It earned the praise and respect of the film community, critics, and the general public. It was labeled one of the finest war films ever made and earned Spielberg his second Academy Award for direction, and Hanks another Best Actor nomination. Later that year, Hanks re-teamed with his Sleepless in Seattle co-star Meg Ryan for You've Got Mail, a remake of 1940's The Shop Around the Corner. In 1999, Hanks starred in an adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Green Mile. He also returned as the voice of Woody in Toy Story 2, the sequel to Toy Story. The following year, he won a Golden Globe for Best Actor and an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of a marooned FedEx systems analyst in Robert Zemeckis's Cast Away. \n\nInternational recognition (2000–2009)\n\nIn 2001, Hanks helped direct and produce the Emmy-Award winning HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. He also appeared in the September 11 television special America: A Tribute to Heroes and the documentary Rescued From the Closet. He then teamed up with American Beauty director Sam Mendes for the adaptation of Max Allan Collins's and Richard Piers Rayner's graphic novel Road to Perdition, in which he played an anti-hero role as a hitman on the run with his son. That same year, Hanks collaborated once again with director Spielberg, starring opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in the hit crime comedy Catch Me If You Can, based on the true story of Frank Abagnale, Jr. The same year, Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson produced the hit movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. In August 2007, he along with co-producers Rita Wilson and Gary Goetzman, and writer and star Nia Vardalos, initiated a legal action against the production company Gold Circle Films for their share of profits from the movie. At the age of 45, Hanks became the youngest-ever recipient of the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award on June 12, 2002. \n\nIn 2004, he appeared in three films: The Coen brothers' The Ladykillers, another Spielberg film, The Terminal, and The Polar Express, a family film from Zemeckis for which Hanks played multiple motion capture roles. In a USA Weekend interview, Hanks discussed how he chooses projects: \"[Since] A League of Their Own, it can't be just another movie for me. It has to get me going somehow ... There has to be some all-encompassing desire or feeling about wanting to do that particular movie. I'd like to assume that I'm willing to go down any avenue in order to do it right\". In August 2005, Hanks was voted in as vice president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. \n\nHanks next starred in the highly anticipated film The Da Vinci Code, based on the best-selling novel by Dan Brown. The film was released May 19, 2006, in the U.S. and grossed over US$750 million worldwide. He followed the film with Ken Burns's 2007 documentary The War. For the documentary, Hanks did voice work, reading excerpts from World War II-era columns by Al McIntosh. In 2006, Hanks topped a 1,500-strong list of \"most trusted celebrities\" compiled by Forbes magazine. \n\nHanks next appeared in a cameo role as himself in The Simpsons Movie, in which he appeared in an advertisement claiming that the U.S. government has lost its credibility and is hence buying some of his. He also made an appearance in the credits, expressing a desire to be left alone when he is out in public. Later in 2006, Hanks produced the British film Starter for Ten, a comedy based on working-class students attempting to win on University Challenge. \n\nIn 2007, Hanks starred in Mike Nichols's film Charlie Wilson's War (written by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin) in which he played Democratic Texas Congressman Charles Wilson. The film opened on December 21, 2007, and Hanks received a Golden Globe nomination. In the comedy-drama film The Great Buck Howard (2008), Hanks played the on-screen father of a young man (played by Hanks' real-life son, Colin) who chooses to work as road manager for a fading mentalist (John Malkovich). His character was less than thrilled about his son's career decision. In the same year, he executive produced the musical comedy, Mamma Mia and the miniseries, John Adams. \n\nHanks' next endeavor, released on May 15, 2009, was a film adaptation of Angels & Demons, based on the novel of the same name by Dan Brown. Its April 11, 2007, announcement revealed that Hanks would reprise his role as Robert Langdon, and that he would reportedly receive the highest salary ever for an actor. The following day he made his 10th appearance on NBC's Saturday Night Live, impersonating himself for the Celebrity Jeopardy sketch. Hanks produced the Spike Jonze film Where The Wild Things Are, based on the children's book by Maurice Sendak in 2009. \n\nLater projects (2010–present)\n\nIn 2010, Hanks reprised his voice role of Woody in Toy Story 3, after he, Tim Allen, and John Ratzenberger were invited to a movie theater to see a complete story reel of the movie. The film went on to become the first animated film to gross a worldwide total of over $1 billion as well as the highest grossing animated film at the time. He also was executive producer of the miniseries, The Pacific. \n\nIn 2011, he directed and starred opposite Julia Roberts in the title role in the romantic comedy Larry Crowne. The movie received poor reviews, with only 35% of the 175 Rotten Tomatoes reviews giving it high ratings. Also in 2011, he starred in the drama film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. In 2012, he voiced the character Cleveland Carr for a web series he created titled Electric City. He also starred in the Wachowskis-directed film adaptation of the novel of the same name, Cloud Atlas and was executive producer of the miniseries Game Change. \n\nIn 2013, Hanks starred in two critically acclaimed films—Captain Phillips and Saving Mr. Banks—which each earned him praise, including nominations for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for the former role. In Captain Phillips, he starred as Captain Richard Phillips with Barkhad Abdi, which was based on the Maersk Alabama hijacking. In Saving Mr. Banks, co-starring Emma Thompson and directed by John Lee Hancock, he played Walt Disney, being the first actor to portray Disney in a mainstream film. That same year, Hanks made his Broadway debut, starring in Nora Ephron's Lucky Guy, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. \n\nIn 2014, Hanks' short story \"Alan Bean Plus Four\" was published in the October 27 issue of The New Yorker. Revolving around four friends who make a voyage to the moon, the short story is titled after the Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean. Slate magazine's Katy Waldman found Hanks' first published short story \"mediocre\", writing that \"Hanks' shopworn ideas about technology might have yet sung if they hadn't been wrapped in too-clever lit mag-ese\". In an interview with The New Yorker, Hanks said he has always been fascinated by space. He told the magazine that he built plastic models of rockets when he was a child and watched live broadcasts of space missions back in the 1960s. \n\nIn March 2015, Hanks appeared in the Carly Rae Jepsen music video for \"I Really Like You\", lip-syncing most of the song's lyrics as he goes through his daily routine. His next film was the Steven Spielberg-directed historical drama Bridge of Spies, in which he played lawyer James B. Donovan who negioated for the release of pilot Francis Gary Powers by the Soviet Union in exchange for KGB spy Rudolf Abel. It was released in October 2015 to a positive reception. In April 2016, Hanks starred as Alan Clay in the comedy-drama A Hologram for the King, an adaptation of the 2012 novel of the same name. \n\nHanks has three upcoming projects. First, he will star as airline captain Chesley Sullenberger in Clint Eastwood's Sully in September 2016, will reprise his role as Robert Langdon in Inferno, and will co-star alongside Emma Watson in the science fiction drama The Circle. \n\nPersonal life\n\nHanks was married to American actress Samantha Lewes from 1978 until they divorced in 1987. Together, the couple had two children: son Colin Hanks (born 1977) and daughter Elizabeth Hanks (born 1982).\n\nIn 1988, Hanks married actress Rita Wilson, with whom he costarred in the film Volunteers. They have two sons. The elder, Chester Marlon \"Chet\" Hanks, had a minor role as a student in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and released a rap single in 2011. Their younger son, Truman Theodore, was born in 1995. \n\nOn October 7, 2013, on The Late Show with David Letterman, Hanks announced that he has Type 2 diabetes. \n\nBefore marrying Rita Wilson, Hanks converted to the Greek Orthodox Church, the religion of Wilson and her family. Hanks said, \"I must say that when I go to church—and I do go to church—I ponder the mystery. I meditate on the 'why?' of 'why people are as they are' and 'why bad things happen to good people,' and 'why good things happen to bad people' … The mystery is what I think is, almost, the grand unifying theory of all mankind.\"\n\nPolitics and activism\n\nHanks supports same-sex marriage, environmental causes, and alternative fuels. He has donated to many Democratic politicians, and during the 2008 United States presidential election uploaded a video to his MySpace account endorsing Barack Obama. He also narrated a 2012 documentary, The Road We've Traveled, created by Obama for America. In 2016, Hanks endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. \n\nHanks was outspoken about his opposition to the 2008 Proposition 8, an amendment to the California constitution that defined marriage as a union only between a man and a woman. Hanks and others raised over US$44 million to campaign against the proposition, in contrast to the supporters' $39 million, but Proposition 8 passed with 52% of the vote. It was overruled in June 2013, when the Ninth Circuit lifted its stay of the district court's ruling, enabling Governor Jerry Brown to order same-sex marriage officiations to resume. While premiering a TV series in January 2009, Hanks called supporters of Proposition 8 \"un-American\" and criticized the LDS Church members, who were major proponents of the bill, for their views on marriage and role in supporting the bill. About a week later, he apologized for the remark, saying that nothing is more American than voting one's conscience. \n\nA proponent of environmentalism, Hanks is an investor in electric vehicles and owns a Toyota RAV4 EV and the first production AC Propulsion eBox. He was a lessee of an EV1 before it was recalled, as chronicled in the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? He was on the waiting list for an Aptera 2 Series. \n\nHanks serves as campaign chair of the Hidden Heroes Campaign of the Elizabeth Dole Foundation. The stated mission of the campaign is to inspire a national movement to more effectively support military and veteran caregivers. \n\nOther activities\n\nA supporter of NASA's manned space program, Hanks said he originally wanted to be an astronaut. Hanks is a member of the National Space Society, serving on the Board of Governors of the nonprofit educational space advocacy organization founded by Dr. Wernher von Braun. He also produced the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon about the Apollo program to send astronauts to the moon. In addition, Hanks co-wrote and co-produced Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D, an IMAX film about the moon landings. Hanks provided the voice over for the premiere of the show Passport to the Universe at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. \n\nIn 2006, the Space Foundation awarded Hanks the Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award, given annually to an individual or organization that has made significant contributions to public awareness of space programs. \n\nIn June 2006, Hanks was inducted as an honorary member of the United States Army Rangers Hall of Fame for his accurate portrayal of a Captain in the movie Saving Private Ryan; Hanks, who was unable to attend the induction ceremony, was the first actor to receive such an honor. In addition to his role in Saving Private Ryan, Hanks was cited for serving as the national spokesperson for the World War II Memorial Campaign, for being the honorary chairperson of the D-Day Museum Capital Campaign, and for his role in writing and helping to produce the Emmy Award-winning miniseries, Band of Brothers. On March 10, 2008, Hanks was on hand at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to induct the Dave Clark Five. \n\nHanks is a collector of manual typewriters and uses them almost daily. In August 2014, Hanks released Hanx Writer, an iOS app meant to emulate the experience of using a typewriter; within days the free app reached number one on the App Store. In November 2014, Hanks said he would publish a collection of short stories inspired by his collection. \n\nLegacy and impact\n\nHanks is perceived to be amiable and congenial to his fans. In 2013, when he was starring in Nora Ephron's Lucky Guy on Broadway, he had crowds of 300 fans waiting for a glimpse of him after every performance. This is the highest number of expectant fans post-show of any Broadway performance. \n\nHanks is ranked as the fourth highest all-time box office star in North America, with a total gross of over $4.336 billion at the North American box office, an average of $100.8 million per film. Worldwide, his films have grossed over $8.586 billion. \n\nAsteroid 12818 Tomhanks is named after him.", "Apollo 13 is a 1995 American docudrama space adventure film directed by Ron Howard. The film stars Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, and Ed Harris. The screenplay by William Broyles, Jr., and Al Reinert, that dramatizes the aborted 1970 Apollo 13 lunar mission, is an adaptation of the book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13 by astronaut Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger.\n\nThe film depicts astronauts Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise aboard Apollo 13 for America's third Moon landing mission. En route, an on-board explosion deprives their spacecraft of most of its oxygen supply and electric power, forcing NASA's flight controllers to abort the Moon landing, and turning the mission into a struggle to get the three men home safely.\n\nHoward went to great lengths to create a technically accurate movie, employing NASA's technical assistance in astronaut and flight controller training for his cast, and even obtaining permission to film scenes aboard a reduced gravity aircraft for realistic depiction of the \"weightlessness\" experienced by the astronauts in space.\n\nReleased in the United States on June 30, 1995, Apollo 13 was nominated for nine Academy Awards (winning for Best Film Editing and Best Sound). In total, the film grossed over $355 million worldwide during its theatrical releases. The film was very positively received by critics.\n\nPlot\n\nOn July 20, 1969, astronaut Jim Lovell hosts a house party where guests watch on television as Neil Armstrong takes his first steps on the Moon. After the party, Lovell, who had orbited the Moon on Apollo 8, tells his wife Marilyn that he intends to return to the Moon and walk on its surface.\n\nOn October 30, 1969, as Lovell conducts a VIP tour of NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building, his boss Deke Slayton informs him that he and his crew will fly the Apollo 13 mission instead of Apollo 14. Lovell, Ken Mattingly, and Fred Haise train for their new mission. Days before launch, Mattingly is discovered to have been exposed to rubella, and the flight surgeon demands his replacement with Mattingly's backup, Jack Swigert, as a safety precaution. Lovell initially resists breaking up his team, but relents when Slayton threatens to bump his crew to a later mission. As the launch date approaches, Marilyn has a nightmare about her husband's safety, but goes to the Kennedy Space Center the night before launch to see him off.\n\nOn April 11, 1970, Apollo 13 Flight Director Gene Kranz gives the go-ahead from Houston's Mission Control Center for launch. As the Saturn V rocket climbs into the sky, an engine on the second stage cuts off prematurely, but the craft reaches its Earth parking orbit. After the third stage re-fires, sending Apollo 13 to the Moon, Swigert docks the Command/Service Module Odyssey with the Lunar Module Aquarius and pulls it away from the spent stage.\n\nThree days into the mission, the crew sends a live television transmission from Odyssey, which the networks decline to broadcast live. After Swigert performs a standard housekeeping procedure, one of two liquid oxygen tanks explodes, emptying its contents into space and sending the craft tumbling. The other tank is soon found to be leaking. Mission Control aborts the Moon landing, Lovell and Haise hurriedly power up Aquarius as a \"lifeboat\" for the return home, and Swigert shuts down Odyssey before its battery power runs out. In Houston, Kranz rallies his team to come up with a plan to bring the astronauts home safely, declaring \"failure is not an option\". Controller John Aaron recruits Mattingly to help restart Odyssey for the final return.\n\nAs Swigert and Haise watch the Moon pass beneath them, Lovell laments his lost chance of walking on its surface, then turns their attention to the business of getting home. With Aquarius running on minimum electrical power, the crew suffers freezing conditions. Swigert suspects Mission Control is unable to get them home and is withholding this from them. In a fit of rage, Haise blames Swigert's inexperience for the accident; Lovell quickly squelches the ensuing argument. When carbon dioxide approaches dangerous levels, an engineering team quickly invents a way to make the Command Module's square filters work in the Lunar Module's round receptacles. With the guidance systems on Aquarius shut down, and despite Haise's fever and the miserable living conditions, the crew succeeds in making a difficult but vital course correction by manually igniting the Lunar Module's engine.\n\nMattingly and Aaron struggle to find a way to power up the Command Module with its limited available power, but finally succeed and transmit the procedures to Swigert, who restarts Odyssey by transferring extra power from Aquarius. Jettisoning the Service Module, the crew finally sees the extent of the damage. They prepare for re-entry, unsure whether Odysseys heat shield is intact (if it is not, they will be incinerated). They release Aquarius and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere in Odyssey. After a tense, longer-than-normal period of radio silence due to ionization blackout, the astronauts report all is well and splash down in the Pacific Ocean. Recovery helicopters bring the three men aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima.\n\nAs the astronauts receive a hero's welcome on deck, Lovell's voice-over describes the events that follow their return from space—including the investigation into the explosion, and the subsequent careers and lives of Haise, Swigert, Mattingly, and Kranz—and ends with him wondering when mankind will return to the Moon.\n\nCast\n\n* Tom Hanks as Apollo 13 Commander Jim Lovell: Jim Lovell stated that before his book Lost Moon was even written, the movie rights were being shopped to potential buyers and that his first reaction was that actor Kevin Costner would be a good choice to play him. However, by the time Howard acquired the director's position, Costner's name never came up in serious discussion, and Hanks had already been interested in doing a film based on Apollo 13. When Hanks' representative informed him that a script was being passed around, he had the script sent to him. John Travolta was initially offered the role of Lovell, but declined. \n* Kevin Bacon as Apollo 13 backup Command Module Pilot Jack Swigert\n* Bill Paxton as Apollo 13 Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise\n* Gary Sinise as Apollo 13 prime Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly: Sinise was invited by Howard to read for any of the characters, and chose Mattingly.\n* Ed Harris as White Team Flight Director Gene Kranz: Harris described the film as \"cramming for a final exam.\" Harris described Gene Kranz as \"corny and like a dinosaur\", but was respected by the crew.\n* Kathleen Quinlan as Marilyn Gerlach Lovell, Jim's wife\n* Chris Ellis as Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton\n* Joe Spano as \"NASA Director\", a composite character loosely based on Chris Kraft\n* Marc McClure as Black Team Flight Director Glynn Lunney\n* Clint Howard as White Team Electrical, Environmental and Consumables Manager (EECOM) Sy Liebergot\n* Ray McKinnon as White Team Flight Dynamics Officer Jerry Bostick\n* Todd Louiso as White Team Flight Activities Officer\n* Loren Dean as EECOM John Aaron\n* Xander Berkeley as \"Henry Hurt\", a fictional NASA Office of Public Affairs staff member \n* David Andrews as Apollo 12 Commander Pete Conrad\n* Christian Clemenson as Flight Surgeon Dr. Charles Berry\n* Ben Marley as Apollo 13 backup Commander John Young\n* Brett Cullen as Capsule Communicator (CAPCOM) 1\n* Ned Vaughn as CAPCOM 2\n* Tracy Reiner as Haise's wife Mary\n* Mary Kate Schellhardt as Lovell's older daughter Barbara\n* Max Elliott Slade as Lovell's older son James (Jay), who attended military school at the time of the flight\n* Emily Ann Lloyd as Lovell's younger daughter Susan\n* Miko Hughes as Lovell's younger son Jeffrey\n\nThe real Jim Lovell appears as captain of the recovery ship USS Iwo Jima; Howard had intended to make him an admiral, but Lovell himself, having retired as a captain, chose to appear in his actual rank. Horror film director Roger Corman, a mentor of Howard, appears as a congressman being given a VIP tour by Lovell of the Vehicle Assembly Building, as it had become something of a tradition for Corman to make a cameo appearance in his protégés' films. The real Marilyn Lovell appeared among the spectators during the launch sequence. CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite appears in archive news footage and can be heard in newly recorded announcements, some of which he edited himself to sound more authentic.\n\nIn addition to his brother, Clint Howard, several other members of Ron Howard's family appear in the movie:\n* Rance Howard (his father) appears as the Lovell family minister.\n* Jean Speegle Howard (his mother) appears as Lovell's mother Blanch.\n* Cheryl Howard (his wife) and Bryce Dallas Howard (his daughter) appear as uncredited background performers in the scene where the astronauts wave goodbye to their families.\nBrad Pitt was offered a role in the film, but turned it down to star in Se7en. Reportedly, the real Pete Conrad expressed interest in appearing in the film.\n\nJeffrey Kluger appears as a television reporter.\n\nProduction \n\nPreproduction and props \n\nWhile planning the film, director Ron Howard decided that every shot of the film would be original and that no mission footage would be used. The spacecraft interiors were constructed by the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center's Space Works, which also restored the Apollo 13 Command Module. Two individual Lunar Modules and two Command Modules were constructed for filming. While each was a replica, composed of some of the original Apollo materials, they were built so that different sections were removable, which enabled filming to take place inside the capsules. Space Works also built modified Command and Lunar Modules for filming inside a Boeing KC-135 reduced-gravity aircraft, and the pressure suits worn by the actors, which are exact reproductions of those worn by the Apollo astronauts, right down to the detail of being airtight. When the actors put the suits on with their helmets locked in place, air was pumped into the suits to cool them down and allow them to breathe, exactly as in launch preparations for the real Apollo missions.\n\nThe real Mission Control Center consisted of two control rooms located on the second and third floors of Building 30 at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. NASA offered the use of the control room for filming, but Howard declined, opting instead to make his own replica from scratch. Production designer Michael Corenblith and set decorator Merideth Boswell were in charge of the construction of the Mission Control set at Universal Studios. The set was equipped with giant rear-screen projection capabilities and a complex set of computers with individual video feeds to all the flight controller stations. The actors playing the flight controllers were able to communicate with each other on a private audio loop. The Mission Control room built for the film was on the ground floor. One NASA employee, who was a consultant for the film, said that the set was so realistic that he would leave at the end of the day and look for the elevator before remembering he was not in Mission Control. By the time the film was made, the USS Iwo Jima had been scrapped, so her sister ship, the USS New Orleans, was used as the recovery ship, instead.\n\nHoward anticipated difficulty in portraying weightlessness in a realistic manner. He discussed this with Steven Spielberg, who suggested using a KC-135 airplane, which can be flown in such a way as to create about 23 seconds of weightlessness, a method NASA has always used to train its astronauts for space flight. Howard obtained NASA's permission and assistance in filming in the realistic conditions aboard multiple KC-135 flights. \n\nCast training and filming \n\nTo prepare for their roles in the film, Hanks, Paxton, and Bacon all attended the U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. While there, astronauts Jim Lovell and David Scott, commander of Apollo 15, did actual training exercises with the actors inside a simulated Command Module and Lunar Module. The actors were also taught about each of the 500 buttons, toggles, and switches used to operate the spacecraft.\n\nThe actors then traveled to Johnson Space Center in Houston, where they flew in NASA's KC-135 reduced-gravity aircraft to simulate weightlessness in outer space. While in the KC-135, filming took place in bursts of 25 seconds, the length of each period of weightlessness that the plane could produce. The filmmakers eventually flew 612 parabolas which added up to a total of three hours and 54 minutes of weightlessness. Parts of the Command Module, Lunar Module, and the tunnel that connected them were built by production designer Michael Corenblith, art directors David J. Bomba and Bruce Alan Miller, and their crew to fit inside the KC-135. Filming in such an environment, while never done before for a film, was a tremendous time saver. In the KC-135, the actors moved wherever they wanted, surrounded by floating props; the camera and cameraman were weightless, so filming could take place on any axis from which a shot could be set up.\n\nIn Los Angeles, Ed Harris and all the actors portraying flight controllers enrolled in a Flight Controller School led by Gerry Griffin, an Apollo 13 flight director, and flight controller Jerry Bostick. The actors studied audiotapes from the mission, reviewed hundreds of pages of NASA transcripts, and attended a crash course in physics. Astronaut Dave Scott was impressed with their efforts, stating that each actor was determined to make every scene technically correct, word for word.\n\nSoundtrack\n\nThe score to Apollo 13 was composed and conducted by James Horner. The soundtrack was released in 1995 by MCA Records and has seven tracks of score, eight period songs used in the film, and seven tracks of dialogue by the actors at a running time of nearly seventy-eight minutes. The music also features solos by vocalist Annie Lennox and Tim Morrison on the trumpet. The score was a critical success and garnered Horner an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score. \n\nRelease \n\nThe film was released on 30 June 1995 in North America and on 22 September 1995 in the UK.\n\nIn September 2002 the film was re-released in IMAX. It was the first film to be digitally remastered using IMAX DMR technology. \n\nBox-office performance \n\nThe film was a box-office success, bringing in $355,237,933 worldwide. The film's widest release was 2,347 theaters.\nThe film's opening weekend and the following two weeks placed it at #1 with a US gross of $25,353,380, which made up 14.7% of the total US gross.\n\nReception\n\nReview aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that the film has an overall approval rating of 95% based on 85 reviews, with a weighted average score of 8.2/10. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized 0–100 rating to reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 77 based on 22 reviews. \n\nRoger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times praised the film in his review saying: \"A powerful story, one of the year's best films, told with great clarity and remarkable technical detail, and acted without pumped-up histrionics.\" Richard Corliss from Time highly praised the film, saying: \"From lift-off to splashdown, Apollo 13 gives one hell of a ride.\" Edward Guthmann of San Francisco Chronicle gave a mixed review and wrote: \"I just wish that Apollo 13 worked better as a movie, and that Howard's threshold for corn, mush and twinkly sentiment weren't so darn wide.\" Peter Travers from Rolling Stone praised the film and wrote: \"Howard lays off the manipulation to tell the true story of the near-fatal 1970 Apollo 13 mission in painstaking and lively detail. It's easily Howard's best film.\" Movie Room Reviews said \"This film is arguably one of the most dramatic and horrendous spaceflight stories ever told.\" \n\nJanet Maslin made the film an NYT Critics' Pick, calling it an \"absolutely thrilling\" film that \"unfolds with perfect immediacy, drawing viewers into the nail-biting suspense of a spellbinding true story.\" According to Maslin, \"like Quiz Show, Apollo 13 beautifully evokes recent history in ways that resonate strongly today. Cleverly nostalgic in its visual style (Rita Ryack's costumes are especially right), it harks back to movie making without phony heroics and to the strong spirit of community that enveloped the astronauts and their families. Amazingly, this film manages to seem refreshingly honest while still conforming to the three-act dramatic format of a standard Hollywood hit. It is far and away the best thing Mr. Howard has done (and Far and Away was one of the other kind).\" The academic critic Raymond Malewitz focuses on the DIY aspects of the \"mailbox\" filtration system to illustrate the emergence of an unlikely hero in late 20th-century American culture—\"the creative, improvisational, but restrained thinker—who replaces the older prodigal cowboy heroes of American mythology and provides the country a better, more frugal example of an appropriate 'husband'.\" \n\nRon Howard stated that, after the first test preview of the film, one of the comment cards indicated \"total disdain\"; the audience member had written that it was a \"typical Hollywood\" ending and that the crew would never have survived. Marilyn Lovell praised Quinlan's portrayal of her, stating she felt she could feel what Quinlan's character was going through, and remembered how she felt in her mind.\n\nHome media\n\nA 10th-anniversary DVD of the film was released in 2005; it included both the theatrical version and the IMAX version, along with several extras. The IMAX version has a 1.66:1 aspect ratio. \n\nIn 2006, Apollo 13 was released on HD DVD; on 13 April 2010, it was released on Blu-ray disc as the 15th-anniversary edition, on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 13 accident.\n\nAccolades\n\nTechnical and historical accuracy \n\nThe film depicts the crew hearing a bang quickly after Swigert followed directions from mission control to stir the oxygen and hydrogen tanks. In reality, the crew heard the bang 93 seconds later. \n\nThe film portrays the Saturn V launch vehicle being rolled out to the launch pad two days before launch. In reality, the launch vehicle was rolled out on the mobile launch platform using the crawler-transporter weeks before the launch date.\n\nThe movie depicts Swigert and Haise arguing about who was at fault. The show The Real Story: Apollo 13 broadcast on the Smithsonian Channel includes Haise stating that no such argument took place and that there was no way anyone could have foreseen that stirring the tank would cause problems. \n\nThe dialogue between ground control and the astronauts was taken nearly verbatim from transcripts and recordings, with the exception of one of the taglines of the film, \"Houston, we have a problem.\" (This quote was voted #50 on the list \"AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes\".) According to the mission transcript, the actual words uttered by Jack Swigert were \"Hey, we've got a problem here\" (talking over Haise, who had started \"Okay, Houston\"). Ground control responded by saying \"This is Houston, say again please.\" Jim Lovell then repeated, \"Houston, we've had a problem.\" \n\nOne other incorrect dialogue is after the re-entry blackout. In the movie, Tom Hanks (as Lovell) says \"Hello Houston... this is Odyssey... it's good to see you again.\" In the actual re-entry, the Command Module's transmission was finally acquired by a Sikorsky SH-3D Sea King recovery aircraft which then relayed communications to Mission Control. CAPCOM and fellow astronaut Joe Kerwin (not Mattingly, who serves as CAPCOM in this scene in the movie) then made a call to the spacecraft \"Odyssey, Houston standing by. Over.\" Jack Swigert, not Lovell, replied \"Okay, Joe,\" and unlike in the movie, this was well before the parachutes deployed; the celebrations depicted at Mission Control were triggered by visual confirmation of their deployment. \n\nThe tagline \"Failure is not an option\", stated in the film by Gene Kranz, also became very popular, but was not taken from the historical transcripts. The following story relates the origin of the phrase, from an e-mail by Apollo 13 Flight Dynamics Officer Jerry Bostick:\n\"As far as the expression 'Failure is not an option,' you are correct that Kranz never used that term. In preparation for the movie, the script writers, Al Reinart and Bill Broyles, came down to Clear Lake to interview me on 'What are the people in Mission Control really like?' One of their questions was 'Weren't there times when everybody, or at least a few people, just panicked?' My answer was 'No, when bad things happened, we just calmly laid out all the options, and failure was not one of them. We never panicked, and we never gave up on finding a solution.' I immediately sensed that Bill Broyles wanted to leave and assumed that he was bored with the interview. Only months later did I learn that when they got in their car to leave, he started screaming, 'That's it! That's the tag line for the whole movie, Failure is not an option. Now we just have to figure out who to have say it.' Of course, they gave it to the Kranz character, and the rest is history.\" \n\nA DVD commentary track, recorded by Jim and Marilyn Lovell and included with both DVD versions, mentions several inaccuracies included in the film, all done for reasons of artistic license:\n\n* In the film, Mattingly plays a key role in solving a power consumption problem that Apollo 13 was faced with as it approached re-entry. Lovell points out in his commentary that Mattingly was a composite of several astronauts and engineers—including Charles Duke (whose rubella led to Mattingly's grounding)—all of whom played a role in solving that problem.\n* When Jack Swigert is getting ready to dock with the LM, a concerned NASA technician says: \"If Swigert can't dock this thing, we don't have a mission.\" Lovell and Haise also seem worried. In his DVD commentary, the real Jim Lovell says that if Swigert had been unable to dock with the LM, he or Haise could have done it. He also says that Swigert was a well-trained Command Module Pilot and that no one was really worried about whether he was up to the job, but he admitted that it made a nice subplot for the film. What Lovell and Haise were really worried about was the rendezvous with Swigert as they left the Moon.\n* A scene set the night before the launch, showing the astronauts' family members saying their goodbyes while separated by a road, to reduce the possibility of any last-minute transmission of disease, depicted a tradition not begun until the Space Shuttle program.\n*The film depicts Marilyn Lovell dropping her wedding ring down a shower drain. According to Jim Lovell, this did occur, but the drain trap caught the ring and his wife was able to retrieve it. Lovell has also confirmed that the scene in which his wife had a nightmare about him being \"sucked through an open door of a spacecraft into outer space\" also occurred, though he believes the nightmare was prompted by her seeing a scene in Marooned, a 1969 film they saw three months before Apollo 13 blasted off." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "13", "thirteen" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "13", "thirteen" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "13", "type": "Numerical", "value": "13" }
In which film did Susan Sarandon play Sister Helen Prejean?	tc_1130	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Susan_Sarandon.txt", "Helen_Prejean.txt" ], "title": [ "Susan Sarandon", "Helen Prejean" ], "wiki_context": [ "Susan Abigail Sarandon (; née Tomalin; born October 4, 1946) is an American actress. She is an Academy Award and BAFTA Award winner who is also known for her social and political activism for a variety of causes. She was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1999 and received the Action Against Hunger Humanitarian Award in 2006.\n\nSarandon began her career in the 1970 film Joe, before appearing in the soap opera A World Apart (1970–71). In 1975, she starred in the cult classic film The Rocky Horror Picture Show. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for Atlantic City (1980), Thelma & Louise (1991), Lorenzo's Oil (1992) and The Client (1994), before winning for Dead Man Walking (1995). She has also won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for The Client, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress for Dead Man Walking.\n\nShe made her Broadway debut in An Evening with Richard Nixon in 1972, and went on to receive Drama Desk Award nominations for the Off-Broadway plays, A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking (1979) and Extremities (1982). She returned to Broadway in the 2009 revival of Exit the King.\n\nOn television, she is a five-time Emmy Award nominee, including for her guest roles on the sitcoms Friends (2001) and Malcolm in the Middle (2002), and the TV films Bernard and Doris (2007) and You Don't Know Jack (2010). Her other films include Pretty Baby (1978), The Hunger (1983), The Witches of Eastwick (1987), Bull Durham (1988), White Palace (1990), Little Women (1994), Stepmom (1998), Igby Goes Down (2002), Enchanted (2007), The Lovely Bones (2009), Arbitrage (2012) and Tammy (2014).\n\nEarly life\n\nSarandon was born in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City. She is the eldest of nine children born to Lenora Marie (née Criscione; b. 1923) and Phillip Leslie Tomalin (1917–1999), an advertising executive, television producer, and one-time nightclub singer. She has four brothers: Philip Jr., Terry (deceased May 19, 2016), Tim and O'Brian and four sisters: Meredith, Bonnie, Amanda and Missy. Her father was of English, Irish, and Welsh ancestry, his English ancestors being from Hackney in London and his Welsh ancestors being from Bridgend. On her mother's side, she is of Italian descent, with ancestors from the regions of Tuscany and Sicily. Sarandon was raised Roman Catholic and attended Roman Catholic schools. She grew up in Edison, New Jersey, where she graduated from Edison High School in 1964. She then attended The Catholic University of America, from 1964 to 1968, and earned a BA in drama and worked with noted drama coach and master teacher, Father Gilbert V. Hartke.\n\nCareer\n\nIn 1969, Sarandon went to a casting call for the motion-picture Joe with her then husband Chris Sarandon. Although he did not get a part, she was cast in a major role of a disaffected teen who disappears into the seedy underworld (the film was released in the summer of 1970). Between 1970 and 1972, she appeared on the soap operas A World Apart and Search for Tomorrow, playing Patrice Kahlman and Sarah Fairbanks, respectively. In 1975, she appeared in the cult favorite The Rocky Horror Picture Show. That same year, she also played the female lead in The Great Waldo Pepper, opposite Robert Redford. She was twice directed by Louis Malle, in Pretty Baby (1978) and Atlantic City (1981). The latter earned Sarandon her first Academy Award nomination.\n\nHer most controversial film appearance was in Tony Scott's The Hunger in 1983, a modern vampire story in which she had a lesbian sex scene with Catherine Deneuve. In 1987, she appeared in the hit comedy-fantasy The Witches of Eastwick alongside Jack Nicholson, Cher, and Michelle Pfeiffer. However, Sarandon did not become a \"household name\" until her A-list breakthrough opposite Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins (who became her real-life live-in lover) in the 1988 film Bull Durham, which became a huge commercial and critical success. \n\nSarandon was nominated for an Academy Award four more times in the 1990s, as Best Actress in Thelma & Louise (1991), Lorenzo's Oil (1992), and The Client (1994), finally winning in 1995 for Dead Man Walking. She was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award in 1994. Additionally, she has received eight Golden Globe nominations, including for White Palace (1990), Stepmom (1998), Igby Goes Down (2002), and Bernard and Doris (2007).\n\nHer other movies include Little Women (1994), Anywhere but Here (1999), Cradle Will Rock (1999), The Banger Sisters (2002), Shall We Dance (2004), Alfie (2004), Romance & Cigarettes (2005), Elizabethtown (2005) and Enchanted (2007). Sarandon has appeared in two episodes of The Simpsons, once as herself (\"Bart Has Two Mommies\") and as a ballet teacher, \"Homer vs. Patty and Selma\". She appeared on Friends, Malcolm in the Middle, Mad TV, Saturday Night Live, Chappelle's Show, 30 Rock, Rescue Me and Mike & Molly.\n\nSarandon has contributed the narration to two dozen documentary films, many of which dealt with social and political issues. In addition she has served as the presenter on many installments of the PBS documentary series, Independent Lens. In 1999 and 2000 she hosted and presented Mythos, a series of lectures by the late American mythology professor Joseph Campbell. Sarandon also participates as a member of the Jury for the NYICFF, a local New York City Film Festival dedicated to screening films made for children between the ages of 3 and 18. \n\nSarandon joined the cast of the adaptation of The Lovely Bones, opposite Rachel Weisz, and appeared with her daughter, Eva Amurri, in Middle of Nowhere; both films were made in 2007. \nIn June 2010 Sarandon joined the cast of the HBO pilot The Miraculous Year, as Patty Atwood, a Broadway director/choreographer. However, the series was not picked up. In 2012 Sarandon's audiobook performance of Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding was released at Audible.com. \nSarandon was the voice actor for the character of Granny Rags, an eccentric and sinister old lady, in the stealth/action video game Dishonored, released in 2012.\n\nActivism\n\nSarandon is noted for her active support of progressive and liberal political causes, ranging from donations to organizations such as EMILY's List, to participating in a 1983 delegation to Nicaragua sponsored by MADRE, an organization that promotes \"social, environmental, and economic justice.\" Sarandon has expressed support for various human rights causes that are similar philosophically to ideas found among the left-wing supporters.\n\nIn 1995, Sarandon was one of many Hollywood actors, directors and writers interviewed for the documentary The Celluloid Closet, which looked at how Hollywood films have depicted homosexuality. In 1999, she was appointed UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. In that capacity, she has actively supported the organization's global advocacy, as well as the work of the Canadian UNICEF Committee. \n\nDuring the 2000 election, Sarandon supported Ralph Nader's run for president, serving as a co-chair of the National Steering Committee of Nader 2000. \nDuring the 2004 election campaign, she withheld support for Nader's bid, being among several \"Nader Raiders\" who urged Nader to drop out and his voters offer their support for Democratic Party candidate John Kerry. After the 2004 election, Sarandon called for US elections to be monitored by international entities. \n\nSarandon and Robbins both took an early stance against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, with Sarandon stating that she was firmly against war as a pre-emptive strike. Prior to a 2003 protest sponsored by the United for Peace and Justice coalition, she said that many Americans \"do not want to risk their children or the children of Iraq\". Sarandon was one of the first to appear in a series of political ads sponsored by TrueMajority, an organization established by Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream founder Ben Cohen. In 2003 she appeared in a \"Love is Love is Love\" commercial, which promoted the acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals. The next year, in 2004, she served on the advisory committee for 2004 Racism Watch, an activist group. She hosted a section of the Live 8 concert in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 2005. In 2006, she was one of eight women selected to carry in the Olympic flag at the Opening Ceremony of the 2006 Olympic Winter Games, in Turin, Italy.\n\nAlong with anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, Sarandon took part in a 2006 Mother's Day protest, which was sponsored by Code Pink. In January 2007, she appeared with Robbins and Jane Fonda at an anti-war rally in Washington, D.C. in support of a Congressional measure to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq. \n\nIn the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Sarandon and Tim Robbins campaigned for John Edwards in the New Hampshire communities of Hampton, Bedford and Dover. When asked at We Vote '08 Kickoff Party \"What would Jesus do this primary season\", Sarandon said, \"I think Jesus would be very supportive of John Edwards.\" \n\nSarandon was appointed an FAO Goodwill Ambassador in 2010.\n\nOn March 12, 2011, Sarandon spoke before a crowd in Madison, Wisconsin protesting Governor Scott Walker and his Budget Repair Bill. On September 27, 2011, Sarandon spoke to reporters and interested parties at the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City. \nHer use of the term \"Nazi\" to describe Pope Benedict XVI on October 15, 2011, created controversy, generating complaints from Roman Catholic authorities, and the Anti-Defamation League, which called on Sarandon to apologize. Sarandon's mother Leonora Tomalin is a staunch Republican, a supporter of George W. Bush and the Iraq War. \n\nSarandon has become an advocate to end the death penalty and mass incarceration. She has joined the team of people fighting to save the life of Richard Glossip, a man who is on death row in Oklahoma. In May 2015, Sarandon launched a campaign with fundraising platform Represent.com to sell T-shirts to help finance the documentary Deep Run, the story of a poor North Carolina teen undergoing a gender transition. \n\nIn the 2016 U.S. presidential election, she has made public her support for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. \nOn March 28, 2016 in an interview on All In with Chris Hayes, Sarandon indicated that she and other Sanders supporters might not support Hillary Clinton if Clinton is the Democratic nominee for President. She stated: \"You know, some people feel that Donald Trump will bring the revolution immediately. If he gets in, then things will really explode.\" Hayes inquired as to whether it would be dangerous to allow Trump to become president, to which she replied: \"If you think that it's pragmatic to shore up the status quo right now, then you're not in touch with the status quo\". \n\nRecognition\n\nIn 2006, Sarandon received the Action Against Hunger Humanitarian Award. She was honored for her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, an advocate for victims of hunger and HIV/AIDS and a spokesperson for Heifer International.\n\nPersonal life\n\nWhile in college, she met fellow student Chris Sarandon and the couple married on September 16, 1967. They divorced in 1979, but she retained the surname Sarandon as her stage name. She was then involved romantically with director Louis Malle and musician David Bowie. In the mid-1980s, Sarandon dated Italian filmmaker Franco Amurri, with whom she had a daughter, Eva Amurri, on March 15, 1985. Amurri has become an actress as well. From 1988, Sarandon cohabited with actor Tim Robbins, whom she met while they were filming Bull Durham. They have two sons – Jack Henry (born May 15, 1989) and Miles Guthrie (born May 4, 1992). Sarandon split with her long-time partner, Robbins, in 2009. Following the dissolution of her relationship, she soon began a relationship with Jonathan Bricklin, son of Malcolm Bricklin. They operated the SPiN ping-pong lounges together. Sarandon and Bricklin broke up in 2015. \n\nIn 2006, Sarandon and ten relatives, including her then-partner, Tim Robbins and their son, Miles, travelled to Wales to trace her family's Welsh genealogy. Their journey was documented by the BBC Wales programme, Coming Home: Susan Sarandon. Much of the same research and content was featured in the American version of Who Do You Think You Are?. She also received the \"Ragusani nel mondo\" prize in 2006; her Sicilian roots are in Ragusa, Italy. \nSarandon is the co-owner of New York ping-pong club SPiN, and its Toronto branch SPiN Toronto. \n\nSarandon is a vegetarian. \n\nFilmography\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nSarandon received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2009 Stockholm International Film Festival, was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2010, and received the Outstanding Artistic Life Award for her Outstanding Contribution to World Cinema at the 2011 Shanghai International Film Festival. In 2013, she was invited to inaugurate the 44th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa. In 2015, Sarandon received the Goldene Kamera international lifetime achievement award.", "Helen Prejean, C.S.J. (born April 21, 1939 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana) is a Roman Catholic nun, a member of the Congregation of St. Joseph and a leading American advocate for the abolition of the death penalty.\n\nEarly life\n\nHelen Prejean was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the daughter of Augusta Mae (née Bourg; 1911–1993), a nurse, and Louis Sebastian Prejean (1893–1974), a lawyer. She joined the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Medaille in 1957. In 1962, she received a Bachelor of Arts in English and Education from St. Mary’s Dominican College, New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1973, she earned a Master of Arts in religious education from Saint Paul University in Ottawa, Canada. She has been the Religious Education Director at St. Frances Cabrini Parish in New Orleans, the Formation Director for her religious community and has taught junior and senior high school.\n\nDeath row ministry\n\nHer efforts began in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1981. In 1982 an acquaintance asked her to correspond with convicted murderer Elmo Patrick Sonnier, located in the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Sonnier was sentenced to death by electrocution. She visited Sonnier in prison and agreed to be his spiritual adviser in the months leading up to his execution. The experience gave Prejean greater insight into the process involved in executions, and she began speaking out against capital punishment. At the same time, she also founded Survive, an organization devoted to counseling the families of victims of violence.\n\nPrejean has since ministered to many other inmates on death row and witnessed several more executions. She served as National Chairperson of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty from 1993 to 1995.\n\nDead Man Walking\n\nDead Man Walking, a biographical account of her relationship with Sonnier and other inmates on death row, served as the basis for a feature film, an opera, and a play. In the film, she was portrayed by Susan Sarandon, who won an Academy Award for Best Actress. Although Prejean herself was uncredited, she made a minor cameo as a woman in a candlelit vigil scene outside the Louisiana State Penitentiary.\n\nIn addition to Sonnier, the account is based on the inmate Robert Lee Willie who, with his friend Joseph Jesse Vaccaro, raped and killed 18-year-old Faith Hathaway on May 28, 1980, eight days later kidnapping a Madisonville couple from alongside the Tchefuncte River in Louisiana and driving them to Alabama. They raped the 16-year-old girl, Debbie Morris (née Cuevas), who would later become the author of her book Forgiving the Dead Man Walking and then stabbed and shot her boyfriend, 20-year-old Mark Brewster, leaving him tied to a tree paralyzed from the waist down.\n\nIn December 2010, Prejean donated all of her archival papers to DePaul University.\n\nCampaigns, book, and awards\n\nIn 1999, Prejean formed Moratorium 2000, a petition drive that eventually grew into a national education campaign, The Moratorium Campaign, initially staffed by Robert Jones, Theresa Meisz, and Jené O'Keefe. The organization Witness to Innocence, composed of death row survivors who were convicted for crimes they did not commit, started under The Moratorium Campaign.\n\nPrejean's second book, The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions was published in December 2004. In it, she tells the story of two men, Dobie Gillis Williams and Joseph O'Dell, whom she accompanied to their executions. She believes that both men were innocent. The book also examines the recent history of death penalty decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States and looks at the track record of George W. Bush as Governor of Texas.\n\nIn 1998, Prejean was given the Pacem in Terris Award, named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII that calls on all people of good will to secure peace among all nations. Pacem in terris is Latin for \"Peace on Earth.\"\n\nPrejean now bases her work at the Death Penalty Discourse Network in New Orleans and spends her time giving talks across the United States and around the world. She and her sister Mary Ann Antrobus have been deeply involved at a center in Nicaragua called Friends of Batahola.\n\nAwards and recognition\n\nPrejean has given commencement addresses to more than 50 colleges and universities around the world.\n\n2013: Robert M. Holstein 'Faith Doing Justice' Award from the [http://ignatiansolidarity.net/blog/2013/05/10/helen-prejean-award/ Ignatian Solidarity Network]\n1998: World Pacem in Terris Award\n*1996: Pax Christi USA Pope Paul VI Teacher of Peace Award" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Dead Man Walking (disambiguation)", "Dead man walking", "Dead Man Walking" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "dead man walking", "dead man walking disambiguation" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "dead man walking", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Dead Man Walking" }
Which star of Cheers co-starred with ?Whoopi Goldberg in Made in America?	tc_1133	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe", "TagMe", "Search" ], "filename": [ "Cheers.txt", "Whoopi_Goldberg.txt", "Made_in_America_(1993_film).txt", "Ted_Danson.txt" ], "title": [ "Cheers", "Whoopi Goldberg", "Made in America (1993 film)", "Ted Danson" ], "wiki_context": [ "Cheers is an American sitcom that ran for eleven seasons between 1982 and 1993. The show was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions in association with Paramount Network Television for NBC and created by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles. The show is set in a bar named Cheers (named after its real life counterpart) in Boston, Massachusetts, where a group of locals meet to drink, relax, and socialize. The show's main theme song, written and performed by Gary Portnoy, and co-written with Judy Hart Angelo, lent its famous refrain \"Where Everybody Knows Your Name\" as the show's tagline. \n\nAfter premiering on September 30, 1982, it was nearly canceled during its first season when it ranked almost last in ratings for its premiere (74th out of 77 shows). Cheers, however, eventually became a highly rated television show in the United States, earning a top-ten rating during eight of its eleven seasons, including one season at number one. The show spent most of its run on NBC's Thursday night \"Must See TV\" lineup. Its widely watched series finale was broadcast on May 20, 1993, and the show's 270 episodes have been successfully syndicated worldwide. Nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series for all eleven of its seasons on the air, it earned 28 Emmy Awards from a record of 117 nominations. The character Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) was featured in his eponymous spin-off show, which aired until 2004 and included guest appearances by virtually all of the major and minor Cheers characters.\n\nDuring its run, Cheers became one of the most popular series of all time and has received critical acclaim. In 1997, the episodes \"Thanksgiving Orphans\" and \"Home Is the Sailor\", aired originally in 1987, were respectively ranked No. 7 and No. 45 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. In 2002, Cheers was ranked No. 18 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked it as the eighth best written TV series and TV Guide ranked it #11 on their list of the 60 Greatest Shows of All Time.\n\nCharacters\n\nBefore the Cheers pilot \"Give Me a Ring Sometime\" was completed and aired in 1982, the series originally consisted of four employees in the first script. Neither Norm Peterson nor Cliff Clavin, regular customers of Cheers, were featured; later revisions added them as among the regular characters of the series.Wendt 2001, pp. 112–114.\n\nIn later years, Woody Boyd replaces Coach, who dies off-screen in season four (1985–86) to account for actor Nicholas Colasanto's demise. Frasier Crane starts as a recurring character and becomes a permanent character. In season six (1987–88) Rebecca Howe replaces Diane Chambers, who was written out of the show after the finale of the previous season (1986–87). Lilith Sternin starts as a one-time character in an episode of season four, \"Second Time Around\" (1985). After she appears in two episodes in season five, she becomes a recurring character, and later featured as a permanent one for season ten (1991–92).\n\nOriginal main characters\n\n* Ted Danson portrays Sam Malone, a bartender and an owner of Cheers. Sam is also a lothario. Before the series began, he was a baseball relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox nicknamed \"Mayday Malone\" until he became an alcoholic, harming his career. He has an on-again, off-again relationship with Diane Chambers, his class opposite, in the first five seasons (1982–1987). During their off-times, Sam has flings with many not-so-bright \"sexy women\", yet fails to pursue a meaningful relationship and fails to seduce other women, such as intellectuals. After Diane is written out of the series, he tries to pursue Rebecca Howe, but he either fails to achieve or gets uninterested if passion is attempted. At the end of the series, he is still unmarried and recovering from sexual addiction with a help of Dr. Robert Sutton's (Gilbert Lewis) group meetings, advised by Frasier.\n* Shelley Long portrays Diane Chambers, an academic, sophisticated graduate student. In the pilot Diane is abandoned by her fiancé, leaving her without a job, a man, or money. Therefore she reluctantly becomes a cocktail waitress. Later she becomes a close friend of Coach and has an on-and-off relationship with bartender Sam Malone, her class opposite. During their off-relationship times, Diane dates men who fit her upper-class ideals, such as Frasier Crane. In 1987, she leaves Boston behind for a writing career and to live in Los Angeles, California.\n* Nicholas Colasanto portrays Coach Ernie Pantusso, a \"borderline senile\" co-bartender, widower, and retired coach. Coach is also a friend of Sam and a close friend of Diane. He has a daughter, Lisa. Coach is often tricked into situations, especially ones that put the bar at stake. Coach listens to people's problems and solves them. In 1985, Coach is explained to have died without explicit explanation; the actor Colasanto died of a heart attack.\n* Rhea Perlman portrays Carla Tortelli, a \"wisecracking, cynical\" cocktail waitress, who treats customers badly. She is also highly fertile and matrimonially inept. When the series premiered, she is the mother of four children by her ex-husband Nick Tortelli (Dan Hedaya). Later she bears four more, the depiction of which incorporated Perlman's real-life pregnancies.\"[http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1878293_1878320_1878375,00.html Top 10 Pregnant Performers: Where Everybody Knows You're Pregnant (or Not)].\" Time. Web. June 2, 2012. All of her children are notoriously ill-behaved, except Ludlow, whose father is a prominent academician. She flirts with men, including ones who are not flattered by her ways, and believes in superstitions, but secretly desires Sam. Later she marries Eddie LeBec, an ice hockey player, who later becomes a penguin mascot for ice shows. After he died in an ice show accident by an ice resurfacer, Carla later discovers that Eddie had committed bigamy with another woman, whom he had gotten pregnant.\n* George Wendt portrays Norm Peterson, a bar regular and occasionally-employed accountant. A recurrent joke on the show, especially in the earlier seasons, was that the character was such a popular and constant fixture at the bar that anytime he entered through the front door everyone present would yell out his name (\"NORM!\") in greeting; usually this cry would be followed by one of the present bartenders asking Norm how he was, usually receiving a sardonic response and a request for a beer. He has infrequent accounting jobs and a troubled marriage with (but is still in love with and married to) Vera, an unseen character. Later in the series, he becomes a house painter and an interior decorator. The character was not originally intended to be a main cast role; Wendt auditioned for a minor role of George for the pilot episode. The role was to only be Diane Chambers' first customer and had only one word: \"Beer!\" After he was cast in a more permanent role, the character was renamed Norm. \n* John Ratzenberger portrays Cliff Clavin, a know-it-all bar regular and postal worker. He lives with his mother Esther Clavin (Frances Sternhagen) in first the family house and later an apartment. In the bar, Cliff unwittingly says things that either annoy people, motivate people into mocking him, drive people away, confuse people, are inaccurate, or are unnecessary to people. Ratzenberger auditioned for the role of a minor character George, but it went to Wendt, evolving the role into Norm Peterson. The producers decided they wanted a resident bar know-it-all,Wendt 2009, pp. 113–114. so the security guard Cliff Clavin was added for the pilot. The producers changed his occupation into a postal worker as they thought such a man would have wider knowledge than a guard. \n\nSubsequent main characters\n\n* Kelsey Grammer portrays Frasier Crane, a psychiatrist and bar regular. Frasier started out as Diane Chambers's love interest in the third season (1984–85). In the fourth season (1985–86), after Diane jilts him at the altar in Europe, Frasier ends up frequenting Cheers and becomes a regular. After the series ended, in the spin-off Frasier, he gives child custody of their son Frederick to Lilith and moves to Seattle. Although Frasier proclaims to be a psychiatrist, everything he says and does reveals him to be a psychologist. In one episode, he even says: I'm not a doctor. But a psychiatrist is by definition a medical doctor.\n* Woody Harrelson portrays Woody Boyd, a not-so-bright bartender. He arrives from his Midwest hometown to Boston, to see Coach, his \"pen pal\" (as referring to exchanging \"pens\", not letters). When he learns that Coach died, Woody is hired in his place. Later, he marries his girlfriend Kelly Gaines (Jackie Swanson), also not-so-bright but raised in a rich family. In the final season, he runs for political office, and surprisingly wins. \n* Bebe Neuwirth portrays Lilith Sternin, a psychiatrist and bar regular. She is often teased by bar patrons about her uptight personality and appearance. In \"Second Time Around\" (1986), her first episode, also her only one of the fourth season, her date with Frasier does not go well because they constantly argue. In the fifth season, with help from Diane, Lilith and Frasier begin a relationship. Eventually, they marry and have a son, Frederick. In the eleventh and final season, she leaves Frasier to live with another man in an experimental underground environment called the \"Eco-pod.\" However she returns later in the season and reconciles with Frasier.\n* Kirstie Alley portrays Rebecca Howe. She starts out as a strong independent woman, managing the bar for the corporation that was given the bar by Sam after Diane jilted him. Eventually, when Sam regains ownership, she begs him to let her remain as business manager. She repeatedly has romantic failures with mainly rich men and becomes more and \"more neurotic, insecure, and sexually frustrated\". At the start, Sam frequently attempts to seduce Rebecca without success. As her personality changes, he loses interest in her. In the eleventh and final season, Rebecca marries the plumber Don Santry and quits working for the bar.\n\nBefore production of season 3 was finished, Nicholas Colasanto died. Therefore, his character Coach was written out as deceased in season 4.\nIn season 11, Bebe Neuwirth is given \"starring\" credit only when she appears.\n\nRecurring characters\n\nAlthough Cheers operated largely around that main ensemble cast, guest stars and recurring characters did occasionally supplement them. Notable repeat guests included Dan Hedaya as Nick Tortelli and Jean Kasem as Loretta Tortelli, who were the main characters in the first spin-off The Tortellis, Jay Thomas as Eddie LeBec, Roger Rees as Robin Colcord, Tom Skerritt as Evan Drake, and Harry Anderson as Harry 'The Hat' Gittes.\n\nPaul Willson played the recurring barfly character of \"Paul Krapence\". (In one early appearance in the first season he was called \"Glen\", and was later credited on-screen as \"Gregg\" and \"Tom\", but he was playing the same character throughout.) Thomas Babson played \"Tom\", a law student often mocked by Cliff Clavin, for continually failing to pass the Massachusetts bar exam. \"Al\", played by Al Rosen, appeared in 38 episodes, and was known for his surly quips. Rhea Perlman's father Philip Perlman played the role of \"Phil\". Jackie Swanson, who played the recurring role of Woody's girlfriend and eventual wife \"Kelly Gaines-Boyd\", appeared in 24 episodes from 1989 to 1993. The character is as equally dim and naive—but ultimately as sweet-natured—as Woody.\n\nCelebrity appearances\n\nOther celebrities guest-starred in single episodes as themselves throughout the series. Sports figures appeared on the show as themselves with a connection to Boston or Sam's former team, the Red Sox, such as Luis Tiant, Wade Boggs and Kevin McHale (of the Boston Celtics). Some television stars also made guest appearances as themselves such as Alex Trebek, Arsenio Hall, Dick Cavett, Robert Urich, George \"Spanky\" McFarland and Johnny Carson. Various political figures even made appearances on Cheers such as then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral William J. Crowe, former Colorado Senator Gary Hart, then-Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, then-Senator John Kerry, then-Governor Michael Dukakis, and then-Mayor of Boston Raymond Flynn, the last four of whom all represented Cheers' home state and city. In a guest appearance in 1983, Glynis Johns played Diane's mother, Mrs. Helen Chambers. In an episode that aired in 1985, Nancy Marchand played Frasier's mother, Hester Crane.\n\nThe musician Harry Connick, Jr. appeared in an episode as Woody's cousin and plays a song from his Grammy-winning album We Are in Love (c. 1991). John Cleese won an Emmy for his guest appearance as \"Dr. Simon Finch-Royce\" in the fifth season episode, \"Simon Says\". Emma Thompson guest starred as Nanny G/Nannette Guzman, a famous singing nanny and Frasier's ex-wife. Christopher Lloyd guest starred as a tortured artist who wanted to paint Diane. Marcia Cross portrayed Rebecca's sister Susan in the season 7 episode Sisterly Love. John Mahoney once appeared as an inept jingle writer, which included a brief conversation with Frasier Crane, whose father he later portrayed on the spin-off Frasier. Peri Gilpin, who later played Roz Doyle on Frasier, also appeared in one episode of Cheers, in its 11th season, as Holly Matheson, a reporter who interviews Woody. The Righteous Brothers, Bobby Hatfield and Bill Medley, also guest starred in different episodes, and Kate Mulgrew appeared in the three-episode finale of season four. In the final episode of Kirstie Alley's run as Rebecca, she was wooed away from Cheers by the guy who came to fix one of the beer keg taps – surprising for a \"high-class\" lady – who happened to be Tom Berenger.\n\nDeath of Nicholas Colasanto\n\nNear the end of production of the third season, the writers of Cheers had to deal with the death of one of the main actors. During the third season, Nicholas Colasanto's heart condition (which had been diagnosed in the mid-1970s) had worsened. He had lost weight and was having trouble breathing during filming. Shortly before third season filming wrapped, Colasanto was hospitalized due to fluid in his lungs. Though he recovered, he was not cleared to return to work. While visiting the set in January 1985 to watch the filming of several episodes, co-star Shelley Long commented, \"I think we were all in denial. We were all glad he was there, but he lost a lot of weight.\" Co-star Rhea Perlman added, \"[He] wanted to be there so badly. He didn't want to be sick. He couldn't breathe well. It was hard. He was laboring all the time.\" Colasanto died of a heart attack in his home on February 12, 1985. While the cast was saddened, they knew he had been very ill.\n\nThe third season episodes of Cheers were filmed out of order, partly to accommodate the pregnancy of cast member Long. As a result, the season finale, which included several scenes with Colasanto, had already been filmed at the time of his death. In the third season episodes that had not been filmed at this point, Coach is said to be \"away\" for various reasons.\n\nThe Cheers writing staff assembled in June 1985, at the start of the production of the fourth season, to discuss how to deal with the absence of Coach. They quickly discarded the idea that he might have moved away, as they felt he would never abandon his friends. In addition, as most viewers were aware of Colasanto's death. They decided to handle the situation more openly. The season four opener, \"Birth, Death, Love and Rice\", dealt with Coach's death as well as introducing Woody Harrelson, Colasanto's replacement. \n\nEpisodes\n\nThemes\n\nNearly all of Cheers took place in the front room of the bar, but the characters often went into the rear pool room or the bar's office. Cheers did not show any action outside the bar until the first episode of the second season, which took place in Diane's apartment.\n\nCheers had several running gags, such as Norm arriving in the bar always saying \"Afternoon everybody\" and being greeted by a loud \"Norm!\" Early episodes generally followed Sam's antics with his various women, following a variety of romantic comedy clichés to get out of whatever relationship troubles he was in during each episode. As the show progressed and Sam got into more serious relationships, the general tone switched to a comedic take on Sam settling into a monogamous lifestyle. Throughout the series, larger story arcs began to develop that spanned multiple episodes or seasons, interspersed with smaller themes and one-off episodes.\n\nThe show's main theme in its early seasons was the romance between the intellectual waitress Diane Chambers and the bar owner Sam Malone, a former major league baseball pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and a recovering alcoholic. After Shelley Long (Diane) left the show, the focus shifted to Sam's new relationship with Rebecca, a neurotic corporate ladder climber. Both relationships featured sexual tension that spanned many episodes.\n\nMany Cheers scripts centered or touched upon a variety of social issues, albeit humorously. As Toasting Cheers puts it, \"The script was further strengthened by the writers' boldness in successfully tackling controversial issues such as alcoholism, homosexuality, and adultery.\"Bjorklund, p. ix\n\nSocial class was a subtext of the show. The \"upper class\" – represented by characters like Diane Chambers, Frasier Crane, Lilith Sternin and (initially) Rebecca Howe – rubbed shoulders with middle and working-class characters — Sam Malone, Carla Tortelli, Norm Peterson and Cliff Clavin. An extreme example of this was the relationship between Woody Boyd and a millionaire's daughter Kelly Gaines. Many viewers enjoyed Cheers in part because of this focus on character development in addition to plot development.\n\nFeminism and the role of women were also recurring themes throughout the show, with some critics seeing each of the major female characters portraying an aspect as a flawed feminist in her own way. Diane was a vocal feminist, and Sam was the epitome of everything she hated: a womanizer and a male chauvinist. Their relationship led Diane to several diatribes on Sam's promiscuity. Carla insulted people, but was respected because of her tough attitude, wit, and power, while Diane was often ignored as she commanded little respect in any successful way. Rebecca was an ambitious businesswoman and gold-digger, seeking relationships with her superiors at the Lillian Corporation, most notably Evan Drake, to gain promotions or raises. She encountered a glass ceiling, and ended the show by marrying a plumber rather than a rich businessman. It was later revealed on Frasier that her husband struck it rich and left her, after which Rebecca returned to Cheers as a patron. Lilith was a high-profile psychiatrist with many degrees and awards, and commanded respect with her strong and rather stern demeanor. Like Rebecca, she was an executive woman of the 1980s who put much emphasis on her professional life. She was often shown to have the upper hand in her and Frasier's relationship.\n\nHomosexuality was dealt with from the first season, which was rare in the early 1980s for American network television. In the first season episode, \"The Boys In The Bar\", a friend and former teammate of Sam's comes out in his autobiography. Some of the male regulars pressure Sam to take action to ensure that Cheers does not become a gay bar. The episode won a GLAAD Media Award, and the script's writers, Ken Levine and David Isaacs, were nominated for an Emmy Award. Harvey Fierstein later appeared in the 1990s as \"Mark Newberger\", Rebecca's old high school sweetheart who is gay. The final episode included a gay man who gets into trouble with his boyfriend, played by Anthony Heald.\n\nAddiction also plays a role in Cheers, almost exclusively through Sam. He is a recovering alcoholic who had bought a bar during his drinking days. After he achieved sobriety, Sam decided to continue to own and operate the bar for \"sentimental reasons.\" Frasier has a notable bout of drinking in the fourth season episode, \"The Triangle\", while Woody develops a gambling problem in the seventh season's, \"Call Me Irresponsible\". Some critics believe Sam was portrayed as a generally addictive personality.\n\nIn addition to extended story lines, Cheers had recurring themes. A heated rivalry between Cheers and a rival bar, Gary's Olde Towne Tavern, was portrayed starting with the fourth season episode, \"From Beer to Eternity\". Beginning in the sixth season, one episode of each season depicted some wager between Sam and Gary, which resulted in either a sports competition or a battle of wits that devolved into complex practical jokes. Aside from the very first and very last \"Bar Wars\" episodes, the Cheers gang almost always lost to Gary's superior ingenuity. They tricked him into missing the annual Bloody Mary contest in one episode. Another had Sam collaborating with Gary's crew to get revenge on his co-workers for a prior practical joke. Another episode involved a pickup basketball game, in which Gary tricked the people of Cheers into believing that a minor injury sustained by basketball great Kevin McHale was a season-ending injury. In the final season, Gary is tricked into destroying his own bar by Cheers patron Harry \"The Hat\".\n\nSam had a long-running feud with the upscale restaurant above the bar, Melville's Fine Sea Food. The restaurant's management disliked the bar's patrons, while Sam regarded the restaurant as snobbish (though customers often moved between the two businesses via a prominent staircase). This conflict escalated after Melville's came under the ownership of John Allen Hill (Keene Curtis), as Sam did not technically own the bar's poolroom and bathrooms. Subsequently forced to pay rent for them, Sam was often at the mercy of Hill's tyranny. Rebecca eventually helped Sam buy the back section from Hill. \n\nCheers owners\n\nCheers obviously had several owners before Sam, as the bar was opened in 1889. The \"Est. 1895\" on the bar's sign is a made-up date chosen by Carla for numerological purposes, revealed in the 8th season episode, \"The Stork Brings a Crane\". In the second episode, \"Sam's Women\", Coach tells a customer looking for Gus, the owner of Cheers, that Gus was dead. In a later episode, Gus O'Mally comes back from Arizona for one night and helps run the bar.\n\nThe biggest storyline surrounding the ownership of Cheers begins in the fifth season finale, \"I Do, Adieu\", when Sam and Diane part ways, due to Shelley Long's departure from the series. In addition, Sam leaves on a trip to circumnavigate the Earth. Before he leaves, Sam sells Cheers to the Lillian Corporation. He returns in the sixth season premiere, \"Home is the Sailor\", having sunk his boat, to find the bar under the new management of Rebecca Howe. He begs for his job back and is hired by Rebecca as a bartender. In the seventh season premiere, \"How to Recede in Business\", Rebecca is fired and Sam is promoted to manager. Rebecca is allowed to keep a job at Lillian vaguely similar to what she had before, but only after Sam had Rebecca (in absentia) \"agree\" to a long list of demands that the corporation had for her.\n\nFrom there Sam occasionally attempted to buy the bar back with schemes that usually involved the wealthy executive Robin Colcord. Sam acquired Cheers again in the eighth season finale, when it was sold back to him for 85¢ by the Lillian Corporation, after he alerted the company to Colcord's insider trading. Fired by the corporation because of her silence on the issue, Rebecca is hired by Sam as a hostess/office manager. For the rest of the episode, to celebrate Sam's reclaiming the bar, a huge banner hung from the staircase, reading\n\"Under OLD Management\"!\n\nProduction\n\nConception\n\nThree men developed and created the Cheers television series: Charles brothers—Glen and Les—and James Burrows. The show centers around two characters, Sam Malone and Diane Chambers, similar to that of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn role types. Malone represents the average man, while Chambers represents class and sophistication. The show revolves around characters in a bar under humorous adult themes and situations.\n\nThe concept for Cheers was the result of a long process. The original idea was a group of workers who interacted like a family, the goal being a concept similar to The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The creators considered making an American version of the British Fawlty Towers, set in a hotel or an inn. When the creators settled on a bar as their setting, the show began to resemble the radio show Duffy's Tavern. They liked the idea of a tavern, as it provided a continuous stream of new people, for a variety of characters.Bjorklund, p. 3.\n\nAfter choosing a setting, the creators needed to choose a location. Early discussions centered on Barstow, California, then Kansas City, Missouri. They eventually turned to the East Coast and finally Boston. The Bull & Finch Pub in Boston, which was the model for Cheers, was chosen from a phone book.Bjorklund, p. 4. When Glen Charles asked the bar's owner, Tom Kershaw, to shoot exterior and interior photos, he agreed, charging $1. Kershaw has since gone on to make millions, licensing the pub's image and selling a variety of Cheers memorabilia. The Bull & Finch became the 42nd busiest outlet in the American food and beverage industry in 1997. During initial casting, Shelley Long, who was in Boston at the time filming A Small Circle of Friends, remarked that the bar in the script resembled a bar she had come upon in the city, which turned out to be the Bull & Finch.Bjorklund, p. 7.\n\nProduction team\n\nThe crew of Cheers numbered in the hundreds. The three creators—James Burrows and the Charles brothers, Glen and Les—kept offices on Paramount's lot for the duration of the Cheers run. The Charles Brothers remained in overall charge throughout the show's run, frequently writing major episodes, though starting with the third season they began delegating the day-to-day running of the writing staff to various showrunners. Ken Estin and Sam Simon were appointed as showrunners for the third season, and succeeded by David Angell, Peter Casey and David Lee the following year. Angell, Casey and Lee would remain as showrunners until the end of the seventh season when they left to develop their own sitcom, Wings, and were replaced by Cheri Eichen, Bill Steinkellner and Phoef Sutton for the eighth through tenth seasons. For the final season, Tom Anderson and Dan O'Shannon acted as the showrunners.\n\nJames Burrows is regarded as being a factor in the show's longevity, directing 243 of the 270 episodes and supervising the show's production.Bjorklund, p. 2. Among the show's other directors were Andy Ackerman, Thomas Lofaro, Tim Berry, Tom Moore, Rick Beren, as well as cast members John Ratzenberger and George Wendt. \n\nCraig Safan provided the series' original music for its entire run except the theme song. His extensive compositions for the show led to him winning numerous ASCAP Top TV Series awards for his music.\n\nCasting\n\nThe character of Sam Malone was originally intended to be a retired football player and was slated to be played by Fred Dryer, but, after casting Ted Danson, it was decided that a former baseball player (Sam \"Mayday\" Malone) would be more believable.Meade, Peter. \"[http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid\nSFOYbPikdlgC&dat19840427&printsec\nfrontpage We'll Cry In Our Beers As Sam, Diane Split].\" Spartanburg Herald-Journal TV Update [Spartanburg, NC] April 29, 1984: 14. Google News. Web. January 21, 2012. Editions of April 27–29, 1984, are inside the webpage. Article in Google News is located in page 85. Dryer, however, would go on to play sportscaster Dave Richards, an old friend of Sam, in three episodes. The character of Cliff Clavin was created for John Ratzenberger after he auditioned for the role of Norm Peterson, which eventually went to George Wendt. While chatting with producers afterward, he asked if they were going to include a \"bar know-it-all\", the part which he eventually played. Alley joined the cast when Shelley Long left, and Woody Harrelson joined when Nicholas Colasanto died. Danson, Perlman and Wendt were the only actors to appear in every episode of the series.\n\nFilming styles and locations\n\nMost Cheers episodes were, as a voiceover stated at the start of each, \"filmed before a live studio audience\" on Paramount Stage 25 in Hollywood, generally on Tuesday nights. Scripts for a new episode were issued the Wednesday before for a read-through, Friday was rehearsal day, and final scripts were issued on Monday. Burrows, who directed most episodes, insisted on using film stock rather than videotape. He was also noted for using motion in his directorial style, trying to constantly keep characters moving rather than standing still.Bjorklund, p. 7–8. During the first season when ratings were poor Paramount and NBC asked that the show use videotape to save money, but a poor test taping ended the experiment and Cheers continued to use film. \n\nDue to a decision by Glen and Les Charles, the cold open was often not connected to the rest of the episode, with the lowest-ranked writers assigned to create the jokes for them. Some cold opens were taken from episodes that ran too long.\n\nThe first year of the show took place entirely within the confines of the bar, the first location outside the bar being Diane's apartment. When the series became a hit, the characters started venturing further afield, first to other sets and eventually to an occasional exterior location. The exterior location shots of the bar were of the Bull & Finch Pub, located directly north of the Boston Public Garden. The pub has become a tourist attraction because of its association with the series, and draws nearly one million visitors annually. It has since been renamed Cheers Beacon Hill; its interior is different from the TV bar.\nCheers Beacon Hill is opposite the Boston Public Garden. The Pub itself is at 84 Beacon Street. (On the corner of Brimmer St). From August 2001 until 2014, there is a replica of the bar in Faneuil Hall to capitalize on the popularity of the show.\n\nTheme song\n\nBefore \"Where Everybody Knows Your Name\", written by Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo, became the show's theme song, Cheers producers rejected two of Portnoy's and Hart Angelo's songs. The songwriters had collaborated to provide music for Preppies, an unsuccessful Broadway musical. When told they could not appropriate \"People Like Us\", Preppiess opening song, the pair wrote another song \"My Kind of People\", which resembled \"People Like Us\" and intended to satirize \"the lifestyle of old decadent old-money WASPs,\" but, to meet producers' demands, they rewrote the lyrics to be about \"likeable losers\" in a Boston bar. The show's producers rejected this song, as well. After they read the script of the series pilot, they created another song \"Another Day\". When Portnoy and Hart Angelo heard that NBC had commissioned thirteen episodes, they created an official theme song \"Where Everybody Knows Your Name\" and rewrote the lyrics. \n\nReception\n\nCritical reception\n\nCheers was critically acclaimed in its first season, though it landed a disappointing 74th out of 77 shows in that year's ratings. This critical support, the early success at the Emmys, and the support of the president of NBC's entertainment division Brandon Tartikoff, are thought to be the main reasons for the show's survival and eventual success. Tartikoff stated in 1983 that Cheers was a sophisticated adult comedy and that NBC executives, \"never for a second doubted\" that the show would not be renewed. Writer Levine believes that the most important reason was that the network recognized that it did not have other hit shows to help promote Cheers; as he later wrote, \"[NBC] had nothing else better to replace it with.\" \n\nRatings improved for the summer reruns after the first season. The cast went on various talk shows to try to further promote the series after its first season. By the second season Cheers was competitive with CBS's top rated show Simon & Simon. With the growing popularity of Family Ties, which ran in the slot ahead of Cheers from January 1984 until Family Ties was moved to Sundays in 1987, and the placement of The Cosby Show in front of both at the start of their third season (1984), the line-up became a runaway ratings success that NBC eventually dubbed \"Must See Thursday\". The next season, Cheers ratings increased dramatically after Woody Boyd became a regular character as well. By the end of its final season, the show had a run of eight consecutive seasons in the Top Ten of the Nielsen ratings; seven of them were in the Top Five.Bjorklund, p. 16.\n\nCheers was perhaps the first sitcom with a serialized storyline, starting with the third season. The show's success helped make such multi-episode story arcs popular on television, which Les Charles regrets.\n[W]e may have been partly responsible for what's going on now, where if you miss the first episode or two, you are lost. You have to wait until you can get the whole thing on DVD and catch up with it. If that blood is on our hands, I feel kind of badly about it. It can be very frustrating.\"\n\nCheers began with a limited five-character ensemble consisting of Ted Danson, Shelley Long, Rhea Perlman, Nicholas Colasanto and George Wendt. By the time season 10 began, the show had eight front characters in its roster. Cheers was also able to gradually phase in characters such as Cliff, Frasier, Lilith, Rebecca, and Woody. During season 1, only one set, the bar, housed all of the episodes. Later seasons introduced other sets, but the show's ability to center the action in the bar and avoid straying was notable.\n\nNBC dedicated a whole night to the final episode of Cheers, following the one-hour season finale of Seinfeld (which was its lead-in). The show began with a \"pregame\" show hosted by Bob Costas, followed by the final 98-minute episode itself. NBC affiliates then aired tributes to Cheers during their local newscasts, and the night concluded with a special Tonight Show broadcast live from the Bull & Finch Pub. Although the episode fell short of its hyped ratings predictions to become the most watched television episode, it was the most watched show that year, bringing in 93.5 million viewers (64 percent of all viewers that night), and ranked 11th all time in entertainment programming. The 1993 final broadcast of Cheers also emerged as the highest rated broadcast of NBC to date, as well as the most watched single episode from any television series throughout the decade 1990s on U.S. television.\"A Repeat of 'Cheers' Finale.\" The New York Times May 22, 1993. Web. January 7, 2012. . \"One rating point equals 931,000 households.\" \"Tops on TV.\" Newsday [Long Island, NY] May 26, 1993, Nassau and Suffolk ed.: 58. Print. The article, \"'Cheers' Finale Most-Watched Show of Season,\" from May 22, 1993, edition of Rocky Mountain News said that the share of viewing audience was 62. The 2009 article, \"[http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2009-02-01/entertainment/dvdtv0201_1_diane-chambers-shelley-long-rhea-perlman The gang gathers for one last round],\" by Hal Boedeker, claims that the finale drew over 80 million viewers in 1993.\n\nThe episode originally aired in the usual Cheers spot of Thursday night, and was then rebroadcast on Sunday. While the original broadcast did not outperform the MASH finale, the combined non-repeating audiences for the Thursday and Sunday showings did. It should also be noted that television had greatly changed between the two finales, leaving Cheers with a broader array of competition for ratings.Bjorklund, p. 17.\n\nIn 2013 GQ magazine held an online competition to find the best TV comedy. Cheers was voted the greatest comedy show of all time. \n\nAwards and honors\n\nOver its eleven-season run, the Cheers cast and crew earned many awards. The show garnered a record 111 Emmy Award nominations, with a total of 28 wins. In addition, Cheers earned 31 Golden Globe nominations, with a total of six wins. Danson, Long, Alley, Perlman, Wendt, Ratzenberger, Harrelson, Grammer, Neuwirth, and Colosanto all received Emmy nominations for their roles. Cheers won the Golden Globe for \"Best TV-Series – Comedy/Musical\" in 1991 and the Emmy for \"Outstanding Comedy Series\" in 1983, 1984, 1989, and 1991. The series was presented with the \"Legend Award\" at the 2006 TV Land Awards, with many of the surviving cast members attending the event. \n\nThe following are awards that have been earned by the Cheers cast and crew over its 11–season run:\n\nDistribution\n\nSyndication\n\nCheers grew in popularity as it aired on American television and entered into off-network syndication in 1987, initially distributed by Paramount Domestic Television. When the show went off the air in 1993, Cheers was syndicated in 38 countries with 179 American television markets and 83 million viewers.Bjorklund, p. 18. After going off the air, Cheers entered a long and successful continuing syndication run on Nick at Nite, later moving to TV Land in 2004, lasting until 2008 on their line-up. \n\nThe series began airing on Hallmark Channel in the United States in 2008, and WGN America in 2009, where it continues to air on both channels. In January 2011, Reelz Channel began airing the series in hour-long blocks. Me-TV began airing Cheers weeknights in 2010. When the quality of some earlier footage of Cheers began to deteriorate, it underwent a careful restoration in 2001 due to its continued success. And more recently, USA Network also reran the series, but only on Sunday early mornings and weekday mornings (if there is a movie running in 2 1/2 hours).\n\nIn October 2008, Cheers began airing on The Hallmark Channel.\n\nAs of April 2011, Netflix began including Cheers as one of the titles on its \"watch instantly\" streaming service. Amazon added it to its Prime service in July. \n\nA Cheers rerun notably replaced the September 4, 1992 airing of Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos on Australia's Nine Network. The latter was canceled mid-episode on its only broadcast by Kerry Packer, who pulled the plug after a phone call. It was repeated several years later on the Nine Network shortly after Packer's death in 2005. Cheers currently airs on Eleven starting January 11, 2011 in Australia. Cheers was aired by NCRV in the Netherlands. After the last episode, NCRV simply began re-airing the series, and then again, thus airing the show three times in a row, showing an episode nightly.\n\nAs of 2012, Cheers has been repeated on UK satellite channel CBS Drama. Cheers is also shown on the UK free-to-air channel ITV4 where it is shown two episodes every weekday night. Because of the ITV syndication it is also available to watch on the online ITV Player for seven days after broadcast. On March 16, 2015, the series began airing on UK subscription channel Gold on weekdays at 9:30am and 10:00am.\n\nThey are also currently airing on ReelzChannel.\n\nHigh definition\n\nA high-definition transfer of Cheers began running on HDNet in the United States in August 2010. Originally shot on film (but transferred to and edited on videotape) the program was broadcast in a 4:3 aspect ratio, the newly transferred versions are in 16:9. However, in the United Kingdom, the HD repeats on ITV4 HD are shown in the original 4:3 aspect ratio.\n\nDVD releases\n\nParamount Home Entertainment and (from 2006 onward) CBS Home Entertainment have released all 11 seasons of Cheers on DVD in Region 1, Region 2 and Region 4.\n\nOn March 6, 2012, they released Fan Favorites: The Best of Cheers. Based on the 2012 Facebook poll, the selected episodes are: \n\n# \"Give Me a Ring Sometime\" (season 1, episode 1)\n# \"Diane's Perfect Date\" (season 1, episode 17)\n# \"Pick a Con, Any Con\" (season 1, episode 19)\n# \"Abnormal Psychology\" (season 5, episode 4)\n# \"Thanksgiving Orphans\" (season 5, episode 9)\n# \"Dinner at Eight-ish\" (season 5, episode 20)\n# \"Simon Says\" (season 5, episode 21)\n# \"An Old Fashioned Wedding\", parts one and two (season 10, episodes 25)\n\nOn May 5, 2015, CBS DVD will release Cheers- The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1. \n\nDigital media distribution\n\nThe complete eleven seasons of Cheers are available through the United States Netflix streaming service, the ITunes Store, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu Plus.\n\nLicensing\n\nThe series lent itself naturally to the development of Cheers bar-related merchandise, culminating in the development of a chain of Cheers themed pubs. Paramount's licensing group, led by Tom McGrath, developed the Cheers pub concept initially in partnership with Host Marriott, which placed Cheers themed pubs in over 15 airports around the world. Boston boasts the original Cheers bar, historically known to Boston insiders as the Bull and Finch, as well as a Cheers restaurant in the Faneuil Hall marketplace, and Sam's Place, a spin-off sports bar concept also located at Faneuil Hall. In 1997 Europe's first officially licensed Cheers bar opened in London's Regent's Street W1. Like Cheers Faneuil Hall, Cheers London is a replica of the set. The gala opening was attended by James Burrows and cast members George Wendt and John Ratzenberger. The Cheers bar in London closed on 31st Dec 2008. The actual bar set had been on display at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum until the museum's closing in early 2006. \n\nThe theme song to the show was eventually licensed to a Canadian restaurant, Kelsey's Neighbourhood Bar & Grill. \n\nCBS currently holds the rights to the Cheers franchise as the result of the 2006 Viacom split which saw Paramount transfer its entire television studio to CBS.\n\nSpin-offs, crossovers, and cultural references\n\nSome of the actors and actresses from Cheers brought their characters into other television shows, either in a guest appearance or in a new spin-off series. The most successful Cheers spin-off was Frasier, which featured Frasier Crane following his relocation back to Seattle, Washington. Sam, Diane, and Woody all individually appeared in Frasier episodes, with Lilith appearing as a guest on multiple episodes. In the season nine episode \"Cheerful Goodbyes\", Frasier returns to Boston and meets up with the Cheers gang, later attending Cliff's retirement party.\n\nAlthough Frasier was more successful, The Tortellis was the first series to spin-off from Cheers, premiering in 1987. The show featured Carla's ex-husband Nick Tortelli and his wife Loretta, but was canceled after 13 episodes and drew protests for its stereotypical depictions of Italian-Americans.\n\nIn addition to direct spin-offs, several Cheers characters had guest appearance crossovers with other shows, including Wings and St. Elsewhere (episode \"Cheers\"). Cheers has also been spoofed or referenced in other media, including The Simpsons (episode \"Fear of Flying\"), Scrubs (episode \"My Life in Four Cameras\"), Adventure Time (episode \"Simon & Marcy\"), the 2012 comedy film Ted, the 2011 video game Dragon Age II, and the 2015 video game Fallout 4.\n\nThe final edition of Late Night with David Letterman (which aired on June 25, 1993; more than a month after Cheers' final episode) began with a scene at Cheers, in which the bar's TV gets stuck on NBC, and all of the bar patrons decide to go home instead of staying to watch Letterman. A similar scene aired in the Super Bowl XVII Pregame Show on NBC, in which the characters briefly discuss the upcoming game.\n\nIn the second season episode \"Swarley\" of the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, in the final scene, Barney walks into the bar and everyone shouts \"Swarley,\" same as when the characters traditionally yelled \"Norm!\" whenever Norm Peterson entered the \"Cheers\" bar, and he turns and walks out dejectedly as Carl the bartender plays \"Where Everybody Knows Your Name.\" The camera angle also changes to show the same bar set-up and framing for the main interior bar shots featured in Cheers. Additionally, the end credits are done in the gold \"Cooper Black\" font of the Cheers credits (which was a highly popular font for sitcoms of the early-to-mid-1980s).\n\nRemake\n\nIn September 2011, Plural Entertainment debuted a remake of the series on Spanish television, also titled Cheers. Set at an Irish pub, it starred Alberto San Juan as Nicolás \"Nico\" Arnedo, the equivalent of Sam Malone in the original series. It also used the original theme song, rerecorded in Spanish by Dani Martín, under the title of \"Dónde la gente se divierte.\"\n\nIn December 2012, The Irish Film and Television Network announced that casting is underway on an Irish language version of Cheers produced by production company Sideline. The new show, tentatively titled Teach Seán, would air on Ireland's TG4 and features a main character who, like Sam Malone, is a bar owner, a retired athlete and a recovering alcoholic. Except because of the setting in Ireland, the barman is a \"former hurling star\" rather than an ex-baseball player.\n\nNotes", "Caryn Elaine Johnson (born November 13, 1955), known professionally by her stage name, Whoopi Goldberg, is an American actress, comedian, and television host. She has been nominated for 13 Emmy Awards for her work in television, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Oscar, and a Tony Award. She was the second black woman in the history of the Academy Awards to win an acting Oscar.\n\nIn the period drama film, The Color Purple (1985), her breakthrough role was playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In the romantic fantasy film, Ghost (1990), \nGoldberg played Oda Mae Brown, an eccentric psychic who helped a slain man (Patrick Swayze) save his lover (Demi Moore), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. From 1998 to 2002, she was co-producer of the television game show, Hollywood Squares. Since 2007, she has been the moderator of the daytime television talk show, The View.\n\nEarly life\n\nGoldberg was born Caryn Elaine Johnson in Manhattan, New York on November 13, 1955, the daughter of Robert James Johnson, Jr. (March 4, 1930 – May 25, 1993), a clergyman, and Emma Johnson (née Harris; September 21, 1931August 29, 2010), a nurse and teacher. She was raised in the Chelsea-Elliot Houses. Most sources give her birth year as 1955. Goldberg has described her mother as a \"stern, strong, and wise woman\" who raised her as a single mother with her brother Clyde (1949 – May 11, 2015 ). Her recent forebears migrated north from Faceville, Georgia, Palatka, Florida, and Virginia. \n\nGoldberg dropped out of Washington Irving High School. She worked as a phone sex operator, working from home at night.\n\nHer stage name Whoopi was taken from a whoopee cushion; she has stated, \"If you get a little gassy, you've got to let it go. So people used to say to me, 'You're like a whoopee cushion.' And that's where the name came from.\" The name Goldberg is an alternative family name that she says she chose to use to be taken more seriously. \n\nAccording to an anecdote told by Nichelle Nichols in Trekkies (1997), a young Goldberg was watching Star Trek, and upon seeing Nichols' character Uhura, exclaimed, \"Momma! There's a black lady on TV and she ain't no maid!\" This spawned lifelong fandom of Star Trek for Goldberg, who would eventually ask for and receive a recurring guest-starring role on Star Trek: The Next Generation.\n\nBetween 1979 and 1981, she lived in East Germany, working in a number of theater productions. During her travels, she would smuggle various items into the country for the artists she stayed with. \n\nCareer\n\nEarly work\n\nGoldberg trained under acting teacher Uta Hagen at the HB Studio in New York City. She first appeared onscreen in 1982 in Citizen: I'm Not Losing My Mind, I'm Giving It Away, an avant-garde ensemble feature by San Francisco filmmaker William Farley. Goldberg created The Spook Show, a one-woman show composed of different character monologues, in 1983. Director Mike Nichols offered to take the show to Broadway. The show, retitled Whoopi Goldberg for its Broadway incarnation, ran from October 24, 1984 to March 10, 1985, for a total of 156 performances; the play was taped during this run and subsequently broadcast by HBO as Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway in 1985.\n\nWhile on Broadway, Goldberg's performance caught the eye of director Steven Spielberg. He was about to direct the film The Color Purple, based on the novel by Alice Walker, and offered her a leading role. The Color Purple was released in late 1985 and was a critical and commercial success. It was later nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including a nomination for Goldberg as Best Actress. \n\nComedic and dramatic balance\n\nGoldberg starred in Penny Marshall's directorial debut Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986) and began a relationship with David Claessen, a director of photography on the set; the couple married later that year. The film was a modest success, and during the next two years, three additional motion pictures featured Goldberg: Burglar (1987), Fatal Beauty (1987), and The Telephone (1988). Though these were not as successful as her prior motion pictures, Goldberg still garnered awards from the NAACP Image Awards. Goldberg and Claessen divorced after the poor box office performance of The Telephone, which Goldberg was under contract to star in. She tried unsuccessfully to sue the producers of the film. Clara's Heart did poorly at the box office, though her own performance was critically acclaimed. As the 1980s concluded, she participated in the numerous HBO specials of Comic Relief with fellow comedians Robin Williams and Billy Crystal.\n\nIn January 1990, Goldberg starred with Jean Stapleton in the situation comedy Bagdad Cafe. The show ran for two seasons on CBS. Simultaneously, Goldberg starred in The Long Walk Home, portraying a woman in the civil rights movement. She played a psychic in the 1990 film Ghost, and became the first black woman to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in nearly 50 years, and the second black woman to win an Academy Award for acting (the first being Hattie McDaniel, for 1939's Gone with the Wind). Premiere named her character Oda Mae Brown in its list of Top 100 best film characters. \n\nGoldberg starred in Soapdish (1991) and had a recurring role on Star Trek: The Next Generation as Guinan, which she would reprise in two Star Trek films. On May 29, 1992, Sister Act was released. The motion picture grossed well over US $200 million and Goldberg was nominated for a Golden Globe. Next, she starred in Sarafina!. During the next year, she hosted a late-night talk show titled The Whoopi Goldberg Show and starred in two more motion pictures: Made in America and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. From 1994 to 1995, Goldberg appeared in Corrina, Corrina, The Lion King (voice), The Pagemaster (voice), Boys on the Side, and Moonlight and Valentino. Goldberg guest starred on Muppets Tonight in 1996. She became the first African-American woman to host the Academy Awards show in 1994, and the first woman to solo host. She hosted the awards show again in 1996, 1999 and 2002.\n\nGoldberg starred in four motion pictures in 1996: Bogus (with Gérard Depardieu and Haley Joel Osment), Eddie, The Associate (with Dianne Wiest), and Ghosts of Mississippi (with Alec Baldwin and James Woods). During the filming of Eddie, Goldberg began dating co-star Frank Langella, a relationship that lasted until early 2000. In October 1997, Goldberg and ghostwriter Daniel Paisner cowrote Book, a collection featuring insights and opinions. In November and December 2005, Goldberg revived her one-woman show on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre in honor of its 20th anniversary.\n\nFrom 1998 to 2001, Goldberg took supporting roles in How Stella Got Her Groove Back with Angela Bassett, Girl, Interrupted with Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie, Kingdom Come and Rat Race with an all-star ensemble cast. She starred in the ABC-TV versions of Cinderella, A Knight in Camelot, and Call Me Claus. In 1998, she gained a new audience when she became the \"Center Square\" on Hollywood Squares, hosted by Tom Bergeron. She also served as executive producer, for which she was nominated for four Emmy Awards. She left the series in 2002, and the \"Center Square\" was filled in with celebrities for the last two on-air seasons without Goldberg. Most recently, she had a cameo role as Megan Fox's boss in the 2014 reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and portrayed herself in Chris Rock's Top Five.\n\nIn 2003, Goldberg returned to television, starring in Whoopi, which was canceled after one season. On her 46th birthday, Goldberg was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Goldberg also appeared alongside Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett in the HBO documentary Unchained Memories (2003), narrating slave narratives. During the next two years, she became a spokeswoman for Slim Fast and produced two television series: Lifetime's original drama Strong Medicine that ran for six seasons and Whoopi's Littleburg, a Nickelodeon show for younger children. Goldberg made guest appearances on Everybody Hates Chris as an elderly character named Louise Clarkson. She produced the Noggin sitcom Just for Kicks in early 2006.\n\nThe View\n\nOn September 4, 2007, Goldberg became the new moderator and co-host of The View, replacing Rosie O'Donnell, who supported the choice. Goldberg's debut as moderator drew 3.4 million viewers, 1 million fewer than O'Donnell's debut ratings. However, after 2 weeks, The View was averaging 3.5 million total viewers under Goldberg, a 7% increase from 3.3 million under O'Donnell the previous season. \n\nGoldberg has sometimes made controversial comments on the program. Her first appearance included statements taken by some to condone football player Michael Vick's dogfighting. In 2009, she opined that Roman Polanski's rape of a thirteen-year-old in 1977 was not \"rape-rape\", later clarified that she had intended to distinguish been statutory rape (\"unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor\") and forcible rape. Goldberg was a staunch defender of Bill Cosby from the outset of his rape allegations, asserting he should be considered innocent until proven guilty, and questioning why Cosby had never been arrested or tried for them. After learning that the statute of limitations on these allegations had expired, she began lecturing women to come forward if they are raped. \n\nOther media appearances \n\nGoldberg performed the role of Califia, the radiant Queen of the Island of California, for a theater presentation called Golden Dreams at Disney California Adventure Park, the second gate at the Disneyland Resort, in 2000. The show, which explains the history of the Golden State (California), opened on February 8, 2001, with the rest of the park. Golden Dreams closed in September 2008 to make way for the upcoming Little Mermaid ride planned for DCA. In 2001, Goldberg hosted the 50th Anniversary of I Love Lucy, a 50s black-and-white sitcom, celebrating the legacy of Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley.\n\nGoldberg hosted the 2001 documentary short, The Making of A Charlie Brown Christmas. In July 2006, Goldberg became the main host of the Universal Studios Hollywood Backlot Tour, in which she appears multiple times in video clips shown to the guests on monitors placed on the trams. Along with her many contributions to film and television and her major impact on this industry, Whoopi Goldberg was a main narrator for HBO's 2003 film Unchained Memories. She made a guest appearance on the hit television show 30 Rock, in which she played herself. She is shown as endorsing her own workout video. In Season 4 of the show, she counsels Tracy Jordan on winning the \"EGOT\", the coveted combination of Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards. Goldberg was involved in controversy in July 2004 when, at a fundraiser for John Kerry at Radio City Music Hall in New York, Goldberg made a sexual joke about President George W. Bush by waving a bottle of wine, pointing toward her pubic area and saying: \"We should keep Bush where he belongs, and not in the White House.\" Slim-Fast took exception to these comments made by Goldberg and dropped her from their then-current ad campaign. \n\nFrom August 2006 to March 2008, Goldberg hosted Wake Up with Whoopi, a nationally syndicated morning radio talk and entertainment program. In October 2007, Goldberg announced on the air that she would be retiring from acting because she is no longer sent scripts, saying, \"You know, there's no room for the very talented Whoopi. There's no room right now in the marketplace of cinema\". \n\nOn July 14, 2008, Goldberg announced on The View that from July 29 to September 7, she would perform in the Broadway musical Xanadu. On November 13, 2008, Goldberg's birthday, she announced live on The View that she would be producing, along with Stage Entertainment, the premiere of Sister Act: The Musical at the London Palladium.\n\nShe gave a short message at the beginning of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2008 wishing all the participants good luck, and stressing the importance of UNICEF, the official charity of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. Since its launch in 2008, Goldberg has been a contributor for wowOwow.com, a new website for women to talk culture, politics and gossip. \n\nGoldberg is an advocate for human rights, moderating a panel at the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit on how social networks can be used to fight violent extremism in 2008, and also moderating a panel at the UN in 2009 on human rights, children and armed conflict, terrorism, human rights and reconciliation. On December 13, 2008, she guest starred on The Naked Brothers Band, a Nickelodeon rock- mockumentary television show. Before the episode premiered, on February 18, 2008, the band performed on The View and the band members were interviewed by Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd. \n\nOn December 18 through 20, 2009, Goldberg performed in the Candlelight Processional at Epcot in Walt Disney World. She was given a standing ovation during her final performance for her reading of the Christmas story and her tribute to the guest choirs performing in the show with her. She made a guest appearance in Michael Jackson's short film for the single \"Liberian Girl\", as well as an appearance on the seventh season of the cooking reality show Hell's Kitchen by Gordon Ramsay, as a special guest where she was served by the contestants. On January 14, 2010, Goldberg made a one-night-only appearance at the Minskoff Theatre to perform in the mega-hit musical The Lion King. That same year, she attended the Life Ball in Austria.\n\nGoldberg made her West End debut as the Mother Superior in a musical version of Sister Act for a limited engagement set for August 10–31, 2010, but prematurely left the cast on August 27 to be with her family; her mother had suffered from a severe stroke. However, she later returned to the cast for five performances. The show closed on October 30, 2010. \n\nGoldberg had a recurring role in the TV series Glee as Carmen Tibideaux, a renowned Broadway performer and opera singer and the newly appointed Dean of Vocal Performance and Song Interpretation at the fictional \"NYADA\" (New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts), a highly competitive performing arts college. The character appeared in six episodes over 3 seasons (2012–2014).\n\nIn 2012, Goldberg guest starred as Jane Marsh, Sue Heck's guidance counselor in the TV series, The Middle. She currently voices the Magic Mirror on Disney XD's The 7D.\n\nIn 2016, it was announced Goldberg would be developing a reality show Strut, based on transgender models from Slay models in Los Angeles, which was founded by Cecilio Asuncion. Strut will air on Oxygen.\n\nPersonal life \n\nGoldberg has been married three timesin 1973 to Alvin Martin (divorced in 1979, one daughter), on September 1, 1986 to cinematographer David Claessen (divorced in 1988), and on October 1, 1994 to the union organizer Lyle Trachtenberg (divorced in 1995).\n\nShe was romantically linked with actors Frank Langella, Timothy Dalton, and Ted Danson, who controversially appeared in blackface during her 1993 Friars Club roast. She has stated that she has no future plans to marry again, commenting \"Some people are not meant to be married and I am not meant to. I’m sure it is wonderful for lots of people.\" In a 2011 interview with Piers Morgan, she explained that she never loved the men she married and commented \"You have to really be committed to them. And I'm justI don't have that commitment. I'm committed to my family.\" In October 2013, Goldberg revealed she had loved a man not in the entertainment industry who died of AIDS after contracting HIV from a blood transfusion.\n\nWhen Goldberg was a teen she and first husband Martin had a daughter, Alexandrea Martin, who also became an actress and producer.\n\nOn August 29, 2010, Goldberg's mother Emma Johnson died after suffering a stroke. She left London at the time, where she had been performing in Sister Act the Musical, but returned to perform on October 22, 2010. In 2015, Goldberg's brother Clyde died of a brain aneurysm. \n\nGoldberg has said she was a \"high functioning\" drug addict years ago, at one point being too terrified to even leave her bed to go use the toilet. She states that she smoked marijuana before accepting the Best Supporting Actress award for Ghost in 1991. Goldberg has dyslexia.\n\nResults of a DNA test, revealed in the 2006 PBS documentary African American Lives, traced part of her ancestry to the Papel and Bayote people of modern-day Guinea-Bissau. Her admixture test indicates that she is of 92percent sub-Saharan African origin and of 8percent European origin. \n\nAwards and honors \n\nGoldberg has received two Academy Award nominations, for The Color Purple and Ghost, winning for Ghost. She is the first African American to have received Academy Award nominations for both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. She is the recipient of the 1985 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show for her solo performance on Broadway. She has received eight Daytime Emmy nominations, winning two. She has received five (non-daytime) Emmy nominations. She has received three Golden Globe nominations, winning two (Best Actress in 1986 for The Color Purple, and Best Supporting Actress in 1991 for Ghost). She won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording in 1985 for \"Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway,\" becoming only the second woman at the time to receive the award, and the first African-American woman. Goldberg is one of only three women to receive that award. Also for Ghost, she won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in 1991.\n\nShe won a Tony Award in 2002 as a producer of the Broadway musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. She has won three People's Choice Awards. In 1999, she received the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Vanguard Award for her continued work in supporting the gay and lesbian community. She has been nominated for five American Comedy Awards with two wins (Funniest Supporting Actress in 1991 for Ghost and Funniest Actress in 1993 for Sister Act). In 2001, she won the prestigious Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center as well as the Women in Film Crystal Award for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry. In 2009, Goldberg won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host for her role on The View. She shares the award with co-hosts Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Barbara Walters.\n\nGoldberg is one of the few persons to win an Oscar, a Grammy, a Tony, and an Emmy. She has been seen in over 150 films, and during a period in the 1990s, Whoopi was the highest-paid actress of all time. Her humanitarian efforts include working for Comic Relief, recently reuniting with Billy Crystal and Robin Williams for the 20th Anniversary of Comic Relief.\n\nIn February 2002, Goldberg sent her Oscar statuette from Ghost to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to be cleaned and replated. During this time, the statuette was taken from its shipping container, and later retrieved by the shipping company, UPS. In 1990, Goldberg was officially named an honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters exhibition basketball team by the members. She was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award for outstanding achievement by a dyslexic in 1987. In July 2010, the Ride of Fame honored Goldberg with a double decker tour bus in New York City for her life's achievements. \n\nIt was reported that Goldberg's salary for the 1993 film Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit was $7 to 12 million, the highest ever paid for an actress at the time. \n\nActivism \n\nOn April 1, 2010, Goldberg joined Cyndi Lauper in the launch of her Give a Damn campaign to bring a wider awareness of discrimination of the LGBT community. The campaign aims to bring straight people to ally with the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community. Other names included in the campaign include Jason Mraz, Elton John, Judith Light, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Kardashian West, Clay Aiken, Sharon Osbourne and Kelly Osbourne. Her high-profile support for LGBT rights and AIDS activism dates back to the 1987 March on Washington, in which she participated. \n\nOn an episode of The View that aired on May 9, 2012, Goldberg stated she is a member of the National Rifle Association. Goldberg is on the Board of Selectors of Jefferson Awards for Public Service. \n\nGoldberg serves on the national council advisory board of the National Museum of American Illustration. \n\nEntrepreneurship \n\nGoldberg is co-founder of [http://whoopiandmaya.com/ Whoopi & Maya], a company that makes medical marijuana products for women seeking relief from menstrual cramps. Goldberg says she was inspired to go into business by \"a lifetime of difficult periods and the fact that cannabis was literally the only thing that gave me relief\". Products offered include a sipping chocolate, tincture, bath soak, and topical rub, initially available in California only. The company was launched in April 2016.\n\nStage \n\nFilmography \n\nDiscography \n\n* 1985: Original Broadway Recording (Geffen/Warner Bros. Records)\n* 1988: Fontaine: Why Am I Straight? (MCA Records)\n* 1989: The Long Walk Home (Miramax Films)\n* 1992: Sister Act—Soundtrack (Hollywood/Elektra Records)\n* 1993: Sister Act 2—Soundtrack (Hollywood/Elektra Records)\n* 1994: Corrina Corrina (New Line Cinema)\n* 2001: Call Me Claus (One Ho Productions)\n* 2005: Live on Broadway: The 20th Anniversary Show (DRG Records)\n\nBibliography \n\nChildren's books \n\n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n\nNon-fiction \n\n* \n* \n* \n", "Made in America is a 1993 comedy film released on May 28, 1993 by Warner Bros. starring Whoopi Goldberg and Ted Danson, and featuring Nia Long, Jennifer Tilly and Will Smith. The film was directed by Richard Benjamin. It was shot in various locations in Oakland, California and at Oakland Technical High School.\n\nA notable song on the soundtrack is \"Colors of Love,\" written by Carole Bayer Sager, James Ingram and Bruce Roberts, which alludes to the story line.\n\nPlot\n\nZora Matthews (Long), whose mother Sarah (Goldberg) conceived her with the aid of an anonymous sperm donor, discovers her father is a white man named Hal Jackson (Danson). This comes as a major shock to Sarah, who had explicitly requested a black donor. On top of that, Jackson is a loud, self-promoting car salesman, which clashes with Sarah's intellectualism. The film revolves around Zora and her mother's rocky relationship with Jackson. Jackson eventually comes to have feelings for his supposed daughter and her mother.\n\nCast\n\n Whoopi Goldberg as Sarah Mathews\n* Ted Danson as Hal Jackson\n* Nia Long as Zora Mathews\n* Will Smith as Tea Cake Walters\n* Jennifer Tilly as Stacy\n\nProduction\n\nThe story did not originally specify black actors for any of the roles and was rewritten upon Goldberg's casting. \n\nHomage\n\nThe character of Hal Jackson is based in part on the real life car dealership owner Cal Worthington. Hal's use of large circus animals in his car commercials are an homage to Cal's famous \"My Dog Spot\" ads, which were also filmed with live circus animals.\n\nSoundtrack\n\nThe soundtrack album was released on May 28, 1993.\n\n# Gloria Estefan - Go Away\n# Keith Sweat and Silk - Does He Do It Good\n# Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - Made In America\n# Lisa Fischer - Colors of Love\n# Sérgio Mendes - What Is This?\n# Mark Isham - Made In Love\n# Laura Satterfield and Ephraim Lewis - I Know I Don't Walk On Water\n# DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince - Dance or Die\n# Deep Purple - Smoke On The Water\n# Ben E. King - If You Need A Miracle\n# Y.T. Style - Stand\n\nReception\n\nThe film opened in theaters on May 28, 1993, and grossed over $12 million on its opening weekend. It was released to over 2,000 theaters and grossed nearly $50 million in the U.S. alone. Worldwide, it earned over $100 million. This was television star and Grammy Award-winning rapper Will Smith's second supporting role in a movie and started his successful career as a major film actor.\n\nMade in America earned mostly negative reviews from critics, holding a 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 28 reviews. However, Roger Ebert praised Goldberg's acting in the film and said \"This isn't a great movie, but it sure is a nice one.\"", "Edward Bridge \"Ted\" Danson III (born December 29, 1947) is an American actor, author, and producer well known for his role as lead character Sam Malone on the NBC sitcom Cheers and for his role as Dr. John Becker on the CBS sitcom Becker. He also starred in the CBS dramas CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and CSI: Cyber as D.B. Russell. He also plays a recurring role on Larry David's HBO sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm, starred alongside Glenn Close in legal drama Damages and was a regular on the HBO comedy series Bored to Death.\n\nIn his 40-year career, Danson has been nominated for 15 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning two; ten Golden Globe Awards nominations, winning three; one Screen Actors Guild Awards; and one American Comedy Award and has been awarded a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. He was ranked second in TV Guides list of the top 25 television stars. Danson has also been a longtime activist in ocean conservation. In March 2011, he published his first book, Oceana: Our Endangered Oceans and What We Can Do to Save Them, written with journalist Michael D'Orso.\n\nEarly life \n\nDanson was born in San Diego, California, the son of Jessica \"Jess\" Danson (née MacMaster, 1916 - January 11, 2006 ) and Edward Bridge \"Ned\" Danson, Jr. (March 22, 1916 - November 30, 2000 ), an archaeologist and museum director. He has a sister, Jan Haury (née Danson, born January 11, c. 1943). He was raised in Flagstaff, Arizona. His ancestry includes English and Scottish. \n\nIn 1961, he enrolled in the Kent School, where he was a basketball star. He became interested in drama while attending Stanford University. He transferred to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drama in 1972.\n\nCareer \n\nTelevision \n\nEarly career \n\nDanson began his television career as a contract player on the daytime soap opera Somerset. He played the role of \"Tom Conway\" from 1975 to 1976. He then spent a few years (1977-1982) as a doctor on the daytime soap opera The Doctors. He was also in a number of commercials, most recognizably as the \"Aramis man\".\n\nHe made a number of guest appearances in episodic television in the late 1970s and early 1980s, including spots on Laverne and Shirley, B.J. and the Bear, Family, Benson, Taxi, Magnum P.I., Spiderman, and Tucker's Witch.\n\nCareer breakthrough: Cheers \n\nIn 1982, Danson was cast in his most recognizable role, as the womanizing former baseball player and bartender Sam Malone on the NBC sitcom Cheers, wherein he has an on-and-off relationship with college-educated, sophisticated Diane Chambers. Though the show finished last in the ratings in the first season, it was well received by critics, and ratings slowly but surely improved in 1983, and by 1986 Cheers was one of the top ten shows on TV. The show had a run of 11 seasons and its finale (May 20, 1993) was watched by 80 million people, becoming the second most watched finale in television history at that time. It won four Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series and a Golden Globe for Best Series – Musical or Comedy. The show ran from 1982 to 1993, with Danson receiving 11 consecutive Emmy nominations and nine Golden Globe nominations, ultimately winning two Emmys and two Golden Globes. In 2002, TV Guide named Cheers the 18th Greatest Show of All Time. It was also included in Time Magazine's 100 Greatest Shows of All Time.\n\nDanson also appeared as Sam Malone in guest-starring roles on other sitcoms, such as Frasier (a Cheers spin-off), The Jim Henson Hour, and The Simpsons.\n\nLater career \n\nDanson went on to star in the successful CBS sitcom Becker (produced by Paramount Television, which also produced Cheers), which ran from 1998 to 2004. Danson also plays himself on Curb Your Enthusiasm. He reprised his role of Sam Malone in a second-season episode of Frasier and voiced him in The Simpsons episode \"Fear of Flying\".\n\nAlthough he was best known for his work in comedy, he also appeared in an acclaimed drama, Something About Amelia, about a family devastated by the repercussions of incest, which co-starred his later co-star on Damages, Glenn Close. He won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie and was nominated for an Emmy Award. In 1996, three years after Cheers concluded, Danson starred in the short-lived CBS sitcom Ink with his real-life wife Mary Steenburgen. In the same year, they starred as Lemuel Gulliver and his wife in an acclaimed television miniseries of Gulliver's Travels.\n\nDanson returned to series television in the fall of 2006, playing a psychiatrist in the ABC sitcom Help Me Help You, which was canceled at midseason due to low ratings.\n\nIn 2006, Danson received a nomination for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries for his role in Knights of the South Bronx.\n\nIn 2007, Danson starred in the FX Network drama Damages as a corrupt billionaire, Arthur Frobisher. The role earned him an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, but he lost to co-star Željko Ivanek. In the second season, Danson became a recurring character instead of one of the principal cast. Nevertheless, Danson received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series, but lost to Michael J. Fox for his guest appearance in Rescue Me.\n\nIn 1999, Danson was presented a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.\n\nIn 2011, Danson appeared in the music video for \"Make Some Noise\" by the Beastie Boys. He is also mentioned in the song's lyrics.\n\nDanson starred in the HBO sitcom Bored to Death as George Christopher, the laconic, salubrious and sometime downright infantile editor of Edition magazine. Critics often praised Danson as being the highlight of the program, calling his character a \"scene stealer\". \n\nIn July 2011, it was announced that Danson would star in the CBS police drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He played D.B. Russell, a new graveyard shift supervisor who previously headed a crime lab in Seattle, Washington. Tony Shalhoub, Robin Williams and John Lithgow were also considered for the role. \n\nIn March 2013, it was confirmed that Danson had signed a deal extending his stay on CSI for two more years. \n\nFollowing the cancellation of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, it was announced that his character D.B. Russell would make a move over to the third spinoff show CSI: Cyber in the second season. \n\nIn 2015, Danson appeared in the second season of the TV show loosely based on the film of the same name, Fargo. He portrays sheriff Hank Larsson. He is soon set to star opposite Kristen Bell and Jameela Jamil in the TV series Good Place. \n\nFilm \n\nDanson has also been featured in numerous films. His most notable film appearances were in Three Men and a Baby with Tom Selleck and Steve Guttenberg, its sequel Three Men and a Little Lady, and Cousins with Isabella Rossellini. He also appeared in The Onion Field (his first film, as the bagpipe playing Officer Ian Campbell), Creepshow, Body Heat, Little Treasure, Just Between Friends, A Fine Mess, Dad, Made in America, Getting Even with Dad, and Saving Private Ryan.\n\nPodcast and Radio Appearances \n\nDanson appeared on Ken Reid's TV Guidance Counselor podcast on June 25, 2016.\n\nPersonal life \n\nDanson and his first wife, actress Randall \"Randy\" Gosch (now professionally known as Randy Danson), were married in 1970 and divorced in 1975. Danson's second wife was producer Cassandra \"Casey\" Coates; they were married in 1977. On December 24, 1979, while giving birth to their first daughter Kate, Coates suffered a stroke, and Danson spent several years caring for her and helping her recuperate. They later adopted a second daughter, Alexis. Danson's affair with actress Whoopi Goldberg led to their divorce in 1993. It was one of Hollywood's costliest divorces, reportedly costing Danson $30 million. \n\nOn October 7, 1995, Danson married actress Mary Steenburgen, whom he met on the set of the movie Pontiac Moon in 1993, and became the stepfather to Steenburgen's daughter Lilly and son Charlie McDowell from her previous marriage to actor Malcolm McDowell.\n\nDanson had previously been a vegan multiple times. He currently adheres to a pescetarian diet. Danson suffers from Poland syndrome, and was bullied as a child because of it. \n\nRelationship with Whoopi Goldberg \n\nWhile a guest on the The Arsenio Hall Show in late 1988, he met actress Whoopi Goldberg, whom he described as \"a sexy, funny woman\". The two became friends, co-hosting Help Save Planet Earth in 1990, a video guide to saving the environment (Danson played himself, Goldberg played the role of Mother Earth). However, upon the filming of Made in America together in April 1992, the two became romantically involved—a pairing which was heavily featured in gossip tabloids such as the National Enquirer. The couple also appeared on the Rock the Vote TV special that same year, as well as being set to star in a Paramount-produced version of Neal Barrett Jr.'s Pink Vodka Blues, written by Marshall Brickman.\n\nDanson experienced substantial negative press attention on October 8, 1993, after his appearance in blackface at a Friars Club comedy roast in honor of Goldberg. In his monologue, Danson made extensive use of offensive racial stereotypes, used the word \"nigger\" more than a dozen times, and ate a watermelon, angering such guests as Montel Williams and Mayor David Dinkins. Goldberg defended the sketch, explaining that she had helped write much of the material and referred Danson to the makeup artist who painted his face. Danson and Goldberg issued statements emphasizing \"the Friars Club tradition of raucous and over the top humor\" and describing those offended as newcomers who \"were uncomfortable with what to expect\". Substantial excerpts from the performance were later printed in Spy. On November 5, 1993, Danson and Goldberg issued a statement signalling the end of their relationship. \n\nEnvironmentalism \n\nDanson's interest in environmental concerns was ignited when he was twelve years old and Bill Breed, then a curator at the Museum of Northern Arizona, introduced Danson and friend Marc Gaede to a game he referred to as \"billboarding\". Armed with an axe and saw, Breed, Gaede, and Danson ended up destroying over 300 outdoor advertising signs. \n\nDanson's interest in environmentalism continued over the years, and he began to be concerned with the state of the world's oceans. In the 1980s, he was a contributing founder of the American Oceans Campaigns, which merged with Oceana in 2001, where Danson is a board member. \n\nIn March 2011, Danson published his first book, Oceana: Our Endangered Oceans And What We Can Do To Save Them, written with journalist Michael D'Orso. \n\nPolitical activism \n\nDanson is a friend of former United States President Bill Clinton, who attended Danson and Mary Steenburgen's wedding. Danson has donated more than $85,000 to Democratic candidates, including Al Gore, John Edwards, Barbara Boxer, Bill Clinton, Al Franken, and John Kerry. He has also donated to the Democratic Party of Arkansas and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Danson and Steenburgen campaigned for Sen. Hillary Clinton during her 2008 Presidential campaign. He attended the wedding of their daughter Chelsea on July 31, 2010. He appeared with Steenburgen at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.\n\nFilmography \n\nFilm \n\nTelevision \n\nAwards and nominations" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Ted danson", "Edward Danson", "Ted Danson", "Ted Dansen" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "ted dansen", "edward danson", "ted danson" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "ted danson", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Ted Danson" }
What was Pierce Brosnan's first outing as 007?	tc_1134	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Pierce_Brosnan.txt" ], "title": [ "Pierce Brosnan" ], "wiki_context": [ "Pierce Brendan Brosnan OBE Hon (born 16 May 1953) is an Irish actor and film producer who after leaving comprehensive school at age 16, began training in commercial illustration. He then went on to train at the Drama Centre in London for three years. Following a stage acting career he rose to popularity in the television series Remington Steele (1982–87), which blended the genres of romantic comedy, drama, and detective procedural. After the conclusion of Remington Steele, Brosnan appeared in films such as the Cold War spy film The Fourth Protocol (1987) and the comedy Mrs. Doubtfire (1993).\n\nIn 1994, Brosnan became the fifth actor to portray secret agent James Bond in the Eon Productions film series, starring in four films from 1995 to 2002 (GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day). He lent his likeness for Bond in the video games James Bond 007: Nightfire and James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing, providing his voice too for the latter. During this period, he also took the lead in other films such as the epic disaster adventure film Dante's Peak (1997) and the remake of the heist film The Thomas Crown Affair (1999). Since leaving the role of Bond, he has starred in such films as the musical/romantic comedy Mamma Mia! (2008), the Roman Polanski-directed political thriller The Ghost Writer (2010) and the action spy thriller The November Man (2014).\n\nIn 1996, along with Beau St. Clair, Brosnan formed Irish DreamTime, a Los Angeles-based production company. In later years, he has become known for his charitable work and environmental activism. He was married to Australian actress Cassandra Harris from 1980 until her death in 1991. He married American journalist and author Keely Shaye Smith in 2001, and became an American citizen in 2004. He has earned two Golden Globe Award nominations, first for the television miniseries Nancy Astor (1982) and next for the dark comedy film The Matador (2005).\n\nEarly life \n\nBrosnan was born in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland, the only child of Thomas Brosnan, a carpenter, and May (née Smith, born circa 1934). He lived in Navan, County Meath for 12 years and considers it his home town. \nBrosnan's father abandoned the family when Pierce was an infant. When he was four years old, his mother moved to London to work as a nurse. From that point on, he was largely brought up by his grandparents, Philip and Kathleen Smith. After their deaths, he lived with an aunt and then an uncle, but was subsequently sent to live in a boarding house run by a woman named Eileen. He was educated at Elliott School, now known as Ark Putney Academy, a coeducational secondary school with academy status in South West London.\n\nAccording to Brosnan,\n\nBrosnan was brought up in a Roman Catholic family and educated in a local school run by the de la Salle Brothers while serving as an altar boy.\n\nBrosnan left Ireland on 12 August 1964 and was reunited with his mother and her new husband, William Carmichael, now living in the Scottish village of Longniddry, East Lothian. Carmichael took Brosnan to see a James Bond film for the first time (Goldfinger), at the age of 11. Later moving back to London, Brosnan was educated at Elliott School, a state comprehensive school in Putney, south west London. Brosnan has spoken about the transition from Ireland to England and his education in London; \"When you go to a very large city, a metropolis like London, as an Irish boy of 10, life suddenly moves pretty fast. From a little school of, say, seven classrooms in Ireland, to this very large comprehensive school, with over 2,000 children. And you're Irish. And they make you feel it; the British have a wonderful way of doing that, and I had a certain deep sense of being an outsider.\" When he attended school, his nickname was \"Irish\". \n\nAfter leaving school at 16, he decided to be a painter and began training in commercial illustration at Saint Martin's School of Art.Jonathan Jones (30 September 2011). [http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/sep/30/saint-martins-kings-cross-premises Saint Martins emerges blinking in bright new home. But is it art?: King's Cross premises a far cry from Soho 'hell', but some students fear college will have lost its charm]. The Guardian. Accessed August 2013. While attending a rehearsal for a workshop at the Oval House, a fire eater was teaching people how to eat fire and he decided to join. A circus agent saw him busking and hired him for three years. He later trained for three years as an actor at the Drama Centre London. Brosnan has described the feeling of becoming an actor and the impact it had on his life: \"When I found acting, or when acting found me, it was a liberation. It was a stepping stone into another life, away from a life that I had, and acting was something I was good at, something which was appreciated. That was a great satisfaction in my life.\"\n\nCareer \n\nEarly career \n\nAfter graduating from the Drama Centre in 1975, Brosnan began working as an acting assistant stage manager at the York Theatre Royal, making his acting debut in Wait Until Dark. Within six months, he was selected by playwright Tennessee Williams to play the role of McCabe in the British première of The Red Devil Battery Sign. His performance caused a stir in London and Brosnan still has the telegram sent by Williams, stating only \"Thank God for you, my dear boy\". In 1977 he was picked by Franco Zeffirelli to appear in the play Filumena by Eduardo De Filippo opposite Joan Plowright and Frank Finlay. \n\nHe continued his career making brief appearances in films such as The Long Good Friday (1980) and The Mirror Crack'd (1980), as well as early television performances in The Professionals, Murphy's Stroke, and Play for Today. He became a television star in the United States with his leading role in the popular miniseries Manions of America. He followed this with his 1982 Masterpiece Theatre documentary that chronicled the life of Lady Nancy Astor, the first woman to sit in British Parliament. His portrayal of Robert Gould Shaw II garnered him a 1985 Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. \n\nIn 1982, Brosnan moved to Southern California and rose to popularity in the United States playing the title role in the NBC romantic detective series Remington Steele. The Washington Post noted that same year that Brosnan \"could make it as a young James Bond.\" After Remington Steele ended in 1987, Brosnan went on to appear in several films, including The Fourth Protocol (1987), a Cold War thriller in which he starred alongside Michael Caine, The Deceivers and James Clavell's Noble House both in (1988), and The Lawnmower Man (1992). In 1992, he shot a pilot for NBC called Running Wilde, playing a reporter for Auto World magazine. Jennifer Love Hewitt played his daughter. The pilot never aired, however. In 1993 he played a supporting role in the comedy film Mrs. Doubtfire. He also appeared in several television films, including Victim of Love (1991), Death Train (1993) and Night Watch (1995), a spy thriller set in Hong Kong.\n\nJames Bond (1994–2005) \n\nBrosnan first met James Bond films producer Albert R. Broccoli on the sets of For Your Eyes Only because his first wife, Cassandra Harris, starred as Countess Lisl von Schlaf, mistress to Milos Columbo. Broccoli said, \"if he can act ... he's my guy\" to inherit the role of Bond from Roger Moore. It was reported by both Entertainment Tonight and the National Enquirer, that Brosnan was going to inherit another role of Moore's, that of Simon Templar in The Saint. Brosnan denied the rumours in July 1993 but added, \"it's still languishing there on someone's desk in Hollywood.\" \n\nIn 1987, NBC cancelled Remington Steele and Brosnan was offered the role as James Bond, but the publicity revived Remington Steele. His contract with the Remington Steele producers required him to resume his role and he regretfully declined the Bond role. The producers instead hired Timothy Dalton for The Living Daylights (1987), and Licence to Kill (1989). \nLegal squabbles between the Bond producers and the studio over distribution rights resulted in the cancellation of a proposed third Dalton film in 1991 and put the Bond series on a hiatus for several years. After the legal issues had been resolved, Dalton decided not to return for a third film. On 7 June 1994, Brosnan was announced as the fifth actor to play Bond.\n\nBrosnan was signed for a three-film Bond deal with the option of a fourth. The first, 1995's GoldenEye, grossed US $350 million worldwide, the fourth highest worldwide gross of any film in 1995, making it the most successful Bond film since Moonraker, adjusted for inflation. It holds an 80% Rotten tomato rating, while Metacritic holds it at 65%. In the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert gave the film 3 stars out of 4, saying that Brosnan's Bond was \"somehow more sensitive, more vulnerable, more psychologically complete\" than the previous ones, also commenting on Bond's \"loss of innocence\" since previous films. James Berardinelli described Brosnan as \"a decided improvement over his immediate predecessor\" with a \"flair for wit to go along with his natural charm\", but added that \"fully one-quarter of Goldeneye is momentum-killing padding.\" \n\nIn 1996, Brosnan formed a film production company entitled \"Irish DreamTime\" along with producing partner and longtime friend Beau St. Clair. Brosnan and St. Clair released Irish DreamTime's first production, The Nephew, in 1998. One year later, the company's second studio project, The Thomas Crown Affair, was released and met both critical and box office success. \n\nBrosnan returned in 1997's Tomorrow Never Dies and 1999's The World Is Not Enough, which were also successful. In 2002, Brosnan appeared for his fourth time as Bond in Die Another Day, receiving mixed reviews but was a success at the box office. Brosnan himself subsequently criticised many aspects of his fourth Bond movie. During the promotion, he mentioned that he would like to continue his role as James Bond: \"I'd like to do another, sure. Connery did six. Six would be a number, then never come back.\" Brosnan asked Eon Productions, when accepting the role, to be allowed to work on other projects between Bond films. The request was granted, and for every Bond film, Brosnan appeared in at least two other mainstream films, including several he produced, playing a wide range of roles, ranging from a scientist in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!, to the title role in Grey Owl which documents the life of Englishman Archibald Stansfeld Belaney, one of Canada's first conservationists.\n\nShortly after the release of Die Another Day, the media began questioning whether or not Brosnan would reprise the role for a fifth time. At that time, Brosnan was approaching his 50th birthday. Brosnan kept in mind that both fans and critics were very unhappy with Roger Moore playing the role until he (Moore) was 58, but he was receiving popular support from both critics and the franchise fanbase for a fifth instalment. For this reason, he remained enthusiastic about reprising his role. \nIn October 2004, Brosnan said he considered himself dismissed from the role. Although Brosnan had been rumoured frequently as still in the running to play 007, he had denied it several times, and in February 2005 he posted on his website that he was finished with the role. Daniel Craig took over the role on 14 October 2005. In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Brosnan was asked what he thought of Daniel Craig as the new James Bond. He replied, \"I'm looking forward to it like we're all looking forward to it. Daniel Craig is a great actor and he's going to do a fantastic job\". He reaffirmed this support in an interview to the International Herald Tribune, stating that \"[Craig's] on his way to becoming a memorable Bond.\" \n\nDuring his tenure on the James Bond films, Brosnan also took part in James Bond video games. In 2002, Brosnan's likeness was used as the face of Bond in the James Bond video game Nightfire (voiced by Maxwell Caulfield). In 2004, Brosnan starred in the Bond game Everything or Nothing, contracting for his likeness to be used as well as doing the voice-work for the character. \nHe also starred along with Jamie Lee Curtis and Geoffrey Rush in The Tailor of Panama in 2001, and lent his voice to The Simpsons episode \"Treehouse of Horror XII\", as a machine with Pierce Brosnan's voice.\n\nPost-James Bond \n\nSince 2004, Brosnan has talked of backing a film about Caitlin Macnamara, wife of poet Dylan Thomas, the title role to be played by Miranda Richardson. Brosnan's first post-Bond role was that of Daniel Rafferty in 2004's Laws of Attraction. Garreth Murphy, of entertainment.ie, described Brosnan's performance as \"surprisingly effective, gently riffing off his James Bond persona and supplementing it with a raffish energy\". In the same year, Brosnan starred in After the Sunset alongside Salma Hayek and Woody Harrelson. The film elicited generally negative reviews and a 17% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Brosnan's next film was 2005's The Matador. He starred as Julian Noble, a jaded, neurotic assassin who meets a travelling salesman (Greg Kinnear) in a Mexican bar. The film garnered generally positive reviews. Roger Ebert for the Chicago Sun-Times called Brosnan's performance the best of his career. Brosnan was nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, but lost to Joaquin Phoenix for Walk the Line. In December 2005, Brosnan was reported to be starring in The November Man, an adaptation of Bill Granger's novel, There Are No Spies. but the project was cancelled in 2007. In 2006, Brosnan narrated The Official Film of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, directed by Michael Apted. \n\nIn 2007, Brosnan appeared in the film Seraphim Falls alongside fellow Irishman Liam Neeson. The film was released for limited screenings on 26 January 2007 to average reviews. Kevin Crust of the Los Angeles Times noted that Brosnan and Neeson made \"fine adversaries;\" Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter thought that they were \"hard-pressed to inject some much-needed vitality into their sparse lines.\" During the same year, Brosnan spoke of making a western with fellow Irishmen Gabriel Byrne and Colm Meaney. In that same year Brosnan starred as Tom Ryan in Butterfly on a Wheel. The film was released in the United States under the name of Shattered, and in Europe as Desperate Hours.\n\nIn 2008, Brosnan joined Meryl Streep in the film adaption of the ABBA musical Mamma Mia!. He played Sam Carmichael, one of three men rumoured to be the father of lead Amanda Seyfried, while Streep played her mother. Judy Craymer, producer to the film, said \"Pierce brings a certain smooch factor, and we think he'll have great chemistry with Meryl in a romantic comedy.\" Brosnan's preparation in singing for the role included walking up and down the coast and singing karaoke to his own voice for about six weeks, followed by rehearsals in New York in which he noted he \"sounded dreadful.\" Brosnan's singing in the film was generally disparaged by critics, with his singing compared in separate reviews to the sound of a water buffalo, a donkey, and a wounded raccoon. In September 2008, Brosnan provided the narration for the Thomas & Friends special The Great Discovery. He was originally set to narrate for both US and UK from Season 12 and onward, but withdraw from it for unknown reasons.\n\nIn 2009, Brosnan starred in The Big Biazarro, (alternative title The Ace), an adaptation of the Leonard Wise novel, directed by Vondie Curtis-Hall. Brosnan portrayed a card player who mentors a headstrong protégé. Also in 2009, Brosnan finished the well-received The Ghost Writer, playing a disgraced British Prime Minister, directed and produced by Roman Polanski. The film won a Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. He starred as Charles Hawkins in the film Remember Me and as Chiron in Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, both released in 2010.\n\nIn 2012, Brosnan played the role of Philip in the Danish romantic comedy Love Is All You Need. \n\nHis latest announced project is a role in the Danny DeVito-helmed feature Charlotte Doyle, an adaptation of the novel The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, in which he will appear alongside Morgan Freeman. His production company Irish DreamTime is developing The Topkapi Affair, a follow-up to The Thomas Crown Affair for MGM. In February 2013 Brosnan was awarded honorary patronage of the Dublin University Players society at Trinity College, Dublin. Brosnan is also said to be playing a \"heroic government agent\" in an action thriller called The Coup (later renamed to No Escape) alongside Owen Wilson. Brosnan will also be headlining Last Man Out, which is an adaptation of Stuart Neville's crime novel titled The Twelve (released as Ghosts of Belfast in the US), scripted by Craig Ferguson and Ted Mulkerin, with Terry Loan will be helming the project. \n\nIn 2013, Brosnan appeared in television commercials as a tongue in cheek version of himself to promote the launch of Sky Broadband in Ireland. After its cancellation in 2007, Brosnan's production company, \"Irish DreamTime\" resurrected The November Man film project in 2012 with an announcement made on his part that he was jumping back to the spy arena. Filming took place in Serbia a year later, with Brosnan in action as a retired CIA operative called Devereaux, alongside co-star Olga Kurylenko in a supporting role. The film received negative reception with a 34% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 38/100 on Metacritic. In 2015, he appeared alongside Milla Jovovich in suspense thriller movie written by Phil Shelby, called Survivor, which began filming in January 2014, with Charles and Irwin Winkler producing, and James McTeigue directing. Brosnan later starred in a revenge thriller called I.T., which is still yet to be released.\n\nIn January 2016 Pierce Brosnan was seen filming The Foreigner in London, co-starring with Jackie Chan, taking on a role of a former IRA man turned government official Liam Hennessy. The film is directed by Martin Campbell, who previously worked with Brosnan on his debut James Bond film, GoldenEye. It was noted that Brosnan bore a strong resemblance to Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams. An announcement was made that Brosnan and Campbell will team up once again in a film adaptation of an Ernest Hemingway novel, Across the River and into the Trees, in which Brosnan will play the role of the protagonist, Colonel Cantwell. He's also set to appear alongside Dave Bautista in Final Score. \n\nBrosnan replaced actor Sam Neill in the role of Eli McCullough in a television miniseries adaptation of Philipp Meyer's novel The Son, with Kevin Murphy serving as both executive producer and showrunner of a ten-episode miniseries, which begins production in June 2016, aiming for a 2017 release. \n\nPersonal life \n\nBrosnan married twice, was widowed once and has five children and three grandchildren as of 2015. \n\nBrosnan met Australian actress Cassandra Harris through her stepson David Harris, one of Richard Harris' nephews, in 1977, shortly after he left drama school. On meeting her, he has described his feelings, saying, \"What a beautiful looking woman. I never for an instant thought she was someone I'd spend 17 years of my life with. I didn't think of wooing her, or attempting to woo her; I just wanted to enjoy her beauty and who she was.\" They began dating, and eventually bought a house in Wimbledon. They married on 27 December 1980 and had one son together, Sean, who was born on 13 September 1983. They lived with her children, Charlotte (1971-2013) and Christopher, and after their father Dermot Harris died in 1986, he adopted them and they took the surname Brosnan. \n\nBrosnan supplemented his income by working in West End productions and in a television film about Irish horse racing. After Harris appeared in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only in 1981, they secured a bank loan and moved to southern California where Brosnan secured a role in the TV series Remington Steele, easing their financial worries.\n\nAn episode of Remington Steele that was filmed in Ireland generated significant publicity. One outcome was that Brosnan met his father, who had left when Brosnan was an infant, in a brief get-together at his hotel. Brosnan said he expected to see a very tall man, but described his father as \"a man of medium stature, pushed-back silver hair, flinty eyes and a twizzled jaw. He had a very strong Kerry accent.\" Brosnan was regretful that they met under such public circumstances. He said he would have preferred more private arrangements that would have given him the opportunity to speak privately with his father.\n\nWhile filming The Deceivers in Rajasthan, India, in 1987, Brosnan's wife Harris became seriously ill. She was later diagnosed with ovarian cancer and died on 28 December 1991 at age 43. Brosnan struggled to cope with her cancer and death. \"When your partner gets cancer, then life changes. Your timetable and reference for your normal routines and the way you view life, all this changes. Because you're dealing with death. You're dealing with the possibility of death and dying. And it was that way through the chemotherapy, through the first-look operation, the second look, the third look, the fourth look, the fifth look. Cassie was very positive about life. I mean, she had the most amazing energy and outlook on life. It was and is a terrible loss, and I see it reflected, from time to time, in my children.\" Harris had always wanted Brosnan to play the role of James Bond, and in 1995, four years after her death, Brosnan was given the role in GoldenEye.\n\nIn 1994, Brosnan met American journalist Keely Shaye Smith in Mexico. They were married in 2001 at Ballintubber Abbey in County Mayo, Ireland. They have two sons together, Dylan Thomas Brosnan (born 13 January 1997) and Paris Beckett Brosnan (born 27 February 2001). \n\nIn July 2003, the Queen made Brosnan an honorary Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his \"outstanding contribution to the British film industry\". As an Irish citizen, he is ineligible to receive the full OBE honour, which is awarded only to a citizen of the Commonwealth realms, but he is still allowed the letters \"OBE\" after his name. In 2002, Brosnan was also awarded an honorary degree from the Dublin Institute of Technology and, a year later, the University College Cork. \n\nOn 23 September 2004, Brosnan became a citizen of the United States, but retained his Irish citizenship. Brosnan said that \"my Irishness is in everything I do. It's the spirit of who I am, as a man, an actor, a father. It's where I come from.\" Brosnan was asked by a fan if it annoyed him when people get his nationality confused. He said: \"It amuses me in some respects that they should confuse me with an Englishman when I'm dyed-in-the-wool, born and bred Irishman ... I don't necessarily fly under any flag. But no, it doesn't bother me.\" \n\nBrosnan has expressed contempt for his education by the Christian Brothers. However, in 2013 he commented, \"It always helps to have a bit of prayer in your back pocket. At the end of the day, you have to have something and for me that is God, Jesus, my Catholic upbringing, my faith... God has been good to me. My faith has been good to me in the moments of deepest suffering, doubt and fear. It is a constant, the language of prayer... I might not have got my sums right from the Christian Brothers or might not have got the greatest learning of literature from them but I certainly got a strapping amount of faith.\" Brosnan attends Mass, but adheres to other spiritual beliefs. In 2008 he said \"I also love the teachings of Buddhist philosophy. It's my own private faith. I don't preach it, but it's a faith that is a comfort to me when the night is long.\"\n\nBrosnan and wife Keely Shaye Smith were involved in a riparian water rights legal case (1999–2010). The dispute centred on a parcel of land in Wainiha, Hawaii. \n\nBrosnan's daughter Charlotte died on 28 June 2013 of ovarian cancer, the same illness that claimed her mother's life. \n\nEnvironmental and charitable work \n\nPierce Brosnan has been an Ambassador for UNICEF Ireland since 2001 and recorded a special announcement to mark the launch of UNICEF's \"Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS\" Campaign with Liam Neeson. Brosnan supported John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election and is a vocal supporter of same-sex marriage. \n\nBrosnan first became aware of nuclear disarmament at the age of nine when worldwide condemnation of the 1962 U.S. nuclear tests in Nevada headlined international news. During the 1990s, he participated in news conferences in Washington, D.C. to help Greenpeace draw attention to the issue. Brosnan boycotted the French GoldenEye premiere to support Greenpeace's protest against the French nuclear testing program. From 1997 to 2000, Brosnan and wife Smith worked with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) to stop a proposed salt factory from being built at Laguna San Ignacio. The couple with Halle Berry, Cindy Crawford and Daryl Hannah successfully fought the Cabrillo Port Liquefied Natural Gas facility that was proposed off the coast of Malibu; the State Lands Commission eventually denied the lease to build the terminal. In May 2007, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the facility. Brosnan is also listed as a member of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's Board of Advisors. Brosnan was named 'Best-dressed Environmentalist' by the Sustainable Style Foundation in 2004. \n\nBrosnan also raises money for charitable causes through sales of his paintings. He trained early on as an artist, but later shifted to theatre; during his first wife's terminal illness, he withdrew from acting to be with her and took up painting again for therapeutic reasons, producing colourful landscapes and family portraits. He has continued painting since then, using spare time on set and at home. Profits from sales of giclée prints of his works are given to a trust to benefit \"environmental, children's and women's health charities.\" Since Harris' death, Brosnan has been an advocate for cancer awareness and, in 2006, he served as spokesperson for Lee National Denim Day, a breast cancer fundraiser which raises millions of dollars and raises more money in a single day than any other breast cancer fundraiser. \n\nIn May 2007, Brosnan and Smith donated $100,000 to help replace a playground on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, where they own a house. On 7 July 2007, Brosnan presented a film at Live Earth in London. He also recorded a television advertisement for the cause. Brosnan lives with his family in Malibu, California and on the island of Kauai.\n\nIn April 2016, a fire ripped through his $18.5 million Malibu mansion causing $1 million in damages to the garage and a nearby guest bedroom.\n\nFilmography \n\nFilm \n\nTelevision \n\nVideo games" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Goldeneye 007 (Xbox Live Arcade)", "Goldeneye game", "GoldenEye 007 (video game)", "GoldenEye 007", "GoldenEye (video game)", "GoldenEye 007 (Virtual Boy)", "Goldeneye (Virtual Boy)", "GoldenEye Doom 2 Total Conversion", "Goldeneye", "Goldeneye 007", "Goldeneye007", "007: Golden Eye", "GoldenEye (Virtual Boy)", "GoldenEye (game)", "Goldeneye (game)", "Golden Eye 007", "GoldenEye (disambiguation)", "Ge 007", "Goldeneye (disambiguation)" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "goldeneye", "goldeneye game", "007 golden eye", "goldeneye007", "goldeneye doom 2 total conversion", "goldeneye 007 xbox live arcade", "ge 007", "goldeneye 007 virtual boy", "goldeneye 007 video game", "goldeneye virtual boy", "golden eye 007", "goldeneye video game", "goldeneye disambiguation", "goldeneye 007" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "goldeneye", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Goldeneye" }
Which The Bridges of Madison County star became a father again aged 65?	tc_1135	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "The_Bridges_of_Madison_County_(film).txt" ], "title": [ "The Bridges of Madison County (film)" ], "wiki_context": [ "The Bridges of Madison County is a 1995 American romantic drama film based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Robert James Waller. It was produced by Amblin Entertainment and Malpaso Productions, and distributed by Warner Bros. Entertainment. The film was produced and directed by Clint Eastwood with Kathleen Kennedy as co-producer and the screenplay was adapted by Richard LaGravenese. The film stars Eastwood and Meryl Streep.\n\nThe film was a critical and commercial success, earning $182 million worldwide. Streep received an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination in 1996 for her performance in the film.\n\nPlot\n\nIn the present, siblings Michael and Carolyn arrive at the Iowa farmhouse of Francesca Johnson, their recently deceased mother, to see about the settlement of their mother's estate. As they go through the contents of her safe deposit box and the will, they are baffled to discover that their mother left very specific instructions that her body be cremated and her ashes thrown off the nearby Roseman Covered Bridge, which is not in accordance with the burial arrangements they had known from their parents. Michael initially refuses to comply, while Carolyn discovers a set of photos of her mother and a letter. She manages to convince Michael to set aside his initial reaction so they can read the documents she has discovered. Once alone, they go through a series of letters from a man named Robert Kincaid to their mother. The siblings find their way to a chest where their mother left a letter, a series of diaries, and other mementos. \n\nThey discovered in 1965, their mother, an Italian war bride, had a four-day affair with Robert Kincaid, a photographer who had come to Madison County, Iowa, to shoot a photographic essay for National Geographic on the covered bridges in the area. The affair took place while her husband and children were away at the Illinois State Fair. The story in the diaries also reveals the impact the affair had on Francesca's and Robert’s lives, since they almost ran away together, but she intervenes at the last minute in consideration of a bigger picture that includes the consequences on the lives of her children and husband, while he finds meaning and his true calling as an artist. The story also has deep consequences on the lives of Michael and Carolyn, both of whom are facing marital issues - their mother’s story helps them to find a sense of direction in their lives. At the end, the Johnson siblings comply with their mother’s request.\n\nCast\n\n* Clint Eastwood as Robert Kincaid\n* Meryl Streep as Francesca Johnson\n* Annie Corley as Carolyn Johnson\n** Sarah Kathryn Schmitt as young Carolyn\n* Victor Slezak as Michael Johnson\n** Christopher Kroon as young Michael\n* Jim Haynie as Richard Johnson\n* Phyllis Lyons as Betty\n* Debra Monk as Madge\n* Richard Lage as Lawyer Peterson\n* Michelle Benes as Lucy Redfield\n\nProduction\n\nDevelopment\n\nAmblin Entertainment, a production company founded by Steven Spielberg, bought the film rights to Waller's novel for $25,000 in late 1991, before its publication—by the time of the film's release, the novel sold 9.5 million copies worldwide. Spielberg first asked Sydney Pollack to direct, who got Kurt Luedtke to draft the first version of the adaptation but then bowed out; Ronald Bass was brought in by Kathleen Kennedy and Spielberg to work on the script, but they were unsatisfied with the results. But a third draft by Richard LaGravenese was liked by Eastwood, who quite early had been cast for the male lead, and by Spielberg, who liked LaGravenese's version enough to consider making Bridges his next film after Schindler's List, which was in post-production at the time. Both men liked that LaGravenese's script presented the story from Francesca's point of view; Spielberg then had LaGravenese introduce the framing device of having Francesca's adult children discover and read her diaries. When Spielberg decided not to direct, he then brought in Bruce Beresford, who got Alfred Uhry to draft another version of the script; when Warner Bros., Spielberg, and Eastwood all preferred LaGravenese's draft, Beresford dropped out.\n\nWaller championed Isabella Rossellini to play Francesca; she was a \"strong contender\" in a list that also included Anjelica Huston, Jessica Lange, Mary McDonnell, Cher, and Susan Sarandon. But despite Spielberg's initial reluctance, Eastwood had advocated Meryl Streep for the role from the beginning.\n\nFilming\n\nPrincipal photography took 42 days, ending on November 1, 1994, ten days ahead of Eastwood's 52-day schedule; Eastwood filmed it chronologically from Francesca's point of view, \"because it was important to work that way. We were two people getting to know each other, in real time, as actors and as the characters.\" It was filmed on location in Madison County, Iowa, including the town of Winterset, and in the Dallas County town of Adel. The Bell's Mills Bridge, in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, was also a filming location.\n\nPost-production\n\nThe MPAA ratings board initially gave the film an \"R\" rating, for the line \"Or should we just fuck on the linoleum one last time?\", a line of dialogue spoken sarcastically by Francesca; Eastwood appealed, and the rating was reduced to a PG-13. \n\nRelease\n\nBox office\n\nThe Bridges of Madison County opened theatrically on June 2, 1995 in 1,805 venues. It earned $10,519,257 in its opening weekend, ranking number two in the North American box office, behind Casper (which was in its second weekend). At the end of its run, the film grossed $71,516,617 domestically and $110,500,000 overseas for a worldwide total of $182,016,617. \n\nCritical reception\n\nThe film received largely positive reviews upon its initial release. Rotten Tomatoes reports a \"Certified Fresh\" score of 89% based on 57 reviews, with an average rating of 7.4/10. The site's consensus states: \"Sentimental, slow, schmaltzy, and very satisfying, The Bridges of Madison County finds Clint Eastwood adapting a bestseller with heft, wit, and grace.\" On Metacritic, the film has a 66 out of 100 rating, based on 22 critics, indicating \"generally favorable reviews\". \n\nAccording to Janet Maslin, \"Clint Eastwood, director and alchemist, has transformed The Bridges of Madison County into something bearable—no, something even better. Limited by the vapidity of this material while he trims its excesses with the requisite machete, Mr. Eastwood locates a moving, elegiac love story at the heart of Mr. Waller's self-congratulatory overkill. The movie has leanness and surprising decency, and Meryl Streep has her best role in years. Looking sturdy and voluptuous in her plain housedress (the year is 1965), Ms. Streep rises straight out of \"Christina's World\" to embody all the loneliness and fierce yearning Andrew Wyeth captured on canvas. And yet, despite the Iowa setting and the emphasis on down-home Americana, Mr. Eastwood's Bridges of Madison County has a European flavor. Its pace is unhurried, which is not the same as slow. It respects long silences and pays attention to small details. It sustains an austere tone and staves off weepiness until the last reel. It voices musings that would definitely sound better in French.\" Richard Corliss said Eastwood is the \"most reticent of directors—where the book ogles, the film discreetly observes—and, here, the courtliest of stars....As scripted by Richard LaGravenese (The Fisher King), the Madison County movie has a slightly riper theme than the book's. It is about the anticipation and consequences of passion—the slow dance of appraisal, of waiting to make a move that won't be rejected, of debating what to do when the erotic heat matures into love light. What is the effect of an affair on a woman who has been faithful to her husband, and on a rootless man who only now realizes he needs the one woman he can have but not hold?\" Corliss concludes \"Madison County is Eastwood's gift to women: to Francesca, to all the girls he's loved before—and to Streep, who alchemizes literary mawkishness into intelligent movie passion.\" \n\nThe film ranked 90 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions list, and tied with Goodbye South, Goodbye and Carlito's Way as the best film of the 1990s in a poll by Cahiers du cinéma. \n\nAccolades\n\n;Won\n* ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards:\n** Top Box Office Films\n* Blue Ribbon Awards (Japan):\n** Best Foreign Language Film\n* BMI Film & Television Awards:\n** BMI Film Music Award (Lennie Niehaus)\n* Kinema Junpo Awards (Japan):\n** Best Foreign Language Film Director (Clint Eastwood)\n* Mainichi Film Concours (Japan):\n** Best Foreign Language Film\n\n;Nominated\n* 68th Academy Awards:\n** Best Actress in a Leading Role (Meryl Streep)\n* American Society of Cinematographers:\n** Outstanding Achievement in Theatrical Releases (Jack N. Green)\n* Awards of the Japanese Academy (Japan):\n** Best Foreign Film\n* César Awards (France):\n** Best Foreign Film\n* 53rd Golden Globe Awards:\n Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama (Meryl Streep)\n Best Motion Picture – Drama\n* 2nd Screen Actors Guild Awards:\n** Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role (Meryl Streep)" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Crint Eastwood", "Eastwood, Clinton Jr.", "Clinton Eastwood Jr.", "Clinton %22Clint%22 Eastwood, Jr.", "Clinton Eastwood, Jr.", "Francesca Ruth Eastwood", "Clint Eastwood characters", "Clint Eastwood", "Don Runner", "Clint eastwood", "Clinton Eastwood" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "crint eastwood", "clinton eastwood jr", "clinton eastwood", "eastwood clinton jr", "clint eastwood characters", "clinton 22clint 22 eastwood jr", "francesca ruth eastwood", "clint eastwood", "don runner" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "clint eastwood", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Clint Eastwood" }
Where was the 1990s version of Dickens' Great Expectations set?	tc_1137	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Charles_Dickens.txt", "Great_Expectations.txt" ], "title": [ "Charles Dickens", "Great Expectations" ], "wiki_context": [ "Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity. \n\nBorn in Portsmouth, Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.\n\nDickens's literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. Within a few years he had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire, and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication. The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience's reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback. For example, when his wife's chiropodist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her disabilities, Dickens improved the character with positive features. His plots were carefully constructed, and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the illiterate poor chipped in ha'pennies to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of readers. \n\nDickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted, and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris, is his best-known work of historical fiction. Dickens's creative genius has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell and G. K. Chesterton—for its realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism. The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters. \n\nEarly years\n\nCharles John Huffam Dickens was born on 7 February 1812, at 1 Mile End Terrace (now 393 Commercial Road), Landport in Portsea Island (Portsmouth), the second of eight children of John Dickens (1785–1851) and Elizabeth Dickens (née Barrow; 1789–1863). His father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office and was temporarily stationed in the district. He asked Christopher Huffam, rigger to His Majesty's Navy, gentleman, and head of an established firm, to act as godfather to Charles. Huffam is thought to be the inspiration for Paul Dombey, the owner of a shipping company in Dickens's eponymous Dombey and Son (1848).\n\nIn January 1815 John Dickens was called back to London, and the family moved to Norfolk Street, Fitzrovia. When Charles was four, they relocated to Sheerness, and thence to Chatham, Kent, where he spent his formative years until the age of 11. His early life seems to have been idyllic, though he thought himself a \"very small and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy\". \n\nCharles spent time outdoors but also read voraciously, including the picaresque novels of Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding, as well as Robinson Crusoe and Gil Blas. He read and reread The Arabian Nights and the Collected Farces of Elizabeth Inchbald. He retained poignant memories of childhood, helped by an excellent memory of people and events, which he used in his writing. His father's brief work as a clerk in the Navy Pay Office afforded him a few years of private education, first at a dame school, and then at a school run by William Giles, a dissenter, in Chatham. \n\nThis period came to an end in June 1822, when John Dickens was recalled to Navy Pay Office headquarters at Somerset House, and the family—minus Charles, who stayed behind to finish his final term of work—moved to Camden Town in London. The family had left Kent amidst rapidly mounting debts, and, living beyond his means, John Dickens was forced by his creditors into the Marshalsea debtors' prison in Southwark, London in 1824. His wife and youngest children joined him there, as was the practice at the time. Charles, then 12 years old, boarded with Elizabeth Roylance, a family friend, at 112 College Place, Camden Town. Roylance was \"a reduced [impoverished] old lady, long known to our family\", whom Dickens later immortalised, \"with a few alterations and embellishments\", as \"Mrs. Pipchin\" in Dombey and Son. Later, he lived in a back-attic in the house of an agent for the Insolvent Court, Archibald Russell, \"a fat, good-natured, kind old gentleman... with a quiet old wife\" and lame son, in Lant Street in Southwark. They provided the inspiration for the Garlands in The Old Curiosity Shop. \n\nOn Sundays—with his sister Frances, free from her studies at the Royal Academy of Music—he spent the day at the Marshalsea. Dickens later used the prison as a setting in Little Dorrit. To pay for his board and to help his family, Dickens was forced to leave school and work ten-hour days at Warren's Blacking Warehouse, on Hungerford Stairs, near the present Charing Cross railway station, where he earned six shillings a week pasting labels on pots of boot blacking. The strenuous and often harsh working conditions made a lasting impression on Dickens and later influenced his fiction and essays, becoming the foundation of his interest in the reform of socio-economic and labour conditions, the rigours of which he believed were unfairly borne by the poor. He later wrote that he wondered \"how I could have been so easily cast away at such an age\". As he recalled to John Forster (from The Life of Charles Dickens):\n\nThe blacking-warehouse was the last house on the left-hand side of the way, at old Hungerford Stairs. It was a crazy, tumble-down old house, abutting of course on the river, and literally overrun with rats. Its wainscoted rooms, and its rotten floors and staircase, and the old grey rats swarming down in the cellars, and the sound of their squeaking and scuffling coming up the stairs at all times, and the dirt and decay of the place, rise up visibly before me, as if I were there again. The counting-house was on the first floor, looking over the coal-barges and the river. There was a recess in it, in which I was to sit and work. My work was to cover the pots of paste-blacking; first with a piece of oil-paper, and then with a piece of blue paper; to tie them round with a string; and then to clip the paper close and neat, all round, until it looked as smart as a pot of ointment from an apothecary's shop. When a certain number of grosses of pots had attained this pitch of perfection, I was to paste on each a printed label, and then go on again with more pots. Two or three other boys were kept at similar duty down-stairs on similar wages. One of them came up, in a ragged apron and a paper cap, on the first Monday morning, to show me the trick of using the string and tying the knot. His name was Bob Fagin; and I took the liberty of using his name, long afterwards, in Oliver Twist..\n\nWhen the warehouse was moved to Chandos Street in the smart, busy district of Covent Garden the boys worked in a room in which the window gave onto the street and little audiences gathered and watched them at work—in Dickens biographer Simon Callow's estimation, the public display was \"a new refinement added to his misery\". \n\nA few months after his imprisonment, John Dickens's paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Dickens, died and bequeathed him £450. On the expectation of this legacy, Dickens was released from prison. Under the Insolvent Debtors Act, Dickens arranged for payment of his creditors, and he and his family left Marshalsea, for the home of Mrs Roylance.\n\nCharles's mother, Elizabeth Dickens, did not immediately support his removal from the boot-blacking warehouse. This influenced Dickens's view that a father should rule the family, and a mother find her proper sphere inside the home: \"I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back\". His mother's failure to request his return was a factor in his dissatisfied attitude towards women. \n\nRighteous indignation stemming from his own situation and the conditions under which working-class people lived became major themes of his works, and it was this unhappy period in his youth to which he alluded in his favourite, and most autobiographical, novel, David Copperfield: \"I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from anyone, that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven!\"\n\nDickens was eventually sent to the Wellington House Academy in Camden Town, where he remained until March 1827, having spent about two years there. He did not consider it to be a good school: \"Much of the haphazard, desultory teaching, poor discipline punctuated by the headmaster's sadistic brutality, the seedy ushers and general run-down atmosphere, are embodied in Mr. Creakle's Establishment in David Copperfield.\".\n\nDickens worked at the law office of Ellis and Blackmore, attorneys, of Holborn Court, Gray's Inn, as a junior clerk from May 1827 to November 1828. He was a gifted mimic and impersonated those around him: clients, lawyers, and clerks. He went to theatres obsessively—he claimed that for at least three years he went to the theatre every single day. His favourite actor was Charles Mathews, and Dickens learnt his monopolylogues, (farces in which Mathews played every character), by heart. Then, having learned Gurney's system of shorthand in his spare time, he left to become a freelance reporter. A distant relative, Thomas Charlton, was a freelance reporter at Doctors' Commons, and Dickens was able to share his box there to report the legal proceedings for nearly four years. This education was to inform works such as Nicholas Nickleby, Dombey and Son, and especially Bleak House—whose vivid portrayal of the machinations and bureaucracy of the legal system did much to enlighten the general public and served as a vehicle for dissemination of Dickens's own views regarding, particularly, the heavy burden on the poor who were forced by circumstances to \"go to law\".\n\nIn 1830, Dickens met his first love, Maria Beadnell, thought to have been the model for the character Dora in David Copperfield. Maria's parents disapproved of the courtship and ended the relationship by sending her to school in Paris. \n\nJournalism and early novels\n\nIn 1832, at age 20, Dickens was energetic and increasingly self-confident. He enjoyed mimicry and popular entertainment, lacked a clear, specific sense of what he wanted to become, and yet knew he wanted fame. Drawn to the theatre—he became an early member of the Garrick —he landed an acting audition at Covent Garden, where the manager George Bartley and the actor Charles Kemble were to see him. Dickens prepared meticulously and decided to imitate the comedian Charles Mathews, but ultimately he missed the audition because of a cold. Before another opportunity arose, he had set out on his career as a writer. In 1833 he submitted his first story, \"A Dinner at Poplar Walk\", to the London periodical Monthly Magazine.. William Barrow, a brother of his mother, offered him a job on The Mirror of Parliament and he worked in the House of Commons for the first time early in 1832. He rented rooms at Furnival's Inn and worked as a political journalist, reporting on Parliamentary debates, and he travelled across Britain to cover election campaigns for the Morning Chronicle. His journalism, in the form of sketches in periodicals, formed his first collection of pieces, published in 1836: Sketches by Boz—Boz being a family nickname he employed as a pseudonym for some years. Dickens apparently adopted it from the nickname \"Moses\", which he had given to his youngest brother Augustus Dickens, after a character in Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. When pronounced by anyone with a head cold, \"Moses\" became \"Boses\"—later shortened to Boz. Dickens's own name was considered \"queer\" by a contemporary critic, who wrote in 1849: \"Mr Dickens, as if in revenge for his own queer name, does bestow still queerer ones upon his fictitious creations.\" He contributed to and edited journals throughout his literary career. In January 1835 the Morning Chronicle launched an evening edition, under the editorship of the Chronicles music critic, George Hogarth. Hogarth invited Dickens to contribute Street Sketches and Dickens became a regular visitor to his Fulham house, excited by Hogarth's friendship with a hero of his, Walter Scott, and enjoying the company of Hogarth's three daughters—Georgina, Mary, and nineteen-year-old Catherine. \n\nDickens made rapid progress both professionally and socially. He began a friendship with William Harrison Ainsworth, the author of the highwayman novel Rookwood (1834), whose bachelor salon in Harrow Road had become the meeting place for a set that included Daniel Maclise, Benjamin Disraeli, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and George Cruikshank. All these became his friends and collaborators, with the exception of Disraeli, and he met his first publisher, John Macrone, at the house. The success of Sketches by Boz led to a proposal from publishers Chapman and Hall for Dickens to supply text to match Robert Seymour's engraved illustrations in a monthly letterpress. Seymour committed suicide after the second instalment, and Dickens, who wanted to write a connected series of sketches, hired \"Phiz\" to provide the engravings (which were reduced from four to two per instalment) for the story. The resulting story became The Pickwick Papers, and though the first few episodes were not successful, the introduction of the Cockney character Sam Weller in the fourth episode (the first to be illustrated by Phiz) marked a sharp climb in its popularity. The final instalment sold 40,000 copies.\n\nIn November 1836 Dickens accepted the position of editor of Bentley's Miscellany, a position he held for three years, until he fell out with the owner. In 1836 as he finished the last instalments of The Pickwick Papers, he began writing the beginning instalments of Oliver Twist—writing as many as 90 pages a month—while continuing work on Bentley's and also writing four plays, the production of which he oversaw. Oliver Twist, published in 1838, became one of Dickens's better known stories, and was the first Victorian novel with a child protagonist. \n\nOn 2 April 1836, after a one-year engagement, and between episodes two and three of The Pickwick Papers, Dickens married Catherine Thomson Hogarth (1816–1879), the daughter of George Hogarth, editor of the Evening Chronicle. They were married in St. Luke's Church, Chelsea, London. After a brief honeymoon in Chalk in Kent the couple returned to lodgings at Furnival's Inn. The first of their ten children, Charley, was born in January 1837, and a few months later the family set up home in Bloomsbury at 48 Doughty Street, London, (on which Charles had a three-year lease at £80 a year) from 25 March 1837 until December 1839. Dickens's younger brother Frederick and Catherine's 17-year-old sister Mary, moved in with them. Dickens became very attached to Mary, and she died in his arms after a brief illness in 1837. Unusually for Dickens, as a consequence of his shock, he stopped working, and he and Kate stayed at a little farm on Hampstead Heath for a fortnight. Dickens idealised Mary,- the character he fashioned after her, Rose Maylie, he found he could not now kill, as he had planned, in his fiction and according to Ackroyd he drew on memories of her for his later descriptions of Little Nell and Florence Dombey. His grief was so great that he was unable to meet the deadline for the June instalment of Pickwick Papers and had to cancel the Oliver Twist instalment that month as well. The time in Hampstead was the occasion for a growing bond between Dickens and John Forster to develop and Forster soon became his unofficial business manager, and the first to read his work. \n\nHis success as a novelist continued. The young Queen Victoria read both Oliver Twist and Pickwick, staying up until midnight to discuss them. Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39), The Old Curiosity Shop and, finally, his first historical novel, Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty, as part of the Master Humphrey's Clock series (1840–41), were all published in monthly instalments before being made into books. \n\nIn the midst of all his activity during this period there was discontent with his publishers and John Macrone was bought off, while Richard Bentley signed over all his rights in Oliver Twist. Other signs of a certain restlessness and discontent emerge—in Broadstairs he flirted with Eleanor Picken, the young fiancée of his solicitor's best friend, and one night grabbed her and ran with her down to the sea. He declared they were both to drown there in the \"sad sea waves\". She finally got free but afterwards kept her distance. In June 1841 he precipitately set out on a two-month tour of Scotland and then, in September 1841, telegraphed Forster that he had decided to go to America. Master Humphrey's Clock was shut down, though Dickens was still keen on the idea of the weekly magazine, a form he liked, a liking that had begun with his childhood reading of the eighteenth-century magazines Tatler and The Spectator.\n\nFirst visit to the United States\n\nIn 1842, Dickens and his wife made their first trip to the United States and Canada. At this time Georgina Hogarth, another sister of Catherine, joined the Dickens household, now living at Devonshire Terrace, Marylebone, to care for the young family they had left behind. She remained with them as housekeeper, organiser, adviser, and friend until Dickens's death in 1870.\n\nHe described his impressions in a travelogue, American Notes for General Circulation. Dickens includes in Notes a powerful condemnation of slavery, which he had attacked as early as The Pickwick Papers, correlating the emancipation of the poor in England with the abolition of slavery abroad citing newspaper accounts of runaway slaves disfigured by their masters. In spite of the abolitionist sentiments gleaned from his trip to America, some modern commentators have pointed out inconsistencies in Dickens' views on racial inequality, for instance, he has been criticized for his subsequent acquiescence in Governor Eyre's harsh crackdown during the 1860s Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica and his failure to join other British progressives in condemning it. From Richmond, Virginia, Dickens returned to Washington, D.C., and started a trek westward to St. Louis, Missouri. While there, he expressed a desire to see an American prairie before returning east. A group of 13 men then set out with Dickens to visit Looking Glass Prairie, a trip 30 miles into Illinois. \n\nDuring his American visit, Dickens spent a month in New York City, giving lectures, raising the question of international copyright laws and the pirating of his work in America. He persuaded a group of twenty-five writers, headed by Washington Irving, to sign a petition for him to take to Congress, but the press were generally hostile to this, saying that he should be grateful for his popularity and that it was mercenary to complain about his work being pirated. \n\nThe popularity he gained caused a shift in his self-perception according to critic Kate Flint, who writes the he \"found himself a cultural commodity, and its circulation had passed out his control\", causing him to become interested in and delve into themes of public and personal personas in the next novels. She writes that he assumed a role of \"influential commentator\", publicly and in his fiction, evident in his next few books.\n\nSoon after his return to England, Dickens began work on the first of his Christmas stories, A Christmas Carol, written in 1843, which was followed by The Chimes in 1844 and The Cricket on the Hearth in 1845. Of these, A Christmas Carol was most popular and, tapping into an old tradition, did much to promote a renewed enthusiasm for the joys of Christmas in Britain and America. The seeds for the story became planted in Dickens's mind during a trip to Manchester to witness the conditions of the manufacturing workers there. This, along with scenes he had recently witnessed at the Field Lane Ragged School, caused Dickens to resolve to \"strike a sledge hammer blow\" for the poor. As the idea for the story took shape and the writing began in earnest, Dickens became engrossed in the book. He later wrote that as the tale unfolded he \"wept and laughed, and wept again\" as he \"walked about the black streets of London fifteen or twenty miles many a night when all sober folks had gone to bed.\" \n\nAfter living briefly in Italy (1844), Dickens travelled to Switzerland (1846), where he began work on Dombey and Son (1846–48). This and David Copperfield (1849–50) mark a significant artistic break in Dickens's career as his novels became more serious in theme and more carefully planned than his early works.\n\nAt about this time he was made aware of a large embezzlement at the firm where his brother, Augustus, worked (John Chapman & Co.). It had been carried out by Thomas Powell (1809-1887), a clerk, who was on friendly terms with Dickens and who had acted as mentor to Augustus when he started work. Powell was also an author and poet and knew many of the famous writers of the day. After further fraudulent activities, Powell fled to New York and published a book called The Living Authors of England with a chapter on Charles Dickens, who was not amused by what Powell had written. One item that seemed to have annoyed him was the assertion that he had based the character of Paul Dombey (Dombey and Son), on Thomas Chapman, one of the principal partners at John Chapman & Co. Dickens immediately fired off a letter to Lewis Gaylord Clark, editor of the New York literary magazine The Knickerbocker, saying that Powell was a forger and thief. Clark published the letter in the New-York Tribune and several other papers picked up on the story. Powell started proceedings to sue these publications and Clark was arrested. Dickens, realising that he had acted in haste, contacted John Chapman & Co. to seek written confirmation of Powell’s guilt. Dickens did receive a reply confirming Powell's embezzlement, but once the directors realised this information may have to be produced in court they refused to make further disclosures. Due to the difficulties of providing evidence in America to support his accusations, Dickens eventually made a private settlement with Powell out of court. \n\nPhilanthropy\n\nIn May 1846 Angela Burdett Coutts, heir to the Coutts banking fortune, approached Dickens about setting up a home for the redemption of fallen women of the working class. Coutts envisioned a home that would replace the punitive regimes of existing institutions with a reformative environment conducive to education and proficiency in domestic household chores. After initially resisting, Dickens eventually founded the home, named \"Urania Cottage\", in the Lime Grove section of Shepherds Bush, which he managed for ten years, setting the house rules, reviewing the accounts and interviewing prospective residents. Emigration and marriage were central to Dickens's agenda for the women on leaving Urania Cottage, from which it is estimated that about 100 women graduated between 1847 and 1859. \n\nReligious views\n\nAs a young man Dickens expressed a distaste for certain aspects of organized religion. In 1836, in a pamphlet titled Sunday Under Three Heads, he defended the people's right to pleasure, opposing a plan to prohibit games on Sundays. \"Look into your churches- diminished congregations and scanty attendance. People have grown sullen and obstinate, and are becoming disgusted with the faith which condemns them to such a day as this, once in every seven. They display their feeling by staying away [from church]. Turn into the streets [on a Sunday] and mark the rigid gloom that reigns over everything around\" \n\nDickens honoured the figure of though some claim he may have denied his divinity. Notwithstanding, Dickens has been characterized as a professing Christian. His son, Henry Fielding Dickens, described Dickens as someone who \"possessed deep religious convictions\". Though in the early 1840s Dickens had showed an interest in Unitarian Christianity, the writer Gary Colledge has asserted that he \"never strayed from his attachment to popular lay Anglicanism\". He also wrote a religious work called The Life of Our Lord (1849), which was a short book about the life of Jesus Christ, written with the purpose of inculcating his faith to his children and family. \n\nDickens disapproved of Roman Catholicism and 19th-century evangelicalism, and was critical of what he saw as the hypocrisy of religious institutions and philosophies like spiritualism, all of which he considered deviations from the true spirit of Christianity. Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky referred to Dickens as \"that great Christian writer\". \n\nMiddle years\n\nIn late November 1851, Dickens moved into Tavistock House where he wrote Bleak House (1852–53), Hard Times (1854), and Little Dorrit (1856). It was here that he indulged in the amateur theatricals described in Forster's \"Life\". During this period he worked closely with the novelist and playwright Wilkie Collins. In 1856, his income from writing allowed him to buy Gad's Hill Place in Higham, Kent. As a child, Dickens had walked past the house and dreamed of living in it. The area was also the scene of some of the events of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, and this literary connection pleased him. \n\nIn 1857, Dickens hired professional actresses for the play The Frozen Deep, written by him and his protégé, Wilkie Collins. Dickens fell deeply in love with one of the actresses, Ellen Ternan, and this passion was to last the rest of his life. Dickens was 45 and Ternan 18 when he made the decision, which went strongly against Victorian convention, to separate from his wife, Catherine, in 1858—divorce was still unthinkable for someone as famous as he was. When Catherine left, never to see her husband again, she took with her one child, leaving the other children to be raised by her sister Georgina who chose to stay at Gad's Hill..\n\nDuring this period, whilst pondering a project to give public readings for his own profit, Dickens was approached through a charitable appeal by Great Ormond Street Hospital, to help it survive its first major financial crisis. His 'Drooping Buds' essay in Household Words earlier on 3 April 1852 was considered by the hospital's founders to have been the catalyst for the hospital's success. Dickens, whose philanthropy was well-known, was asked by his friend, the hospital's founder Charles West, to preside over the appeal, and he threw himself into the task, heart and soul. Dickens's public readings secured sufficient funds for an endowment to put the hospital on a sound financial footing—one reading on 9 February 1858 alone raised £3,000. \n\nAfter separating from Catherine, Dickens undertook a series of hugely popular and remunerative reading tours which, together with his journalism, were to absorb most of his creative energies for the next decade, in which he was to write only two more novels. His first reading tour, lasting from April 1858 to February 1859, consisted of 129 appearances in 49 different towns throughout England, Scotland and Ireland. Dickens's continued fascination with the theatrical world was written into the theatre scenes in Nicholas Nickleby, but more importantly he found an outlet in public readings. In 1866, he undertook a series of public readings in England and Scotland, with more the following year in England and Ireland.\n\nMajor works soon followed, including A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and Great Expectations (1861), which were resounding successes. During this time he was also the publisher, editor, and a major contributor to the journals Household Words (1850–1859) and All the Year Round (1858–1870). \n\nIn early September 1860, in a field behind Gad's Hill, Dickens made a bonfire of most of his correspondence—only those letters on business matters were spared. Since Ellen Ternan also destroyed all of his letters to her, the extent of the affair between the two remains speculative. In the 1930s, Thomas Wright recounted that Ternan had unburdened herself with a Canon Benham, and gave currency to rumours they had been lovers. That the two had a son who died in infancy was alleged by Dickens's daughter, Kate Perugini, whom Gladys Storey had interviewed before her death in 1929. Storey published her account in Dickens and Daughter, but no contemporary evidence exists. On his death, Dickens settled an annuity on Ternan which made her a financially independent woman. Claire Tomalin's book, The Invisible Woman, argues that Ternan lived with Dickens secretly for the last 13 years of his life. The book was subsequently turned into a play, Little Nell, by Simon Gray, and a 2013 film.\n\nIn the same period, Dickens furthered his interest in the paranormal, becoming one of the early members of The Ghost Club. \n\nIn June 1862 he was offered £10,000 for a reading tour of Australia. He was enthusiastic, and even planned a travel book, The Uncommercial Traveller Upside Down, but ultimately decided against the tour. Two of his sons— Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens and Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens—migrated to Australia, Edward becoming a member of the Parliament of New South Wales as Member for Wilcannia 1889–94. \n\nLast years\n\nOn 9 June 1865, while returning from Paris with Ellen Ternan, Dickens was involved in the Staplehurst rail crash. The train's first seven carriages plunged off a cast iron bridge that was under repair. The only first-class carriage to remain on the track was the one in which Dickens was travelling. Before rescuers arrived, Dickens tended and comforted the wounded and the dying with a flask of brandy and a hat refreshed with water, and saved some lives. Before leaving, he remembered the unfinished manuscript for Our Mutual Friend, and he returned to his carriage to retrieve it. Dickens later used this experience as material for his short ghost story, \"The Signal-Man\", in which the central character has a premonition of his own death in a rail crash. He also based the story on several previous rail accidents, such as the Clayton Tunnel rail crash of 1861. Dickens managed to avoid an appearance at the inquest to avoid disclosing that he had been travelling with Ternan and her mother, which would have caused a scandal. \n\nSecond visit to the United States\n\nIn the late 1850s Dickens began to contemplate a second visit to the United States, tempted by the money that he believed he could make by extending his reading tour there. The outbreak of the Civil War in America in 1861 delayed his plans. Over two years after the war, Dickens set sail from Liverpool on 9 November 1867 for his second American reading tour. Landing at Boston, he devoted the rest of the month to a round of dinners with such notables as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and his American publisher, James Thomas Fields. In early December, the readings began. He performed 76 readings, netting £19,000, from December 1867 to April 1868. Dickens shuttled between Boston and New York, where he gave 22 readings at Steinway Hall. Although he had started to suffer from what he called the \"true American catarrh\", he kept to a schedule that would have challenged a much younger man, even managing to squeeze in some sleighing in Central Park.\n\nDuring his travels, he saw a significant change in the people and the circumstances of America. His final appearance was at a banquet the American Press held in his honour at Delmonico's on 18 April, when he promised never to denounce America again. By the end of the tour, the author could hardly manage solid food, subsisting on champagne and eggs beaten in sherry. On 23 April, he boarded his ship to return to Britain, barely escaping a Federal Tax Lien against the proceeds of his lecture tour. \n\nFarewell readings\n\nBetween 1868 and 1869, Dickens gave a series of \"farewell readings\" in England, Scotland, and Ireland, beginning on 6 October. He managed, of a contracted 100 readings, to deliver 75 in the provinces, with a further 12 in London. As he pressed on he was affected by giddiness and fits of paralysis and collapsed on 22 April 1869, at Preston in Lancashire, and on doctor's advice, the tour was cancelled. After further provincial readings were cancelled, he began work on his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. It was fashionable in the 1860s to 'do the slums' and, in company, Dickens visited opium dens in Shadwell, where he witnessed an elderly addict known as \"Laskar Sal\", who formed the model for the \"Opium Sal\" subsequently featured in his mystery novel, Edwin Drood. \n\nAfter Dickens had regained sufficient strength, he arranged, with medical approval, for a final series of readings to partially make up to his sponsors what they had lost due to his illness. There were to be 12 performances, running between 11 January and 15 March 1870, the last at 8:00 pm at St. James's Hall in London. Although in grave health by this time, he read A Christmas Carol and The Trial from Pickwick. On 2 May, he made his last public appearance at a Royal Academy Banquet in the presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, paying a special tribute on the death of his friend, the illustrator Daniel Maclise. \n\nDeath\n\nOn 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work on Edwin Drood. He never regained consciousness, and the next day, five years to the day after the Staplehurst rail crash, he died at Gad's Hill Place. Contrary to his wish to be buried at Rochester Cathedral \"in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner,\" he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads: \"To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England's most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, 9 June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world.\" His last words were: \"On the ground\", in response to his sister-in-law Georgina's request that he lie down. \n\nOn Sunday, 19 June 1870, five days after Dickens was buried in the Abbey, Dean Arthur Penrhyn Stanley delivered a memorial elegy, lauding \"the genial and loving humorist whom we now mourn\", for showing by his own example \"that even in dealing with the darkest scenes and the most degraded characters, genius could still be clean, and mirth could be innocent.\" Pointing to the fresh flowers that adorned the novelist's grave, Stanley assured those present that \"the spot would thenceforth be a sacred one with both the New World and the Old, as that of the representative of literature, not of this island only, but of all who speak our English tongue.\" \n\nIn his will, drafted more than a year before his death, Dickens left the care of his £80,000 estate to his longtime colleague John Forster and his \"best and truest friend\" Georgina Hogarth who, along with Dickens's two sons, also received a tax-free sum of £8,000 (about £800,000 in present terms). Although Dickens and his wife had been separated for several years at the time of his death, he provided her with an annual income of £600 and made her similar allowances in his will. He also bequeathed £19 19s to each servant in his employment at the time of his death. \n\nLiterary style\n\nDickens preferred the style of the 18th century picaresque novels that he found in abundance on his father's shelves. According to Ackroyd, other than these, perhaps the most important literary influence on him was derived from the fables of The Arabian Nights. \n\nHis writing style is marked by a profuse linguistic creativity. Satire, flourishing in his gift for caricature, is his forte. An early reviewer compared him to Hogarth for his keen practical sense of the ludicrous side of life, though his acclaimed mastery of varieties of class idiom may in fact mirror the conventions of contemporary popular theatre. Dickens worked intensively on developing arresting names for his characters that would reverberate with associations for his readers, and assist the development of motifs in the storyline, giving what one critic calls an \"allegorical impetus\" to the novels' meanings. To cite one of numerous examples, the name Mr. Murdstone in David Copperfield conjures up twin allusions to \"murder\" and stony coldness. His literary style is also a mixture of fantasy and realism. His satires of British aristocratic snobbery—he calls one character the \"Noble Refrigerator\"—are often popular. Comparing orphans to stocks and shares, people to tug boats, or dinner-party guests to furniture are just some of Dickens's acclaimed flights of fancy.\n\nThe author worked closely with his illustrators, supplying them with a summary of the work at the outset and thus ensuring that his characters and settings were exactly how he envisioned them. He briefed the illustrator on plans for each month's instalment so that work could begin before he wrote them. Marcus Stone, illustrator of Our Mutual Friend, recalled that the author was always \"ready to describe down to the minutest details the personal characteristics, and ... life-history of the creations of his fancy.\" \n\nCharacters\n\nDickens's biographer Claire Tomalin regards him as the greatest creator of character in English fiction after Shakespeare. \nDickensian characters are amongst the most memorable in English literature, especially so because of their typically whimsical names. The likes of Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Jacob Marley, Bob Cratchit, Oliver Twist, The Artful Dodger, Fagin, Bill Sikes, Pip, Miss Havisham, Sydney Carton, Charles Darnay, David Copperfield, Mr. Micawber, Abel Magwitch, Daniel Quilp, Samuel Pickwick, Wackford Squeers, and Uriah Heep are so well known as to be part and parcel of British culture, and in some cases have passed into ordinary language: a scrooge, for example, is a miser.\n\nHis characters were often so memorable that they took on a life of their own outside his books. \"Gamp\" became a slang expression for an umbrella from the character Mrs Gamp, and \"Pickwickian\", \"Pecksniffian\", and \"Gradgrind\" all entered dictionaries due to Dickens's original portraits of such characters who were, respectively, quixotic, hypocritical, and vapidly factual. Many were drawn from real life: Mrs Nickleby is based on his mother, though she didn't recognise herself in the portrait, just as Mr Micawber is constructed from aspects of his father's 'rhetorical exuberance': Harold Skimpole in Bleak House is based on James Henry Leigh Hunt: his wife's dwarfish chiropodist recognised herself in Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield. Perhaps Dickens's impressions on his meeting with Hans Christian Andersen informed the delineation of Uriah Heep. \n\nVirginia Woolf maintained that \"we remodel our psychological geography when we read Dickens\" as he produces \"characters who exist not in detail, not accurately or exactly, but abundantly in a cluster of wild yet extraordinarily revealing remarks.\" \n\nOne \"character\" vividly drawn throughout his novels is London itself. From the coaching inns on the outskirts of the city to the lower reaches of the Thames, all aspects of the capital are described over the course of his body of work.\n\nAutobiographical elements\n\nAuthors frequently draw their portraits of characters from people they have known in real life. David Copperfield is regarded by many as a veiled autobiography of Dickens. The scenes of interminable court cases and legal arguments in Bleak House reflect Dickens's experiences as a law clerk and court reporter, and in particular his direct experience of the law's procedural delay during 1844 when he sued publishers in Chancery for breach of copyright. Dickens's father was sent to prison for debt, and this became a common theme in many of his books, with the detailed depiction of life in the Marshalsea prison in Little Dorrit resulting from Dickens's own experiences of the institution. Lucy Stroughill, a childhood sweetheart, may have affected several of Dickens's portraits of girls such as Little Em'ly in David Copperfield and Lucie Manette in A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens may have drawn on his childhood experiences, but he was also ashamed of them and would not reveal that this was where he gathered his realistic accounts of squalor. Very few knew the details of his early life until six years after his death, when John Forster published a biography on which Dickens had collaborated. Though Skimpole brutally sends up Leigh Hunt, some critics have detected in his portrait features of Dickens's own character, which he sought to exorcise by self-parody. \n\nEpisodic writing\n\nMost of Dickens's major novels were first written in monthly or weekly instalments in journals such as Master Humphrey's Clock and Household Words, later reprinted in book form. These instalments made the stories affordable and accessible, and the series of regular cliff-hangers made each new episode widely anticipated. When The Old Curiosity Shop was being serialised, American fans waited at the docks in New York, shouting out to the crew of an incoming ship, \"Is little Nell dead?\" Part of Dickens's great talent was to incorporate this episodic writing style but still end up with a coherent novel at the end.\n\nAnother important impact of Dickens's episodic writing style resulted from his exposure to the opinions of his readers and friends. His friend Forster had a significant hand in reviewing his drafts, an influence that went beyond matters of punctuation. He toned down melodramatic and sensationalist exaggerations, cut long passages (such as the episode of Quilp's drowning in The Old Curiosity Shop), and made suggestions about plot and character. It was he who suggested that Charley Bates should be redeemed in Oliver Twist. Dickens had not thought of killing Little Nell, and it was Forster who advised him to entertain this possibility as necessary to his conception of the heroine. \n\nDicken's serialisation of his novels was not uncriticised by other authors. In Robert Louis Stevenson's novel \"The Wrecker\", there is a comment by Captain Nares, investigating an abandoned ship: \"See! They were writing up the log,\" said Nares, pointing to the ink-bottle. \"Caught napping, as usual. I wonder if there ever was a captain yet that lost a ship with his log-book up to date? He generally has about a month to fill up on a clean break, like Charles Dickens and his serial novels.\"\n\nSocial commentary\n\nDickens's novels were, among other things, works of social commentary. He was a fierce critic of the poverty and social stratification of Victorian society. In a New York address, he expressed his belief that \"Virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches as she does in purple and fine linen\". Dickens's second novel, Oliver Twist (1839), shocked readers with its images of poverty and crime: it challenged middle class polemics about criminals, making impossible any pretence to ignorance about what poverty entailed. \n\nLiterary techniques\n\nDickens is often described as using idealised characters and highly sentimental scenes to contrast with his caricatures and the ugly social truths he reveals. The story of Nell Trent in The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) was received as extraordinarily moving by contemporary readers but viewed as ludicrously sentimental by Oscar Wilde. \"You would need to have a heart of stone\", he declared in one of his famous witticisms, \"not to laugh at the death of little Nell.\" G. K. Chesterton, stated: \"It is not the death of little Nell, but the life of little Nell, that I object to\", arguing that the maudlin effect of his description of her life owed much to the gregarious nature of Dickens's grief, his \"despotic\" use of people's feelings to move them to tears in works like this. \n\nThe question as to whether Dickens belongs to the tradition of the sentimental novel is debatable. Valerie Purton, in her recent Dickens and the Sentimental Tradition, sees him continuing aspects of this tradition, and argues that his \"sentimental scenes and characters [are] as crucial to the overall power of the novels as his darker or comic figures and scenes\", and that \"Dombey and Son is [ ... ] Dickens's greatest triumph in the sentimentalist tradition\". The Encyclopædia Britannica online comments that, despite \"patches of emotional excess\", such as the reported death of Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol (1843), \"Dickens cannot really be termed a sentimental novelist\". \n\nIn Oliver Twist Dickens provides readers with an idealised portrait of a boy so inherently and unrealistically good that his values are never subverted by either brutal orphanages or coerced involvement in a gang of young pickpockets. While later novels also centre on idealised characters (Esther Summerson in Bleak House and Amy Dorrit in Little Dorrit), this idealism serves only to highlight Dickens's goal of poignant social commentary. Dickens's fiction, reflecting what he believed to be true of his own life, makes frequent use of coincidence, either for comic effect or to emphasise the idea of providence. For example, Oliver Twist turns out to be the lost nephew of the upper-class family that rescues him from the dangers of the pickpocket group. Such coincidences are a staple of 18th-century picaresque novels, such as Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, which Dickens enjoyed reading as a youth. \n\nReception\n\nDickens was the most popular novelist of his time, and remains one of the best-known and most-read of English authors. His works have never gone out of print, and have been adapted continually for the screen since the invention of cinema, with at least 200 motion pictures and TV adaptations based on Dickens's works documented. Many of his works were adapted for the stage during his own lifetime, and as early as 1913, a silent film of The Pickwick Papers was made. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.\n\nAmong fellow writers, Dickens has been both lionised and mocked. Leo Tolstoy, G. K. Chesterton, and George Orwell praised his realism, comic voice, prose fluency, and genius for satiric caricature, as well as his passionate advocacy on behalf of children and the poor. Oscar Wilde generally disparaged his depiction of character, while admiring his gift for caricature. His late contemporary William Wordsworth, by then Poet laureate, thought him a \"very talkative, vulgar young person\", adding he had not read a line of his work; Dickens in return thought Wordsworth \"a dreadful Old Ass\". Henry James denied him a premier position, calling him \"the greatest of superficial novelists\": Dickens failed to endow his characters with psychological depth and the novels, \"loose baggy monsters\", betrayed a \"cavalier organisation\". Virginia Woolf had a love-hate relationship with his works, finding his novels \"mesmerizing\" while reproving him for his sentimentalism and a commonplace style. \n\nA Christmas Carol is most likely his best-known story, with frequent new adaptations. It is also the most-filmed of Dickens's stories, with many versions dating from the early years of cinema. According to the historian Ronald Hutton, the current state of the observance of Christmas is largely the result of a mid-Victorian revival of the holiday spearheaded by A Christmas Carol. Dickens catalysed the emerging Christmas as a family-centred festival of generosity, in contrast to the dwindling community-based and church-centred observations, as new middle-class expectations arose. Its archetypal figures (Scrooge, Tiny Tim, the Christmas ghosts) entered into Western cultural consciousness. A prominent phrase from the tale, \"Merry Christmas\", was popularised following the appearance of the story. The term Scrooge became a synonym for miser, and his dismissive exclamation 'Bah! Humbug!' likewise gained currency as an idiom. Novelist William Makepeace Thackeray called the book \"a national benefit, and to every man and woman who reads it a personal kindness\".\n\nAt a time when Britain was the major economic and political power of the world, Dickens highlighted the life of the forgotten poor and disadvantaged within society. Through his journalism he campaigned on specific issues—such as sanitation and the workhouse—but his fiction probably demonstrated its greatest prowess in changing public opinion in regard to class inequalities. He often depicted the exploitation and oppression of the poor and condemned the public officials and institutions that not only allowed such abuses to exist, but flourished as a result. His most strident indictment of this condition is in Hard Times (1854), Dickens's only novel-length treatment of the industrial working class. In this work, he uses vitriol and satire to illustrate how this marginalised social stratum was termed \"Hands\" by the factory owners; that is, not really \"people\" but rather only appendages of the machines they operated. His writings inspired others, in particular journalists and political figures, to address such problems of class oppression. For example, the prison scenes in The Pickwick Papers are claimed to have been influential in having the Fleet Prison shut down. Karl Marx asserted that Dickens \"issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together\". George Bernard Shaw even remarked that Great Expectations was more seditious than Marx's Das Kapital. The exceptional popularity of Dickens's novels, even those with socially oppositional themes (Bleak House, 1853; Little Dorrit, 1857; Our Mutual Friend, 1865), not only underscored his almost preternatural ability to create compelling storylines and unforgettable characters, but also ensured that the Victorian public confronted issues of social justice that had commonly been ignored. It has been argued that his technique of flooding his narratives with an 'unruly superfluity of material' that, in the gradual dénouement, yields up an unsuspected order, influenced the organisation of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. \n\nInfluence and legacy\n\nMuseums and festivals celebrating Dickens's life and works exist in many places with which Dickens was associated, such as the Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum in Portsmouth, the house in which he was born. The original manuscripts of many of his novels, as well as printers' proofs, first editions, and illustrations from the collection of Dickens's friend John Forster are held at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Dickens's will stipulated that no memorial be erected in his honour; nonetheless, a life-size bronze statue of Dickens entitled Dickens and Little Nell, cast in 1891 by Francis Edwin Elwell, stands in Clark Park in the Spruce Hill neighbourhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Another life-size statue of Dickens is located at Centennial Park, Sydney, Australia. In 2014, a life-size statue was unveiled near his birthplace in Portsmouth on the 202nd anniversary of his birth; this was supported by the author's great-great grandsons, Ian and Gerald Dickens. \n\nDickens was commemorated on the Series E £10 note issued by the Bank of England that circulated between 1992 and 2003. His portrait appeared on the reverse of the note accompanied by a scene from The Pickwick Papers. The Charles Dickens School is a high school in Broadstairs, Kent. A theme park, Dickens World, standing in part on the site of the former naval dockyard where Dickens's father once worked in the Navy Pay Office, opened in Chatham in 2007. To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens in 2012, the Museum of London held the UK's first major exhibition on the author in 40 years. In 2002, Dickens was number 41 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. American literary critic Harold Bloom placed Dickens among the greatest Western Writers of all time. In the UK survey The Big Read, carried out by the BBC in 2003, five of Dickens's books were named in the Top 100. \n\nNotable works\n\nDickens published more than a dozen major novels, a large number of short stories, including a number of Christmas-themed stories, a handful of plays, and several non-fiction books. Dickens's novels were initially serialised in weekly and monthly magazines, then reprinted in standard book formats.\n\n* The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (Known as \"The Pickwick Papers\") (Monthly serial, April 1836 to November 1837) \n* The Adventures of Oliver Twist (Monthly serial in Bentley's Miscellany, February 1837 to April 1839)\n* The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (Monthly serial, April 1838 to October 1839)\n* The Old Curiosity Shop (Weekly serial in Master Humphrey's Clock, April 1840 to November 1841)\n* Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty (Weekly serial in Master Humphrey's Clock, February to November 1841)\n* A Christmas Carol (1843)\n* The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (Monthly serial, January 1843 to July 1844)\n* Dombey and Son (Monthly serial, October 1846 to April 1848)\n* David Copperfield (Monthly serial, May 1849 to November 1850)\n* Bleak House (Monthly serial, March 1852 to September 1853)\n* Hard Times: For These Times (Weekly serial in Household Words, 1 April 1854, to 12 August 1854)\n* Little Dorrit (Monthly serial, December 1855 to June 1857)\n* A Tale of Two Cities (Weekly serial in All the Year Round, 30 April 1859, to 26 November 1859)\n* Great Expectations (Weekly serial in All the Year Round, 1 December 1860 to 3 August 1861)\n* Our Mutual Friend (Monthly serial, May 1864 to November 1865)", "Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel; a bildungsroman which depicts the personal growth and personal development of an orphan nicknamed Pip. It is Dickens's second novel after David Copperfield to be fully narrated in the first person.Bleak House alternates between a third-person narrator and a first-person narrator, Esther Summerson, but the former is predominant. The novel was first published as a serial in Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. In October 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes.\n\nThe novel is set in Kent and London in the early to mid-19th century and contains some of Dickens' most memorable scenes, including the opening in a graveyard, where the young Pip is accosted by the escaped convict, Abel Magwitch. Great Expectations is full of extreme imagery – poverty; prison ships and chains, and fights to the death – and has a colourful cast of characters who have entered popular culture. These include the eccentric Miss Havisham, the beautiful but cold Estella, and Joe, the unsophisticated and kind blacksmith. Dickens's themes include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil. Great Expectations (popular both with readers and literary critics) has been translated into many languages and adapted numerous times into various media.\n\nUpon its release, the novel received near universal acclaim, although Thomas Carlyle spoke disparagingly of \"all that Pip's nonsense.\" Later, George Bernard Shaw praised the novel, as \"All of one piece and consistently truthfull.\" During the serial publication, Dickens was pleased with public response to Great Expectations and its sales; when the plot first formed in his mind, he called it \"a very fine, new and grotesque idea.\"\n\nPlot summary\n\nOn Christmas Eve, around 1812, Pip, an orphan who is about seven years old, encounters an escaped convict in the village churchyard while visiting the graves of his mother Georgiana, father Philip Pirrip and siblings. The convict scares Pip into stealing food and a file to grind away his shackles, from the home he shares with his abusive elder sister and her kind husband Joe Gargery, a blacksmith. The next day, soldiers recapture the convict while he is engaged in a fight with another escaped convict; the two are returned to the prison ships.\n\nMiss Havisham, a wealthy spinster who wears an old wedding dress and lives in the dilapidated Satis House, asks Pip's Uncle Pumblechook (who is Joe's uncle) to find a boy to visit. Pip visits Miss Havisham and her adopted daughter Estella, falling in love with Estella on first sight, both quite young. Pip visits Miss Havisham regularly until it comes time for him to learn a trade; Joe accompanies Pip for the last visit when she gives the money for Pip to be bound as apprentice blacksmith. Pip settles into learning Joe's trade. When both are away from the house, Mrs. Joe is brutally attacked, leaving her unable to speak or do her work. Biddy arrives to help with her care and becomes 'a blessing to the household'.\n\nFour years into Pip's apprenticeship, Mr. Jaggers, a lawyer, approaches him in the village with the news that he has expectations from an anonymous benefactor, with immediate funds to train him in the gentlemanly arts. He will not know the benefactor's name until that person speaks up. Pip is to leave for London in the proper clothes. He assumes that Miss Havisham is his benefactor. He visits her to say good-bye.\n\nPip sets up house with Herbert Pocket at Barnard's Inn. Herbert tells Pip the circumstances of Miss Havisham's romantic disappointment, her jilting by her fiancé. Pip goes to Hammersmith, to be educated by Mr Matthew Pocket, Herbert's father. Jaggers disburses the money Pip needs to set himself up in his new life. Joe visits Pip at Barnard's Inn, where Pip is a bit ashamed of Joe. Joe relays the message from Miss Havisham that Estella will be at Satis House for a visit. Pip and Herbert exchange their romantic secrets - Pip adores Estella and Herbert is engaged to Clara.\n\nPip and Herbert build up debts. Mrs Joe dies and Pip returns to his village for the funeral. Pip's income is fixed at £500 per annum when he comes of age at twenty-one. Pip takes Estella to Satis House. She and Miss Havisham quarrel. At the Assembly Ball in Richmond Estella meets Bentley Drummle, a brute of a man. A week after he turns 23 years old, Pip learns that his benefactor is the convict from so long ago, Abel Magwitch, who had been transported to New South Wales after that escape. He became wealthy after gaining his freedom there. As long as he is out of England, Magwitch can live. But he returns to see Pip. Pip was his motivation for all his success in New South Wales. Pip is shocked, ceasing to take money from him. He and Herbert Pocket devise a plan to get Magwitch out of England, by boat. Magwitch shares his past history with Pip.\n\nPip tells Miss Havisham that he is as unhappy as she can ever have meant him to be. He asks her to finance Herbert Pocket. Estella tells Pip she will marry Bentley Drummle.\n\nMiss Havisham tells Pip that Estella was brought to her by Jaggers aged two or three. Before Pip leaves the property, Miss Havisham accidentally sets her dress on fire. Pip saves her, injuring himself in the process. She eventually dies from her injuries, lamenting her manipulation of Estella and Pip. Jaggers tells Pip how he brought Estella to Miss Havisham from Molly. Pip figures out that Estella is the daughter of Molly and Magwitch.\n\nA few days before the escape, Joe's former journeyman Orlick seizes Pip, confessing past crimes as he means to kill Pip. Herbert Pocket and Startop save Pip and prepare for the escape. On the river, they are met by a police boat carrying Compeyson for identification of Magwitch. Compeyson was the other convict years earlier, and as well, the con artist who wooed and deserted Miss Havisham. Magwitch seizes Compeyson, and they fight in the river. Magwitch survives to be taken by police, seriously injured. Compeyson's body is found later.\n\nPip visits Magwitch in jail and tells him that his daughter Estella is alive. Magwitch responds by squeezing Pip's palm and dies soon after, sparing an execution. After Herbert goes to Cairo, Pip falls ill in his rooms. He is confronted with arrest for debt; he awakens to find Joe at his side. Joe nurses Pip back to health and pays off the debt. As Pip begins to walk about on his own, Joe slips away home. Pip returns to propose to Biddy, to find that she and Joe have just married. Pip asks Joe for forgiveness, and Joe forgives him. As Magwitch's fortune in money and land was seized by the court, Pip no longer has income. Pip promises to repay Joe. Herbert asks him to join his firm in Cairo; he shares lodgings with Herbert and Clara and works as a clerk, advancing over time.\n\nEleven years later, Pip visits the ruins of Satis House and meets Estella, widow to the abusive Bentley Drummle. She asks Pip to forgive her, assuring him that misfortune has opened her heart and that she now empathises with Pip. As Pip takes Estella's hand and leaves the ruins of Satis House, he sees \"no shadow of another parting from her.\"\n\nCharacters\n\nPip and his family\n\n* Philip Pirrip, nicknamed Pip, an orphan and the protagonist and narrator of Great Expectations. In his childhood, Pip dreamed of becoming a blacksmith like his kind brother-in-law, Joe Gargery. At Satis House, about age 8, he meets Estella, a contact which destroys his peace of mind. He tells Biddy that he wants to become a gentleman. As a result of Magwitch's anonymous patronage, Pip lives in London and becomes a gentleman. Pip assumes his benefactor is Miss Havisham; the discovery that his true benefactor is a convict shocks him.\n* Joe Gargery, Pip's brother-in-law, and his first father figure. He is a blacksmith who is always kind to Pip and the only person with whom Pip is always honest. Joe is disappointed when Pip decides to leave his home to live in London to become a gentleman rather than be a blacksmith in business with Joe. He is a strong man who bears the shortcomings of those closest to him.\n* Mrs. Joe Gargery, Pip's hot-tempered adult sister Georgiana Maria, called Mrs. Joe, 20 years older than Pip. She brings him up after their parents' death. She does the work of the household, but too often loses her temper. Orlick, her husband's journeyman, attacks her, and she is left disabled until her death.\n* Mr. Pumblechook, Joe Gargery's uncle, an officious bachelor and corn merchant. While not knowing how to deal with a growing boy, he tells \"Mrs. Joe\", as she is known, how noble she is to bring up Pip. As the person who first connected Pip to Miss Havisham, he claims to have been the original architect of Pip's expectations. Pip dislikes Mr. Pumblechook for his pompous, unfounded claims. When Pip stands up to him in a public place, after those expectations are dashed, Mr. Pumblechook turns those listening to the conversation against Pip.\n\nMiss Havisham and her family\n\n* Miss Havisham, a wealthy spinster who takes Pip on as a companion for herself and her adopted daughter, Estella. Havisham is a wealthy, eccentric woman who has worn her wedding dress and one shoe since the day that she was jilted at the altar by her fiancé. Her house is unchanged as well. She hates all men, and plots to wreak a twisted revenge by teaching Estella to torment and spurn men, including Pip, who loves her. Miss Havisham is later overcome with remorse for ruining both Estella's and Pip's chances for happiness. Shortly after confessing her plotting to Pip, she dies as the result of being badly burned when her dress accidentally catches fire.\n* Estella, Miss Havisham's adopted daughter, whom Pip pursues. She is a beautiful girl, and grows more beautiful after her schooling in France. Estella represents the life of wealth and culture for which Pip strives. Since Miss Havisham ruined Estella's ability to love, Estella cannot return Pip's passion. She warns Pip of this repeatedly, but he will not or cannot believe her. Estella does not know that she is the daughter of Molly, Jaggers's housekeeper, and the convict Abel Magwitch, given up for adoption to Miss Havisham after her mother was arrested for murder.\n* Matthew Pocket, Miss Havisham's cousin. He is the patriarch of the Pocket family, but unlike her other relatives, he is not greedy for Havisham's wealth. Matthew Pocket tutors young gentlemen, such as Bentley Drummle, Startop, Pip and his own son Herbert.\n* Herbert Pocket, the son of Matthew Pocket, who was invited like Pip to visit Miss Havisham, but she did not take to him. Pip first meets Herbert as a \"pale young gentleman\" who challenges Pip to a fistfight at Miss Havisham's house when both are children. He later becomes Pip's friend, tutoring him in the \"gentlemanly\" arts, and sharing his flat with Pip in London.\n* Cousin Raymond, a relative of Miss Havisham who is only interested in her money. He is married to Camilla.\n* Georgiana, a relative of Miss Havisham who is only interested in her money. She is one of the many relatives who hang around Miss Havisham \"like flies\" for her wealth.\n* Sarah Pocket, the sister of Matthew Pocket, relative of Miss Havisham. She is often at Satis House. She is described as \"a dry, brown corrugated old woman, with a small face that might have been made out of walnut shells, and a large mouth like a cat's without the whiskers.\"\n\nFrom Pip's youth\n\n* The Convict, who escapes from a prison ship, whom Pip treats kindly, and who in turn becomes Pip's benefactor. His name is Abel Magwitch, but he uses the aliases Provis and Mr. Campbell when he returns to England from exile in Australia. He is a lesser actor in crime with Compeyson, but gains a longer sentence in an apparent application of justice by social class.\n* Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, simple folk who think they are more important than they really are. They live in Pip's village.\n* Mr. Wopsle, clerk of the church in Pip's village. He later gives up the church work and moves to London to pursue his ambition to be an actor, adopting the stage name Mr. Waldengarver. He sees the other convict in the audience of one of his performances, attended also by Pip.\n* Biddy, Wopsle's second cousin and near Pip's age; she teaches in the evening school at her grandmother's home in Pip's village. Pip wants to learn more, so he asks her to teach him all she can. After helping Mrs. Joe after the attack, Biddy opens her own school. A kind and intelligent but poor young woman, she is, like Pip and Estella, an orphan. She acts as Estella's foil. Orlick was attracted to her, but she did not want his attentions. Pip ignores her affections for him as he pursues Estella. Recovering from his own illness after the failed attempt to get Magwitch out of England, Pip returns to claim Biddy as his bride, arriving in the village just after she marries Joe Gargery. Biddy and Joe later have two children, one named after Pip. (In the ending to the novel discarded by Dickens but revived by students of the novel's development, Estella mistakes the boy as Pip's child.)\n\nMr. Jaggers and his circle\n\n* Mr. Jaggers, prominent London lawyer who represents the interests of diverse clients, both criminal and civil. He represents Pip's benefactor and Miss Havisham as well. By the end of the story, his law practice links many of the characters.\n* John Wemmick, Jaggers' clerk, who is Pip's chief go-between with Jaggers and looks after Pip in London. Wemmick lives with his father, \"The Aged Parent\", in a small replica of a castle, complete with a drawbridge and moat, in Walworth.\n* Molly, Mr. Jaggers' maidservant whom Jaggers saved from the gallows for murder. She is revealed to be Magwitch's estranged wife and Estella's mother.\n\nAntagonists\n\n* Compeyson (surname), a convict who escapes the prison ship after Magwitch, who beats him up ashore. He is Magwitch's enemy. In some editions of the book, he is called \"Compey.\" A professional swindler, he was engaged to marry Miss Havisham, but he was in league with Arthur Havisham to defraud Miss Havisham of part of her fortune. Later he sets up Magwitch to take the fall for another swindle. He works with the police when he learns Abel Magwitch is in London, fearing Magwitch after their first escapes years earlier. When the police boat encounters the one carrying Magwitch, the two grapple, and Compeyson drowns in the Thames.\n* Arthur Havisham, younger half brother of Miss Havisham, who plots with Compeyson to swindle her.\n* Dolge Orlick, journeyman blacksmith at Joe Gargery's forge. Strong, rude and sullen, he is as churlish as Joe is gentle and kind. He ends up in a fistfight with Joe over Mrs. Gargery's taunting, and Joe easily defeats him. This sets in motion an escalating chain of events that leads him to secretly injure Mrs. Gargery and try to kill Pip. The police ultimately arrest him for housebreaking locally.\n* Bentley Drummle, a coarse, unintelligent young man from a wealthy noble family. Pip meets him at Mr. Pocket's house, as Drummle is also to be trained in gentlemanly skills. Drummle is hostile to Pip and everyone else. He is a rival for Estella's attentions and eventually marries her and is said to abuse her. He dies from an accident following his mistreatment of a horse.\n\nOther characters\n\n* Clara Barley, a very poor girl living with her gout-ridden father. She marries Herbert Pocket near the novel's end. She dislikes Pip at first because of his spendthrift ways. After she marries Herbert, they invite Pip to live with them.\n* Miss Skiffins occasionally visits Wemmick's house and wears green gloves. She changes those green gloves for white ones when she marries Wemmick.\n* Startop, like Bentley Drummle, is Pip's fellow student, but unlike Drummle, he is kind. He assists Pip and Herbert in their efforts to help Magwitch escape.\n\nDevelopment history\n\nAs Dickens began writing Great Expectations, he undertook a series of hugely popular and remunerative reading tours. His domestic life had, however, disintegrated in the late 1850s and he had separated from his wife, Catherine Dickens, and was having a secret affair with the much younger Ellen Ternan. The introduction of the 1984 Penguin English Library edition suggests that the reluctance with which Ellen Ternan became his mistress is reflected in the icy teasing of Estella in Great Expectations. \n\nBeginning\n\nIn his Book of Memoranda, begun in 1855, Dickens wrote names for possible characters: Magwitch, Provis, Clarriker, Compey, Pumblechook, Orlick, Gargery, Wopsle, Skiffins, some of which became familiar in Great Expectations. There is also a reference to a \"knowing man\", a possible sketch of Bentley Drummle. Another evokes a house full of \"Toadies and Humbugs\", foreshadowing the visitors to Satis House in chapter 11. Margaret Cardwell discovered the \"premonition\" of Great Expectations from a 25 September 1855 letter from Dickens to W. H. Wills, in which Dickens speaks of recycling an \"odd idea\" from the Christmas special \"A House to Let\" and \"the pivot round which my next book shall revolve.\" The \"odd idea\" concerns an individual who \"retires to an old lonely house…resolved to shut out the world and hold no communion with it.\"\n\nIn an 8 August 1860 letter to Earl Carlisle, Dickens reported his agitation whenever he prepared a new book. A month later, in a letter to John Forster, Dickens announced that he just had a new idea. \n\nPublication in All the Year Round\n\nDickens was pleased with the idea, calling it \"such a very fine, new and grotesque idea\" in a letter to Forster. He planned to write \"a little piece\", a \"grotesque tragi-comic conception\", about a young hero who befriends an escaped convict, who then makes a fortune in Australia and anonymously bequeaths his property to the hero. In the end, the hero loses the money because it is forfeited to the Crown. In his biography of Dickens, Forster wrote that in the early idea \"was the germ of Pip and Magwitch, which at first he intended to make the groundwork of a tale in the old twenty-number form.\" Dickens presented the relationship between Pip and Magwitch pivotal to Great Expectations but without Miss Havisham, Estella, or other characters he later created.\n\nAs the idea and Dickens's ambition grew, he began writing. However, in September, the weekly All the Year Round saw its sales fall, and its flagship publication, A Day's Ride by Charles Lever, lost favour with the public. Dickens \"called a council of war\", and believed that to save the situation, \"the one thing to be done was for [him] to strike in.\" The \"very fine, new and grotesque idea\" became the magazine's new support: weeklies, five hundred pages, just over one year (1860–1861), thirty-six episodes, starting 1 December. The magazine continued to publish Lever's novel until its completion on 23 March 1861, but it became secondary to Great Expectations. Immediately, sales resumed, and critics responded positively, as exemplified by The Timess praise: \"Great Expectations is not, indeed, [Dickens's] best work, but it is to be ranked among his happiest.\" \n\nDickens, whose health was not the best, felt \"The planning from week to week was unimaginably difficult\" but persevered. He thought he had found \"a good name\", decided to use the first person \"throughout\", and thought the beginning was \"excessively droll\": \"I have put a child and a good-natured foolish man, in relations that seem to me very funny.\" Four weekly episodes were \"ground off the wheel\" in October 1860, and apart from one reference to the \"bondage\" of his heavy task, the months passed without the anguished cries that usually accompanied the writing of his novels. He did not even use the Number Plans or Mems;Nineteen double sheets folded in half: on the left, names, incidents, and expressions; on the right, sections of the current chapter. he only had a few notes on the characters' ages, the tide ranges for chapter 54, and the draft of an ending. In late December, Dickens wrote to Mary Boyle that \"Great Expectations [is] a very great success and universally liked.\"Charles Dickens, Letters, Letter to Mary Boyle, 28 December 1860.\n\nDickens gave six readings from 14 March to 18 April 1861, and in May, Dickens took a few days' holiday in Dover. On the eve of his departure, he took some friends and family members for a trip by boat from Blackwall to Southend-on-Sea. Ostensibly for pleasure, the mini-cruise was actually a working session for Dickens to examine banks of the river in preparation for the chapter devoted to Magwitch's attempt to escape. Dickens then revised Herbert Pocket's appearance, no doubt, asserts Margaret Cardwell, to look more like his son Charley. On 11 June 1861, Dickens wrote to Macready that Great Expectations had been completed and on 15 June, asked the editor to prepare the novel for publication.\n\nRevised ending\n\nFollowing comments by Edward Bulwer-Lytton that the ending was too sad, Dickens rewrote it. The ending set aside by Dickens has Pip, still single, briefly see Estella in London; after becoming Bentley Drummle's widow, she has remarried. It appealed to Dickens due to its originality: \"[the] winding up will be away from all such things as they conventionally go.\" Dickens revised the ending for publication so that Pip meets Estella in the ruins of Satis House, she a widow and he single. His changes at the conclusion of the novel did not quite end either with the final weekly part and the first bound edition, because Dickens further changed the last sentence in the amended 1868 version from \"I could see the shadow of no parting from her.\" to \"I saw no shadow of another parting from her\". As Pip uses litotes, \"no shadow of another parting\", it is ambiguous whether Pip and Estella marry or Pip remains single. Angus Calder, writing for an edition in the Penguin English Library, believed the less definite phrasing of the amended 1868 version perhaps hinted at a buried meaning: '...at this happy moment, I did not see the shadow of our subsequent parting looming over us.' \n\nIn a letter to Forster, Dickens explained his decision to alter the draft ending: \"You will be surprised to hear that I have changed the end of Great Expectations from and after Pip's return to Joe's ... Bulwer, who has been, as I think you know, extraordinarily taken with the book, strongly urged it upon me, after reading the proofs, and supported his views with such good reasons that I have resolved to make the change. I have put in as pretty a little piece of writing as I could, and I have no doubt the story will be more acceptable through the alteration.\" \n\nThis discussion between Dickens, Bulwer-Lytton and Forster has provided the basis for much discussion on Dickens's underlying views for this famous novel. Earle Davis, in his 1963 study of Dickens, wrote that \"it would be an inadequate moral point to deny Pip any reward after he had shown a growth of character,\" and that \"Eleven years might change Estella too.\" John Forster felt that the original ending was \"more consistent\" and \"more natural\" but noted the new ending's popularity. George Gissing called that revision \"a strange thing, indeed, to befall Dickens\" and felt that Great Expectations would have been perfect had Dickens not altered the ending in deference to Bulwer-Lytton.George Gissing wrote: \"Great Expectations (1861) would be nearly perfect in its mechanism but for the unhappy deference to Lord Lytton's judgment, which caused the end to be altered. Dickens meant to have left Pip a lonely man, and of course rightly so; by the irony of fate he was induced to spoil his work through a brother novelist's desire for a happy ending, a strange thing, indeed, to befall Dickens.\" \n\nIn contrast, John Hillis-Miller stated that Dickens's personality was so assertive that Bulwer-Lytton had little influence, and welcomed the revision: \"The mists of infatuation have cleared away, [Estella and Pip] can be joined.\" Earl Davis notes that G.B. Shaw published the novel in 1937 for The Limited Editions Club with the first ending and that The Rhinehart Edition of 1979 presents both endings. \n\nGeorge Orwell wrote, \"Psychologically the latter part of Great Expectations is about the best thing Dickens ever did,\" but, like John Forster and several early 20th century writers, including George Bernard Shaw, felt that the original ending was more consistent with the draft, as well as the natural working out of the tale. Modern literary criticism is split over the matter.\n\nPublication history\n\nIn periodicals\n\nDickens and Wills co-owned All the Year Round, one 75%, the other 25%. Since Dickens was his own publisher, he did not require a contract for his own works. Although intended for weekly publication, Great Expectations was divided into nine monthly sections, with new pagination for each. Harper's Weekly published the novel from 24 November 1860 to 5 August 1861 in the US and All the Year Round published it from 1 December 1860 to 3 August 1861 in the UK. Harper's paid £1,000 for publication rights. Dickens welcomed a contract with Tauchnitz 4 January 1861 for publication in English for the European continent.\n\nPublications in Harper's Weekly were accompanied by forty illustrations by John McLenan; however, this is the only Dickens work published in All the Year Round without illustrations.\n\nEditions\n\nRobert L. Patten identifies four American editions in 1861 and sees the proliferation of publications in Europe and across the Atlantic as \"extraordinary testimony\" to Great Expectationss popularity. Chapman and Hall published the first edition in three volumes in 1861, five subsequent reprints between 6 July and 30 October, and a one-volume edition in 1862. The \"bargain\" edition was published in 1862, the Library Edition in 1864, and the Charles Dickens edition in 1868. To this list, Paul Schlicke adds \"two meticulous scholarly editions\", one Clarendon Press published in 1993 with an introduction by Margaret Cardwell and another with an introduction by Edgar Rosenberg, published by Norton in 1999. The novel was published with one ending, visible in the four on line editions listed in the External links at the end of this article. In some 20th century editions, the novel ends as originally published in 1867, and in an afterword, the ending Dickens did not publish, along with a brief story of how a friend persuaded him to a happier ending for Pip, is presented to the reader (for example, 1987 audio edition by Recorded Books ).\n\nIn 1862, Marcus Stone, son of Dickens's old friend, the painter Frank Stone, was invited to create eight woodcuts for the Library Edition. According to Paul Schlicke, these illustrations are mediocre yet were included in the Charles Dickens edition, and Stone created illustrations for Dickens's subsequent novel, Our Mutual Friend. Later, Henry Mathew Brock also illustrated Great Expectations and a 1935 edition of A Christmas Carol, along with other artists, such as John McLenan, F. A. Fraser, and Harry Furniss. \n\nFirst edition publication schedule\n\nReception\n\nRobert L. Patten estimates that All the Year Round sold 100,000 copies of Great Expectations each week, and Mudie, the largest circulating library, which purchased about 1,400 copies, stated that at least 30 people read each copy. Aside from the dramatic plot, the Dickensian humour also appealed to readers. Dickens wrote to Forster in October 1860 that \"You will not have to complain of the want of humour as in the Tale of Two Cities,\" an opinion Forster supports, finding that \"Dickens's humour, not less than his creative power, was at its best in this book.\" Moreover, according to Paul Schlicke, readers found the best of Dickens's older and newer writing styles. \n\nOverall, Great Expectations received near universal acclaim. Not all reviews were favourable; Margaret Oliphant's review, published May 1862 in Blackwood's Magazine, vilified the novel. Critics in the 19th and 20th centuries hailed it as one of Dickens's greatest successes although often for conflicting reasons: GK Chesterton admired the novel's optimism; Edmund Wilson its pessimism; Humphry House in 1941 emphasized its social context. In 1974, Jerome H. Buckley saw it as a bildungsroman, writing a chapter on Dickens and two of his major characters (David Copperfield and Pip) in his 1974 book on the Bildungsroman in Victorian writing. John Hillis Miller wrote in 1958 that Pip is the archetype of all Dickensian heroes. In 1970, QD Leavis suggests \"How We Must Read Great Expectations.\" In 1984, Peter Brooks, in the wake of Jacques Derrida, offered a deconstructionist reading. The most profound analyst, according to Paul Schlicke, is probably Julian Moynahan, who, in a 1964 essay surveying the hero's guilt, made Orlick \"Pip's double, alter ego and dark mirror image.\" Schlicke also names Anny Sadrin's extensive 1988 study as the \"most distinguished.\" \n\nBackground\n\nGreat Expectationss single most obvious literary predecessor is Dickens's earlier first-person narrator-protagonist David Copperfield. The two novels trace the psychological and moral development of a young boy to maturity, his transition from a rural environment to the London metropolis, the vicissitudes of his emotional development, and the exhibition of his hopes and youthful dreams and their metamorphosis, through a rich and complex first person narrative. Dickens was conscious of this similarity and, before undertaking his new manuscript, reread David Copperfield to avoid repetition.\n\nThe two books both detail homecoming. Although David Copperfield is based on much of Dickens personal experiences, Great Expectations provides, according to Paul Schlicke, \"the more spiritual and intimate autobiography.\" Even though several elements hint at the setting — Miss Havisham, partly inspired by a Parisian duchess, whose residence was always closed and in darkness, surrounded by \"a dead green vegetable sea,\" recalling Satis House, and the countryside bordering Chatham and Rochester — no place name is mentioned,In Great Expectations, only London is named, along with its neighbourhoods and surrounding communities. nor a specific time period, which is indicated by, among other elements, older coaches, the title \"His Majesty\" in reference to George III, and the old London Bridge prior to the 1824–1831 reconstruction. \n\nThe theme of homecoming reflects events in Dickens's life, several years prior to the publication of Great Expectations. In 1856, he bought Gad's Hill Place in Higham, Kent, which he had dreamed of living in as a child, and moved there from faraway London two years later. In 1858, in a painful divorce, he separated from Catherine Dickens, his wife of twenty-three years. The divorce alienated him from some of his closest friends, such as Mark Lemon. He quarrelled with Bradbury and Evans, who had published his novels for fifteen years. In early September 1860, in a field behind Gad's Hill, Dickens burned almost all of his correspondence, sparing only letters on business matters. He stopped publishing the weekly Household Words at the summit of its popularity and replaced it with All the Year Round.\n\nThe Uncommercial Traveller, short stories, and other texts Dickens began publishing in his new weekly in 1859 reflect his nostalgia, as seen in \"Dullborough Town\" and \"Nurses' Stories.\" According to Paul Schlicke, \"it is hardly surprising that the novel Dickens wrote at this time was a return to roots, set in the part of England in which he grew up, and in which he had recently resettled.\"\n\nMargaret Cardwell draws attention to Chops the Dwarf from Dickens's 1858 Christmas story \"Going into Society,\" who, as the future Pip does, entertains the illusion of inheriting a fortune and becomes disappointed upon achieving his social ambitions. In another vein, Harry Stone thinks that Gothic and magical aspects of Great Expectations were partly inspired by Charles Mathews's At Home, which was presented in detail in Household Words and its monthly supplement Household Narrative. Stone also asserts that The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices, written in collaboration with Wilkie Collins after their walking tour of Cumberland during September 1857 and published in Household Words from 3 to 31 October of the same year, presents certain strange locations and a passionate love, foreshadowing Great Expectations. \n\nBeyond its biographical and literary aspects, Great Expectations appears, according to Robin Gilmour, as \"a representative fable of the age.\" Dickens was aware that the novel \"speaks\" to a generation applying, at most, the principle of \"self help\" which was believed to have increased the order of daily life. That the hero Pip aspires to improve, not through snobbery, but through the Victorian conviction of education, social refinement, and materialism, was seen as a noble and worthy goal. However, by tracing the origins of Pip's \"great expectations\" to crime, deceit and even banishment to the colonies, Dickens unfavourably compares the new generation to the previous one of Joe Gargery, which Dickens portrays as less sophisticated but especially rooted in sound values, presenting an oblique criticism of his time.\n\nStructure\n\nThe narrative structure of Great Expectations is influenced by the fact that it was first published as weekly episodes in a periodical. This required short chapters, centred on a single subject, and an almost mathematical structure. \n\nChronology\n\nPip's story is told in three stages: his childhood and early youth in Kent, where he dreams of rising above his humble station; his time in London after receiving \"great expectations\"; and then finally his disillusionment on discovering the source of his fortune, followed by his slow realisation of the vanity of his false values. These three stages are further divided into twelve parts of equal length. This symmetry contributes to the impression of completion, which has often been commented on. George Gissing, for example, when comparing Joe Gargery and Dan'l Peggotty (from David Copperfield), preferred the former, because he is a stronger character, who lives \"in a world, not of melodrama, but of everyday cause and effect.\" G. B. Shaw also commented on the novel's structure, describing it as \"compactly perfect\", and Algernon Swinburne stated, \"The defects in it are as nearly imperceptible as spots on the sun or shadow on a sunlit sea.\" A contributing factor is \"the briskness of the narrative tone.\" \n\nNarrative flow\n\nFurther, beyond the chronological sequences and the weaving of several storylines into a tight plot, the sentimental setting and morality of the characters also create a pattern. The narrative structure of Great Expectations has two main elements: firstly that of \"foster parents\", Miss Havisham, Magwitch, and Joe, and secondly that of \"young people\", Estella, Pip and Biddy. There is further organizing element that can be labelled \"Dangerous Lovers\", which includes Compeyson, Bentley Drummle and Orlick. Pip is the centre of this web of love, rejection and hatred. Dickens contrast this \"dangerous love\" with the relationship of Biddy and Joe, which grows from friendship to marriage.\n\nThis is \"the general frame of the novel\". The term \"love\" is generic, applying it to both Pip's true love for Estella and the feelings Estella has for Drummle, which are based on a desire for social advancement. Similarly, Estella's rejects Magwitch because of her contempt for everything that appears below what she believes to be her social status. \n\nGreat Expectations has an unhappy ending, since most characters suffer physically, psychologically or both, or die – often violently – while suffering. Happy resolutions remain elusive, while hate thrives. The only happy ending is Biddy and Joe's marriage and the birth of their two children, since the final reconciliations, except that between Pip and Magwitch, do not alter the general order. Though Pip extirpates the web of hatred, the first unpublished ending denies him happiness while Dickens revised second ending, in the published novel, leaves his future uncertain. \n\nOrlick as Pip's double \n\nJulian Monayhan argues that the reader can better understand Pip's personality through analyzing his relationship with Orlick, the criminal laborer who works at Joe Gargery's forge, than by looking at his relationship with Magwitch. \n\nFollowing Monayhan, David Trotter notes, that Orlick is Pip's shadow. Co-workers in the forge, both find themselves at Miss Havisham's, where Pip enters and joins the company, while Orlick, attending the door, stays out. Pip considers Biddy a sister; Orlick has other plans for her; Pip is connected to Magwitch, Orlick to Magwitch's nemesis, Compeyson. Orlick also aspires to \"great expectations\" and resents Pip's ascension from the forge and the swamp to the glamour of Satis House, from which Orlock is excluded, along with London's dazzling society. Orlick is the cumbersome shadow Pip cannot be rid of.\n\nThen comes Pip's punishment, with Orlick's savage attack on Mrs Gargery. Thereafter Orlick vanishes, only to reappear in chapter 53 in a symbolic act, when he lures Pip into a locked, abandoned building in the marshes. Orlick has a score to settle before going on to the ultimate act, murder. However, Pip hampers Orlick, because of his privileged status, while Orlick remains a slave of his condition, solely responsible for Mrs Gargery's fate. \n\nDickens also uses Pip's upper class counterpart, Bentley Drummle, \"the double of a double\", according to Trotter, in a similar way. Like Orlick, Drummle is powerful, swarthy, unintelligible, hot-blooded, and lounges and lurks, biding his time. Estella rejects Pip for this rude, uncouth but well-born man, and ends Pip's hope. Finally the lives of both Orlick and Drummle end violently.\n\nPoint of view\n\nAlthough the novel is written in first person, the reader knows — as an essential prerequisite — that Great Expectations is not an autobiography but a novel, a work of fiction with plot and characters, featuring a narrator-protagonist. In addition, Sylvère Monod notes that the treatment of the autobiography differs from David Copperfield, as Great Expectations does not draw from events in Dickens's life; \"at most some traces of a broad psychological and moral introspection can be found\". \n\nHowever, according to Paul Pickrel's analysis, Pip being both narrator and protagonist; recounts with hindsight the story of the young boy he was, who did not know the world beyond a narrow geographic and familial environment. The novel's direction emerges from the confrontation between the two periods of time. At first, the novel presents a mistreated orphan, repeating situations from Oliver Twist and David Copperfield, but the trope is quickly overtaken. The theme manifests when Pip discovers the existence of a world beyond the marsh, the forge and the future Joe envisioned for him, the decisive moment when Miss Havisham and Estella enter his life. This is a red herring, as the decay of Satis House and the strange lady within signals the fragility of an impasse. At this point, the reader knows more than the protagonist, creating dramatic irony that confers a superiority that the narrator shares. \n\nIt is not until Magwitch's return, a plot twist that unites loosely connected plot elements and sets them into motion, that the protagonist's point of view joins those of the narrator and the reader. In this context of progressive revelation, the sensational events at the novel's end serve to test the protagonist's point of view. Thus proceeds, in the words of A. E. Dyson, \"The Immolations of Pip\". \n\nStyle \n\nAmongst the narrative devices that Dickens uses, according to Earle Davis, are caricature, comic speech mannerisms, intrigue, Gothic atmosphere, and a central character who gradually changes. Davis also mentions the close network of the structure and balance of contrasts, and praises the first-person narration for providing a simplicity that is appropriate for the story while avoiding melodrama. Davis sees the symbolism attached to \"great expectations\" as reinforcing the novel's impact. \n\nGenre\n\nGreat Expectations contains the elements of a variety of different literary genres, including the bildungsroman, gothic novel. crime novel, as well as comedy, melodrama and satire and it belongs – like Wuthering Heights and the novels of Walter Scott – to the romance rather than realist tradition of the novel. \n\nBildungsroman\n\nComplex and multifaceted, Great Expectations is a Victorian bildungsroman, a German literary genre from the eighteenth century, also called an initiatory tale. This genre focuses on a protagonist who matures over the course of the novel. Great Expectations describes Pip's initial frustration upon leaving home, followed by a long and difficult period where he gradually matures. This period in his life is punctuated with conflicts between his desires and the values of established order, that allow him to re-evaluate his life and therefore re-enter society on new foundations.\n\nHowever, if viewed as a primarily retrospective first-person narrative, the novel differs from the two preceding pseudo-autobiographies, David Copperfield and though only partially narrated in first-person, Bleak House (1852), as it falls within several subgenres popular in Dickens' time, as noted by Paul Davis and Philip V Allingham.\n\nComic novel\n\nGreat Expectations contains character and situational comedy, as seen in Pip's Christmas dinner in chapter 4, Wopsle's Hamlet performance in chapter 31, or Wemmick's marriage in chapter 55. It adds a satire of a society favouring wealth and social rank but whose snobbery is matched only by injustice and incompetence. Magwitch, who drives the plot, is the first victim since he is convicted of a minor offense; similarly, the major institutions of the kingdom are abandoned, such as the theater that parody's Wopsle's \"great expectations\". Davis notes, however, \"are absolutely organic to the plot and theme\". \n\nCrime fiction\n\nGreat Expectations also incorporates elements of the new genre of crime fiction, which Dickens had already used in Oliver Twist (1837), and which was being developed by his friends Wilkie Collins and William Harrison Ainsworth. With its scenes of convicts, prison ships, and episodes of bloody violence, Dickens creates characters worthy of the Newgate School of Fiction, \n\nGothic novel\n\nGreat Expectations also contains elements of the Gothic genre, especially with Miss Havisham, the bride frozen in time, and the ruins of Satis House filled with weeds and spiders, Other characters that can be linked to this genre include the aristocratic Bentley Drummle, because of his extreme cruelty, Pip himself, who spends his youth chasing a frozen beauty, the monstrous Orlick, who systematically attempts to murder his employers. Then there is the fight to the death between Compeyson and Magwitch, and the fire that ends up killing Miss Havisham, scenes that are dominated by horror, suspense, and the sensational, such as are found in gothic novels.\n\nSilver Fork novel \n\nElements of the Silver Fork novel are found in the character of Miss Havisham and her world, as well as Pip's illusions. This genre, which flourished in the 1820s and 1830s, presents the flashy elegance and aesthetic frivolities found in high society. In some respects, Dickens conceived Great Expectations as an anti Silver Fork novel, attacking Charles Lever's novel A Day's Ride, publication of which began January 1860, in Household Words. This can be seen in the way that Dickens satirises the pretensions and morals of Miss Havisham and her sycophants, including the Pockets (except Matthew), and Uncle Pumblechook.\n\nHistorical novel \n\nThough Great Expectations is not obviously an historical novel Dickens does emphasise differences between the time that the novel is set (c.1812-46) and when it was written (1860-1).\n\nGreat Expectations begins around 1812 (the date of Dickens' birth), continues until around 1830–1835, and then jumps to around 1840–1845, during which the Great Western Railway was built. Though readers today will not notice this, Dickens uses various things to emphasises the differences between 1861 and this earlier period. Among these details – that contemporary readers would have recognized – are the £1 note (in chapter 10) that the Bank Notes Act 1826 had removed from circulation; likewise, the death penalty for deported felons, who returned to Britain, was abolished in 1835. The gallows erected in the swamps, designed to display a rotting corpse, had disappeared by 1832, and George III, the monarch mentioned at the beginning, died in 1820, when Pip would have been seven or eight. Miss Havisham paid Joe 25 guineas, gold coins, when Pip was to begin his apprenticeship (in chapter 13); the guinea coins were slowly going out of circulation after the last new ones were struck with the face of George III in 1799. This also marks the historical period, as the one pound note was the official currency at the time of the novel's publication. Dickens placed the epilogue eleven years after Magwitch's death, which seems to be the time limit of the reported facts. Collectively, the details suggest that Dickens identified with the main character. If Pip is around twenty-three toward the middle of the novel and thirty-four at its end, he is roughly modeled after his creator who turned thirty-four in 1846.\n\nThemes\n\nThe title's \"Expectations\" refers to \"a legacy to come\", and thus immediately announces that money, or more specifically wealth plays an important part in the novel. Some other major themes are crime, social class, including both gentility, and social alienation, imperialism and ambition. The novel is also concerned with questions relating to conscience and moral regeneration, as well as redemption through love.\n\nImperialism\n\nEdward W. Said, in his 1993 work Culture and Imperialism, interprets Great Expectations in terms of postcolonial theory about of late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries British imperialism. Pip's disillusionment when he learns his benefactor is an escaped convict from Australia, along with his acceptance of Magwitch as surrogate father, is described by Said as part of \"the imperial process\", that is the way colonialism exploits the weaker members of a society. Thus the British trading post in Cairo's legitimatises Pip's work as a clerk, but the money earned by Magwitch's honest labour is illegitimate, because Australia is a penal colony, and Magwitch is forbidden to return to Britain.Cairo was of course not a British colony at this time, though Egypt became a British Protectorate in the 1880s Said states that Dickens has Magwitch return to be redeemed by Pip's love, paving the way for Pip's own redemption, but despite this moral message, the book still reinforces standards that support the authority of the British empire. Said's interpretation suggests that Dickens' attitude backs Britain's exploitation of Middle East \"through trade and travel\", and that Great Expectations affirms the idea of keeping the Empire and its peoples in their place – at the exploitable margins of British society.\n\nHowever, the novel's Gothic, and Romance genre elements, challenge Said's assumption that Great Expectations is a realist novel like Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.\n\nPip as social outcast \n\nA central theme here, as in other of Dickens' novels, is of people living as social outcasts. The novel opening emphasises this in the case of the orphaned Pip, who lives in an isolated foggy environment next to a graveyard, dangerous swamps, and prison ships. His very existence reproaches him: \"I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion and morality\". \n\nPip feels excluded by society and this leads to his aggressive attitude towards it, as he tries to win his place within society through any means. Various other characters behave similarly, and that the oppressed become the oppressors. Jaggers dominates Wemmick, who in turn dominates Jaggers' clients. Likewise Magwich uses Pip as an instrument of vengeance, as Miss Havisham also uses Estella. \n\nHowever, hope exists despite Pip's sense of exclusion because he is convinced that divine providence owes him a place in society and that marriage to Estella is his destiny. Therefore, when fortune comes his way, Pip shows no surprise, because he believes, that his value as a human being, and his inherent nobility, have been recognized. Thus Pip accepts Pumblechook's flattery without blinking: \"That boy is no common boy\" and the \"May I? May I?\" associated with handshakes. \n\nFrom Pip's hope comes Pip's \"uncontrollable, impossible love for Estella\", despite the humiliations that she has subjected him. For Pip, winning a place in society also means winning Estella's heart.\n\nWealth \n\nWhen the money secretly provided by Magwitch enables Pip to enter London society, two new related themes, wealth and gentility, are introduced.\n\nAs the novel's title implies money is a theme of Great Expectations. Central to this is the idea that wealth is only acceptable to the ruling class if it comes from the labour of others. Miss Havisham's wealth comes not from the sweat of her brow but from rent collected on properties she inherited from her father, a brewer. Her wealth is \"pure\", and her father's profession as a brewer does not contaminate it. Herbert states in chapter 22 that \"while you cannot possibly be genteel and bake, you may be as genteel as never was and brew.\" Because of her wealth, the old lady, despite her eccentricity, enjoys public esteem. She remains in a constant business relationship with her lawyer Jaggers and keeps a tight grip over her \"court\" of sycophants, so that, far from representing social exclusion, she is the very image of a powerful landed aristocracy that is frozen in the past and \"embalmed in its own pride\". \n\nOn the other hand, Magwitch's wealth is socially unacceptable, firstly because he earned it, not through the efforts of others, but through his own hard work, and secondly because he was a convict, and he earned it in a penal colony. These critics argue that the contrast with Miss Havisham's wealth is suggested symbolically. Thus Magwitch's money smells of sweat, and his money is greasy and crumpled: \"two fat sweltering one-pound notes that seemed to have been on terms of the warmest intimacy with all the cattle market in the country\", while the coins Miss Havisham gives for Pip's \"indentures\" shine as if new. Further it is argued Pip demonstrates his \"good breeding\", because when he discovers that he owes his transformation into a \"gentleman\" to such a contaminated windfall, he is repulsed in horror. A. O. J. Cockshut, however, has suggested that there is no difference between Magwitch's wealth and that of Miss Havisham's, \n\nTrotter emphasizes the importance of Magwitch's greasy banknotes. Beyond the Pip's emotional reaction the notes reveal that Dickens' views on social and economic progress have changed in the years prior to the publication of Great Expectations. His novels and Household Words extensively reflect Dickens' views, and, his efforts to contribute to social progress expanded in the 1840s. To illustrate his point, he cites Humphry House who, succinctly, writes that in Pickwick Papers, \"a bad smell was a bad smell\", whereas in Our Mutual Friend and Great Expectations, \"it is a problem\". \n\nAt the time of The Great Exhibition of 1851, Dickens and Richard Henry Horne an editor of Household Words wrote an article comparing the British technology that created The Crystal Palace to the few artifacts exhibited by China: England represented an openness to worldwide trade, and China isolationism. \"To compare China and England is to compare Stoppage to Progress\", they concluded. According to Trotter, this was a way to target the Tory government's return to protectionism, which they felt would make England the China of Europe. In fact, Household Words 17 May 1856 issue, championed international free trade, comparing the constant flow of money to the circulation of the blood. Back in the 1850s, Dickens believed in \"genuine\" wealth, which critic Trotter compares to fresh banknotes, crisp to the touch, pure and odorless.\n\nWith Great Expectations, Dickens' views about wealth have changed. However, though some sharp satire exists, no character in the novel has the role of the moralist that condemn Pip and his society. In fact even Joe and Biddy themselves, paragons of good sense, are complicit, through their exaggerated innate humility, in Pip's social deviancy. Dickens' moral judgement is first made through the way that he contrasts characters: only a few characters keep to the straight and narrow path; Joe, whose values remain unchanged; Matthew Pocket whose pride renders him, to his family's astonishment, unable to flatter his rich relatives; Jaggers, who keeps a cool head and has no illusions about his clients; Biddy, who overcomes her shyness to, from time to time, bring order. The narrator-hero is left to draw the necessary conclusions: in the end, Pip finds the light and embarks on a path of moral regeneration. \n\nLondon as prison\n\nIn London, neither wealth nor gentility brings happiness. Pip, the apprentice gentleman constantly bemoans his anxiety, his feelings of insecurity, and multiple allusions to overwhelming chronic unease, to weariness, drown his enthusiasm (chapter 34). Wealth, in effect, eludes his control: the more he spends, the deeper he goes into debt to satisfy new needs, which were just as futile as his old ones. His unusual path to gentility has the opposite effect to what he expected: infinite opportunities become available, certainly, but will power, in proportion, fades and paralyses the soul. In the crowded metropolis, Pip grows disenchanted, disillusioned, and lonely. Alienated from his native Kent, he has lost the support provided by the village blacksmith. In London, he is powerless to join a community, not the Pocket family, much less Jaggers' circle. London has become Pip's prison and, like the convicts of his youth, he is bound in chains: \"no Satis House can be built merely with money\". From Latin satis, meaning \"enough\".\n\nGentility \n\nThe idea of \"good breeding\" and what makes for a \"gentleman\" other than money. in other words \"gentility\", is a central theme of Great Expectations. The convict Magwitch covets it by proxy through Pip; Mrs Pocket dreams of acquiring it; it is also found in Pumblechook's sycophancy; it is even seen in Joe, when he stammers between \"Pip\" and \"Sir\" during his visit to London, and when Biddy's letters to Pip suddenly become reverent.\n\nThere are other characters who are associated with the idea of gentility like, for example, Miss Havisham's seducer, Compeyson, the scarred-face convict. While Compeyson is corrupt, even Magwitch does not forget he is a gentleman. This also includes Estella, who ignores the fact, that she is the daughter of Magwitch and another criminal.\n\nThere are a couple of ways by which someone can acquire gentility, one being a title, another family ties to the upper middle class. Mrs Pocket bases every aspiration on the fact that her grandfather failed to be knighted, while Pip hopes that Miss Havisham will eventually adopt him, as adoption, as evidenced by Estella, who behaves like a born and bred little lady, is acceptable. But even more important, though not sufficient, are wealth and education. Pip knows that and endorses it, as he hears from Jaggers through Matthew Pocket: \"I was not designed for any profession, and I should be well enough educated for my destiny if I could hold my own with the average of young men in prosperous circumstances\". But neither the educated Matthew Pocket, nor Jaggers, who has earned his status solely through his intellect, can aspire to gentility. Bentley Drummle, however, embodies the social ideal, so that Estella marries him without hesitation.\n\nMoral regeneration \n\nAnother theme of Great Expectations is that Pip can undergo \"moral regeneration\"\n\nIn chapter 39, the novel's turning point, Magwitch visits Pip to see the gentleman he has made, and once the convict has hidden in Herbert Pocket's room, Pip realises his situation:\n\nTo cope with his situation and his learning that he now needs Magwitch, a hunted, injured man who traded his life for Pip's. Pip can only rely on the power of love for Estella Pip now goes through a number of different stages each of which, is accompanied by successive realisations about the vanity of the prior certainties. \n\nPip's problem is more psychological and moral than social. Pip's climbing of the social ladder upon gaining wealth is followed by a corresponding degradation of his integrity. Thus after his first visit in Miss Havisham, the innocent young boy from the marshes, suddenly turns into a liar to dazzle his sister, Mrs Joe, and his Uncle Pumblechook with the tales of a carriage and veal chops. More disturbing is his fascination with Satis House –where he is despised and even slapped, beset by ghostly visions, rejected by the Pockets– and the gradual growth of the mirage of London. The allure of wealth overpowers loyalty and gratitude, even conscience itself. This is evidenced by the urge to buy Joe's return, in chapter 27, Pip's haughty glance as Joe deciphers the alphabet, not to mention the condescending contempt he confesses to Biddy, copying Estella's behaviour toward him. \n\nPip represents, as do those he mimics, the bankruptcy of the \"idea of the gentleman\", and becomes the sole beneficiary of vulgarity, inversely proportional to his mounting gentility. In chapter 30, Dickens parodies the new disease that is corroding Pip's moral values through the character \"Trabb's boy\", who is the only one not to be fooled. The boy parades through the main street of the village with boyish antics and contortions meant to satirically imitate Pip. The gross, comic caricature openly exposes the hypocrisy of this new gentleman in a frock coat and top hat. Trabb's boy reveals that appearance has taken precedence over being, protocol on feelings, decorum on authenticity; labels reign to the point of absurdity, and human solidarity is no longer the order of the day. \n\nEstella and Miss Havisham represent rich people who enjoy a materially easier life but cannot cope with a tougher reality. Miss Havisham, like a melodramatic heroine, withdrew from life at the first sign of hardship. Estella, excessively spoiled and pampered, sorely lacks judgement and falls prey to the first gentleman who approaches her, though he is the worst. Estella's marriage to such a brute demonstrates the failure of her education. Estella is used to dominating, but becomes a victim to her own vice, brought to her level by a man born, in her image. \n\nDickens uses imagery to reinforce his ideas and London, the paradise of the rich and of the ideal of the gentleman, has mounds of filth, it is crooked, decrepit, and greasy, a dark desert of bricks, soot, rain, and fog. The surviving vegetation is stunted, and confined to fenced-off paths, without air or light. Barnard's Inn, where Pip lodges, offers mediocre food and service while the rooms, despite the furnishing provided, as Suhamy states, \"for the money\", is most uncomfortable, a far cry from Joe's large kitchen, radiating hearth, and his well-stocked pantry.\n\nLikewise, such a world, dominated by the lure of money and social prejudice, also leads to the warping of people and morals, to family discord and war between man and woman.Original quote in French: \"un monde que dominent l'appât de l'argent et les préjugés sociaux conduit à la mutilation de l'être, aux discordes de famille, à la guerre entre homme et femme, et ne saurait conduire à quelque bonheur que ce soit\". In contrast to London's corruption stands Joe, despite his intellectual and social limitations, in whom the values of the heart prevail and who has natural wisdom.\n\nPip's conscience\n\nAnother important theme is Pip's sense of guilt, which he has felt from an early age. After the encounter with the convict Magwitch Pip is afraid that someone will find out about his crime and arrest him. The theme of guilt comes into even greater effect when Pip discovers that his benefactor is a convict. Pip has an internal struggle with his conscience throughout Great Expectations. Hence the long and painful process of redemption that he undergoes.\n\nPip's moral regeneration is a true pilgrimage punctuated by suffering like Christian in Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, Pip makes his way up to light through a maze of horrors that afflict his body as well as his mind. This includes the burns he suffers from saving Miss Havisham from the fire; the illness that requires months of recovery; the threat of a violent death at Orlick's hands; debt, and worse, the obligation of having to repay them; hard work, which he recognises as the only worthy source of income, hence his return to Joe's forge. Even more important, is his accepting of Magwitch, a coarse outcast of society. \n\nDickens makes use of symbolism, in chapter 53, to emphasise Pip moral regeneration . As he prepares to go down the Thames to rescue the convict, a veil lifted from the river and Pip's spirit. Symbolically the fog which enveloped the marshes as Pip left for London has finally lifted, and he feels ready to become a man. \n\nPip is redeemed by love, that, for Dickens as for generations of Christian moralists, is only acquired through sacrifice. Pip's reluctance completely disappears and he embraces Magwitch. After this, Pip's loyalty remains foolproof, during imprisonment, trial, and death of the convict. He grows selfless and his \"expectations\" are confiscated by the Crown. Moments before Magwitch's death, Pip reveals that Estella, Magwitch's daughter, is alive, \"a lady and very beautiful. And I love her\". Here the greatest sacrifice: the recognition that he owes everything, even Estella, to Magwitch; his new debt becomes his greatest freedom.\n\nPip returns to the forge, his previous state and to meaningful work. The philosophy expressed here by Dickens that of a person happy with their contribution to the welfare of society, is in line with Thomas Carlyle's theories and his condemnation, in Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), the system of social classes flourishing in idleness, much like Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels did.Both Marx and Engels condemned the rejection of Carlyle's democratic system but agreed that the aristocracy remains the dominant class. Dickens' hero is neither an aristocrat nor a capitalist but a working-class boy. \n\nIn Great Expectations, the true values are childhood, youth, and heart. The heroes of the story are the young Pip, a true visionary, and still developing person, open, sensible, who is persecuted by soulless adults. Then the adolescent Pip and Herbert, imperfect but free, intact, playful, endowed with fantasy in a boring and frivolous world. Magwitch is also a positive figure, a man of heart, victim of false appearances and of social images, formidable and humble, bestial but pure, a vagabond of God, despised by men.Original text in French: \"vagabond de Dieu honni des hommes, lépreux porteur de la bonne nouvelle\" There is also Pip's affectional friend Joe, the enemy of the lie. Finally, there are women like Biddy.\n\nNovels influenced by Great Expectations\n\nDickens' novel has influenced a number of writers, Sue Roe's Estella: Her Expectations (1982), for example explores the inner life of an Estella fascinated with a Havisham figure. Miss Havisham is again important in Havisham: A Novel (2013), a book by Ronald Frame, that features an imagining of the life of Miss Catherine Havisham from childhood to adulthood. The second chapter of Rosalind Ashe's Literary Houses (1982) paraphrases Miss Havisham's story with details about the nature and structure of Satis House and coloured imaginings of the house within. Miss Havisham is also central to Lost in a Good Book (2002), Jasper Fforde's alternate history, fantasy novel, which features a parody of Miss Havisham. It won the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association 2004 Dilys Award. \n\nMagwitch is the protagonist of Peter Carey's Jack Maggs, which is a re-imagining of Magwitch's return to England, with the addition, among other things, of a fictionalised Dickens character and plot-line. Carey's novel won the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1998. Mister Pip (2006) is a novel by Lloyd Jones, a New Zealand author. The winner of the 2007 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Lloyd Jones's novel is set in a village on the Papua New Guinea island of Bougainville during a brutal civil war there in the 1990s, where the young protagonist's life is impacted in a major way by her reading of Great Expectations. \n\nFilm, TV and theatrical adaptations\n\nLike many other Dickens novels, Great Expectations has been filmed for the cinema or television numerous times, including:\n* 1917 – Great Expectations, a silent film, starring Jack Pickford, directed by Robert G. Vignola.\n* 1922 – a silent film, made in Denmark, starring Martin Herzberg, directed by A. W. Sandberg.\n* 1934 – Great Expectations film starring Phillips Holmes and Jane Wyatt, directed by Stuart Walker.\n* 1946 – Great Expectations, the most celebrated film version, starring John Mills as Pip, Bernard Miles as Joe, Alec Guinness as Herbert, Finlay Currie as Magwitch, Martita Hunt as Miss Havisham, Anthony Wager as Young Pip, Jean Simmons as Young Estella and Valerie Hobson as the adult Estella, directed by David Lean. It came fifth in a 1999 BFI poll of the top 100 British films.\n* 1954 – a two-part television version starring Roddy McDowall as Pip and Estelle Winwood as Miss Havisham. It aired as an episode of the show Robert Montgomery Presents.\n* 1955 - An Orphan's Tragedy, a Hong Kong film adaptation starring a teenage Bruce Lee. Filmed in Cantonese, the setting was moved to early 20th century Hong Kong and characters were renamed, where Pip was renamed as Frank who was portrayed by Lee.\n* 1959 – a BBC television version starring Dinsdale Landen as Pip, Helen Lindsay as Estella, Colin Jeavons as Herbert Pocket, Marjorie Hawtrey as Miss Havisham and Derek Benfield as Landlord.\n* 1967 – a television serial starring Gary Bond and Francesca Annis.\n* 1974 – Great Expectations – a film starring Michael York as Pip and Simon Gipps-Kent as Young Pip, Sarah Miles and James Mason, directed by Joseph Hardy.\n* 1981 – Great Expectations – a BBC serial starring Stratford Johns, Gerry Sundquist, Joan Hickson, Patsy Kensit and Sarah-Jane Varley. Produced by Barry Letts, and directed by Julian Amyes.\n* 1983 – an animated children's version, starring Phillip Hinton, Liz Horne, Robin Stewart and Bill Kerr.\n* 1986 – Great Expectations: The Untold Story, starring John Stanton, directed by Tim Burstall is a spin-off film depicting the adventures of Magwitch in Australia.\n* 1989 – Great Expectations, a Disney Channel two-part film starring Anthony Hopkins as Magwitch, John Rhys-Davies as Joe Gargery, and Jean Simmons as Miss Havisham, directed by Kevin Connor.\n* 1998 – Great Expectations, a film starring Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow, directed by Alfonso Cuarón. This adaptation is set in contemporary New York, and renames Pip to Finn and Miss Havisham to Nora Dinsmoor. The film's score was composed by Patrick Doyle.\n* 1999 – Great Expectations, a film starring Ioan Gruffudd as Pip, Justine Waddell as Estella, and Charlotte Rampling as Miss Havisham (Masterpiece Theatre—TV)\n* 2000 – \"Pip\", a South Park episode that parodies and retells the Charles Dickens novel, and stars the South Park character Pip.\n* 2011 – Great Expectations, a three-part BBC serial. Starring Ray Winstone as Magwitch, Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham and Douglas Booth as Pip.\n* 2012 – Great Expectations, a film directed by Mike Newell, starring Ralph Fiennes as Magwitch, Helena Bonham Carter as Miss Havisham and Jeremy Irvine as Pip.\n* 2016 – Fitoor, an Indian adaptation directed by Abhishek Kapoor, starring Katrina Kaif, Aditya Roy Kapur and Tabu. \n\nStage versions have included:\n* 1939 – London stage adaptation made by Alec Guinness, which was to influence David Lean's 1946 film, in which both Guinness himself and Martita Hunt reprised their stage roles.\n* 1975 – Stage Musical (London West End). Music by Cyril Ornadel, starring Sir John Mills. Ivor Novello Award for Best British Musical.\n* 1988 – Glasgow Mayfest, stage version by the Tag Theatre Company in association with the Gregory Nash group\n* 1995 – Stage adaptation of Great Expectations at Dublin's Gate Theatre by Hugh Leonard. \n* 2002 – Melbourne Theatre Company four-hour re-telling, in an adaptation by company director Simon Phillips\n* 2005 – Royal Shakespeare Company adaptation by the Cheek by Jowl founders Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod, with Sian Phillips as Miss Havisham\n* 2013 – West End adaptation written by Jo Clifford and directed by Graham McLaren. Paula Wilcox as Miss Havisham, Chris Ellison as Magwitch. \n* 2015 – Dundee Repertory Theatre adaptation written by Jo Clifford and directed by Jemima Levick. \n* 2016 - West Yorkshire Playhouse adaptation written by Michael Eaton and directed by Lucy Bailey. Starring Jane Asher as Miss Havisham. \n\nBibliography\n\nTexts\n\n* , with an unsigned and unpaginated introduction\n* , introduction and notes by Margaret Cardwell\n* , introduction by David Trotter, notes by Charlotte Mitchell\n* Charles Dickens (1999), Great Expectations, authoritative text, backgrounds, context, criticism, ISBN 0-393-96069-2 New York: W.W. Norton, edited by Edgar Rosenberg. A Norton critical edition.\n\nGeneral sources \n\n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n\nSpecific sources \n\nLife and work of Dickens\n\n* , edited by J. W. T. Ley, 1928\n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* , first published 1945\n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n\nAbout Great Expectations \n\n* \n* , texts from Forster, Whipple, Chesterton, Leacock, Baker, House, Johnson, van Ghent, Stange, Hagan, Connolly, Engel, Hillis Miller, Moynahan, Van de Kieft, Hardy, Lindberg, Partlow\n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* , texts from Chesterton, Brooks, Garis, Gissing, et al\n* \n* \n* , texts from Brooks, Connor, Frost, Gilmour, Sadrin et al.\n* \n* \n* (distributed by Penguin)\n\nNotes" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "New Yourk State", "State of N.Y.", "US-NY", "N Y", "The state of NY", "NewYork", "NYS", "Neo York", "NY state", "Nova York", "State of new york", "Ny", "New york", "Nueva York (estado)", "N Y state", "New York (state)", "U.S. state of New York", "New York state", "New York, U.S.", "State New York", "Nýja-Jórvík", "Newyork", "NEW YORK", "State of N. 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Which important US building has its roof ripped off in Superman II?	tc_1138	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Superman_II.txt" ], "title": [ "Superman II" ], "wiki_context": [ "Superman II is a 1980 British-American superhero film directed by Richard Lester, based on the DC Comics character Superman. It is a sequel to the 1978 film Superman and stars Gene Hackman, Christopher Reeve, Terence Stamp, Ned Beatty, Sarah Douglas, Margot Kidder, and Jack O'Halloran. The film was released in Australia and mainland Europe on December 4, 1980, and in other countries throughout 1981. Selected premiere engagements of Superman II were presented in Megasound, a high-impact surround sound system similar to Sensurround.\n\nSuperman II is well known for its controversial production. The original director Richard Donner had completed, by his estimation, roughly 75% of the movie in 1977 before being taken off the project. Many of the scenes were shot by second director Richard Lester, who had been an uncredited producer on the first film. However, in order to receive full director's credit, Lester had to shoot up to 51% of the film, which included refilming several sequences originally filmed by Donner. According to statements made by Donner, roughly 25% of the theatrical cut of Superman II contains footage he shot, including all of Gene Hackman's scenes. In 2006, a re-cut of the film was released titled Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, restoring as much of Donner's original conception as possible including deleted footage of Marlon Brando as Jor-El.\n\nThe film received positive reviews from film critics, who praised the visual effects and story, as well as Reeve's performance. It grossed $190 million against a production budget of $54 million. Three years after the film's release, a second sequel, Superman III, was released, for which Lester returned as director.\n\nPlot\n\nBefore the destruction of Krypton, the criminals General Zod (Terence Stamp), Ursa (Sarah Douglas) and Non (Jack O'Halloran) are sentenced to banishment into the Phantom Zone for insurrection and murder, amongst other crimes.\n\nYears later, the Phantom Zone is shattered near Earth by a shockwave stemming from the detonation of a hydrogen bomb, which had been launched into space by Superman (Christopher Reeve) after foiling a terrorist plot to blow up Paris. The three Kryptonian criminals are freed from the Zone, finding themselves with super-powers granted by the yellow light of Earth's sun. After attacking human astronauts on the Moon and the small town of East Houston, Idaho (which they mistake as being capital city of \"Planet Houston\" due to NASA's transmissions), the three criminals travel to the White House and force the President of the United States (E.G. Marshall) to kneel before General Zod, on behalf of the entire planet during an international television broadcast. When the President pleads for Superman to save the Earth, Zod demands that Superman come and \"kneel before Zod!\"\n\nMeanwhile, the Daily Planet sends Clark Kent and Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) to Niagara Falls. After Superman saves a little boy from falling into Niagara Falls, Lois wonders why Superman just happened to be in the area and suspects he and Clark are the same man. She dares Clark to admit he is Superman by jumping into the Niagara Falls river, but Clark saves her without exposing any of his abilities. That night, Clark accidentally falls into the room's fireplace, when trying to recover Lois's comb from the fire. When Lois discovers that his hand is unburned, Clark is forced to admit he is Superman. He takes her to his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic, and shows her the traces of his past stored in the energy crystals of the fortress, one of which is the green crystal that created the Fortress and opened Superman's contact with his parents. Superman declares his love for Lois and his wish to spend his life with her. After conferring with the artificial intelligence of his mother, Lara, Superman becomes a human and removes his superpowers, by exposing himself to red Kryptonian sunlight in a crystal chamber. Clark and Lois become romantically closer, spending the night together. The two leave the Fortress and return from the Arctic by automobile. Arriving at a diner in Metropolis, Clark gets beaten up by a truck driver named Rocky (Pepper Martin). It is there that Clark and Lois learn of Zod's conquest of the world. Realizing that humanity cannot fight Zod themselves, Clark returns to the Fortress to try to regain his powers.\n\nLex Luthor (Gene Hackman) escapes from prison with Eve Teschmacher's help, leaving Otis behind. Luthor and Teschmacher find and infiltrate the Fortress of Solitude before Superman and Lois arrive. Luthor learns of Superman's connection to Jor-El and General Zod. He tells Zod that Superman is the son of Jor-El, their jailer, and offers to lead him to the Man of Steel in exchange for control of Australia. The three Kryptonians form an alliance with Luthor and go to the offices of the Daily Planet. Superman arrives, after having found the green crystal and restoring his powers, and battles the three Kryptonians in Metropolis. Zod realizes Superman cares for the innocent humans and takes advantage of this weakness by threatening bystanders. To protect the civilians and the city, Superman realizes the only way to stop Zod and his crew is to lure them to the Fortress. Superman flies off while Zod, Ursa, and Non pursue him, carrying Lois and Luthor. Upon arrival, Zod declares Luthor has outlived his usefulness and plans to kill both him and Superman. Superman tries to get Luthor to lure the three into the crystal chamber to depower them, but Luthor, eager to get back in Zod's favor, reveals the chamber's secret to the villains. Zod forces Superman into the chamber and activates it. Afterwards, Zod forces Kal-El to kneel before him. Superman does so, and Zod extends his hand. However, when Superman squeezes it, Zod grimaces in pain. Zod realizes too late that Superman reconfigured the chamber to expose the trio to red sunlight, while Superman was protected from it. Superman easily defeats Non and Zod, while Lois knocks Ursa into a pit. Superman flies back to civilization, returning Luthor to prison and Lois home.\n\nAt the Daily Planet the following day, Clark finds Lois upset about knowing his secret and not being able to be open about her true feelings because he is Superman. He kisses her, using his abilities to wipe her mind of her knowledge of the past few days. Later, Clark has a rematch with Rocky, who beat him up earlier and defeats him easily. Superman restores the damage done by Zod, replacing the flag on top of the White House and promising the President to never let him down again.\n\nCast\n\n* Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor: Criminal genius and Superman's nemesis. Armed with vast resources and scientific brilliance, Luthor's contempt for mankind is only surpassed by his hatred for Superman. Luthor strikes a bargain with the three Kryptonian criminals in an effort to destroy Superman. \n* Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent / Superman: Born on Krypton and raised on Earth, Superman is a being of immense strength, speed, and power. Morally upstanding and instilled with a strong sense of duty, Superman tirelessly uses his formidable powers, which he gets from the Earth's yellow sun, to protect the people of his adoptive homeworld. His alter ego is mild-mannered Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent. Superman's abilities include: X-ray and heat vision, vast strength, speed and invulnerability, super-intelligence, flight and the hitherto unknown ability to throw the 'S' symbol from his costume as a plastic trapping device of some description.\n* Ned Beatty as Otis: Luthor's incompetent henchman.\n* Jackie Cooper as Perry White: Mercurial editor-in-chief of the Daily Planet newspaper and Lois and Clark's boss.\n* Sarah Douglas as Ursa: Zod's second-in-command and consort. Ursa's evil will and power-lust are equal to and sometimes surpass those of General Zod's. Her contempt and utter disregard for humans and all life form as well as her twisted taste for destruction make her a very deadly adversary. She has an inclination to collect insignia and heraldry from people she defeats or dominates, such as the NASA patch from the EVA suit of an astronaut she kills.\n* Margot Kidder as Lois Lane: The ace reporter for the Daily Planet and Superman's love interest. Lois, is a driven career journalist, who lets nothing stand in the way of breaking the next big story and scooping rival reporters. While ignoring the potential consequences that sometimes put her in peril. She finds out that Clark is Superman, but her memory is erased when Clark kisses her.\n* Jack O'Halloran as Non: The third of the Kryptonian criminals, Non is \"as without thought as he is without voice.\" At 7 ft tall, Non is a formidable hulking mute, who easily matches Superman's strength but has the intelligence and sometimes curiosity of a child and communicates only with guttural grunts and growls. Though he lacks the mental ability to use his powers effectively, he does however possess the same taste for destruction as his Kryptonian companions. \n* Valerie Perrine as Eve Teschmacher: Lex Luthor's beautiful assistant and girlfriend who helps Lex Luthor escape from prison.\n* Susannah York as Lara: Jor-El's wife and Superman's biological mother.\n* Clifton James as Sheriff.\n* E.G. Marshall as the President of the United States.\n* Marc McClure as Jimmy Olsen: Young photographer at the Daily Planet.\n* Terence Stamp as General Zod: The ruthless, arrogant and megalomaniacal leader of three Kryptonian criminals banished to the Phantom Zone and unwittingly set free by Superman. Zod, upon landing on Earth and gaining the same superpowers as Superman, immediately views humans as a weak and insignificant sub-species and imposes his evil will for world dominance. However, his arrogance causes him to quickly become bored with his powers and he is almost disappointed at how little of a challenge humans are. His insatiable lust for power is replaced however by revenge when he learns that the son of Jor-El stands in the way of his absolute rule of the planet.\n\nGene Hackman, Valerie Perrine, Ned Beatty, and E.G. Marshall are the only actors who did not participate in the film's reshoots under the direction of Richard Lester. Where additional shots were needed for continuity, Lester used body doubles in place of the original actors. Marlon Brando's scenes were excised entirely, due to the high fee the actor had demanded for the use of his footage in the film.\n\nAccording to the 2006 documentary You Will Believe: The Cinematic Saga of Superman, Sarah Douglas was the only cast member to do extensive around-the-world press tours in support of the film and was one of the few actors who held a neutral point of view in the Donner-Lester controversy.\n\nRichard Donner briefly appears in a \"walking cameo\" in the film. In the sequence where the de-powered Clark and Lois are seen approaching the truck-stop diner by car, Donner appears walking \"camera left\" past the driver's side. He is wearing a light tan jacket and appears to be smoking a pipe. In his commentary for Superman II, Ilya Salkind states that the inclusion of his cameo in that scene is proof that the Salkinds held no animosity towards Donner, because if there were, then surely they would have cut it out. Conversely, Donner has used his inclusion in the scene to debunk praise heaped on Lester around the release of the film where Lester took credit for the intense nature of the \"bully\" scene in the diner, pointing out that he (Donner) filmed the scene and not Lester.\n\nProduction history\n\nOriginal production\n\nProduction on Superman II was commenced simultaneously with Superman at Pinewood Studios in England under the direction of Richard Donner in April 1977. However, due to off-screen problems with Donner between producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind, and Pierre Spengler over the huge shooting schedule and final cut privileges, filming on Superman II was put on a hiatus in October 1977 in order for Donner to concentrate on finishing the first film instead. To ease tension between Donner and Spengler, the Salkinds hired U.K. director Richard Lester, who had previously directed another double-project for the Salkinds; The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974), as an uncredited line producer on Superman.\n\nOn March 15, 1979, shortly after the release of Superman, the Salkinds replaced Donner with Lester for Superman II. The exact reasoning and details behind Donner's departure is still constantly debated. In his 2006 DVD commentary for Superman II, Spengler claims that Donner was indeed invited back to finish the sequel, but that Donner refused, telling Army Archerd in a March 1978 interview for Variety magazine that he wouldn't be returning to direct as long as Spengler was acting producer. However, Donner told Starlog in 1989 that he was not invited back and that he did not know production had continued on the sequel until he received a telegram from the Salkinds telling him: \"Your services are no longer needed.\"\n\nThe decision to replace Donner was controversial amongst the cast and crew. Creative consultant Tom Mankiewicz and editor Stuart Baird declined on returning for the sequel in support of Donner; however, Mankiewicz was still credited for the sequel. Actor Gene Hackman, who had already completed many of his scenes under Donner's direction, also declined on returning due to his commitment on Reds and was replaced by a body double. Actor Marlon Brando, who finished all his scenes for both Superman films early into production, successfully sued the Salkinds for $50 million over grossed profits gained from the first film. In response, the Salkinds cut Brando from Superman II, replacing his scenes with actress Susannah York. John Williams also did not return as composer for Superman II due to scheduling commitments with Lucasfilm. However, Williams granted the Salkinds permission to use his original themes and even recommended composer Ken Thorne, a personal friend of Williams, to compose the film's score.\n\nProduction under Richard Lester\n\nProduction on Superman II officially recommenced with Richard Lester as director on June 1, 1979. Originally, the Salkinds considered Guy Hamilton for director, but he declined. On the first day of filming, set designer John Barry suddenly collapsed on the nearby set of The Empire Strikes Back and died from meningitis. Peter Murton was then hired in Barry's place. Principal photography resumed at Pinewood Studios in August 1979 with a revised screenplay written by David and Leslie Newman. The new script featured several newly conceived scenes including the Eiffel Tower opening sequence and Clark rescuing Lois at Niagara Falls. However, under strict guidelines from Directors Guild of America, Lester needed to re-shoot several scenes Donner had already completed in order to receive full directorial credit. Location shooting took place in Canada, Paris, Norway and St Lucia, while Metropolis (which was shot in New York for the first movie) was filmed entirely on the back lot at Pinewood. Superman II finally finished filming on March 10, 1980.\n\nScenes filmed by Donner were included in the finished film. These scenes include all the Gene Hackman footage, the Moon sequences, the White House shots, Clark and the bully, and much of the footage of Zod, Ursa and Non arriving at the Daily Planet. Since the Lester footage was shot two years later, both Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve look different between the Lester and Donner footage. Reeve appears less bulked up in Donner's sequences (filmed in 1977), as he was still gaining muscle for the part. Kidder also has dramatic changes throughout; in the montage of Lester-Donner material, shot inside the Daily Planet and the Fortress of Solitude near the movie's conclusion, her hairstyle, hair color, and even make-up are all inconsistent. Indeed, Kidder's physical appearance in the Lester footage is noticeably different; during the scenes shot for Donner she appears slender, whereas in the Lester footage she looks frail and gaunt.\n\nScore\n\nAs John Williams chose not to return to score the film due to obligations with Lucasfilm's The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark, instead Ken Thorne was commissioned to write the music upon Williams' recommendation. However, the score contains frequent excerpts from Williams' previous score to the first film. Thorne wrote minimal original material and adapted source music (such as Average White Band's \"Pick Up the Pieces\", which appears both in the bar in Idaho as well as during Clark's second encounter with Rocky. The music was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra at the CTS Studios, Wembley, London in the spring of 1980. The soundtrack was released on Warner Bros. Records, with one edition featuring laser-etched \"S\" designs repeated five times on each side. \n\nRelease and reception\n\nUnlike its predecessor, Superman II did not open simultaneously around the world and had staggered release dates in an attempt to maximize its box office returns. Originally opening in Australia on December 4, 1980, followed by selected European countries, it would be a further six months before it premiered in America, on June 1, 1981, at the National Theater, Broadway.\n\nDespite the difficulties during production, Superman II received much praise from critics. It holds an 89% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes; the summary says, \"The humor occasionally stumbles into slapstick territory, and the special effects are dated, but Superman II meets, if not exceeds, the standard set by its predecessor.\" On Metacritic, the film has a score of 87 (out of 100), indicating \"universal acclaim\". Roger Ebert, who gave the original film very high acclaim also praised Superman II, giving it four out of four stars, writing, \"This movie's most intriguing insight is that Superman's disguise as Clark Kent isn't a matter of looks as much as of mental attitude: Clark is disguised not by his glasses but by his ordinariness. Beneath his meek exterior, of course, is concealed a superhero. And, the movie subtly hints, isn't that the case with us all?\" Reeve said that Superman II is \"the best of the series\".\n\nSuperman II was a box office success scoring the highest-grossing opening weekend up to that time and became the third highest grossing film of 1981. It grossed $108,185,706 in the US, reaching blockbuster status. The film also received recognition from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. It won Best Science Fiction Film. Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder were nominated Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively. Ken Thorne also received a nomination for Best Music.\n\nBritish cinema magazine Total Film named Terence Stamp's version of General Zod No.32 on their 'Top 50 Greatest Villains of All Time' list (beating out the No.38 place of Lex Luthor) in 2007. Pop culture website IGN placed General Zod at No.30 on their list of the 'Top 50 Comic Book Villains' while commenting \"Stamp is Zod\" (emphasis in original). \n\nAnti-smoking campaigners opposed the film as the largest sponsor of Superman II was the cigarette brand Marlboro, who paid $43,000 (approx £20,000), for the brand to be shown 22 times in the film. Lois Lane was shown as a chain smoker in the film, although she never smoked in the comic book version. A prop included a truck sign written with the Marlboro logo, although actual vehicles for tobacco distribution are unmarked, for security reasons. This led to a congressional investigation. \n\nBroadcast television versions\n\nAmerican Broadcasting Company\n\nIn 1984, when Superman II premiered on television, 24 minutes were re-inserted into the film (17 minutes on ABC). Much of the extra footage was directed by Richard Donner. In the ABC-TV version, a U.S. \"polar patrol\" is shown picking up the three Kryptonians and Lex Luthor at the end of the film. Without this ending, it appears that Superman has let the Kryptonians die, though Superman has a strict code against killing and their deaths aren't necessary once they are depowered. The ending of the extended cuts also has Superman, with Lois standing beside him, destroying the Fortress of Solitude.\n\nMore specifically:\n* In the ABC-TV version, Superman passes a Concorde jet on his way to Paris. This is not in the video release and was actually an outtake from Superman: The Movie as a bridge between Superman saving Air Force One and his conversation with Jor-El after his first night. \n* At the end of the film, Clark Kent bumps into a large bald man, which reminds him to go to the diner to face the obnoxious trucker who beat him up earlier.\n* Superman destroys the Fortress of Solitude.\n* The Phantom Zone villains land outside the Fortress of Solitude with Lex Luthor and Lois Lane, trying to figure out how to get in.\n* Extended scenes of the three Kryptonians invasion of the White House, with Zod using a gun and Non frightening a dog.\n* Superman cooks soufflé using his heat vision, during dinner with Lois at the Fortress of Solitude.\n* Extended discussion between Zod and Ursa on the Moon.\n* The three Kryptonian villains are arrested in the TV version. In The Richard Donner Cut, Superman reversed the rotation of the Earth to keep the three Kryptonian criminals from being freed from the Phantom Zone.\n\nMuch of the added footage was later restored for the 2006 Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut.\n\nAlso, there were various edits due to content issues:\n* Much violence in the opening White House scene was left out.\n* Much of the bully's line in the bar (\"I don't like your meat anyway!\") sounds like (\"I don't want your meat anyway\").\n* About 35 seconds of the \"battle of Metropolis Road\" (Superman flying over Metropolis River) was deleted.\n* Some language and profanity were re-dubbed.\n\nCanadian version\n\nDuring the 1980s, CFCF12 cable 11 screened an edition of Superman II that was differently edited to that to the one shown on in the United States on ABC. This particular version has only been screened once in Canada. The first Canadian broadcast of Superman II had an additional few seconds of dialogue as Luthor and Miss Tessmacher were stopped on a snow bank admiring the Fortress of Solitude. In the first U.S. broadcast (the same evening), the scene begins abruptly as Luthor starts the snow mobile immediately after the dialogue sequence.\n\nScenes seen in the Canadian version but not in the ABC version include:\n* A little girl watching the destruction of East Huston by the Kryptonians on TV.\n* Longer conversation between Lois and Superman after he destroys the Fortress of Solitude.\n* Lex Luthor taking Perry White's coffee during the Times Square battle.\n* Lex and Miss Tessmacher admiring the Fortress of Solitude.\n* Lex's negotiating with Superman after they leave the fortress is longer.\n\nAll the footage mentioned that had been added for various network telecasts were incorporated into an even longer cut of the film that aired in some countries in Europe (the other U.S./Canadian cuts were derived from this version). Prepared by the Salkinds' production company, it is this 146-minute version that some Superman fans remastered from the best-possible materials into a professionally made \"Restored International Cut\" DVD for availability on one of the many Superman fan sites. However, such plans backfired when Warner Bros. threatened legal action against the bootleg release. The RIC, like the longer version of Superman, may still be found on Internet forums, torrent sites, and in science fiction conventions.\n\nThe Richard Donner Cut\n\nDuring the production of Superman Returns, director Bryan Singer acquired the rights from Marlon Brando's estate to use the late actor's footage from Superman into the film. Shortly after, Ilya Salkind confirmed that Donner was involved in the project to re-cut Superman II using Brando's unused footage. Editor Michael Thau worked on the project alongside Donner and Tom Mankiewicz, who supervised the Superman II reconstruction. Despite some initial confusion, Thau confirmed that all the footage shot by Donner in 1977 was recovered and transferred from a vault in England. \n\nThe new edition, titled Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut was released on DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray on November 28, 2006. In order to make Donner's vision of Superman II feel less incomplete, finished scenes by Lester that Donner was unable to shoot were incorporated into the film as well as the screen tests by Reeve and Kidder for one pivotal scene. The film also restores several cut scenes including Marlon Brando as Jor-El, an alternate prologue and opening sequence at the Daily Planet that omits the Eiffel Tower opening from the original, as well as the original scripted and filmed ending for Superman II featuring Superman reversing time before it was cut and placed at the end of the first film.\n\nIn other media\n\nComics\n\nSuperman's publisher DC Comics published a commemorative magazine of Superman II in 1981. Published as DC Special Series #25, it was produced in \"Treasury format\" and included photos and background photos, actor profiles, panel-to-scene comparisons, and pin-ups. \n\nNear the end of the film, Clark uses a \"super-kiss\" to make Lois forget he is Superman. While this was a real power Superman had in the comics (originally displayed in Action Comics #306), it was rarely used, and eventually eliminated after the 1985–1986 reboot of the character following the limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths.\n\nIn the film, after attacking the White House, Lex Luthor enters the Oval Office to make a deal with the Kryptonians. By the end of the scene, he is sitting behind the President's desk. In the comics (in the year 2000), Lex Luthor ran for President of the United States and won. \n\nIn 2006, the Superman comics themselves adapted elements from the Superman movies, specifically the ice-like look of Krypton, and Jor-El banishing the criminals to the Phantom Zone. Ursa and Non made their first appearances in the comic book continuity. (This was facilitated in the \"Last Son\" story arc, co-written by Richard Donner.) \n\nTelevision\n\nIn the television series Smallville, much of the imagery and concepts of the first two Salkind/Donner Superman films, has been revived as a conscious homage to the film series by the show's creators. These include the ice-crystal Fortress of Solitude, the spinning square in space to represent the Phantom Zone, and the continued presence of the deceased Jor-El as a disembodied counselor and teacher to young Clark/Kal-El. Terence Stamp, who played General Zod in the first two films, provided the voice of Jor-El for the series. Christopher Reeve made two appearances on the show as Dr. Virgil Swann, a disabled scientist who had acquired knowledge of Krypton to pass on to Clark, before Reeve's death in 2004. A section of John Williams' Superman theme was included when Reeve made his first appearance, and was later used in the series finale. Margot Kidder, Marc McClure (Jimmy Olsen), and Helen Slater (Supergirl) have also made appearances on the show. Annette O'Toole (Lana Lang in Superman III) played Martha Kent.\n\nAdditionally, in the animated series Young Justice, in the episode \"Satisfaction\" of its second season, Lex Luthor appears briefly talking to one of his assistants on the phone, who is called Otis, as a reference to the character in the films." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "White House", "202.456.1111", "1600 Pennsylvania Ave.", "White House solar panels", "@WhiteHouse", "202-456-1111", "20500", "White house tours", "The Whitehouse", "+1.202.456.1111", "Whiskey Hotel", "White Home", "+1.202-456-1111", "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue", "The WhiteHouse", "United States White House", "US White House", "White house", "1600 Pennsylvania", "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW", "1600 Pennsylvania Ave", "The White House", "White House, District of Columbia", "White House Complex", "THE WHITE HOUSE", "202-456-1414" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "united states white house", "202 456 1414", "whiskey hotel", "white house solar panels", "1 202 456 1111", "white house", "us white house", "1600 pennsylvania", "white house complex", "white home", "white house district of columbia", "whitehouse", "1600 pennsylvania avenue", "202 456 1111", "white house tours", "1600 pennsylvania ave", "1600 pennsylvania avenue nw", "20500" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "white house", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "The White House" }
What is the name of the Darth Vader-to-be in the Star Wars Prequel, Episode 1?	tc_1139	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "Search" ], "filename": [ "Star_Wars.txt", "Darth_Vader.txt" ], "title": [ "Star Wars", "Darth Vader" ], "wiki_context": [ "Star Wars is an American epic space opera media franchise, centered on a film series created by George Lucas. It depicts the adventures of various characters \"a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away\".\n\nThe franchise began in 1977 with the release of the film Star Wars, (subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope in 1981) by 20th Century Fox, which became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon. It was followed by the similarly successful sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983); these three films constitute the original Star Wars trilogy. A prequel trilogy was later released between 1999 and 2005, which received a more mixed reaction from critics and fans in comparison to the original trilogy. A sequel trilogy is also currently being produced with the first installment as The Force Awakens (2015). All seven films were nominated for or won Academy Awards, as well as being commercial successes, with a combined box office revenue of $6.46 billion, making Star Wars the fourth highest-grossing film series. \n\nThe series has spawned an extensive media franchise—the Star Wars expanded universe, rebranded in April 2014 as Star Wars Legends—including books, television series, computer and video games, and comic books, resulting in significant development of the series's fictional universe. The Clone Wars film, television series of the same name, the Rebels television series, and the anthology films lie outside of the Legends banner and comprise part of the Star Wars official canon alongside the film trilogies. Star Wars holds a Guinness World Records title for the \"Most successful film merchandising franchise.\" In 2012, the total value of the Star Wars franchise was estimated at USD $30.7 billion, including box-office receipts as well as profits from their video games and DVD sales. \n\nIn 2012, The Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm for $4.06 billion and announced three new Star Wars films; the first film of that trilogy, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, was released in 2015. 20th Century Fox retains the physical distribution rights to the first two Star Wars trilogies, owning permanent rights for the original 1977 film and holding the rights to Episodes I–III, V and VI until May 2020. Walt Disney Studios owns digital distribution rights to all the Star Wars films, excluding A New Hope. \n\nSetting\n\nThe events depicted in the Star Wars franchise take place in a fictional galaxy. Many species of alien creatures (often humanoid) are depicted. Robotic droids are also commonplace and are generally built to serve their owners. Space travel is common, and many planets in the galaxy are members of a single galactic government. In the prequel trilogy, this is depicted in the form of the Galactic Republic; at the end of the prequel trilogy and throughout the original trilogy, this government is the Galactic Empire. Preceding and during the sequel trilogy, this government is the New Republic.\n\nOne of the prominent elements of Star Wars is \"the Force\", an omnipresent energy that can be harnessed by those with that ability, known as Force-sensitives. It is described in the first produced film as \"an energy field created by all living things [that] surrounds us, penetrates us, [and] binds the galaxy together.\" The Force allows users to perform various supernatural feats (such as telekinesis, clairvoyance, precognition, and mind control) and can amplify certain physical traits, such as speed and reflexes; these abilities vary between characters and can be improved through training. While the Force can be used for good, known as the light side, it also has a dark side that, when pursued, imbues users with hatred, aggression, and malevolence.\n\nThe seven films feature the Jedi, who adhere to the light side of the Force to serve as peacekeepers and guardians, and the Sith, who use the dark side of the Force for evil in an attempt to destroy the Jedi Order and the Republic and rule the galaxy for themselves.\n\nTheatrical films\n\nThe first film in the series, Star Wars, was released on May 25, 1977. This was followed by two sequels: The Empire Strikes Back, released on May 21, 1980, and Return of the Jedi, released on May 25, 1983. The opening crawl of the sequels disclosed that they were numbered as \"Episode V\" and \"Episode VI\" respectively, though the films were generally advertised solely under their subtitles. Though the first film in the series was simply titled Star Wars, with its 1981 re-release it had the subtitle Episode IV: A New Hope added to remain consistent with its sequel, and to establish it as the middle chapter of a continuing saga.\n\nIn 1997, to correspond with the 20th anniversary of the original film, Lucas released a \"Special Edition\" of the Star Wars trilogy to theaters. The re-release featured alterations to the three films, primarily motivated by the improvement of CGI and other special effects technologies, which allowed visuals that were not possible to achieve at the time of the original filmmaking. Lucas continued to make changes to the films for subsequent releases, such as the first ever DVD release of the original trilogy on September 21, 2004, and the first ever Blu-ray release of all six films on September 16, 2011. Reception of the Special Edition was mixed, prompting petitions and fan edits to produce restored copies of the original trilogy. \n\nMore than two decades after the release of the original film, the series continued with a prequel trilogy; consisting of Episode I: The Phantom Menace, released on May 19, 1999; Episode II: Attack of the Clones, released on May 16, 2002; and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, released on May 19, 2005. On August 15, 2008, Star Wars: The Clone Wars was released theatrically as a lead-in to the animated TV series of the same name. Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released on December 18, 2015.\n\nOn January 26, 2016, Variety reported that Disney executives were meeting with cable outlets Turner, FX Networks, Viacom, NBCUniversal, A&E Networks and AMC Networks to have a discussion on purchasing the free-TV rights to the first six Star Wars movies. \n\nSaga films\n\nAnthology films\n\nAnimated film\n\nPlot overview\n\nOriginal trilogy\n\nThe original trilogy begins with the Galactic Empire nearing completion of the Death Star space station, which will allow the Empire to crush the Rebel Alliance, an organized resistance formed to combat Emperor Palpatine's tyranny. Palpatine's Sith apprentice Darth Vader captures Princess Leia, a member of the rebellion who has stolen the plans to the Death Star and hidden them in the astromech droid R2-D2. R2, along with his protocol droid counterpart C-3PO, escapes to the desert planet Tatooine. There, the droids are purchased by farm boy Luke Skywalker and his step-uncle and aunt. While Luke is cleaning R2, he accidentally triggers a message put into the droid by Leia, who asks for assistance from the legendary Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi. Luke later assists the droids in finding the exiled Jedi, who is now passing as an old hermit under the alias Ben Kenobi. When Luke asks about his father, whom he has never met, Obi-Wan tells him that Anakin Skywalker was a great Jedi who was betrayed and murdered by Vader. Obi-Wan and Luke hire the smuggler Han Solo and his Wookiee co-pilot Chewbacca to take them to Alderaan, Leia's home world, which they eventually find has been destroyed by the Death Star. Once on board the space station, Luke and Han rescue Leia while Obi-Wan allows himself to be killed during a lightsaber duel with Vader; his sacrifice allows the group to escape with the plans that help the Rebels destroy the Death Star. Luke himself (guided by the power of the Force) fires the shot that destroys the deadly space station during the Battle of Yavin.\n\nThree years later, Luke travels to find the Jedi Master Yoda, now living in exile on the swamp-infested world of Dagobah, to begin his Jedi training. However, Luke's training is interrupted when Vader lures him into a trap by capturing Han and his friends at Cloud City. During a fierce lightsaber duel, Vader reveals that he is Luke's father and attempts to turn him to the dark side of the Force. Luke escapes and, after rescuing Han from the gangster Jabba the Hutt, returns to Yoda to complete his training; only to find the 900-year-old Jedi Master on his deathbed. Before he dies, Yoda confirms that Vader is Luke's father. Moments later, the Force ghost of Obi-Wan tells Luke that he must confront his father once again before he can become a Jedi, and that Leia is his twin sister.\n\nAs the Rebels attack the second Death Star, Luke engages Vader in another lightsaber duel as the Emperor watches; both Sith Lords intend to turn Luke to the dark side and take him as their apprentice. During the duel, Luke succumbs to his anger and brutally overpowers Vader, but controls himself at the last minute; realizing that he is about to suffer his father's fate, he spares Vader's life and proudly declares his allegiance to the Jedi. An enraged Palpatine then attempts to kill Luke with Force lightning, a sight that moves Vader to turn and kill the Emperor, suffering mortal wounds in the process. Redeemed, Anakin Skywalker dies in his son's arms. Luke becomes a full-fledged Jedi, and the Rebels destroy the second Death Star. \n\nPrequel trilogy\n\nThe prequel trilogy begins 32 years before the original film, with the corrupt Trade Federation setting up a blockade of battleships around the planet Naboo. The Sith Lord Darth Sidious had secretly planned the blockade to give his alter ego, Senator Palpatine, a pretense to overthrow and replace the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic. At the Chancellor's request, the Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice, a younger Obi-Wan Kenobi, are sent to Naboo to negotiate with the Federation. However, the two Jedi are forced to instead help the Queen of Naboo, Padmé Amidala, escape from the blockade and plead her planet's crisis before the Republic Senate on Coruscant. When their starship is damaged during the escape, they land on Tatooine for repairs, where Qui-Gon discovers a nine-year-old Anakin Skywalker. Qui-Gon comes to believe that Anakin is the \"Chosen One\" foretold by Jedi prophecy to bring balance to the Force, and he helps liberate the boy from slavery. The Jedi Council, led by Yoda, reluctantly allows Obi-Wan to train Anakin after Qui-Gon is killed by Palpatine's first apprentice, Darth Maul, during the Battle of Naboo. \n\nThe remainder of the prequel trilogy, set a decade later, chronicles Anakin's gradual descent to the dark side as he fights in the Clone Wars, which Palpatine secretly engineers to destroy the Jedi Order and lure Anakin into his service. Anakin and Padmé fall in love and secretly wed, and eventually Padmé becomes pregnant. Anakin has a prophetic vision of Padmé dying in childbirth, and Palpatine convinces him that the dark side of the Force holds the power to save her life. Desperate, Anakin submits to Palpatine's Sith teachings and is renamed Darth Vader.\n\nWhile Palpatine re-organizes the Republic into the tyrannical Empire, Vader participates in the extermination of the Jedi Order, culminating in a lightsaber duel between himself and Obi-Wan on the volcanic planet Mustafar. Obi-Wan defeats his former apprentice and friend, severing his limbs and leaving him to burn to death on the shores of a lava flow. Palpatine arrives shortly afterward and saves Vader by placing him into a mechanical black mask and suit of armor that serves as a permanent life support system. At the same time, Padmé dies while giving birth to twins Luke and Leia. Obi-Wan and Yoda, now the only remaining Jedi alive, agree to separate the twins and keep them hidden from both Vader and the Emperor; until the time comes when Anakin's children can be used to help overthrow the Empire.\n\nSequel trilogy\n\nApproximately 30 years after the destruction of the second Death Star, Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi, has vanished. The First Order has risen from the fallen Empire and seeks to destroy Luke and the New Republic, while the Resistance, a small force backed by the Republic and led by the former princess of Alderaan, General Leia Organa, opposes them. On the planet Jakku, Resistance pilot Poe Dameron obtains a map that leads to Luke's location. Stormtroopers under the command of Kylo Ren, the son of Han Solo and Leia, capture Poe. His droid BB-8 escapes with the map and encounters a scavenger, Rey. Ren tortures Poe and learns of BB-8. Stormtrooper FN-2187 finds himself unable to kill for the First Order, and he frees Poe. The two escape in a TIE fighter; Poe dubs FN-2187 \"Finn\". They crash on Jakku, and Poe appears to die in the process. Finn encounters Rey and BB-8, but the First Order locates them, so they escape the planet in a stolen ship: the Millennium Falcon. After leaving Jakku, the Falcon is recaptured by Han Solo and Chewbacca, who have stepped away from the Resistance and resumed their lives as smugglers. The five companions travel to Takodana to meet with Maz Kanata. While there, Rey finds the lightsaber that previously belonged Anakin and Luke Skywalker, and upon touching it, brushes with the Force. Maz's castle is attacked by the First Order. Finn, Han, and Chewbacca are saved by a group of Resistance pilots led by Poe, who survived the crash on Jakku, but Rey is captured by Ren and taken to Starkiller Base. After reuniting with Leia and the Resistance on D'Qar, Han, Finn, and Chewbacca travel to Starkiller Base to free Rey and disable the planet's shields, which will allow Resistance pilots to destroy it. Rey is tortured by Ren, but her Force sensitivity allows her to resist him. She escapes by using a Jedi mind trick on her guard and reunites with Han, Finn, and Chewbacca, but the group encounters Ren. Han confronts his son, calling him by his birth name, Ben Solo, and asking him to come home. Ren momentarily appears to be swayed towards the light side, but then ignites his lightsaber and kills Han. Resistance pilots begin to bombard the base. Finn and Rey escape the base and encounter Ren. Finn takes up Anakin's lightsaber, only to be badly wounded by Ren. Rey Force pulls the lightsaber to her, and fights and wounds Ren, but the two are separated by a rift. Rey, Finn, and Chewbacca escape the imploding planet on the Falcon and return to the Resistance. A wounded Finn stays on D'Qar, while Rey, Chewbacca, and R2-D2 use the map to find Luke Skywalker on the planet Ahch-To, where Rey presents a silent Luke with his old lightsaber.\n\nThemes\n\nThe stormtroopers from the movies share a name with the Nazi stormtroopers (see also Sturmabteilung). Imperial officers' uniforms also resemble some historical German Army uniforms (see Wehrmacht) and the political and security officers of the Empire resemble the black clad SS down to the imitation silver death's head insignia on their officer's caps. World War II terms were used for names in Star Wars; examples include the planets Kessel (a term that refers to a group of encircled forces), Hoth (Hermann Hoth was a German general who served on the snow laden Eastern Front), and Tatooine (Tataouine - a province south of Tunis in Tunisia, roughly where Lucas filmed for the planet; Libya was a WWII arena of war). Palpatine being Chancellor before becoming Emperor mirrors Adolf Hitler's role as Chancellor before appointing himself Dictator. The Great Jedi Purge alludes to the events of The Holocaust, the Great Purge, the Cultural Revolution, and the Night of the Long Knives. In addition, Lucas himself has drawn parallels between Palpatine and his rise to power to historical dictators such as Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolf Hitler. The final medal awarding scene in A New Hope, however, references Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will. The space battles in A New Hope were based on filmed World War I and World War II dogfights. \n\nContinuing the use of Nazi inspiration for the Empire, J. J. Abrams, the director of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, has said that the First Order, an Imperial offshoot which will possibly serve as the main antagonist of the sequel trilogy, is also inspired by another aspect of the Nazi regime. Abrams spoke of how several Nazis fled to Argentina after the war and he claims that the concept for the First Order came from conversations between the scriptwriters about what would have happened if they had started working together again. \n\nAside from its well known science fictional technology, Star Wars features elements such as knighthood, chivalry, and princesses that are related to archetypes of the fantasy genre. The Star Wars world, unlike fantasy and science-fiction films that featured sleek and futuristic settings, was portrayed as dirty and grimy. Lucas' vision of a \"used future\" was further popularized in the science fiction-horror films Alien, which was set on a dirty space freighter; Mad Max 2, which is set in a post-apocalyptic desert; and Blade Runner, which is set in a crumbling, dirty city of the future. Lucas made a conscious effort to parallel scenes and dialogue between films, and especially to parallel the journeys of Luke Skywalker with that of his father Anakin when making the prequels.\n\nStar Wars contains many themes of political science that mainly favor democracy over dictatorship. Political science has been an important element of Star Wars since the franchise first launched in 1977. The plot climax of Star Wars is modeled after the fall of the democratic Roman Republic and the formation of an empire. \n\nTechnical information\n\nAll seven films of the Star Wars series were shot in an aspect ratio of 2.39:1. The original and sequel trilogies were shot with anamorphic lenses. Episodes IV, V, and VII were shot in Panavision, while Episode VI was shot in Joe Dunton Camera (JDC) scope. Episode I was shot with Hawk anamorphic lenses on Arriflex cameras, and Episodes II and III were shot with Sony's CineAlta high-definition digital cameras. \n\nLucas hired Ben Burtt to oversee the sound effects on the original 1977 film. Burtt's accomplishment was such that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented him with a Special Achievement Award because it had no award at the time for the work he had done. Lucasfilm developed the THX sound reproduction standard for Return of the Jedi. John Williams composed the scores for all seven films. Lucas' design for Star Wars involved a grand musical sound, with leitmotifs for different characters and important concepts. Williams' Star Wars title theme has become one of the most famous and well-known musical compositions in modern music history. \n\nLucas hired 'the Dean of Special Effects' John Stears, who created R2-D2, Luke Skywalker's Landspeeder, the Jedi Knights' lightsabers, and the Death Star. The technical lightsaber choreography for the original trilogy was developed by leading filmmaking sword-master Bob Anderson. Anderson trained actor Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) and performed all the sword stunts as Darth Vader during the lightsaber duels in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, wearing Vader's costume. Anderson's role in the original Star Wars trilogy was highlighted in the film Reclaiming the Blade, where he shares his experiences as the fight choreographer developing the lightsaber techniques for the movies. \n\nProduction history\n\nOriginal trilogy\n\nIn 1971, Universal Studios agreed to make American Graffiti and Star Wars in a two-picture contract, although Star Wars was later rejected in its early concept stages. American Graffiti was completed in 1973 and, a few months later, Lucas wrote a short summary called \"The Journal of the Whills\", which told the tale of the training of apprentice CJ Thorpe as a \"Jedi-Bendu\" space commando by the legendary Mace Windy. Frustrated that his story was too difficult to understand, Lucas then began writing a 13-page treatment called The Star Wars on April 17, 1973, which had thematic parallels with Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress. By 1974, he had expanded the treatment into a rough draft screenplay, adding elements such as the Sith, the Death Star, and a protagonist named Annikin Starkiller.\n\nFor the second draft, Lucas made heavy simplifications, and introduced the young hero on a farm as Luke Starkiller. Annikin became Luke's father, a wise Jedi knight. \"The Force\" was also introduced as a mystical energy field. The next draft removed the father character and replaced him with a substitute named Ben Kenobi, and in 1976 a fourth draft had been prepared for principal photography. The film was titled Adventures of Luke Starkiller, as taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars. During production, Lucas changed Luke's name to Skywalker and altered the title to simply The Star Wars and finally Star Wars. \n\nAt that point, Lucas was not expecting the film to become part of a series. The fourth draft of the script underwent subtle changes that made it more satisfying as a self-contained film, ending with the destruction of the Galactic Empire itself by way of destroying the Death Star. However, Lucas had previously conceived of the film as the first in a series of adventures. Later, he realized the film would not in fact be the first in the sequence, but a film in the second trilogy in the saga. This is stated explicitly in George Lucas' preface to the 1994 reissue of Splinter of the Mind's Eye:\n\nThe second draft contained a teaser for a never-made sequel about \"The Princess of Ondos\", and by the time of the third draft some months later Lucas had negotiated a contract that gave him rights to make two sequels. Not long after, Lucas met with author Alan Dean Foster, and hired him to write these two sequels as novels. The intention was that if Star Wars was successful, Lucas could adapt the novels into screenplays. He had also by that point developed an elaborate backstory to aid his writing process.\n\nWhen Star Wars proved successful, Lucas decided to use the film as the basis for an elaborate serial, although at one point he considered walking away from the series altogether. However, Lucas wanted to create an independent filmmaking center—what would become Skywalker Ranch—and saw an opportunity to use the series as a financing agent. Alan Dean Foster had already begun writing the first sequel novel, but Lucas decided to abandon his plan to adapt Foster's work; the book was released as Splinter of the Mind's Eye the following year. At first, Lucas envisioned a series of films with no set number of entries, like the James Bond series. In an interview with Rolling Stone in August 1977, he said that he wanted his friends to each take a turn at directing the films and giving unique interpretations on the series. He also said that the backstory in which Darth Vader turns to the dark side, kills Luke's father and fights Ben Kenobi on a volcano as the Galactic Republic falls would make an excellent sequel.\n\nLater that year, Lucas hired science fiction author Leigh Brackett to write Star Wars II with him. They held story conferences and, by late November 1977, Lucas had produced a handwritten treatment called The Empire Strikes Back. The treatment is similar to the final film, except that Darth Vader does not reveal he is Luke's father. In the first draft that Brackett would write from this, Luke's father appears as a ghost to instruct Luke. \n\nBrackett finished her first draft in early 1978; Lucas has said he was disappointed with it, but before he could discuss it with her, she died of cancer. With no writer available, Lucas had to write his next draft himself. It was this draft in which Lucas first made use of the \"Episode\" numbering for the films; Empire Strikes Back was listed as Episode II. As Michael Kaminski argues in The Secret History of Star Wars, the disappointment with the first draft probably made Lucas consider different directions in which to take the story. He made use of a new plot twist: Darth Vader claims to be Luke's father. According to Lucas, he found this draft enjoyable to write, as opposed to the yearlong struggles writing the first film, and quickly wrote two more drafts, both in April 1978. He also took the script to a darker extreme by having Han Solo imprisoned in carbonite and left in limbo.\n\nThis new story point of Darth Vader being Luke's father had drastic effects on the series. Michael Kaminski argues in his book that it is unlikely that the plot point had ever seriously been considered or even conceived of before 1978, and that the first film was clearly operating under an alternate storyline where Vader was separate from Luke's father; there is not a single reference to this plot point before 1978. After writing the second and third drafts of Empire Strikes Back in which the point was introduced, Lucas reviewed the new backstory he had created: Anakin Skywalker was Ben Kenobi's brilliant student and had a child named Luke, but was swayed to the dark side by Emperor Palpatine (who became a Sith and not simply a politician). Anakin battled Ben Kenobi on the site of a volcano and was wounded, but then resurrected as Darth Vader. Meanwhile, Kenobi hid Luke on Tatooine while the Republic became the Empire and Vader systematically hunted down and killed the Jedi.\n\nWith this new backstory in place, Lucas decided that the series would be a trilogy, changing Empire Strikes Back from Episode II to Episode V in the next draft. Lawrence Kasdan, who had just completed writing Raiders of the Lost Ark, was then hired to write the next drafts, and was given additional input from director Irvin Kershner. Kasdan, Kershner, and producer Gary Kurtz saw the film as a more serious and adult film, which was helped by the new, darker storyline, and developed the series from the light adventure roots of the first film.\n\nBy the time he began writing Episode VI in 1981 (then titled Revenge of the Jedi), much had changed. Making Empire Strikes Back was stressful and costly, and Lucas' personal life was disintegrating. Burned out and not wanting to make any more Star Wars films, he vowed that he was done with the series in a May 1983 interview with Time magazine. Lucas' 1981 rough drafts had Darth Vader competing with the Emperor for possession of Luke—and in the second script, the \"revised rough draft\", Vader became a sympathetic character. Lawrence Kasdan was hired to take over once again and, in these final drafts, Vader was explicitly redeemed and finally unmasked. This change in character would provide a springboard to the \"Tragedy of Darth Vader\" storyline that underlies the prequels. \n\nPrequel trilogy\n\nAfter losing much of his fortune in a divorce settlement in 1987, Lucas had no desire to return to Star Wars, and had unofficially canceled the sequel trilogy by the time of Return of the Jedi. At that point, the prequels were only still a series of basic ideas partially pulled from his original drafts of \"The Star Wars\". Nevertheless, technical advances in the late 1980s and 1990s continued to fascinate Lucas, and he considered that they might make it possible to revisit his 20-year-old material. After Star Wars became popular once again, in the wake of Dark Horse's comic book line and Timothy Zahn's trilogy of novels, Lucas saw that there was still a large audience. His children were older, and with the explosion of CGI technology he was now considering returning to directing. By 1993, it was announced, in Variety among other sources, that he would be making the prequels. He began penning more to the story, now indicating the series would be a tragic one examining Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side. Lucas also began to change how the prequels would exist relative to the originals; at first they were supposed to be a \"filling-in\" of history tangential to the originals, but now he saw that they could form the beginning of one long story that started with Anakin's childhood and ended with his death. This was the final step towards turning the film series into a \"Saga\".\n\nIn 1994, Lucas began writing the screenplay to the first prequel, titled Episode I: The Beginning. Following the release of that film, Lucas announced that he would also be directing the next two, and began work on Episode II, The first draft of Episode II was completed just weeks before principal photography, and Lucas hired Jonathan Hales, a writer from The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, to polish it. Unsure of a title, Lucas had jokingly called the film \"Jar Jar's Great Adventure\". In writing The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas initially decided that Lando Calrissian was a clone and came from a planet of clones which caused the \"Clone Wars\" mentioned by Princess Leia in A New Hope; he later came up with an alternate concept of an army of clone shocktroopers from a remote planet which attacked the Republic and were repelled by the Jedi. The basic elements of that backstory became the plot basis for Episode II, with the new wrinkle added that Palpatine secretly orchestrated the crisis. \n\nLucas began working on Episode III before Attack of the Clones was released, offering concept artists that the film would open with a montage of seven Clone War battles. As he reviewed the storyline that summer, however, he says he radically re-organized the plot. Michael Kaminski, in The Secret History of Star Wars, offers evidence that issues in Anakin's fall to the dark side prompted Lucas to make massive story changes, first revising the opening sequence to have Palpatine kidnapped and his apprentice, Count Dooku, murdered by Anakin as the first act in the latter's turn towards the dark side. After principal photography was complete in 2003, Lucas made even more massive changes in Anakin's character, re-writing his entire turn to the dark side; he would now turn primarily in a quest to save Padmé's life, rather than the previous version in which that reason was one of several, including that he genuinely believed that the Jedi were evil and plotting to take over the Republic. This fundamental re-write was accomplished both through editing the principal footage, and new and revised scenes filmed during pick-ups in 2004. \n\nLucas often exaggerated the amount of material he wrote for the series; much of it stemmed from the post‐1978 period when the series grew into a phenomenon. Michael Kaminski explained that these exaggerations were both a publicity and security measure. Kaminski rationalized that since the series' story radically changed throughout the years, it was always Lucas' intention to change the original story retroactively because audiences would only view the material from his perspective. When congratulating the producers of the TV series Lost in 2010, Lucas himself jokingly admitted, \"when Star Wars first came out, I didn't know where it was going either. The trick is to pretend you've planned the whole thing out in advance. Throw in some father issues and references to other stories – let's call them homages – and you've got a series\". \n\nSequel trilogy\n\nA sequel trilogy was reportedly planned (Episodes VII, VIII and IX) by Lucasfilm as a sequel to the original Star Wars trilogy (Episodes IV, V and VI), released between 1977 and 1983. While the similarly discussed Star Wars prequel trilogy (Episodes I, II and III) was ultimately released between 1999 and 2005, Lucasfilm and George Lucas had for many years denied plans for a sequel trilogy, insisting that Star Wars is meant to be a six-part series. In , speaking about the upcoming Star Wars: The Clone Wars film, Lucas maintained his status on the sequel trilogy: \"I get asked all the time, 'What happens after Return of the Jedi?,' and there really is no answer for that. The movies were the story of Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker, and when Luke saves the galaxy and redeems his father, that's where that story ends.\" \n\nIn January 2012, Lucas announced that he would step away from blockbuster films and instead produce smaller arthouse films. Asked whether the criticism he received following the prequel trilogy and the alterations to the original trilogy had influenced his decision to retire, Lucas said: \"Why would I make any more when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?\" \n\nDespite insisting that a sequel trilogy would never happen, George Lucas began working on story treatments for three new Star Wars films in 2011. In October 2012, The Walt Disney Company agreed to buy Lucasfilm and announced that Star Wars Episode VII would be released in 2015. Later, it was revealed that the three new upcoming films (Episodes VII-IX) would be based on story treatments that had been written by George Lucas prior to the sale of Lucasfilm. The co-chairman of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy became president of the company, reporting to Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn. In addition, Kennedy will serve as executive producer on new Star Wars feature films, with franchise creator and Lucasfilm founder Lucas serving as creative consultant. The screenplay for Episode VII was originally set to be written by Michael Arndt, but in October 2013 it was announced that writing duties would be taken over by Lawrence Kasdan and J. J. Abrams. On January 25, 2013, The Walt Disney Studios and Lucasfilm officially announced J. J. Abrams as Star Wars Episode VIIs director and producer, along with Bryan Burk and Bad Robot Productions. \n\nOn November 20, 2012, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg will write and produce Episodes VIII and IX. Kasdan and Kinberg were later confirmed as creative consultants on those films, in addition to writing stand-alone films. In addition, John Williams, who wrote the music for the previous six episodes, has been hired to compose the music for Episodes VII, VIII and IX. \n\nOn March 12, 2015, Lucasfilm announced that Looper director Rian Johnson would direct Episode VIII with Ram Bergman as producer for Ram Bergman Productions. Reports initially claimed Johnson would also direct Episode IX, but it was later confirmed he would write only a story treatment. When asked about Episode VIII in an August 2014 interview, Johnson said \"it's boring to talk about, because the only thing I can really say is, I'm just happy. I don't have the terror I kind of expected I would, at least not yet. I'm sure I will at some point.\" It was originally scheduled to be released on May 26, 2017, but it's delayed for December 15, 2017. J. J. Abrams will serve as executive producer. \n\nAnthology series\n\nOn February 5, 2013, Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed the development of two stand-alone films, each individually written by Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg. On February 6, Entertainment Weekly reported that Disney is working on two films featuring Han Solo and Boba Fett. Disney CFO Jay Rasulo has described the stand-alone films as origin stories. Kathleen Kennedy explained that the stand-alone films will not crossover with the films of the sequel trilogy, stating, \"George was so clear as to how that works. The canon that he created was the Star Wars saga. Right now, Episode VII falls within that canon. The spin-off movies, or we may come up with some other way to call those films, they exist within that vast universe that he created. There is no attempt being made to carry characters (from the stand-alone films) in and out of the saga episodes. Consequently, from the creative standpoint, it's a roadmap that George made pretty clear.\" In April 2015, Lucasfilm and Kathleen Kennedy announced that the stand-alone films would be referred to as the Star Wars Anthology series. \n\nRogue One\n\nIn May 2014, Lucasfilm announced that Gareth Edwards would direct the first anthology film, to be released on December 16, 2016, with Gary Whitta writing the first draft. On March 12, 2015, the film's title was revealed to be Rogue One with Chris Weitz rewriting the script, with Felicity Jones, Ben Mendelsohn and Diego Luna starring. On April 19, 2015, a teaser trailer was shown exclusively during the closing of the Star Wars Celebration. Lucasfilm also announced that filming would begin in the summer of 2015. The plot will revolve around a group of rebels on a mission to steal the Death Star plans; director Edwards stated, \"It comes down to a group of individuals who don't have magical powers that have to somehow bring hope to the galaxy.\" Additionally, Kathleen Kennedy and Kiri Hart confirmed that the stand-alone films will be labeled as \"anthology films\". Edwards stated that the style of the film will be similar to that of a war film, stating, \"It's the reality of war. Good guys are bad. Bad guys are good. It's complicated, layered; a very rich scenario in which to set a movie.\" \n\nUntitled Han Solo Anthology film\n\nOn July 7, 2015, Lucasfilm announced, via StarWars.com, that a second Anthology film, which \"focuses on how young Han Solo became the smuggler, thief, and scoundrel whom Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi first encountered in the cantina at Mos Eisley\", would be released on May 25, 2018. The project will be directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller from a script by Lawrence and Jon Kasdan. Kathleen Kennedy will produce the film, Lawrence Kasdan and Jason McGatlin will executive produce, and Will Allegra will co-produce. The Hollywood Reporter stated when reporting the story, that the film is separate to the film that was originally being developed by Josh Trank. That film has now been pushed back to an unconfirmed date. Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort, Dave Franco, Jack Reynor, Scott Eastwood, Logan Lerman, Emory Cohen, Jack O'Connell, Alden Ehrenreich, Taron Egerton and Blake Jenner were among the actors who were in final considerations for the role of Han Solo. The Wrap reported that Chewbacca will appear. On May 5, 2016, Deadline reported that Ehrenreich was cast as Solo in the film, In July 2016, Ehrenreich was confirmed by Kennedy at the Star Wars Celebration. Kasdan has stated that filming will start in January 2017. \n\nUntitled Anthology film\n\nA third Anthology film rumored to focus on Boba Fett will be released in 2020. \n\n3D releases\n\nAt a ShoWest convention in 2005, Lucas demonstrated new technology and stated that he planned to release the six films in a new 3D film format, beginning with A New Hope in 2007. However, by January 2007, Lucasfilm stated on StarWars.com that \"there are no definitive plans or dates for releasing the Star Wars saga in 3-D.\" At Celebration Europe in July 2007, Rick McCallum confirmed that Lucasfilm was \"planning to take all six films and turn them into 3-D\", but they are \"waiting for the companies out there that are developing this technology to bring it down to a cost level that makes it worthwhile for everybody\". In July 2008, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO of DreamWorks Animation, revealed that Lucas planned to redo all six of the movies in 3D. In late September 2010, it was announced that The Phantom Menace would be theatrically re-released in 3-D on February 10, 2012. The plan was to re-release all six films in order, with the 3-D conversion process taking up to a year to complete for each film. However, the 3D re-releases of episodes II and III were postponed to enable Lucasfilm to concentrate on Episode VII. \n\nCast and crew\n\nCast\n\nCrew and other\n\nReception\n\nBox office performance\n\nCritical and public response\n\nAcademy Awards\n\nThe seven films together have been nominated for 27 Academy Awards, of which they won seven. The films were also awarded a total of three Special Achievement Awards.\n\nIn other media\n\nThe term Expanded Universe (EU) is an umbrella term for officially licensed Star Wars material outside of the feature films. The material expands the stories told in the films, taking place anywhere from 25,000 years before The Phantom Menace to 140 years after Return of the Jedi. The first Expanded Universe story appeared in Marvel Comics' Star Wars #7 in January 1978 (the first six issues of the series having been an adaptation of the film), followed quickly by Alan Dean Foster's novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye the following month. \n\nDespite Disney's acquisition of the product, George Lucas retains artistic control over the Star Wars universe. For example, the death of central characters and similar changes in the status quo requires his approval before authors were allowed to proceed. In addition, Lucasfilm Licensing and the new Lucasfilm Story Group devote efforts to ensure continuity between the works of various authors across companies. Elements of the Expanded Universe have been adopted by Lucas for use in the films, such as the name of capital planet Coruscant, which first appeared in Timothy Zahn's novel Heir to the Empire before being used in The Phantom Menace. Additionally, Lucas so liked the character Aayla Secura, who was introduced in Dark Horse Comics' Star Wars series, that he included her as a character in Attack of the Clones. \n\nA radio adaptation of the original 1977 film was first broadcast on National Public Radio in 1981. The adaptation was written by science fiction author Brian Daley and directed by John Madden. It was followed by adaptations of The Empire Strikes Back in 1983 and Return of the Jedi in 1996. The adaptations included background material created by Lucas but not used in the films. Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, and Billy Dee Williams reprised their roles as Luke Skywalker, C-3PO, and Lando Calrissian, respectively, except in Return of the Jedi in which Luke was played by Joshua Fardon and Lando by Arye Gross. The series also used John Williams' original score from the films and Ben Burtt's original sound designs. \n\nWhile Lucasfilm strived to maintain internal consistency between the films and television content with the expanded universe, only the films and the second Clone Wars television series are regarded as absolute canon, since Lucas worked on them directly. On April 25, 2014—anticipating future film installments—the company announced that they had devised a \"story group\" to oversee and co-ordinate all creative development. The first new on-screen canon to be produced will be the television series Star Wars Rebels. Previous EU titles will be reprinted under the \"Legends\" banner. \n\nTelevision series\n\nFollowing the success of the Star Wars films and their subsequent merchandising, several animated television series have been created:\n\n* Star Wars: Droids; also known as Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO, which premiered in September 1985, focused on the travels of R2-D2 and C-3PO as they shift through various owners/masters, and vaguely fills in the gaps between the events of Episode III and Episode IV.\n* Star Wars: Ewoks; also known as Ewoks, was simultaneously released in September 1985 and focused on the adventures of Wicket and various other recognizable Ewok characters from the original trilogy in the years leading up to Episode VI.\n* Star Wars: Clone Wars; an animated micro-series created by Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, etc.), which aired on Cartoon Network from November 2003 to March 2005.\n* Star Wars: The Clone Wars; a CGI-animated series based on the animated film of the same name, which aired on Cartoon Network from October 2008 to March 2013. The final season of the series aired on Netflix in March 2014.\n* Star Wars Rebels; a CGI-animated series set between Episode III and Episode IV, which premiered as a special on Disney Channel and began airing on Disney XD in October 2014. \n* Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles, an animated comedy mini-series that aired on Cartoon Network in 2013 and Disney XD in 2014.\n* Lego Star Wars: Droid Tales, another animated comedy mini-series that aired on Disney XD from July to November 2015. \n* Star Wars Detours, an animated comedy series written by Brendan Hay, who is a writer for the comedy news program The Daily Show, and with creative consulting from the co-creators of Robot Chicken: Seth Green and Matthew Senreich. The series will take place during the original trilogy and the setting will be remote from the front line of war. Following the Disney purchase, this series was put on indefinite hold.\n\nA live-action television project has been in varying stages of development at Lucasfilm since 2005, when George Lucas announced plans for a television series set between the prequel and original trilogies. The proposed series explores criminal and political power struggles in the aftermath of the fall of the Republic. Approximately fifty scripts have been written – Ronald D. Moore was one of the project's enlisted writers – and, as of December 2015, are still in possible development at Lucasfilm. \n\nTelevision films\n\nIn addition to the two trilogies and the The Clone Wars film, several other authorized films have been produced:\n* Star Wars Holiday Special, a 1978 two-hour television special, broadcast only once on CBS and never released to home video. Notable for the introduction of Boba Fett.\n* Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure, a 1984 American made-for-TV film—released theatrically overseas.\n* Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, a 1985 American made-for-TV film—released theatrically overseas, sequel to Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure.\n\nLEGO short films\n\n* Lego Star Wars: Revenge of the Brick, a 2005 animated parody short film based on Revenge of the Sith.\n* Lego Star Wars: The Quest for R2-D2, a 2009 official comedy spoof primarily based on The Clone Wars film.\n\nLiterature\n\nNovels\n\nStar Wars-based fiction predates the release of the first film, with the 1976 novelization of Star Wars (ghost-written by Alan Dean Foster and credited to Lucas). Foster's 1978 novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, was the first Expanded Universe work to be released. In addition to filling in the time between the original 1977 film and The Empire Strikes Back, this additional content greatly expanded the Star Wars timeline before and after the film series. Star Wars fiction flourished during the time of the original trilogy (1977–83) but slowed to a trickle afterwards. In 1992, however, Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy debuted, sparking a new interest in the Star Wars universe. Since then, several hundred tie-in novels have been published by Bantam and Del Rey. A similar resurgence in the Expanded Universe occurred in 1996 with the Steve Perry novel Shadows of the Empire, set in between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and accompanying video game and comic book series. \n\nLucasBooks radically changed the face of the Star Wars universe with the introduction of the New Jedi Order series, which takes place some 20 years after Return of the Jedi and stars a host of new characters alongside series originals. For younger audiences, three series have been introduced. The Jedi Apprentice series follows the adventures of Obi-Wan Kenobi and his master Qui-Gon Jinn in the years before The Phantom Menace. The Jedi Quest series follows the adventures of Obi-Wan and his apprentice Anakin Skywalker in between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. The Last of the Jedi series follows the adventures of Obi-Wan and another surviving Jedi almost immediately, set in between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.\n\nFollowing Disney's purchase of the franchise, Disney Publishing Worldwide also announced that Del Rey would publish a new line of canon Star Wars books under the Lucasfilm Story Group being released starting in September on a bi-monthly schedule. The Star Wars Legends banner would be used for those Extended Universe materials that are in print. \n\nComics\n\nMarvel Comics published Star Wars comic book series and adaptations from 1977 to 1986. A wide variety of creators worked on this series, including Roy Thomas, Archie Goodwin, Howard Chaykin, Al Williamson, Carmine Infantino, Gene Day, Walt Simonson, Michael Golden, Chris Claremont, Whilce Portacio, Jo Duffy, and Ron Frenz. The Los Angeles Times Syndicate published a Star Wars newspaper strip by Russ Manning, Goodwin and Williamson with Goodwin writing under a pseudonym. In the late 1980s, Marvel announced it would publish a new Star Wars comic by Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy. However, in December 1991, Dark Horse Comics acquired the Star Wars license and used it to launch a number of ambitious sequels to the original trilogy instead, including the popular Dark Empire stories. They have since gone on to publish a large number of original adventures set in the Star Wars universe. There have also been parody comics, including Tag and Bink. On January 3, 2014, Marvel Comics—itself a Disney subsidiary since 2009—announced that it would once again publish Star Wars comic books and graphic novels, taking over from Dark Horse, with the first release arriving on January 14, 2015. \n\nVideo games\n\nStar Wars videogames commercialization started in 1982 with Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back published for the Atari 2600 by Parker Brothers. Since then, Star Wars has opened the way to a myriad of space-flight simulation games, first-person shooter games, role-playing video games, RTS games, and others.\n\nThe best-selling games so far are the Lego Star Wars and the Battlefront series, with 12 million and 10 million units respectively while the most critically acclaimed is the first Knights of the Old Republic. The most recently released games are Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, for the PS3, PSP, PS2, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS and Wii. While The Complete Saga focuses on all six episodes of the series, The Force Unleashed, of the same name of the multimedia project which it is a part of, takes place in the largely unexplored time period between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope and casts players as Darth Vader's \"secret apprentice\" hunting down the remaining Jedi. The game features a new game engine, and was released on September 16, 2008 in the United States. There are three more titles based on the Clone Wars which were released for the Nintendo DS (Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Jedi Alliance) and Wii (Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Lightsaber Duels and Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Republic Heroes).\n\nOn May 5, 2015, Disney announced a follow-up game through Game Informer; Disney Infinity 3.0, for release on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, iOS, PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in 2015, featuring characters from the Star Wars universe. \n\nBoard games, trading cards, and role-playing games\n\nSince 1977, dozens of board, card, miniature, and tabletop role-playing games, among other types, have been published bearing the Star Wars name, beginning in 1977 with the board game Star Wars: Escape from the Death Star (not to be confused with another board game with the same title, published in 1990). \n\nThree different official tabletop role-playing games have been developed for the Star Wars universe: a version by West End Games in the 1980s and 1990s, one by Wizards of the Coast in the 2000s and one by Fantasy Flight Games in the 2010s.\n\nStar Wars trading cards have been published since the first \"blue\" series, by Topps, in 1977. Dozens of series have been produced, with Topps being the licensed creator in the United States. Some of the card series are of film stills, while others are original art. Many of the cards have become highly collectible with some very rare \"promos\", such as the 1993 Galaxy Series II \"floating Yoda\" P3 card often commanding US$ 1 000 or more. While most \"base\" or \"common card\" sets are plentiful, many \"insert\" or \"chase cards\" are very rare. From 1995 until 2001, Decipher, Inc. had the license for, created and produced a collectible card game based on Star Wars; the Star Wars Collectible Card Game (also known as SWCCG).\n\nThe board game Risk has been adapted to the series in two editions by Hasbro: and Star Wars Risk: The Clone Wars Edition (2005) and Risk: Star Wars Original Trilogy Edition (2006). From July 25 to August 15, 2013, Disney's online game Club Penguin hosted a \"Star Wars Takeover\" event based on the films. \n\nTheme park attractions\n\nBefore Disney's acquisition of the franchise, George Lucas had established a partnership in 1986 with the company's Walt Disney Imagineering division to create Star Tours, an attraction that opened at Disneyland in 1987. The attraction also had subsequent incarnations at other Disney theme parks worldwide.\n\nThe attractions at Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios closed in 2010, at Tokyo Disneyland in 2012, and at Disneyland Paris in 2016 to allow the rides to be converted into Star Tours–The Adventures Continue. The successor attraction opened at Disney's Hollywood Studios and Disneyland in 2011, and Tokyo Disneyland in 2013.\n\nJedi Training: Trials of the Temple is a live show where children are selected to learn the teachings of the Jedi Knights and the Force to become Padawan learners. The show is present at Disney's Hollywood Studios and at the Tomorrowland Terrace at Disneyland.\n\nFrom 1997 to 2015, Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios park hosted an annual festival, Star Wars Weekends, during specific dates from May to June.\n\nSince August 2014, after Disney bought the Star Wars franchise, the company has expressed plans to expand the franchise's presence in all of their theme parks, which is rumored to include a major Star Wars-themed expansion to Disney's Hollywood Studios. When asked whether or not Disney has an intellectual property franchise that's comparable to Harry Potter at Universal theme parks, Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger mentioned Cars and the Disney Princesses, and promised that Star Wars, \"is going to be just that.\" Iger formally announced a 14-acre Star Wars-themed land expansion at the D23 Expo in August 2015. The land—which will debut at Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios at an unspecified date—will include two new attractions inspired by the Millennium Falcon and \"a climactic battle between the First Order and the resistance\". The two parks will also host a seasonal Star Wars-themed event entitled Season of the Force, with Disneyland's version beginning in November 16, 2015. Disneyland's version will feature an updated Jedi Training Academy, a seasonal overlay for Space Mountain entitled \"Hyperspace Mountain\", a new scene in Star Tours–The Adventures Continue set on Jakku, and the Star Wars Launch Bay, a new attraction featuring exhibits and meet-and-greets.\n\nCultural impact\n\nIn 1989, the Library of Congress selected the original Star Wars film for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry, as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.\" Its sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, was selected in 2010. Despite these callings for archival, it is unclear whether copies of the 1977 and 1980 theatrical sequences of Star Wars and Empire—or copies of the 1997 Special Edition versions—have been archived by the NFR, or indeed if any copy has been provided by Lucasfilm and accepted by the Registry.\n\nBetween 2002 and 2004, museums in Japan, Singapore, Scotland and England showcased the Art of Star Wars, an exhibit describing the process of making the Star Wars trilogy. \n\nIn 2013, Star Wars became the first major motion picture translated into the Navajo language. \n\nFan films\n\nThe Star Wars saga has inspired many fans to create their own non-canon material set in the Star Wars galaxy. In recent years, this has ranged from writing fan-fiction to creating fan films. In 2002, Lucasfilm sponsored the first annual Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards, officially recognizing filmmakers and the genre. Because of concerns over potential copyright and trademark issues, however, the contest was initially open only to parodies, mockumentaries, and documentaries. Fan-fiction films set in the Star Wars universe were originally ineligible, but in 2007 Lucasfilm changed the submission standards to allow in-universe fiction entries. \n\nWhile many fan films have used elements from the licensed Expanded Universe to tell their story, they are not considered an official part of the Star Wars canon. However, the lead character from the Pink Five series was incorporated into Timothy Zahn's 2007 novel Allegiance, marking the first time a fan-created Star Wars character has ever crossed into the official canon. Lucasfilm, for the most part, has allowed but not endorsed the creation of these derivative fan-fiction works, so long as no such work attempts to make a profit from or tarnish the Star Wars franchise in any way. \n\nReligion (Jediism)\n\nThere is a real religion based on Star Wars. Their followers follow a modified version of the Jedi Code, and they believe in the concept of The Force as an energy field of all living things, that penetrates us and bind us together, as is depicted within Star Wars movies, although without the fictional elements such as telekinesis. Many citizens around the world answer list their religion as Jedi during their countries respective Census, among them Australia and New Zealand getting high percentages. A petition in Turkey to build a Jedi Temple within a University, also got international media attention. \n\nOrganisms named after Star Wars characters\n\nCharacters and other fictional elements from Star Wars have inspired several scientific names of organisms. Examples include Midichloria, a genus of bacteria named after the fictional micro-organisms midichlorians associated with the Force, Yoda purpurata, (an acorn worm) and Agathidium vaderi (beetle), and Aptostichus sarlacc, a trapdoor spider named for the sarlacc, the pit-dwelling creature on Tatooine. Other examples include:\n* Han solo Turvey, 2005, a species of trilobite from China. According to the scientific publication, the genus name Han refers to the Han Chinese, and the species name solo to the species being the youngest member of its family found to that date. However, Turvey has stated elsewhere that he named it after Han Solo because some friends dared him to name a species after a Star Wars character. \n* Albunione yoda Markham & Boyko, 2003, an isopod.\n* Darthvaderum, an oribatid mite genus.\n* Polemistus chewbacca and Polemistus vaderi, wasps.\n* Wockia chewbacca Adamski, 2009, a moth\n* Peckoltia greedoi Armbruster, Werneke, & Tan, 2015, a catfish named after Greedo\nParodies of Star Wars\n\nThe Star Wars saga has had a significant impact on modern American pop culture. Both the films and characters have been parodied in numerous films and television.\n* Notable film parodies of Star Wars include Hardware Wars, a 13-minute 1978 spoof which Lucas has called his favorite Star Wars parody, and Spaceballs, a feature film by Mel Brooks which featured effects done by Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic. \n* Lucasfilm itself made two mockumentaries: Return of the Ewok (1982), about Warwick Davis, who portrayed Wicket W. Warrick in Return of the Jedi; and R2-D2: Beneath the Dome (2002), which depicts R2-D2's \"life story\". \n* There have also been many songs based on, and in, the Star Wars universe. \"Weird Al\" Yankovic recorded two parodies: \"Yoda\", a parody of \"Lola\" by The Kinks; and \"The Saga Begins\", a parody of Don McLean's song \"American Pie\" that retells the events of The Phantom Menace from Obi-Wan Kenobi's perspective. \n* In television, the creators of the Robot Chicken series have produced three television specials satirizing the Star Wars films (\"Robot Chicken: Star Wars\", \"Episode II\", and \"III\"), and are developing an animated comedy series based in the Star Wars universe. The creators of the Family Guy series have also produced three Star Wars specials titled \"Blue Harvest\", \"Something, Something, Something, Dark Side\" and \"It's a Trap!\". Following Disney's accquisistion of the franchise, a Phineas and Ferb parody of Star Wars aired in the summer of 2014. \n* During the 2012 Emerald City Comicon in Seattle, Washington, several prominent cartoon voice actors, consisting of Rob Paulsen, Jess Harnell, John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, Tara Strong and Kevin Conroy, performed a parody reading of A New Hope as a radio play in each of their signature voice roles; i.e. Paulsen and Harnell as Yakko and Wakko Warner from Animaniacs, Strong as Bubbles from The Powerpuff Girls and Timmy Turner from The Fairly Oddparents, LaMarche and DiMaggio as Kif Kroker and Bender from Futurama, and Conroy narrating as Batman. \n* When Ronald Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a system of lasers and missiles meant to intercept incoming ICBMs, the plan was quickly labeled \"Star Wars\", implying that it was science fiction and linking it to Reagan's acting career. According to Frances FitzGerald, Reagan was annoyed by this, but Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle told colleagues that he \"thought the name was not so bad.\"; \"'Why not?' he said. 'It's a good movie. Besides, the good guys won.'\" This gained further resonance when Reagan described the Soviet Union as an \"evil empire\".\n* During the winter of 2015, Chicago based theater company, Under the Gun Theater developed a parody revue which recapped all six of the Star Wars films as a lead up to the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.Hatch, Megan Horst [http://www.axs.com/celebrate-the-release-of-star-wars-the-force-awakens-in-style-in-chica-70793 Celebrate the release of ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ in style in Chicago]. AXS TV. Retrieved on December 3, 2015.", "Darth Vader, also known as Anakin Skywalker, is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe. Vader appears in the original trilogy as a pivotal figure whose actions drive the plot of the first three films while his past as Anakin Skywalker, and the story of his corruption, is central to the prequel trilogy.\n\nThe character was created by George Lucas and has been portrayed by numerous actors. His appearances span the first six Star Wars films, and his character is heavily referenced in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He is also an important character in the Star Wars expanded universe of television series, video games, novels, literature and comic books. Originally a Jedi prophesied to bring balance to the Force, he falls to the dark side of the Force and serves the evil Galactic Empire at the right hand of his Sith master, Emperor Palpatine (also known as Darth Sidious). He is also the father of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa, grandfather of Kylo Ren, and secret husband of Padmé Amidala.\n\nThe American Film Institute listed him as the third greatest movie villain in cinema history on 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains, behind Hannibal Lecter and Norman Bates. \n\nConcept and creation\n\nIn the first draft of The Star Wars, tall, grim general \"Darth Vader\" was already close in line with his final depiction, and the protagonist \"Anikin Starkiller\" had a role similar to Luke Skywalker's as the 16-year-old son of a respected warrior. Vader's mask was originally designed by Ralph McQuarrie as part of Vader's spacesuit and not intended to be part of the regular costume. Brian Muir sculpted Vader's costume based on McQuarrie's design.\n\nAfter the success of Star Wars, Lucas hired science fiction author Leigh Brackett to write the sequel with him. They held story conferences and, by late November 1977, Lucas had produced a handwritten treatment. The treatment is similar to the final film, except that Vader does not reveal he is Luke's father. In the first draft that Brackett would write from this, Luke's father appears as a ghost to instruct Luke. Lucas was disappointed with the script, but Brackett died of cancer before he could discuss it with her. With no writer available, Lucas had to write the next draft himself. In this draft, he made use of a new plot twist: Vader claiming to be Luke's father. According to Lucas, he found this draft enjoyable to write, as opposed to the year-long struggles writing the first film. \n\nThe new plot element of Luke's parentage had drastic effects on the series. Michael Kaminski argues in his book that it is unlikely that the plot point had ever seriously been considered or even conceived of before 1978, and that the first film was clearly operating under an alternate storyline where Vader was a separate character from Luke's father. After writing the second and third drafts in which the plot point was introduced, Lucas reviewed the new backstory he had created: Anakin had been Obi-Wan's brilliant student and had a child named Luke, but was swayed to the dark side by Palpatine. Anakin battled Kenobi on the site of a volcano and was badly wounded, but was then reborn as Vader. Meanwhile, Kenobi hid Luke on Tatooine while the Galactic Republic became the tyrannical Galactic Empire and Vader systematically hunted down and killed the Jedi. This change in character would provide a springboard to the \"Tragedy of Darth Vader\" storyline that underlies the prequels. \n\nAfter deciding to create the prequel trilogy, Lucas indicated the series would be a tragic one depicting Anakin's fall to the dark side. He also saw that the prequels could form the beginning of one long story that started with Anakin's childhood and ended with his death. This was the final step towards turning the film series into a \"saga\". \n\nFor the first prequel, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Lucas made Anakin nine years old to make the character's separation from his mother more poignant. Movie trailers focused on Anakin and a one-sheet poster showing him casting Vader's shadow informed otherwise unknowing audiences of the character's eventual fate. The movie ultimately achieved a primary goal of introducing audiences to Anakin.\n\nMichael Kaminski, in The Secret History of Star Wars, offers evidence that issues in Anakin's fall to the dark side prompted Lucas to make massive story changes, first revising the opening sequence of the third prequel, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, to have Palpatine kidnapped and his apprentice, Count Dooku, murdered by Anakin as the first act in the latter's turn towards the dark side. After principal photography was complete in 2003, Lucas made even more massive changes in Anakin's character, re-writing his entire turn to the dark side; his fall from grace would now be motivated by a desire to save his wife, Padmé Amidala, rather than the previous version in which that reason was one of several, including that he genuinely believed that the Jedi were plotting to take over the Republic. This fundamental re-write was accomplished both through editing the principal footage, and new and revised scenes filmed during pick-ups in 2004. \n\nPortrayals\n\nDarth Vader was portrayed by bodybuilder David Prowse and by stunt performer Bob Anderson during the character's intense lightsaber fight scenes. James Earl Jones provided Vader's voice, but was initially uncredited in Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back because he felt his contributions were too small to warrant recognition. The character has also been voiced by Scott Lawrence and Matt Sloan for several video games. Hayden Christensen portrays Vader in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Brock Peters provided the voice of Darth Vader in the NPR/USC radio series. Spencer Wilding will portray Vader in Rogue One. \n\nAnakin Skywalker has been portrayed by Sebastian Shaw in Return of the Jedi, Jake Lloyd in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, and Hayden Christensen in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Christensen appears briefly reprising the role in the new edited final scene of Return of the Jedi. The character has also been voiced by Mat Lucas for the 2003 micro-series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Matt Lanter in the CGI animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars and television series of the same name. Lanter and Jones contributed their voices for the second-season finale of Star Wars: Rebels, at times with identical dialogue spoken by both actors blended together in different ways. \n\nAppearances\n\nDarth Vader appears in six of the seven live-action Star Wars films and The Clone Wars. He has a recurring role in Star Wars expanded universe material.\n\nOriginal trilogy \n\nDarth Vader first appears in Star Wars (1977), the first original Star Wars trilogy film, as a ruthless cyborg serving the Galactic Empire. He is tasked, along with Imperial commander Grand Moff Tarkin, to recover the secret technical plans of the Death Star, which were stolen by the Rebel Alliance. Vader captures and tortures Princess Leia Organa, who has hidden the plans inside the droid R2-D2 and sent it to find Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi on the planet Tatooine. During Leia's rescue, Vader kills Obi-Wan in a lightsaber duel. Vader later attempts to shoot down Luke's X-wing fighter as the Death Star prepares to destroy the Rebel base on Yavin 4. However, Han Solo sends Vader's TIE fighter spiraling off course, allowing Luke to destroy the Death Star.\n\nIn the 1980 sequel The Empire Strikes Back, Vader leads the Imperial attack of the Rebel base on Hoth, but the Rebels escape. The Emperor tells him that Luke has become a threat and must not become a Jedi. Vader persuades the Emperor that Luke can be turned to the dark side of the Force. Vader negotiates with Cloud City administrator Lando Calrissian to capture Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and C-3PO on Cloud City, luring Luke into a trap. Vader tortures Han, freezes him in carbonite, and delivers him to bounty hunter Boba Fett. Calrissian betrays Vader and helps the other prisoners flee. A lightsaber battle between Vader and Luke ensues, and Vader easily defeats him. Revealing that he is Luke's father, Vader implores Luke to join the dark side. Horrified, Luke falls through an air shaft and escapes. Vader telepathically tells Luke that it is his destiny to come to the dark side.\n\nIn 1983's Return of the Jedi, Vader travels to the second Death Star and orders its commander, Moff Jerjerrod, to accelerate its construction. The Emperor assures Vader that together they will turn Luke to the dark side. Luke surrenders himself and unsuccessfully implores Vader to abandon the dark side. Aboard the Death Star, the Emperor invites Luke to join the dark side. However, Luke engages his father in another lightsaber duel. Discovering that Leia is Luke's twin sister, Vader threatens to turn her to the dark side if Luke will not submit. Luke, enraged, subdues Vader and cuts off his father's robotic right hand. The Emperor tells Luke to kill Vader and take his place, but Luke refuses, declaring himself a Jedi as his father had been. The Emperor tortures Luke with Force lightning. Moved by Luke's pleas for help, Vader throws the Emperor into the Death Star's reactor shaft to his death, but he is mortally wounded in the process. Having redeemed himself, Vader asks Luke to remove his mask. Vader says he had good left in him after all and dies peacefully. Luke escapes the Death Star with his father's remains, which he later ceremonially burns in a pyre. As the Rebels celebrate the Death Star's destruction and the fall of the Empire, Luke sees his father's spirit, standing alongside those of Obi-Wan and Yoda.\n\nPrequel trilogy \n\nIn the 1999 prequel The Phantom Menace, which takes place 32 years before Star Wars begins, Anakin is depicted as a nine-year-old slave from the planet Tatooine. He lives with his mother, Shmi. Anakin has no father and he can foresee the future. In addition, Anakin is a gifted pilot and mechanic, and he has built a protocol droid called C-3PO. Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn meets Anakin after making an emergency landing on Tatooine. After discovering that Anakin's blood has an unusually high number of midi-chlorians, which is a measure of Force potential, Qui-Gon becomes convinced the boy is the \"Chosen One\" of Jedi prophecy who will bring balance to the Force. Anakin wins his freedom in a podrace, but is forced to leave his mother behind. During the voyage to Coruscant, Anakin forms a bond with Padmé Amidala, the young queen of Naboo. Qui-Gon asks the Jedi Council to train Anakin as a Jedi, but the Council are concerned that the boy is vulnerable to the dark side and they decline. Later, Anakin unintentionally helps thwart the Trade Federation's invasion of Naboo by destroying their command ship. After Qui-Gon is killed by the Sith Lord Darth Maul, his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, promises to train Anakin, a proposal the Council reluctantly accepts. Palpatine, the Galactic Republic's newly elected Chancellor, befriends Anakin, telling him that he will \"watch [his] career with great interest\".\n\nIn the 2002 sequel, Attack of the Clones, while investigating a failed assassination attempt on Padmé, Anakin travels with her to Naboo, where they fall in love. Sensing that Shmi is in pain, Anakin goes to Tatooine and learns she was kidnapped by Tusken Raiders. He eventually locates Shmi at a Tusken campsite as she dies from the tribe's torture. Anakin, enraged, massacres the Tuskens and returns to the Lars homestead with Shmi's remains. He tells Padmé of his misdeed as well as his desire to prevent death. Later, Anakin and Padmé travel to Geonosis to rescue Obi-Wan from the Sith Lord Count Dooku, the leader of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, but Dooku captures them both and sentences them to death. Anakin and Padmé profess their love for each other before being rescued by an army of clone troopers and Jedi. Obi-Wan and Anakin duel with Dooku, but they are easily defeated and Anakin's arm is cut off in the process. After being rescued by Yoda, Anakin marries Padmé in a secret ceremony.\n\nAnakin makes his final live-action film appearance in Revenge of the Sith (2005). During a mission to rescue Palpatine from Separatist commander General Grievous, Anakin and Obi-Wan again confront Count Dooku. Anakin subdues Dooku and kills him in cold blood on Palpatine's orders before they return to Coruscant. When Padmé tells Anakin that she is pregnant with his child, Anakin begins to have prophetic visions of Padmé dying in childbirth. Palpatine entices him with knowledge of the dark side, including the power to \"cheat death\", and eventually reveals himself as the Sith Lord Darth Sidious. Anakin reports Palpatine's treachery to Jedi Master Mace Windu, who attacks and subdues the Sith Lord. Fearing that he may lose Padmé without Palpatine's teachings, Anakin intervenes and allows Palpatine to kill Windu. Anakin pledges himself to Palpatine, who dubs him \"Darth Vader\".\n\nPalpatine dispatches Vader to kill everyone inside the Jedi Temple and then to assassinate the Separatist leaders on Mustafar. The 501st became Darth Vader's personal unit as he led them during Operation: Knightfall, in which the clones helped take down the Jedi, whom they believed to be traitors to the Republic. Padmé travels to Mustafar and implores Vader to leave the dark side, but he refuses and uses the Force to choke her into unconsciousness when he sees Obi-Wan emerge from her ship. Vader duels with Obi-Wan, but Vader eventually loses both legs and one of his arms, and gets burned by one of the planet's lava flows. Obi-Wan leaves Vader for dead.\n\nSensing that his apprentice is in danger, Palpatine travels to Mustafar and finds Vader still alive. After returning to Coruscant, he rebuilds Vader's ruined body with the black armored suit from the original trilogy. Palpatine then tells Vader that Padmé was killed in the heat of Vader's anger, breaking what remains of his apprentice's spirit. As the film concludes, Vader watches the original Death Star's construction, with Palpatine and Wilhuff Tarkin at his side.\n\nSequel trilogy \n\nIn Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), Vader's grandson Ben Solo, trained in the ways of the Force by Luke Skywalker following the events of Return of the Jedi, has been turned to the dark side of the Force by Supreme Leader Snoke of the First Order. Taking upon the name of Kylo Ren, he acquires Vader's semi-melted mask and uses it as a symbol of his dedication to Vader. Kylo's obsession with Vader, the dark side and eradicating his own weaknesses ultimately lead him to kill his own father, Han Solo.\n\nAnthology films \n\nVader is set to appear in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, with James Earl Jones reprising his role as the voice of the character. \n\nAnimation \n\nAnakin Skywalker is a lead character in the 2003–05 animated microseries Star Wars: Clone Wars. As a Jedi Knight, Anakin has adventures such as battling Dark Jedi Asajj Ventress and liberating the planet Nelvaan from the Confederacy.\n\nIn the 2008 animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Yoda assigns Ahsoka Tano as Anakin's messenger and padawan, and Anakin is frustrated by this decision. By the end of the film, Anakin reveals a newfound affection for his new apprentice, abandoning a duel with Count Dooku when he believes her life to be in danger. Anakin also appears in all five broadcast seasons of The Clone Wars, as he continues to teach Ahsoka the ways of the Jedi. The two develop a mutual fondness, at times taking great risks to protect or save one another.\n\nDarth Vader is a recurring character in the television series Star Wars: Rebels, which takes place 14 years after The Clone Wars concludes. James Earl Jones and Matt Lanter reprised the roles of Vader and Anakin, respectively. In this series, Vader leads a squadron of Force-sensitive Imperial Inquisitors who are actively searching for and killing any remaining Jedi and Force-sensitive children. In the first season finale, Vader eventually discovers that his former Padawan Ahsoka Tano has joined the Rebels, and the Emperor orders him to hunt her down. In the second season, Ahsoka passes out in shock when she discovers Darth Vader's identity as Anakin. A vision of Anakin blames her for leaving him and allowing him to the fall to the dark side in the episode, \"Shroud of Darkness\". In the second season finale, Ahsoka duels with her former master inside a Sith Temple, allowing her friends from the Ghost to escape Vader and the temple's destruction. As the episode concludes, Vader escapes from the temple's ruins.\n\nNovels \n\nStar Wars: Lords of the Sith was one of the first four canon novels to be released in 2014 and 2015. In Lords of the Sith, Vader and Palpatine find themselves hunted by revolutionaries on the Twi'lek planet Ryloth. \n\nComics \n\nIn 2015, Marvel released a 25 issue series called Darth Vader, which focused on the title character learning about the existence of his son, and the aftermath of the destruction of the Death Star. He also appeared in the Star Wars comic. Both series were set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back.\n\nLegends \n\nWith the 2012 acquisition of Lucasfilm by The Walt Disney Company, most of the licensed Star Wars novels and comics produced since the originating 1977 film Star Wars were rebranded as Star Wars Legends and declared non-canon to the franchise in April 2014. \n\nLiterature \n\nDarth Vader appears numerous times in comic books such as Dark Horse Comics's Star Wars Tales and Marvel Comics' Star Wars series (1977–1986).\n\nIn James Luceno's Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader (2005), set a few months after the events of Revenge of the Sith, Vader disavows his identity as Anakin Skywalker as he systematically pursues and kills the surviving Jedi and cements his position in the Empire. The novel also reveals that Vader plans to eventually overthrow Palpatine, and that he betrayed the Jedi because he resented their supposed failure to recognize his power.\n\nVader's Quest (1999) depicts Vader hiring a bounty hunter to bring him information about the pilot who destroyed the Death Star, ultimately meeting Luke for the first time. In the novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978), Vader and Luke duel for the first time, and Luke cuts off Vader's right arm. Shadows of the Empire (1996) reveals that Vader is conflicted about trying to turn his son to the dark side of the Force, and knows deep down that there is still some good in him.\n\nAnakin's redeemed spirit appears in The Truce at Bakura (1993), set a few days after the end of Return of the Jedi. He appears to Leia, imploring her forgiveness. Leia condemns him for his crimes and exiles him from her life. He promises that he will be there for her when she needs him, and disappears. In Tatooine Ghost (2003), Leia learns to forgive her father after learning about his childhood as a slave and his mother's traumatic death. In The Unifying Force (2003), Anakin tells his grandson Jacen Solo to \"stand firm\" in his battle with the Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong.\n\nIn The Dark Nest trilogy (2005), Luke and Leia uncover old recordings of their parents in R2-D2's memory drive; for the first time, they see their own birth and their mother's death, as well as their father's corruption to the dark side. In Bloodlines (2006), Jacen—who has himself turned to the dark side—uses the Force to \"watch\" Darth Vader slaughter the children at the Jedi Temple.\n\nVader also turns up as the unlikely protagonist of a series of tongue-in-cheek children's books by Jeffrey Brown. In Brown's series, a somewhat hapless Vader sets out to be a father to a young Luke and Leia, with some scenes directly based on their darker film counterparts (for example, one scene shows Vader, Luke and Leia at the carbonite freezing chamber on Bespin, with Vader pronouncing the freezer adequate for making ice cream).\n\nVideo games\n\nDarth Vader plays a central role in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (2008). He is a playable character in the first level of the game, where he and his armies invade Kashyyyk to hunt down a Jedi who had survived the Order's destruction. Vader kills the Jedi and kidnaps the man's young Force-sensitive son, whom he raises as his secret apprentice. Vader sends Starkiller (the game's protagonist) on various missions throughout the galaxy, with an ultimate goal to assassinate Palpatine so that Vader can rule the galaxy himself. Toward the end of the game, however, it is revealed that Vader isn't planning to overthrow Palpatine at all; he is merely using his apprentice to expose the Empire's enemies. At the game's climax, the player chooses between attacking Palpatine to help his Rebel friends escape the Death Star or killing Vader to become the Emperor's new apprentice. He also appears in the sequel Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II as the main antagonist and final boss.\n\nVader is also a playable character in the video games Lego Star Wars: The Video Game, Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, Soulcalibur IV, Star Wars: Battlefront II, Star Wars: Empire at War, Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption, Star Wars Commander, Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds and Star Wars Battlefront. He also is an active but non-playable character in Star Wars Galaxies, Star Wars: Battlefront, (as an evil pig) is a non-playable character in Angry Birds Star Wars and is a playable character in Angry Birds Star Wars II. Vader's helmet and mask appear as a selectable attire for created superstars in WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth. \n\nAnakin Skywalker is a playable character in the video games Star Wars: Battlefront II, Lego Star Wars: The Video Game, Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Lightsaber Duels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Jedi Alliance, Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Republic Heroes and is featured (as an Angry Bird) in Angry Birds Star Wars II.\n\nOther\n\nVader is featured as a combatant in the popular series Death Battle, in which he is pitted against Marvel Comics villain Doctor Doom. He loses the fight due to Doom's superior weaponry and abilities.\n\nCharacteristics\n\nIn Attack of the Clones, Anakin Skywalker feels \"smothered\" by Obi-Wan Kenobi and is unable to control his life. By Revenge of the Sith, however, his \"father-son\" friction with his master has matured into a more equal, brotherly relationship. Once he becomes Darth Vader, each evil act he commits makes it harder for him to return to the light, but he ultimately escapes the dark side and redeems himself by sacrificing his life to save his son Luke Skywalker and kill Palpatine in Return of the Jedi. \n\nEric Bui, a psychiatrist at University of Toulouse Hospital, argued at the 2007 American Psychiatric Association convention that Anakin Skywalker meets six of the nine diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder (BPD), one more than necessary for a diagnosis. He and a colleague, Rachel Rodgers, published their findings in a 2010 letter to the editor of the journal Psychiatry Research. Bui says he found Anakin Skywalker a useful example to explain BPD to medical students. In particular, Bui points to Anakin's abandonment issues and uncertainty over his identity. Anakin's mass murders of the Tusken Raiders in Attack of the Clones and the young Jedi in Revenge of the Sith count as two dissociative episodes, fulfilling another criterion. Bui hoped his paper would help raise awareness of the disorder, especially among teens.\n\nCultural impact\n\nDarth Vader's iconic status has made the character a synonym for evil in popular culture; psychiatrists have even considered him as a useful example to explain borderline personality disorder to medical students. Anakin's origin story in The Phantom Menace has been compared to signifiers of African American racial identity, and his dissatisfaction with his life has been compared to Siddartha's before he became Gautama Buddha. A Mexican church advised Christians against seeing The Phantom Menace because it portrays Anakin as a Christ figure. The slime-mold beetle Agathidium vaderi is named after Vader, and several buildings across the globe are regularly compared to him. A grotesque of Darth Vader looms over the east face of the Washington National Cathedral's northwest tower. During the 2007–08 NHL season, Ottawa Senators goaltender Martin Gerber performed so well in an all-black mask that fans endearingly termed him \"Darth Gerber\". In 2015, a statue of Vladimir Lenin in Odessa, Ukraine, was converted into one of Darth Vader due to a law on decommunization. \n\nMany commentators and comedians have also evoked his visage to satirize politicians and other public figures, and several American political figures have been unflatteringly compared to the character, including General George Custer, the subject of the acrylic painting Darth Custer by Native American artist Bunky Echohawk. In 2005, Al Gore referred to Tele-Communications Inc.'s John C. Malone as the \"Darth Vader of cable\", and political strategist Lee Atwater was known by his political enemies as \"the Darth Vader of the Republican Party\". \n\nOn June 22, 2006, US Vice President Dick Cheney referred to himself as the Darth Vader of the Bush administration. Discussing the administration's philosophy on gathering intelligence, he said to CNN's John King, \"It means we need to be able to go after and capture or kill those people who are trying to kill Americans. That's not a pleasant business. It's a very serious business. And I suppose, sometimes, people look at my demeanor and say, 'Well, he's the Darth Vader of the administration.'\" Jon Stewart put on a Darth Vader helmet to address Dick Cheney as a \"kindred spirit\" on The Daily Show on January 25, 2007. Cheney's wife, Lynne, presented Stewart with a Darth Vader action figure on her appearance on the show on October 10, 2007. Both Stewart and Stephen Colbert have occasionally referred to Cheney as \"Darth Cheney\". In the satirical cartoon show Lil' Bush, Dick Cheney's father is portrayed as being Darth Vader. At her presidential campaign event on September 19, 2007, Hillary Rodham Clinton also referred to Cheney as Darth Vader. At the 2008 Washington Radio and Television Correspondents' Association Dinner, Cheney joked that his wife Lynne told him that the Vader comparison \"humanizes\" him. George Lucas told The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, however, that Cheney is more akin to Emperor Palpatine, and that a better stand-in for Vader would be George W. Bush. An issue of Newsweek referenced this quote, and compared Bush and Cheney to Vader and Palpatine, respectively, in a satirical article comparing politicians to various Star Wars and Star Trek characters. \n\nMany films and television series have paid homage to Darth Vader. Marty McFly in Back to the Future (1985), dressed in a radiation suit, calls himself \"Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan\" to convince the past version of his father to ask his mother to a dance. Rick Moranis plays \"Dark Helmet\" in the Star Wars parody Spaceballs (1987). In Chasing Amy (1997), Hooper X speaks at a comic convention about Darth Vader being a metaphor for how poorly the science fiction genre treats black people; he is especially offended that Vader, the \"blackest brother in the galaxy\", reveals himself to be a \"feeble, crusty old white man\" at the end of Return of the Jedi. The character was also parodied in the Nickelodeon cartoon Rocko's Modern Life in the episode \"Teed Off\". On another Nickelodeon cartoon, Jimmy Neutron, Darth Vader's infamous line was interpolated in the mini-episode \"New Dog, Old Tricks\". The line was also alluded to in Toy Story, a film franchise also owned by Disney. \n\nThe character has gained much positive reception as a classic film villain. Darth Vader ranked number two on Empire magazine's 2008 list of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters. Premiere magazine also ranked Vader on their list of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time. On their list of the 100 Greatest Fictional Characters, Fandomania.com ranked Vader at number 6. Darth Vader was also the #1 supervillain on the Bravo series Ultimate Super Heroes, Vixens and Villains. Darth Vader was also ranked as #1 in IGN's list of top 100 Star Wars characters. Furthermore, Darth Vader's quote in The Empire Strikes Back — \"No, I am your father\" (often misquoted as \"Luke, I am your father\"), — is one of the most well known quotes in cinema history. The line was selected as one of the 400 nominees for the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes, a list of the greatest American movie quotes. Vader received the Ultimate Villain recognition at the 2011 Scream Awards. \n\nIn 2010, IGN ranked Darth Vader 25th in the \"Top 100 Videogames Villains\". \n\nIn Ukraine the Internet Party of Ukraine regularly lets people named Darth Vader take part in elections.\n\nFamily tree" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "The Hero With No Fear", "Dark Vador", "Immaculate Conception (Star Wars)", "Immaculate Conception (star wars)", "Dark Vader", "Anikin Skywalker", "Anakin star wars", "Dark Vator", "Dawth Vader", "Takeshi Martinez", "Ani (Star Wars)", "Lord Darth Vader", "Luke's father", "Dath vader", "Aniken", "Lord Vader", "Anakin skywalker", "Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader", "Vader's", "Lord Fener", "Darth Wader", "Anakyn", "Darth Fener", "Darth Vader's helmet", "Ani Skywalker", "Hero With No Fear", "Anakin Skywalker", "Darth Vader", "Darth Vadar", "Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader", "Darth vade", "Dart Fener", "Darth Vador", "The Son of the Suns", "Anakin Starkiller", "Darth Vadir", "Darth vader" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "luke s father", "anakin skywalker", "anakin starkiller", "anakin skywalker darth vader", "anakin skywalker and darth vader", "ani star wars", "dark vader", "darth wader", "anakyn", "hero with no fear", "darth vadar", "darth vadir", "immaculate conception star wars", "anakin star wars", "darth vador", "anikin skywalker", "lord vader", "lord darth vader", "vader s", "dath vader", "dark vador", "darth vader s helmet", "son of suns", "dawth vader", "dark vator", "ani skywalker", "darth vader", "darth fener", "aniken", "darth vade", "lord fener", "takeshi martinez", "dart fener" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "anakin skywalker", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Anakin Skywalker" }
What was the first sequel to Star Wars?	tc_1140	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "Search" ], "filename": [ "Star_Wars_(film).txt", "Star_Wars.txt" ], "title": [ "Star Wars (film)", "Star Wars" ], "wiki_context": [ "Star Wars (later retitled Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope ) is a 1977 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. The first installment in the original Star Wars trilogy, it stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, and Alec Guinness. David Prowse, James Earl Jones, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker and Peter Mayhew co-star in supporting roles.\n\nThe plot focuses on the Rebel Alliance, led by Princess Leia (Fisher), and its attempt to destroy the Galactic Empire's space station, the Death Star. This conflict disrupts the isolated life of farmhand Luke Skywalker (Hamill) who inadvertently acquires a pair of droids that possess stolen architectural plans for the Death Star. When the Empire begins a destructive search for the missing droids, Skywalker accompanies Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi (Guinness) on a mission to return the plans to the Rebel Alliance and rescue Leia from her imprisonment by the Empire.\n\nStar Wars was released theatrically in the United States on May 25, 1977. It earned $461 million in the U.S. and $314 million overseas, totaling $775 million. It surpassed Jaws (1975) to become the highest-grossing film of all time, until the release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). When adjusted for inflation, Star Wars is the second-highest-grossing film in North America, and the third-highest-grossing film in the world. The film received ten Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture), winning seven. It was selected to become part of the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in its first year of opening as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\"; at the time, it was the newest film to be selected, and it was the only film from the 1970s to be chosen. The film's soundtrack was added to the U.S. National Recording Registry 15 years later. Today, it is often regarded as one of the best films of all time, as well as one of the most important films in the history of motion pictures. It also launched an industry of media tie-in products, including TV series spinoffs, novels, comic books, and video games, as well as various other merchandise, such as toys, games, clothing, and other paraphernalia.\n\nThe film's massive success led to the production of two sequels: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), both of which became critically and commercially successful. Since 1977, Star Wars was subsequently reissued multiple times at Lucas' behest, incorporating many changes including modified computer-generated effects, altered dialogue, re-edited shots, remixed soundtracks, and added scenes. A prequel trilogy was later released between 1999 and 2005, followed by a sequel trilogy which began in 2015.\n\nPlot\n\nThe galaxy is in the midst of a civil war. Spies for the Rebel Alliance have stolen plans to the Galactic Empire's Death Star, a heavily armed space station capable of destroying planets. Rebel leader Princess Leia has the plans, but her ship is captured by Imperial forces under the command of the evil Sith lord Darth Vader. Before she is captured, Leia hides the plans in the memory of an astromech droid, R2-D2, along with a holographic recording. The droid flees to the surface of the desert planet Tatooine with fellow droid C-3PO.\n\nThe droids are captured by Jawa traders, who sell them to moisture farmers Owen and Beru Lars and their nephew, Luke Skywalker. While cleaning R2-D2, Luke accidentally triggers part of Leia's message, in which she requests help from Obi-Wan Kenobi. The next morning, Luke finds R2-D2 searching for Obi-Wan, and meets Ben Kenobi, an old hermit who lives in the hills and reveals himself to be Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan tells Luke of his days as a Jedi Knight, former Galactic Republic peacekeepers with supernatural powers derived from an energy called The Force who were all but wiped out by the Empire. Contrary to his uncle's statements, Luke learns that his father fought alongside Obi-Wan as a Jedi Knight. Obi-Wan tells Luke that Vader was his former pupil who turned to the dark side of the Force and killed Luke's father, Anakin. Obi-Wan offers Luke his father's lightsaber, a Jedi weapon.\n\nObi-Wan views Leia's complete message, in which she begs him to take the Death Star plans to her home planet of Alderaan and give them to her father for analysis. Obi-Wan invites Luke to accompany him to Alderaan and learn the ways of the Force. Luke declines, but changes his mind after discovering that Imperial stormtroopers searching for C-3PO and R2-D2 have destroyed his home and killed his aunt and uncle. Obi-Wan and Luke hire smuggler Han Solo and his Wookiee first mate Chewbacca to transport them to Alderaan on Han's ship, the Millennium Falcon.\n\nUpon the Falcons arrival at the location of Alderaan, the group discover that the planet has been destroyed by order of the Death Star's commanding officer, Grand Moff Tarkin, as a show of power. The Falcon is captured by the Death Star's tractor beam and brought into its hangar bay. While Obi-Wan goes to disable the tractor beam, Luke discovers that Leia is imprisoned aboard, and with the help of Han and Chewbacca, rescues her. After several escapes, the group makes its way back to the Falcon. Obi-Wan disables the tractor beam, and on the way back to the Falcon, he engages in a lightsaber duel with Vader. Once he is sure the others can escape, Obi-Wan allows himself to be killed. The Falcon escapes the Death Star, unknowingly carrying a tracking beacon, which the Empire follows to the Rebels' hidden base on Yavin IV.\n\nThe Rebels analyze the Death Star's plans and identify a vulnerable exhaust port that connects to the station's main reactor. Luke joins the Rebel assault squadron, while Han collects his payment for the transport and intends to leave, despite Luke's request that he stay and help. In the ensuing battle, the Rebels suffer heavy losses after several unsuccessful attack runs, leaving Luke as one of the few surviving pilots. Vader leads a squad of TIE fighters and prepares to attack Luke's X-wing fighter, but Han returns and fires on the Imperials, sending Vader spiraling away. Helped by guidance from Obi-Wan's spirit, Luke uses the Force and successfully destroys the Death Star seconds before it can fire on the Rebel base. Leia awards Luke and Han with medals for their heroism.\n\nCast\n\n* Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker: a young man raised by his aunt and uncle on Tatooine, who dreams of something more than his current life and learns the way of a Jedi.\nLucas favored casting young actors who lacked long experience. To play Luke (then known as Luke Starkiller), Lucas sought actors who could project intelligence and integrity. While reading for the character, Hamill found the dialogue to be extremely odd because of its universe-embedded concepts. He chose to simply read it sincerely, and he was selected instead of William Katt, who was subsequently cast in the Brian De Palma-directed Carrie (Lucas shared a joint casting session with De Palma, a longtime friend). \n* Harrison Ford as Han Solo: a cynical smuggler hired by Obi-Wan and Luke to take them to Alderaan in his ship, the Millennium Falcon, co-piloted with Chewbacca.\nLucas initially rejected casting Ford for the role, as he \"wanted new faces\"; Ford had previously worked with the director on American Graffiti. Instead, Lucas asked the actor to assist in the auditions by reading lines with the other actors and explaining the concepts and history behind the scenes that they were reading. Lucas was eventually won over by Ford's portrayal and cast him instead of Kurt Russell, Nick Nolte, Sylvester Stallone, Bill Murray, Christopher Walken, Burt Reynolds, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Billy Dee Williams (who later played Lando Calrissian in the sequels), or Perry King (who later played Han Solo in the radio plays). \n* Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia: a member of the Imperial Senate and leader of the Rebel Alliance.\nMany young actresses in Hollywood auditioned for the role of Princess Leia, including Amy Irving, Terri Nunn (also a singer), Cindy Williams, Karen Allen, and Jodie Foster. Foster, for one, turned down the role because she was already under contract with Disney and working on two films at the time. Carrie Fisher was cast under the condition that she lose 10 pounds for the role. \n* Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin: Governor of the Imperial Outland Regions and commander of the Death Star.\nLucas originally had Cushing in mind for the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi, but Lucas believed that \"his lean features\" would be better employed in the role of Grand Moff Tarkin instead. Lucas commended Cushing's performance, saying \"[He] is a very good actor. Adored and idolized by young people and by people who go to see a certain kind of movie. I feel he will be fondly remembered for the next 350 years at least.\" Cushing, commenting on his role, joked: \"I've often wondered what a 'Grand Moff' was. It sounds like something that flew out of a cupboard.\" \n* Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan \"Ben\" Kenobi: an aging Jedi Master who fought during the Clone Wars, survivor of the Great Jedi Purge, and who introduces Luke to the Force.\nLucas's decision to cast \"unknowns\" was not taken favorably by his friend Francis Ford Coppola and the studio. Lucas needed an established actor to play the important Obi-Wan Kenobi character. Producer Gary Kurtz said, \"The Alec Guinness role required a certain stability and gravitas as a character... which meant we needed a very, very strong character actor to play that part.\" Before Guinness was cast, Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune (who starred in Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress) was considered for the role. According to Mifune's daughter, Mika Kitagawa, her father turned down Lucas' offer for the role of both Kenobi and Darth Vader because \"he was concerned about how the film would look and that it would cheapen the image of samurai... At the time, sci-fi movies still looked quite cheap as the effects were not advanced and he had a lot of samurai pride.\" Guinness was one of the few cast members who believed that the film would be successful; he negotiated a deal for 2% of the one-fifth gross royalties paid to George Lucas, which made him quite wealthy in later life. He agreed to take the part of Kenobi on the condition that he would not have to do any publicity to promote the film. Lucas credited him with inspiring the cast and crew to work harder, saying that Guinness contributed significantly to the completion of the filming. Harrison Ford said, \"It was, for me, fascinating to watch Alec Guinness. He was always prepared, always professional, always very kind to the other actors. He had a very clear head about how to serve the story.\"\n* David Prowse as Darth Vader (voiced by James Earl Jones): A Sith lord, second in command of the Galactic Empire, who hopes to destroy the Rebel Alliance.\nLucas originally intended for Orson Welles to voice Vader (after dismissing using Prowse's own voice due to his English West Country accent, leading to the rest of the cast nicknaming him \"Darth Farmer\"). After deciding that Welles' voice would be too recognizable, he cast the lesser-known James Earl Jones instead.\n* Anthony Daniels as C-3PO: a protocol droid who speaks over six million languages.\nDaniels auditioned for and was cast as C-3PO; he has said that he wanted the role after he saw a Ralph McQuarrie drawing of the character and was struck by the vulnerability in the robot's face. Initially, Lucas did not intend to use Daniels' voice for C-3PO. Thirty well-established voice actors read for the voice of the droid. According to Daniels, one of the major voice actors, believed by some sources to be Stan Freberg, recommended Daniels's voice for the role.\n* Kenny Baker as R2-D2: an astromech droid who is carrying the Death Star plans and a secret message for Obi-Wan from Princess Leia.\nWhile Lucas was filming in London, where additional casting took place, Baker, performing a musical comedy act with his acting partner Jack Purvis, learned that the film crew was looking for a small person to fit inside a robot suit and maneuver it; Baker, who is 3 ft tall, was cast immediately after meeting George Lucas. He said, \"He saw me come in and said 'He'll do' because I was the smallest guy they'd seen up until then.\" He initially turned down the role three times, hesitant to appear in a film where his face would not be shown and hoping to continue the success of his comedy act, which had recently started to be televised. R2-D2's recognizable beeps and squeaks were made by sound designer Ben Burtt and Lucas imitating \"baby noises\", recording these voices as they were heard on an intercom, and creating the final mix using a synthesizer.\n* Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca: a 200-year-old Wookiee, Han Solo's sidekick, and first mate of the Millennium Falcon.\nMayhew learned of a casting call for Star Wars, which was filming in London, and decided to audition. The 7 ft tall actor was immediately cast as Chewbacca after he stood up to greet Lucas. He said, \"I sat down on one of the sofas, waiting for George. Door opened, and George walked in with Gary behind him. So, naturally, what did I do? I'm raised in England. Soon as someone comes in through the door, I stand up. George goes 'Hmm [looked up].' Virtually turned to Gary, and said 'I think we've found him. He was actually eligible for either of the two roles: Chewbacca or Darth Vader. He chose the former because he wanted to play a hero; British actor David Prowse took the other. Mayhew modeled his performance of Chewbacca after the mannerisms of animals he saw at public zoos. \n\nOther actors include Phil Brown and Shelagh Fraser, respectively, as Owen and Beru, Luke's uncle and aunt; Jack Purvis, Kenny Baker's partner in his London comedy act, as the Chief Jawa in the film; Eddie Byrne as Vanden Willard, a Rebel general; Denis Lawson and Garrick Hagon as rebel pilots Wedge Antilles and Biggs Darklighter (Luke's childhood friend), respectively; and Don Henderson and Leslie Schofield as Imperial Generals Cassio Tagge and Moradmin Bast, respectively.\n\nProduction\n\nDevelopment\n\nElements of the history of Star Wars are commonly disputed, as George Lucas's statements about it have changed over time. One of the claims is that he intended to make the movie a Space Western. Lucas has said that it was early as 1971—after he completed directing his first full-length feature, THX 1138—that he first had an idea for a space fantasy film, though he has also claimed to have had the idea long before then. Originally, Lucas wanted to adapt the Flash Gordon space adventure comics and serials into his own films, having been fascinated by them since he was young. In 1979, he said, \"I especially loved the Flash Gordon serials... Of course I realize now how crude and badly done they were... loving them that much when they were so awful, I began to wonder what would happen if they were done really well.\" \n\nAt the Cannes Film Festival in May following the completion of THX 1138, Lucas was granted a two-film development deal with United Artists; the two films were American Graffiti, and an untitled Flash Gordon-esque space fantasy film. He pushed towards buying the Flash Gordon rights. He said:\n\nI wanted to make a Flash Gordon movie, with all the trimmings, but I couldn't obtain the rights to the characters. So I began researching and went right back and found where Alex Raymond (who had done the original Flash Gordon comic strips in newspapers) had got his idea from. I discovered that he'd got his inspiration from the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (author of Tarzan) and especially from his John Carter of Mars series books. I read through that series, then found that what had sparked Burroughs off was a science-fantasy called Gulliver on Mars, written by Edwin Arnold and published in 1905. That was the first story in this genre that I have been able to trace. Jules Verne had got pretty close, I suppose, but he never had a hero battling against space creatures or having adventures on another planet. A whole new genre developed from that idea.\n\nDirector Francis Ford Coppola, who accompanied Lucas in buying the Flash Gordon rights, recounted in 1999, \"[George] was very depressed because he had just come back and they wouldn't sell him Flash Gordon. And he says, 'Well, I'll just invent my own. Lucas envisioned his own space opera and called it The Star Wars. After his failed attempt to gain the rights, Lucas went to United Artists and showed the script for American Graffiti, but they passed on the film, which was then picked up by Universal Pictures. United Artists also passed on Lucas's The Star Wars concept, which he shelved for the time being. After spending the next two years completing American Graffiti, Lucas turned his attention to The Star Wars.\n\nLucas began writing in January 1973, \"eight hours a day, five days a week\", by taking small notes, inventing odd names and assigning them possible characterizations. Lucas would discard many of these by the time the final script was written, but he included several names and places in the final script or its sequels. He revived others decades later when he wrote his prequel trilogy. He used these initial names and ideas to compile a two-page synopsis titled Journal of the Whills, which told the tale of the training of apprentice CJ Thorpe as a \"Jedi-Bendu\" space commando by the legendary Mace Windy. Frustrated that his story was too difficult to understand, Lucas then began writing a 13-page treatment called The Star Wars on April 17, 1973, which had thematic parallels with Akira Kurosawa's 1958 film The Hidden Fortress.\n\nAfter United Artists declined to budget the film, Lucas and producer Gary Kurtz presented the film treatment to Universal Pictures, the studio that financed American Graffiti; however, it rejected its options for the film because the concept was \"a little strange\", and it said that Lucas should follow American Graffiti with more consequential themes. Lucas said, \"I've always been an outsider to Hollywood types. They think I do weirdo films.\" According to Kurtz, Lew Wasserman, the studio's head, \"just didn't think much of science fiction at that time, didn't think it had much of a future then, with that particular audience.\" He said that \"science fiction wasn't popular in the mid-'70s ... what seems to be the case generally is that the studio executives are looking for what was popular last year, rather than trying to look forward to what might be popular next year.\" Lucas explained in 1977 that the film is not \"about the future\" and that it \"is a fantasy much closer to the Brothers Grimm than it is to 2001\". He added: \"My main reason for making it was to give young people an honest, wholesome fantasy life, the kind my generation had. We had westerns, pirate movies, all kinds of great things. Now they have The Six Million Dollar Man and Kojak. Where are the romance, the adventure, and the fun that used to be in practically every movie made?\" Kurtz said, \"Although Star Wars wasn't like that at all, it was just sort of lumped into that same kind of [science fiction] category.\"\n\nThere were also concerns regarding the project's potentially high budget. Lucas and Kurtz, in pitching the film, said that it would be \"low-budget, Roger Corman style, and the budget was never going to be more than—well, originally we had proposed about 8 million, it ended up being about 10. Both of those figures are very low budget by Hollywood standards at the time.\" After Walt Disney Productions, who later bought Lucasfilm in December 2012, rejected the project, Lucas and Kurtz persisted in securing a studio to support the film because \"other people had read it and said, 'Yeah, it could be a good idea... Lucas pursued Alan Ladd, Jr., the head of 20th Century Fox, and in June 1973 completed a deal to write and direct the film. Although Ladd did not grasp the technical side of the project, he believed that Lucas was talented. Lucas later stated that Ladd \"invested in me, he did not invest in the movie.\" The deal gave Lucas $150,000 to write and direct the film.\n\nWriting\n\nSince commencing his writing process in January 1973, Lucas had done \"various rewrites in the evenings after the day's work.\" He would write four different screenplays for Star Wars, \"searching for just the right ingredients, characters and storyline. It's always been what you might call a good idea in search of a story.\" By May 1974, he had expanded the film treatment into a rough draft screenplay, adding elements such as the Sith, the Death Star, and a general by the name of Annikin Starkiller. He changed Starkiller to an adolescent boy, and he shifted the general into a supporting role as a member of a family of dwarfs. Lucas envisioned the Corellian smuggler, Han Solo, as a large, green-skinned monster with gills. He based Chewbacca on his Alaskan Malamute dog, Indiana (whom he would later use as namesake for his character Indiana Jones), who often acted as the director's \"co-pilot\" by sitting in the passenger seat of his car.\n\nLucas began researching the science fiction genre by watching films and reading books and comics. His first script incorporated ideas from many new sources. The script would also introduce the concept of a Jedi Master father and his son, who trains to be a Jedi under his father's friend; this would ultimately form the basis for the film and, later, the trilogy. However, in this draft, the father is a hero who is still alive at the start of the film. \n\nLucas completed a second draft of The Star Wars in January 1975, making heavy simplifications and introducing the young hero on a farm as Luke Starkiller. Annikin became Luke's father, a wise Jedi knight. \"The Force\" was also introduced as a mystical energy field. This second draft still had some differences from the final version in the characters and relationships. For example, Luke had several brothers, as well as his father, who appears in a minor role at the end of the film. The script became more of a fairy tale quest as opposed to the action-adventure of the previous versions. This version ended with another text crawl, previewing the next story in the series. This draft was also the first to introduce the concept of a Jedi turning to the dark side: the draft included a historical Jedi who became the first to ever fall to the dark side, and then trained the Sith to use it. Impressed with his works, Lucas hired conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie to create paintings of certain scenes around this time. When Lucas delivered his screenplay to the studio, he included several of McQuarrie's paintings. \n\nA third draft, dated August 1, 1975, was titled The Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Starkiller. This third draft had most of the elements of the final plot, with only some differences in the characters and settings. The draft characterized Luke as an only child, with his father already dead, replacing him with a substitute named Ben Kenobi. This script would be re-written for the fourth and final draft, dated January 1, 1976, as The Adventures of Luke Starkiller as taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars. Lucas worked with his friends Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck to revise the fourth draft into the final pre-production script. 20th Century Fox approved a budget of $8.25 million; American Graffitis positive reception afforded Lucas the leverage necessary to renegotiate his deal with Alan Ladd, Jr. and request the sequel rights to the film. For Lucas, this deal protected Star Wars unwritten segments and most of the merchandising profits.\n\nLucas finished writing his script in March 1976, when the crew started filming. He said, \"What finally emerged through the many drafts of the script has obviously been influenced by science-fiction and action-adventure I've read and seen. And I've seen a lot of it. I'm trying to make a classic sort of genre picture, a classic space fantasy in which all the influences are working together. There are certain traditional aspects of the genre I wanted to keep and help perpetuate in Star Wars.\" During production, he changed Luke's name from Starkiller to Skywalker and altered the title to The Star Wars and later Star Wars. He would also continue to tweak the script during filming, including adding the death of Obi-Wan after realizing he served no purpose in the ending of the film. \n\nFor the film's opening crawl, Lucas originally wrote a composition consisting of six paragraphs with four sentences each. He said, \"The crawl is such a hard thing because you have to be careful that you're not using too many words that people don't understand. It's like a poem.\" Lucas showed his draft to his friends. Director Brian De Palma, who was there, described it: \"The crawl at the beginning looks like it was written on a driveway. It goes on forever. It's gibberish.\" Lucas recounted what De Palma said the first time he saw it: \"George, you're out of your mind! Let me sit down and write this for you.\" De Palma helped to edit the text into the form used in the film.\n\nDesign\n\nGeorge Lucas recruited many conceptual designers, including Colin Cantwell, who worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), to conceptualize the initial spacecraft models; Alex Tavoularis to create the preliminary conceptual storyboard sketches of early scripts; and Ralph McQuarrie to visualize the characters, costumes, props and scenery. McQuarrie's pre-production paintings of certain scenes from Lucas's early screenplay drafts helped 20th Century Fox visualize the film, which positively influenced their decision to fund the project. After McQuarrie's drawings for Lucas's colleagues Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins (who were collaborating for a film) caught his interest, Lucas met with McQuarrie to discuss his plans for the then-untitled space fantasy film he wanted to make. Two years later, after completing American Graffiti, Lucas approached McQuarrie and asked him if he would be interested \"in doing something for Star Wars.\" McQuarrie produced a series of artworks from simple sketches; these set a visual tone for the film, and for the rest of the original trilogy.\n\nThe film was ambitious as Lucas wanted to create fresh prop prototypes and sets (based on McQuarrie's paintings) that had never been realized before in science fiction films. He commissioned production designers John Barry and Roger Christian, who were working on the sets of the film Lucky Lady (1975) when Lucas first approached them, to work on the production sets. Christian recounted in 2014: \"George came to the set I was doing, it was an old salt factory design and he helped me shovel salt, just like two students in plaid shirts and sneakers. And we spoke and he looked at the set and couldn't believe it wasn't real.\" They had a conversation with Lucas on what he would like the film to appear like, with them creating the desired sets. Christian said that Lucas \"didn't want anything [in Star Wars] to stand out, he wanted it [to look] all real and used. And I said, 'Finally somebody's doing it the right way.'\"\n\nLucas described a \"used future\" concept to the production designers in which all devices, ships, and buildings looked aged and dirty. Instead of following the traditional sleekness and futuristic architecture of science fiction films that came before, the Star Wars sets were designed to look inhabited and used. Barry said that the director \"wants to make it look like its shot on location on your average everyday Death Star or Mos Eisley Spaceport or local cantina.\" Lucas believed that \"what is required for true credibility is a used future\", opposing the interpretation of \"future in most futurist movies\" that \"always looks new and clean and shiny.\" Christian supported Lucas's vision, saying \"All science fiction before was very plastic and stupid uniforms and Flash Gordon stuff. Nothing was new. George was going right against that.\"\n\nThe designers started working with the director before Star Wars was approved by 20th Century Fox. For four to five months, in a studio in Kensal Rise, England, they attempted to plan the creation of the props and sets with \"no money\". Although Lucas initially provided funds using his earnings from American Graffiti, it was inadequate. As they could not afford to dress the sets, Christian was forced to use unconventional methods and materials to achieve the desired look. He suggested that Lucas use scrap in making the dressings, and the director agreed. Christian said, \"I've always had this idea. I used to do it with models when I was a kid. I'd stick things on them and we'd make things look old.\" Barry, Christian, and their team began designing the props and sets at Elstree Studios.\n\nAccording to Christian, the Millennium Falcon set was the most difficult to build. Christian wanted the interior of the Falcon to look like that of a submarine. He found scrap airplane metal \"that no one wanted in those days and bought them\". He began his creation process by breaking down jet engines into scrap pieces, giving him the chance to \"stick it in the sets in specific ways\". It took him several weeks to finish the chess set (which he described as \"the most encrusted set\") in the hold of the Falcon. The garbage compactor set \"was also pretty hard, because I knew I had actors in there and the walls had to come in, and they had to be in dirty water and I had to get stuff that would be light enough so it wouldn't hurt them but also not bobbing around\". A total of 30 sets consisting of planets, starships, caves, control rooms, cantinas, and the Death Star corridors were created; all of the nine sound stages at Elstree were used to accommodate them. The massive rebel hangar set was housed at a second sound stage at Shepperton Studios; the stage is the largest in Europe.\n\nFilming\n\nIn 1975, Lucas formed his own visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) after discovering that 20th Century Fox's visual effects department had been disbanded. ILM began its work on Star Wars in a warehouse in Van Nuys, California. Most of the visual effects used pioneering digital motion control photography developed by John Dykstra and his team, which created the illusion of size by employing small models and slowly moving cameras.\n\nGeorge Lucas tried \"to get a cohesive reality\" for his feature. However, since the film is a fairy tale, as he had described, \"I still wanted it to have an ethereal quality, yet be well composed and, also, have an alien look.\" He designed the film to have an \"extremely bizarre, Gregg Toland-like surreal look with strange over-exposed colors, a lot of shadows, a lot of hot areas.\" Lucas wanted Star Wars to embrace the combination of \"strange graphics of fantasy\" and \"the feel of a documentary\" to impress a distinct look. To achieve this, he hired the British cinematographer Gilbert Taylor. Originally, Lucas's first choice for the position was Geoffrey Unsworth, who also provided the cinematography for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Unsworth was interested in working with the director, and initially accepted the job when it was offered to him by Lucas and Kurtz. However, he eventually withdrew to work on the Vincente Minnelli-directed A Matter of Time (1976) instead, which \"really annoy[ed]\" Kurtz. Lucas called up for other cinematographers, and eventually chose Taylor, basing his choice on Taylor's cinematography for Dr. Strangelove and A Hard Day's Night (1964). On his decision, Lucas said: \"I thought they were good, eccentrically photographed pictures with a strong documentary flavor.\"\n\nTaylor said that Lucas, who was consumed by the details of the complicated production, \"avoided all meetings and contact with me from day one, so I read the extra-long script many times and made my own decisions as to how I would shoot the picture.\" He also \"took it upon myself to experiment with photographing the lightsabers and other things onstage before we moved on to our two weeks of location work in Tunisia.\" During production, Lucas and Taylor—whom Kurtz called \"old-school\" and \"crotchety\"—had disputes over filming. With a background in independent filmmaking, Lucas was accustomed to creating most of the elements of the film himself. His lighting suggestions were rejected by an offended Taylor, who felt that Lucas was overstepping his boundaries by giving specific instructions, sometimes even moving lights and cameras himself. Taylor refused to use the soft-focus lenses and gauze Lucas wanted after Fox executives complained about the look. Kurtz stated that \"In a couple of scenes [...] rather than saying, 'It looks a bit over lit, can you fix that?', [Lucas would] say, 'turn off this light, and turn off that light.' And Gil would say, 'No, I won't do that, I've lit it the way I think it should be—tell me what's the effect that you want, and I'll make a judgment about what to do with my lights.\n\nOriginally, Lucas envisioned the planet of Tatooine, where much of the film would take place, as a jungle planet. Gary Kurtz traveled to the Philippines to scout locations; however, because of the idea of spending months filming in the jungle would make Lucas \"itchy\", the director refined his vision and made Tatooine a desert planet instead. Kurtz then researched all American, North African, and Middle Eastern deserts, and found Tunisia, near the Sahara desert, as the ideal location. In the director's commentary of the 2004 DVD edition of a A New Hope, Lucas said he wanted to also make it look more \"spacy\" or outer space-like in style.\n\nWhen principal photography began on March 22, 1976 in the Tunisian desert for the scenes on Tatooine, the project faced several problems. Lucas fell behind schedule in the first week of shooting due to malfunctioning props and electronic breakdowns. Moreover, a rare Tunisian rainstorm struck the country, which further disrupted filming. Taylor said, \"you couldn't really see where the land ended and the sky began. It was all a gray mess, and the robots were just a blur.\" Given this situation, Lucas requested for heavy filtration, which confused Taylor, who said: \"I thought the look of the film should be absolutely clean ... But George saw it differently, so we tried using nets and other diffusion. He asked to set up one shot on the robots with a 300mm, and the sand and sky just mushed together. I told him it wouldn't work, but he said that was the way he wanted to do the entire film, all diffused.\" This difference was later settled by 20th Century Fox executives, who backed Taylor's suggestion. \n\nFilming began in Chott el Djerid, while a construction crew in Tozeur took eight weeks to transform the desert into the desired setting. Other locations included the sand dunes of the Tunisian desert near Nafta, where a scene featuring a giant skeleton of a creature lying in the background as R2-D2 and C-3PO make their way across the sands was filmed. When actor Anthony Daniels wore the C-3PO outfit for the first time in Tunisia, the left leg piece shattered down through the plastic covering his left foot, stabbing him. He also could not see through his costume's eyes, which was covered with gold to prevent corrosion. Abnormal radio signals caused by the Tunisian sands made the radio-controlled R2-D2 models run out of control. Kenny Baker, who portrayed R2-D2, said: \"I was incredibly grateful each time an [R2] would actually work right.\" After several scenes were filmed against the volcanic canyons outside Tozeur, production moved to Matmata to film Luke's home on Tatooine. Lucas chose Hotel Sidi Driss, which is larger than the typical underground dwellings, to shoot the interior of Luke's homestead. Additional scenes for Tatooine were filmed at Death Valley in North America. \n\nAfter completing two and a half weeks of filming in Tunisia, the cast and crew moved into the more controlled environment of Elstree Studios, near London. Difficulties encountered in Tunisia were assumed to cease; however, due to strict British working conditions adhered to on set, a new problem arose: filming had to finish by 5:30 pm, unless Lucas was in the middle of a scene. The interiors were shot in London due to its proximity to North Africa and because of the availability of top technical crew at Elstree Studios. The film studio was the only one of its kind in Britain or America that could cater nine large stages at the same time and allow the company complete freedom to use its own personnel. Despite Lucas' efforts, his crew had little interest in the film and did not take the project seriously. Most of the crew considered the project a \"children's film\", rarely took their work seriously, and often found it unintentionally humorous. Actor Baker later confessed that he thought the film would be a failure. Harrison Ford found it strange that \"there's a princess with weird buns in her hair\", and he called Chewbacca a \"giant in a monkey suit\".\n\nFilming at Elstree Studios became another problem for Taylor; the sets John Barry made \"were like a coal mine\", as the cinematographer described. He said that \"they were all black and gray, with really no opportunities for lighting at all.\" To resolve the problem, he worked the lighting into the sets by chopping in its walls, ceiling and floors. This would result in \"a 'cut-out' system of panel lighting\", with quartz lamps that could be placed in the holes in the walls, ceiling and floors. His idea was supported by the Fox studio, which agreed that \"we couldn't have this 'black hole of Calcutta. The lighting approach Taylor devised \"allowed George to shoot in almost any direction without extensive relighting, which gave him more freedom.\" In total, filming the scenes in Britain took 14 and a half weeks.\n\nThe moon Yavin 4, which acted as the rebel base in the film, was filmed in the Mayan temples at Tikal, Guatemala. Lucas selected the location as a potential filming site after seeing a poster of it hanging at a travel agency while he was filming in Britain. This inspired him to send a film crew to Guatemala in March 1977 to shoot scenes. While filming in Tikal, the crew paid locals with a six pack of beer to watch over the camera equipment for several days. \n\nLucas rarely spoke to the actors, who felt that he expected too much of them while providing little direction. His directions to the actors usually consisted of the words \"faster\" and \"more intense\". Kurtz stated that \"it happened a lot where he would just say, 'Let's try it again a little bit faster.' That was about the only instruction he'd give anybody. A lot of actors don't mind—they don't care, they just get on with it. But some actors really need a lot of pampering and a lot of feedback, and if they don't get it, they get paranoid that they might not be doing a good job.\" Kurtz has said that Lucas \"wasn't gregarious, he's very much a loner and very shy, so he didn't like large groups of people, he didn't like working with a large crew, he didn't like working with a lot of actors.\"\n\nLadd offered Lucas some of the only support from the studio; he dealt with scrutiny from board members over the rising budget and complex screenplay drafts. Initially, Fox approved $8 million for the project; Gary Kurtz said: \"we proceeded to pick a production plan and do a more final budget with a British art department and look for locations in North Africa, and kind of pulled together some things. Then, it was obvious that 8 million wasn't going to do it—they had approved 8 million.\" After requests from the team that \"it had to be more\", the executives \"got a bit scared\". For two weeks, Lucas and his crew \"didn't really do anything except kind of pull together new budget figures\". At the same time, after production fell behind schedule, Ladd told Lucas he had to finish production within a week or he would be forced to shut down production. Kurtz said that \"it came out to be like 9.8 or .9 or something like that, and in the end they just said, 'Yes, that's okay, we'll go ahead. The crew split into three units, with those units led by Lucas, Kurtz, and production supervisor Robert Watts. Under the new system, the project met the studio's deadline.\n\nDuring production, the cast attempted to make Lucas laugh or smile, as he often appeared depressed. At one point, the project became so demanding that Lucas was diagnosed with hypertension and exhaustion and was warned to reduce his stress level. Post-production was equally stressful due to increasing pressure from 20th Century Fox. Moreover, Mark Hamill's car accident left his face visibly scarred, which restricted re-shoots.\n\nPost-production\n\nStar Wars was originally slated for release on Christmas 1976; however, its production delays pushed the film's release to summer 1977. Already anxious about meeting his deadline, Lucas was shocked when editor John Jympson's first cut of the film was a \"complete disaster\". According to an article in Star Wars Insider No. 41 by David West Reynolds, this first edit of Star Wars contained about 30–40% different footage from the final version. After attempting to persuade Jympson to cut the film his way, Lucas replaced him with Paul Hirsch and Richard Chew. He also allowed his then-wife, Marcia Lucas, to aid the editing process while she was cutting the film New York, New York (1977) with Lucas's friend Martin Scorsese. Richard Chew found the film to have a lethargic pace and to have been cut in a by-the-book manner: scenes were played out in master shots that flowed into close-up coverage. He found that the pace was dictated by the actors instead of the cuts. Hirsch and Chew worked on two reels simultaneously.\n\nJympson's original assembly contained a large amount of footage which differed from the final cut of the film, including several alternate takes and a number of scenes which were subsequently deleted to improve the narrative pace. The most significant material cut was a series of scenes from the first part of the film which served to introduce the character of Luke Skywalker. These early scenes, set in Anchorhead on the planet Tatooine, presented the audience with Luke's everyday life among his friends as it is affected by the space battle above the planet; they also introduced the character of Biggs Darklighter, Luke's closest friend who departs to join the Rebellion. Chew explained the rationale behind removing these scenes as a narrative decision: \"In the first five minutes, we were hitting everybody with more information than they could handle. There were too many story lines to keep straight: the robots and the Princess, Vader, Luke. So we simplified it by taking out Luke and Biggs\". After viewing a rough cut, Alan Ladd likened these Anchorhead scenes to \"American Graffiti in outer space\". Lucas was looking for a way of accelerating the storytelling, and removing Luke's early scenes would distinguish Star Wars from his earlier teenage drama and \"get that American Graffiti feel out of it\". Lucas also stated that he wanted to move the narrative focus to C-3PO and R2-D2: \"At the time, to have the first half-hour of the film be mainly about robots was a bold idea.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Industrial Light & Magic was struggling to achieve unprecedented special effects. The company had spent half of its budget on four shots that Lucas deemed unacceptable. Moreover, theories surfaced that the workers at ILM lacked discipline, forcing Lucas to intervene frequently to ensure that they were on schedule. With hundreds of uncompleted shots remaining, ILM was forced to finish a year's work in six months. Lucas inspired ILM by editing together aerial dogfights from old war films, which enhanced the pacing of the scenes.\n\nDuring the chaos of production and post-production, the team made decisions about character voicing and sound effects. Sound designer Ben Burtt had created a library of sounds that Lucas referred to as an \"organic soundtrack\". Blaster sounds were a modified recording of a steel cable, under tension, being struck. The lightsaber sound effect was developed by Burtt as a combination of the hum of idling interlock motors in aged movie projectors and interference caused by a television set on a shieldless microphone. Burtt discovered the latter accidentally as he was looking for a buzzing, sparking sound to add to the projector-motor hum. For Chewbacca's growls, Burtt recorded and combined sounds made by dogs, bears, lions, tigers, and walruses to create phrases and sentences. Lucas and Burtt created the robotic voice of R2-D2 by filtering their voices through an electronic synthesizer. Darth Vader's breathing was achieved by Burtt breathing through the mask of a scuba regulator implanted with a microphone. \n\nIn February 1977, Lucas screened an early cut of the film for Fox executives, several director friends, along with Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin of Marvel Comics who were preparing a Star Wars comic book. The cut had a different crawl from the finished version and used Prowse's voice for Darth Vader. It also lacked most special effects; hand-drawn arrows took the place of blaster beams, and when the Millennium Falcon fought TIE fighters, the film cut to footage of World War II dogfights. The reactions of the directors present, such as Brian De Palma, John Milius, and Steven Spielberg, disappointed Lucas. Spielberg, who claimed to have been the only person in the audience to have enjoyed the film, believed that the lack of enthusiasm was due to the absence of finished special effects. Lucas later said that the group was honest and seemed bemused by the film. In contrast, Ladd and the other studio executives loved the film; Gareth Wigan told Lucas: \"This is the greatest film I've ever seen\" and cried during the screening. Lucas found the experience shocking and rewarding, having never gained any approval from studio executives before. The delays increased the budget from $8 million to $11 million. \n\nWith the project $2 million over budget, Lucas was forced to make numerous artistic compromises to complete Star Wars. Ladd reluctantly agreed to release an extra $20,000 funding and in early 1977 second unit filming completed a number of sequences including exterior desert shots for Tatooine in Death Valley and China Lake Acres in California, and exterior Yavin jungle shots in Guatemala, along with additional studio footage to complete the Mos Eisley Cantina sequence. Lucas had planned to rework a confrontation scene between Han Solo and Jabba the Hutt in Mos Eisley Spaceport by compositing a stop-motion animated model of Jabba to replace the actor Declan Mulholland, but with time and money running out, Lucas reluctantly decided to cut the scene entirely. The sequence was later re-instated in the 1997 Special Edition with a computer-generated version of Jabba.\n\nSoundtrack\n\nOn the recommendation of his friend Steven Spielberg, Lucas hired composer John Williams. Williams had worked with Spielberg on the film Jaws, for which he won an Academy Award. Lucas felt that the film would portray visually foreign worlds, but that the musical score would give the audience an emotional familiarity; he wanted a grand musical sound for Star Wars, with leitmotifs to provide distinction. Therefore, he assembled his favorite orchestral pieces for the soundtrack, until Williams convinced him that an original score would be unique and more unified. However, a few of Williams' pieces were influenced by the tracks given to him by Lucas: the \"Main Title Theme\" was inspired by the theme from the 1942 film Kings Row, scored by Erich Wolfgang Korngold; and the track \"Dune Sea of Tatooine\" drew from the soundtrack of Bicycle Thieves, scored by Alessandro Cicognini.\n\nIn March 1977, Williams conducted the London Symphony Orchestra to record the Star Wars soundtrack in 12 days. The original soundtrack was released as a double LP in 1977 by 20th Century Records. 20th Century Fox released The Story of Star Wars that same year, which adapted the film and presented it as a narrated story with music, dialogue, and sound effects from the original film. The American Film Institute's list of best film scores ranks the Star Wars soundtrack at number one.\n\nCinematic and literary allusions\n\nAccording to Lucas, different concepts of the film were inspired by numerous sources, such as Beowulf and King Arthur for the origins of myth and religion. Lucas originally intended to rely heavily on the 1930s Flash Gordon film serials; however, he resorted to Akira Kurosawa's film The Hidden Fortress, and Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, because of copyright issues with Flash Gordon. Star Wars features several parallels to Flash Gordon, such as the conflict between Rebels and Imperial Forces, the wipes between scenes, the fusion of futuristic technology and traditional mythology, and the famous opening crawl that begins each film. The film has also been compared to The Wizard of Oz. \n\nThe influence of Kurosawa's 1958 film can be seen in the relationship between C-3PO and R2-D2, which evolved from the two bickering peasants in The Hidden Fortress, and a Japanese family crest seen in the earlier film is similar to the Imperial Crest. Star Wars also borrows heavily from another Kurosawa film, Yojimbo. In both films, several men threaten the hero, bragging about how wanted they are by the authorities, and have an arm being cut off by a blade; Kuwabatake Sanjuro (portrayed by Toshiro Mifune) is offered \"... twenty-five ryo now, twenty-five when you complete the mission ...\", whereas Han Solo is offered \"Two thousand now, plus fifteen when we reach Alderaan.\"\n\nTatooine is similar to Arrakis from Frank Herbert's Dune series. Arrakis is the only known source of a longevity spice called Melange. References to \"spice\", various illegal stimulant drugs, occur throughout the last three films of the Star Wars saga. In the original film, Han Solo is a spice smuggler who has been through the spice mines of Kessel. In the conversation at Obi-Wan Kenobi's home, between Obi-Wan and Luke, Luke expresses a belief that his father was a navigator on a spice freighter. Other similarities include those between Princess Leia and Princess Alia, and between Jedi mind tricks and \"The Voice\", a controlling ability used by the Bene Gesserit. In passing, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru are \"moisture farmers\"; in Dune, dew collectors are used by Fremen to \"provide a small but reliable source of water.\" Frank Herbert reported that \"David Lynch, [director of the 1984 film Dune] had trouble with the fact that Star Wars used up so much of Dune.\" The pair found \"sixteen points of identity\" and they calculated that \"the odds against coincidence produced a number larger than the number of stars in the universe.\" \n\nThe Death Star assault scene was modeled after the World War II film The Dam Busters (1955), in which Royal Air Force Lancaster bombers fly along heavily defended reservoirs and aim bouncing bombs at dams, in order to cripple the heavy industry of Germany's Ruhr region. Some of the dialogue in The Dam Busters is repeated in the Star Wars climax; Gilbert Taylor also filmed the special effects sequences in The Dam Busters. In addition, the sequence was partially inspired by the climax of the film 633 Squadron (1964), directed by Walter Grauman, in which RAF de Havilland Mosquitos attack a German heavy water plant by flying down a narrow fjord to drop special bombs at a precise point, while avoiding anti-aircraft guns and German fighters. Clips from both films were included in Lucas's temporary dogfight footage version of the sequence. \n\nThe opening shot of Star Wars, in which a detailed spaceship fills the screen overhead, is a reference to the scene introducing the interplanetary spacecraft Discovery One in Stanley Kubrick's seminal 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The earlier big-budget science fiction film influenced the look of Star Wars in many other ways, including the use of EVA pods and hexagonal corridors. The Death Star has a docking bay reminiscent of the one on the orbiting space station in 2001. Although golden and male, C-3PO was inspired by the silver female robot Maria, the Maschinenmensch from Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis. \n\nTitle\n\nThe film was originally released in 1977 with the title \"Star Wars\". The subtitles Episode IV and A New Hope were only added to the opening crawl in subsequent re-releases. Accounts differ as to when this designation was first added; some date the change at the theatrical re-release of April 10, 1981, while others place it much earlier at the re-release in July 1978. The retroactive addition of these subtitles was intended to bring the film into line with the introduction to its sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, which was released in 1980 bearing the designation \"Episode V\". It is uncertain if the introduction of an episodic naming convention was an indicator of Lucas's original intent, or if this was simply a later redraft of the narrative. According to some accounts, Lucas has claimed that he was discouraged by Twentieth Century Fox from using an episode number on a new film because it would confuse audiences. Gary Kurtz has stated that he and Lucas had originally considered using an episode number for Star Wars to emulate the chapter numbering used in the 1936 Flash Gordon installments, but they were uncertain whether they should designate it Episode III, IV or V. However, some of Lucas's early script drafts bear titles such as \"The Adventures of the Starkiller (Episode One): The Star Wars\" (1975) or \"The Adventures of Luke Starkiller as Taken from the Journal of the Whills:Saga One: Star Wars\" (1976). The Revised Fourth Draft of the script dated January 1975 acquired the subtitle \"Episode IV - A New Hope - from the Journal of the Whills\" when published in the 1979 book The Art of Star Wars. \n\nMarketing\n\nWhile the film was in production, a logo was commissioned from Dan Perri, a title sequence designer who had worked on the titles for films such as Taxi Driver and The Exorcist. Perri devised a foreshortened STAR WARS logotype consisting of block-capital letters filled with stars and skewed towards a vanishing point. This logo design was originally conceived to follow the same perspective as the film's opening crawl. In the end, Perri's logo was not used for the film's opening title sequence, although it was used widely on pre-release print advertising and on cinema marquees. \n\nThe logotype eventually selected for on-screen used originated in a promotional brochure that was distributed by Fox to cinema owners in 1976. This brochure was designed by Suzy Rice, a young art director at the Los Angeles advertising agency Seiniger Advertising. On a visit to ILM in Van Nuys, Rice was instructed by Lucas to produce a logo that would intimidate the viewer, and he reportedly asked for the logo to appear \"very fascist\" in style. Rice's response to her brief was to use an outlined, modified Helvetica Black. After some feedback from Lucas, Rice decided to join the S and T of STAR and the R and S of WARS. Lucas signed off the brochure in between takes while filming inserts for the Mos Eisley Cantina scene. Gary Kurtz was impressed with Rice's logo and selected it over Perri's design for the film's opening titles, after modifying the letter W to flatten the pointed tips originally designed by Rice. This finalised the design of one of the most recognisable logos in cinema design, although Rice's contribution was not credited in the film.\n\nRelease\n\nPremiere and initial release\n\nLucasfilm hired Charles Lippincott as marketing director for Star Wars. As 20th Century Fox gave little support for marketing beyond licensing T-shirts and posters, Lippincott was forced to look elsewhere. He secured deals with Marvel Comics for a comic book adaptation, and with Del Rey Books for a novelization. A fan of science fiction, he used his contacts to promote the film at the San Diego Comic-Con and elsewhere within science fiction fandom. Worried that Star Wars would be beaten out by other summer films, such as Smokey and the Bandit, 20th Century Fox moved the release date to May 25, the Wednesday before Memorial Day. However, fewer than 40 theaters ordered the film to be shown. In response, the studio demanded that theaters order Star Wars if they wanted the eagerly anticipated The Other Side of Midnight based on the novel by the same name.\n\nStar Wars debuted on Wednesday, May 25, 1977, in fewer than 32 theaters, and eight more on Thursday and Friday. Kurtz said in 2002, \"That would be laughable today.\" It immediately broke box office records, effectively becoming one of the first blockbuster films, and Fox accelerated plans to broaden its release. Lucas himself was not able to predict how successful Star Wars would be. After visiting the set of the Steven Spielberg–directed Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Lucas was sure Close Encounters would outperform the yet-to-be-released Star Wars at the box office. Spielberg disagreed, and felt Lucas's Star Wars would be the bigger hit. Lucas proposed they trade 2.5% of the profit on each other's films; Spielberg took the trade, and still receives 2.5% of the profits from Star Wars. \n\nFox initially had doubts if Star Wars would emerge successful. The Other Side of Midnight was supposed to be the studio's big summer hit, while Lucas' movie was considered the \"B track\" for theater owners nationwide. Fearing that the film would fail, Lucas had made plans to be in Hawaii with his wife Marcia. Having forgotten that the film would open that day, he spent most of Wednesday in a sound studio in Los Angeles. When Lucas went out for lunch with Marcia, they encountered a long line of people along the sidewalks leading to Mann's Chinese Theatre, waiting to see Star Wars. He was still skeptical of the film's success despite Ladd and the studio's enthusiastic reports. While in Hawaii, it was not until he watched Walter Cronkite discuss the gigantic crowds for Star Wars on the CBS Evening News that Lucas realized he had become very wealthy (Francis Ford Coppola, who needed money to finish Apocalypse Now, sent a telegram to Lucas's hotel asking for funding). Even technical crew members, such as model makers, were asked for autographs, and cast members became instant household names; when Ford visited a record store to buy an album, enthusiastic fans tore half his shirt off.\n\nThe film was a huge success for the studio, and was credited for reinvigorating it. Within three weeks of its release, 20th Century Fox's stock price had doubled to a record high. Prior to 1977, 20th Century Fox's greatest annual profits were $37 million, while in 1977, the company broke that record by posting a profit of $79 million. Although the film's cultural neutrality helped it to gain international success, Ladd became anxious during the premiere in Japan. After the screening, the audience was silent, leading him to fear that the film would be unsuccessful. Ladd was later told by his local contacts that, in Japan, silence was the greatest honor to a film, and the subsequent strong box office returns confirmed its popularity.\n\nWhen Star Wars made an unprecedented second opening at Mann's Chinese Theatre on August 3, 1977, after William Friedkin's Sorcerer failed, thousands of people attended a ceremony in which C-3PO, R2-D2 and Darth Vader placed their footprints in the theater's forecourt. At that time Star Wars was playing in 1,096 theaters in the United States. Approximately 60 theaters played the film continuously for over a year; in 1978, Lucasfilm distributed \"Birthday Cake\" posters to those theaters for special events on May 25, the one-year anniversary of the film's release. Star Wars premiered in the UK on December 27, 1977. \n\nLater releases\n\nStar Wars was re-released theatrically in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982. After ILM used computer-generated effects for Steven Spielberg's 1993 film Jurassic Park, Lucas concluded that digital technology had caught up to his original vision for Star Wars. For the film's 20th anniversary in 1997, Star Wars was digitally remastered and re-released to movie theaters, along with The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, under the campaign title Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition. This version of the film runs 124 minutes.\n\nThe Special Edition contains visual shots and scenes that were unachievable in the original release due to financial, technological, and time constraints; one such scene involves a meeting between Han Solo and Jabba the Hutt. The process of creating the new visual effects for Star Wars is featured in the Academy Award-nominated IMAX documentary film, Special Effects: Anything Can Happen, directed by Star Wars sound designer, Ben Burtt. Although most changes are minor or cosmetic in nature, many fans and critics believe that Lucas degraded the film with the additions. A particularly controversial change in which a bounty hunter named Greedo shoots first when confronting Han Solo has inspired T-shirts brandishing the phrase \"Han Shot First\". \n\nStar Wars required extensive recovery of misplaced footage and restoration of the whole, before Lucas's Special Edition modifications could be attempted. It was discovered that in addition to the negative motion picture stocks commonly used on feature films, Lucas had also used internegative film, a reversal stock which deteriorated faster than negative stocks did. This meant that the entire printing negative had to be disassembled, and the CRI (color reversal internegative) portions cleaned separately from the negative portions. Once the cleaning was complete, the film was scanned into the computer for restoration. In many cases, entire scenes had to be reconstructed from their individual elements. Fortunately, digital compositing technology allowed them to correct for problems such as alignment of mattes, \"blue-spill\", and so forth. \n\nThough the original Star Wars was selected by the National Film Registry of the United States Library of Congress in 1989, it is unclear whether a copy of the 1977 theatrical sequence or the 1997 Special Edition has been archived by the NFR, or indeed if any copy has been provided by Lucasfilm and accepted by the Registry. While the agency has a mandate to register films for preservation, it has no authority to secure its selections from authors or copyright holders. \n\nHome media\n\nStar Wars debuted on Betamax, LaserDisc, Video 2000, and VHS between the 1980s and 1990s by CBS/Fox Video. The final issue of the original theatrical release (pre-Special Edition) to VHS format occurred in 1995, as part of \"Last Chance to Own the Original\" campaign, available as part of a trilogy set and as a standalone purchase. The film was released for the first time on DVD on September 21, 2004, in a box set with The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and a bonus disc of supplementary material. The films were digitally restored and remastered, and more changes were made by George Lucas. The DVD features a commentary track from Lucas, Ben Burtt, Dennis Muren, and Carrie Fisher. The bonus disc contains the documentary Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy, three featurettes, teasers, theatrical trailers, TV spots, still galleries, an exclusive preview of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, a playable Xbox demo of the LucasArts game Star Wars: Battlefront, and a \"Making Of\" documentary on the Episode III video game. The set was reissued in December 2005 as part of a three-disc limited edition boxed set without the bonus disc. \n\nThe trilogy was re-released on separate two-disc limited edition DVD sets from September 12 to December 31, 2006, and again in a limited edition tin box set on November 4, 2008; the original versions of the films were added as bonus material. The release was met with criticism as the unaltered versions were from the 1993 non-anamorphic LaserDisc masters and were not re-transferred using modern video standards. The transfer led to problems with colors and digital image jarring. \n\nAll six Star Wars films were released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on Blu-ray Disc on September 16, 2011 in three different editions, with A New Hope available in both a box set of the original trilogy and with the other five films on Star Wars: The Complete Saga, which includes nine discs and over 40 hours of special features. The original theatrical versions of the films were not included in the box set; however, the new 2011 revisions of the trilogy were leaked a month prior to release, inciting controversy the new changes made to these movies and causing an online uproar against Lucas. \n\n20th Century Fox owned full rights to the original film until they sold it to Lucas in 1998 in exchange for a lower distribution fee for the prequels and broadcast rights to Episode I. In late 2012, The Walt Disney Company announced a deal to acquire Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion, with approximately half in cash and half in shares of Disney stock. Although Disney will now possess the ownership rights to all six Star Wars films, under a previous deal with Lucasfilm, the full distribution rights to A New Hope will remain with Fox in perpetuity, while the physical distribution arrangements for the remaining films are set to expire in 2020 (Lucasfilm had retained the television and digital distribution rights to all Star Wars films produced after the original). \n\nOn April 7, 2015, Walt Disney Studios, 20th Century Fox, and Lucasfilm jointly announced the digital releases of the six released Star Wars films. Fox released A New Hope for digital download on April 10, 2015 and Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released the other five films. \n\nReception\n\nBox office\n\nStar Wars remains one of the most financially successful films of all time. The film earned $1,554,475 through its opening weekend ($ in dollars), building up to $7 million weekends as it entered wide release ($ in dollars). It replaced Jaws as the highest-earning film in North America just six months into release, eventually earning over $220 million during its initial theatrical run ($ in dollars). Star Wars entered international release towards the end of the year, and in 1978 added the worldwide record to its domestic one, earning $410 million in total. Reissues in 1978, 1979, 1981, and 1982 brought its cumulative gross in Canada and the U.S. to $323 million, and extended its global earnings to $530 million. The film remained the highest-grossing film of all time until E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial broke that record in 1983. \n\nFollowing the release of the Special Edition in 1997, Star Wars briefly reclaimed the North American record before losing it again the following year to Titanic. In total, the film has earned $775,398,007 worldwide (including $460,998,007 in North America alone). Adjusted for inflation, it has earned over $2.5 billion worldwide at 2011 prices, making it the most successful franchise film of all time. According to Guinness World Records, the film ranks as the third-highest-grossing film when adjusting for inflation; at the North American box office, it ranks second behind Gone with the Wind on the inflation-adjusted list. \n\nCritical response\n\nThe film was met with critical acclaim upon its release. In his 1977 review, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film \"an out-of-body experience\", compared its special effects to those of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and opined that the true strength of the film was its \"pure narrative\". Vincent Canby of The New York Times called the film \"the movie that's going to entertain a lot of contemporary folk who have a soft spot for the virtually ritualized manners of comic-book adventure\" and \"the most elaborate, most expensive, most beautiful movie serial ever made.\" A.D. Murphy of Variety described the film as \"magnificent\" and claimed George Lucas had succeeded in his attempt to create the \"biggest possible adventure fantasy\" based on the serials and older action epics from his childhood. Writing for The Washington Post, Gary Arnold gave the film a positive review, writing that the film \"is a new classic in a rousing movie tradition: a space swashbuckler.\" However, the film was not without its detractors: Pauline Kael of The New Yorker criticized Star Wars, stating that \"there's no breather in the picture, no lyricism\", and that it had no \"emotional grip\". John Simon of New York magazine also panned the film and wrote, \"Strip Star Wars of its often striking images and its highfalutin scientific jargon, and you get a story, characters, and dialogue of overwhelming banality.\" Stanley Kauffmann, reviewing the film in The New Republic, opined that it \"was made for those (particularly males) who carry a portable shrine within them of their adolescence, a chalice of a Self that was Better Then, before the world's affairs or—in any complex way—sex intruded.\" \n\nBritish press for the film was positive. Derek Malcolm of The Guardian concluded that the film \"plays enough games to satisfy the most sophisticated.\" The Daily Telegraphs Adrian Berry said that Star Wars \"is the best such film since 2001 and in certain respects it is one of the most exciting ever made.\" He described the plot as \"unpretentious and pleasantly devoid of any 'message.'\" In his review for BBC, Matt Ford awarded the film five out of five stars and wrote, \"Star Wars isn't the best film ever made, but it is universally loved.\" \n\nThe film continues to receive critical acclaim from modern critics. The film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes rates it 93% positive based on 99 reviews with an overall rating of 8.5/10. Its consensus states in summary, \"A legendary expansive and ambitious start to the sci-fi saga, George Lucas opens our eyes to the possibilities of blockbuster film-making and things have never been the same.\" Metacritic reports an aggregate score of 92 out of 100 (based on 14 reviews), indicating \"universal acclaim\". In his 1997 review of the film's 20th anniversary release, Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune gave the film four out of four stars, saying, \"A grandiose and violent epic with a simple and whimsical heart.\" A San Francisco Chronicle staff member described the film as \"a thrilling experience.\" \n\nGene Siskel, writing for the Chicago Tribune in 1999, said, \"What places it a sizable cut about the routine is its spectacular visual effects, the best since Stanley Kubrick's 2001.\" Andrew Collins of Empire magazine awarded the film five out of five and said, \"Star Wars timeless appeal lies in its easily identified, universal archetypes—goodies to root for, baddies to boo, a princess to be rescued and so on—and if it is most obviously dated to the 70s by the special effects, so be it.\" In his 2009 review, Robert Hatch of The Nation called the film \"an outrageously successful, what will be called a 'classic,' compilation of nonsense, largely derived but thoroughly reconditioned. I doubt that anyone will ever match it, though the imitations must already be on the drawing boards.\" In a more critical review, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader stated, \"None of these characters has any depth, and they're all treated like the fanciful props and settings.\" Peter Keough of the Boston Phoenix said, \"Star Wars is a junkyard of cinematic gimcracks not unlike the Jawas' heap of purloined, discarded, barely functioning droids.\" \n\nAccolades\n\nThe film garnered numerous accolades after its release. Star Wars won six competitive Academy Awards at the 50th Academy Awards: Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound and Best Visual Effects. A Special Achievement for Sound Effects Editing went to sound designer Ben Burtt and a Scientific and Engineering Award went to John Dykstra for the development of the Dykstraflex Camera (shared with Alvah J. Miller and Jerry Jeffress, who were both granted for the engineering of the Electronic Motion Control System). Additional nominations included Alec Guinness for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and George Lucas for Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture, which were instead awarded to Woody Allen's Annie Hall.\n\nAt the 35th Golden Globe Awards, the film was nominated for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Alec Guinness), and it won the award for Best Score. It received six British Academy Film Awards nominations: Best Film, Best Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Production/Art Design, Best Sound, and Best Score; the film won in the latter two categories. John Williams' soundtrack album won the Grammy Award for Best Album of Original Score for a Motion Picture or Television Program, and the film attained the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. \n\nThe film also received twelve nominations at the Saturn Awards, winning nine: Best Science Fiction Film, Best Direction and Best Writing for George Lucas, Best Supporting Actor for Alec Guinness, Best Music for John Williams, Best Costume for John Mollo, Best Make-up for Rick Baker and Stuart Freeborn, Best Special Effects for John Dykstra and John Stears, and Outstanding Editing for Paul Hirsch, Marcia Lucas and Richard Chew. \n\nLegacy\n\nThe original Star Wars trilogy is considered one of the best film trilogies in history. Lucas has often stated that the entire trilogy was intended to be considered one film. However, he said that his story material for Star Wars was too long for a single film, prompting Lucas to split the story into multiple films. Lucas also stated that the story evolved over time and that \"There was never a script completed that had the entire story as it exists now [in 1983] ... As the stories unfolded, I would take certain ideas and save them ... I kept taking out all the good parts, and I just kept telling myself I would make other movies someday.\" In early interviews, it was suggested the series might comprise nine or twelve films. \n\nStar Wars launched the careers of Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher. Ford, who subsequently starred in the Indiana Jones series (1981–2008), Blade Runner (1982), and Witness (1985) after working on the film, told the Daily Mirror that Star Wars \"boosted my career\", and said, \"I think the great luck of my career is that I've made these family movies which are introduced to succeeding generations of kids by their families at the time it seems appropriate.\" \n\nThe film has spawned a series of films consisting of two trilogies (including the original film), and an extensive media franchise called the Star Wars expanded universe including books, television series, computer and video games, and comic books. All of the main films have been box office successes, with the overall box office revenue generated by the Star Wars films (including the theatrical The Clone Wars) totaling over $6.5 billion, making it the fourth highest-grossing film series. \n\nThe film also spawned the Star Wars Holiday Special, which debuted on CBS on November 17, 1978 and is often considered a failure; Lucas himself disowned it. The special has never been aired after its original broadcast, and it has never been officially released on home video. However, many bootleg copies exist, and the special has consequently become something of an underground legend. \n\nIn popular culture\n\nStar Wars and its ensuing film installments have been explicitly referenced and satirized across a wide range of media. Hardware Wars, released in 1978, was one of the first fan films to parody Star Wars. It received positive critical reaction, went to earn over $1 million, and is one of Lucas's favorite Star Wars spoofs. Writing for The New York Times, Frank DeCaro said, \"Star Wars littered pop culture of the late 1970s with a galaxy of space junk.\" He cited Quark (a short-lived 1977 sitcom that parodied the science fiction genre) and Donny & Marie (a 1970s variety show that produced a 10-minute musical adaptation of Star Wars guest starring Daniels and Mayhew) as \"television's two most infamous examples\". Mel Brooks's Spaceballs, a satirical comic science fiction parody, was released in 1987 to mixed reviews. Lucas permitted Brooks to make a spoof of the film under \"one incredibly big restriction: no action figures.\" \n\nContemporary animated comedy TV series Family Guy, Robot Chicken, and The Simpsons have produced episodes satirizing the film series. Star Wars, together with Lucas, was also the subject of the 2010 documentary film The People vs. George Lucas that details the issues of filmmaking and fanaticism pertaining to the film franchise and its creator. Many elements of the film have also endured presence in popular culture. The iconic weapon of choice of the Jedi, the lightsaber, was voted as the most popular weapon in film history in a survey of approximately 2,000 film fans. Characters such as Darth Vader, Han Solo and Yoda have become iconic, and all three were named in the top twenty of the British Film Institute's \"Best Sci-Fi Characters of All-Time\" list. The expressions \"Evil empire\" and \"May the Force be with you\" have become part of the popular lexicon. A pun on the latter phrase has led to May 4 being regarded by many fans of the franchise as an unofficial Star Wars Day. To commemorate the film's 30th anniversary in May 2007, the United States Postal Service issued a set of 15 stamps depicting the characters of the franchise. Approximately 400 mailboxes across the country were also designed to look like R2-D2. \n\nCinematic influence\n\nFilm critic Roger Ebert wrote in his book The Great Movies, \"Like The Birth of a Nation and Citizen Kane, Star Wars was a technical watershed that influenced many of the movies that came after.\" It began a new generation of special effects and high-energy motion pictures. The film was one of the first films to link genres together to invent a new, high-concept genre for filmmakers to build upon. Finally, along with Steven Spielberg's Jaws, it shifted the film industry's focus away from personal filmmaking of the 1970s and towards fast-paced, big-budget blockbusters for younger audiences. \n\nFilmmakers who have said to have been influenced by Star Wars include James Cameron, J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Dean Devlin, Gareth Edwards, Roland Emmerich, John Lasseter, David Fincher, Peter Jackson, Joss Whedon, Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott, John Singleton, and Kevin Smith. Scott, Cameron, and Jackson were influenced by Lucas's concept of the \"used future\" (where vehicles and culture are obviously dated) and extended the concept for their films, such as Scott's science fiction films Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982), Cameron's acclaimed sequel Aliens (1986) and his earlier breakthrough film The Terminator (1984). Jackson used the concept for his production of The Lord of the Rings trilogy to add a sense of realism and believability. Christopher Nolan cited Star Wars as an influence when making the 2010 blockbuster film, Inception. \n\nSome critics have blamed Star Wars, as well as Jaws, for ruining Hollywood by shifting its focus from \"sophisticated\" films such as The Godfather, Taxi Driver, and Annie Hall to films about spectacle and juvenile fantasy. One such critic, Peter Biskind, complained, \"When all was said and done, Lucas and Spielberg returned the 1970s audience, grown sophisticated on a diet of European and New Hollywood films, to the simplicities of the pre-1960s Golden Age of movies... They marched backward through the looking-glass.\" In an opposing view, Tom Shone wrote that through Star Wars and Jaws, Lucas and Spielberg \"didn't betray cinema at all: they plugged it back into the grid, returning the medium to its roots as a carnival sideshow, a magic act, one big special effect\", which was \"a kind of rebirth\".\n\nRecognition\n\nIn its May 30, 1977 issue, the film's year of release, Time magazine named Star Wars the \"Movie of the Year\". The publication claimed it was a \"big early supporter\" of the vision which would become Star Wars. In an article intended for the cover of the issue, Times Gerald Clarke wrote that Star Wars is \"a grand and glorious film that may well be the smash hit of 1977, and certainly is the best movie of the year so far. The result is a remarkable confection: a subliminal history of the movies, wrapped in a riveting tale of suspense and adventure, ornamented with some of the most ingenious special effects ever contrived for film.\" Each of the subsequent films of the Star Wars saga has appeared on the magazine's cover. \n\nStar Wars was voted the second most popular film by Americans in a 2008 nationwide poll conducted by the market research firm, Harris Interactive. Star Wars has also been featured in several high-profile audience polls: in 1997, it ranked as the 10th Greatest American Film on the Los Angeles Daily News Readers' Poll; in 2002, the film and its sequel The Empire Strikes Back were voted as the greatest films ever made in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Films poll; in 2011, it ranked as Best Sci-Fi Film on Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time, a primetime special aired by ABC that counted down the best films as chosen by fans, based on results of a poll conducted by ABC and People magazine; in 2014 the film placed 11th in a poll undertaken by The Hollywood Reporter, which balloted every studio, agency, publicity firm, and production house in the Hollywood region. \n\nReputable publications also have included Star Wars in their best films lists: in 2008, Empire magazine ranked Star Wars at No. 22 on its list of the \"500 Greatest Movies of All Time\"; in 2010, the film ranked among the \"All-Time 100\" list of the greatest films as chosen by Time magazine film critic Richard Schickel; the film was also placed on a similar list created by The New York Times, \"The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made\"; in 2012, the film was included in Sight & Sounds prestigious decennial critics poll \"Critics' Top 250 Films\", ranking at 171st on the list, and in their directors poll at 224th. \n\nLucas's original screenplay was selected by the Writers Guild of America as the 68th greatest of all time. In 1989, the Library of Congress selected Star Wars for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\" (though it remains unclear which edition, if any, the NFR has succeeded in acquiring from Lucasfilm); its soundtrack was added to the United States National Recording Registry 15 years later (in 2004). \n\nIn addition to the film's multiple awards and nominations, Star Wars has also been recognized by the American Film Institute on several of its lists. The film ranks first on 100 Years of Film Scores, second on Top 10 Sci-Fi Films, 15th on 100 Years...100 Movies (ranked 13th on the updated 10th anniversary edition), 27th on 100 Years...100 Thrills, and 39th on 100 Years...100 Cheers. In addition, the quote \"May the Force be with you\" is ranked eighth on 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes, and Han Solo and Obi-Wan Kenobi are ranked as the 14th and 37th greatest heroes respectively on 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains.\n\nMerchandising\n\nLittle Star Wars merchandise was available for several months after the film's debut, as only Kenner Products had accepted marketing director Charles Lippincott's licensing offers. Kenner responded to the sudden demand for toys by selling boxed vouchers in its \"empty box\" Christmas campaign. Television commercials told children and parents that vouchers within a \"Star Wars Early Bird Certificate Package\" could be redeemed for four action figures between February and June 1978. Jay West of the Los Angeles Times said that the boxes in the campaign \"became the most coveted empty box[es] in the history of retail.\" In 2012, the Star Wars action figures were inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame. \n\nThe novelization of the film was published in December 1976, six months before the film was released. The credited author was George Lucas, but the book was revealed to have been ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster, who later wrote the first Star Wars expanded universe novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978). The book was first published as Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker; later editions were titled simply Star Wars (1995) and, later, Star Wars: A New Hope (1997), to reflect the retitling of the film. Marketing director Charles Lippincott secured the deal with Del Rey Books to publish the novelization in November 1976. By February 1977, a half-million copies had been sold.\n\nMarvel Comics also adapted the film as the first six issues of its licensed Star Wars comic book, with the first issue dated May 1977. Roy Thomas was the writer and Howard Chaykin was the artist of the adaptation. Like the novelization, it contained certain elements, such as the scene with Luke and Biggs, that appeared in the screenplay but not in the finished film. The series was so successful that, according to Jim Shooter, it \"single-handedly saved Marvel\". In 2013, Dark Horse Comics published a comic adaption of the original screenplay's plot. \n\nLucasfilm adapted the story for a children's book-and-record set. Released in 1979, the 24-page Star Wars read-along book was accompanied by a 33⅓ rpm 7-inch phonograph record. Each page of the book contained a cropped frame from the movie with an abridged and condensed version of the story. The record was produced by Buena Vista Records, and its content was copyrighted by Black Falcon, Ltd., a subsidiary of Lucasfilm \"formed to handle the merchandising for Star Wars\". The Story of Star Wars was a 1977 record album presenting an abridged version of the events depicted in Star Wars, using dialogue and sound effects from the original film. The recording was produced by George Lucas and Alan Livingston, and was narrated by Roscoe Lee Browne. The script was adapted by E. Jack Kaplan and Cheryl Gard.\n\nA radio drama adaptation of the film was written by Brian Daley, directed by John Madden, and produced for and broadcast on the American National Public Radio network in 1981. The adaptation received cooperation from George Lucas, who donated the rights to NPR. John Williams' music and Ben Burtt's sound design were retained for the show; Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) and Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) reprised their roles as well. The radio drama featured scenes not seen in the final cut of the film, such as Luke Skywalker's observation of the space battle above Tatooine through binoculars, a skyhopper race, and Darth Vader's interrogation of Princess Leia. In terms of Star Wars canon, the radio drama is given the highest designation (like the screenplay and novelization), G-canon.", "Star Wars is an American epic space opera media franchise, centered on a film series created by George Lucas. It depicts the adventures of various characters \"a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away\".\n\nThe franchise began in 1977 with the release of the film Star Wars, (subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope in 1981) by 20th Century Fox, which became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon. It was followed by the similarly successful sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983); these three films constitute the original Star Wars trilogy. A prequel trilogy was later released between 1999 and 2005, which received a more mixed reaction from critics and fans in comparison to the original trilogy. A sequel trilogy is also currently being produced with the first installment as The Force Awakens (2015). All seven films were nominated for or won Academy Awards, as well as being commercial successes, with a combined box office revenue of $6.46 billion, making Star Wars the fourth highest-grossing film series. \n\nThe series has spawned an extensive media franchise—the Star Wars expanded universe, rebranded in April 2014 as Star Wars Legends—including books, television series, computer and video games, and comic books, resulting in significant development of the series's fictional universe. The Clone Wars film, television series of the same name, the Rebels television series, and the anthology films lie outside of the Legends banner and comprise part of the Star Wars official canon alongside the film trilogies. Star Wars holds a Guinness World Records title for the \"Most successful film merchandising franchise.\" In 2012, the total value of the Star Wars franchise was estimated at USD $30.7 billion, including box-office receipts as well as profits from their video games and DVD sales. \n\nIn 2012, The Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm for $4.06 billion and announced three new Star Wars films; the first film of that trilogy, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, was released in 2015. 20th Century Fox retains the physical distribution rights to the first two Star Wars trilogies, owning permanent rights for the original 1977 film and holding the rights to Episodes I–III, V and VI until May 2020. Walt Disney Studios owns digital distribution rights to all the Star Wars films, excluding A New Hope. \n\nSetting\n\nThe events depicted in the Star Wars franchise take place in a fictional galaxy. Many species of alien creatures (often humanoid) are depicted. Robotic droids are also commonplace and are generally built to serve their owners. Space travel is common, and many planets in the galaxy are members of a single galactic government. In the prequel trilogy, this is depicted in the form of the Galactic Republic; at the end of the prequel trilogy and throughout the original trilogy, this government is the Galactic Empire. Preceding and during the sequel trilogy, this government is the New Republic.\n\nOne of the prominent elements of Star Wars is \"the Force\", an omnipresent energy that can be harnessed by those with that ability, known as Force-sensitives. It is described in the first produced film as \"an energy field created by all living things [that] surrounds us, penetrates us, [and] binds the galaxy together.\" The Force allows users to perform various supernatural feats (such as telekinesis, clairvoyance, precognition, and mind control) and can amplify certain physical traits, such as speed and reflexes; these abilities vary between characters and can be improved through training. While the Force can be used for good, known as the light side, it also has a dark side that, when pursued, imbues users with hatred, aggression, and malevolence.\n\nThe seven films feature the Jedi, who adhere to the light side of the Force to serve as peacekeepers and guardians, and the Sith, who use the dark side of the Force for evil in an attempt to destroy the Jedi Order and the Republic and rule the galaxy for themselves.\n\nTheatrical films\n\nThe first film in the series, Star Wars, was released on May 25, 1977. This was followed by two sequels: The Empire Strikes Back, released on May 21, 1980, and Return of the Jedi, released on May 25, 1983. The opening crawl of the sequels disclosed that they were numbered as \"Episode V\" and \"Episode VI\" respectively, though the films were generally advertised solely under their subtitles. Though the first film in the series was simply titled Star Wars, with its 1981 re-release it had the subtitle Episode IV: A New Hope added to remain consistent with its sequel, and to establish it as the middle chapter of a continuing saga.\n\nIn 1997, to correspond with the 20th anniversary of the original film, Lucas released a \"Special Edition\" of the Star Wars trilogy to theaters. The re-release featured alterations to the three films, primarily motivated by the improvement of CGI and other special effects technologies, which allowed visuals that were not possible to achieve at the time of the original filmmaking. Lucas continued to make changes to the films for subsequent releases, such as the first ever DVD release of the original trilogy on September 21, 2004, and the first ever Blu-ray release of all six films on September 16, 2011. Reception of the Special Edition was mixed, prompting petitions and fan edits to produce restored copies of the original trilogy. \n\nMore than two decades after the release of the original film, the series continued with a prequel trilogy; consisting of Episode I: The Phantom Menace, released on May 19, 1999; Episode II: Attack of the Clones, released on May 16, 2002; and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, released on May 19, 2005. On August 15, 2008, Star Wars: The Clone Wars was released theatrically as a lead-in to the animated TV series of the same name. Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released on December 18, 2015.\n\nOn January 26, 2016, Variety reported that Disney executives were meeting with cable outlets Turner, FX Networks, Viacom, NBCUniversal, A&E Networks and AMC Networks to have a discussion on purchasing the free-TV rights to the first six Star Wars movies. \n\nSaga films\n\nAnthology films\n\nAnimated film\n\nPlot overview\n\nOriginal trilogy\n\nThe original trilogy begins with the Galactic Empire nearing completion of the Death Star space station, which will allow the Empire to crush the Rebel Alliance, an organized resistance formed to combat Emperor Palpatine's tyranny. Palpatine's Sith apprentice Darth Vader captures Princess Leia, a member of the rebellion who has stolen the plans to the Death Star and hidden them in the astromech droid R2-D2. R2, along with his protocol droid counterpart C-3PO, escapes to the desert planet Tatooine. There, the droids are purchased by farm boy Luke Skywalker and his step-uncle and aunt. While Luke is cleaning R2, he accidentally triggers a message put into the droid by Leia, who asks for assistance from the legendary Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi. Luke later assists the droids in finding the exiled Jedi, who is now passing as an old hermit under the alias Ben Kenobi. When Luke asks about his father, whom he has never met, Obi-Wan tells him that Anakin Skywalker was a great Jedi who was betrayed and murdered by Vader. Obi-Wan and Luke hire the smuggler Han Solo and his Wookiee co-pilot Chewbacca to take them to Alderaan, Leia's home world, which they eventually find has been destroyed by the Death Star. Once on board the space station, Luke and Han rescue Leia while Obi-Wan allows himself to be killed during a lightsaber duel with Vader; his sacrifice allows the group to escape with the plans that help the Rebels destroy the Death Star. Luke himself (guided by the power of the Force) fires the shot that destroys the deadly space station during the Battle of Yavin.\n\nThree years later, Luke travels to find the Jedi Master Yoda, now living in exile on the swamp-infested world of Dagobah, to begin his Jedi training. However, Luke's training is interrupted when Vader lures him into a trap by capturing Han and his friends at Cloud City. During a fierce lightsaber duel, Vader reveals that he is Luke's father and attempts to turn him to the dark side of the Force. Luke escapes and, after rescuing Han from the gangster Jabba the Hutt, returns to Yoda to complete his training; only to find the 900-year-old Jedi Master on his deathbed. Before he dies, Yoda confirms that Vader is Luke's father. Moments later, the Force ghost of Obi-Wan tells Luke that he must confront his father once again before he can become a Jedi, and that Leia is his twin sister.\n\nAs the Rebels attack the second Death Star, Luke engages Vader in another lightsaber duel as the Emperor watches; both Sith Lords intend to turn Luke to the dark side and take him as their apprentice. During the duel, Luke succumbs to his anger and brutally overpowers Vader, but controls himself at the last minute; realizing that he is about to suffer his father's fate, he spares Vader's life and proudly declares his allegiance to the Jedi. An enraged Palpatine then attempts to kill Luke with Force lightning, a sight that moves Vader to turn and kill the Emperor, suffering mortal wounds in the process. Redeemed, Anakin Skywalker dies in his son's arms. Luke becomes a full-fledged Jedi, and the Rebels destroy the second Death Star. \n\nPrequel trilogy\n\nThe prequel trilogy begins 32 years before the original film, with the corrupt Trade Federation setting up a blockade of battleships around the planet Naboo. The Sith Lord Darth Sidious had secretly planned the blockade to give his alter ego, Senator Palpatine, a pretense to overthrow and replace the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic. At the Chancellor's request, the Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice, a younger Obi-Wan Kenobi, are sent to Naboo to negotiate with the Federation. However, the two Jedi are forced to instead help the Queen of Naboo, Padmé Amidala, escape from the blockade and plead her planet's crisis before the Republic Senate on Coruscant. When their starship is damaged during the escape, they land on Tatooine for repairs, where Qui-Gon discovers a nine-year-old Anakin Skywalker. Qui-Gon comes to believe that Anakin is the \"Chosen One\" foretold by Jedi prophecy to bring balance to the Force, and he helps liberate the boy from slavery. The Jedi Council, led by Yoda, reluctantly allows Obi-Wan to train Anakin after Qui-Gon is killed by Palpatine's first apprentice, Darth Maul, during the Battle of Naboo. \n\nThe remainder of the prequel trilogy, set a decade later, chronicles Anakin's gradual descent to the dark side as he fights in the Clone Wars, which Palpatine secretly engineers to destroy the Jedi Order and lure Anakin into his service. Anakin and Padmé fall in love and secretly wed, and eventually Padmé becomes pregnant. Anakin has a prophetic vision of Padmé dying in childbirth, and Palpatine convinces him that the dark side of the Force holds the power to save her life. Desperate, Anakin submits to Palpatine's Sith teachings and is renamed Darth Vader.\n\nWhile Palpatine re-organizes the Republic into the tyrannical Empire, Vader participates in the extermination of the Jedi Order, culminating in a lightsaber duel between himself and Obi-Wan on the volcanic planet Mustafar. Obi-Wan defeats his former apprentice and friend, severing his limbs and leaving him to burn to death on the shores of a lava flow. Palpatine arrives shortly afterward and saves Vader by placing him into a mechanical black mask and suit of armor that serves as a permanent life support system. At the same time, Padmé dies while giving birth to twins Luke and Leia. Obi-Wan and Yoda, now the only remaining Jedi alive, agree to separate the twins and keep them hidden from both Vader and the Emperor; until the time comes when Anakin's children can be used to help overthrow the Empire.\n\nSequel trilogy\n\nApproximately 30 years after the destruction of the second Death Star, Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi, has vanished. The First Order has risen from the fallen Empire and seeks to destroy Luke and the New Republic, while the Resistance, a small force backed by the Republic and led by the former princess of Alderaan, General Leia Organa, opposes them. On the planet Jakku, Resistance pilot Poe Dameron obtains a map that leads to Luke's location. Stormtroopers under the command of Kylo Ren, the son of Han Solo and Leia, capture Poe. His droid BB-8 escapes with the map and encounters a scavenger, Rey. Ren tortures Poe and learns of BB-8. Stormtrooper FN-2187 finds himself unable to kill for the First Order, and he frees Poe. The two escape in a TIE fighter; Poe dubs FN-2187 \"Finn\". They crash on Jakku, and Poe appears to die in the process. Finn encounters Rey and BB-8, but the First Order locates them, so they escape the planet in a stolen ship: the Millennium Falcon. After leaving Jakku, the Falcon is recaptured by Han Solo and Chewbacca, who have stepped away from the Resistance and resumed their lives as smugglers. The five companions travel to Takodana to meet with Maz Kanata. While there, Rey finds the lightsaber that previously belonged Anakin and Luke Skywalker, and upon touching it, brushes with the Force. Maz's castle is attacked by the First Order. Finn, Han, and Chewbacca are saved by a group of Resistance pilots led by Poe, who survived the crash on Jakku, but Rey is captured by Ren and taken to Starkiller Base. After reuniting with Leia and the Resistance on D'Qar, Han, Finn, and Chewbacca travel to Starkiller Base to free Rey and disable the planet's shields, which will allow Resistance pilots to destroy it. Rey is tortured by Ren, but her Force sensitivity allows her to resist him. She escapes by using a Jedi mind trick on her guard and reunites with Han, Finn, and Chewbacca, but the group encounters Ren. Han confronts his son, calling him by his birth name, Ben Solo, and asking him to come home. Ren momentarily appears to be swayed towards the light side, but then ignites his lightsaber and kills Han. Resistance pilots begin to bombard the base. Finn and Rey escape the base and encounter Ren. Finn takes up Anakin's lightsaber, only to be badly wounded by Ren. Rey Force pulls the lightsaber to her, and fights and wounds Ren, but the two are separated by a rift. Rey, Finn, and Chewbacca escape the imploding planet on the Falcon and return to the Resistance. A wounded Finn stays on D'Qar, while Rey, Chewbacca, and R2-D2 use the map to find Luke Skywalker on the planet Ahch-To, where Rey presents a silent Luke with his old lightsaber.\n\nThemes\n\nThe stormtroopers from the movies share a name with the Nazi stormtroopers (see also Sturmabteilung). Imperial officers' uniforms also resemble some historical German Army uniforms (see Wehrmacht) and the political and security officers of the Empire resemble the black clad SS down to the imitation silver death's head insignia on their officer's caps. World War II terms were used for names in Star Wars; examples include the planets Kessel (a term that refers to a group of encircled forces), Hoth (Hermann Hoth was a German general who served on the snow laden Eastern Front), and Tatooine (Tataouine - a province south of Tunis in Tunisia, roughly where Lucas filmed for the planet; Libya was a WWII arena of war). Palpatine being Chancellor before becoming Emperor mirrors Adolf Hitler's role as Chancellor before appointing himself Dictator. The Great Jedi Purge alludes to the events of The Holocaust, the Great Purge, the Cultural Revolution, and the Night of the Long Knives. In addition, Lucas himself has drawn parallels between Palpatine and his rise to power to historical dictators such as Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolf Hitler. The final medal awarding scene in A New Hope, however, references Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will. The space battles in A New Hope were based on filmed World War I and World War II dogfights. \n\nContinuing the use of Nazi inspiration for the Empire, J. J. Abrams, the director of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, has said that the First Order, an Imperial offshoot which will possibly serve as the main antagonist of the sequel trilogy, is also inspired by another aspect of the Nazi regime. Abrams spoke of how several Nazis fled to Argentina after the war and he claims that the concept for the First Order came from conversations between the scriptwriters about what would have happened if they had started working together again. \n\nAside from its well known science fictional technology, Star Wars features elements such as knighthood, chivalry, and princesses that are related to archetypes of the fantasy genre. The Star Wars world, unlike fantasy and science-fiction films that featured sleek and futuristic settings, was portrayed as dirty and grimy. Lucas' vision of a \"used future\" was further popularized in the science fiction-horror films Alien, which was set on a dirty space freighter; Mad Max 2, which is set in a post-apocalyptic desert; and Blade Runner, which is set in a crumbling, dirty city of the future. Lucas made a conscious effort to parallel scenes and dialogue between films, and especially to parallel the journeys of Luke Skywalker with that of his father Anakin when making the prequels.\n\nStar Wars contains many themes of political science that mainly favor democracy over dictatorship. Political science has been an important element of Star Wars since the franchise first launched in 1977. The plot climax of Star Wars is modeled after the fall of the democratic Roman Republic and the formation of an empire. \n\nTechnical information\n\nAll seven films of the Star Wars series were shot in an aspect ratio of 2.39:1. The original and sequel trilogies were shot with anamorphic lenses. Episodes IV, V, and VII were shot in Panavision, while Episode VI was shot in Joe Dunton Camera (JDC) scope. Episode I was shot with Hawk anamorphic lenses on Arriflex cameras, and Episodes II and III were shot with Sony's CineAlta high-definition digital cameras. \n\nLucas hired Ben Burtt to oversee the sound effects on the original 1977 film. Burtt's accomplishment was such that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented him with a Special Achievement Award because it had no award at the time for the work he had done. Lucasfilm developed the THX sound reproduction standard for Return of the Jedi. John Williams composed the scores for all seven films. Lucas' design for Star Wars involved a grand musical sound, with leitmotifs for different characters and important concepts. Williams' Star Wars title theme has become one of the most famous and well-known musical compositions in modern music history. \n\nLucas hired 'the Dean of Special Effects' John Stears, who created R2-D2, Luke Skywalker's Landspeeder, the Jedi Knights' lightsabers, and the Death Star. The technical lightsaber choreography for the original trilogy was developed by leading filmmaking sword-master Bob Anderson. Anderson trained actor Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) and performed all the sword stunts as Darth Vader during the lightsaber duels in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, wearing Vader's costume. Anderson's role in the original Star Wars trilogy was highlighted in the film Reclaiming the Blade, where he shares his experiences as the fight choreographer developing the lightsaber techniques for the movies. \n\nProduction history\n\nOriginal trilogy\n\nIn 1971, Universal Studios agreed to make American Graffiti and Star Wars in a two-picture contract, although Star Wars was later rejected in its early concept stages. American Graffiti was completed in 1973 and, a few months later, Lucas wrote a short summary called \"The Journal of the Whills\", which told the tale of the training of apprentice CJ Thorpe as a \"Jedi-Bendu\" space commando by the legendary Mace Windy. Frustrated that his story was too difficult to understand, Lucas then began writing a 13-page treatment called The Star Wars on April 17, 1973, which had thematic parallels with Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress. By 1974, he had expanded the treatment into a rough draft screenplay, adding elements such as the Sith, the Death Star, and a protagonist named Annikin Starkiller.\n\nFor the second draft, Lucas made heavy simplifications, and introduced the young hero on a farm as Luke Starkiller. Annikin became Luke's father, a wise Jedi knight. \"The Force\" was also introduced as a mystical energy field. The next draft removed the father character and replaced him with a substitute named Ben Kenobi, and in 1976 a fourth draft had been prepared for principal photography. The film was titled Adventures of Luke Starkiller, as taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars. During production, Lucas changed Luke's name to Skywalker and altered the title to simply The Star Wars and finally Star Wars. \n\nAt that point, Lucas was not expecting the film to become part of a series. The fourth draft of the script underwent subtle changes that made it more satisfying as a self-contained film, ending with the destruction of the Galactic Empire itself by way of destroying the Death Star. However, Lucas had previously conceived of the film as the first in a series of adventures. Later, he realized the film would not in fact be the first in the sequence, but a film in the second trilogy in the saga. This is stated explicitly in George Lucas' preface to the 1994 reissue of Splinter of the Mind's Eye:\n\nThe second draft contained a teaser for a never-made sequel about \"The Princess of Ondos\", and by the time of the third draft some months later Lucas had negotiated a contract that gave him rights to make two sequels. Not long after, Lucas met with author Alan Dean Foster, and hired him to write these two sequels as novels. The intention was that if Star Wars was successful, Lucas could adapt the novels into screenplays. He had also by that point developed an elaborate backstory to aid his writing process.\n\nWhen Star Wars proved successful, Lucas decided to use the film as the basis for an elaborate serial, although at one point he considered walking away from the series altogether. However, Lucas wanted to create an independent filmmaking center—what would become Skywalker Ranch—and saw an opportunity to use the series as a financing agent. Alan Dean Foster had already begun writing the first sequel novel, but Lucas decided to abandon his plan to adapt Foster's work; the book was released as Splinter of the Mind's Eye the following year. At first, Lucas envisioned a series of films with no set number of entries, like the James Bond series. In an interview with Rolling Stone in August 1977, he said that he wanted his friends to each take a turn at directing the films and giving unique interpretations on the series. He also said that the backstory in which Darth Vader turns to the dark side, kills Luke's father and fights Ben Kenobi on a volcano as the Galactic Republic falls would make an excellent sequel.\n\nLater that year, Lucas hired science fiction author Leigh Brackett to write Star Wars II with him. They held story conferences and, by late November 1977, Lucas had produced a handwritten treatment called The Empire Strikes Back. The treatment is similar to the final film, except that Darth Vader does not reveal he is Luke's father. In the first draft that Brackett would write from this, Luke's father appears as a ghost to instruct Luke. \n\nBrackett finished her first draft in early 1978; Lucas has said he was disappointed with it, but before he could discuss it with her, she died of cancer. With no writer available, Lucas had to write his next draft himself. It was this draft in which Lucas first made use of the \"Episode\" numbering for the films; Empire Strikes Back was listed as Episode II. As Michael Kaminski argues in The Secret History of Star Wars, the disappointment with the first draft probably made Lucas consider different directions in which to take the story. He made use of a new plot twist: Darth Vader claims to be Luke's father. According to Lucas, he found this draft enjoyable to write, as opposed to the yearlong struggles writing the first film, and quickly wrote two more drafts, both in April 1978. He also took the script to a darker extreme by having Han Solo imprisoned in carbonite and left in limbo.\n\nThis new story point of Darth Vader being Luke's father had drastic effects on the series. Michael Kaminski argues in his book that it is unlikely that the plot point had ever seriously been considered or even conceived of before 1978, and that the first film was clearly operating under an alternate storyline where Vader was separate from Luke's father; there is not a single reference to this plot point before 1978. After writing the second and third drafts of Empire Strikes Back in which the point was introduced, Lucas reviewed the new backstory he had created: Anakin Skywalker was Ben Kenobi's brilliant student and had a child named Luke, but was swayed to the dark side by Emperor Palpatine (who became a Sith and not simply a politician). Anakin battled Ben Kenobi on the site of a volcano and was wounded, but then resurrected as Darth Vader. Meanwhile, Kenobi hid Luke on Tatooine while the Republic became the Empire and Vader systematically hunted down and killed the Jedi.\n\nWith this new backstory in place, Lucas decided that the series would be a trilogy, changing Empire Strikes Back from Episode II to Episode V in the next draft. Lawrence Kasdan, who had just completed writing Raiders of the Lost Ark, was then hired to write the next drafts, and was given additional input from director Irvin Kershner. Kasdan, Kershner, and producer Gary Kurtz saw the film as a more serious and adult film, which was helped by the new, darker storyline, and developed the series from the light adventure roots of the first film.\n\nBy the time he began writing Episode VI in 1981 (then titled Revenge of the Jedi), much had changed. Making Empire Strikes Back was stressful and costly, and Lucas' personal life was disintegrating. Burned out and not wanting to make any more Star Wars films, he vowed that he was done with the series in a May 1983 interview with Time magazine. Lucas' 1981 rough drafts had Darth Vader competing with the Emperor for possession of Luke—and in the second script, the \"revised rough draft\", Vader became a sympathetic character. Lawrence Kasdan was hired to take over once again and, in these final drafts, Vader was explicitly redeemed and finally unmasked. This change in character would provide a springboard to the \"Tragedy of Darth Vader\" storyline that underlies the prequels. \n\nPrequel trilogy\n\nAfter losing much of his fortune in a divorce settlement in 1987, Lucas had no desire to return to Star Wars, and had unofficially canceled the sequel trilogy by the time of Return of the Jedi. At that point, the prequels were only still a series of basic ideas partially pulled from his original drafts of \"The Star Wars\". Nevertheless, technical advances in the late 1980s and 1990s continued to fascinate Lucas, and he considered that they might make it possible to revisit his 20-year-old material. After Star Wars became popular once again, in the wake of Dark Horse's comic book line and Timothy Zahn's trilogy of novels, Lucas saw that there was still a large audience. His children were older, and with the explosion of CGI technology he was now considering returning to directing. By 1993, it was announced, in Variety among other sources, that he would be making the prequels. He began penning more to the story, now indicating the series would be a tragic one examining Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side. Lucas also began to change how the prequels would exist relative to the originals; at first they were supposed to be a \"filling-in\" of history tangential to the originals, but now he saw that they could form the beginning of one long story that started with Anakin's childhood and ended with his death. This was the final step towards turning the film series into a \"Saga\".\n\nIn 1994, Lucas began writing the screenplay to the first prequel, titled Episode I: The Beginning. Following the release of that film, Lucas announced that he would also be directing the next two, and began work on Episode II, The first draft of Episode II was completed just weeks before principal photography, and Lucas hired Jonathan Hales, a writer from The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, to polish it. Unsure of a title, Lucas had jokingly called the film \"Jar Jar's Great Adventure\". In writing The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas initially decided that Lando Calrissian was a clone and came from a planet of clones which caused the \"Clone Wars\" mentioned by Princess Leia in A New Hope; he later came up with an alternate concept of an army of clone shocktroopers from a remote planet which attacked the Republic and were repelled by the Jedi. The basic elements of that backstory became the plot basis for Episode II, with the new wrinkle added that Palpatine secretly orchestrated the crisis. \n\nLucas began working on Episode III before Attack of the Clones was released, offering concept artists that the film would open with a montage of seven Clone War battles. As he reviewed the storyline that summer, however, he says he radically re-organized the plot. Michael Kaminski, in The Secret History of Star Wars, offers evidence that issues in Anakin's fall to the dark side prompted Lucas to make massive story changes, first revising the opening sequence to have Palpatine kidnapped and his apprentice, Count Dooku, murdered by Anakin as the first act in the latter's turn towards the dark side. After principal photography was complete in 2003, Lucas made even more massive changes in Anakin's character, re-writing his entire turn to the dark side; he would now turn primarily in a quest to save Padmé's life, rather than the previous version in which that reason was one of several, including that he genuinely believed that the Jedi were evil and plotting to take over the Republic. This fundamental re-write was accomplished both through editing the principal footage, and new and revised scenes filmed during pick-ups in 2004. \n\nLucas often exaggerated the amount of material he wrote for the series; much of it stemmed from the post‐1978 period when the series grew into a phenomenon. Michael Kaminski explained that these exaggerations were both a publicity and security measure. Kaminski rationalized that since the series' story radically changed throughout the years, it was always Lucas' intention to change the original story retroactively because audiences would only view the material from his perspective. When congratulating the producers of the TV series Lost in 2010, Lucas himself jokingly admitted, \"when Star Wars first came out, I didn't know where it was going either. The trick is to pretend you've planned the whole thing out in advance. Throw in some father issues and references to other stories – let's call them homages – and you've got a series\". \n\nSequel trilogy\n\nA sequel trilogy was reportedly planned (Episodes VII, VIII and IX) by Lucasfilm as a sequel to the original Star Wars trilogy (Episodes IV, V and VI), released between 1977 and 1983. While the similarly discussed Star Wars prequel trilogy (Episodes I, II and III) was ultimately released between 1999 and 2005, Lucasfilm and George Lucas had for many years denied plans for a sequel trilogy, insisting that Star Wars is meant to be a six-part series. In , speaking about the upcoming Star Wars: The Clone Wars film, Lucas maintained his status on the sequel trilogy: \"I get asked all the time, 'What happens after Return of the Jedi?,' and there really is no answer for that. The movies were the story of Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker, and when Luke saves the galaxy and redeems his father, that's where that story ends.\" \n\nIn January 2012, Lucas announced that he would step away from blockbuster films and instead produce smaller arthouse films. Asked whether the criticism he received following the prequel trilogy and the alterations to the original trilogy had influenced his decision to retire, Lucas said: \"Why would I make any more when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?\" \n\nDespite insisting that a sequel trilogy would never happen, George Lucas began working on story treatments for three new Star Wars films in 2011. In October 2012, The Walt Disney Company agreed to buy Lucasfilm and announced that Star Wars Episode VII would be released in 2015. Later, it was revealed that the three new upcoming films (Episodes VII-IX) would be based on story treatments that had been written by George Lucas prior to the sale of Lucasfilm. The co-chairman of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy became president of the company, reporting to Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn. In addition, Kennedy will serve as executive producer on new Star Wars feature films, with franchise creator and Lucasfilm founder Lucas serving as creative consultant. The screenplay for Episode VII was originally set to be written by Michael Arndt, but in October 2013 it was announced that writing duties would be taken over by Lawrence Kasdan and J. J. Abrams. On January 25, 2013, The Walt Disney Studios and Lucasfilm officially announced J. J. Abrams as Star Wars Episode VIIs director and producer, along with Bryan Burk and Bad Robot Productions. \n\nOn November 20, 2012, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg will write and produce Episodes VIII and IX. Kasdan and Kinberg were later confirmed as creative consultants on those films, in addition to writing stand-alone films. In addition, John Williams, who wrote the music for the previous six episodes, has been hired to compose the music for Episodes VII, VIII and IX. \n\nOn March 12, 2015, Lucasfilm announced that Looper director Rian Johnson would direct Episode VIII with Ram Bergman as producer for Ram Bergman Productions. Reports initially claimed Johnson would also direct Episode IX, but it was later confirmed he would write only a story treatment. When asked about Episode VIII in an August 2014 interview, Johnson said \"it's boring to talk about, because the only thing I can really say is, I'm just happy. I don't have the terror I kind of expected I would, at least not yet. I'm sure I will at some point.\" It was originally scheduled to be released on May 26, 2017, but it's delayed for December 15, 2017. J. J. Abrams will serve as executive producer. \n\nAnthology series\n\nOn February 5, 2013, Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed the development of two stand-alone films, each individually written by Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg. On February 6, Entertainment Weekly reported that Disney is working on two films featuring Han Solo and Boba Fett. Disney CFO Jay Rasulo has described the stand-alone films as origin stories. Kathleen Kennedy explained that the stand-alone films will not crossover with the films of the sequel trilogy, stating, \"George was so clear as to how that works. The canon that he created was the Star Wars saga. Right now, Episode VII falls within that canon. The spin-off movies, or we may come up with some other way to call those films, they exist within that vast universe that he created. There is no attempt being made to carry characters (from the stand-alone films) in and out of the saga episodes. Consequently, from the creative standpoint, it's a roadmap that George made pretty clear.\" In April 2015, Lucasfilm and Kathleen Kennedy announced that the stand-alone films would be referred to as the Star Wars Anthology series. \n\nRogue One\n\nIn May 2014, Lucasfilm announced that Gareth Edwards would direct the first anthology film, to be released on December 16, 2016, with Gary Whitta writing the first draft. On March 12, 2015, the film's title was revealed to be Rogue One with Chris Weitz rewriting the script, with Felicity Jones, Ben Mendelsohn and Diego Luna starring. On April 19, 2015, a teaser trailer was shown exclusively during the closing of the Star Wars Celebration. Lucasfilm also announced that filming would begin in the summer of 2015. The plot will revolve around a group of rebels on a mission to steal the Death Star plans; director Edwards stated, \"It comes down to a group of individuals who don't have magical powers that have to somehow bring hope to the galaxy.\" Additionally, Kathleen Kennedy and Kiri Hart confirmed that the stand-alone films will be labeled as \"anthology films\". Edwards stated that the style of the film will be similar to that of a war film, stating, \"It's the reality of war. Good guys are bad. Bad guys are good. It's complicated, layered; a very rich scenario in which to set a movie.\" \n\nUntitled Han Solo Anthology film\n\nOn July 7, 2015, Lucasfilm announced, via StarWars.com, that a second Anthology film, which \"focuses on how young Han Solo became the smuggler, thief, and scoundrel whom Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi first encountered in the cantina at Mos Eisley\", would be released on May 25, 2018. The project will be directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller from a script by Lawrence and Jon Kasdan. Kathleen Kennedy will produce the film, Lawrence Kasdan and Jason McGatlin will executive produce, and Will Allegra will co-produce. The Hollywood Reporter stated when reporting the story, that the film is separate to the film that was originally being developed by Josh Trank. That film has now been pushed back to an unconfirmed date. Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort, Dave Franco, Jack Reynor, Scott Eastwood, Logan Lerman, Emory Cohen, Jack O'Connell, Alden Ehrenreich, Taron Egerton and Blake Jenner were among the actors who were in final considerations for the role of Han Solo. The Wrap reported that Chewbacca will appear. On May 5, 2016, Deadline reported that Ehrenreich was cast as Solo in the film, In July 2016, Ehrenreich was confirmed by Kennedy at the Star Wars Celebration. Kasdan has stated that filming will start in January 2017. \n\nUntitled Anthology film\n\nA third Anthology film rumored to focus on Boba Fett will be released in 2020. \n\n3D releases\n\nAt a ShoWest convention in 2005, Lucas demonstrated new technology and stated that he planned to release the six films in a new 3D film format, beginning with A New Hope in 2007. However, by January 2007, Lucasfilm stated on StarWars.com that \"there are no definitive plans or dates for releasing the Star Wars saga in 3-D.\" At Celebration Europe in July 2007, Rick McCallum confirmed that Lucasfilm was \"planning to take all six films and turn them into 3-D\", but they are \"waiting for the companies out there that are developing this technology to bring it down to a cost level that makes it worthwhile for everybody\". In July 2008, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO of DreamWorks Animation, revealed that Lucas planned to redo all six of the movies in 3D. In late September 2010, it was announced that The Phantom Menace would be theatrically re-released in 3-D on February 10, 2012. The plan was to re-release all six films in order, with the 3-D conversion process taking up to a year to complete for each film. However, the 3D re-releases of episodes II and III were postponed to enable Lucasfilm to concentrate on Episode VII. \n\nCast and crew\n\nCast\n\nCrew and other\n\nReception\n\nBox office performance\n\nCritical and public response\n\nAcademy Awards\n\nThe seven films together have been nominated for 27 Academy Awards, of which they won seven. The films were also awarded a total of three Special Achievement Awards.\n\nIn other media\n\nThe term Expanded Universe (EU) is an umbrella term for officially licensed Star Wars material outside of the feature films. The material expands the stories told in the films, taking place anywhere from 25,000 years before The Phantom Menace to 140 years after Return of the Jedi. The first Expanded Universe story appeared in Marvel Comics' Star Wars #7 in January 1978 (the first six issues of the series having been an adaptation of the film), followed quickly by Alan Dean Foster's novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye the following month. \n\nDespite Disney's acquisition of the product, George Lucas retains artistic control over the Star Wars universe. For example, the death of central characters and similar changes in the status quo requires his approval before authors were allowed to proceed. In addition, Lucasfilm Licensing and the new Lucasfilm Story Group devote efforts to ensure continuity between the works of various authors across companies. Elements of the Expanded Universe have been adopted by Lucas for use in the films, such as the name of capital planet Coruscant, which first appeared in Timothy Zahn's novel Heir to the Empire before being used in The Phantom Menace. Additionally, Lucas so liked the character Aayla Secura, who was introduced in Dark Horse Comics' Star Wars series, that he included her as a character in Attack of the Clones. \n\nA radio adaptation of the original 1977 film was first broadcast on National Public Radio in 1981. The adaptation was written by science fiction author Brian Daley and directed by John Madden. It was followed by adaptations of The Empire Strikes Back in 1983 and Return of the Jedi in 1996. The adaptations included background material created by Lucas but not used in the films. Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, and Billy Dee Williams reprised their roles as Luke Skywalker, C-3PO, and Lando Calrissian, respectively, except in Return of the Jedi in which Luke was played by Joshua Fardon and Lando by Arye Gross. The series also used John Williams' original score from the films and Ben Burtt's original sound designs. \n\nWhile Lucasfilm strived to maintain internal consistency between the films and television content with the expanded universe, only the films and the second Clone Wars television series are regarded as absolute canon, since Lucas worked on them directly. On April 25, 2014—anticipating future film installments—the company announced that they had devised a \"story group\" to oversee and co-ordinate all creative development. The first new on-screen canon to be produced will be the television series Star Wars Rebels. Previous EU titles will be reprinted under the \"Legends\" banner. \n\nTelevision series\n\nFollowing the success of the Star Wars films and their subsequent merchandising, several animated television series have been created:\n\n* Star Wars: Droids; also known as Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO, which premiered in September 1985, focused on the travels of R2-D2 and C-3PO as they shift through various owners/masters, and vaguely fills in the gaps between the events of Episode III and Episode IV.\n* Star Wars: Ewoks; also known as Ewoks, was simultaneously released in September 1985 and focused on the adventures of Wicket and various other recognizable Ewok characters from the original trilogy in the years leading up to Episode VI.\n* Star Wars: Clone Wars; an animated micro-series created by Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, etc.), which aired on Cartoon Network from November 2003 to March 2005.\n* Star Wars: The Clone Wars; a CGI-animated series based on the animated film of the same name, which aired on Cartoon Network from October 2008 to March 2013. The final season of the series aired on Netflix in March 2014.\n* Star Wars Rebels; a CGI-animated series set between Episode III and Episode IV, which premiered as a special on Disney Channel and began airing on Disney XD in October 2014. \n* Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles, an animated comedy mini-series that aired on Cartoon Network in 2013 and Disney XD in 2014.\n* Lego Star Wars: Droid Tales, another animated comedy mini-series that aired on Disney XD from July to November 2015. \n* Star Wars Detours, an animated comedy series written by Brendan Hay, who is a writer for the comedy news program The Daily Show, and with creative consulting from the co-creators of Robot Chicken: Seth Green and Matthew Senreich. The series will take place during the original trilogy and the setting will be remote from the front line of war. Following the Disney purchase, this series was put on indefinite hold.\n\nA live-action television project has been in varying stages of development at Lucasfilm since 2005, when George Lucas announced plans for a television series set between the prequel and original trilogies. The proposed series explores criminal and political power struggles in the aftermath of the fall of the Republic. Approximately fifty scripts have been written – Ronald D. Moore was one of the project's enlisted writers – and, as of December 2015, are still in possible development at Lucasfilm. \n\nTelevision films\n\nIn addition to the two trilogies and the The Clone Wars film, several other authorized films have been produced:\n* Star Wars Holiday Special, a 1978 two-hour television special, broadcast only once on CBS and never released to home video. Notable for the introduction of Boba Fett.\n* Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure, a 1984 American made-for-TV film—released theatrically overseas.\n* Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, a 1985 American made-for-TV film—released theatrically overseas, sequel to Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure.\n\nLEGO short films\n\n* Lego Star Wars: Revenge of the Brick, a 2005 animated parody short film based on Revenge of the Sith.\n* Lego Star Wars: The Quest for R2-D2, a 2009 official comedy spoof primarily based on The Clone Wars film.\n\nLiterature\n\nNovels\n\nStar Wars-based fiction predates the release of the first film, with the 1976 novelization of Star Wars (ghost-written by Alan Dean Foster and credited to Lucas). Foster's 1978 novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, was the first Expanded Universe work to be released. In addition to filling in the time between the original 1977 film and The Empire Strikes Back, this additional content greatly expanded the Star Wars timeline before and after the film series. Star Wars fiction flourished during the time of the original trilogy (1977–83) but slowed to a trickle afterwards. In 1992, however, Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy debuted, sparking a new interest in the Star Wars universe. Since then, several hundred tie-in novels have been published by Bantam and Del Rey. A similar resurgence in the Expanded Universe occurred in 1996 with the Steve Perry novel Shadows of the Empire, set in between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and accompanying video game and comic book series. \n\nLucasBooks radically changed the face of the Star Wars universe with the introduction of the New Jedi Order series, which takes place some 20 years after Return of the Jedi and stars a host of new characters alongside series originals. For younger audiences, three series have been introduced. The Jedi Apprentice series follows the adventures of Obi-Wan Kenobi and his master Qui-Gon Jinn in the years before The Phantom Menace. The Jedi Quest series follows the adventures of Obi-Wan and his apprentice Anakin Skywalker in between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. The Last of the Jedi series follows the adventures of Obi-Wan and another surviving Jedi almost immediately, set in between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.\n\nFollowing Disney's purchase of the franchise, Disney Publishing Worldwide also announced that Del Rey would publish a new line of canon Star Wars books under the Lucasfilm Story Group being released starting in September on a bi-monthly schedule. The Star Wars Legends banner would be used for those Extended Universe materials that are in print. \n\nComics\n\nMarvel Comics published Star Wars comic book series and adaptations from 1977 to 1986. A wide variety of creators worked on this series, including Roy Thomas, Archie Goodwin, Howard Chaykin, Al Williamson, Carmine Infantino, Gene Day, Walt Simonson, Michael Golden, Chris Claremont, Whilce Portacio, Jo Duffy, and Ron Frenz. The Los Angeles Times Syndicate published a Star Wars newspaper strip by Russ Manning, Goodwin and Williamson with Goodwin writing under a pseudonym. In the late 1980s, Marvel announced it would publish a new Star Wars comic by Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy. However, in December 1991, Dark Horse Comics acquired the Star Wars license and used it to launch a number of ambitious sequels to the original trilogy instead, including the popular Dark Empire stories. They have since gone on to publish a large number of original adventures set in the Star Wars universe. There have also been parody comics, including Tag and Bink. On January 3, 2014, Marvel Comics—itself a Disney subsidiary since 2009—announced that it would once again publish Star Wars comic books and graphic novels, taking over from Dark Horse, with the first release arriving on January 14, 2015. \n\nVideo games\n\nStar Wars videogames commercialization started in 1982 with Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back published for the Atari 2600 by Parker Brothers. Since then, Star Wars has opened the way to a myriad of space-flight simulation games, first-person shooter games, role-playing video games, RTS games, and others.\n\nThe best-selling games so far are the Lego Star Wars and the Battlefront series, with 12 million and 10 million units respectively while the most critically acclaimed is the first Knights of the Old Republic. The most recently released games are Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, for the PS3, PSP, PS2, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS and Wii. While The Complete Saga focuses on all six episodes of the series, The Force Unleashed, of the same name of the multimedia project which it is a part of, takes place in the largely unexplored time period between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope and casts players as Darth Vader's \"secret apprentice\" hunting down the remaining Jedi. The game features a new game engine, and was released on September 16, 2008 in the United States. There are three more titles based on the Clone Wars which were released for the Nintendo DS (Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Jedi Alliance) and Wii (Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Lightsaber Duels and Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Republic Heroes).\n\nOn May 5, 2015, Disney announced a follow-up game through Game Informer; Disney Infinity 3.0, for release on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, iOS, PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in 2015, featuring characters from the Star Wars universe. \n\nBoard games, trading cards, and role-playing games\n\nSince 1977, dozens of board, card, miniature, and tabletop role-playing games, among other types, have been published bearing the Star Wars name, beginning in 1977 with the board game Star Wars: Escape from the Death Star (not to be confused with another board game with the same title, published in 1990). \n\nThree different official tabletop role-playing games have been developed for the Star Wars universe: a version by West End Games in the 1980s and 1990s, one by Wizards of the Coast in the 2000s and one by Fantasy Flight Games in the 2010s.\n\nStar Wars trading cards have been published since the first \"blue\" series, by Topps, in 1977. Dozens of series have been produced, with Topps being the licensed creator in the United States. Some of the card series are of film stills, while others are original art. Many of the cards have become highly collectible with some very rare \"promos\", such as the 1993 Galaxy Series II \"floating Yoda\" P3 card often commanding US$ 1 000 or more. While most \"base\" or \"common card\" sets are plentiful, many \"insert\" or \"chase cards\" are very rare. From 1995 until 2001, Decipher, Inc. had the license for, created and produced a collectible card game based on Star Wars; the Star Wars Collectible Card Game (also known as SWCCG).\n\nThe board game Risk has been adapted to the series in two editions by Hasbro: and Star Wars Risk: The Clone Wars Edition (2005) and Risk: Star Wars Original Trilogy Edition (2006). From July 25 to August 15, 2013, Disney's online game Club Penguin hosted a \"Star Wars Takeover\" event based on the films. \n\nTheme park attractions\n\nBefore Disney's acquisition of the franchise, George Lucas had established a partnership in 1986 with the company's Walt Disney Imagineering division to create Star Tours, an attraction that opened at Disneyland in 1987. The attraction also had subsequent incarnations at other Disney theme parks worldwide.\n\nThe attractions at Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios closed in 2010, at Tokyo Disneyland in 2012, and at Disneyland Paris in 2016 to allow the rides to be converted into Star Tours–The Adventures Continue. The successor attraction opened at Disney's Hollywood Studios and Disneyland in 2011, and Tokyo Disneyland in 2013.\n\nJedi Training: Trials of the Temple is a live show where children are selected to learn the teachings of the Jedi Knights and the Force to become Padawan learners. The show is present at Disney's Hollywood Studios and at the Tomorrowland Terrace at Disneyland.\n\nFrom 1997 to 2015, Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios park hosted an annual festival, Star Wars Weekends, during specific dates from May to June.\n\nSince August 2014, after Disney bought the Star Wars franchise, the company has expressed plans to expand the franchise's presence in all of their theme parks, which is rumored to include a major Star Wars-themed expansion to Disney's Hollywood Studios. When asked whether or not Disney has an intellectual property franchise that's comparable to Harry Potter at Universal theme parks, Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger mentioned Cars and the Disney Princesses, and promised that Star Wars, \"is going to be just that.\" Iger formally announced a 14-acre Star Wars-themed land expansion at the D23 Expo in August 2015. The land—which will debut at Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios at an unspecified date—will include two new attractions inspired by the Millennium Falcon and \"a climactic battle between the First Order and the resistance\". The two parks will also host a seasonal Star Wars-themed event entitled Season of the Force, with Disneyland's version beginning in November 16, 2015. Disneyland's version will feature an updated Jedi Training Academy, a seasonal overlay for Space Mountain entitled \"Hyperspace Mountain\", a new scene in Star Tours–The Adventures Continue set on Jakku, and the Star Wars Launch Bay, a new attraction featuring exhibits and meet-and-greets.\n\nCultural impact\n\nIn 1989, the Library of Congress selected the original Star Wars film for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry, as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.\" Its sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, was selected in 2010. Despite these callings for archival, it is unclear whether copies of the 1977 and 1980 theatrical sequences of Star Wars and Empire—or copies of the 1997 Special Edition versions—have been archived by the NFR, or indeed if any copy has been provided by Lucasfilm and accepted by the Registry.\n\nBetween 2002 and 2004, museums in Japan, Singapore, Scotland and England showcased the Art of Star Wars, an exhibit describing the process of making the Star Wars trilogy. \n\nIn 2013, Star Wars became the first major motion picture translated into the Navajo language. \n\nFan films\n\nThe Star Wars saga has inspired many fans to create their own non-canon material set in the Star Wars galaxy. In recent years, this has ranged from writing fan-fiction to creating fan films. In 2002, Lucasfilm sponsored the first annual Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards, officially recognizing filmmakers and the genre. Because of concerns over potential copyright and trademark issues, however, the contest was initially open only to parodies, mockumentaries, and documentaries. Fan-fiction films set in the Star Wars universe were originally ineligible, but in 2007 Lucasfilm changed the submission standards to allow in-universe fiction entries. \n\nWhile many fan films have used elements from the licensed Expanded Universe to tell their story, they are not considered an official part of the Star Wars canon. However, the lead character from the Pink Five series was incorporated into Timothy Zahn's 2007 novel Allegiance, marking the first time a fan-created Star Wars character has ever crossed into the official canon. Lucasfilm, for the most part, has allowed but not endorsed the creation of these derivative fan-fiction works, so long as no such work attempts to make a profit from or tarnish the Star Wars franchise in any way. \n\nReligion (Jediism)\n\nThere is a real religion based on Star Wars. Their followers follow a modified version of the Jedi Code, and they believe in the concept of The Force as an energy field of all living things, that penetrates us and bind us together, as is depicted within Star Wars movies, although without the fictional elements such as telekinesis. Many citizens around the world answer list their religion as Jedi during their countries respective Census, among them Australia and New Zealand getting high percentages. A petition in Turkey to build a Jedi Temple within a University, also got international media attention. \n\nOrganisms named after Star Wars characters\n\nCharacters and other fictional elements from Star Wars have inspired several scientific names of organisms. Examples include Midichloria, a genus of bacteria named after the fictional micro-organisms midichlorians associated with the Force, Yoda purpurata, (an acorn worm) and Agathidium vaderi (beetle), and Aptostichus sarlacc, a trapdoor spider named for the sarlacc, the pit-dwelling creature on Tatooine. Other examples include:\n* Han solo Turvey, 2005, a species of trilobite from China. According to the scientific publication, the genus name Han refers to the Han Chinese, and the species name solo to the species being the youngest member of its family found to that date. However, Turvey has stated elsewhere that he named it after Han Solo because some friends dared him to name a species after a Star Wars character. \n* Albunione yoda Markham & Boyko, 2003, an isopod.\n* Darthvaderum, an oribatid mite genus.\n* Polemistus chewbacca and Polemistus vaderi, wasps.\n* Wockia chewbacca Adamski, 2009, a moth\n* Peckoltia greedoi Armbruster, Werneke, & Tan, 2015, a catfish named after Greedo\nParodies of Star Wars\n\nThe Star Wars saga has had a significant impact on modern American pop culture. Both the films and characters have been parodied in numerous films and television.\n* Notable film parodies of Star Wars include Hardware Wars, a 13-minute 1978 spoof which Lucas has called his favorite Star Wars parody, and Spaceballs, a feature film by Mel Brooks which featured effects done by Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic. \n* Lucasfilm itself made two mockumentaries: Return of the Ewok (1982), about Warwick Davis, who portrayed Wicket W. Warrick in Return of the Jedi; and R2-D2: Beneath the Dome (2002), which depicts R2-D2's \"life story\". \n* There have also been many songs based on, and in, the Star Wars universe. \"Weird Al\" Yankovic recorded two parodies: \"Yoda\", a parody of \"Lola\" by The Kinks; and \"The Saga Begins\", a parody of Don McLean's song \"American Pie\" that retells the events of The Phantom Menace from Obi-Wan Kenobi's perspective. \n* In television, the creators of the Robot Chicken series have produced three television specials satirizing the Star Wars films (\"Robot Chicken: Star Wars\", \"Episode II\", and \"III\"), and are developing an animated comedy series based in the Star Wars universe. The creators of the Family Guy series have also produced three Star Wars specials titled \"Blue Harvest\", \"Something, Something, Something, Dark Side\" and \"It's a Trap!\". Following Disney's accquisistion of the franchise, a Phineas and Ferb parody of Star Wars aired in the summer of 2014. \n* During the 2012 Emerald City Comicon in Seattle, Washington, several prominent cartoon voice actors, consisting of Rob Paulsen, Jess Harnell, John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, Tara Strong and Kevin Conroy, performed a parody reading of A New Hope as a radio play in each of their signature voice roles; i.e. Paulsen and Harnell as Yakko and Wakko Warner from Animaniacs, Strong as Bubbles from The Powerpuff Girls and Timmy Turner from The Fairly Oddparents, LaMarche and DiMaggio as Kif Kroker and Bender from Futurama, and Conroy narrating as Batman. \n* When Ronald Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a system of lasers and missiles meant to intercept incoming ICBMs, the plan was quickly labeled \"Star Wars\", implying that it was science fiction and linking it to Reagan's acting career. According to Frances FitzGerald, Reagan was annoyed by this, but Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle told colleagues that he \"thought the name was not so bad.\"; \"'Why not?' he said. 'It's a good movie. Besides, the good guys won.'\" This gained further resonance when Reagan described the Soviet Union as an \"evil empire\".\n* During the winter of 2015, Chicago based theater company, Under the Gun Theater developed a parody revue which recapped all six of the Star Wars films as a lead up to the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.Hatch, Megan Horst [http://www.axs.com/celebrate-the-release-of-star-wars-the-force-awakens-in-style-in-chica-70793 Celebrate the release of ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ in style in Chicago]. AXS TV. 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Who did Jane Fonda play in the 60s movie of the same name where she repeatedly lost her clothes.	tc_1141	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Jane_Fonda.txt" ], "title": [ "Jane Fonda" ], "wiki_context": [ "Jane Fonda (born Jayne Seymour Fonda; December 21, 1937) is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model and fitness guru. She is a two-time Academy Award winner and two time BAFTA Award winner. In 2014, she was the recipient of the American Film Institute AFI Life Achievement Award.\n\nFonda made her Broadway debut in the 1960 play There Was a Little Girl, for which she received the first of two Tony Award nominations, and made her screen debut later the same year in Tall Story. She rose to fame in 1960s films such as Period of Adjustment (1962), Sunday in New York (1963), Cat Ballou (1965), Barefoot in the Park (1967) and Barbarella (1968). Her first husband was Barbarella director Roger Vadim. A seven-time Academy Award nominee, she received her first nomination for They Shoot Horses, Don't They (1969) and went on to win two Best Actress Oscars in the 1970s for Klute (1971) and Coming Home (1978). Her other nominations were for Julia (1977), The China Syndrome (1979), On Golden Pond (1981) and The Morning After (1986). Her other major competitive awards include an Emmy Award for the 1984 TV film The Dollmaker, two BAFTA Awards for Julia and The China Syndrome and four Golden Globe Awards.\n\nIn 1982, she released her first exercise video, Jane Fonda's Workout, which became the highest-selling video of the time. It would be the first of 22 workout videos released by her over the next 13 years which would collectively sell over 17 million copies. Divorced from second husband Tom Hayden, she married billionaire media mogul Ted Turner in 1991 and retired from acting. Fonda was divorced from Turner in 2001. She returned to acting with her first film in 15 years with the 2005 comedy Monster in Law. Subsequent films have included Georgia Rule (2007), The Butler (2013), This Is Where I Leave You (2014) and Youth (2015). In 2009, she returned to Broadway after a 45-year absence, in the play 33 Variations, which earned her a Tony Award nomination, while her recurring role in the HBO drama series The Newsroom (2012-2014), has earned her two Emmy Award nominations. She also released another five exercise videos between 2010 and 2012. She currently stars with Lily Tomlin and Martin Sheen in the Netflix original series Grace and Frankie (2015).\n\nFonda was a visible political activist in the counterculture era during the Vietnam War and has been more recently involved in advocacy for women. She was famously and controversially photographed sitting on an anti-aircraft gun on a 1972 visit to Hanoi. She has also protested the Iraq War and violence against women, and describes herself as a feminist. In 2005, she, Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem co-founded the Women's Media Center, an organization that works to amplify the voices of women in the media through advocacy, media and leadership training, and the creation of original content. Fonda currently serves on the board of the organization. She published an autobiography in 2005. In 2011, she published a second memoir, Prime Time.\n\nBackground\n\nJayne Seymour Fonda was born on December 21, 1937, in New York City, the daughter of actor Henry Fonda and the Canadian-born socialite Frances Ford Brokaw (née Seymour). According to her father, their surname came from an Italian ancestor who immigrated to the Netherlands in the 1500s.Henry Fonda, My Life, New York: Dutton, 1981. There, they intermarried and began to use Dutch given names, with Jane's first Fonda ancestor reaching New York in 1650. She also has English, Scottish, and French ancestry. She was named for the third wife of Henry VIII, Jane Seymour, to whom she is distantly related on her mother's side. She has a brother, Peter, an actor, and a maternal half-sister, Frances de Villers Brokaw (aka \"Pan\"), whose daughter is Pilar Corrias, owner of Pilar Corrias Gallery in London. \nOn April 14, 1950, when Fonda was twelve, her mother committed suicide while under treatment at Craig House psychiatric hospital in Beacon, NY. Later that year, Fonda's father married socialite Susan Blanchard (born 1928), just nine years his daughter's senior; this marriage ended in divorce. At 15 Fonda taught dance at Fire Island Pines, New York. She attended Greenwich Academy in Greenwich, Connecticut.\n\nFonda attended the Emma Willard School in Troy, New York, and Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, where she was an undistinguished student. Before starting her acting career, Fonda was a model, gracing the cover of Vogue twice. \n\nActing career\n\nFonda became interested in acting in 1954, while appearing with her father in a charity performance of The Country Girl, at the Omaha Community Playhouse. After dropping out of Vassar, she went to Paris for two years to study art. Upon returning to the states, in 1958, she met Lee Strasberg and the meeting changed the course of her life, Fonda saying, \"I went to the Actors Studio and Lee Strasberg told me I had talent. Real talent. It was the first time that anyone, except my father — who had to say so — told me I was good. At anything. It was a turning point in my life. I went to bed thinking about acting. I woke up thinking about acting. It was like the roof had come off my life!\" \n\n1960s\n\nHer stage work in the late 1950s laid the foundation for her film career in the 1960s. She averaged almost two movies a year throughout the decade, starting in 1960 with Tall Story, in which she recreated one of her Broadway roles as a college cheerleader pursuing a basketball star, played by Anthony Perkins. Period of Adjustment and Walk on the Wild Side followed in 1962. In Walk on the Wild Side, Fonda played a prostitute and earned a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer.\n\nIn 1963, she appeared in Sunday in New York. Newsday called her \"the loveliest and most gifted of all our new young actresses\". However, she also had detractors—in the same year, the Harvard Lampoon named her the \"Year's Worst Actress\" for The Chapman Report. Fonda's career breakthrough came with Cat Ballou (1965), in which she played a schoolmarm turned outlaw. This comedy Western received five Oscar nominations and was one of the year's top ten films at the box office. It was considered by many to have been the film that brought Fonda to bankable stardom. After this came the comedies Any Wednesday (1966), opposite Jason Robards and Dean Jones, and Barefoot in the Park (1967), co-starring Robert Redford.\n\nIn 1968, she played the title role in the science fiction spoof Barbarella, which established her status as a sex symbol. In contrast, the tragedy They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) won her critical acclaim, and she earned her first Oscar nomination for the role. Fonda was very selective by the end of the 1960s, turning down lead roles in Rosemary's Baby and Bonnie and Clyde, which went to Mia Farrow and Faye Dunaway, respectively.\n\n1970s\n\nFonda won her first Academy Award for Best Actress in 1971, again playing a prostitute, the gamine Bree Daniels, in the murder mystery Klute. She won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for Klute and another in 1978 for Coming Home as well as the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1978, for the story of a disabled Vietnam War veteran's difficulty in re-entering civilian life. \n\nBetween Klute in 1971 and Fun With Dick and Jane in 1977, Fonda did not have a major film success. She appeared in A Doll's House (1973), Steelyard Blues and The Blue Bird (1976). From comments ascribed to her in interviews, some have inferred that she personally blamed the situation on anger at her outspoken political views: \"I can't say I was blacklisted, but I was greylisted.\" However, in her 2005 autobiography, My Life So Far, she rejected such simplification. \"The suggestion is that because of my actions against the war my career had been destroyed ... But the truth is that my career, far from being destroyed after the war, flourished with a vigor it had not previously enjoyed.\" She reduced acting because of her political activism providing a new focus in her life. Her return to acting in a series of 'issue-driven' films reflected this new focus.\n\nIn 1972, Fonda starred as a reporter alongside Yves Montand in Tout Va Bien, directed by Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin. The two directors then made Letter to Jane, in which the two spent nearly an hour discussing a news photograph of Fonda.\n\nThrough her production company, IPC Films, she produced films that helped return her to star status. The 1977 comedy film Fun With Dick and Jane is generally considered her \"comeback\" picture. Also in 1977, she portrayed the playwright Lillian Hellman in Julia, receiving positive reviews, BAFTA and Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress, and an Oscar nomination. During this period, Fonda announced that she would make only films that focused on important issues, and she generally stuck to her word. She turned down An Unmarried Woman because she felt the part was not relevant. She won another BAFTA Award for Best Actress in 1979 with The China Syndrome, about a cover-up of a vulnerability in a nuclear power plant. The same year, she starred in The Electric Horseman with her previous co-star, Robert Redford.\n\n1980s\n\nIn 1980, Fonda starred in 9 to 5 with Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton. The film was a huge critical and box office success, becoming the second highest-grossing release of the year. Fonda had long wanted to work with her father, hoping it would help their strained relationship. She achieved this goal when she purchased the screen rights to the play On Golden Pond, specifically for her father and her. On Golden Pond, which also starred Katharine Hepburn, brought Henry Fonda his only Academy Award for Best Actor, which Jane accepted on his behalf, as he was ill and could not leave home. He died five months later.\n\nFonda continued appearing in feature films throughout the 1980s, winning an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in 1984 for The Dollmaker, and starring in the role of Dr. Martha Livingston in Agnes of God (1985). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of an alcoholic murder suspect in the 1986 thriller The Morning After, opposite Jeff Bridges. She ended the decade by appearing in Old Gringo. This was followed by the romantic drama Stanley & Iris (1990) with Robert De Niro, which would be her final film for 15 years.\n\nExercise videos\n\nFor many years Fonda took ballet class to keep fit, but after fracturing her foot while filming The China Syndrome, she was no longer able to participate. To compensate, she began participating in aerobics and strengthening exercises under the direction of Leni Cazden. The Leni Workout became the Jane Fonda Workout, which began a second career for her, continuing for many years. This was considered one of the influences that started the fitness craze among baby boomers, then approaching middle age. In 1982, Fonda released her first exercise video, titled Jane Fonda's Workout, inspired by her best-selling book, Jane Fonda's Workout Book. Jane Fonda's Workout became the highest selling home video of the next few years, selling over a million copies. The video's release led many people to buy the then-new VCR in order to watch and perform the workout at home. The exercise videos were produced and directed by Sidney Galanty, who helped to put the deal together with video distributor Stuart Karl, of Karl Home Video. Galanty produced the first video and 11 more after that. She would subsequently release 23 workout videos with the series selling a total of 17 million copies combined, more than any other exercise series. She released five workout books and thirteen audio programs, through 1995. After a fifteen-year hiatus, she released two new fitness videos on DVD in 2010, aiming at an older audience. \n\nRetirement and return\n\nIn the early 1990s, after three decades in film, Fonda announced her retirement from the film industry. In May 2005, she returned to the screen with the box office success Monster-in-Law, starring opposite Jennifer Lopez. Two years later, Fonda had a supporting role in the drama Georgia Rule, alongside Felicity Huffman and Lindsay Lohan.\n\nIn 2009, Fonda returned to act on Broadway for the first time since 1963, playing Katherine Brandt in Moisés Kaufman's 33 Variations. The role earned her a Tony nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play. \n\nFonda filmed her second movie in French when she had a leading role in the 2011 drama All Together. The same year she starred alongside Catherine Keener in Peace, Love and Misunderstanding, playing a hippy grandmother. In 2012, Fonda began a recurring role as Leona Lansing, CEO of a major media company, in HBO's original political drama The Newsroom. Her role continued throughout the show's three seasons, and Fonda received two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.\n\nIn 2013, Fonda had a small role in The Butler, portraying First Lady Nancy Reagan. She had more film work the following year, appearing in the comedies Better Living Through Chemistry and This is Where I Leave You. She also voiced a character on The Simpsons. She played an acting diva in Paolo Sorrentino's Youth in 2015, for which she earned a Golden Globe Award nomination. Her upcoming film roles include Fathers and Daughters with Russell Crowe.\n\nFonda appears as a joint-lead in the Netflix series Grace and Frankie. She and Lily Tomlin play aging women whose husbands reveal they are in love. Filming on the first season was completed in November 2014, and the show premiered online on May 8, 2015.\n\nIn June 2016, the Human Rights Campaign released a video in tribute to the victims of the 2016 Orlando gay nightclub shooting; in the video, Fonda and others told the stories of the people killed there. \n\nPolitical activism\n\nDuring the 1960s, Fonda engaged in political activism in support of the Civil Rights Movement, and in opposition to the Vietnam War. Fonda's visits to France brought her into contact with leftist French intellectuals who were opposed to war, an experience that she later characterized as \"small-c communism\". Along with other celebrities, she supported the Alcatraz Island occupation by American Indians in 1969, which was intended to call attention to failures of the government in treaty rights and the movement for greater Indian sovereignty. \n\nShe supported Huey Newton and the Black Panthers in the early 1970s, stating \"Revolution is an act of love; we are the children of revolution, born to be rebels. It runs in our blood.\" She called the Black Panthers \"our revolutionary vanguard ... we must support them with love, money, propaganda and risk.\" She has been involved in the feminist movement since the 1970s, which dovetails with her activism in support of civil rights.\n\nOpposition to Vietnam War\n\nIn April 1970, Fonda, with Fred Gardner and Donald Sutherland formed the FTA tour (\"Free The Army\", a play on the troop expression \"Fuck The Army\"), an anti-war road show designed as an answer to Bob Hope's USO tour. The tour, described as \"political vaudeville\" by Fonda, visited military towns along the West Coast, with the goal of establishing a dialogue with soldiers about their upcoming deployments to Vietnam. The dialogue was made into a movie (F.T.A.) which contained strong, frank criticism of the war by servicemen and servicewomen; it was released in 1972. \n\nOn May 4, 1970, Fonda appeared before an assembly at the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque, to speak on GI rights and issues. The end of her presentation was met with a discomforting silence. The quiet was broken when Beat poet Gregory Corso staggered onto the stage. Drunk, Corso challenged Fonda, using a four-letter expletive: Why hadn't she addressed the shooting of four students at Kent State by the Ohio National Guard, which had just taken place? Fonda in her autobiography revisited the incident: \"I was shocked by the news and felt like a fool.\" On the same day, she joined a protest march on the home of university president, Ferrel Heady. The protestors called themselves \"They Shoot Students, Don't They?\" — a reference to Fonda's recently released film, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, which had just been screened in Albuquerque.\n\nIn the same year, Fonda spoke out against the war at a rally organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. She offered to help raise funds for VVAW and, for her efforts, was rewarded with the title of Honorary National Coordinator. On November 3, 1970, Fonda started a tour of college campuses on which she raised funds for the organization. As noted by The New York Times, Fonda was a \"major patron\" of the VVAW. \n\nControversial visit to Hanoi\n\nFonda visited Hanoi in July 1972 to witness firsthand the bombing damage to the dikes. After touring and photographing dike systems in North Vietnam, she said the United States had been intentionally targeting the dike system along the Red River. Columnist Joseph Kraft, who was also touring North Vietnam, said he believed the damage to the dikes was incidental and was being used as propaganda by Hanoi, and that, if the U.S. Air Force were \"truly going after the dikes, it would do so in a methodical, not a harum-scarum way\". \n\nFonda was photographed seated on a anti-aircraft gun; the controversial photo outraged a number of Americans, and earned her the nickname \"Hanoi Jane\". In her 2005 autobiography, she wrote that she was manipulated into sitting on the battery; she had been horrified at the implications of the pictures and regretted they were taken. In a 2011 entry at her official website, Fonda explained:\nIt happened on my last day in Hanoi. I was exhausted and an emotional wreck after the 2-week visit ... The translator told me that the soldiers wanted to sing me a song. He translated as they sung. It was a song about the day 'Uncle Ho' declared their country's independence in Hanoi's Ba Dinh Square. I heard these words: \"All men are created equal; they are given certain rights; among these are life, Liberty and Happiness.\" These are the words Ho pronounced at the historic ceremony. I began to cry and clap. These young men should not be our enemy. They celebrate the same words Americans do. The soldiers asked me to sing for them in return ... I memorized a song called \"Day Ma Di\", written by anti-war South Vietnamese students. I knew I was slaughtering it, but everyone seemed delighted that I was making the attempt. I finished. Everyone was laughing and clapping, including me ... Here is my best, honest recollection of what happened: someone (I don't remember who) led me towards the gun, and I sat down, still laughing, still applauding. It all had nothing to do with where I was sitting. I hardly even thought about where I was sitting. The cameras flashed ... It is possible that it was a set up, that the Vietnamese had it all planned. I will never know. But if they did I can't blame them. The buck stops here. If I was used, I allowed it to happen ... a two-minute lapse of sanity that will haunt me forever ... But the photo exists, delivering its message regardless of what I was doing or feeling. I carry this heavy in my heart. I have apologized numerous times for any pain I may have caused servicemen and their families because of this photograph. It was never my intention to cause harm.[http://janefonda.com/the-truth-about-my-trip-to-hanoi \"The Truth About My Trip To Hanoi\"]. July 22, 2011; accessed January 27, 2014 at the Jane Fonda official website.\n\nFonda made radio broadcasts on Hanoi Radio throughout her two-week tour, commenting on her visits to villages, hospitals, schools, and factories damaged in the war and denouncing U.S. military policy in Vietnam. Fonda has defended her decision to travel to North Vietnam and her radio broadcasts. During the course of her visit, Fonda visited American prisoners of war (POWs), and brought back messages from them to their families. When stories of torture of returning POWs were later being publicized by the Nixon administration, Fonda called the returning POWs \"hypocrites and liars and pawns\", adding about the prisoners she visited, \"These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed.\" In addition, Fonda told The New York Times in 1973, \"I'm quite sure that there were incidents of torture ... but the pilots who were saying it was the policy of the Vietnamese and that it was systematic, I believe that's a lie.\" Her visits to the POW camp led to persistent and exaggerated rumors which were repeated widely in the press and continued to circulate on the Internet decades later. Fonda, as well as the named POWs, have personally denied the rumors, and subsequent interviews with the POWs showed these rumored allegations to be false as the persons named had never met Fonda.\n\nIn 1972, Fonda helped fund and organize the Indochina Peace Campaign, which continued to mobilize antiwar activists across the nation after the 1973 Paris Peace Agreement, through 1975, when the United States withdrew from Vietnam. \n\nBecause of her tour of North Vietnam during wartime and the subsequent rumors circulated about her visit, resentment against her among some veterans and currently serving U.S. military still exists. For example, when U.S. Naval Academy plebes, who had not yet been born when Fonda protested the Vietnam war, shouted out \"Goodnight, Jane Fonda!\", the company replied \"Goodnight, bitch!\" This practice has since been prohibited by the academy's Plebe Summer Standard Operating Procedures. In 2005, Michael A. Smith, a U.S. Navy veteran, was arrested for disorderly conduct in Kansas City, Missouri, after he spat chewing tobacco in Fonda's face during a book-signing event for her autobiography, My Life So Far. He told reporters that he \"consider[ed] it a debt of honor\", adding \"she spit in our faces for 37 years. It was absolutely worth it. There are a lot of veterans who would love to do what I did.\" Fonda refused to press charges. \n\nRegrets\n\nIn a 1988 interview with Barbara Walters, Fonda expressed regret for some of her comments and actions, stating:I would like to say something, not just to Vietnam veterans in New England, but to men who were in Vietnam, who I hurt, or whose pain I caused to deepen because of things that I said or did. I was trying to help end the killing and the war, but there were times when I was thoughtless and careless about it and I'm very sorry that I hurt them. And I want to apologize to them and their families. [...] I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me in an anti-aircraft gun, which looks like I was trying to shoot at American planes. It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanized such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless. \n\nSome critics responded that her apology came at a time when a group of New England Veterans had launched a campaign to disrupt a film project she was working on, leading to the charge that her apology was motivated at least partly by self-interest. \n\nIn a 60 Minutes interview on March 31, 2005, Fonda reiterated that she had no regrets about her trip to North Vietnam in 1972, with the exception of the anti-aircraft-gun photo. She stated that the incident was a \"betrayal\" of American forces and of the \"country that gave me privilege\". Fonda said, \"The image of Jane Fonda, Barbarella, Henry Fonda's daughter ... sitting on an enemy aircraft gun was a betrayal ... the largest lapse of judgment that I can even imagine.\" She later distinguished between regret over the use of her image as propaganda and pride for her anti-war activism: \"There are hundreds of American delegations that had met with the POWs. Both sides were using the POWs for propaganda ... It's not something that I will apologize for.\" Fonda said she had no regrets about the broadcasts she made on Radio Hanoi, something she asked the North Vietnamese to do: \"Our government was lying to us and men were dying because of it, and I felt I had to do anything that I could to expose the lies and help end the war.\" \n\nSubject of government surveillance\n\nIn 2013, it was revealed that Fonda was one of approximately 1,600 Americans whose communications between 1967 and 1973 were monitored by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) as part of Project Minaret, a program that some NSA officials have described as \"disreputable if not downright illegal\". Fonda's communications, as well as those of her husband, Tom Hayden, were intercepted by Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Under the UKUSA Agreement, the GCHQ sent the intercepted data on Americans to the U.S. government. \n\nFeminist causes\n\nFonda has been a longtime supporter of feminist causes, including V-Day, a movement to stop violence against women, inspired by the off-Broadway hit The Vagina Monologues, of which she is an honorary chairperson. She was present at their first summit in 2002, bringing together founder Eve Ensler, Afghan women oppressed by the Taliban, and a Kenyan activist campaigning to save girls from genital mutilation. \n\nIn 2001, she established the Jane Fonda Center for Adolescent Reproductive Health at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia to help prevent adolescent pregnancy through training and program development. \n\nOn February 16, 2004, Fonda led a march through Ciudad Juárez, with Sally Field, Eve Ensler and other women, urging Mexico to provide sufficient resources to newly appointed officials helping investigate the murders of hundreds of women in the rough border city. That same year, she served as a mentor to the first ever all-transsexual cast of The Vagina Monologues. \n\nIn the days before the September 17, 2006 Swedish elections, Fonda went to Sweden to support the new political party Feministiskt initiativ in their election campaign. \n\nIn My Life So Far, Fonda stated that she considers patriarchy to be harmful to men as well as women. She also states that for many years, she feared to call herself a feminist, because she believed that all feminists were \"anti-male\". But now, with her increased understanding of patriarchy, she feels that feminism is beneficial to both men and women, and states that she \"still loves men\", adding that when she divorced Ted Turner, she felt like she had also divorced the world of patriarchy, and was very happy to have done so.Fonda, My Life So Far.\n\nNative Americans\n\nFonda went to Seattle, Washington, in 1970 to support a group of Native Americans who were led by Bernie Whitebear. The group had occupied part of the grounds of Fort Lawton, which was in the process of being surplussed by the United States Army and turned into a park. The group was attempting to secure a land base where they could establish services for the sizable local urban Indian population, protesting that \"Indians had a right to part of the land that was originally all theirs.\" The endeavor succeeded and the Daybreak Star Cultural Center was constructed in the city's Discovery Park. \n\nIsraeli–Palestinian conflict\n\nIn December 2002, Fonda visited Israel and the West Bank as part of a tour focusing on stopping violence against women. She demonstrated with Women in Black against Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip outside the residence of Israel's Prime Minister. She later visited Jewish and Arab doctors and patients at a Jerusalem hospital, followed by visits to Ramallah to see a physical rehabilitation center, and a Palestinian refugee camp. She was heckled by three members of Women in Green as she arrived for a meeting with leading Israeli feminists. \n\nIn September 2009, she was one of more than 1,500 signatories to a letter protesting the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival's spotlight on Tel Aviv. The protest letter said that the spotlight on Tel Aviv was part of \"the Israeli propaganda machine\" because it was supported in part by funding from the Israeli government and had been described by the Israeli Consul General Amir Gissin as being part of a Brand Israel campaign intended to draw attention away from Israel's conflict with the Palestinians. Other signers included actor Danny Glover, musician David Byrne, journalist John Pilger, and authors Alice Walker, Naomi Klein, and Howard Zinn. \n\nRabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center stated that \"People who support letters like this are people who do not support a two-state solution. By calling into question the legitimacy of Tel Aviv, they are supporting a one-state solution, which means the destruction of the State of Israel.\" Hier continued, saying that \"it is clear that the script [the protesters] are reading from might as well have been written by Hamas.\" \n\nFonda, in The Huffington Post, said she regretted some of the language used in the original protest letter and how it \"was perhaps too easily misunderstood. It certainly has been wildly distorted. Contrary to the lies that have been circulated, the protest letter was not demonizing Israeli films and filmmakers.\" She continued, writing \"the greatest 're-branding' of Israel would be to celebrate that country's long standing, courageous and robust peace movement by helping to end the blockade of Gaza through negotiations with all parties to the conflict, and by stopping the expansion of West Bank settlements. That's the way to show Israel's commitment to peace, not a PR campaign. There will be no two-state solution unless this happens.\" Fonda emphasized that she, \"in no way, support[s] the destruction of Israel. I am for the two-state solution. I have been to Israel many times and love the country and its people.\" Several prominent Atlanta Jews subsequently signed a letter to The Huffington Post rejecting the vilification of Fonda, who they described as \"a strong supporter and friend of Israel\". \n\nOpposition to the Iraq War\n\nFonda argued that the military campaign in Iraq will turn people all over the world against America, and asserted that a global hatred of America would result in more terrorist attacks in the aftermath of the war. In July 2005, Fonda announced plans to make an anti-war bus tour in March 2006 with her daughter and several families of military veterans, saying that some of the war veterans she had met while on her book tour had urged her to speak out against the Iraq War. She later canceled the tour, because of concerns that she would distract attention from Cindy Sheehan's activism. \n\nIn September 2005, Fonda was scheduled to join British politician and anti-war activist George Galloway at two stops on his U.S. book tour, Madison, Wisconsin and Chicago. She canceled her appearances at the last minute, citing instructions from her doctors to avoid travel following recent hip surgery. \n\nOn January 27, 2007, Fonda participated in an anti-war rally and march held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., declaring that \"silence is no longer an option\". Fonda spoke at an anti-war rally earlier in the day at the Navy Memorial, where members of the organization Free Republic picketed in a counter protest. \n\nFonda and Kerry\n\nIn the 2004 presidential election, her name was used as a disparaging epithet against John Kerry, the former VVAW leader, who was then the Democratic Party presidential candidate. Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie called Kerry a \"Jane Fonda Democrat\". Also, Kerry's opponents circulated a photograph showing Fonda and Kerry in the same large crowd at a 1970 anti-war rally, although they were sitting several rows apart. A faked composite photograph, which gave the false impression that the two had shared a speaker's platform, was also circulated. \n\nEnvironmentalism\n\nIn 2015, Fonda expressed disapproval with President Barack Obama's permitting of arctic drilling (Petroleum exploration in the Arctic) at the Sundance Film Festival. In July, she marched in a Toronto protest called the \"March for Jobs, Justice, and Climate,\" which was organized by dozens of nonprofits, labor unions, and environmental activists, including Canadian author Naomi Klein. The march aimed to show businesses and politicians alike that climate change is inherently linked to issues that may seem unrelated. \n\nWriting\n\nOn April 5, 2005, Random House released Fonda's autobiography My Life So Far. The book describes her life as a series of three acts, each thirty years long, and declares that her third \"act\" will be her most significant, partly because of her commitment to the Christian religion, and that it will determine the things for which she will be remembered. \n\nFonda's autobiography was well received by book critics, and was noted to be \"as beguiling and as maddening as Jane Fonda herself\" in its Washington Post review, pronouncing her a \"beautiful bundle of contradictions\". The New York Times called the book \"achingly poignant\". \n\nIn January 2009, Fonda started chronicling her Broadway return in a blog, with posts about topics ranging from her Pilates class to her fears and excitement about her new play. She uses Twitter and has a Facebook page. In 2011, Fonda published a new book: Prime Time: Love, health, sex, fitness, friendship, spirit—making the most of all of your life. The book offers stories from her own life as well as from the lives of others, giving her perspective on how to better live what she calls \"the critical years from 45 and 50, and especially from 60 and beyond\". \n\nCharitable work\n\nAccording to IRS filings, Fonda founded the Jane Fonda Foundation in 2004 as a charitable corporation with herself as president, chair, director and secretary; Fonda contributes 10 hours each week on its behalf. \n\nPersonal life\n\nFonda married her first husband, French film director Roger Vadim, on August 14, 1965, at the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas. The couple had a daughter, Vanessa, born on September 28, 1968, in Paris, France, and named for actress and activist Vanessa Redgrave. On January 19, 1973, three days after obtaining a divorce from Vadim in Santo Domingo, Fonda married activist Tom Hayden in a free-form ceremony at her home in Laurel Canyon. Their son, Troy O'Donovan Garity, was born on July 7, 1973 in Los Angeles and was given his paternal grandmother's maiden name, as the names \"Fonda and Hayden carried too much baggage\". Fonda and Hayden wanted to give their son a name that \"was both American and Vietnamese\" and chose \"Troy\", an Anglicization of the Vietnamese \"Troi\", as the only name they could think of meeting that requirement. Hayden chose O'Donovan as the middle name after Irish revolutionary Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa. In 1982, Fonda and Hayden unofficially adopted an African-American teenager, Mary Luana Williams (known as Lulu), who was the daughter of members of the Black Panthers. Fonda and Hayden were divorced on June 10, 1990 in Santa Monica. She married her third husband, cable-television tycoon and CNN founder Ted Turner, on December 21, 1991, at a ranch near Capps, Florida. The pair divorced on May 22, 2001 in Atlanta, Georgia. Since 2009, Fonda has been in a relationship with record producer Richard Perry. \n\nFonda grew up an atheist, but turned to Christianity in the early 2000s. She describes her beliefs as being \"outside of established religion\", with a more feminist slant, and views God as something that \"lives within each of us as Spirit (or soul).\" She practices Zazen meditation and Yoga. \n\nHaving been diagnosed with breast cancer, Fonda underwent a lumpectomy in November 2010, and has recovered. \n\nHonors\n\nIn 1962, Fonda was given the honorary title of \"Miss Army Recruiting\" by the Pentagon. \n\nIn 1981, she was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award. \n\nIn 1994, the United Nations Population Fund made Fonda a Goodwill Ambassador. In 2004, she was awarded the Women's eNews 21 Leaders for the 21st Century award as one of Seven Who Change Their Worlds. In 2007, Fonda was awarded an Honorary Palme d'Or by Cannes Film Festival President Gilles Jacob for career achievement. Only three others had received such an award – Jeanne Moreau, Alain Resnais, and Gerard Oury. \n\nIn December 2008, Fonda was inducted into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts. In December 2009, Fonda received the New York Women's Agenda Lifetime Achievement Award. She was selected as the 42nd recipient (2014) of the AFI Life Achievement Award. \n\nFilmography" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Barbarella (disambiguation)", "Barbarella" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "barbarella", "barbarella disambiguation" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "barbarella", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Barbarella" }
Who won his second Oscar in successive years for Forrest Gump?	tc_1143	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Forrest_Gump.txt" ], "title": [ "Forrest Gump" ], "wiki_context": [ "Forrest Gump is a 1994 American epic romantic-comedy-drama film based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom. The film was directed by Robert Zemeckis and stars Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Mykelti Williamson, and Sally Field. The story depicts several decades in the life of Forrest Gump, a slow-witted but kind-hearted, good-natured and athletically prodigious man from Alabama who witnesses, and in some cases influences, some of the defining events of the latter half of the 20th century in the United States; more specifically, the period between Forrest's birth in 1944 and 1982. The film differs substantially from Winston Groom's novel, including Gump's personality and several events that were depicted.\n\nPrincipal photography took place in late 1993, mainly in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Extensive visual effects were used to incorporate the protagonist into archived footage and to develop other scenes. A comprehensive soundtrack was featured in the film, using music intended to pinpoint specific time periods portrayed on screen. Its commercial release made it a top-selling soundtrack, selling over twelve million copies worldwide.\n\nReleased in the United States on July 6, 1994, Forrest Gump became a commercial success as the top grossing film in North America released in that year, being the first major success for Paramount Pictures since the studio's sale to Viacom, earning over worldwide during its theatrical run. In 1995 it won the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director for Robert Zemeckis, Best Actor for Tom Hanks, Best Adapted Screenplay for Eric Roth, Best Visual Effects, and Best Film Editing. It also garnered multiple other awards and nominations, including Golden Globes, People's Choice Awards, and Young Artist Awards, among others. Since the film's release varying interpretations have been made of the film's protagonist and its political symbolism. In 1996, a themed restaurant, Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, opened based on the film and has since expanded to multiple locations worldwide. The scene of Gump running across the country is often referred to when real-life people attempt the feat. In 2011, the Library of Congress selected Forrest Gump for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\". \n\nPlot \n\nIn 1981, Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) sits at a bus stop in Savannah, Georgia. As a feather floats down toward him, he picks it up and recalls his childhood in Greenbow, Alabama during the 1950s, being raised by a single mother (Sally Field), and having to wear leg braces. Despite being intellectually challenged, Forrest is admitted to public school.\n\nOn his first day of school, Forrest meets Jenny Curran, who becomes his best friend and is also a victim of abuse. With Jenny's encouragement, Forrest runs away from a group of bullies, struggling until his leg braces fall off and he is able to run very fast. Years later, while fleeing the same group of bullies, he runs onto a football field during a game, which gets him into college on a football scholarship. \n\nAfter graduation, he enlists in the army, where he excels at drill exercises and befriends fellow recruit Benjamin Buford Blue, nicknamed Bubba (Mykelti Williamson), an aspiring shrimp boat captain who suggests they go into the shrimp business together after the war. They are sent to Vietnam under Lieutenant Dan Taylor (Gary Sinise). Bubba is killed during an ambush which leaves many of their fellow soldiers wounded. Lieutenant Dan sustains major injuries and loses both his legs. Forrest is wounded in the buttocks while saving members of his platoon and is awarded the Medal of Honor, presented to him by President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House. At an anti-war rally in Washington, Forrest reunites with Jenny, who joined the Hippie movement after being expelled from college over topless photos of herself and experimenting with drugs.\n\nWhile recovering from his wounds, Forrest discovers an aptitude for ping-pong, eventually playing against the Chinese in ping-pong diplomacy. He runs into Lieutenant Dan, now in a wheelchair, who has become an embittered drunk and receives Disability pension. Forrest moves in with Dan and they spend the holidays together, with Forrest explaining his and Bubba's plan to go into the shrimping business and his intentions to fulfill Bubba's dream.\n\nAfter being discharged from the Army, Gump returns to Alabama and makes from ping pong endorsements, which he uses to buy a shrimping boat, fulfilling his promise to Bubba. Lieutenant Dan joins Gump, and although they initially have little success, after Hurricane Carmen they are the only boat in the area left standing and they begin to pull in huge amounts of shrimp. They use their income to buy an entire fleet of shrimp boats. Lieutenant Dan invests the money in Apple and they are financially secure for the rest of their lives. Forrest returns home when his mother falls terminally ill and stays with her until her death. \n\nForrest donates much of his money to various causes and continues to live in the house where he grew up, taking a job as a grounds keeper. However he is lonely and often thinks of Jenny, who has been living a life of promiscuity and substance abuse. One day, she returns to Alabama and stays with Forrest. He asks her to marry him, but she declines due to her troubled past. However, they make love that night. She leaves the next morning. On a whim, Forrest decides to go for a run, which turns into a coast-to-coast three-and-a-half year journey, bringing him national attention. \n\nIn present-day, Gump reveals that he is waiting at the bus stop because he received a letter from Jenny, who is now living in Savannah and had seen him on TV during his running and invited him to visit. Jenny reveals Forrest to be the father of her child, also named Forrest, and that she is suffering from an unknown virus (presumably HIV/AIDS). Forrest and Jenny return to Greenbow with Forrest Jr and are married to which Lt. Dan attends the wedding with his fiance Susan and has new legs. Jenny eventually dies of her illness and Forrest becomes a devoted father to Forrest Jr.\n\nIn the film's final scene, Gump is waiting with his son for the School Bus to pick him up for his first day of school. As the bus departs, the feather from the beginning of the film floats off into the air.\n\nCast \n\n* Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump: Though at an early age he is deemed to have a below average IQ of 75, he has an endearing character and shows devotion to his loved ones and duties, character traits which bring him into many life-changing situations. Along the way, he encounters many historical figures and events throughout his life. Tom's younger brother Jim Hanks is his acting double in the movie for the scenes when Forrest runs across America. Tom's daughter Elizabeth Hanks appears in the movie as the girl on the school bus who refuses to let young Forrest (Michael Conner Humphreys) sit next to her. John Travolta was the original choice to play the title role, and admits passing on the role was a mistake. Bill Murray and Chevy Chase were also considered for the role. Hanks revealed that he signed onto the film after an hour and a half of reading the script. He initially wanted to ease Forrest's pronounced Southern accent, but was eventually persuaded by director Robert Zemeckis to portray the heavy accent stressed in the novel. Hanks agreed to take the role only on the condition that the film was historically accurate. Michael Conner Humphreys portrayed the young Forrest Gump. Hanks revealed in interviews that after hearing Michael's unique accented drawl, he incorporated it into the older character's accent. Winston Groom, who wrote the original novel, describes the film as having taken the \"rough edges\" off of the character, and envisioned him being played by John Goodman. \n* Robin Wright as Jenny Curran: Forrest's childhood friend whom he immediately falls in love with and never stops loving throughout his life. A victim of child sexual abuse at the hands of her bitterly widowed father, Jenny embarks on a different path from Forrest, leading a self-destructive life and becoming part of the hippie movement in the 1960s and the 1970s/1980s drug culture. She re-enters Forrest's life at various times in adulthood. Jenny eventually becomes a waitress in Savannah, Georgia, where she lives in an apartment with her (and Forrest's) son, Forrest Jr. They eventually get married, but soon afterwards she dies of an unspecified illness caused by a kind of virus. Her illness is implied to be HIV/AIDS; however, Hepatitis C is also a strong possibility as Forrest Sr. was never portrayed as contracting any illness (and although either would've had a chance to have been passed to Forrest Jr. through childbirth, he too does not fall ill) and the Hepatitis C virus was not discovered until 1989 – long after Jenny's death. Hanna R. Hall portrayed the young Jenny.\n* Gary Sinise as Lieutenant Dan Taylor: Forrest and Bubba Blue's platoon leader during the Vietnam War, whose ancestors have died in every American war and regards it as his destiny to do the same. After losing his legs in an ambush and being rescued against his will by Forrest, he is initially bitter and antagonistic towards Forrest for leaving him a \"cripple\" and denying him his family's destiny, falling into a deep depression. He later serves as Forrest's first mate at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, gives most of the orders, and regains his will to live. He ultimately forgives and thanks Forrest for saving his life. By the end of the film, he is engaged to be married and is sporting \"magic legs\" – titanium alloy prosthetics which allow him to walk again.\n* Mykelti Williamson as Benjamin Buford \"Bubba\" Blue: Bubba is Forrest's friend whom he meets upon joining the Army. Bubba was originally supposed to be the senior partner in the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, but due to his death in Vietnam, their platoon leader, Dan Taylor, took his place. The company posthumously carried his name. Forrest and Dan later gave Bubba's mother Bubba's share of the business. Throughout filming, Williamson wore a lip attachment to create Bubba's protruding lip. David Alan Grier, Ice Cube and Dave Chappelle were all offered the role but turned it down. Chappelle said he believed the film would be unsuccessful, and also acknowledged that he regrets not taking the role.\n* Sally Field as Mrs. Gump: Forrest's devoted mother, who raises him after his father abandons them. Field reflected on the character, \"She's a woman who loves her son unconditionally. … A lot of her dialogue sounds like slogans, and that's just what she intends.\" \n* Haley Joel Osment as Forrest Gump, Jr.: Forrest and Jenny's son. Osment was cast in the film after the casting director had noticed him in a Pizza Hut commercial. \n* Peter Dobson as Elvis: A house guest Forrest encounters. Although Kurt Russell was uncredited, he provided the voice over for Elvis in the scene where Elvis meets Forrest. \n* Dick Cavett as himself: Cavett played the 1970s version of himself, with makeup applied to make him appear younger. Consequently, Cavett is the only well-known figure in the film to play a cameo role rather than be represented through the use of archival footage like John Lennon or President John F. Kennedy \n* Sam Anderson as Principal Hancock: Forrest's elementary school principal.\n* Geoffrey Blake as Wesley: A member of the SDS group and Jenny's abusive boyfriend.\n* Siobhan Fallon Hogan as Dorothy Harris: The school bus driver who drives both Forrest, and later his son, to school.\n* Sonny Shroyer as Coach Paul \"Bear\" Bryant: Forrest's football coach at the University of Alabama.\n* Grand L. Bush, Michael Jace, Conor Kennelly, and Teddy Lane Jr. as the Black Panthers: Members of an organization that protests the Vietnam War, President Lyndon B. Johnson, and anti-black racism.\n* Jed Gillin as the voice of President Kennedy, who Forrest meets in the White House Oval Office.\n* Michael Conner Humphreys - Young Forrest\n\nProduction \n\nScript \n\nThe film is based on the 1986 novel by Winston Groom. Both center on the character of Forrest Gump. However, the film primarily focuses on the first eleven chapters of the novel, before skipping ahead to the end of the novel with the founding of Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and the meeting with Forrest, Jr. In addition to skipping some parts of the novel, the film adds several aspects to Gump's life that do not occur in the novel, such as his needing leg braces as a child and his run across the United States. \n\nGump's core character and personality are also changed from the novel; among other things his film character is less of an autistic savant—in the novel, while playing football at the university, he fails craft and gym, but receives a perfect score in an advanced physics class he is enrolled in by his coach to satisfy his college requirements. The novel also features Gump as an astronaut, a professional wrestler, and a chess player.\n\nTwo directors were offered the opportunity to direct the film before Robert Zemeckis was selected. Terry Gilliam turned down the offer. Barry Sonnenfeld was attached to the film, but left to direct Addams Family Values. \n\nFilming \n\nFilming began in August 1993 and ended in December of that year. Although most of the film is set in Alabama, filming took place mainly in and around Beaufort, South Carolina, as well as parts of coastal Virginia and North Carolina, including a running shot on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Downtown portions of the fictional town of Greenbow were filmed in Varnville, South Carolina. The scene of Forrest running through Vietnam while under fire was filmed on Fripp Island, South Carolina. Additional filming took place on the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, and along the Blue Ridge Parkway near Boone, North Carolina. The most notable place was Grandfather Mountain where a part of the road is named \"Forrest Gump Curve\". The Gump family home set was built along the Combahee River near Yemassee, South Carolina, and the nearby land was used to film Curran's home as well as some of the Vietnam scenes. Over 20 palmetto trees were planted to improve the Vietnam scenes. Forrest Gump narrated his life's story in Chippewa Square in Savannah, Georgia as he sat at a bus stop bench. There were other scenes filmed in and around the Savannah area as well, including a running shot on the Richard V. Woods Memorial Bridge in Beaufort while he was being interviewed by the press, and on West Bay Street in Savannah. Most of the college campus scenes were filmed in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California. The lighthouse that Forrest runs across to reach the Atlantic Ocean the first time is the Marshall Point Lighthouse in Port Clyde, Maine. Additional scenes were filmed in Arizona, Utah's Monument Valley, and Montana's Glacier National Park.\n\nVisual effects \n\nKen Ralston and his team at Industrial Light & Magic were responsible for the film's visual effects. Using CGI techniques, it was possible to depict Gump meeting deceased personages and shaking their hands. Hanks was first shot against a blue screen along with reference markers so that he could line up with the archive footage. To record the voices of the historical figures, voice actors were filmed and special effects were used to alter lip-syncing for the new dialogue. Archival footage was used and with the help of such techniques as chroma key, image warping, morphing, and rotoscoping, Hanks was integrated into it.\n\nIn one Vietnam War scene, Gump carries Bubba away from an incoming napalm attack. To create the effect, stunt actors were initially used for compositing purposes. Then, Hanks and Williamson were filmed, with Williamson supported by a cable wire as Hanks ran with him. The explosion was then filmed, and the actors were digitally added to appear just in front of the explosions. The jet fighters and napalm canisters were also added by CGI. \n\nThe CGI removal of actor Gary Sinise's legs, after his character had them amputated, was achieved by wrapping his legs with a blue fabric, which later facilitated the work of the \"roto-paint\" team to paint out his legs from every single frame. At one point, while hoisting himself into his wheelchair, his legs are used for support. \n\nThe scene where Forrest spots Jenny at a peace rally at the Lincoln Memorial and Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., required visual effects to create the large crowd of people. Over two days of filming, approximately 1,500 extras were used. At each successive take, the extras were rearranged and moved into a different quadrant away from the camera. With the help of computers, the extras were multiplied to create a crowd of several hundred thousand people.\n\nRelease \n\nCritical reception \n\nThe film received generally positive reviews. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 72% of critics gave the film a positive review based on a sample of 83 reviews. At the website Metacritic, the film earned a rating of 82/100 based on 19 reviews by mainstream critics. CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film a rare \"A+\" grade.\n\nThe story was commended by several critics. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, \"I've never met anyone like Forrest Gump in a movie before, and for that matter I've never seen a movie quite like 'Forrest Gump.' Any attempt to describe him will risk making the movie seem more conventional than it is, but let me try. It's a comedy, I guess. Or maybe a drama. Or a dream. The screenplay by Eric Roth has the complexity of modern fiction...The performance is a breathtaking balancing act between comedy and sadness, in a story rich in big laughs and quiet truths...What a magical movie.\" Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote that the film \"has been very well worked out on all levels, and manages the difficult feat of being an intimate, even delicate tale played with an appealingly light touch against an epic backdrop.\" The film did receive notable pans from several major reviewers. Anthony Lane of The New Yorker called the film \"Warm, wise, and wearisome as hell.\" Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly said that the film \"reduces the tumult of the last few decades to a virtual-reality theme park: a baby-boomer version of Disney's America.\" \n\nCritics have compared Gump with various characters and people including Huckleberry Finn, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan. Peter Chomo writes that Gump acts as a \"social mediator and as an agent of redemption in divided times\". Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called Gump \"everything we admire in the American character – honest, brave, and loyal with a heart of gold.\" The New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin called Gump a \"hollow man\" who is \"self-congratulatory in his blissful ignorance, warmly embraced as the embodiment of absolutely nothing.\" Marc Vincenti of Palo Alto Weekly called the character \"a pitiful stooge taking the pie of life in the face, thoughtfully licking his fingers.\" Bruce Kawin and Gerald Mast's textbook on film history notes that Forrest Gump's dimness was a metaphor for glamorized nostalgia in that he represented a blank slate by which the Baby Boomer generation projected their memories of those events. \n\nThe film is commonly seen as a polarizing one for audiences, with Entertainment Weekly writing in 2004, \"Nearly a decade after it earned gazillions and swept the Oscars, Robert Zemeckis's ode to 20th-century America still represents one of cinema's most clearly drawn lines in the sand. One half of folks see it as an artificial piece of pop melodrama, while everyone else raves that it's sweet as a box of chocolates.\" \n\nBox office performance \n\nProduced on a budget of $55 million, Forrest Gump opened in 1,595 theaters in its first weekend of domestic release, earning $24,450,602. Motion picture business consultant and screenwriter Jeffrey Hilton suggested to producer Wendy Finerman to double the P&A (film marketing budget) based on his viewing of an early print of the film. The budget was immediately increased, per his advice. The film placed first in the weekend's box office, narrowly beating The Lion King, which was in its fourth week of release. For the first ten weeks of its release, the film held the number one position at the box office. The film remained in theaters for 42 weeks, earning $329.7 million in the United States and Canada, making it the fourth-highest grossing film at that time (behind only E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Star Wars IV: A New Hope, and Jurassic Park). Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 78.5 million tickets in the US in its initial theatrical run. \n\nThe film took 66 days to surpass $250 million and was the fastest grossing Paramount film to pass $100 million, $200 million, and $300 million in box office receipts (at the time of its release). The film had gross receipts of $329,694,499 in the U.S. and Canada and $347,693,217 in international markets for a total of $677,387,716 worldwide. Even with such revenue, the film was known as a \"successful failure\"—due to distributors' and exhibitors' high fees, Paramount's \"losses\" clocked in at $62 million, leaving executives realizing the necessity of better deals. This has, however, also been associated with Hollywood accounting, where expenses are inflated in order to minimize profit sharing. It is Robert Zemeckis' highest-grossing film to date.\n\nHome media \n\nForrest Gump was first released on VHS tape on April 27, 1995, as a two-disc Laserdisc set on April 28, 1995, (including the \"Through the Eyes of Forrest\" special feature), before being released in a two-disc DVD set on August 28, 2001. Special features included director and producer commentaries, production featurettes, and screen tests. The film was released on Blu-ray disc in November 2009. \n\nAccolades \n\nForrest Gump won Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Director, Best Visual Effects, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing at the 67th Academy Awards. The film was nominated for seven Golden Globe Awards, winning three of them: Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama, Best Director – Motion Picture, and Best Motion Picture – Drama. The film was also nominated for six Saturn Awards and won two for Best Fantasy Film and Best Supporting Actor (Film).\n\nIn addition to the film's multiple awards and nominations, it has also been recognized by the American Film Institute on several of its lists. The film ranks 37th on 100 Years...100 Cheers, 71st on 100 Years...100 Movies, and 76th on 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition). In addition, the quote \"Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get,\" was ranked 40th on 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes. The film also ranked at number 240 on Empires list of the 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. \n\nIn December 2011, Forrest Gump was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry. The Registry said that the film was \"honored for its technological innovations (the digital insertion of Gump seamlessly into vintage archival footage), its resonance within the culture that has elevated Gump (and what he represents in terms of American innocence) to the status of folk hero, and its attempt to engage both playfully and seriously with contentious aspects of the era's traumatic history.\" \n\nAmerican Film Institute Lists\n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – #71\n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – Nominated\n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions – Nominated\n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:\n** Forrest Gump – Nominated Hero\n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:\n \"Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.\" – #40\n \"Mama says, 'Stupid is as stupid does.'\" – Nominated\n* AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores – Nominated\n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers – #37\n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – #76\n* AFI's 10 Top 10 – Nominated Epic Film\n\nAuthor controversy \n\nWinston Groom was paid $350,000 for the screenplay rights to his novel Forrest Gump and was contracted for a 3 percent share of the film's net profits. However, Paramount and the film's producers did not pay him, using Hollywood accounting to posit that the blockbuster film lost money. Tom Hanks, by contrast, contracted for the film's gross receipts instead of a salary, and he and director Zemeckis each received $40 million. Additionally, Groom was not mentioned once in any of the film's six Oscar-winner speeches. \n\nGroom's dispute with Paramount was later effectively resolved after Groom declared he was satisfied with Paramount's explanation of their accounting, this coinciding with Groom receiving a seven-figure contract with Paramount for film rights to another of his books, Gump & Co. \n\nSymbolism \n\nFeather \n\nVarious interpretations have been suggested for the feather present at the opening and conclusion of the film. Sarah Lyall of The New York Times noted several suggestions made about the feather: \"Does the white feather symbolize the unbearable lightness of being? Forrest Gump's impaired intellect? The randomness of experience?\" Hanks interpreted the feather as: \"Our destiny is only defined by how we deal with the chance elements to our life and that's kind of the embodiment of the feather as it comes in. Here is this thing that can land anywhere and that it lands at your feet. It has theological implications that are really huge.\" Sally Field compared the feather to fate, saying: \"It blows in the wind and just touches down here or there. Was it planned or was it just perchance?\" Visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston compared the feather to an abstract painting: \"It can mean so many things to so many different people.\" \n\nPolitical interpretations \n\nIn Tom Hanks' words, \"The film is non-political and thus non-judgmental.\" Nevertheless, in 1994, CNN's Crossfire debated whether the film promoted conservative values or was an indictment of the counterculture movement of the 1960s. Thomas Byers, in a Modern Fiction Studies article, called the film \"an aggressively conservative film\". \n\nIt has been noted that while Gump follows a very conservative lifestyle, Jenny's life is full of countercultural embrace, complete with drug usage, promiscuity, and antiwar rallies, and that their eventual marriage might be a kind of reconciliation. Jennifer Hyland Wang argued in a Cinema Journal article that Jenny's death to an unnamed virus \"...symbolizes the death of liberal America and the death of the protests that defined a decade [1960s].\" She also notes the film's screenwriter, Eric Roth, when developing the screenplay from the novel, had \"...transferred all of Gump's flaws and most of the excesses committed by Americans in the 1960s and 1970s to her [Jenny].\"\n\nOther commentators believe the film forecast the 1994 Republican Revolution and used the image of Forrest Gump to promote movement leader Newt Gingrich's traditional, conservative values. Jennifer Hyland Wang observes the film idealizes the 1950s, as made evident by the lack of \"whites only\" signs in Gump's southern childhood, and \"revisions\" the 1960s as a period of social conflict and confusion. She argues this sharp contrast between the decades criticizes the counterculture values and reaffirms conservatism. As viewed by political scientist Joe Paskett, this film is \"one of the best films of all time\". Wang argued the film was used by Republican politicians to illustrate a \"traditional version of recent history\" to gear voters towards their ideology for the congressional elections. In addition, presidential candidate Bob Dole cited the film's message in influencing his campaign due to its \"...message that has made [the film] one of Hollywood's all-time greatest box office hits: no matter how great the adversity, the American Dream is within everybody's reach.\"\n\nIn 1995, National Review included Forrest Gump in its list of the \"Best 100 Conservative Movies\" of all time. Then, in 2009, the magazine ranked the film number four on its 25 Best Conservative Movies of the Last 25 Years list. \"Tom Hanks plays the title character, an amiable dunce who is far too smart to embrace the lethal values of the 1960s. The love of his life, wonderfully played by Robin Wright Penn, chooses a different path; she becomes a drug-addled hippie, with disastrous results.\"\n\nJames Burton, a communication arts professor at Salisbury University, argued that conservatives claimed Forrest Gump as their own due less to the content of the film and more to the historical and cultural context of 1994. Burton claimed the film's content and advertising campaign were affected by the cultural climate of the 1990s, which emphasized family values and \"American values\"—values epitomized in the successful book Hollywood vs. America. He claimed this climate influenced the apolitical nature of the film, which allowed for many different political interpretations. \n\nBurton points out that many conservative critics and magazines (John Simon, James Bowman, the World Report) initially either criticized the film or praised it only for its non-political elements. Only after the popularity of the film was well-established did conservatives embrace the film as an affirmation of traditional values. Burton implies the liberal-left could have prevented the conservatives from claiming rights to the film, had it chosen to vocalize elements of the film such as its criticism of military values. Instead, the liberal-left focused on what the film omitted, such as the feminist and civil rights movements.\n\nSome commentators see the conservative readings of Forrest Gump as indicants of the death of irony in American culture. Vivian Sobchack notes that the film's humor and irony relies on the assumption of the audience's historical (self-) consciousness.\n\nSoundtrack \n\nThe 32-song soundtrack from the film was released on July 6, 1994. With the exception of a lengthy suite from Alan Silvestri's score, all the songs are previously released; the soundtrack includes songs from Elvis Presley, Fleetwood Mac, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Aretha Franklin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Three Dog Night, The Byrds, The Doors, The Mamas & the Papas, The Doobie Brothers, Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Seger, and Buffalo Springfield among others. Music producer Joel Sill reflected on compiling the soundtrack: \"We wanted to have very recognizable material that would pinpoint time periods, yet we didn't want to interfere with what was happening cinematically.\" The two-disc album has a variety of music from the 1950s–1980s performed by American artists. According to Sills, this was due to Zemeckis' request, \"All the material in there is American. Bob (Zemeckis) felt strongly about it. He felt that Forrest wouldn't buy anything but American.\"\n\nThe soundtrack reached a peak of number 2 on the Billboard album chart. The soundtrack went on to sell twelve million copies, and is one of the top selling albums in the United States. The score for the film was composed and conducted by Alan Silvestri and released on August 2, 1994.\n\nProposed sequel \n\nThe screenplay for the sequel was written by Eric Roth in 2001. It is based on the original novel's sequel, Gump and Co. written by Winston Groom in 1995. Roth's script begins with Forrest sitting on a bench waiting for his son to return from school. After the September 11 attacks, Roth, Zemeckis, and Hanks decided the story was no longer \"relevant.\" In March 2007, however, it was reported Paramount producers took another look at the screenplay. \n\nOn the very first page of the sequel novel, Forrest Gump tells readers \"Don't never let nobody make a movie of your life's story,\" though \"Whether they get it right or wrong, it doesn't matter.\" The first chapter of the book suggests the real-life events surrounding the film have been incorporated into Forrest's storyline, and that Forrest got a lot of media attention as a result of the film. During the course of the sequel novel, Gump runs into Tom Hanks and at the end of the novel in the film's release, including Gump going on The David Letterman Show and attending the Academy Awards." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Sandra Hanks Benoiton", "Tam Honks", "Samantha Lewes", "Thomas Hanks", "Chet Haze", "Tom Hank", "Tom Hanks", "Tom hanks", "Thomas Jeffrey Hanks", "Chet Hanks", "Hanks, Tom" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "thomas hanks", "hanks tom", "sandra hanks benoiton", "chet hanks", "samantha lewes", "thomas jeffrey hanks", "tom hank", "chet haze", "tom hanks", "tam honks" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "tom hanks", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Tom Hanks" }
Who won his second Oscar for the role of Raymond in Rain Man?	tc_1146	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Rain_Man.txt" ], "title": [ "Rain Man" ], "wiki_context": [ "Rain Man is a 1988 American road comedy-drama film directed by Barry Levinson and written by Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass. It tells the story of an abrasive and selfish young wheeler-dealer, Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise), who discovers that his estranged father has died and bequeathed all of his multimillion-dollar estate to his other son, Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), an autistic savant, of whose existence Charlie was unaware. Charlie is left only his father's car and his collection of rose bushes.\nIn addition to the two leads, Valeria Golino stars as Charlie's girlfriend, Susanna. Morrow created the character of Raymond after meeting Kim Peek, a real-life savant; his characterization was based on both Peek and Bill Sackter, a good friend of Morrow who was the subject of Bill, an earlier film that Morrow wrote. \n\nRain Man received overwhelmingly positive reviews, praising Hoffman's role and the wit and sophistication of the screenplay, and was the highest-grossing film of 1988. The film won four Oscars at the 61st Academy Awards (March 1989), including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Actor in a Leading Role for Hoffman. Its crew received an additional four nominations. The film also won the Golden Bear at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival. \n\nPlot\n\nCharlie Babbitt is in the middle of importing four Lamborghinis to Los Angeles for resale. He needs to deliver the vehicles to impatient buyers who have already made down payments in order to repay the loan he took out to buy the cars, but the EPA is holding the cars at the port due to the cars failing emissions regulations. Charlie directs an employee to lie to the buyers while he stalls his creditor.\n\nWhen Charlie learns that his estranged father has died, he and his girlfriend Susanna travel to Cincinnati, Ohio in order to settle the estate. He learns he is receiving the 1949 Buick Roadmaster convertible over which he and his father fought and his father's rose bushes, but the bulk of the $3 million estate is going to an unnamed trustee. Through social engineering he learns the money is being directed to a mental institution, which he visits and where he meets his older brother, Raymond, whose existence he was previously unaware of.\n\nRaymond has autism and adheres to strict routines such as always watching The People's Court, which he refers to as \"Wapner\" after the judge who presides over the show. He has superb recall but he shows little emotional expression except when in distress. Charlie spirits Raymond out of the mental institution and into a hotel for the night. Susanna becomes upset with the way Charlie treats his brother and leaves. Charlie asks Raymond's doctor for half the estate in exchange for Raymond's return, but he refuses. Charlie decides to attempt to gain custody of his brother in order to get control of the money.\n\nAfter Raymond refuses to fly to Los Angeles because he remembers every airline crash and is worried about getting hurt, they set out on a cross-country road trip together. During the course of the journey, Charlie learns more about Raymond, including that he is a mental calculator with the ability to instantly count hundreds of objects at once, and make nearly instant calculations on the exponential level, far beyond the normal range for humans. They make slow progress on their trip because Raymond insists on sticking to his routines, which include watching \"Wapner\" on television every day and getting to bed by 11:00 PM. He also objects to traveling on the interstate after they pass a bad accident. Charlie also learns that, like him, Raymond loves The Beatles. It is revealed that Raymond actually lived with the family when Charlie was young, and Charlie realizes that the comforting figure from his childhood, whom he falsely remembered as an imaginary friend named \"Rain Man\", was actually Raymond, who was sent away because he had severely burned Charlie by accident as a little boy.\n\nAfter the Lamborghinis are seized by his creditor, Charlie finds himself $80,000 in debt and hatches a plan to return to Las Vegas, which they passed the night before, and win money at blackjack by counting cards. Though the casino bosses are skeptical that anyone can count cards with a six deck shoe, after reviewing security footage they ask Charlie and Raymond to leave—but give Charlie the money. However, Charlie has made enough to cover his debts and has reconciled with Susanna who rejoined them in Las Vegas.\n\nBack in Los Angeles, Charlie meets with Dr. Bruner, who offers him $250,000 to walk away from Raymond forever. Charlie refuses and says that he is no longer upset about what his father left him, but he wants to have a relationship with his brother. At a meeting with court-appointed psychiatrist Dr. Marston (Levinson, in an uncredited cameo), Raymond is shown to be unable to decide for himself what he wants. Charlie stops the questioning and tells Raymond he is happy to have him as his brother.\n\nIn the final scene, Charlie brings Raymond to the train station where he boards an Amtrak train with Dr. Bruner to return to the mental institution. Charlie promises Raymond that he will visit in two weeks.\n\nCast\n\nDustin Hoffman as Raymond \"Ray\" Babbitt\nTom Cruise as Charles \"Charlie\" Babbitt\nValeria Golino as Susanna\nJerry Molen as Dr. Bruner\nRalph Seymour as Lenny\nMichael D. Roberts as Vern\nBonnie Hunt as Sally Dibbs\nBeth Grant as Mother at Farm House\nLucinda Jenney as Iris\nBarry Levinson as Dr. Marston (uncredited)\n*Jake Hoffman as a boy at Pancake Counter (uncredited)\n\nProduction\n\nRoger Birnbaum was the first studio executive to give the film a green light; he did so immediately after Barry Morrow pitched the story. Birnbaum received \"special thanks\" in the film's credits.\n\nAgents at CAA sent the script to Hoffman and Bill Murray, envisioning Murray in the title role and Hoffman in the role eventually portrayed by Cruise. Martin Brest, Steven Spielberg, and Sydney Pollack were directors also involved in the film. Mickey Rourke was also offered a role but he turned it down. \n\nPrincipal photography included nine weeks of filming on location. Other portions were shot in the desert near Palm Springs, California. ([http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0516/2005021837.html here for Table of Contents])\n\nAlmost all of the principal photography occurred during the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike; one key scene that was affected by the lack of writers was the film's final scene. Bass delivered his last rough cut of the script only hours before the strike started and spent no time on the set.\n\nRelease\n\nCritical reception\n\nRain Man received mostly positive reviews from critics, with Hoffman's performance being universally praised. The film currently has a \"certified fresh\" score of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 7.9 out of 10. The critical consensus states \"This road-trip movie about an autistic savant and his callow brother is far from seamless, but Barry Levinson's direction is impressive, and strong performances from Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman add to its appeal.\" \n\nVincent Canby of The New York Times called Rain Man a \"becomingly modest, decently thought-out, sometimes funny film\"; Hoffman's performance was a \"display of sustained virtuosity . . . [which] makes no lasting connections with the emotions. Its end effect depends largely on one's susceptibility to the sight of an actor acting nonstop and extremely well, but to no particularly urgent dramatic purpose.\" Canby considered the \"film's true central character\" to be \"the confused, economically and emotionally desperate Charlie, beautifully played by Mr. Cruise.\"\n\nAmy Dawes of Variety wrote that \"one of the year's most intriguing film premises ... is given uneven, slightly off-target treatment\"; she called the road scenes \"hastily, loosely written, with much extraneous screen time,\" but admired the last third of the film, calling it a depiction of \"two very isolated beings\" who \"discover a common history and deep attachment.\"\n\nOne of the film's harshest reviews came from New Yorker magazine critic Pauline Kael: \"Everything in this movie is fudged ever so humanistically, in a perfunctory, low-pressure way. And the picture has its effectiveness: people are crying at it. Of course they're crying at it – it's a piece of wet kitsch.\" \n\nRoger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars out of four. \n\nBox office\n\nRain Man debuted on December 16, 1988, and was the second highest grossing film at the weekend box office (behind Twins), with $7 million. It reached the first spot on the December 30 – January 2 weekend, finishing 1988 with $42 million. The film would end up as the highest-grossing U.S. film of 1988 by earning over $172 million. The film grossed over $354 million worldwide.\n\nAwards \n\nRain Man won Academy Awards for Best Picture; Best Actor in a Leading Role (Dustin Hoffman); Best Director; and Best Writing, Original Screenplay. It was nominated for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Ida Random, Linda DeScenna); Best Cinematography (John Seale); Best Film Editing; and Best Music, Original Score (Hans Zimmer). \n\nThe film was nominated for twenty-four other ceremonies, including the Golden Globes, in which it won Best Motion Picture in the drama genre and Best Actor (Dustin Hoffman), and was nominated for Best Director (Barry Levinson) and Best Screenplay (Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow). Valeria Golino received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the Silver Ribbon Awards.\n\nIn popular culture\n\nRain Mans portrayal of the main character's condition has been seen as inaugurating a common but mistaken media stereotype that people on the autism spectrum typically have savant skills, and references to Rain Man, in particular Dustin Hoffman's performance, have become a popular shorthand for autism and savantism. Conversely, Rain Man has also been seen as dispelling a number of other misconceptions about autism, and improving public awareness of the failure of many agencies to accommodate autistic people and make use of the abilities they do have, regardless of whether they have savant skills or not. \n\nThe film is also known for popularizing the misconception that card counting is illegal in the United States. \n \nA 2008 Bollywood film, Yuvvraaj, is loosely based on this movie.\n\nA 2010 Malayalam film, Alexander the Great (2010 film), starring Mohanlal is based on this movie.\n\nThe character Alan (Zach Galifianakis) in the 2009 film The Hangover learns how to count cards from a book and mentions he's like Raymond in this regard. Later in the film, Alan and the character Phil (Bradley Cooper) play the blackjack tables in the casino at Caesar's Palace, the scene paying homage to this film, from the way the two stand on the escalator to the song \"Iko Iko\".\n\nIn the third episode of the third season of Supernatural entitled \"Bad Day at Black Rock\", Sam gets hold of a rabbit's foot that makes him very lucky, as proven by his winning a few thousand dollars from scratch tickets. Dean remarks that they should \"Do a little Rain Man\".\n\nIn the fourteenth episode of the fourth season of Spin City, entitled \"Casino\", Mike must raise $500,000 and after realizing Paul's savant-abilities, (as a reference to the film, a bag of pretzels drops on the floor and Paul accurately states how many pretzels are on the floor) he takes Paul to the casino to count cards. In another reference to the other film, Mike and Paul stand on an escalator, each wearing a suit modeled on that worn by Tom Cruise's Charlie Babbitt character.\n\nThe scene of Raymond in the casino counting the cards was parodied in The Simpsons fifth season episode \"$pringfield\".\n\nQantas and airline controversy\n\nDuring June 1989, at least fifteen major airlines exhibited only in-flight movie versions of Rain Man that cut a scene about Raymond's refusal to fly unless the carrier was the Australia-based Qantas. Those criticizing this move included film director Barry Levinson, co-screenwriter Ronald Bass and George Kirgo (at the time was the President of the Writers Guild of America, West). \"I think it's a key scene to the entire movie,\" Levinson said in a telephone interview. \"That's why it's in there. It launches their entire odyssey across country -because they couldn't fly.\" While some of those airlines cited as justification avoiding having airplane passengers feel uncomfortable in sympathy with Raymond during the in-flight entertainment, the scene was shown intact on flights of Qantas, and commentators noted that Raymond mentions it as the only airline whose planes have \"never crashed\"; The film is in fact credited with introducing Qantas to U.S. consumers." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Dustin L Hoffman", "Dustin Lee Hoffman", "List of awards and nominations received by Dustin Hoffman", "Dustin Hoffman", "Sam Edic", "Dustin hoffman", "Dustin Hoffman filmography", "Dustin L. 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In 1997 James Cameron won an Oscar for which blockbuster?	tc_1147	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "James_Cameron.txt", "Academy_Awards.txt" ], "title": [ "James Cameron", "Academy Awards" ], "wiki_context": [ "James Francis CameronSpace Foundation. (n.d.). [http://astro.cornell.edu/~randerson/TheCaseForSpace.pdf America's vision: The case for space exploration], p. 42. Retrieved December 12, 2009. (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker, director, producer, screenwriter, inventor, engineer, philanthropist, and deep-sea explorer.Sony (2009). [http://www.sony.co.uk/biz/view/ShowContent.action?sitebiz_en_GB&contentId\n1166605179323&sectiontypeBC+CaseStudies+HDCAM+MoviesEurope James Cameron returns to abyss with Reality Camera System]. Retrieved December 25, 2009.Thompson A (2009). [http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2009/12/11/innovative-new-d-tech-james-camerons-avatar/ \"The innovative new 3D tech behind James Cameron's Avatar\".] Fox News. Retrieved December 25, 2009. He first found major success with the science fiction action film The Terminator (1984). He then became a popular Hollywood director and was hired to write and direct Aliens (1986); three years later he followed up with The Abyss (1989).\n\nHe found further critical acclaim for his use of special effects in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). After his film True Lies (1994) Cameron took on his biggest film at the time, Titanic (1997), which earned him Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Film Editing.\n\nAfter Titanic, Cameron began a project that took almost 10 years to make: his science-fiction epic Avatar (2009), which was in particular a landmark for 3D technology, and for which he received nominations for the same three Academy Awards. In the time between making Titanic and Avatar, Cameron spent several years creating many documentary films (specifically underwater documentaries) and co-developed the digital 3D Fusion Camera System. Described by a biographer as part scientist and part artist, Cameron has also contributed to underwater filming and remote vehicle technologies.Parisi P (1998). Titanic and the making of James Cameron: The inside story of the three-year adventure that rewrote motion picture history. New York: Newmarket. [https://books.google.com/books?idKbKXvTvkALYC&printsec\nfrontcover&sourcegbs_v2_summary_r&cad\n0#vonepage&q\n&f=false Partial text]. Retrieved January 5, 2010. On March 26, 2012, Cameron reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean, in the Deepsea Challenger submersible. He is the first person to do this in a solo descent, and is only the third person to do so ever.\n\nIn total, Cameron's directorial efforts have grossed approximately US$2 billion in North America and US$6 billion worldwide.Box Office Mojo (2010). [http://boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?id\njamescameron.htm \"James Cameron movie box office results\"]. Retrieved February 2, 2010. Not adjusted for inflation, Cameron's Titanic and Avatar are the two highest-grossing films of all time at $2.19 billion and $2.78 billion respectively. Cameron also holds the achievement of having directed two of the three films in history to gross over $2 billion worldwide. In March 2011, he was named Hollywood's top earner by Vanity Fair, with estimated 2010 earnings of $257 million. In October 2013, a new species of frog Pristimantis jamescameroni from Venezuela was named after him in recognition of his efforts in environmental awareness, in addition to his public promotion of veganism. \n\nEarly life\n\nCameron was born in 1954 in Kapuskasing, Ontario,Canada, the son of Shirley (née Lowe), an artist and nurse, and Phillip Cameron, an electrical engineer. His paternal great-great-great-grandfather emigrated from Balquhidder, Scotland, in 1825.\n\nCameron grew up in Chippawa, Ontario, and attended Stamford Collegiate School in Niagara Falls, Ontario. His family moved to Brea, California in 1971, when Cameron was 17 years old. He dropped out of Sonora High School, then attended Brea Olinda High School to further his secondary education.\n\nCameron enrolled at Fullerton College, a two-year community college, in 1973 to study physics. He switched to English, then dropped out before the start of the fall 1974 semester. Next, he worked several jobs, including as a truck driver, writing when he had time. During this period he taught himself about special effects: \"I'd go down to the USC library and pull any thesis that graduate students had written about optical printing, or front screen projection, or dye transfers, anything that related to film technology. That way I could sit down and read it, and if they'd let me photocopy it, I would. If not, I'd make notes.\" \n\nCameron quit his job as a truck driver to enter the film industry after seeing Star Wars in 1977. When Cameron read Syd Field's book Screenplay, it occurred to him that integrating science and art was possible, and he wrote a 10-minute science-fiction script with two friends, titled Xenogenesis. They raised money, rented camera, lenses, film stock and studio then shot it in 35mm. They dismantled the camera to understand how to operate it and spent the first half-day of the shoot trying to figure out how to get it running.\n\nEarly career \n\nHe was the director, writer, producer, and production designer for Xenogenesis (1978). He then became a production assistant on a film called Rock and Roll High School, though uncredited, in 1979. While continuing to educate himself in film-making techniques, Cameron started working as a miniature-model maker at Roger Corman Studios. Making rapidly produced, low-budget productions taught Cameron to work efficiently and effectively. He soon found employment as an art director in the sci-fi movie Battle Beyond the Stars (1980). He did special effects work design and direction on John Carpenter's Escape from New York (1981), acted as production designer on Galaxy of Terror (1981), and consulted on the design of Android (1982). \n\nCameron was hired as the special effects director for the sequel to Piranha, entitled Piranha II: The Spawning in 1981. The original director, Miller Drake, left the project due to creative differences with producer Ovidio Assonitis, who then gave Cameron his first job as director. The interior scenes were filmed in Rome, Italy, while the underwater sequences were shot at Grand Cayman Island. \n\nThe movie was to be produced in Jamaica. On location, production slowed due to numerous problems and adverse weather. James Cameron was fired after failing to get a close up of Carole Davis in her opening scene. Ovidio ordered Cameron to do the close-up the next day before he started on that day's shooting. Cameron spent the entire day sailing around the resort to reproduce the lighting but still failed to get the close-up. After he was fired, Ovidio invited Cameron to stay on location and assist in the shooting. Once in Rome, Ovidio took over the editing when Cameron was stricken with food poisoning. During his illness, Cameron had a nightmare about an invincible robot hitman sent from the future to kill him, giving him the idea for The Terminator, which later catapulted his film career.\n\nMajor films \n\nThe Terminator (1984) \n\nAfter completing a screenplay for The Terminator, Cameron decided to sell it so that he could direct the movie. However, the production companies he contacted, while expressing interest in the project, were unwilling to let a largely inexperienced feature film director make the movie. Finally, Cameron found a company called Hemdale Pictures, which was willing to let him direct. Gale Anne Hurd, who had started her own production company, Pacific Western Productions, had previously worked with Cameron in Roger Corman's company and agreed to buy Cameron's screenplay for one dollar, on the condition that Cameron direct the film. Hurd was signed on as producer, and Cameron finally got his first break as director. Orion Pictures distributed the film. Hurd and Cameron were married from 1985 to 1989.\n\nFor the role of the Terminator, Cameron envisioned a man who was not exceptionally muscular, who could \"blend into\" a crowd. Lance Henriksen, who had starred in Piranha II: The Spawning, was considered for the title role, but when Arnold Schwarzenegger and Cameron first met over lunch to discuss Schwarzenegger's playing the role of Kyle Reese, both came to the conclusion that the cyborg villain would be the more compelling role for the Austrian bodybuilder; Henriksen got the smaller part of LAPD detective Hal Vukovich and the role of Kyle Reese went to Michael Biehn. In addition, Linda Hamilton first appeared in this film in her iconic role of Sarah Connor, and later married Cameron.\n\nThe Terminator was a box-office hit, breaking expectations by Orion Pictures executives that the film would be regarded as no more than a sci-fi film and only last a week in theaters. It was a low-budget film which cost $6.5 million to make, cutting expenses in such ways as recording the audio track in mono. However, The Terminator eventually earned over $78 million worldwide. \n\nRambo: First Blood Part II (1985) \n\nDuring the early 1980s, Cameron wrote three screenplays simultaneously: The Terminator, Aliens, and the first draft of Rambo: First Blood Part II. While Cameron continued with The Terminator and Aliens, Sylvester Stallone eventually took over the script of Rambo: First Blood Part II, creating a final draft which differed radically from Cameron's initial vision. \n\nAliens (1986) \n\nCameron next began the sequel to Alien, the 1979 film by Ridley Scott. Cameron named the sequel Aliens and again cast Sigourney Weaver in the iconic role of Ellen Ripley. According to Cameron, the crew on Aliens was hostile to him, regarding him as a poor substitute for Ridley Scott. Cameron sought to show them The Terminator but the majority of the crew refused to watch it and remained skeptical of his direction throughout production. Despite this and other off-screen problems (such as clashing with an uncooperative camera man and having to replace one of the lead actors when Michael Biehn of Terminator took James Remar's place as Corporal Hicks), Aliens became a box-office success. It received Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Weaver, Best Art Direction, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound, and won awards for Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Visual Effects. In addition, the film and its lead actress made the cover of TIME magazine as a result of its numerous and extensive scenes of women in combat; these were almost without precedent and expressed the feminist theme of the film very strongly.\n\nThe Abyss (1989) \n\nCameron's next project stemmed from an idea that had come up during a high school biology class. The story of oil-rig workers who discover otherworldly underwater creatures became the basis of Cameron's screenplay for The Abyss, which cast Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Michael Biehn. Initially budgeted at $41 million U.S. (though the production ran considerably over budget), it was considered to be one of the most expensive films of its time and required cutting-edge effects technology. Because much of the filming took place underwater and the technology wasn't advanced enough to digitally create an underwater environment, Cameron chose to shoot much of the movie \"reel-for-real\", at depths of up to 40 ft. For creation of the sets, the containment building of an unfinished nuclear power plant was converted, and two huge tanks were used. The main tank was filled with 7500000 usgal of water and the second with 2500000 usgal. The cast and crew resided there for much of the filming.\n\nTerminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) \n\nAfter the success of The Terminator, there had been talk about a sequel to continue the story of Sarah Connor and her struggle against machines from the future. Although Cameron had come up with a core idea for the sequel and Schwarzenegger expressed interest in continuing the story, there were still problems regarding who had the rights to the story, as well as the logistics of the special effects needed to make the sequel. Finally, in late-1980s, Mario Kassar of Carolco Pictures secured the rights to the sequel, allowing Cameron to greenlight production of the film, now called Terminator 2: Judgment Day.\n\nFor the film, Linda Hamilton reprised her iconic role of Sarah Connor. In addition, Schwarzenegger also returned in his role as The Terminator, but this time as a protector. Unlike Schwarzenegger's character—the T-800 Terminator which is made of a metal endoskeleton—the new villain of the sequel, called the T-1000, is a more-advanced Terminator made of liquid metal, and with polymorphic abilities. The T-1000 would also be much less bulky than the T-800. For the role, Cameron cast Robert Patrick, a sharp contrast to Schwarzenegger. Cameron explained, \"I wanted someone who was extremely fast and agile. If the T-800 is a human Panzer tank, then the T-1000 is a Porsche.\"\n\nCameron had originally wanted to incorporate this advanced-model Terminator into the first film, but the special effects at the time were not advanced enough. The ground-breaking effects used in The Abyss to digitally depict the water tentacle convinced Cameron that his liquid metal villain was now possible.\n\nTriStar Pictures agreed to distribute the film, but under a locked release date only about one year after the start of shooting. The movie, co-written by Cameron and his longtime friend, William Wisher, Jr., had to go from screenplay to finished film in just that amount of time. Like Cameron's previous film, it was one of the most expensive films of its era, with a budget of about $100 million. The biggest challenge of the movie was the special effects used in creating the T-1000. Nevertheless, the film was finished on time and released to theaters on July 3, 1991.\n\nTerminator 2, or T2, as it was abbreviated, broke box-office records (including the opening weekend record for an R-rated film), earning over $200 million in the United States and Canada, and over $300 million in other territories, and became the highest-grossing film of that year. It won four Academy Awards: Best Makeup, Best Sound, Best Sound Effects Editing, and Best Visual Effects. It was also nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing, but lost both Awards to JFK.\n\nJames Cameron announced a third Terminator film many times during the 1990s, but without coming out with any finished scripts. Kassar and Vajna purchased the rights to the Terminator franchise from a bankruptcy sale of Carolco's assets. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was eventually made and released in July 2003 without Cameron's involvement. Jonathan Mostow directed the film and Schwarzenegger returned as the Terminator.\n\nCameron reunited with the main cast of Terminator 2 to film T2 3-D: Battle Across Time, an attraction at Universal Studios Florida, Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Studios Japan. It was released in 1996 and was a mini-sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The show is in two parts: a prequel segment in which a spokesperson talks about Cyberdyne, and a main feature, in which the performers interact with a 3-D movie.\n\nTrue Lies (1994) \n\nBefore the release of T2, Schwarzenegger came to Cameron with the idea of remaking the French comedy La Totale! Titled True Lies, with filming beginning after T2s release, the story revolves around a secret-agent spy who leads a double life as a married man, whose wife believes he is a computer salesman. Schwarzenegger was cast as Harry Tasker, a spy charged with stopping a plan by a terrorist to use nuclear weapons against the United States. Jamie Lee Curtis and Eliza Dushku played the character's family, and Tom Arnold the sidekick.\n\nCameron's Lightstorm Entertainment signed on with Twentieth Century Fox for production of True Lies. Made on a budget of $115 million and released in 1994, the film earned $146 million in North America, and $232 million abroad. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects.\n\nStrange Days (1995) \n\nAn American science-fiction action thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow. It was co-written and produced by her ex-husband James Cameron and co-written by Jay Cocks.\n\nTitanic (1997) \n\nCameron expressed interest in the famous sinking of the ship . He decided to script and film his next project based on this event. The picture revolved around a fictional romance story between two young lovers from different social classes who meet on board. Before production began, he took dives to the bottom of the Atlantic and shot actual footage of the ship underwater, which he inserted into the final film. Much of the film's dialogue was also written during these dives.\n\nSubsequently, Cameron cast Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Frances Fisher, Gloria Stuart, Bernard Hill, Jonathan Hyde, Victor Garber, Danny Nucci, David Warner, Suzy Amis, and Bill Paxton as the film's principal cast. Cameron's budget for the film reached about $200 million, making it the most expensive movie ever made at the time. Before its release, the film was widely ridiculed for its expense and protracted production schedule.\n\nReleased to theaters on December 19, 1997, Titanic grossed less in its first weekend ($28.6 million) than in its second ($35.4 million), an increase of 23.8%. This is unheard of for a widely released film, which is a testament to the movie's appeal. This was especially noteworthy, considering that the film's running time of more than three hours limited the number of showings each theater could schedule. It held the No. 1 spot on the box-office charts for months, eventually grossing a total of $600.8 million in the United States and Canada and more than $1.84 billion worldwide. Titanic became the highest-grossing film of all time, both worldwide and in the United States and Canada, and was also the first film to gross more than $1 billion worldwide. It remained the highest-grossing film since 1998, until Cameron's 2009 film Avatar surpassed its gross in 2010. \n\nThe CG visuals surrounding the sinking and destruction of the ship were considered spectacular. Despite criticism during production of the film, it received a record-tying 14 Oscar nominations (tied with All About Eve) at the 1998 Academy Awards. It won 11 Oscars (also tying the record for most Oscar wins with Ben-Hur and later The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), including: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Sound, Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Original Dramatic Score, Best Original Song. Upon receiving the Best Director Oscar, Cameron exclaimed, \"I'm king of the world!\", in reference to one of the main characters' lines from the film. After receiving the Best Picture Oscar along with Jon Landau, Cameron asked for a moment of silence for the 1,500 men, women, and children who died when the ship sank.\n\nIn March 2010, Cameron revealed that Titanic would be re-released in 3D in April 2012, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the real ship. On March 27, 2012, Cameron attended the world première with Kate Winslet at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Following the re-release, Titanic's domestic total was pushed to $658.6 million and more than $2.18 billion worldwide. It became the second film to gross more than $2 billion worldwide (the first being Avatar).\n\nSpider-Man and Dark Angel (2000–2002) \n\nCameron had initially next planned to do a film of the comic-book character Spider-Man, a project developed by Menahem Golan of Cannon Films. Columbia hired David Koepp to adapt Cameron's treatment into a screenplay, and Koepp's first draft is taken often word-for-word from Cameron's story, though later drafts were heavily rewritten by Koepp himself, Scott Rosenberg, and Alvin Sargent. Columbia preferred to credit David Koepp solely, and none of the scripts before or after his were ever examined by the Writers Guild of America, East to determine proper credit attribution. Cameron and other writers objected, but Columbia and the WGA prevailed. In its release in 2002, Spider-Man had its screenplay credited solely to Koepp. \n\nUnable to make Spider-Man, Cameron moved to television and created Dark Angel, a superheroine-centered series influenced by cyberpunk, biopunk, contemporary superhero franchises, and third-wave feminism. Co-produced with Charles H. Eglee, Dark Angel starred Jessica Alba as Max Guevara, a genetically enhanced super-soldier created by a secretive organization. Cameron's work was said to \"bring empowered female warriors back to television screens[...] by mixing the sober feminism of his The Terminator and Aliens characters with the sexed-up Girl Power of a Britney Spears concert.\" While a success in its first season, low ratings in the second led to its cancellation. Cameron himself directed the series finale, a two-hour episode wrapping up many of the series' loose ends.\n\nDocumentaries (2002–2012) \n\nIn 1998 James and John David Cameron formed a digital media company, earthship.tv, which became Earthship Productions. The company produced live multimedia documentaries from the depths of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. With Earthship Productions, John Cameron's recent projects have included undersea documentaries on the (Expedition: Bismarck, 2002) and the (Ghosts of the Abyss (2003, in IMAX 3D) and Tony Robinson's Titanic Adventure (2005)). He was a producer on the 2002 film Solaris, and narrated The Exodus Decoded.\n\nCameron is an advocate for stereoscopic digital 3-D films. In a 2003 interview about his IMAX 2D documentary Ghosts of the Abyss, he mentioned that he is \"going to do everything in 3D now\". He has made similar statements in other interviews. Ghosts of the Abyss and Aliens of the Deep (also an IMAX documentary) were both shot in 3-D and released by Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media, and Cameron did the same for his new project, Avatar for 20th Century Fox & Sony Pictures' Columbia Pictures. He intends to use the same technology for The Dive, Sanctum and an adaptation of the manga series Battle Angel Alita.\n\nCameron was the co-founder and CEO of Digital Domain, a visual-effects production and technology company.\n\nIn addition, he plans to create a 3-D project about the first trip to Mars. (\"I've been very interested in the Humans to Mars movement—the 'Mars Underground'—and I've done a tremendous amount of personal research for a novel, a miniseries, and a 3-D film.\") He is on the science team for the 2011 Mars Science Laboratory. \n\nCameron announced on February 26, 2007, that he, along with his director, Simcha Jacobovici, have documented the unearthing of the Talpiot Tomb, which is alleged to be the tomb of Jesus. Unearthed in 1981 by Israeli construction workers, the names on the tomb are claimed, in the documentary, to correlate with the names of Jesus and several individuals closely associated with him. The documentary, named The Lost Tomb of Jesus, was broadcast on the Discovery Channel on March 4, 2007.\n\nAs a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, Cameron re-investigated the sinking of the Titanic with eight experts in 2012. The investigation was featured in the TV documentary special Titanic: The Final Word with James Cameron, which premiered on April 8 on the National Geographic Channel. In the conclusion of the analysis, the consensus revised the CGI animation of the sinking conceived in 1995. \n\nAvatar (2009) \n\nIn June 2005, Cameron was announced to be working on a project tentatively titled \"Project 880\" (now known to be Avatar) in parallel with another project, Alita: Battle Angel (an adaptation of the manga series Battle Angel Alita). Both movies were to be shot in 3D. By December, Cameron stated that he wanted to film Battle Angel first, followed by Avatar. However, in February 2006, he switched goals for the two film projects and decided to film Avatar first. He mentioned that if both films were successful, he would be interested in seeing a trilogy being made for both. \n\nAvatar had an estimated budget of over $300 million and was released on December 18, 2009. This marked his first feature film since 1997's Titanic. It is composed almost entirely of computer-generated animation, using a more-advanced version of the \"performance capture\" technique used by director Robert Zemeckis in The Polar Express. James Cameron had written an 80-page scriptment for Avatar in 1995 and announced in 1996 that he would make the film after completing Titanic. In December 2006, Cameron explained that the delay in producing the film since the 1990s had been to wait until the technology necessary to create his project was advanced enough, since at the time no studio would finance for the development of the visual effects. The film was originally scheduled to be released in May 2009 but was pushed back to December 2009 to allow more time for post-production on the complex CGI and to give more time for theatres worldwide to install 3D projectors. Cameron originally intended Avatar to be 3D-only. \n\nAvatar broke several box office records during its initial theatrical run. It grossed $749.7 million in the United States and Canada and more than $2.74 billion worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing film of all time in the United States and Canada, surpassing Cameron's Titanic. Avatar also became the first movie to ever earn more than $2 billion worldwide. Including revenue from the re-release of Avatar featuring extended footage, it grossed $760.5 million in the U.S. and Canada and more than $2.78 billion worldwide. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won three for Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects.\n\nAvatar's success made Cameron the highest earner in Hollywood for 2010, netting him $257 million as reported by Vanity Fair. \n\nDisney announced in September 2011 that it would adapt James Cameron's film Avatar into Pandora–The World of Avatar, a themed area at Disney's Animal Kingdom in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.\n\nOn April 14, 2016, during CinemaCon Cameron announced there will be four upcoming sequels to the Avatar franchise and not the originally planned three. Cameron said each of the four sequels will be able to stand alone, but will together create a saga. His goal is to release Avatar 2 during the holiday season of 2018 and then a new film in 2020, 2022 and 2023. \n\nSanctum (2011) \n\nCameron served as the executive producer of Sanctum, a film detailing the expedition of a team of underwater cave divers who find themselves trapped in a cave, their exit blocked and with no known way to reach the surface either in person or by radio contact.\n\nPlanned films \n\nIn the mid-1990s, Cameron announced that he would make a Spider-Man film, with Leonardo DiCaprio starring as Spider-Man and Arnold Schwarzenegger starring as Doc Ock. However, the project was cancelled and dropped by Cameron, but his script was rewritten by David Koepp for the 2002 movie Spider-Man, of Sam Raimi.\n\nIn August 2013, Cameron announced his intention to film three sequels to Avatar simultaneously, to be released in December 2016, 2017, and 2018. However, on January 14, 2015, Cameron announced that the release dates for the three sequels were each delayed a year with the first sequel scheduled to be released in December 2017. His original plans were to do Battle Angel next, but he changed his mind due to Avatar's success; \"My intention when I made Avatar was to do Battle Angel next. However, the positive feedback for Avatar and the support of the message of Avatar, encouraged me to do more of those films.\" Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment bought the film rights to the Taylor Stevens novel The Informationist in October 2012 with plans for Cameron to direct it. A screenwriter will be hired to adapt the novel while Cameron works on the Avatar sequels. Another project Cameron has announced is a personal commitment to shoot a film on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as told through the story of Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a man who survived both attacks. Cameron met with Yamaguchi just days before he died in 2010. \n\nIn 1996, James Cameron decided to produce the new installment in the Planet of the Apes franchise, but it was cancelled before the Tim Burton version was made.\n\nOn April 14, 2016, Cameron announced that there would be 4 sequels to the movie Avatar, with release dates planned for 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2023. \n\nPersonal life \n\nCameron has been married five times to the following spouses: Sharon Williams (1978–1984), Gale Anne Hurd (1985–1989), director Kathryn Bigelow (1989–1991), Linda Hamilton (1997–1999, daughter Josephine born in 1993), and Suzy Amis (2000–present). Cameron had dated Hamilton since 1991. Eight months after the marriage, however, they separated, and within days of Cameron's Oscar victory with Titanic, the couple announced their divorce. As part of the divorce settlement, Cameron was ordered to pay Hamilton $50 million.[http://www.zimbio.com/The+10+Most+Expensive+Celebrity+Divorces/articles/0pbKGq2F82u/7+James+Cameron+Linda+Hamilton+50+million #7: James Cameron and Linda Hamilton: $50 million – The 10 Most Expensive Celebrity Divorces – Zimbio] Hamilton later revealed that the reason for their divorce was not only Cameron's blind devotion to his work to the exclusion of almost everything else, but also that he had been having an affair with Suzy Amis, an actress he cast as Lizzy Calvert in Titanic. He married Amis in 2000, and they have one son and two daughters. Cameron lives in New Zealand, a country he fell in love with when he was filming Avatar. \nHurd was the producer of Cameron's The Terminator, Aliens, and The Abyss, and the executive producer of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Hamilton played the role of Sarah Connor in both Terminator films. Amis played the part of Lizzy Calvert, Rose's granddaughter, in Titanic. Both Cameron (Avatar) and Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) were nominated for the Oscar, the Golden Globe, and the BAFTA Award for Best Director for films released in 2009. Cameron won the Golden Globe, while Bigelow won the Oscar and the BAFTA for Best Director, becoming the first woman to win either. \n\nCameron is a member of the NASA Advisory Council and is working on the project to put cameras on an upcoming manned Mars mission. Cameron has also given speeches and raised money for the Mars Society, a non-profit organization lobbying for the colonization of Mars. \n\nCameron became an expert on deep-sea exploration in conjunction with his research and underwater filming for The Abyss (1989) and Titanic (1997). In June 2010, Cameron met in Washington with the EPA to discuss possible solutions to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon (BP) oil spill. Later that week at the All Things Digital Conference, he attracted some notoriety when he stated, \"Over the last few weeks I've watched...and been thinking, 'Those morons don't know what they're doing'.\" Reportedly, Cameron had offered BP help to plug the oil well, but it declined. The oil spill was eventually stopped using techniques similar to those Cameron recommended. \n\nAlthough Cameron had resided in the United States since 1971, he remains a Canadian citizen. Cameron applied for American citizenship but withdrew his application after George W. Bush won the presidential election in 2004. \n\nCameron calls himself \"Converted Agnostic\", and says \"I've sworn off agnosticism, which I now call cowardly atheism\". As a child he described the Lord's Prayer as being a \"tribal chant\".\n\nIn June 2013, British artist Roger Dean filed a legal action at a court in New York against Cameron. Dean accused Cameron of \"wilful and deliberate copying, dissemination and exploitation\" of his original images, relating to Cameron's 2009 film Avatar and sought damages of $50m. Dean subsequently lost the case. \n\nEarly in 2014, Cameron purchased the Beaufort Vineyard and Estate Winery in Courtenay, British Columbia, at a price of $2.7 million, as well as a number of other businesses in the area, including cattle ranching operations, to pursue his passion for sustainable agribusiness. \n\nDeep sea dives \n\nOn March 7, 2012, Cameron took the Deepsea Challenger submersible to the bottom of the New Britain Trench in a five-mile-deep solo dive. On March 26, 2012, Cameron reached the Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Mariana Trench. He spent more than three hours exploring the ocean floor before returning to the surface. Cameron is the first person to accomplish the trip solo. He was preceded by unmanned dives in 1995 and 2009 and by Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, who were the first men to reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench aboard the Bathyscaphe Trieste in 1960. Cameron has made a three-dimensional film of his dive. During his dive to the Challenger Deep, the data he collected resulted in interesting new finds in the field of marine biology, including new species of sea cucumber, squid worm, and giant single-celled amoeba, which are exciting finds due to the harshness of the environment. Cameron is also one of the two men in history to stand on Challenger Deep.\n\nVeganism \n\nIn 2012, Cameron, his wife and his children adopted a vegan diet. Cameron explains that \"By changing what you eat, you will change the entire contract between the human species and the natural world\". \n\nWhen asked what's the best thing an individual can do to fight climate change, Cameron said, \"Stop eating animals.\" \n\nMUSE School \n\nIn 2006 Cameron's wife co-founded MUSE School, in 2015 the school became the first K-12 vegan school in USA. \n\nInfluence \n\nCameron's directorial style has provided great influence throughout the film industry. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly creator Joss Whedon stated that Cameron's approach to action scenes was influential to those in The Avengers. Whedon also admired Cameron's ability of writing female characters such as Ellen Ripley. He also cited Cameron as \"the leader and the teacher and the Yoda\". Michael Bay considers Cameron an idol and was convinced by him to use 3D in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Cameron's approach to 3D also inspired Baz Luhrmann to use it in The Great Gatsby. Other directors that have drawn inspiration from Cameron include Peter Jackson, Neill Blomkamp and Quentin Tarantino. \n\nReputation \n\nIn 1999, Cameron was labeled selfish and cruel by one collaborator, author Orson Scott Card, who had been hired a decade earlier to work with Cameron on the novelization of The Abyss. Card said the experience was \"hell on wheels. He was very nice to me, because I could afford to walk away. But he made everyone around him miserable, and his unkindness did nothing to improve the film in any way. Nor did it motivate people to work faster or better. And unless he changes his way of working with people, I hope he never directs anything of mine. In fact, now that this is in print, I can fairly guarantee that he will never direct anything of mine. Life is too short to collaborate with selfish, cruel people.\" He later alluded to Cameron in his review of Me and Orson Welles, where he described witnessing a famous director chew out an assistant for his own error. \n\nAfter working with Cameron on Titanic, Kate Winslet decided she would not work with Cameron again unless she earned \"a lot of money\". She said that Cameron was a nice man, but she found his temper difficult to deal with. In an editorial, the British newspaper The Independent said that Cameron \"is a nightmare to work with. Studios have come to fear his habit of straying way over schedule and over budget. He is notorious on set for his uncompromising and dictatorial manner, as well as his flaming temper.\"\n\nSam Worthington, who worked with Cameron on Avatar, stated on The Jay Leno Show that Cameron had very high expectations from everyone: he would use a nail gun to nail the film crew's cell phones to a wall above an exit door in retaliation for unwanted ringing during production. Other actors, such as Bill Paxton and Sigourney Weaver, have praised Cameron's perfectionism. Weaver said of Cameron: \"He really does want us to risk our lives and limbs for the shot, but he doesn't mind risking his own.\" Michael Biehn has also praised Cameron, claiming \"Jim is a really passionate person. He cares more about his movies than other directors care about their movies\", but added \"I’ve never seen him yell at anybody.\" However, Biehn did claim Cameron is \"not real sensitive when it comes to actors and their trailers.\" \n\nComposer James Horner refused to work with Cameron for a decade following their strained working relationship on 1986's Aliens. They eventually settled their differences, and Horner went on to score both Titanic and Avatar. \n\nAn episode of South Park from its 16th season depicted the director as being self-obsessed. He is seen going deep sea diving while playing his own theme song and appearing oblivious to his overtly bored ship's crew. However, the episode also credits him for \"raising the bar\" on entertainment.\n\nIn 2014, Cameron was the keynote speaker at the first annual Fame and Philanthropy, a charity fundraiser which raised money for several high-profile celebrity charities. Cameron was one of several guest speakers at the event along with Charlize Theron and Halle Berry. \n\nIn a 2015 interview together, actresses Sigourney Weaver and Jamie Lee Curtis, who both worked with Cameron, commented very positively on him. Curtis stated, \"the truth is he can do every other job [than acting]. I'm talking about every single department, from art direction to props to wardrobe to cameras, he knows more than everyone doing the job.\" Weaver answered \"There are very few geniuses in the world, let alone in our business, and he's certainly one of them.\" She also said, \"he's misunderstood in the industry, somewhat. He is so generous to actors.\" \n\nAwards \n\nCameron received the inaugural Bradbury Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 1992 for Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Avatar would be a finalist in 2010).\n\nCameron did not receive any major mainstream filmmaking awards prior to Titanic. For Titanic he won several including Academy Awards for Best Picture (shared with Jon Landau), Best Director and Best Film Editing (shared with Conrad Buff and Richard A. Harris). Cameron is one of the few filmmakers to win three Oscars in a single evening and Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Director.\n\nIn recognition of \"a distinguished career as a Canadian filmmaker\", Carleton University, Ottawa, awarded Cameron the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts on June 13, 1998. Cameron accepted the degree in person and gave the Convocation Address.\n\nHe also received an honorary doctorate in October 1998 from Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, for his accomplishments in the international film industry.\n\nIn 1998, Cameron attended convocation to receive an honorary doctorate of Laws from Ryerson University, Toronto. The university awards its highest honor to those who have made extraordinary contributions in Canada, or internationally.\n\nIn 1999, Cameron received the honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from California State University, Fullerton, where he had been a student in the 1970s. He received the degree at the university's annual Commencement exercises that year, where he gave the keynote speech.\n\nIn recognition of his contributions to underwater filming and remote vehicle technology, the University of Southampton awarded Cameron the honorary degree of Doctor of the University. Cameron did not attend the Engineering Sciences graduation ceremony in July 2004 where the degree was awarded but instead received it in person at the National Oceanography Centre. \n\nOn June 3, 2008, it was announced that he would be inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. On December 18, 2009, the same day Avatar was released worldwide, Cameron received the 2,396th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. After the release of Avatar, on February 28, 2010, Cameron was also honored with a Visual Effects Society (VES) Lifetime Achievement Award.\n\nFor Avatar, Cameron won numerous awards as well, including: Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture – Drama (shared with Jon Landau) and Best Director. He was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Film Editing (shared with John Refoua and Stephen E. Rivkin). However, Cameron and Avatar lost to his former wifeRidley J (2010). [http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2010/02/03/2010-02-03_james_cameron_and_kathryn_bigelow_exes_go_from_divorce_contention_to_oscarc_cont.html James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow: Exes go from divorce contention to Oscar contention]. NYDailyNews. Retrieved March 8, 2010. Kathryn Bigelow and her film, The Hurt Locker.\n\nOn September 24, 2010, James Cameron was named Number 1 in The 2010 Guardian Film Power 100 list. In a list compiled by the British magazine New Statesman in September 2010, he was listed 30th in the list of \"The World's 50 Most Influential Figures 2010\". \n\nThe Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted Cameron in June 2012.\n\nAwards \n\nCameron has received numerous awards; mainly for Titanic and Avatar.\n\nCollaborations \n\nCameron has consistently worked with Bill Paxton, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein and Arnold Schwarzenegger.\n\n1 Apart from acting, Wisher Jr. also collaborated with Cameron in writing credits.\n2 Biehn's reprise of the role of Kyle Reese was cut from the theatrical release, but was restored in the Special Edition on DVD/Blu-ray.\n\nRecurring themes \n\nCameron's films have recurring themes and subtexts. These include the conflicts between humanity and technology, the dangers of corporate greed, strong female characters, and a strong romance subplot. In almost all films, the main characters usually get into dramatic crisis situations with significant threats to their own life or even the threat of an impending apocalypse.\nThe Abyss dealt with deep sea exploration (shot in an unfinished nuclear reactor filled with water) and Cameron himself became an expert in the field of deep-sea wreckage exploration, exploring the wreckage of the Titanic and the Bismarck. Cameron will return to this theme with The Dive, shooting from a minisub.\n\nFilmography \n\nCameron has contributed to many projects as a writer, director, and producer, or as a combination of the three.\n\nCameron's first film was the 1978 science fiction short film Xenogenesis, which he directed, wrote and produced. Cameron's films have grossed a total of over $7 billion worldwide.\n\nIn addition to works of fiction, Cameron has directed and appeared in several documentaries including Ghosts of the Abyss and Aliens of the Deep. He also contributed to a number of television series including Dark Angel and Entourage. He plans to shoot a small drama film after the Avatar trilogy, just to prove that 3D works even for domestic dramas. \n\nReception \n\nCritical, public and commercial reception to films James Cameron has directed as of May 7, 2015.", "The Academy Awards, or \"Oscars\", is an annual American awards ceremony hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to recognize excellence in cinematic achievements in the United States film industry as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a statuette, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, which has become commonly known by its nickname \"Oscar.\" The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by AMPAS. \n\nThe awards ceremony was first broadcast to radio in 1930 and televised in 1953. It is now seen live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online. The Oscars is the oldest entertainment awards ceremony; its equivalents, the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theatre, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording, are modeled after the Academy Awards. \n\nThe 88th Academy Awards ceremony was held at the Dolby Theatre on February 28, 2016 and hosted by Chris Rock. A total of 2,947 Oscars have been awarded since the inception of the award through the 87th. \n\nHistory\n\nThe first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16, 1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel. The cost of guest tickets for that night's ceremony was $5 ($ in dollars). Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the film-making industry of the time, for their works during the 1927–28 period. The ceremony ran for 15 minutes.\n\nWinners had been announced to media three months earlier; however, that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since then, for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11:00 pm on the night of the awards. This method was used until an occasion when the Los Angeles Times announced the winners before the ceremony began; as a result, the Academy has, since 1941, used a sealed envelope to reveal the name of the winners.\n\nInstitutions\n\nThe first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. He had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier; this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. At that time, the winners were recognized for all of their work done in a certain category during the qualifying period; for example, Jannings received the award for two movies in which he starred during that period, and Janet Gaynor later won a single Oscar for performances in three films. With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, and professionals were honored for a specific performance in a single film. For the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years.\n\nAt the 29th ceremony, held on March 27, 1957, the Best Foreign Language Film category was introduced. Until then, foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award.\n\nThe 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.\n\nSince 1972, all Academy Awards ceremonies have ended with the Academy Award for Best Picture.\n\nOscar statuette\n\nAlthough there are seven other types of annual awards presented by the Academy (the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, the Academy Scientific and Technical Award, the Academy Award for Technical Achievement, the John A. Bonner Medal of Commendation and the Student Academy Award) plus two awards that are not presented annually (the Special Achievement Award in the form of an Oscar statuette and the Honorary Award that may or may not be in the form of an Oscar statuette), the best known one is the Academy Award of Merit more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. Made of gold-plated britannium on a black metal base, it is 13.5 in (34.3 cm) tall, weighs 8.5 lb (3.856 kg) and depicts a knight rendered in Art Deco style holding a crusader's sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes. The five spokes represent the original branches of the Academy: Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers, and Technicians. \n\nThe model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio \"El Indio\" Fernández. Sculptor George Stanley (who also did the Muse Fountain at the Hollywood Bowl) sculpted Cedric Gibbons' design. The statuettes presented at the initial ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze. Within a few years the bronze was abandoned in favor of britannia metal, a pewter-like alloy which is then plated in copper, nickel silver, and finally, 24-karat gold. Due to a metal shortage during World War II, Oscars were made of painted plaster for three years. Following the war, the Academy invited recipients to redeem the plaster figures for gold-plated metal ones. The only addition to the Oscar since it was created is a minor streamlining of the base. The original Oscar mold was cast in 1928 at the C.W. Shumway & Sons Foundry in Batavia, Illinois, which also contributed to casting the molds for the Vince Lombardi Trophy and Emmy Award's statuettes. From 1983 to 2015, approximately 50 Oscars were made each year in Chicago by Illinois manufacturer R.S. Owens & Company. ([https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid2245&dat\n20090127&idn_UlAAAAIBAJ&sjid\nff0FAAAAIBAJ&pg6931,2001573 Lodi News-Sentinel]) It takes between three and four weeks to manufacture 50 statuettes.\n\nIn 2016 the Academy returned to bronze as the core metal of the statuettes, handing manufacturing duties to Rock Tavern, New York based Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry. While based on a digital scan of an original 1929 Oscar, the new statuettes will retain their modern-era dimensions and black pedestal. Cast in liquid bronze from 3d printed ceramic molds and polished, they are then electroplated in 24-karat gold by Brooklyn, New York based Epner Technology. The time required to produce 50 such statuettes is roughly 3 months. R.S. Owens is expected to continue producing other awards for the Academy and service existing Oscars. \n\nNaming\n\nThe origin of the name Oscar is disputed. One biography of Bette Davis, who was a president of the Academy, claims that she named the Oscar after her first husband, band leader Harmon Oscar Nelson. Another claimed origin is that the Academy's Executive Secretary, Margaret Herrick, first saw the award in 1931 and made reference to the statuette's reminding her of her \"Uncle Oscar\" (a nickname for her cousin Oscar Pierce). Columnist Sidney Skolsky was present during Herrick's naming and seized the name in his byline, \"Employees have affectionately dubbed their famous statuette 'Oscar'.\" \n\nOne of the earliest mentions in print of the term Oscar dates back to a Time magazine article about the 1934 6th Academy Awards. Walt Disney is also quoted as thanking the Academy for his Oscar as early as 1932. The trophy was officially dubbed the \"Oscar\" in 1939 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.\n\nEngraving\n\nTo prevent information identifying the Oscar winners from leaking ahead of the ceremony, Oscar statuettes presented at the ceremony have blank baseplates. Until 2010, winners were expected to return the statuettes to the Academy after the ceremony and wait several weeks to have inscriptions applied. Since 2010, winners have had the option of having engraved nameplates applied to their statuettes at an inscription-processing station at the Governor's Ball, a party held immediately after the Oscar ceremony. In 2010, the R.S. Owens company made 197 engraved nameplates ahead of the ceremony, bearing the names of every potential winner. The 175 or so nameplates for non-winning nominees were recycled afterwards. \n\nOwnership of Oscar statuettes\n\nSince 1950, the statuettes have been legally encumbered by the requirement that neither winners nor their heirs may sell the statuettes without first offering to sell them back to the Academy for US$1. If a winner refuses to agree to this stipulation, then the Academy keeps the statuette. Academy Awards not protected by this agreement have been sold in public auctions and private deals for six-figure sums. In December 2011, Orson Welles' 1941 Oscar for Citizen Kane (Best Original Screenplay) was put up for auction, after his heirs won a 2004 court decision contending that Welles did not sign any agreement to return the statue to the Academy. On December 20, 2011, it sold in an online auction for US$861,542. \n\nIn 1992, Harold Russell needed money for his wife's medical expenses. In a controversial decision, he consigned his 1946 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for The Best Years of Our Lives to Herman Darvick Autograph Auctions, and on August 6, 1992, in New York City, the Oscar sold to a private collector for $60,500. Russell defended his action, saying, \"I don't know why anybody would be critical. My wife's health is much more important than sentimental reasons. The movie will be here, even if Oscar isn't.\" Harold Russell is the only Academy Award winning actor to ever sell an Oscar.\n\nWhile the Oscar is owned by the recipient, it is essentially not on the open market. Michael Todd's grandson tried to sell Todd's Oscar statuette to a movie prop collector in 1989, but the Academy won the legal battle by getting a permanent injunction. Although some Oscar sales transactions have been successful, some buyers have subsequently returned the statuettes to the Academy, which keeps them in its treasury. \n\nNomination\n\nSince 2004, Academy Award nomination results have been announced to the public in late January. Prior to that, the results were announced in early February.\n\nVoters\n\nThe Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), a professional honorary organization, maintains a voting membership of 5,783 . \n\nAcademy membership is divided into different branches, with each representing a different discipline in film production. Actors constitute the largest voting bloc, numbering 1,311 members (22 percent) of the Academy's composition. Votes have been certified by the auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (and its predecessor Price Waterhouse) for the past 73 annual awards ceremonies.\n\nAll AMPAS members must be invited to join by the Board of Governors, on behalf of Academy Branch Executive Committees. Membership eligibility may be achieved by a competitive nomination or a member may submit a name based on other significant contribution to the field of motion pictures.\n\nNew membership proposals are considered annually. The Academy does not publicly disclose its membership, although as recently as 2007 press releases have announced the names of those who have been invited to join. The 2007 release also stated that it has just under 6,000 voting members. While the membership had been growing, stricter policies have kept its size steady since then. \n\nIn 2012, the results of a study conducted by the Los Angeles Times were published describing the demographic breakdown of approximately 88% of AMPAS' voting membership. Of the 5,100+ active voters confirmed, 94% were Caucasian, 77% were male, and 54% were found to be over the age of 60. 33% of voting members are former nominees (14%) and winners (19%). \n\nIn May 2011, the Academy sent a letter advising its 6,000 or so voting members that an online system for Oscar voting will be implemented in 2013. \n\nRules\n\nAccording to Rules 2 and 3 of the official Academy Awards Rules, a film must open in the previous calendar year, from midnight at the start of January 1 to midnight at the end of December 31, in Los Angeles County, California and play for seven consecutive days, to qualify (except for the Best Foreign Language Film). For example, the 2009 Best Picture winner, The Hurt Locker, was actually first released in 2008, but did not qualify for the 2008 awards as it did not play its Oscar-qualifying run in Los Angeles until mid-2009, thus qualifying for the 2009 awards. Foreign films must include English subtitles, and each country can submit only one film per year. \n\nRule 2 states that a film must be feature-length, defined as a minimum of 40 minutes, except for short subject awards, and it must exist either on a 35 mm or 70 mm film print or in 24 frame/s or 48 frame/s progressive scan digital cinema format with a minimum projector resolution of 2048 by 1080 pixels. \n\nProducers must submit an Official Screen Credits online form before the deadline; in case it is not submitted by the defined deadline, the film will be ineligible for Academy Awards in any year. The form includes the production credits for all related categories. Then, each form is checked and put in a Reminder List of Eligible Releases.\n\nIn late December ballots and copies of the Reminder List of Eligible Releases are mailed to around 6,000 active members. For most categories, members from each of the branches vote to determine the nominees only in their respective categories (i.e. only directors vote for directors, writers for writers, actors for actors, etc.). In the special case of Best Picture, all voting members are eligible to select the nominees. In all major categories, a variant of the single transferable vote is used, with each member casting a ballot with up to five nominees (ten for Best Picture) ranked preferentially. In certain categories, including Foreign Film, Documentary and Animated Feature Film, nominees are selected by special screening committees made up of members from all branches.\n\nIn most categories the winner is selected from among the nominees by plurality voting of all members. Since 2009, the Best Picture winner has been chosen by instant runoff voting. \n\nFilm companies will spend as much as several million dollars on marketing to awards voters for a movie in the running for Best Picture, in attempts to improve chances of receiving Oscars and other movie awards conferred in Oscar season. The Academy enforces rules to limit overt campaigning by its members so as to try to eliminate excesses and prevent the process from becoming undignified. It has an awards czar on staff who advises members on allowed practices and levies penalties on offenders. For example, a producer of the 2009 Best Picture nominee, The Hurt Locker, was disqualified as a producer in the category when he contacted associates urging them to vote for his film and not another that was seen as front-runner (The Hurt Locker eventually won).\n\nAwards ceremonies\n\nTelecast\n\nThe major awards are presented at a live televised ceremony, most commonly in late February or early March following the relevant calendar year, and six weeks after the announcement of the nominees. It is the culmination of the film awards season, which usually begins during November or December of the previous year. This is an elaborate extravaganza, with the invited guests walking up the red carpet in the creations of the most prominent fashion designers of the day. Black tie dress is the most common outfit for men, although fashion may dictate not wearing a bow-tie, and musical performers sometimes do not adhere to this. (The artists who recorded the nominees for Best Original Song quite often perform those songs live at the awards ceremony, and the fact that they are performing is often used to promote the television broadcast).\n\nThe Oscars were first televised in 1953 by NBC, which continued to broadcast the event until 1960, when ABC took over, televising the festivities (including the first color broadcast of the event in 1966) through 1970, after which NBC resumed the broadcasts. ABC once again took over broadcast duties in 1976, and has broadcast the Oscars ever since; its current contract with the Academy runs through 2020. The Academy has also produced condensed versions of the ceremony for broadcast in international markets (especially those outside of the Americas) in more desirable local timeslots. The ceremony was broadcast live internationally for the first time via satellite in 1970, but only two South American countries, Chile and Brazil, purchased the rights to air the broadcast. By that time, the television rights to the Academy Awards had been sold in 50 countries. A decade later, the rights were already being sold to 60 countries, and by 1984, the TV rights to the Awards were licensed in 76 countries.\n\nThe ceremonies were moved up from late-March or early-April to late February or early March starting in 2004 to help disrupt and shorten the intense lobbying and ad campaigns associated with Oscar season in the film industry. Another reason was because of the growing TV ratings success of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, which would cut into the Academy Awards audience. The earlier date is also to the advantage of ABC, as it now usually occurs during the highly profitable and important February sweeps period. Some years, the ceremony is moved into early March in deference to the Winter Olympics. Another reason for the move to late February and early March is to avoid the awards ceremony occurring so close to the religious holidays of Passover and Easter, which for decades had been a grievance from members and the general public. Advertising is somewhat restricted, however, as traditionally no movie studios or competitors of official Academy Award sponsors may advertise during the telecast. The Awards show holds the distinction of having won the most Emmys in history, with 47 wins and 195 nominations.\n\nAfter many years of being held on Mondays at 9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 p.m Pacific, in 1999 the ceremonies were moved to Sundays at 8:30 pm Eastern/5:30 pm Pacific. The reasons given for the move were that more viewers would tune in on Sundays, that Los Angeles rush-hour traffic jams could be avoided, and that an earlier start time would allow viewers on the East Coast to go to bed earlier. For many years the film industry had opposed a Sunday broadcast because it would cut into the weekend box office. The Academy has contemplated moving the ceremony even further back into January, citing TV viewers' fatigue with the film industry's long awards season. However, such an accelerated schedule would dramatically decrease the voting period for its members, to the point where some voters would only have time to view the contending films streamed on their computers (as opposed to traditionally receiving the films and ballots in the mail). Also, a January or early-February ceremony held on a Sunday would have to compete with National Football League playoff games such as the Super Bowl. \n\nOriginally scheduled for April 8, 1968, the 40th Academy Awards ceremony was postponed for two days, because of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. On March 30, 1981, the 53rd Academy Awards was postponed for one day, after the shooting of President Ronald Reagan and others in Washington, D.C.\n\nIn 1993, an In Memoriam segment was introduced, honoring those who had made a significant contribution to cinema who had died in the preceding 12 months, a selection compiled by a small committee of Academy members. This segment has drawn criticism over the years for the omission of some names. Criticism was also levied for many years regarding another aspect, with the segment having a \"popularity contest\" feel as the audience varied their applause to those who had died by the subject's cultural impact; the applause has since been muted during the telecast, and the audience is discouraged from clapping during the segment and giving silent reflection instead.\n\nIn terms of broadcast length, the ceremony generally averages three and a half hours. The first Oscars, in 1929, lasted 15 minutes. At the other end of the spectrum, the 2000 ceremony lasted four hours and four minutes. In 2010, the organizers of the Academy Awards announced that winners' acceptance speeches must not run past 45 seconds. This, according to organizer Bill Mechanic, was to ensure the elimination of what he termed \"the single most hated thing on the show\" – overly long and embarrassing displays of emotion. In 2016, in a further effort to streamline speeches, winners' dedications were displayed on an on-screen ticker. \n\nAlthough still dominant in ratings, the viewership of the Academy Awards have steadily dropped; the 88th Academy Awards were the lowest-rated in the past eight years (although with increases in male and 18-49 viewership), while the show itself also faced mixed reception. Following the show, Variety reported that ABC was, in negotiating an extension to its contract to broadcast the Oscars, seeking to have more creative control over the broadcast itself. Currently and nominally, AMPAS is responsible for most aspects of the telecast, including the choice of production staff and hosting. \n\nTV ratings\n\nHistorically, the \"Oscarcast\" has pulled in a bigger haul when box-office hits are favored to win the Best Picture trophy. More than 57.25 million viewers tuned to the telecast for the 70th Academy Awards in 1998, the year of Titanic, which generated close to US$600 million at the North American box office pre-Oscars. The 76th Academy Awards ceremony in which The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (pre-telecast box office earnings of US$368 million) received 11 Awards including Best Picture drew 43.56 million viewers. The most watched ceremony based on Nielsen ratings to date, however, was the 42nd Academy Awards (Best Picture Midnight Cowboy) which drew a 43.4% household rating on 7 April 1970. \n\nBy contrast, ceremonies honoring films that have not performed well at the box office tend to show weaker ratings. The 78th Academy Awards which awarded low-budgeted, independent film Crash (with a pre-Oscar gross of US$53.4 million) generated an audience of 38.64 million with a household rating of 22.91%. In 2008, the 80th Academy Awards telecast was watched by 31.76 million viewers on average with an 18.66% household rating, the lowest rated and least watched ceremony to date, in spite of celebrating 80 years of the Academy Awards. The Best Picture winner of that particular ceremony was another independently financed film (No Country for Old Men).\n\nVenues\n\nIn 1929, the first Academy Awards were presented at a banquet dinner at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. From 1930 to 1943, the ceremony alternated between two venues: the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard and the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.\n\nGrauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood then hosted the awards from 1944 to 1946, followed by the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles from 1947 to 1948. The 21st Academy Awards in 1949 were held at the Academy Award Theatre at what was the Academy's headquarters on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. \n\nFrom 1950 to 1960, the awards were presented at Hollywood's Pantages Theatre. With the advent of television, the awards from 1953 to 1957 took place simultaneously in Hollywood and New York, first at the NBC International Theatre (1953) and then at the NBC Century Theatre, after which the ceremony took place solely in Los Angeles. The Oscars moved to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California in 1961. By 1969, the Academy decided to move the ceremonies back to Los Angeles, this time to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Los Angeles County Music Center.\n\nIn 2002, the Kodak Theatre (now known as the Dolby Theatre) became the current venue of the presentation. \n\nAwards of Merit categories\n\nCurrent categories\n\nIn the first year of the awards, the Best Directing award was split into two separate categories (Drama and Comedy). At times, the Best Original Score award has also been split into separate categories (Drama and Comedy/Musical). From the 1930s through the 1960s, the Art Direction (now Production Design), Cinematography, and Costume Design awards were likewise split into two separate categories (black-and-white films and color films). Prior to 2012, the Production Design award was called Art Direction, while the Makeup and Hairstyling award was called Makeup.\n\nAnother award, entitled the Academy Award for Best Original Musical, is still in the Academy rulebooks and has yet to be discontinued. However, due to continuous insufficient eligibility each year, it has not been awarded since 1984 (when Purple Rain won). \n\nDiscontinued categories\n\nProposed categories\n\nThe Board of Governors meets each year and considers new award categories. To date, the following proposed categories have been rejected:\n* Best Casting: rejected in 1999\n* Best Stunt Coordination: rejected every year from 1991 to 2012 \n* Best Title Design: rejected in 1999\n\nSpecial categories\n\nThe Special Academy Awards are voted on by special committees, rather than by the Academy membership as a whole. They are not always presented on a consistent annual basis.\n\nCurrent special categories\n\n* Academy Honorary Award: since 1929\n* Academy Scientific and Technical Award: since 1931\n* Gordon E. Sawyer Award: since 1981\n* Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award: since 1956\n* Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award: since 1938\n\nDiscontinued special categories\n\n* Academy Juvenile Award: 1934 to 1960\n* Academy Special Achievement Award: 1972 to 1995\n\nCriticism\n\nAccusations of commercialism\n\nDue to the positive exposure and prestige of the Academy Awards, studios spend millions of dollars and hire publicists specifically to promote their films during what is typically called the \"Oscar season\". This has generated accusations of the Academy Awards being influenced more by marketing than quality. William Friedkin, an Academy Award-winning film director and former producer of the ceremony, expressed this sentiment at a conference in New York in 2009, describing it as \"the greatest promotion scheme that any industry ever devised for itself\". \n\nTim Dirks, editor of AMC's filmsite.org, has written of the Academy Awards,\n\nAccusations of bias\n\nTypical criticism of the Academy Awards for Best Picture is that among the winners and nominees there is an over-representation of romantic historical epics, biographical dramas, romantic dramedies, and family melodramas, most of which are released in the U.S. the last three months of the calendar year. The Oscars have been infamously known for selecting specific genres of movies to be awarded. This has led to the coining of the term 'Oscar bait', describing such movies. This has led at times to more specific criticisms that the Academy is disconnected from the audience, e.g. by favoring 'Oscar bait' over audience favorites, or favoring historical melodramas over critically acclaimed movies that depict current life issues. The 88th awards ceremony became the target of a boycott, based on critics' perception that its all-white acting nominee list reflected bias. In response, the Academy initiated \"historic\" changes in membership by the year 2020. \n\nSymbolism or sentimentalization\n\nActing prizes in certain years have been criticized for not recognizing superior performances so much as being awarded for sentimental reasons, personal popularity, atonement for past mistakes, or presented as a \"career honor\" to recognize a distinguished nominee's entire body of work. \n\nRefusing the award\n\nSome winners critical of the Academy Awards have boycotted the ceremonies and refused to accept their Oscars. The first to do so was Dudley Nichols (Best Writing in 1935 for The Informer). Nichols boycotted the 8th Academy Awards ceremony because of conflicts between the Academy and the Writers' Guild. George C. Scott became the second person to refuse his award (Best Actor in 1970 for Patton) at the 43rd Academy Awards ceremony. Scott described it as a 'meat parade', saying 'I don't want any part of it.\" The third was Marlon Brando, who refused his award (Best Actor for 1972's The Godfather), citing the film industry's discrimination and mistreatment of Native Americans. At the 45th Academy Awards ceremony, Brando sent Sacheen Littlefeather to read a 15-page speech detailing his criticisms.\n\nAssociated events\n\nThe following events are closely associated with the annual Academy Awards:\n* César Award\n* Nominees luncheon\n* Governors Awards\n* The 25th Independent Spirit Awards (in 2010), usually held in Santa Monica the Saturday before the Oscars, marked the first time it was moved to a Friday and a change of venue to L.A. Live\n* The annual \"Night Before\", traditionally held at the Beverly Hills Hotel, begun in 2002 and generally known as the party of the season, benefits the Motion Picture and Television Fund, which operates a retirement home for SAG actors in the San Fernando Valley\n* Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Party airs the awards live at the nearby Pacific Design Center\n* The Governors' Ball is the Academy's official after-party, including dinner (until 2011), and is adjacent to the awards-presentation venue\n* The Vanity Fair after-party, historically at the former Morton's restaurant, since 2009 has been at the Sunset Tower\n\nPresenter and performer gifts\n\nIt has become a tradition to give out gift bags to the presenters and performers at the Oscars. In recent years these gifts have also been extended to award nominees and winners. The value of each of these gift bags can reach into the tens of thousands of dollars. In 2014 the value was reported to be as high as US$80,000. The value has risen to the point where the U.S. Internal Revenue Service issued a statement regarding the gifts and their taxable status. \nOscar gift bags have included vacation packages to Hawaii and Mexico and Japan, a private dinner party for the recipient and friends at a restaurant, videophones, a four-night stay at a hotel, watches, bracelets, vacation packages, spa treatments, bottles of vodka, maple salad dressing, and weight-loss gummie candy. Some of the gifts have even had a \"risque\" element to them; in 2014 the adult products retailer Adam & Eve had a \"Secret Room Gifting Suite\". Celebrities visiting the gifting suite included Judith Hoag, Carolyn Hennesy, Kate Linder, Chris Mulkey, Jim O'Heir, and NBA player John Salley. \n\nTelevision ratings and advertisement prices\n\nFrom 2006 onwards, results are Live+SD, all previous years are Live viewing\n\nTrademark\n\nThe term \"Oscar\" is a registered trademark of the AMPAS; however, in the Italian language, it is used generically to refer to any award or award ceremony, regardless of which field, an activity the AMPAS discourages.[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/court-oscar-may-be-generic-132235 Court: 'Oscar' may be generic term in Italian - Hollywood Reporter][http://uk.reuters.com/article/industry-oscar-dc-idUKN1527923720070316 Court: Oscar may be generic term in Italian \| Reuters]" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "S.S. Titanic", "HMS Titanic", "Rms titanic", "R. M. S. 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Which Nick won an Oscar for The Wrong Trousers?	tc_1148	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "The_Wrong_Trousers.txt" ], "title": [ "The Wrong Trousers" ], "wiki_context": [ "The Wrong Trousers is a 1993 stop-motion animated short film directed by Nick Park at Aardman Animations, featuring his characters Wallace and Gromit. It was his second half-hour short featuring the eccentric inventor Wallace (voiced by Peter Sallis) and his silent but intelligent dog Gromit, following 1989's A Grand Day Out, and preceding 1995's A Close Shave.\n\nAs in A Grand Day Out, the 30-minute film uses sight gags and exaggerated physical comedy and quiet moments, as well as a few subtle film parodies. The film premiered in the United States on 17 December 1993 and the United Kingdom on 26 December 1993. It won the 1993 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.\n\nIt was highly successful and inspired a charity fundraising day, known as Wrong Trousers Day, one of several events organised by the charity Wallace and Gromit's Children's Charity. Wrong Trousers Day falls on the last Friday in June every year. During the day, participants wear the wrong trousers to work or school etc. and donate a pound to help sick children in hospitals and hospices.\n\nPlot\n\nThe film begins at 62 West Wallaby Street on Gromit's birthday at breakfast. After being tipped out of bed and dressed using several mechanical contraptions, Wallace is greeted with a large pile of bills. Wallace remembers Gromit's birthday and presents Gromit with a somewhat unwelcome gift of a spiked dog collar, and a second present of a pair of “ex-NASA” robotic \"Techno Trousers\", acquired by Wallace to alleviate the burden of taking Gromit for walks. While Gromit is out on a \"walk\", Wallace realises they are in financial difficulty and decides to let the spare bedroom out.\n\nHe is answered by an inscrutable looking penguin named Feathers McGraw. The penguin comes to stay at the house, pushing Gromit out of his comfortable bedroom, into the spare bedroom and keeping him awake at night with loud music. On the other hand, Wallace takes a liking to him. Feathers also takes an interest in the Techno Trousers after seeing Gromit use their suction feet to walk on the ceiling while decorating the spare bedroom. Distressed that Feathers has barged in on his relationship with his master, Gromit leaves home. After watching him leave, Feathers begins modifying the Techno Trousers for his own use. He removes the controls on the trousers and adapts them into a remote control.\n\nThe next morning, Gromit hunts for suitable lodgings. He notices a wanted poster offering a reward for the capture of a \"chicken\" – actually a criminal penguin who disguises himself by wearing a rubber glove on his head. Meanwhile, Wallace's normal morning routine is interrupted when his expected trousers are replaced with the modified Techno Trousers. Trapped inside the \"wrong trousers\", Wallace is marched out of the house and sent running around town on an extended test run, unaware that Feathers is controlling them. Gromit witnesses this spectacle and later spies on Feathers as he measures up the exterior of the city museum. He returns home and uncovers Feathers' plans to steal a large diamond from the museum.\n\nHowever, Feathers returns and Gromit is forced to hide. He watches as Feathers arrives dressed in the \"chicken disguise\". In a deep sleep after the day's misadventures, Wallace is unwittingly brought into the robbery by Feathers. Feathers marches Wallace out of the house to the museum and uses their suction feet to climb the building. The penguin waits on a window sill, while Wallace enters the building through a roof air vent and walks across the ceiling to the room with the diamond, avoiding the laser burglar alarm system. The helmet Wallace is wearing contains a remote-controlled claw that Feathers uses to hook the diamond. He narrowly succeeds, but the alarm is activated and Wallace is woken up.\n\nFeathers marches Wallace out of the museum and back to the house. The penguin reveals himself to be Wallace's lodger and traps him in an wardrobe. Gromit tries to stop Feathers, but the penguin pulls out a revolver and forces Gromit into the wardrobe, locking them both inside.\n\nAs an expert with electronics, Gromit breaks into the trousers' circuits to make them march and break open the wardrobe. There follows a chase aboard a train set, as Gromit tries to stop Feathers from escaping the house. Wallace's attempts to assist are mostly unsuccessful, though he manages to remove Feathers' revolver and free himself from the trousers. Feathers' train collides with the trousers, and he is captured and taken to the police station.\n\nWallace and Gromit are given the substantial reward money, which pays off their debts. Meanwhile, the trousers, unceremoniously consigned to the dustbin, walk off by themselves into the sunset, as the credits roll.\n\nCast\n\nPeter Sallis as Wallace provides the only voice acting in the film, all other characters are silent.\n\nSoundtrack alterations\n\nIn the original airing of the film, Gromit's birthday card plays \"Happy Birthday to You\". When the film was released on DVD by Warner Home Video in 2000, and by DreamWorks Home Entertainment SKG in 2005, this was replaced with \"For He's a Jolly Good Fellow\" to avoid copyright infringements. Also removed for the DVD (again for reasons of copyright) are two specific songs from the penguin's radio replaced with extracts from Hammond organ versions of \"Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree\". \n\nThe pieces that were removed are \"Happy Talk\" from the musical South Pacific and \"(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?\", along with Wallace's humming of it the subsequent morning. In 1994, the VHS was released by CBS/Fox Video with a trailer for the end of A Grand Day Out.\n\nIn addition, Gromit's television during breakfast no longer plays the Open University theme. In 2009, with the HD version of the film, Julian Nott's soundtrack appears to have been remixed or rerecorded. The Blu-ray release also does not include the original music. However the original soundtrack can still be heard in the background of the commentary track of the DVD release. The original soundtrack can also be heard in The Wrong Trousers when viewed in other languages and in English when viewed with other language subtitles. \n\nReception\n\nThe Wrong Trousers was voted as the 18th best British Television Show by the British Film Institute. It has a unanimously positive score on Rotten Tomatoes with 24 reviews, 100% positive and an average score of 9.1/10. The film was awarded the Grand Prix at the Tampere Film Festival in 1994. The Wrong Trousers won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.\n\nIn other works\n\nThe character of Feathers McGraw has appeared in numerous cameos in other works by Aardman. In the follow-up short A Close Shave, the words 'Feathers was 'ere' can be seen written on the wall of Gromit's jail cell, and in A Matter of Loaf and Death, he is featured both on an wanted poster on the wall of a zoo (next to a long rope over the wall, implying his escape) and briefly in the background of a shot in which Piella lands in an alligator enclosure.\n\nMcGraw also appeared as the main villain, in the spin off video game Wallace & Gromit in Project Zoo." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Park of culture and recreation", "Recreation ground", "Public parks", "Public reserve", "Park", "Parks", "The kingling-park", "Tree park", "Private park", "Public Park" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "tree park", "recreation ground", "private park", "parks", "public park", "park of culture and recreation", "public parks", "kingling park", "public reserve", "park" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "park", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Park" }
What is Sean Connery's profession in The Name of the Rose?	tc_1149	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "The_Name_of_the_Rose_(film).txt" ], "title": [ "The Name of the Rose (film)" ], "wiki_context": [ "The Name of the Rose is a 1986 Italian-French-German drama mystery film directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, based on the book of the same name by Umberto Eco. Sean Connery stars as the Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and Christian Slater is his apprentice Adso of Melk, who are called upon to solve a deadly mystery in a medieval abbey. Although the film refers to the Franciscans as monks, it would be more appropriate to use the term friar. \n\nPlot\n\nAs an old man, Adso, son of the Baron of Melk recounts how, as a young novice in 1327, he joined his mentor, Franciscan friar William of Baskerville to a Benedictine abbey in Northern Italy where the Franciscans were to debate with Papal emissaries the poverty of Christ. The abbey also boasts a famed scriptorium where scribes copy, translate or illuminate books. The suspicious recent death of the monk Adelmo of Otranto—a young but famous illuminator—has stirred fears among the abbey's devout inhabitants. The Abbot seeks help from William, known for his deductive powers. Adelmo's death cannot be ruled a suicide because his body was found below a tower having only a window which cannot be opened. William is reluctant, but also drawn by the intellectual challenge and also his desire to disprove fears of a demonic culprit. William also fears the Abbot will summon officials of the inquisition if the mystery remains unsolved.\n\nWilliam soon concludes that Adelmo's death was indeed suicide, having fallen from a different tower. Nevertheless, Venantius, a Greek translator—and the last to speak with Adelmo—is found dead in a vat filled with the blood of slaughtered pigs. The translator's corpse bears a black stain on a finger and his tongue. At a loss, William insists that Adelmo killed himself and that the translator's death can be reasonably explained. The other monks suspect a supernatural cause, fears reinforced when the saintly Fransciscan monk Ubertino of Casale warns that the deaths resemble signs mentioned in the Book of Revelation.\n\nIn the scriptorium, William inspects Adelmo's desk, but is blocked by Brother Berengar, the assistant librarian. Brother Malachias, Head Librarian, denies William access to the rest of the building.\n\nWilliam encounters Salvatore, a demented hunchback, and his protector, Remigio da Varagine. William deduces that both are former Dulcinians, members of a heretical sect which believed that clergy should be impoverished or killed. William does not suspect Salvatore and Remigio of murder since Dulcinites targeted wealthy Bishops, not poor monks. Nevertheless, Remigio's past gives William leverage in learning the abbey's secrets. Salvatore tells William that Adelmo had crossed paths with Venantius on the night that Adelmo died. Meanwhile, Adso encounters a beautiful semi-feral peasant girl who has apparently sneaked into the abbey to trade sexual favours for food; she seduces him, and he falls in love with her.\n\nReturning that night to Venantius's desk, William finds a book in Greek, and also a parchment bearing both Greek writing and smudges of a color blended by Adelmo for illuminating books, suggesting another link between Venantius and Adelmo. The parchment also bears cryptic symbols written by a left-handed man using invisible ink. Brother Berengar, having sneaked into the darkened library, distracts William and steals the book and a pair of magnifying glasses that William had been using to read it.\n\nWilliam suspects that Berengar is the crucial piece of the puzzle, but the abbey's herbalist informs William that Berengar has been found dead, drowned in a bath and bearing stains similar to those seen on Venantius. The herbalist finds William's magnifying glasses nearby, but not the Greek book Berengar had taken. William confronts the Abbot with the parchment found in the scriptorium, proving its links to Venantius and Adelmo and—since Berengar was the only left handed man in the abbey—the assistant librarian as well. William insists that the parchment proves a human—and not demonic—cause for the deaths, and demands access to the library. William theorizes that the translator transcribed the Greek notes on the parchment from a book he had been reading, and that the now missing book had been read by each of the dead men and was somehow responsible for their deaths.\n\nThe Abbot is unconvinced and insists that William end his investigations. Burning the parchment, the Abbot informs William that the inquisition—in the person of Bernardo Gui—has already been summoned.\n\nDetermined to solve the mystery before the Inquisition arrives, William and Adso again enter the library and discover a vast, hidden library above the scriptorium. A lover of knowledge, William is overjoyed. William suspects the abbey of keeping the books hidden because so much of their knowledge comes from pagan philosophers and cannot be reconciled with Christianity.\n\nWilliam tells Adso that he and Bernardo Gui have crossed paths before. Years earlier, when William was an inquisitor, Bernardo Gui had him tortured for refusing to convict a translator of heresy. Like the Abbot, the Benedictine monks and even William's fellow Franciscans, Gui settles on the devil as the culprit. Soon after arriving, Gui finds Salvatore and the peasant girl fighting over a black cockerel while in the presence of a black cat. For Gui, this is irrefutable proof of witchcraft, and he tortures Salvatore into confessing.\n\nAs the theological debate begins, the abbey's herbalist finds a book written in Greek in his dispensary, and is overheared telling this to William. Soon, the herbalist is found murdered in the now ransacked dispensary.\n\nLearning Remigio's Dulcanite past, Gui arrests him for the murders. With Salvatore and the peasant girl, Remigio is brought before a tribunal for which Gui, the Abbot and also Willam will be judges, Gui having recognized William. At his trial, Remigio proudly admits his past—which included killing bishops and priests—but denies having killed anyone in the abbey. While the Abbot quickly condemns Remigio for murder, William does not, pointing out that the murders are tied to a book written in Greek, which Remigio cannot read. William warns that Remigio's death won't end the string of deaths that have plagued the abbey. Under Gui's threats of torture, Remigio \"confesses\". Gui arranges for the prisoners to be burned at the stake, while William, having \"relapsed\" will be taken to Avignon.\n\nSoon Brother Malachia is seen dying, also having black stains on his tongue and finger, as William had predicted. Gui turns suspicion toward William, telling the monks that William's advance knowledge of the murder makes him the natural suspect. As the monks prepare Gui's prisoners at the stake, William and Adso reenter the secret library, and there, they come face to face with the Venerable Jorge, the most ancient denizen of the abbey. Having recognized the lines on the translator's parchment, William demands Jorge turn over the book that the dead men had been reading—Aristotle's Second Book of Poetics. Jorge reveals that William's theories were correct, and \"rewards\" him by presenting him with a copy of the book, likely the only surviving copy, the existence of which Jorge had vehemently denied earlier. William realizes that the corners of each page are coated with an ink, and monks turning its pages, touch both the corner and their own tongues. Believing laughter to be sinful, Jorge has poisoned the pages: those reading the book would unwittingly ingest the poison. Confronted, Jorge starts a blaze that quickly engulfs the library. William insists that Adso flee, as he vainly tries to save the books. Jorge kills himself by consuming the poison-coated pages. Most of the books, including the volume of Poetics, are lost.\n\nSeeing the fire, the monks abandon the burning of Gui's prisoners, allowing the local peasants to save the girl and turn on Gui. Gui is killed when his wagon is tumbled off a cliff. William and Adso later take their leave of the Abbey. On the road, Adso is stopped by the girl, silently appealing for him to stay with her, but Adso continues on with William. In his closing narration, a much older Adso reflects that he never regretted his decision, and that the girl was the only earthly love of his life, yet he never learned her name.\n\nCast\n\n* Sean Connery as William of Baskerville\n* F. Murray Abraham as Bernardo Gui\n* Christian Slater as Adso of Melk, the youngest son of the Baron of Melk\n* Helmut Qualtinger as Remigio da Varagine\n* Elya Baskin as Severinus von St. Emmeram\n* Michael Lonsdale as The Abbot\n* Volker Prechtel as Malachia\n* Feodor Chaliapin, Jr. as (Venerable) Jorge de Burgos\n* William Hickey as Ubertino da Casale\n* Michael Habeck as Berengar\n* Urs Althaus as Venantius\n* Valentina Vargas as The Girl\n* Ron Perlman as Salvatore\n* Leopoldo Trieste as Michele da Cesena\n* Franco Valobra as Jerome of Kaffa\n* Vernon Dobtcheff as Hugh of Newcastle\n* Donal O'Brian as Pietro d'Assisi\n* Andrew Birkin as Cuthbert of Winchester\n* Lucien Bodard as Cardinal Bertrand\n* Peter Berling as Jean d'Anneaux\n* Pete Lancaster as Bishop of Alborea\n* Dwight Weist as the Voice of Adso as an old Man (voice)\n\nProduction\n\nDirector Jean-Jacques Annaud once told Umberto Eco that he was convinced the book was written for only one person to direct, that is to say himself. He felt personally intrigued by the project, among other things because of a lifelong fascination with medieval churches and a great familiarity with Latin and Greek.\n\nAnnaud spent four years preparing the film, traveling throughout the United States and Europe, searching for the perfect multiethnic cast with interesting and distinctive faces. He resisted suggestions to cast Sean Connery for the part of William because he felt that the character, who was already an amalgam of Sherlock Holmes and William of Occam, would become too overwhelming with \"007\" added. Later, after Annaud failed to find another actor he liked for the part, he was won over by Connery's reading, but Eco was dismayed by the casting choice and Columbia Pictures pulled out, as Connery's career was then in a slump. Christian Slater was cast through a large-scale audition of teenage boys. For the wordless scene in which the Girl seduces Adso, Annaud allowed Valentina Vargas to lead the scene without his direction. Annaud did not explain to Slater what she would be doing in order to elicit a more authentic performance from the actors. \n\nThe exterior and some of the interiors of the monastery seen in the film were constructed as a replica on a hilltop outside Rome, and ended up being the biggest exterior set built in Europe since Cleopatra. Many of the interiors were shot at Eberbach Abbey, Germany. Most props, including period illuminated manuscripts, were produced specifically for the film.\n\nReception\n\nThe film did poorly at the box office in the United States, playing at only 176 theatres and grossing only $7.2 million in return on a $17 million budget. However, it was popular in many parts of Europe and had a worldwide gross of over $77 million.\n\nIt received generally positive reviews from American and Italian critics, with review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 73% approval rating. Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5 stars out of a possible 4, writing, \"What we have here is the setup for a wonderful movie. What we get is a very confused story [...] It's all inspiration and no discipline.\" In 2011, Eco was quoted as giving a mixed review for the adaptation of his novel: \"A book like this is a club sandwich, with turkey, salami, tomato, cheese, lettuce. And the movie is obliged to choose only the lettuce or the cheese, eliminating everything else – the theological side, the political side. It's a nice movie.\" \n\nAwards\n\n* The film was awarded the César for best foreign film.\n* The film was awarded two BAFTAs. Sean Connery for best actor, and Hasso von Hugo won Best Make Up Artist." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Frays", "Friar", "Fra", "First Order", "Friars" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "first order", "frays", "friar", "fra", "friars" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "friar", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Friar" }
In which film did Jodie Foster play FBI agent Clarice Starling?	tc_1151	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Jodie_Foster.txt", "Clarice_Starling.txt" ], "title": [ "Jodie Foster", "Clarice Starling" ], "wiki_context": [ "Alicia Christian \"Jodie\" Foster (born November 19, 1962) is an American actress, director and producer who has worked in films and on television. She has often been cited as one of the best actresses of her generation. Foster began her career at the age of three as a child model in 1965, and two years later moved to acting in television series, with the sitcom Mayberry R.F.D. being her debut. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, she worked in several primetime television series and starred in children's films. Foster's breakthrough came in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976), in which she played a teenage prostitute; the role garnered her a nomination for an Academy Award. Her other critically acclaimed roles as a teenager were in the musical Bugsy Malone (1976) and the thriller The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976), and she became a popular teen idol by starring in Disney's Freaky Friday (1976), Candleshoe (1977) and Foxes (1980).\n\nAfter attending college at Yale, Foster struggled to transition to adult roles until winning widespread critical acclaim for her portrayal of a rape survivor in The Accused (1988), for which she won several awards, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. She won her second Academy Award three years later for her role in the sleeper hit The Silence of the Lambs, where she played Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee investigating a serial murder case. Foster made her debut as a film director the same year with the moderately successful Little Man Tate (1991), and founded her own production company, Egg Pictures, in 1992. The company's first production was Nell (1994), in which she also played the title role, gaining another nomination for an Academy Award. Her other films in the 1990s included period drama Sommersby, Western comedy Maverick (1994), science fiction film Contact (1997), and period drama Anna and the King (1999). Her second film direction, Home for the Holidays (1995), was not well-received commercially, while critical reviews were mixed.\n\nAfter career setbacks in the early 2000s, which included the cancellation of a film project and the closing down of her production company, Foster starred in four thrillers, Panic Room (2002), Flightplan (2005), Inside Man (2006) and The Brave One (2007). She has focused on directing in the 2010s, directing the films The Beaver (2011) and Money Monster (2016), as well as episodes for Netflix television series Orange is the New Black and House of Cards. She also starred in the film Elysium (2013). In addition to her two Academy Awards, Foster has won three BAFTA Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award and the Cecil B DeMille Award.\n\nEarly life and education\n\nFoster was born on November 19, 1962 in Los Angeles, as the youngest child of Evelyn Ella \"Brandy\" (née Almond) and Lucius Fisher Foster III. Her father came from a wealthy Chicago family, whose forebears included John Alden, who had arrived in North America on the Mayflower in 1620.Cullen, pp. 182–183 He was a Yale graduate and a decorated U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, and made his career as a real estate broker. He had already been married once and had three sons from the union before marrying Brandy in Las Vegas in 1953. Brandy Foster was of German heritage and grew up in Rockford, Illinois. Foster also has Irish roots, with ancestry that can be traced back to County Cork. Before Foster's birth, she and Lucius had three other children: daughters Lucinda \"Cindy\" Foster (b. 1954) and Constance \"Connie\" Foster (b. 1955), and son Lucius Fisher \"Buddy\" Foster (b. 1957). Their marriage ended before Foster was born, and she never established a relationship with her father. Following the divorce, Brandy raised the children with her partner in Los Angeles. She worked as a publicist for film producer Arthur P. Jacobs, until focusing on managing the acting careers of Buddy and Jodie. Although Foster was officially named Alicia, her siblings began calling her \"Jodie\", and the name stuck.\n\nFoster was a gifted child, and learned to read at the age of three. She attended a French-language prep school, the Lycée Français de Los Angeles. Her fluency in French has enabled her to act in French films, and she also dubs herself in French-language versions of most of her English-language films. She also understands Italian although does not speak it, as well as a little Spanish and German. At her graduation in 1980, she delivered the valedictorian address for the school's French division. Although already a successful actor by this time, Foster then attended Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. She majored in literature, writing her thesis on Toni Morrison, and graduated with a magna cum laude in 1985. She returned to Yale in 1993 to address the graduating class, and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the university in 1997. \n\nCareer\n\n1965–75: Early work\n\nFoster's career began with an appearance as the Coppertone girl in a television advertisement in 1965, when she was only three years old.Sonneborn, p. 73; Cullen, pp. 183–184 Her mother had originally intended only for her older brother Buddy to audition for the ad, but had taken Jodie with them to the casting call, where she was noticed by the casting agents. The television spot led to more advertisement work, and in 1968 to a minor appearance in the sitcom Mayberry R.F.D., in which her brother starred. In the following years Foster continued working in advertisements and appeared in over fifty television shows; she and her brother became the breadwinners of the family during this time. Although most of Foster's television appearances were minor, she had recurring roles in The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1969–1971) and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1973), and starred opposite Christopher Connelly in the short-lived Paper Moon (1974), adapted from the eponymous hit film. \n\nFoster also appeared in films, mostly for Disney. After a role in the television film Menace on the Mountain (1970), she made her feature film debut in Napoleon and Samantha (1972), playing a girl who becomes friends with a boy and his pet lion. She was accidentally grabbed by the lion on set, which left her with permanent scars on her back. Her other early film work includes the Raquel Welch vehicle Kansas City Bomber (1972), the Western One Little Indian (1973), the Mark Twain adaptation Tom Sawyer (1973), and Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), in which she appeared in a supporting role as a \"Ripple-drinking street kid\".\n\nFoster has later recalled that she loved acting as a child, and finds her early work valuable for the experience it gave her, saying: \"Some people get quick breaks and declare, \"I'll never do commercials! That's so lowbrow!\" I want to tell them, \"Well, I'm real glad you've got a pretty face, because I worked for 20 years doing that stuff and I feel it's really invaluable; it really taught me a lot.\"\n\n1976–80: Taxi Driver and teenage stardom\n\nFoster's mother was concerned that her daughter's career would end by the time she grew out of playing children, and decided that to ensure continued work and to gain greater recognition, Foster should also begin acting in films for adult audiences. After the minor supporting role in Alice, Martin Scorsese cast her in the role of a teenage prostitute in Taxi Driver (1976). The Los Angeles Welfare Board initially opposed twelve-year-old Foster's appearing in the film due to its violent content, but relented after governor Pat Brown intervened and a UCLA psychiatrist assessed her.Rausch, pp. 30-31; Cullen, p. 185 A social worker was required to accompany her on set and her older sister Connie acted as her stand-in in sexually suggestive scenes. Foster later commented on the controversy saying that she hated \"the idea that everybody thinks if a kid's going to be an actress it means that she has to play Shirley Temple or someone's little sister.\" \n\nDuring the filming, Foster developed a close bond with co-star Robert DeNiro, who saw \"serious potential\" in her and dedicated time outside of filming on rehearsing scenes with her. She described Taxi Driver as a life-changing experience and stated that it was \"the first time anyone asked me to create a character that wasn't myself. It was the first time I realized that acting wasn't this hobby you just sort of did, but that there was actually some craft.\" Released in February, it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May; Foster also impressed journalists when she acted as French interpreter at the film's press conference. Taxi Driver was a critical and commercial success, and earned her a supporting actress Academy Award nomination, as well as two BAFTAs, a David di Donatello and a National Society of Film Critics award. The film is considered one of the best films ever made by both the American Film Institute and Sight & Sound, and has been preserved in the National Film Registry. \nFoster also acted in another film nominated for the Palme d'Or in 1976, Bugsy Malone. The British musical parodied films about Prohibition Era gangsters by having all roles played by children; Foster appeared in a major supporting role as a star of a speakeasy show. Its director Alan Parker was impressed by her, saying that \"she takes such an intelligent interest in the way the film is being made that if I had been run over by a bus I think she was probably the only person on the set able to take over as director.\" She gained several positive notices for her performance: Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times stated that \"at thirteen she was already getting the roles that grown-up actresses complained weren't being written for women anymore\", Variety described her as \"outstanding\", and Vincent Canby of The New York Times called her \"the star of the show\". Foster's two BAFTAs were awarded jointly for her performances in Taxi Driver and Bugsy Malone. Her third film release in spring 1976 was the independent drama Echoes of a Summer, which had been filmed two years previously. The New York Times named Foster's performance as a terminally ill girl the film's \"main strength\" and Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune stated that she \"is not a good child actress; she's just a good actress\", although both reviewers otherwise panned the film. \n\nFoster's fourth film of 1976 was the Canadian-French thriller The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, in which she starred opposite Martin Sheen. The film combined aspects from thriller and horror genres, and showed Foster as a mysterious young girl living on her own in a small town; the performance earned her a Saturn Award. On November 27, she hosted Saturday Night Live, becoming the youngest person to do so until 1982. Her final film of the year was Freaky Friday, a Disney comedy commenting on the generation gap, which was \"her first true star vehicle\". She played a tomboy teen who accidentally changes bodies with her mother; she later stated that her character's desire to become an adult was matched by her own feelings at the time, and that the film marked a \"transitional period\" for her when she began to grow out of child roles. It received mainly positive reviews, and was a box office success, gaining Foster a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. \n\nAfter her breakthrough year, Foster spent nine months living in France, where she starred in Moi, fleur bleue (1977) and recorded several songs for its soundtrack. Her other films released in 1977 were the Italian comedy Casotto (1977), and the Disney heist film Candleshoe (1977), which was filmed in England and co-starred veteran actors David Niven and Helen Hayes. After its release, Foster did not appear in any new releases until 1980, the year she turned eighteen. She gained positive notices for her performances in Adrian Lyne's debut feature film Foxes (1980), which focuses on the lives of Los Angeles teenagers, and Carny (1980), in which she played a waitress who runs away from her former life by joining a touring carnival. \n\n1981–89: Transition to adult roles\n\nAware that child stars are often unable to successfully continue their careers into adulthood, Foster became a full-time student at Yale in fall 1980, and her acting career slowed down in the following five years. She later stated that going to college was \"a wonderful time of self-discovery\", and changed her thoughts about acting, which she had previously thought was an unintelligent profession, but now realised that \"what I really wanted to do was to act and there was nothing stupid about it.\" She continued making films on her summer vacations, and during her college years appeared in O'Hara's Wife (1982), television film Svengali (1983), John Irving adaptation The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), French film The Blood of Others (1984), and period drama Mesmerized (1986), which she also co-produced. None of them were however successful, and Foster struggled to find work after graduating in 1985. The neo-noir Siesta (1987), in which she appeared in a supporting role, was a failure. Five Corners (1987) was a moderate critical success and earned Foster an Independent Spirit Award for her performance as a woman whose sexual assaulter returns to stalk her. In 1988, Foster made her debut as a director with the episode \"Do Not Open This Box\" for the horror anthology series Tales from the Darkside, and in August appeared in the romantic drama Stealing Home (1988) opposite Mark Harmon. It was a flop, with film critic Roger Ebert even \"wondering if any movie could possibly be that bad\". \n\nFoster's breakthrough into adult roles came with her performance as a rape survivor in The Accused, a drama based on a real criminal case, which was released in October 1988. The film focuses on the aftermath of a gang rape and its survivor's fight for justice in the face of victim blaming. Before making the film, Foster was having doubts about whether to continue her career and planned on starting graduate studies, but decided to give acting \"one last try\" in The Accused. She had to audition twice for the role and was cast only after several more established actors had turned it down, as the film's producers were wary of her due to her previous failures and because she was still remembered as a \"chubby teenager\". Due to the heavy subject matter, the filming was a difficult experience for all cast and crew involved, especially the shooting of the rape scene, which took five days to complete. Foster was initially unhappy with her performance, and feared that it would end her career. Her fears turned out to be unfounded: although The Accused received overall mixed reviews upon its release, Foster's performance was positively received by the critics and earned her Academy, Golden Globe and National Board of Review awards, as well as a nomination for a BAFTA Award.\n\n1990–94: Box office success, debut as film director and Egg Pictures\n\nFoster's first film release after the success of The Accused was the thriller The Silence of the Lambs (1991). She played FBI trainee Clarice Starling, who is sent to interview incarcerated serial killer Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) in order to solve another serial murder case; Foster later named the role one of her favorites. She had read the novel it was based on after its publication in 1988 and had attempted to purchase its film rights, as it featured \"a real female heroine\" and its plot was not \"about steroids and brawn, [but] about using your mind and using your insufficiencies to combat the villain.\" Despite her enthusiasm, director Jonathan Demme did not initially want to cast her, but the producers overruled him. Demme's view of Foster changed during the production, and he later credited her for helping him define the character. \n\nReleased in February 1991, Silence of the Lambs became one of the biggest hits of the year, grossing close to $273 million, with a positive critical reception. Foster received largely favorable reviews and won Academy, Golden Globe, and BAFTA awards for her portrayal of Starling; Silence won five Academy Awards overall, becoming one of the few films to win in all main categories. In contrast, some reviewers criticized the film as misogynist for its focus on brutal murders of women, and blamed it for homophobia due to its main villain, serial killer \"Buffalo Bill\".Hollinger 2012, pp. 46–47 Much of the criticism was directed towards Foster, whom the critics alleged was herself a lesbian. Despite the controversy, the film is considered a modern classic: Starling and Lecter are included on the American Film Institute's top ten of the greatest film heroes and villains, and the film is preserved in the National Film Registry. Later in 1991, Foster also starred in the unsuccessful low-budget thriller Catchfire, which had been filmed before Silence, but was released after it in an attempt to profit from its success. \n\nIn October 1991, Foster released her first feature film as a director, Little Man Tate, a drama about a child prodigy who struggles to come to terms with being different. The main role was played by previously unknown actor Adam Hann-Byrd, and Foster co-starred as his working-class single mother. She had found the script from the \"slush pile\" at Orion Pictures, and explained that for her debut film she \"wanted a piece that was not autobiographical, but that had to do with the 10 philosophies I've accumulated in the past 25 years. Every single one of them, if they weren't in the script from the beginning, they're there now.\" Although she was publicly lauded for her choice to become a director, many reviewers felt that the film itself did not live up to the high expectations, and regarded it as \"less adventurous than many films in which [she] had starred\". Regardless, it was a moderate box office success. Foster's final film appearance of the year came in a small role as a prostitute in Shadows and Fog (1991), directed by Woody Allen, with whom she had wanted to collaborate since the 1970s.\n\nThe following year, Foster founded her own production company, Egg Pictures, a subsidiary of PolyGram Filmed Entertainment. She was to produce up to six films, each with the budget of $10–25 million, in the following three years. Her next films were a romantic period film and a comedy, and according to film scholar Karen Hollinger, featured her in more \"conventionally feminine\" roles. She starred opposite Richard Gere in Sommersby (1993), portraying a woman who begins to suspect that her husband who returns home from the Civil War is in fact an impostor. She then replaced Meg Ryan in the Western comedy Maverick (1994), playing a con artist opposite Mel Gibson and James Garner. Both films were box office hits, earning over $140 and $183 million respectively. Foster's first project for Egg Pictures, Nell, was released in December 1994. In addition to acting as its producer, she starred in the title role as a woman who grew up isolated in the Appalachian Mountains and speaks her own language as her only human connection has been her disabled mother. It was based on Mark Handley's play Idioglossia, which interested Foster for its theme of \"otherness\", and because she \"loved this idea of a woman who defies categorization, a creature who is labeled and categorized by people based on their own problems and their own prejudices and what they bring to the table.\" It was a moderate commercial success, but a critical disappointment. Despite the negative reviews, Foster received a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance and was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.\n\n1995–99\n\nThe second film that Foster directed was Home for the Holidays, released in 1995. It starred Holly Hunter and Robert Downey Jr. and was described as a black comedy \"set around a nightmarish Thanksgiving\". Released in November 1995, it was a critical and commercial failure. The following year, Foster received two honorary awards: the Crystal Award, awarded annually for women in the entertainment industry, and the Berlinale Camera at the 46th Berlin International Film Festival. After Nell in 1994, Foster did not act in any new projects until 1997, aside from voicing characters in episodes of Frasier in 1996 and The X-Files in early 1997. She was in talks to star in David Fincher's thriller The Game, but its production company, Polygram, dropped her from the project after disagreements over her role. Foster sued the company, saying that she had an oral agreement with them to star in the film and had as a result taken \"herself off the market\" and lost out on other film projects. The case was later settled out of court. Foster finally made her return to the big screen in Contact (1997), a science fiction film based on a novel by Carl Sagan and directed by Robert Zemeckis. She starred as a scientist searching for extraterrestrial life in the SETI project. Due to the special effects, many of the scenes were filmed with a bluescreen; this was Foster's first experience with the technology. She commented, \"Blue walls, blue roof. It was just blue, blue, blue. And I was rotated on a lazy Susan with the camera moving on a computerized arm. It was really tough.\" The film was a commercial success and earned Foster a Saturn Award and a nomination for a Golden Globe. She also had an asteroid, 17744 Jodiefoster, named in her honor in 1998. \n\nFoster's next project was producing Jane Anderson's television film The Baby Dance (1998) for Showtime. Its story deals with a wealthy California couple who struggle with infertility and decide to adopt from a poor family in Louisiana. On her decision to produce for television, Foster stated that it was easier to take financial risks in that medium than in feature films. In 1998, she also moved her production company from PolyGram to Paramount Pictures. Foster's last film of the 1990s was the period drama Anna and the King (1999), in which she starred opposite Chow Yun-Fat. It was based on a fictionalized biography of British teacher Anna Leonowens, who taught the children of King Mongkut of Siam, and whose story became well known as the musical The King and I. Foster was paid $15 million to portray Leonowens, making her one of the highest-paid female actors in Hollywood. The film was subject to controversy when the Thai government deemed it historically inaccurate and insulting to the royal family and banned its distribution in the country. It was a moderate commercial success, but received mixed to negative reviews. Roger Ebert panned the film, stating that the role required Foster \"to play beneath [her] intelligence\" and The New York Times called it a \"misstep\" for her and accused her of only being \"interested ... in sanctifying herself as an old-fashioned heroine than in taking on dramatically risky roles\". \n\n2000–09: Career setbacks and thrillers\n\nFoster's first project of the new decade was Keith Gordon's film Waking the Dead (2000), which she produced. She declined to reprise her role as Clarice Starling in Hannibal (2001), with the part going instead to Julianne Moore, and concentrated on a new directorial project, Flora Plum. It was to focus on a 1930s circus and star Claire Danes and Russell Crowe, but had to be shelved after Crowe was injured on set and could not complete filming on schedule; Foster unsuccessfully attempted to revive the project several times in the following years. Controversially, she also expressed interest in directing and starring in a biopic of Nazi film director Leni Riefenstahl, who did not like the idea. In addition to these setbacks, Foster shut down Egg Pictures in 2001, stating that producing was \"just a really thankless, bad job\". The company's last production, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2002. It received good reviews, and had a limited theatrical release in the summer. \n\nAfter the cancellation of Flora Plum, Foster took on the main role in David Fincher's thriller Panic Room after its intended star, Nicole Kidman, had to drop out due to an injury on set. Before filming resumed, Foster was given only a week to prepare for the role of a woman who moves with her daughter to a house fitted with a panic room, which they have to use on their first night due to a home invasion. It grossed over $30 million on its North American opening weekend in March 2002, thus becoming the most successful film opening of Foster's career as of 2015. In addition to being a box office success, the film also received largely positive reviews. \n\nAfter a minor appearance in the French period drama A Very Long Engagement (2004), Foster starred in three more thrillers. The first was Flightplan (2005), in which she played a woman whose daughter vanishes during an overnight flight. It became a global box office success, but received mainly negative reviews. It was followed by Spike Lee's critically and commercially successful Inside Man (2006), about a bank heist on Wall Street, which co-starred Denzel Washington and Clive Owen. The third thriller, The Brave One (2007), prompted some comparisons to Taxi Driver, as Foster played a New Yorker who becomes a vigilante after being seriously injured and losing her fiancé and dog in a random street attack. It was not a success, but earned Foster her sixth Golden Globe nomination. Her last film role of the decade was in the children's adventure film Nim's Island (2008), in which she portrayed an agoraphobic writer opposite Gerard Butler and Abigail Breslin. It was the first comedy that she had starred in since Maverick (1994), and was a commercial success but a critical failure. In 2009, she provided the voice for Maggie in a tetralogy episode of The Simpsons titled \"Four Great Women and a Manicure\".\n\n2010–present: Focus on directing\n\nIn the 2010s, Foster has focused on directing and taken fewer acting roles. In February 2011, she hosted the 36th César Awards in France, and the following month released her third feature film direction, The Beaver (2011), about a depressed man who develops an alternative personality based on a beaver hand puppet. It starred Maverick co-star Mel Gibson and featured herself, Anton Yelchin and Jennifer Lawrence in supporting roles as his family. Foster called its production \"probably the biggest struggle of my professional career\", partly due to the film's heavy subject matter but also due to the controversy that developed around Gibson as he was accused of domestic violence and making anti-semitic, racist, and sexist statements. The film received mixed reviews, and failed the box office, largely due to the controversy surrounding its star. In 2011, Foster also appeared as part of an ensemble cast with John C. Reilly, Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz in Roman Polanski's comedy Carnage, focusing on middle class parents whose meeting to settle an incident between their sons descends into chaos. It premiered at the 68th Venice International Film Festival in September 2011 to mainly positive reviews and earned Foster a Golden Globe for Best Actress nomination. \n\nIn January 2013, Foster received the honorary Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 70th Golden Globe Awards. Her next film role was playing Secretary of Defense Delacourt opposite Matt Damon in the dystopian film Elysium (2013), which was a box office success. She also returned to television directing for the first time since the 1980s, directing the episodes \"Lesbian Request Denied\" (2013) and \"Thirsty Bird\" (2014) for Orange Is the New Black, and the episode \"Chapter 22\" (2014) for House of Cards. \"Lesbian Request Denied\" brought her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination, and the two 2014 episodes earned her two nominations for a Directors Guild of America Award. In 2014, she also narrated the episode \"Women in Space\" for Makers: Women Who Make America, a PBS documentary series about women's struggle for equal rights in the United States. The following year, Foster received the Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement Award at the Athena Film Festival, and directed her next film, Money Monster, which stars George Clooney and Julia Roberts, and was released in May 2016. \n\nPersonal life\n\nFoster rarely talks of her private life in interviews, and has explained that she \"values privacy against all else\" due to having spent most of her life in the public eye. She lives in Los Angeles, and had two sons, Charles \"Charlie\" Foster (b. 1998) and Christopher \"Kit\" Foster (b. 2001), while partnered with Cydney Bernard. She met Bernard on the set of Sommersby (1993) and was in a relationship with her from 1993 to 2008. In April 2014, Foster married actress and photographer Alexandra Hedison. She stated in 2011 that having children has made her take on fewer projects: \"It is a big sacrifice to leave home. I want to make sure that I feel passionate about the movies I do because it is a big sacrifice... Even if you take the average movie shoot of four months – you have three weeks' prep, press duties here and abroad, dubbing and looping, magazine covers, events and premieres – that's eight months out of a year. That's a long time. If you do two movies back-to-back, you're never going to see your children.\"\n\nFoster's sexual orientation became subject to public discussion in 1991, when activists protesting the alleged homophobia in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) claimed that she was a closeted lesbian in articles in publications such as OutWeek and The Village Voice.Hollinger 2006, pp. 145–146 While she had been in a relationship with Bernard for a long time, Foster first publicly acknowledged it in a speech at the Hollywood Reporter's \"Women in Entertainment\" breakfast honoring her in 2007. In 2013, she addressed coming out in a speech after receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 70th Golden Globe Awards, which led many news outlets to afterwards describe her as lesbian or gay, although some sources noted that she did not use the words \"gay\" or \"lesbian\" in her speech. \n\nFoster is an atheist, but has said it is important to teach children about different religions, stating that \"in my home, we ritualize all of them. We do Christmas. We do Shabbat on Fridays. We love Kwanzaa. I take pains to give my family a real religious basis, a knowledge, because it's being well educated. You need to know why all those wars were fought.\" She also supports gun control. \n\nObsession of John Hinckley\n\nDuring her freshman year at Yale in 1980–1981, Foster was stalked by John W. Hinckley, Jr., who had developed an obsession with her after watching Taxi Driver.Sonneborn, p. 74; Ewing & McCann, pp. 91–102 He moved to New Haven, and tried to contact her through letters and by phone; it has sometimes been erroneously claimed that he also enrolled in a writing course at the university. On March 30, 1981, he attempted to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan, wounding him and three other people, and claimed that his motive was to impress Foster. The incident made her subject to intense media attention, and she had to be accompanied by bodyguards on campus. Although Judge Barrington D. Parker confirmed that Foster was completely innocent in the case and had been \"unwittingly ensnared in a third party's alleged attempt to assassinate an American President\", she was required to give a videotaped testimony, which was played at the trial. During her time at Yale, Foster also had other stalkers, including Edward Richardson, who initially planned on murdering her but changed his mind after watching her perform in a college play.\n\nThe experience was very difficult for Foster, and she has rarely commented on it publicly. In the aftermath of the events, she wrote an essay titled Why Me?, which was published by Esquire in 1982 on the condition that \"there be no cover lines, no publicity and no photos\". In 1991, she cancelled an interview with NBC's Today Show when she discovered Hinckley would be mentioned in the introduction, and the producers were unwilling to change it. She discussed Hinckley with Charlie Rose of 60 Minutes II in 1999, explaining that she does not \"like to dwell on it too much [...] I never wanted to be the actress who was remembered for that event. Because it didn't have anything to do with me. I was kind of a hapless bystander. But [...] what a scarring, strange moment in history for me, to be 17 years old, 18 years old, and to be caught up in a drama like that.\" She stated that the incident had a major impact on the career choices she later made, but also acknowledged—in reference to the family of James Brady, the White House Press Secretary who was permanently disabled in the shooting and died as a result of his injuries 33 years later—that \"whatever bad moments that I had certainly could never compare to that family\".\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nSelected filmography\n\nAlice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)\nTaxi Driver (1976)\nBugsy Malone (1976)\nThe Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976)\nFreaky Friday (1976)\nCandleshoe (1977)\nFoxes (1980)\nThe Hotel New Hampshire (1984)\nFive Corners (1987)\nThe Accused (1988)\nThe Silence of the Lambs (1991)\nLittle Man Tate (1991)\nSommersby (1993)\nMaverick (1994)\nNell (1994)\nHome for the Holidays (1995)\nContact (1997)\nAnna and the King (1999)\nPanic Room (2002)\nFlightplan (2005)\nInside Man (2006)\nThe Brave One (2007)\nNim's Island (2008)\nThe Beaver (2011)\nCarnage (2011)\nElysium (2013)\n*Money Monster (2016)", "Clarice M. Starling is a fictional character that appears in the novels The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal by Thomas Harris.\n\nIn the film adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs, she was played by Jodie Foster, while in the film adaptation of Hannibal, she was played by Julianne Moore.\n\nClarice Starling, as portrayed by Foster, was ranked the sixth greatest protagonist in film history on AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains, making her the highest-ranking heroine. \n\nThe Silence of the Lambs\n\nIn The Silence of the Lambs, Starling is a student at the FBI Academy. Her mentor, Behavioral Sciences Unit chief Jack Crawford, sends her to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer. He is housed in a Baltimore mental institution. Upon arriving at the asylum for her first interview with Lecter, the asylum manager Frederick Chilton makes a crude pass at her, which she rebuffs; this helps her bond with Lecter, who despises Chilton. As time passes, Lecter gives Starling information about Buffalo Bill, a currently active serial killer being hunted by the FBI, but only in exchange for personal information, which Crawford has specifically warned her to keep secret from Lecter.\n\nShe tells Lecter that she was raised in a small town in West Virginia with her father, a town marshal. When she was about 10 years old, her father was shot when responding to a robbery; he died a month after the incident. Her mother subsequently worked as a hotel chambermaid, but was unable to support her entire family without a life insurance settlement from her husband's death. Starling was sent to live with her uncle on a Montana sheep and horse farm, from which she ran away in horror when she witnessed the lambs being slaughtered. Her uncle was so angry that he sent her to live in a Lutheran orphanage, where she spent the rest of her childhood. According to the novel, Starling attended the University of Virginia as a double major in psychology and criminology. During that time, she spent two summers working as a counselor in a mental health center. Starling first met Crawford when he was a guest lecturer at UVA. His criminology seminars were a factor in her decision to join the FBI.\n\nDuring the investigation, Starling is assigned to coax Lecter into revealing Buffalo Bill's identity. Lecter gives her clues in the form of cryptic, riddling information designed to help Starling figure it out for herself. The two grow to respect each other, so when Lecter escapes during a transfer engineered by Chilton to a state prison in Tennessee, Starling feels that he \"would consider it rude\" to kill her.\n\nStarling deduces from Lecter's hints that Buffalo Bill's first victim had a personal relationship with him, and so goes to the victim's home in Belvedere, Ohio, to interview people who knew her. She unknowingly stumbles onto the killer himself, Jame Gumb, who is living under the alias \"Jack Gordon\". When she sees a Death's Head moth, the same rare kind that Buffalo Bill stuffs in the throats of each of his victims, flutter through the house, she knows that she has found her man and tries to arrest him. Gumb flees, and Starling follows him into his basement, where his latest victim is alive and screaming for help. Gumb turns off the electricity in the basement, and stalks Starling through the rooms wearing night vision goggles. As Gumb readies to shoot Starling, Starling hears him cock the hammer of his revolver and opens fire towards the sound, killing him. \n\nWeeks later, Lecter writes Starling a letter from a hotel room somewhere in Detroit asking her if the lambs have stopped screaming.\n\nThe final scene of the novel has Starling sleeping peacefully at a friend's vacation house at the Maryland seashore.\n\nHannibal\n\nIn Hannibal, Starling is in her early thirties and a full-fledged FBI agent, although her career has been held back by Paul Krendler, a Department of Justice official who resents her for being more successful than him. She takes part in a bungled drug raid, in which she returns fire after a drug kingpin fires at her, using an infant as a hostage; her superiors blame her for the resulting mess, and she is removed from active duty, mostly at Krendler's instigation. She receives a supportive letter from Lecter, who is (unknown to her at the time) residing in Florence, Italy. One of Lecter's surviving victims, a sadistic pedophile named Mason Verger, is searching for Lecter and has offered a huge reward, which corrupt Florentine police inspector Rinaldo Pazzi tries to claim when he deduces Lecter's true identity in Florence.\n\nStarling finds out that Lecter is in Florence and attempts to warn Pazzi. As Starling predicted, Lecter knows about the plot to capture him and, as a result, he kills Pazzi. Lecter then flees to the United States and immediately starts to follow Starling. Starling, meanwhile, is being harassed at the FBI by various corrupt agents, especially by Krendler, who is secretly assisting Verger in his attempt to capture Lecter. Starling attempts to find Lecter first, not only to capture him but also to save him from Verger. Krendler attempts to frame Starling in a scheme planned by Verger, alleging she sent coded newspaper messages to Lecter; this only results in her being suspended, but she is now powerless to stop Verger's men. Lecter is captured by Verger, who plans to feed him to a pack of specially bred wild boars.\n\nStarling is aware that Lecter is being held by Verger, so she attempts to save him. She is wounded in the ensuing gunfight; Lecter rescues her and nurses her back to health. He then subjects her to a regimen of mind-altering drugs and classical conditioning in an attempt to make her believe she is his long-dead sister, Mischa.\n\nDuring this time, Lecter captures Krendler and performs a craniotomy on him while he is still alive. During an elaborate dinner, Lecter scoops spoonfuls of Krendler's forebrain to saute with lemon and capers. In the novel, he feeds Krendler's brain to Starling, who finds it delicious.\n\nLecter's plan to brainwash Starling ultimately fails, as she refuses to have her own personality sublimated. She then opens her dress and offers her breasts to Lecter; he accepts her offer and the two become lovers. They disappear together, only to be sighted again three years later entering the Teatro Colón opera house in Buenos Aires by former orderly Barney Matthews, who had befriended and respected Lecter while he was incarcerated in Baltimore. Fearing for his life, Barney leaves Buenos Aires immediately, never to return.\n\nFilms\n\nIn the film adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs, Starling's role remains relatively unchanged from the book. However, the film adaptation of Hannibal significantly diverges from the novel's conclusion. In the film, Lecter neither attempts to brainwash Starling nor feeds her Krendler's brain (although he does feed portions of it to Krendler himself); instead, Starling tries to apprehend Lecter, but he overpowers her and she handcuffs both of them to the refrigerator in an attempt to keep him in the house before the imminent arrival of the police. Lecter then cuts off his own hand and escapes, leaving Starling to explain the situation to the police. He is later seen on a plane, apparently fleeing the country again.\n\nAlthough she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for playing Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, Jodie Foster decided not to reprise her role in Hannibal. Julianne Moore portrayed the character in the sequel, with Anthony Hopkins himself recommending her for the role after his previous experience working with her in the film Surviving Picasso.\n\nTelevision\n\nIn May 2012, Lifetime announced that they are developing a television series centered on Clarice Starling after her graduation from the FBI academy, titled Clarice, which will be produced by MGM. \n\nBryan Fuller, the creator of the TV series Hannibal, has stated that he planned for the show's fifth season to cover the events of The Silence of the Lambs, and the sixth to cover the events of Hannibal, with the seventh to be an original storyline resolving Hannibals ending, and had stated his desire to include Clarice Starling as a character, provided that he can get the rights from MGM. Since the series' cancellation, Fuller has stated that should the series continue, whether for a fourth season or feature film, and should they obtain rights to adapt The Silence of the Lambs, Ellen Page would be his ideal casting for Clarice Starling." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Silence of the lams", "The silence of the lambs", "Silence of the lambs", "Silence of the Lamb", "Silence Of The Lambs", "Silence of the Lambs", "The Silence Of The Lambs", "The Silence of the Lambs", "The Silence of the Lambs (disambiguation)" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "silence of lams", "silence of lambs", "silence of lamb", "silence of lambs disambiguation" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "silence of lambs", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "The Silence of the Lambs" }
Which Julie won an Oscar for Darling in 1965 and was Oscar nominated in 19987 for Afterglow?	tc_1153	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Afterglow_(film).txt" ], "title": [ "Afterglow (film)" ], "wiki_context": [ "Afterglow is a 1997 feature film starring Nick Nolte, Julie Christie, Lara Flynn Boyle and Jonny Lee Miller. Alan Rudolph directed and wrote the script for the film. It was produced by Robert Altman and filmed in Montreal.\n\nChristie's performance earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role \n\nPlot\n\nThe lives of two unhappily married couples intertwine. The marriage between Lucky Mann (Nick Nolte), a handyman and his beautiful wife Phyllis (Julie Christie), a low budget movie actress, has been in a poor state for years. The lowest point came when their teenage daughter overheard a particularly bitter argument between them and fled the house forever. Phyllis is depressed and spends much of her time watching her old films and mooning over her happy past. She and Lucky haven't touched each other in ages. \n\nMeanwhile, corporate executive Jeffrey Byron (Jonny Lee Miller) and his wife Marianne (Lara Flynn Boyle) are in a similar situation. Marianne desires children badly and needs is starved of affection by Jeffrey, who seems only to be in love with his job. One day they need routine repairs managed in their house and they find Lucky. Marianne is instantly attracted to him and they begin an affair. At the same time Jeffrey meets Phyllis and they too begin an affair. Their love stories crisscross for a time, but matters come to a head when all four accidentally meet in a Montreal hotel bar.\n\nCast\n\n* Nick Nolte as Lucky Mann\n* Julie Christie as Phyllis Mann\n* Lara Flynn Boyle as Marianne Byron\n* Jonny Lee Miller as Jeffrey Byron\n* Jay Underwood as Donald Duncan\n* Domini Blythe as Helene Pelletier\n* Yves Corbeil as Bernard Ornay\n* Alan Fawcett as Count Falco/Jack Dana\n\nCritical reception\n\nThe film received positive reviews from critics and holds a 74% approval rating on aggregate review site Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 6.8 out of 10, based on 31 collected reviews. \n\nAwards\n\nJulie Christie was nominated for Best Actress in a Lead Role in the 1997 Academy Awards for her role. She won best actress at the San Sebastian Film Festival. The cast won the jury award for best ensemble performance at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, and Nick Nolte won the best actor award at the same festival." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Christie", "Christie (disambiguation)" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "christie disambiguation", "christie" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "christie", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Christie" }
Who did Ali McGraw marry after they had made The Getaway together?	tc_1155	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Ali_MacGraw.txt" ], "title": [ "Ali MacGraw" ], "wiki_context": [ "Elizabeth Alice \"Ali\" MacGraw (born April 1, 1939) is an American actress, model, author, and animal rights activist.\n\nMacGraw first gained attention with her role in Goodbye, Columbus in 1969, for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer. She reached international fame in 1970's Love Story, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. In 1972, MacGraw was voted the top female box office star in the world and was honored with a hands and footprints ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theatre after having been in just three films. MacGraw went on to star in the crime film The Getaway (1972) and married co-star Steve McQueen. She later appeared in the action film Convoy (1978), and the 1983 television miniseries The Winds of War. In 1991, she published her autobiography, Moving Pictures.\n\nEarly life\n\nMacGraw was born in Pound Ridge, New York, the daughter of commercial artists Frances (née Klein; 1901–1980) and Richard MacGraw. She has one brother, Dick, an artist. Her father was of Scottish descent, while her maternal grandparents were Hungarian. Her mother was from a Jewish family, but did not disclose this to her father. MacGraw described her father as \"violent\". She attended Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut and Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts.\n\nCareer\n\nEarly career\n\nBeginning in 1960, MacGraw spent six years working at Harper's Bazaar magazine as a photographic assistant to fashion maven Diana Vreeland. She worked at Vogue magazine as a fashion model, and as a photographer's stylist. She has also worked as an interior decorator.\n\nFilm and television\n\nMacGraw started her acting career in television commercials, including one for the Polaroid Swinger camera. MacGraw gained critical notice in the 1969 film Goodbye, Columbus, but real stardom came in 1970 when she starred opposite Ryan O'Neal in Love Story, one of the highest grossing films in U.S. history. MacGraw was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for that performance. Following Love Story, MacGraw was celebrated on the cover of Time magazine.\n\nIn 1972, after appearing in just three films, she had her footprints and autograph engraved at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. She then starred opposite Steve McQueen in The Getaway (1972), which was one of the year's top ten films at the box office. Having taken a five-year break from acting, in 1978 MacGraw re-emerged in another box office hit, Convoy (1978), opposite Kris Kristofferson. She then appeared in the films Players (1979) and Just Tell Me What You Want (1980), directed by Sidney Lumet.\n\nIn 1983, MacGraw starred in the highly successful television miniseries The Winds of War. In 1984, MacGraw joined hit ABC prime-time soap opera Dynasty as Lady Ashley Mitchell, which, she admitted in a 2011 interview, she did for the money. She appeared in 14 episodes of the show before her character was killed off in the infamous \"Moldavian wedding massacre\" cliffhanger episode in 1985.\n\nStage\n\nMacGraw made her Broadway theatre debut in New York City in 2006 as a dysfunctional matriarch in the drama Festen (The Celebration). \n\nIn 2016, MacGraw reunited with Love Story co-star Ryan O'Neal in a staging of A.R. Gurney's play Love Letters. \n\nMagazine recognition\n\nIn 1991, People magazine selected MacGraw as one of its \"50 Most Beautiful People\" in the World. \n\nIn 2008 GQ magazine listed her in their \"Sexiest 25 Women in Film Ever\" edition. \n\nYoga\n\nHaving become a Hatha Yoga devotee in her early 50s, MacGraw produced a yoga video with the American Yoga Master Erich Schiffmann, Ali MacGraw Yoga Mind and Body. This video was a bestseller upon release and still popular more than a decade later. The video's impact was such that in June 2007 Vanity Fair magazine credited MacGraw with being one of the people responsible for the practice's recent popularity in the United States.\n\nAnimal welfare\n\nIn July 2006, MacGraw filmed a public service announcement for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), urging residents to take their pets with them in the event of wildfires. In 2008, she wrote the foreword to the book Pawprints of Katrina by author Cathy Scott and photography by Clay Myers about Best Friends Animal Society and the largest pet rescue in U.S. history. An animal rights advocate throughout her life, she received the Humane Education Award by Animal Protection of New Mexico for speaking out about animal issues. \n\nPersonal life\n\nMacGraw has acknowledged having had an abortion in her early 20s when the procedure was illegal. After college, she married Harvard beau Robin Hoen, a banker, but they divorced after a year and a half. \n\nOn October 24, 1969, MacGraw married film producer Robert Evans; their son, Josh Evans, is an actor, director, producer and screenwriter. They divorced in 1972 after she became involved with Steve McQueen on the set of The Getaway. She married McQueen on August 31, 1973, and divorced him in 1978.\n\nMacGraw's autobiography, Moving Pictures (which she describes as \"not well written\"), revealed her struggles with alcohol and sex addiction. She was treated for the former at the Betty Ford Center.\n\nWhen former husband Evans received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2002, she accompanied him. Their grandson Jackson was born in December 2010 to Josh and his wife, singer Roxy Saint. \n\nSince 1994 she has lived in Tesuque, New Mexico, after \"fleeing Malibu\" when a house she was renting burned down. \n\nFilmography\n\nFilms\n\nTelevision\n\n* Made two appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show, once in 1990, then in the farewell season in 2011." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Solar Productions", "Steve McQueen (actor)", "Steve McQueen", "Steve Mcqueen", "Steve mcqueen", "Steven McQueen", "McQueen (Steve)", "Terence Stephen McQueen", "Terence McQueen", "Solar productions", "Terence Steven McQueen" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "steve mcqueen actor", "steve mcqueen", "terence stephen mcqueen", "steven mcqueen", "mcqueen steve", "solar productions", "terence steven mcqueen", "terence mcqueen" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "steve mcqueen", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Steve McQueen" }
Whose voice did Marni Nixon dub in the classic My Fair Lady?	tc_1159	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Marni_Nixon.txt", "My_Fair_Lady.txt" ], "title": [ "Marni Nixon", "My Fair Lady" ], "wiki_context": [ "Margaret Nixon McEathron (February 22, 1930 – July 24, 2016), better known as Marni Nixon, was an American soprano and playback singer for featured actresses in movie musicals. She is best known for dubbing the singing voices of the leading actresses in films, including The King and I, West Side Story and My Fair Lady.Fox, Margalit. [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/arts/music/marni-nixon-singer-soprano-dies-86.html?_r\n0 \"Marni Nixon, the Singing Voice Behind the Screen, Dies at 86\"], The New York Times, July 25, 2016\n\nBesides her voice work in films, Nixon's varied career included some film roles of her own, television, opera, concerts with major symphony orchestras around the world, musicals on stage throughout the United States, and recordings.\n\nEarly life\n\nBorn in Altadena, California to Charles Nixon and Margaret Elsa (née Wittke) McEathron, Nixon was a child actress who also played the violinIvri, Benjamin. [http://forward.com/culture/346022/remembering-marni-nixon-the-greatest-ghost-singer \"Remembering Marni Nixon, the Greatest Ghost Singer\"], The Forward, July 26, 2016 and began singing at an early age in choruses, including performing solos with the Roger Wagner Chorale. She went on to study singing and opera with, among others, Carl Ebert, Boris Goldovsky, Vera Schwarz and Sarah Caldwell.Lunden, Jeff. [http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/25/466437387/ghost-soprano-marni-nixon-who-voiced-blockbuster-musicals-dies-at-86 \"'Ghost' Soprano Marni Nixon, Who Voiced Blockbuster Musicals, Dies at 86\"], NPR.org, July 25, 2016Savage, Mark. [http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36883629 \"Marni Nixon: Hollywood's 'invisible voice' dies aged 86\"], BBC News, July 25, 2016\n\nCareer\n\nEarly films and musicals\n\nNixon's career in film started in 1948 when she sang the voices of the angels heard by Ingrid Bergman in Joan of Arc (1948). The same year, she did her first dubbing work when she provided Margaret O'Brien's singing voice in 1948's Big City and then 1949's The Secret Garden. She also dubbed Marilyn Monroe's high notes in \"Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend\" in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). She appeared on Broadway in 1954 in The Girl in Pink Tights.[http://www.ibdb.com/person.php?id=76317 Marni Nixon], Internet Broadway Database, accessed July 26, 2016 \n\t \nIn 1956, she worked closely with Deborah Kerr to supply the star's singing voice for the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I and the next year she again worked with Kerr to dub her voice in An Affair to Remember. That year, she also sang for Sophia Loren in Boy on a Dolphin. In 1960, she had an on-screen chorus role in Can-Can.Ruhlmann, William. [http://www.mtv.com/artists/marni-nixon/biography/ \"About Marni Nixon\"], MTV, accessed November 24, 2014 In 1961's West Side Story, the studio kept her work on the film (as the singing voice of Natalie Wood's Maria) a secret from the actress,Lawson, Kyle. [http://www.azcentral.com/ent/arts/articles/2008/06/10/20080610fairlady.html \"6/17-22: Marni Nixon in My Fair Lady\"], AZCentral.com, June 10, 2008, accessed December 23, 2011 and Nixon also dubbed Rita Moreno's singing in the film's \"Tonight\" quintet. She asked the film's producers for, but did not receive, any direct royalties from her work on the film, but Leonard Bernstein contractually gave her 1/4 of one percent of his personal royalties from it. In 1962, she also sang Wood's high notes in Gypsy. For My Fair Lady in 1964, she again worked with the female lead of the film, Audrey Hepburn, to perform the songs of Hepburn's character Eliza. Because of her uncredited dubbing work in these films, Time magazine called her \"The Ghostess with the Mostest\". \n\nNixon made guest appearances with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic's Young People's Concerts, including in 1960, singing \"Improvisation sur Mallarmé I\" from Pli selon pli by Pierre Boulez, and on April 9, 1961, in a program entitled \"Folk Music in the Concert Hall\", singing three \"Songs of the Auvergne\" by Joseph Canteloube. Before My Fair Lady was released in theatres in 1964, Nixon played Eliza in a production at New York City Center. Nixon's first onscreen appearance was as Sister Sophia in the 1965 film The Sound of Music. In the DVD commentary to the film, director Robert Wise comments that audiences were finally able to see the woman whose voice they knew so well. In 1967, she was the singing voice of Princess Serena in a live action and animated version of Jack and the Beanstalk on NBC. Also in the 1960s, Nixon made concert appearances.[http://www.filmreference.com/film/69/Marni-Nixon.html \"Marni Nixon Biography (1930–)\"], Film Reference.com, accessed November 24, 2014\n\nLater work\n\nNixon taught at the California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita from 1969 to 1971 and joined the faculty of the Music Academy of the West, Santa Barbara, in 1980, where she taught for many years.Bernheimer: \"Marni Nixon\", Grove Music Online In the late 1970s and early 1980s, she hosted a children's television show in Seattle on KOMO-TV channel 4 called Boomerang, winning four Emmy Awards as best actress, and made numerous other television appearances on variety shows and as a guest star in prime time series. Nixon's opera repertory included Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, both Blonde and Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Violetta in La traviata, the title role in La Périchole and Philine in Mignon. Her opera credits included performances at Los Angeles Opera, Seattle Opera,Bargreen, Melonda. [http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/entertainment/2003339356_marni03.html \"From shadows to spotlight: Acclaimed soprano Marni Nixon, 76, writes her memoir\"], The Seattle Times, November 3, 2006, accessed December 23, 2011 San Francisco Opera and the Tanglewood Festival among others. In addition to giving recitals, she appeared as an oratorio and concert soloist with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra among others.[http://singersymposium.com/index.php?optioncom_content&task\nview&id16&Itemid\n31 \"The Singer Symposium 2008 Distinguished Artist Award\"], Singer Symposium, October 25, 2008, accessed February 20, 2013\n\nNixon also toured with Liberace and Victor Borge and in her own cabaret shows. On stage, in 1984, she originated the role of Edna Off-Broadway in Taking My Turn, composed by Gary William Friedman, receiving a nomination for a Drama Desk Award. She also originated the role of Sadie McKibben in Opal (1992), and she had a 1997 film role as Aunt Alice in I Think I Do. Under her own name, beginning in the 1980s, Nixon recorded songs by Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Arnold Schönberg, Charles Ives, Aaron Copland and Anton Webern. She was nominated for two Grammy Awards for Best Classical Performance, Vocal Soloist, one for her Schönberg album and one for her Copland album.\n\nIn the 1998 Disney film Mulan, Nixon was the singing voice of \"Grandmother Fa\". She then returned to the stage, touring the US as Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret in 1997–1998. In 1999, she originated the role of Mrs. Wilson in the premiere of Ballymore, an opera by Richard Wargo at Skylight Opera Theatre in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which was taped for PBS.Jones, Kenneth. [http://www.playbill.com/news/article/43321-Marni-Nixon-Warms-Up-in-Milwaukee-for-Friel-Based-Opera-Ballymore-Jan-29-Feb-14 \"Marni Nixon Warms Up in Milwaukee for Friel-Based Opera Ballymore, Jan. 29 – Feb 14\"], Playbill, January 29, 1999, accessed February 20, 2013 In regional theatre and Off-Broadway, she played Nurse in Romeo and Juliet and appeared in productions of The King and I and The Sound of Music. She also continued to teach voice and judge vocal competitions.\n\nIn 2000, after nearly a half century away, she returned to Broadway as Aunt Kate in James Joyce's The Dead. In 2001, Nixon replaced Joan Roberts as Heidi Schiller in the Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's Follies. She played Eunice Miller in 70, Girls, 70 in a 2002 production in Los Angeles. In 2003, she was again on Broadway as a replacement in role of Guido's mother in the revival of Nine. Her autobiography, I Could Have Sung All Night, was published in 2006. She performed in the 2008 North American Tour of Cameron Mackintosh's UK revival of My Fair Lady in the role of Mrs. Higgins. \n\nHonors \n\nOn October 27, 2008, Nixon was presented with the Singer Symposium's Distinguished Artist Award in New York City. She was also an honorary member of Sigma Alpha Iota International Women's Music Fraternity. \n\nPersonal life \n\nIn 1950, Nixon married the first of her three husbands, Ernest Gold, who composed the theme song to the movie Exodus. They had three children, including singer/songwriter Andrew Gold. They divorced in 1969. She was married to Dr. Lajos \"Fritz\" Fenster from 1971 to 1975, and to woodwind player Albert Block from 1983 to his death in 2015. \n\nNixon died on July 24, 2016, in New York, from the effects of breast cancer, aged 86.", "My Fair Lady is a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a phoneticist, so that she may pass as a lady. The original Broadway, London and film versions all starred Rex Harrison.\n\nThe musical's 1956 Broadway production was a momentous hit, setting a record for the longest run of any major musical theatre production in history. It was followed by a hit London production, a popular film version, and numerous revivals. It has been called \"the perfect musical\". \n\nSynopsis\n\n;Act I\nOn a rainy night in Edwardian London, opera patrons are waiting under the arches of Covent Garden for cabs. Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl, runs into a young man called Freddy. She admonishes him for spilling her bunches of violets in the mud, but she cheers up after selling one to an older gentleman. She then flies into an angry outburst when a man copying down her speech is pointed out to her. The man explains that he studies phonetics and can identify anyone's origin by their accent. He laments Eliza's dreadful speech, asking why so many English people don't speak properly and explaining his theory that this is what truly separates social classes, rather than looks or money (\"Why Can't the English?\"). He declares that in six months he could turn Eliza into a lady by teaching her to speak properly. The older gentleman introduces himself as Colonel Pickering, a linguist who has studied Indian dialects. The phoneticist introduces himself as Henry Higgins, and, as they both have always wanted to meet each other, Higgins invites Pickering to stay at his home in London. He distractedly throws his change into Eliza's basket, and she and her friends wonder what it would be like to live a comfortable, proper life (\"Wouldn't It Be Loverly?\").\n\nEliza's father, Alfred P. Doolittle, and his drinking companions, Harry and Jamie, all dustmen, stop by the next morning. He is searching for money for a drink, and Eliza shares her profits with him (\"With a Little Bit of Luck\"). Pickering and Higgins are discussing vowels at Higgins's home when Mrs. Pearce, the housekeeper, informs Higgins that a young woman with a ghastly accent has come to see him. It is Eliza, who has come to take speech lessons so she can get a job as an assistant in a florist's shop. Pickering wagers that Higgins cannot make good on his claim and volunteers to pay for Eliza's lessons. An intensive makeover of Eliza's speech, manners and dress begins in preparation for her appearance at the Embassy Ball. Higgins sees himself as a kindhearted, patient man who cannot get along with women (\"I'm an Ordinary Man\"). To others he appears self-absorbed and misogynistic.\n\nAlfred Doolittle is informed that his daughter has been taken in by Professor Higgins, and considers that he might be able to make a little money from the situation (\"With a Little Bit of Luck\" [Reprise]).\n\nDoolittle arrives at Higgins's house the next morning, claiming that Higgins is compromising Eliza's virtue. Higgins is impressed by the man's natural gift for language and brazen lack of moral values. He and Doolittle agree that Eliza can continue to take lessons and live at Higgins's house if Higgins gives Doolittle five pounds for a spree. Higgins flippantly recommends Doolittle to an American millionaire who has written to Higgins seeking a lecturer on moral values. Meanwhile, Eliza endures speech tutoring, endlessly repeating phrases like \"In Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen” (initially, the only \"h\" she aspirates is in \"hever\") and \"The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain\" (to practice the \"long a\" phoneme). Frustrated, she dreams of different ways to kill Higgins, from sickness to drowning to a firing squad (\"Just You Wait\"). The servants lament the hard \"work\" Higgins does (\"The Servants' Chorus\"). Just as they give up, Eliza suddenly recites \"The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain\" in perfect upper-class style. Higgins, Eliza, and Pickering happily dance around Higgins's study (\"The Rain in Spain\"). Thereafter she speaks with impeccable received pronunciation. Mrs. Pearce, the housekeeper, insists that Eliza go to bed; she declares she is too excited to sleep (\"I Could Have Danced All Night\").\n\nFor her first public tryout, Higgins takes Eliza to his mother's box at Ascot Racecourse (\"Ascot Gavotte\"). Henry's mother reluctantly agrees to help Eliza make conversation, following Henry's advice that Eliza should stick to two subjects: the weather and everybody's health. Eliza makes a good impression at first with her polite manners but later shocks everyone with her vulgar Cockney attitudes and slang. She does, however, capture the heart of Freddy Eynsford-Hill, the young man she ran into in the opening scene. Freddy calls on Eliza that evening, but she refuses to see him. He declares that he will wait for her as long as necessary in the street outside Higgins's house (\"On the Street Where You Live\").\n\nEliza's final test requires her to pass as a lady at the Embassy Ball, and after weeks of preparation, she is ready. All the ladies and gentlemen at the ball admire her, and the Queen of Transylvania invites her to dance with her son, the prince (\"Embassy Waltz\"). Eliza then dances with Higgins. A rival and former student of Higgins, a Hungarian phonetician named Zoltan Karpathy, is employed by the hostess to discover Eliza's origins through her speech. Though Pickering and his mother caution him not to, Higgins allows Karpathy to dance with Eliza.\n\n;Act II\nThe event is revealed to have been a success, with Zoltan Karpathy having concluded that Eliza is \"not only Hungarian, but of royal blood. She is a princess!\" After the ball, Pickering flatters Higgins on his triumph, and Higgins expresses his pleasure that the experiment is now over (\"You Did It\"). The episode leaves Eliza feeling used and abandoned. Higgins completely ignores Eliza until he mislays his slippers. He asks her where they are, and she lashes out at him, leaving the clueless professor mystified by her ingratitude. When Eliza decides to leave Higgins, he insults her in frustration and storms off. Eliza cries as she prepares to leave (\"Just You Wait\" [Reprise]). She finds Freddy still waiting outside (\"On the Street Where You Live\" [Reprise]). He begins to tell her how much he loves her, but she cuts him off, telling him that she has heard enough words; if he really loves her, he should show it (\"Show Me\"). She and Freddy return to Covent Garden, where her friends do not recognize her with her newly refined bearing (\"The Flower Market/Wouldn't It Be Loverly?\" [Reprise]). By chance, her father is there as well, dressed in a fine suit. He explains that he received a surprise bequest of four thousand pounds a year from the American millionaire, which has raised him to middle-class respectability, and now must marry Eliza's \"stepmother\", the woman he has been living with for many years. Eliza sees that she no longer belongs in Covent Garden, and she and Freddy depart. Doolittle and his friends have one last spree before the wedding (\"Get Me to the Church on Time\").\n\nHiggins awakens the next morning to find that, without Eliza, he has tea instead of coffee, and cannot find his own files. He wonders why she left after the triumph at the ball and concludes that men (especially himself) are far superior to women (\"A Hymn to Him\"). Pickering, becoming annoyed with Higgins, leaves to stay with his friend at the Home Office. Higgins seeks his mother's advice and finds Eliza having tea with her. Higgins's mother leaves Higgins and Eliza together. Eliza explains that Higgins has always treated her as a flower girl, but she learned to be a lady because Pickering treated her as one. Higgins claims he treated her the same way that Pickering did because both Higgins and Pickering treat all women alike. Eliza accuses him of wanting her only to fetch and carry for him, saying that she will marry Freddy because he loves her. She declares she no longer needs Higgins, saying she was foolish to think she did (\"Without You\"). Higgins is struck by Eliza's spirit and independence and wants her to stay with him, but she tells him that he will not see her again.\n\nAs Higgins walks home, he realizes he's grown attached to Eliza (\"I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face\"). He cannot bring himself to confess that he loves her, and insists to himself that if she marries Freddy and then comes back to him, he will not accept her. But he finds it difficult to imagine being alone again. He reviews the recording he made of the morning Eliza first came to him for lessons. He hears his own harsh words: \"She's so deliciously low! So horribly dirty!\" Then the phonograph turns off, and a real voice speaks in a Cockney accent: \"I washed me face an' 'ands before I come, I did\". It is Eliza, standing in the doorway, tentatively returning to him. The musical ends on an ambiguous moment of possible reconciliation between teacher and pupil, as Higgins slouches and asks, \"Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?\"\n\nCharacters and original Broadway cast\n\nThe original cast of the Broadway stage production:[http://guidetomusicaltheatre.com/shows_m/my_fair_lady.htm \"'My Fair Lady' Synopsis, Cast, Scenes and Settings and Musical Numbers\"] guidetomusicaltheatre.com, accessed December 7, 2011\n\n* Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics – Rex Harrison\n* Eliza Doolittle, a young Cockney flowerseller – Julie Andrews \n* Alfred P. Doolittle, Eliza's father, a dustman – Stanley Holloway\n* Mrs. Higgins, Higgins's socialite mother – Cathleen Nesbitt\n* Colonel Hugh Pickering, Higgins's friend and fellow phoneticist – Robert Coote\n* Freddy Eynsford-Hill, a young aristocrat and Eliza's suitor – John Michael King\n* Mrs. Pearce, Higgins's housekeeper – Philippa Bevans\n* Mrs. Eynsford-Hill, Freddy's mother – Viola Roache\n* Zoltan Karpathy, Higgins's former student and rival – Christopher Hewett\n\nMusical numbers\n\nAct I\n* Overture – The Orchestra\n* Busker Sequence – The Orchestra\n* Why Can't the English? – Professor Higgins\n* Wouldn't It Be Loverly? – Eliza and Male Quartet\n* With a Little Bit of Luck – Alfred Doolittle, Harry, and Jamie\n* I'm an Ordinary Man – Professor Higgins\n* With a Little Bit of Luck (Reprise) – Alfred Doolittle and Ensemble\n* Just You Wait – Eliza\n* The Servants' Chorus (Poor Professor Higgins) – Mrs. Pearce and Servants\n* The Rain in Spain – Professor Higgins, Eliza, and Colonel Pickering\n* I Could Have Danced All Night – Eliza, Mrs. Pearce, and Servants\n* Ascot Gavotte – Ensemble\n* On the Street Where You Live – Freddy\n* Eliza's Entrance/Embassy Waltz – The Orchestra\n\nAct II\n* You Did It – Colonel Pickering, Professor Higgins, Mrs. Pearce, and Servants\n* Just You Wait (Reprise) – Eliza\n* On the Street Where You Live (Reprise) – Freddy\n* Show Me – Eliza and Freddy\n* The Flower Market/Wouldn't It Be Loverly? (Reprise) – Eliza and Male Quartet\n* Get Me to the Church on Time – Alfred Doolittle and Ensemble\n* A Hymn to Him – Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering\n* Without You – Eliza and Professor Higgins\n* I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face – Professor Higgins\n* I Could Have Danced All Night (Reprise) / Finale – The Orchestra\n\nBackground\n\nIn the mid-1930s, film producer Gabriel Pascal acquired the rights to produce film versions of several of George Bernard Shaw's plays, Pygmalion among them. However, Shaw, having had a bad experience with The Chocolate Soldier, a Viennese operetta based on his play Arms and the Man, refused permission for Pygmalion to be adapted into a musical. After Shaw died in 1950, Pascal asked lyricist Alan Jay Lerner to write the musical adaptation. Lerner agreed, and he and his partner Frederick Loewe began work. They quickly realized, however, that the play violated several key rules for constructing a musical: the main story was not a love story, there was no subplot or secondary love story, and there was no place for an ensemble. Many people, including Oscar Hammerstein II, who, with Richard Rodgers, had also tried his hand at adapting Pygmalion into a musical and had given up, told Lerner that converting the play to a musical was impossible, so he and Loewe abandoned the project for two years. \n\nDuring this time, the collaborators separated and Gabriel Pascal died. Lerner had been trying to musicalize Li'l Abner when he read Pascal's obituary and found himself thinking about Pygmalion again. When he and Loewe reunited, everything fell into place. All the insurmountable obstacles that stood in their way two years earlier disappeared when the team realized that the play needed few changes apart from (according to Lerner) \"adding the action that took place between the acts of the play\". They then excitedly began writing the show. However, Chase Manhattan Bank was in charge of Pascal's estate, and the musical rights to Pygmalion were sought both by Lerner and Loewe and by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, whose executives called Lerner to discourage him from challenging the studio. Loewe said, \"We will write the show without the rights, and when the time comes for them to decide who is to get them, we will be so far ahead of everyone else that they will be forced to give them to us\". For five months Lerner and Loewe wrote, hired technical designers, and made casting decisions. The bank, in the end, granted them the musical rights.\n\nLerner settled on the title My Fair Lady, relating both to one of Shaw's provisional titles for Pygmalion, Fair Eliza, and to the final line of every verse of the nursery rhyme \"London Bridge Is Falling Down\". Recalling that the Gershwins' 1925 musical Tell Me More had been titled My Fair Lady in its out-of-town tryout, and also had a musical number under that title, Lerner made a courtesy call to Ira Gershwin, alerting him to the use of the title for the Lerner and Loewe musical.\n\nNoël Coward was the first to be offered the role of Henry Higgins, but turned it down, suggesting the producers cast Rex Harrison instead. After much deliberation, Harrison agreed to accept the part. Mary Martin was an early choice for the role of Eliza Doolittle, but declined the role. Young actress Julie Andrews was \"discovered\" and cast as Eliza after the show's creative team went to see her Broadway debut in The Boy Friend. Moss Hart agreed to direct after hearing only two songs. The experienced orchestrators Robert Russell Bennett and Philip J. Lang were entrusted with the arrangements and the show quickly went into rehearsal.\n\nThe musical's script used several scenes that Shaw had written especially for the 1938 film version of Pygmalion, including the Embassy Ball sequence and the final scene of the 1938 film rather than the ending for Shaw's original play. The montage showing Eliza's lessons was also expanded, combining both Lerner and Shaw's dialogue. The artwork on the original Playbill (and sleeve of the cast recording) is by Al Hirschfeld, who drew the playwright Shaw as a heavenly puppetmaster pulling the strings on the Henry Higgins character, while Higgins in turn attempts to control Eliza Doolittle.\n\nProductions\n\nOriginal Broadway production\n\nThe musical had its pre-Broadway tryout at New Haven's Shubert Theatre. On opening night Rex Harrison, who was unaccustomed to singing in front of a live orchestra, \"announced that under no circumstances would he go on that night...with those thirty-two interlopers in the pit\". He locked himself in his dressing room and came out little more than an hour before curtain time. The whole company had been dismissed but were recalled, and opening night was a success. In 1973, on an episode of her Emmy Award-winning ABC-TV variety series, Julie Andrews recalled that during the New Haven tryout, one of the songs written for the show, \"Say A Prayer For Me Tonight\" was dropped and then used two years later for the 1958 MGM musical Gigi. My Fair Lady then played for four weeks at the Erlanger Theatre in Philadelphia, beginning on February 15, 1956.\n\nThe musical premiered on Broadway March 15, 1956, at the Mark Hellinger Theatre in New York City. It transferred to the Broadhurst Theatre and then The Broadway Theatre, where it closed on September 29, 1962 after 2,717 performances, a record at the time. Moss Hart directed and Hanya Holm was choreographer. In addition to stars Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews and Stanley Holloway, the original cast included Robert Coote, Cathleen Nesbitt, John Michael King, and Reid Shelton.Suskin, Steven. [https://books.google.com/books?id\nZ_usBBxC_TQC&pgPA224&lpg\nPA224&dq%22Ian+Richardson%22+%22My+Fair+Lady%22+%22St.+James+Theatre%22&source\nbl&ots7AgxpKYYiq&sig\n7WjWAX8uMsll8kDm0R5N0cPuXoI&hlen#v\nonepage&q%22Ian%20Richardson%22%20%22My%20Fair%20Lady%22%20%22St.%20James%20Theatre%22&f\nfalse \"'My Fair Lady', 1956, 1976, and 1981\"]Show tunes: the songs, shows, and careers of Broadway's major composers (2010, 4ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-531407-7, p. 224 Edward Mulhare and Sally Ann Howes replaced Harrison and Andrews later in the run. The Original Cast Recording went on to become the best-selling album in the country in 1956. The original costumes were designed by Cecil Beaton and are on display at the Costume World Broadway Collection in Pompano Beach, Florida, along with many of the original patterns.\n\nOriginal London production\n\nThe West End production, in which Harrison, Andrews, Coote, and Holloway reprised their roles, opened April 30, 1958, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where it ran for five and a half years (2,281 performances). Stage star Zena Dare made her last appearance in the musical as Mrs. Higgins. Leonard Weir played Freddy.\n\n1970s revivals\n\nThe first revival opened at the St. James Theatre on Broadway on March 25, 1976 and ran there until December 5, 1976; it then transferred to the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, running from December 9, 1976 until it closed on February 20, 1977, after a total of 377 performances and 7 previews. The director was Jerry Adler, with choreography by Crandall Diehl, based on the original choreography by Hanya Holm. Ian Richardson starred as Higgins, with Christine Andreas as Eliza, George Rose as Alfred P. Doolittle and Robert Coote recreating his role as Pickering. Both Richardson and Rose were nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, with the award going to Rose.\n\nA London revival opened at the Adelphi Theatre in October 1979, with Tony Britton as Higgins, Liz Robertson as Eliza, Dame Anna Neagle as Higgins' mother, Peter Bayliss, Richard Caldicot and Peter Land. The revival was produced by Cameron Mackintosh and directed by the author, Alan Jay Lerner. A national tour was directed by Robin Midgley. Gillian Lynne choreographed. Britton and Robertson were both nominated for Olivier Awards. \n\n1981 and 1993 Broadway revivals\n\nAnother Broadway revival of the original production opened at the Uris Theatre on August 18, 1981 and closed on November 29, 1981 after 120 performances and 4 previews. Rex Harrison recreated his role as Higgins, with Jack Gwillim, Milo O'Shea, and Cathleen Nesbitt, at 93 years old reprising her role as Mrs. Higgins. The revival co-starred Nancy Ringham as Eliza. The director was Patrick Garland, with choreography by Crandall Diehl, recreating the original Hanya Holm dances. \n\nA new revival directed by Howard Davies opened at the Virginia Theatre on December 9, 1993 and closed on May 1, 1994 after 165 performances and 16 previews. The cast starred Richard Chamberlain, Melissa Errico and Paxton Whitehead. Julian Holloway, son of Stanley Holloway, recreated his father's role of Alfred P. Doolittle. Donald Saddler was the choreographer. \n\n2001 London revival; 2003 Hollywood Bowl production\n\nCameron Mackintosh produced a new production on March 15, 2001 at the Royal National Theatre, which transferred to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on July 21. Directed by Trevor Nunn, with choreography by Matthew Bourne, the musical starred Martine McCutcheon as Eliza and Jonathan Pryce as Higgins, with Dennis Waterman as Alfred P. Doolittle. This revival won three Olivier Awards: Outstanding Musical Production, Best Actress in a Musical (Martine McCutcheon) and Best Theatre Choreographer (Matthew Bourne), with Anthony Ward receiving a nomination for Set Design. In December 2001 Joanna Riding took over the role of Eliza and in May 2002 Alex Jennings took over as Higgins, both winning Olivier Awards for Best Actor and Best Actress in a Musical respectively in 2003. In March 2003, Anthony Andrews and Laura Michelle Kelly took over the roles until the show closed on August 30, 2003. \n\nA UK tour of this production began September 28, 2005. The production starred Amy Nuttall and Lisa O'Hare as Eliza, Christopher Cazenove as Henry Higgins, Russ Abbot and Gareth Hale as Alfred Doolittle, and Honor Blackman and Hannah Gordon as Mrs. Higgins. The tour ended August 12, 2006. \n\nIn 2003 a production of the musical at the Hollywood Bowl starred John Lithgow as Henry Higgins, Melissa Errico as Eliza Doolittle, Roger Daltrey as Alfred P. Doolittle and Paxton Whitehead as Colonel Pickering. \n\nOther major productions\n\n;2007 New York Philharmonic concert and US tour\nIn 2007 the New York Philharmonic held a full-costume concert presentation of the musical. The concert had a four-day engagement lasting from March 7–10 at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. It starred Kelsey Grammer as Higgins, Kelli O'Hara as Eliza, Charles Kimbrough as Pickering, and Brian Dennehy as Alfred Doolittle. Marni Nixon played Mrs. Higgins; Nixon had provided the singing voice of Audrey Hepburn in the film version. \n\nA U.S. tour of Mackintosh's 2001 West End production ran from September 12, 2007 to June 22, 2008. The production starred Christopher Cazenove as Higgins Lisa O'Hare as Eliza, Walter Charles as Pickering, Tim Jerome as Alfred Doolittle and Nixon as Mrs. Higgins, replacing Sally Ann Howes. \n\n;2008 Australian tour\nAn Australian tour produced by Opera Australia commenced in May 2008. The production starred Reg Livermore as Higgins, Taryn Fiebig as Eliza, Robert Grubb as Alfred Doolittle and Judi Connelli as Mrs Pearce. John Wood took the role of Alfred Doolittle in Queensland, and Richard E. Grant played the role of Henry Higgins at the Theatre Royal, Sydney.\n\n;2010 Paris revival\nA new production was staged by Robert Carsen at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris for a limited 27-performance run, opening December 9, 2010 and closing January 2, 2011. It was presented in English. The costumes were designed by Anthony Powell and the choreography was by Lynne Page. The cast was as follows: Sarah Gabriel / Christine Arand (Eliza Doolittle), Alex Jennings (Henry Higgins), Margaret Tyzack (Mrs. Higgins), Nicholas Le Prevost (Colonel Pickering), Donald Maxwell (Alfred Doolittle), and Jenny Galloway (Mrs. Pearce). \n\n;2012 Sheffield production\nA new production of My Fair Lady opened at Sheffield Crucible on December 13, 2012. Dominic West played Henry Higgins, and Carly Bawden played Eliza Doolittle. Sheffield Theatres' Artistic Director Daniel Evans was the director. The production ran until January 26, 2013. \n\n;2016 Australian production\nThe Gordon Frost Organisation, together with Opera Australia, will present a production at the Sydney Opera House in August 2016. The production will be a remounting of the original 1956 production with designs by Oliver Smith and Cecil Beaton, and directed by Dame Julie Andrews. \n\nCritical reception\n\nAccording to Geoffrey Block, \"Opening night critics immediately recognized that 'My Fair Lady' fully measured up to the Rodgers and Hammerstein model of an integrated musical...Robert Coleman...wrote 'The Lerner-Loewe songs are not only delightful, they advance the action as well. They are ever so much more than interpolations, or interruptions.'\" The musical opened to \"unanimously glowing reviews, one of which said 'Don't bother reading this review now. You'd better sit right down and send for those tickets...' Critics praised the thoughtful use of Shaw's original play, the brilliance of the lyrics, and Loewe's well-integrated score.\" \n\nA sampling of praise from critics, excerpted from a book form of the musical, published in 1956. \n* \"My Fair Lady is wise, witty, and winning. In short, a miraculous musical.\" Walter Kerr, New York Herald Tribune.\n* \"A felicitous blend of intellect, wit, rhythm and high spirits. A masterpiece of musical comedy ... a terrific show.\" Robert Coleman, New York Daily Mirror.\n* \"Fine, handsome, melodious, witty and beautifully acted ... an exceptional show.\" George Jean Nathan, New York Journal American.\n* \"Everything about My Fair Lady is distinctive and distinguished.\" John Chapman, New York Daily News.\n* \"Wonderfully entertaining and extraordinarily welcomed ... meritorious in every department.\" Wolcott Gibbs, The New Yorker.\n* \"One of the 'loverliest' shows imaginable ... a work of theatre magic.\" John Beaufort, The Christian Science Monitor.\n* \"An irresistible hit.\" Variety.\n* \"One of the best musicals of the century.\" Brooks Atkinson, The New York Times.\n\nThe reception from Shavians was more mixed, however. Eric Bentley, for instance, called it \"a terrible treatment of Mr. Shaw's play, [undermining] the basic idea [of the play]\", even though he acknowledged it as \"a delightful show\". \n\nAwards and nominations\n\nOriginal Broadway production\n\nSources: BroadwayWorld TheatreWorldAwards \n \n\n1976 Broadway revival\n\nSources: BroadwayWorld Drama Desk \n\n1979 London revival\n\nSource: Olivier Awards \n\n1981 Broadway revival\n\nSource: BroadwayWorld \n\n1993 Broadway revival\n\nSource: Drama Desk \n\n2001 London revival\n\nSource: Olivier Awards \n\nAdaptations\n\n1964 film\n\nAn Oscar-winning film version was made in 1964, directed by George Cukor and with Harrison again in the part of Higgins. The casting of Audrey Hepburn instead of Julie Andrews as Eliza was controversial, partly because theatregoers regarded Andrews as perfect for the part and partly because Hepburn's singing voice had to be dubbed (by Marni Nixon). Jack L. Warner, the head of Warner Bros., which produced the film, wanted \"a star with a great deal of name recognition\", but since Julie Andrews did not have any film experience, he thought a movie with her would not be as successful. (Andrews went on to star in Mary Poppins that same year and won the Golden Globe for Best Actress over Audrey Hepburn, and the Academy Award for Best Actress; Mary Poppins became Disney's most successful live-action film, until Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was released in 2003.) Lerner in particular disliked the film version of the musical, thinking it did not live up to the standards of Moss Hart's original direction. He was also unhappy with Hepburn's replacement of Andrews in the role of Eliza Doolittle and that the film was shot in its entirety on the Warner Brothers backlot rather than, as he would have preferred, in London. My Fair Lady eventually won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture of the Year, Best Actor for Rex Harrison, and Best Director for George Cukor— the lone Oscar win in his fifty-year film career.\n\nPlanned film\n\nA new film adaptation was announced by Columbia Pictures in 2008, but as of May 5, 2014, the project had been shelved. The intention was to shoot on location in Covent Garden, Drury Lane, Tottenham Court Road, Wimpole Street and the Ascot Racecourse.[http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117986985.html?categoryid\n13&cs=1 Variety, June 5, 2008] In December 2009, it was announced that John Madden had been signed to direct it and in 2011 it was reported that Colin Firth and Carey Mulligan were possible choices for the leading roles. Emma Thompson wrote a new screenplay adaptation for the project." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Audrey Hepburn Filmography", "Audrey Hepburn", "Hepburn, Audrey", "Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston", "Edda Kathleen Ruston", "Audrey hepburn" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "joseph victor anthony ruston", "edda kathleen ruston", "audrey hepburn filmography", "audrey hepburn", "hepburn audrey" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "audrey hepburn", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Audrey Hepburn" }
Which 1997 movie equaled Ben Hur's record 11 Oscars?	tc_1161	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Ben-Hur_(1959_film).txt", "Academy_Awards.txt" ], "title": [ "Ben-Hur (1959 film)", "Academy Awards" ], "wiki_context": [ "Ben-Hur is a 1959 American epic historical drama film, directed by William Wyler, produced by Sam Zimbalist for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and starring Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins, Hugh Griffith and Haya Harareet. A remake of the 1925 silent film with the same name, Ben-Hur was adapted from Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. The screenplay is credited to Karl Tunberg but includes contributions from Maxwell Anderson, S. N. Behrman, Gore Vidal, and Christopher Fry.\n\nBen-Hur had the largest budget ($15.175 million) as well as the largest sets built of any film produced at the time. Costume designer Elizabeth Haffenden oversaw a staff of 100 wardrobe fabricators to make the costumes, and a workshop employing 200 artists and workmen provided the hundreds of friezes and statues needed in the film. Filming commenced on May 18, 1958 and wrapped on January 7, 1959, with shooting lasting for 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week. Pre-production began at Cinecittà around October 1957, and post-production took six months. Under cinematographer Robert L. Surtees, MGM executives made the decision to film the picture in a widescreen format, which Wyler strongly disliked. More than 200 camels and 2,500 horses were used in the shooting of the film, with some 10,000 extras. The sea battle was filmed using miniatures in a huge tank on the back lot at the MGM Studios in Culver City, California. The nine-minute chariot race has become one of cinema's most famous sequences, and the film score, composed and conducted by Miklós Rózsa, is the longest ever composed for a film and was highly influential on cinema for more than 15 years.\n\nFollowing a $14.7 million marketing effort, Ben-Hur premiered at Loew's State Theatre in New York City on November 18, 1959. It was the fastest-grossing as well as the highest-grossing film of 1959, in the process becoming the second-highest-grossing film in history at the time after Gone with the Wind. It won a record 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Wyler), Best Actor in a Leading Role (Heston), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Griffith), and Best Cinematography – Color (Surtees), an accomplishment that was not equaled until Titanic in 1997 and then again by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2003. Ben-Hur also won three Golden Globe Awards, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for Stephen Boyd. Today, Ben-Hur is widely considered to be one of the greatest films ever made, and in 1998 the American Film Institute ranked it the 72nd best American film and the 2nd best American epic film in the AFI's 10 Top 10. In 2004, the National Film Preservation Board selected Ben-Hur for preservation by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for being a \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\" motion picture.\n\nPlot\n\nIn AD 26, Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) is a wealthy prince and merchant in Jerusalem, who lives with his mother, Miriam (Martha Scott); his sister, Tirzah (Cathy O'Donnell); their loyal slave, Simonides (Sam Jaffe) and his daughter, Esther (Haya Harareet). Esther loves Judah but is betrothed to another. Judah's childhood friend, the Roman citizen Messala (Stephen Boyd), is now a tribune. After several years away from Jerusalem, Messala returns as the new commander of the Roman garrison. Messala believes in the glory of Rome and its imperial power, while Judah is devoted to his faith and the freedom of the Jewish people. This difference causes tension between the friends, and results in their split after Messala issues an ultimatum to Judah.\n\nDuring the parade for the new governor of Judea, Valerius Gratus, loose tiles fall from the roof of Judah's house. Gratus is thrown from his spooked horse and nearly killed. Although Messala knows this was an accident, he condemns Judah to the galleys and imprisons Miriam and Tirzah. By punishing a known friend and prominent citizen, he hopes to intimidate the Jewish populace. Judah swears to take revenge.\n\nAfter three years as a galley slave, Judah is assigned to the flagship of the Roman Consul Quintus Arrius (Jack Hawkins), who has been charged with destroying a fleet of Macedonian pirates. Arrius admires Judah's determination and self-discipline and offers to train him as a gladiator or charioteer. Judah declines the offer, declaring that God will aid him in his quest for vengeance. When the Roman fleet encounters the Macedonians, Arrius orders all the rowers except Judah to be chained to their oars. Arrius' galley is rammed and sunk, but Judah unchains the other rowers, and rescues Arrius. In despair, Arrius wrongly believes the battle ended in defeat and attempts to atone in the Roman way by \"falling on his sword\", but Judah stops him. They are rescued, and Arrius is credited with the Roman fleet's victory.\n\nArrius successfully petitions Emperor Tiberius (George Relph) to free Judah, and adopts him as his son. Another year passes. Wealthy again, Judah learns Roman ways and becomes a champion charioteer, but still longs for his family and homeland.\n\nJudah returns to Judea. Along the way, he meets Balthasar (Finlay Currie) and an Arab, Sheik Ilderim (Hugh Griffith). The sheik has heard of Judah's prowess as a charioteer, and asks him to drive his quadriga in a race before the new Judean governor Pontius Pilate (Frank Thring). Judah declines, even after he learns that Messala will also compete.\n\nJudah returns to his home in Jerusalem. He meets Esther, and learns her arranged marriage did not occur and that she is still in love with him. He visits Messala and demands his mother and sister's freedom. The Romans discover that Miriam and Tirzah contracted leprosy in prison, and expel them from the city. The women beg Esther to conceal their condition from Judah so that he may remember them as they were before, so she tells him that they died. It is then that he changes his mind and decides to seek vengeance on Messala by competing against him in the chariot race.\n\nDuring the chariot race, Messala drives a Greek chariot with blades on the hubs to tear apart competing vehicles; he attempts to destroy Judah's chariot but destroys his own instead. Messala is fatally injured, while Judah wins the race. Before dying, Messala tells Judah that \"the race is not over\" and that he can find his family \"in the Valley of the Lepers, if you can recognize them.\" Judah visits the nearby leper colony, where (hidden from their view) he sees his mother and sister.\n\nBlaming Roman rule for his family's fate, Judah rejects his patrimony and Roman citizenship. Learning that Tirzah is dying, Judah and Esther take her and Miriam to see Jesus Christ (Claude Heater), but the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate has begun. Judah witnesses the crucifixion of Jesus, and Miriam and Tirzah are miraculously healed during the rainstorm following the crucifixion. Judah declares, \"And I felt His voice take the sword out of my hand.\"\n\nCast\n\n* Charlton Heston as Judah Ben-Hur\n* Jack Hawkins as Quintus Arrius\n* Haya Harareet as Esther\n* Stephen Boyd as Messala\n* Hugh Griffith as Sheik Ilderim\n* Martha Scott as Miriam\n* Cathy O'Donnell as Tirzah\n* Sam Jaffe as Simonides\n* Finlay Currie as Balthasar and the narrator\n* Frank Thring as Pontius Pilate\n* Terence Longdon as Drusus\n* George Relph as Tiberius Caesar\n* André Morell as Sextus\n* Claude Heater as Jesus Christ (uncredited)\n\nProduction\n\nMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) originally announced a remake of the 1925 silent film Ben-Hur in December 1952, ostensibly as a way to spend its Italian assets. Stewart Granger and Robert Taylor were reported to be in the running for the lead. Nine months later, MGM announced it would make the film in CinemaScope, with shooting beginning in 1954. In November 1953, MGM announced it had assigned producer Sam Zimbalist to the picture and hired screenwriter Karl Tunberg to write it. Sidney Franklin was scheduled to direct, with Marlon Brando intended for the lead. In September 1955, Zimbalist, who continued to claim that Tunberg's script was complete, announced that a $7 million, six-to-seven month production would begin in April 1956 in either Israel or Egypt in MGM's new 65mm widescreen process, MGM Camera 65. MGM, however, suspended production in early 1956, following Franklin's resignation. \n\nBy the late 1950s, the consent decree of 1948 forcing film studios to divest themselves of theater chains and the competitive pressure of television had caused significant financial distress at MGM. In a gamble to save the studio, and inspired by the success of Paramount Pictures' 1956 Biblical epic The Ten Commandments, studio head Joseph Vogel announced in 1957 that MGM would again move forward on a remake of Ben-Hur. Filming started in May 1958 and wrapped in January 1959, and post-production took six months. Although the budget for Ben-Hur was initially $7 million, it was reported to be $10 million by February 1958, reaching $15.175 million by the time shooting began—making it the costliest film ever produced up to that time. When adjusted for inflation, the budget of Ben Hur was approximately $ in constant dollars.\n\nOne notable change in the film involved the opening titles. Concerned that a roaring Leo the Lion (the MGM mascot) would create the wrong mood for the sensitive and sacred nativity scene, Wyler received permission to replace the traditional logo with one in which Leo the Lion is quiet. \n\nDevelopment\n\nLew Wallace's 1880 novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, ran to about 550 pages. Zimbalist hired a number of screenwriters to cut the story down and turn the novel into a script. According to Gore Vidal, more than 12 versions of the script had been written by various writers by the spring of 1958. Vidal himself had been asked to write a version of the script in 1957, refused, and been placed on suspension for his decision. According to Vidal, Karl Tunberg was one of the last writers to work on the script. Other sources place Tunberg's initial involvement much earlier. Tunberg cut out everything in the book after the crucifixion of Jesus, omitted the sub-plot in which Ben-Hur fakes his death and raises a Jewish army to overthrow the Romans, and altered the manner in which the leperous women are healed. According to Wyler, Vidal, their biographers (see bibliography below) and the sources that follow them, Zimbalist was unhappy with Tunberg's script, considering it to be \"pedestrian\" and \"unshootable\". \n\nThe writing effort changed direction when director Sidney Franklin fell ill and was removed from the production. Zimbalist offered the project to William Wyler, who had been one of 30 assistant directors on the 1925 film, in early 1957. Wyler initially rejected it, considering the quality of the script to be \"very primitive, elementary\" and no better than hack work. Zimbalist showed Wyler some preliminary storyboards for the chariot race and informed him that MGM would be willing to spend up to $10 million, and as a result Wyler began to express an interest in the picture. MGM permitted Wyler to start casting, and in April 1957, mainstream media outlets reported that Wyler was giving screen tests to Italian leading men, such as Cesare Danova. \n\nWyler did not formally agree to direct the film until September 1957, and MGM did not announce his hiring until January 3, 1958. Even though he still lacked a leading man, Wyler took the assignment for many reasons: He was promised a base salary of $350,000 as well as 8 percent of the gross box office (or 3 percent of the net profits, whichever was greater), and he wanted to work in Rome again (where he had filmed Roman Holiday (1954). His base salary was, at the time, the largest ever paid to a director for a single film. Professional competitive reasons also played a role in his decision to direct, and Wyler later admitted that he wished to outdo Cecil B. DeMille, and make a \"thinking man's\" Biblical epic. In later years, William Wyler would joke that it took a Jew to make a good film about Christ.\n\nWriting\n\nWyler felt Tunberg's draft was too much of a morality play overlaid with current Western political overtones, and that the dialogue was too modern-sounding. Zimbalist brought in playwright S. N. Behrman (who also wrote the script for Quo Vadis) and then playwright Maxwell Anderson to write drafts. Gore Vidal biographer Fred Kaplan states that British poet and playwright Christopher Fry was hired simultaneously with Vidal, although most sources (including Vidal himself) state that Vidal followed Anderson, and that Fry did not come aboard until Vidal was close to leaving the picture. Vidal arrived in Rome in early March 1958 to meet with Wyler. Vidal claimed that Wyler had not read the script, and that when he did so (at Vidal's urging) on his flight from the U.S. to Italy, he was upset with the modernist dialogue. Vidal agreed to work on the script for three months so that he would come off suspension and fulfill his contract with MGM, although Zimbalist pushed him to stay throughout the entire production. Vidal was researching a book on the 4th century Roman emperor Julian and knew a great deal about ancient Rome. \n\nVidal's working style was to finish a scene and review it with Zimbalist. Once Vidal and Zimbalist had come to agreement, the scene would be passed to Wyler. Vidal said he kept the structure of the Tunberg/Behrman/Anderson script, but rewrote nearly all the dialogue. Vidal admitted to William Morris in March 1959 that Fry rewrote as much as a third of the dialogue which Vidal had added to the first half of the script. Vidal made one structural change which was not revised, however. The Tunberg script had Ben-Hur and Messala reuniting and falling out in a single scene. Vidal broke the scene in two, so that the men first reunite at the Castle Antonia and then later argue and end their friendship at Ben-Hur's home. Vidal also added small character touches to the script, such as Messala's purchase of a brooch for Tirzah and Ben-Hur's purchase of a horse for Messala. Vidal claimed that he worked on the first half of the script (everything up to the chariot race), and scripted 10 versions of the scene where Ben-Hur confronts Messala and begs for his family's freedom. \n\nVidal's claim about a homoerotic subtext is hotly debated. Vidal first made the claim in an interview in the 1995 documentary film The Celluloid Closet, and asserted that he persuaded Wyler to direct Stephen Boyd to play the role as if he were a spurned homosexual lover. Vidal said that he believed that Messala's vindictiveness could only be motivated by the feeling of rejection that a lover would feel, and claimed to have suggested to Wyler that Stephen Boyd should play the role that way, and that Heston be kept in the dark about the Messala character's motivations. Whether Vidal wrote the scene in question or had the acting conversation with Wyler, and whether Wyler shot what Vidal wrote, remain issues of debate. Wyler himself says that he does not remember any conversation about this part of the script or Boyd's acting with Gore Vidal, and that he discarded Vidal's draft in favor of Fry's. Morgan Hudgens, publicity director for the film, however, wrote to Vidal in late May 1958 about the crucial scene, and implied there was a homosexual context: \"... the big cornpone [the crew's nickname for Heston] really threw himself into your 'first meeting' scene yesterday. You should have seen those boys embrace!\" Film critic F. X. Feeney, in a comparison of script drafts, concludes that Vidal made significant and extensive contributions to the script. \n\nThe final writer on the film was Christopher Fry. Charlton Heston has claimed that Fry was Wyler's first choice as screenwriter, but that Zimbalist forced him to use Vidal. Whether Fry worked on the script before Vidal or not, sources agree that Fry arrived in Rome in early May 1958 and spent six days a week on the set, writing and rewriting lines of dialogue as well as entire scenes, until the picture was finished. In particular, Fry gave the dialogue a slightly more formal and archaic tone without making it sound stilted and medieval. A highly publicized bitter dispute later broke out over screenplay credits to the film, involving Wyler, Tunberg, Vidal, Fry and the Screen Writers' Guild. \n\nThe final script ran 230 pages. The screenplay differed more from the original novel than did the 1925 silent film version. Some changes made the film's storyline more dramatic. Others inserted an admiration for Jewish people (who had founded the state of Israel by this time) and the more pluralistic society of 1950s America rather than the \"Christian superiority\" view of Wallace's novel. \n\nCasting\n\nMGM opened a casting office in Rome in mid-1957 to select the 50,000 people who would act in minor roles and as extras in the film, and a total of 365 actors had speaking parts in the film, although only 45 of them were considered \"principal\" performers. In casting, Wyler placed heavy emphasis on characterization rather than looks or acting history. He typically cast the Romans with British actors and the Jews with American actors to help underscore the divide between the two groups. The Romans were the aristocrats in the film, and Wyler believed that American audiences would interpret British accents as patrician.\n\nSeveral actors were offered the role of Judah Ben-Hur before it was accepted by Charlton Heston. Burt Lancaster stated he turned down the role because he found the script boring and belittling to Christianity. Paul Newman turned it down because he said he didn't have the legs to wear a tunic. Marlon Brando, Rock Hudson, Geoffrey Horne, and Leslie Nielsen were also offered the role, as were a number of muscular, handsome Italian actors (many of whom did not speak English). Kirk Douglas was interested in the role, but was turned down in favor of Heston, who was formally cast on January 22, 1958. His salary was $250,000 for 30 weeks, a prorated salary for any time over 30 weeks, and travel expenses for his family. \n\nStephen Boyd was cast as the antagonist, Messala, on April 13, 1958. William Wyler originally wanted Heston for the role, but sought another actor after he moved Heston into the role of Judah Ben-Hur. Because both Boyd and Heston had blue eyes, Wyler had Boyd outfitted with brown contact lenses as a way of contrasting the two men. Marie Ney was originally cast as Miriam, but was fired after two days of work because she could not cry on cue. Heston says that he was the one who suggested that Wyler cast Martha Scott as Miriam, and she was hired on July 17, 1958. Cathy O'Donnell was Wyler's sister-in-law, and although her career was in decline, Wyler cast her as Tirzah.\n\nMore than 30 actresses were considered for the role of Esther. The Israeli actress Haya Harareet, a relative newcomer to film, was cast as Esther on May 16, 1958, after providing a 30-second silent screen test. Wyler had met her at the Cannes Film Festival, where she impressed him with her conversational skills and force of personality. Sam Jaffe was cast as Simonides on April 3, 1958, and Finlay Currie was cast as Balthasar on the same day. Wyler had to persuade Jack Hawkins to appear in the film, because Hawkins was unwilling to act in another epic motion picture so soon after The Bridge on the River Kwai. Hugh Griffith, who gained acclaim in the post-World War II era in Ealing Studios comedies, was cast as the colorful Sheik Ilderim. The role of Jesus was played by Claude Heater (uncredited), an American opera singer performing with the Vienna State Opera in Rome when he was asked to do a screen test for the film. \n\nCinematography\n\nRobert L. Surtees, who had already filmed several of the most successful epics of the 1950s, was hired as cinematographer for the film. Early on in the film's production, Zimbalist and other MGM executives made the decision to film the picture in a widescreen format. Wyler strongly disliked the widescreen format, commenting that \"Nothing is out of the picture, and you can't fill it. You either have a lot of empty space, or you have two people talking and a flock of others surrounding them who have nothing to do with the scene. Your eye just wanders out of curiosity.\" The cameras were also quite large, heavy, and difficult and time-consuming to move. To overcome these difficulties, Surtees and Wyler collaborated on using the widescreen lenses, film stocks, and projection technologies to create highly detailed images for the film. Wyler was best known for composition in depth, a visual technique in which people, props, and architecture are not merely composed horizontally but in depth of field as well. He also had a strong preference for long takes, during which his actors could move within this highly detailed space.\n\nThe movie was filmed in a process known as \"MGM Camera 65\". 1957's Raintree County was the first MGM film to use the process. The MGM Camera 65 used special 65mm Eastmancolor film stock with a 2.76:1 aspect ratio. 70mm anamorphic camera lenses developed by the Mitchell Camera Company were manufactured to specifications submitted by MGM. These lenses squeezed the image down 1.25 times to fit on the image area of the film stock. Because the film could be adapted to the requirements of individual theaters, movie houses did not need to install special, expensive 70mm projection equipment. Six of the 70mm lenses, each worth $100,000, were shipped to Rome for use by the production. \n\nPrincipal photography\n\nPre-production began at Cinecittà Studios around October 1957. The MGM Art Department produced more than 15,000 sketches and drawings of costumes, sets, props, and other items needed for the film (8,000 alone for the costumes); photostatted each item; and cross-referenced and catalogued them for use by the production design team and fabricators. More than a million props were ultimately manufactured. Construction of miniatures for the entrance of Quintus Arrius into Rome and for the sea battle were under way by the end of November 1957. MGM location scouts arrived in Rome to identify shooting locations in August 1957. Location shooting in Africa was actively under consideration, and in mid-January 1958, MGM said that filming in North Africa (later revealed to be Libya) would begin on March 1, 1958, and that 200 camels and 2,500 horses had already been procured for the studio's use there. The production was then scheduled to move to Rome on April 1, where Andrew Marton had been hired as second unit director and 72 horses were being trained for the chariot race sequence. However, the Libyan government canceled the production's film permit for religious reasons on March 11, 1958, just a week before filming was to have begun. It is unclear whether any second unit filming took place in Israel. A June 8, 1958, reported in The New York Times said second unit director Andrew Martin had roamed \"up and down the countryside\" filming footage. However, the American Film Institute claims the filming permit was revoked in Israel for religious reasons as well (although when is not clear), and no footage from the planned location shooting near Jerusalem appeared in the film.\n\nPrincipal photography began in Rome on May 18, 1958. The script was still unfinished when cinematography began, so that Wyler had only read the first 10 to 12 pages of it. Shooting lasted for 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week. On Sundays, Wyler would meet with Fry and Zimbalist for story conferences. The pace of the film was so grueling that a doctor was brought onto the set to give a vitamin B complex injection to anyone who requested it (shots which Wyler and his family later suspected may have contained amphetamines). To speed things up, Wyler often kept principal actors on stand-by, in full costume and make-up, so that he could shoot pick-up scenes if the first unit slowed down. Actresses Martha Scott and Cathy O'Donnell spent almost the entire month of November 1958 in full leprosy make-up and costumes so that Wyler could shoot \"leper scenes\" when other shots didn't go well. Wyler was unhappy with Heston's performances, feeling they did not make Judah Ben-Hur a plausible character, and Heston had to reshoot \"I'm a Jew\" 16 times. Shooting took nine months, which included three months for the chariot race scene alone. Principal photography ended on January 7, 1959, with filming of the crucifixion scene, which took four days to shoot. \n\nProduction design\n\nItaly was MGM's top choice for hosting the production. However, a number of countries—including France, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom—were also considered. Cinecittà Studios, a very large motion picture production facility constructed in 1937 on the outskirts of Rome, was identified early on as the primary shooting location. Zimbalist hired Wyler's long-term production supervisor, Henry Henigson, to oversee the film, and art directors William A. Horning and Edward Carfagno created the overall look of the film, relying on the more than five years of research which had already been completed for the production. A skeleton crew of studio technicians arrived in the summer of 1956 to begin preparing the Cinecittà soundstages and back lot.\n\nThe Ben-Hur production utilized 300 sets scattered over 148 acre and nine sound stages. Several sets still standing from Quo Vadis in 1951 were refurbished and used for Ben-Hur. By the end of the production more than 1000000 lb of plaster and 40000 cuft of lumber were used. The budget called for more than 100,000 costumes and 1,000 suits of armor to be made, for the hiring of 10,000 extras, and the procurement of hundreds of camels, donkeys, horses, and sheep. Costume designer Elizabeth Haffenden oversaw a staff of 100 wardrobe fabricators who began manufacturing the costumes for the film a year before filming began. Special silk was imported from Thailand, the armor manufactured in West Germany, and the woolens made and embroidered in the United Kingdom and various countries of South America. Many leather goods were hand-tooled in the United Kingdom as well, while Italian shoemakers manufactured the boots and shoes. The lace for costumes came from France, while costume jewelry was purchased in Switzerland. More than 400 lb of hair were donated by women in the Piedmont region of Italy to make wigs and beards for the production, and 1000 ft of track laid down for the camera dollies. A workshop employing 200 artists and workmen provided the hundreds of friezes and statues needed. The mountain village of Arcinazzo Romano, 40 mi from Rome, served as a stand-in for the town of Nazareth. Beaches near Anzio were also used, and caves just south of the city served as the leper colony. Some additional desert panoramas were shot in Arizona, and some close-up inserts taken at the MGM Studios, with the final images photographed on February 3, 1958.\n\nThe sea battle was one of the first sequences created for the film, filmed using miniatures in a huge tank on the back lot at the MGM Studios in Culver City, California in November and December 1957. More than 40 miniature ships and two 175 ft long Roman galleys, each of them seaworthy, were built for the live-action segment. The ships were constructed based on plans found in Italian museums for actual ancient Roman galleys. An artificial lake with equipment capable of generating sea-sized waves was built at the Cinecittà studios to accommodate the galleys. A massive backdrop, 200 ft wide by 50 ft high, was painted and erected to hide the city and hills in the background. To make the scene bloodier, Dunning sought out Italian extras who had missing limbs, then had the makeup crews rig them with fake bone and blood to make it appear as if they had lost a hand or leg during the battle. When Dunning edited his own footage later, he made sure that these men were not on screen for long so that audiences would be upset. The above-decks footage was integrated with the miniature work using process shots and traveling mattes. \n\nOne of the most lavish sets was the villa of Quintus Arrius, which included 45 working fountains and of pipes. Wealthy citizens and nobles of Rome, who wanted to portray their ancient selves, acted as extras in the villa scenes. To recreate the ancient city streets of Jerusalem, a vast set covering was built, which included a 75 ft high Joppa Gate. The sets were so vast and visually exciting that they became a tourist attraction, and various film stars visited during production. The huge sets could be seen from the outskirts of Rome, and MGM estimated that more than 5,000 people were given tours of the sets. \n\nDismantling the sets cost $125,000. Almost all the filmmaking equipment was turned over to the Italian government, which sold and exported it. MGM turned title to the artificial lake over to Cinecittà. MGM retained control over the costumes and the artificial lake background, which went back to the United States. The chariots were also returned to the U.S., where they were used as promotional props. The life-size galleys and pirate ships were dismantled to prevent them from being used by competing studios. Some of the horses were adopted by the men who trained them, while others were sold. Many of the camels, donkeys, and other exotic animals were sold to circuses and zoos in Europe.\n\nEditing\n\nA total of 1100000 ft was shot for the film. According to editor John D. Dunning, the first cut of the film was four and one-half hours long. William Wyler stated that his goal was to bring the running time down to three and a half hours. The most difficult editing decisions, according to Dunning, came during scenes which involved Jesus Christ, as these contained almost no dialogue and most of the footage was purely reaction shots by actors. Dunning also believed that in the final cut the leper scene was too long and needed trimming. Editing was also complicated by the 70mm footage being printed. Because no editing equipment (such as the Moviola) existed which could handle the 70mm print, the 70mm footage would be reduced to 35mm and then cut. This caused much of the image to be lost. When the film was edited into its final form, it ran 213 minutes and included just 19000 ft of film. It was the third-longest motion picture ever made at the time, behind Gone With The Wind and The Ten Commandments.\n\nMusical score\n\nThe film score was composed and conducted by Miklós Rózsa, who scored most of MGM's epics, although Zimbalist had previously commissioned and then set aside a score from Sir William Walton. Rózsa conducted research into Greek and Roman music of the period to give his score an archaic sound while still being modern. Rózsa himself directed the 100-piece MGM Symphony Orchestra during the 12 recording sessions (which stretched over 72 hours). The soundtrack was recorded in six-channel stereo. More than three hours of music were composed for the film, and two-and-a-half hours of it were finally used, making it () the longest score ever composed for a motion picture. The score contains no leitmotifs for the main characters. While not a leitmotif, the score does transition from full orchestra to pipe organ whenever Jesus Christ appears.\n\nRózsa won his third Academy Award for his score. , it was the only musical score in the ancient and medieval epic genre of film to win an Oscar. Like most film musical soundtracks, it was issued as an album for the public to enjoy as a distinct piece of music. The score was so lengthy that it had to be released in 1959 on three LP records, although a one-LP version with Carlo Savina conducting the Symphony Orchestra of Rome was also issued. In addition, to provide a more \"listenable\" album, Rózsa arranged his score into a \"Ben-Hur Suite\", which was released on Lion Records (an MGM subsidiary which issued low-priced records) in 1959. This made the Ben-Hur film musical score the first to be released not only in its entirety but also as a separate album.\n\nThe Ben-Hur score is considered to be the best of Rózsa's career. The musical soundtrack to Ben-Hur remained deeply influential into the mid 1970s, when film music composed by John Williams for films such as Jaws, Star Wars, and Raiders of the Lost Ark became more popular among composers and film-goers. Rózsa's score has since seen several notable re-releases, including by the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra on Capitol Records in 1967, several of the tracks by the United Kingdom's National Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus on Decca Records in 1977 and a Sony Music reissue as a two-CD set in 1991. In 2012, Film Score Monthly and WaterTower Music issued a limited edition five-CD set of music from the film.\n\nChariot race sequence\n\nThe chariot race in Ben-Hur was directed by Andrew Marton and Yakima Canutt, filmmakers who often acted as second unit directors on other people's films. Each man had an assistant director, who shot additional footage. Among these were Sergio Leone, who was senior assistant director in the second unit and responsible for retakes. William Wyler shot the \"pageantry\" sequence that occurs before the race, scenes of the jubilant crowd, and the victory scenes after the race concludes. The \"pageantry\" sequence before the race begins is a shot-by-shot remake of the same sequence from the 1925 silent film version. Knowing that the chariot race would be primarily composed of close-up and medium shots, Wyler added the parade in formation (even though it was not historically accurate) to impress the audience with the grandeur of the arena. \n\nSet design\n\nThe chariot arena was modeled on a historic circus in Jerusalem. Covering 18 acre, it was the largest film set ever built at that time. Constructed at a cost of $1 million, it took a thousand workmen more than a year to carve the oval out of a rock quarry. The racetrack featured 1500 ft long straightaways and five-story-high grandstands. Over 250 mi of metal tubing were used to erect the grandstands. Matte paintings created the illusion of upper stories of the grandstands and the background mountains. More than 40000 ST of sand were brought in from beaches on the Mediterranean to cover the track. Other elements of the circus were also historically accurate. Imperial Roman racecourses featured a raised 10 ft high spina (the center section), metae (columnar goalposts at each end of the spina), dolphin-shaped lap counters, and carceres (the columned building in the rear which housed the cells where horses waited prior to the race). The four statues atop the spina were 30 ft high. A chariot track identical in size was constructed next to the set and used to train the horses and lay out camera shots.\n\nPreparation\n\nPlanning for the chariot race took nearly a year to complete. Seventy eight horses were bought and imported from Yugoslavia and Sicily in November 1957, exercised into peak physical condition, and trained by Hollywood animal handler Glenn Randall to pull the quadriga (a Roman Empire chariot drawn by four horses abreast). Andalusian horses played Ben-Hur's Arabians, while the others in the chariot race were primarily Lipizzans. A veterinarian, a harness maker, and 20 stable boys were employed to care for the horses and ensure they were outfitted for racing each day. The firm of Danesi Brothers built 18 chariots, nine of which were used for practice, each weighing 900 lb. Principal cast members, stand-ins, and stunt people made 100 practice laps of the arena in preparation for shooting.\n\nHeston and Boyd both had to learn how to drive a chariot. Heston, an experienced horseman, took daily three-hour lessons in chariot driving after he arrived in Rome and picked up the skill quickly. Heston was outfitted with special contact lenses to prevent the grit kicked up during the race from injuring his eyes. For the other charioteers, six actors with extensive experience with horses were flown in from Hollywood, including Giuseppe Tosi, who had once been a bodyguard for Victor Emmanuel III of Italy.\n\nFilming\n\nThe chariot scene took five weeks (spread over three months) to film at a total cost of $1 million and required more than 200 mi of racing to complete. Marton and Canutt filmed the entire chariot sequence with stunt doubles in long shot, edited the footage together, and showed the footage to Zimbalist, Wyler, and Heston to show them what the race should look like and to indicate where close-up shots with Heston and Boyd should go. Seven thousand extras were hired to cheer in the stands. Economic conditions in Italy were poor at the time, and as shooting for the chariot scene wound down only 1,500 extras were needed on any given day. On June 6, more than 3,000 people seeking work were turned away. The crowd rioted, throwing stones and assaulting the set's gates until police arrived and dispersed them. Dynamite charges were used to show the chariot wheels and axles splintering from the effects of Messala's barbed-wheel attacks. Three lifelike dummies were placed at key points in the race to give the appearance of men being run over by chariots. \n\nThe cameras used during the chariot race also presented problems. The 70mm lenses had a minimum focusing distance of 50 ft, and the camera was mounted on a small Italian-made car so the camera crew could keep in front of the chariots. The horses, however, accelerated down the 1500 ft straightaway much faster than the car could, and the long focal length left Marton and Canutt with too little time to get their shots. The production company purchased a more powerful American car, but the horses were still too fast, and even with a head start, the filmmakers only had a few more seconds of shot time. As filming progressed, vast amounts of footage were shot for this sequence. The ratio of footage shot to footage used was 263:1, one of the highest ratios ever for a film.\n\nOne of the most notable moments in the race came from a near-fatal accident when stunt man Joe Canutt, Yakima Canutt's son, was tossed into the air by accident; he incurred a minor chin injury. Marton wanted to keep the shot, but Zimbalist felt the footage was unusable. Marton conceived the idea of showing that Ben-Hur was able to land on and cling to the front of his chariot, then scramble back into the quadriga while the horses kept going. The long shot of Canutt's accident was cut together with a close-up of Heston climbing back aboard, resulting in one of the race's most memorable moments. Boyd did all but two of his own stunts. For the sequence where Messala is dragged beneath a chariot's horses and trampled, Boyd wore steel armor under his costume and acted out the close-up shot and the shot of him on his back, attempting to climb up into the horses' harness to escape injury. A dummy was used to obtain the trampling shot in this sequence. \n\nSeveral urban legends exist regarding the chariot sequence. One claims that a stuntman died during filming, which Nosher Powell claims in his autobiography, and another states that a red Ferrari can be seen during the chariot race. The book Movie Mistakes claims this is a myth. Heston, in a DVD commentary track for the film, mentions that a third urban legend claims that he wore a wristwatch during the chariot race, but points out that he wore leather bracers up to the elbow. \n\nRelease\n\nA massive $14.7 million marketing effort helped promote Ben-Hur. MGM established a special \"Ben-Hur Research Department\" which surveyed more than 2,000 high schools in 47 American cities to gauge teenage interest in the film. A high school study guide was also created and distributed. Sindlinger and Company was hired to conduct a nationwide survey to gauge the impact of the marketing campaign. In 1959 and 1960, more than $20 million in candy; children's tricycles in the shape of chariots; gowns; hair barrettes; items of jewelry; men's ties; bottles of perfume; \"Ben-Her\" and \"Ben-His\" towels; toy armor, helmets, and swords; umbrellas; and hardback and paperback versions of the novel (tied to the film with cover art) were sold.\n\nBen-Hur premiered at Loew's State Theatre in New York City on November 18, 1959. Present at the premiere were William Wyler, Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd, Haya Harareet, Martha Scott, Ramon Novarro (who played Judah Ben-Hur in the 1925 silent film version), Spyros Skouras (president of the 20th Century Fox), Barney Balaban (president of Paramount Pictures), Jack L. Warner (president of Warner Bros.), Leonard Goldenson (president of the American Broadcasting Company), Moss Hart (playwright), Robert Kintner (an ABC Television executive), Sidney Kingsley (playwright), and Adolph Zukor (founder of Paramount Pictures). \n\nBox office\n\nDuring its initial release the film earned $33.6 million in North American theater rentals (the distributor's share of the box office), generating approximately $74.7 million in box office sales. Outside of North America, it earned $32.5 million in rentals (about $72.2 million at the box office) for a worldwide total of $66.1 million in rental earnings, roughly equivalent to $146.9 million in box office receipts. It was the fastest-grossing film as well as the highest-grossing film of 1959, in the process becoming the second-highest-grossing film of all-time (at that time) behind Gone with the Wind. Ben-Hur saved MGM from financial disaster, making a profit of $20,409,000 on its initial release, and another $10.1 million in profits when re-released in 1969. By 1989, Ben-Hur had earned $90 million in worldwide theatrical rentals. \n\nCritical reception\n\nBen-Hur received overwhelmingly positive reviews upon its release. Bosley Crowther, writing for The New York Times, called Ben-Hur \"a remarkably intelligent and engrossing human drama\". While praising the acting and William Wyler's \"close-to\" direction, he also had high praise for the chariot race: \"There has seldom been anything in movies to compare with this picture's chariot race. It is a stunning complex of mighty setting, thrilling action by horses and men, panoramic observation and overwhelming use of dramatic sound.\" Jack Gaver, writing for United Press International, also had praise for the acting, calling it full of \"genuine warmth and fervor and finely acted intimate scenes\". Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times called it \"magnificent, inspiring, awesome, enthralling, and all the other adjectives you have been reading about it.\" He also called the editing \"generally expert\" although at times abrupt. Ronald Holloway, writing for Variety, called Ben-Hur \"a majestic achievement, representing a superb blending of the motion picture arts by master craftsmen,\" and concluded that \"Gone With the Wind, Metro's own champion all-time top grosser, will eventually have to take a back seat.\" The chariot race \"will probably be preserved in film archives as the finest example of the use of the motion picture camera to record an action sequence. The race, directed by Andrew Marton and Yakima Canutt, represents some 40 minutes of the most hair-raising excitement that film audiences have ever witnessed.\"\n\nThere was some criticism, however. Crowther felt the film was too long. Scheuer, whilst mostly praising the film, felt that its biggest fault was \"overstatement\", and that it hammered home at points long after they had been made. He singled out the galley rowing sequence, Jesus' journey to the place of crucifixion, and nearly all the sequences involving the lepers. He also lightly criticized Charlton Heston for being more physically than emotionally compelling. John McCarten of The New Yorker was more critical of Heston, writing that he \"speaks English as if he'd learned it from records.\" Even William Wyler later privately admitted he was disappointed with Heston's acting. Film critic Dwight Macdonald also was largely negative. He found the film so uninvolving and lengthy that he said, \"I felt like a motorist trapped at a railroad crossing while a long freight train slowly trundles by.\" British film critic John Pym, writing for Time Out, was equally dismissive, calling the film a \"four-hour Sunday school lesson\". Many French and American film critics who believed in the auteur theory of filmmaking saw the film as confirmation of their belief that William Wyler was \"merely a commercial craftsman\" rather than a serious artist.\n\nThe film currently has an 88% \"Certified Fresh\" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The consensus reads, \"Uneven, but in terms of epic scope and grand spectacle, Ben-Hur still ranks among Hollywood's finest examples of pure entertainment.\" \n\nAccolades\n\nBen-Hur was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won an unprecedented 11. , only Titanic in 1998 and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2004 have matched the film's wins. The lone category where Ben-Hur did not win was for Best Adapted Screenplay (losing to Room at the Top), and most observers attributed this to the controversy over the writing credit. MGM and Panavision shared a special technical Oscar in March 1960 for developing the Camera 65 photographic process. \n\nBen-Hur also won three Golden Globe Awards – Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for Stephen Boyd – and received a Special Achievement Award (which went to Andrew Marton for directing the chariot race sequence). Heston was nominated for a Golden Globe in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama category, but did not win. The picture also won the BAFTA Award for Best Film, the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film, and the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Motion Picture for William Wyler's masterful direction. \n\nBen-Hur also appears on several \"best of\" lists generated by the American Film Institute, an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1967. The \"AFI 100 Years... series\" were created by juries consisting of over 1,500 artists, scholars, critics, and historians, with movies selected based on the film's popularity over time, historical significance, and cultural impact. Ben-Hur appeared at #72 on the 100 Movies, #49 on the 100 Thrills, #21 on the Film Scores, #56 on the 100 Cheers and #2 on the AFI's 10 Top 10 Epic film lists. Judah Ben-Hur was also nominated as a hero and Messala nominated as a villain in the AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains list. In 2004, the National Film Preservation Board selected Ben-Hur for preservation by the National Film Registry for being a \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\" motion picture. It was listed as number 491 on Empire's 500 Greatest films of all time. \n\nBroadcast and home video releases\n\nThe film's first telecast took place on Sunday, February 14, 1971. In what was then a television first for a Hollywood film, it was broadcast over five hours (including commercials) during a single evening by CBS, preempting all of that network's regular programming for that one evening. It was watched by 85.82 million people for a 37.1 average rating. It was one of the highest rated movies ever screened on television at the time (behind the broadcast premiere of Bridge on the River Kwai). \n\nBen-Hur has been released on home video on several occasions. Recent releases have all been on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. A two-sided single disc widescreen release occurred in the United States on March 13, 2001. This release included several featurettes, including a commentary by Charlton Heston, a making-of documentary (made for a laserdisc release in 1993), screen tests, and a photo gallery. This edition was released soon thereafter as a two-disc set in other countries. The film saw another DVD release on September 13, 2005. This four-disc edition included remastered images and audio, an additional commentary, two additional featurettes, and a complete version of the 1925 silent version of Ben-Hur. A boxed \"Deluxe Edition\", issued in the U.S. in 2002, included postcard-sized reprints of lobby cards, postcard-sized black-and-white stills with machine-reproduced autographs of cast members, a matte-framed color image from the film with a 35mm film frame mounted below it, and a 27 by reproduction film poster. \n\nIn 2011, Warner Home Video released a 50th anniversary edition on Blu-ray Disc and DVD, making it the first home video release where the film is present on its original aspect ratio. For this release, the film was completely restored frame by frame from an 8K scan of the original 65mm negative. The restoration cost $1 million, and was one of the highest resolution restorations ever made by Warner Bros. A new musical soundtrack-only option and six new featurettes (one of which was an hour long) were also included. \n\nRemake\n\nOn April 25, 2014, Paramount Pictures and MGM announced that they will co-produce another Ben-Hur film with Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, who also made the 2013 miniseries The Bible. The film is set for release in August 2016.[http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2014/04/25/paramount-mgm-to-remake-historical-epic-ben-hur/8157223/ \"'Ben-Hur' remake set for 2016 release\"] On September 11, Morgan Freeman was added to the cast to play the role of Ildarin, the man who teaches the slave Ben-Hur to become a champion-caliber chariot racer.", "The Academy Awards, or \"Oscars\", is an annual American awards ceremony hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to recognize excellence in cinematic achievements in the United States film industry as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a statuette, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, which has become commonly known by its nickname \"Oscar.\" The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by AMPAS. \n\nThe awards ceremony was first broadcast to radio in 1930 and televised in 1953. It is now seen live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online. The Oscars is the oldest entertainment awards ceremony; its equivalents, the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theatre, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording, are modeled after the Academy Awards. \n\nThe 88th Academy Awards ceremony was held at the Dolby Theatre on February 28, 2016 and hosted by Chris Rock. A total of 2,947 Oscars have been awarded since the inception of the award through the 87th. \n\nHistory\n\nThe first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16, 1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel. The cost of guest tickets for that night's ceremony was $5 ($ in dollars). Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the film-making industry of the time, for their works during the 1927–28 period. The ceremony ran for 15 minutes.\n\nWinners had been announced to media three months earlier; however, that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since then, for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11:00 pm on the night of the awards. This method was used until an occasion when the Los Angeles Times announced the winners before the ceremony began; as a result, the Academy has, since 1941, used a sealed envelope to reveal the name of the winners.\n\nInstitutions\n\nThe first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. He had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier; this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. At that time, the winners were recognized for all of their work done in a certain category during the qualifying period; for example, Jannings received the award for two movies in which he starred during that period, and Janet Gaynor later won a single Oscar for performances in three films. With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, and professionals were honored for a specific performance in a single film. For the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years.\n\nAt the 29th ceremony, held on March 27, 1957, the Best Foreign Language Film category was introduced. Until then, foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award.\n\nThe 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.\n\nSince 1972, all Academy Awards ceremonies have ended with the Academy Award for Best Picture.\n\nOscar statuette\n\nAlthough there are seven other types of annual awards presented by the Academy (the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, the Academy Scientific and Technical Award, the Academy Award for Technical Achievement, the John A. Bonner Medal of Commendation and the Student Academy Award) plus two awards that are not presented annually (the Special Achievement Award in the form of an Oscar statuette and the Honorary Award that may or may not be in the form of an Oscar statuette), the best known one is the Academy Award of Merit more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. Made of gold-plated britannium on a black metal base, it is 13.5 in (34.3 cm) tall, weighs 8.5 lb (3.856 kg) and depicts a knight rendered in Art Deco style holding a crusader's sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes. The five spokes represent the original branches of the Academy: Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers, and Technicians. \n\nThe model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio \"El Indio\" Fernández. Sculptor George Stanley (who also did the Muse Fountain at the Hollywood Bowl) sculpted Cedric Gibbons' design. The statuettes presented at the initial ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze. Within a few years the bronze was abandoned in favor of britannia metal, a pewter-like alloy which is then plated in copper, nickel silver, and finally, 24-karat gold. Due to a metal shortage during World War II, Oscars were made of painted plaster for three years. Following the war, the Academy invited recipients to redeem the plaster figures for gold-plated metal ones. The only addition to the Oscar since it was created is a minor streamlining of the base. The original Oscar mold was cast in 1928 at the C.W. Shumway & Sons Foundry in Batavia, Illinois, which also contributed to casting the molds for the Vince Lombardi Trophy and Emmy Award's statuettes. From 1983 to 2015, approximately 50 Oscars were made each year in Chicago by Illinois manufacturer R.S. Owens & Company. ([https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid2245&dat\n20090127&idn_UlAAAAIBAJ&sjid\nff0FAAAAIBAJ&pg6931,2001573 Lodi News-Sentinel]) It takes between three and four weeks to manufacture 50 statuettes.\n\nIn 2016 the Academy returned to bronze as the core metal of the statuettes, handing manufacturing duties to Rock Tavern, New York based Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry. While based on a digital scan of an original 1929 Oscar, the new statuettes will retain their modern-era dimensions and black pedestal. Cast in liquid bronze from 3d printed ceramic molds and polished, they are then electroplated in 24-karat gold by Brooklyn, New York based Epner Technology. The time required to produce 50 such statuettes is roughly 3 months. R.S. Owens is expected to continue producing other awards for the Academy and service existing Oscars. \n\nNaming\n\nThe origin of the name Oscar is disputed. One biography of Bette Davis, who was a president of the Academy, claims that she named the Oscar after her first husband, band leader Harmon Oscar Nelson. Another claimed origin is that the Academy's Executive Secretary, Margaret Herrick, first saw the award in 1931 and made reference to the statuette's reminding her of her \"Uncle Oscar\" (a nickname for her cousin Oscar Pierce). Columnist Sidney Skolsky was present during Herrick's naming and seized the name in his byline, \"Employees have affectionately dubbed their famous statuette 'Oscar'.\" \n\nOne of the earliest mentions in print of the term Oscar dates back to a Time magazine article about the 1934 6th Academy Awards. Walt Disney is also quoted as thanking the Academy for his Oscar as early as 1932. The trophy was officially dubbed the \"Oscar\" in 1939 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.\n\nEngraving\n\nTo prevent information identifying the Oscar winners from leaking ahead of the ceremony, Oscar statuettes presented at the ceremony have blank baseplates. Until 2010, winners were expected to return the statuettes to the Academy after the ceremony and wait several weeks to have inscriptions applied. Since 2010, winners have had the option of having engraved nameplates applied to their statuettes at an inscription-processing station at the Governor's Ball, a party held immediately after the Oscar ceremony. In 2010, the R.S. Owens company made 197 engraved nameplates ahead of the ceremony, bearing the names of every potential winner. The 175 or so nameplates for non-winning nominees were recycled afterwards. \n\nOwnership of Oscar statuettes\n\nSince 1950, the statuettes have been legally encumbered by the requirement that neither winners nor their heirs may sell the statuettes without first offering to sell them back to the Academy for US$1. If a winner refuses to agree to this stipulation, then the Academy keeps the statuette. Academy Awards not protected by this agreement have been sold in public auctions and private deals for six-figure sums. In December 2011, Orson Welles' 1941 Oscar for Citizen Kane (Best Original Screenplay) was put up for auction, after his heirs won a 2004 court decision contending that Welles did not sign any agreement to return the statue to the Academy. On December 20, 2011, it sold in an online auction for US$861,542. \n\nIn 1992, Harold Russell needed money for his wife's medical expenses. In a controversial decision, he consigned his 1946 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for The Best Years of Our Lives to Herman Darvick Autograph Auctions, and on August 6, 1992, in New York City, the Oscar sold to a private collector for $60,500. Russell defended his action, saying, \"I don't know why anybody would be critical. My wife's health is much more important than sentimental reasons. The movie will be here, even if Oscar isn't.\" Harold Russell is the only Academy Award winning actor to ever sell an Oscar.\n\nWhile the Oscar is owned by the recipient, it is essentially not on the open market. Michael Todd's grandson tried to sell Todd's Oscar statuette to a movie prop collector in 1989, but the Academy won the legal battle by getting a permanent injunction. Although some Oscar sales transactions have been successful, some buyers have subsequently returned the statuettes to the Academy, which keeps them in its treasury. \n\nNomination\n\nSince 2004, Academy Award nomination results have been announced to the public in late January. Prior to that, the results were announced in early February.\n\nVoters\n\nThe Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), a professional honorary organization, maintains a voting membership of 5,783 . \n\nAcademy membership is divided into different branches, with each representing a different discipline in film production. Actors constitute the largest voting bloc, numbering 1,311 members (22 percent) of the Academy's composition. Votes have been certified by the auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (and its predecessor Price Waterhouse) for the past 73 annual awards ceremonies.\n\nAll AMPAS members must be invited to join by the Board of Governors, on behalf of Academy Branch Executive Committees. Membership eligibility may be achieved by a competitive nomination or a member may submit a name based on other significant contribution to the field of motion pictures.\n\nNew membership proposals are considered annually. The Academy does not publicly disclose its membership, although as recently as 2007 press releases have announced the names of those who have been invited to join. The 2007 release also stated that it has just under 6,000 voting members. While the membership had been growing, stricter policies have kept its size steady since then. \n\nIn 2012, the results of a study conducted by the Los Angeles Times were published describing the demographic breakdown of approximately 88% of AMPAS' voting membership. Of the 5,100+ active voters confirmed, 94% were Caucasian, 77% were male, and 54% were found to be over the age of 60. 33% of voting members are former nominees (14%) and winners (19%). \n\nIn May 2011, the Academy sent a letter advising its 6,000 or so voting members that an online system for Oscar voting will be implemented in 2013. \n\nRules\n\nAccording to Rules 2 and 3 of the official Academy Awards Rules, a film must open in the previous calendar year, from midnight at the start of January 1 to midnight at the end of December 31, in Los Angeles County, California and play for seven consecutive days, to qualify (except for the Best Foreign Language Film). For example, the 2009 Best Picture winner, The Hurt Locker, was actually first released in 2008, but did not qualify for the 2008 awards as it did not play its Oscar-qualifying run in Los Angeles until mid-2009, thus qualifying for the 2009 awards. Foreign films must include English subtitles, and each country can submit only one film per year. \n\nRule 2 states that a film must be feature-length, defined as a minimum of 40 minutes, except for short subject awards, and it must exist either on a 35 mm or 70 mm film print or in 24 frame/s or 48 frame/s progressive scan digital cinema format with a minimum projector resolution of 2048 by 1080 pixels. \n\nProducers must submit an Official Screen Credits online form before the deadline; in case it is not submitted by the defined deadline, the film will be ineligible for Academy Awards in any year. The form includes the production credits for all related categories. Then, each form is checked and put in a Reminder List of Eligible Releases.\n\nIn late December ballots and copies of the Reminder List of Eligible Releases are mailed to around 6,000 active members. For most categories, members from each of the branches vote to determine the nominees only in their respective categories (i.e. only directors vote for directors, writers for writers, actors for actors, etc.). In the special case of Best Picture, all voting members are eligible to select the nominees. In all major categories, a variant of the single transferable vote is used, with each member casting a ballot with up to five nominees (ten for Best Picture) ranked preferentially. In certain categories, including Foreign Film, Documentary and Animated Feature Film, nominees are selected by special screening committees made up of members from all branches.\n\nIn most categories the winner is selected from among the nominees by plurality voting of all members. Since 2009, the Best Picture winner has been chosen by instant runoff voting. \n\nFilm companies will spend as much as several million dollars on marketing to awards voters for a movie in the running for Best Picture, in attempts to improve chances of receiving Oscars and other movie awards conferred in Oscar season. The Academy enforces rules to limit overt campaigning by its members so as to try to eliminate excesses and prevent the process from becoming undignified. It has an awards czar on staff who advises members on allowed practices and levies penalties on offenders. For example, a producer of the 2009 Best Picture nominee, The Hurt Locker, was disqualified as a producer in the category when he contacted associates urging them to vote for his film and not another that was seen as front-runner (The Hurt Locker eventually won).\n\nAwards ceremonies\n\nTelecast\n\nThe major awards are presented at a live televised ceremony, most commonly in late February or early March following the relevant calendar year, and six weeks after the announcement of the nominees. It is the culmination of the film awards season, which usually begins during November or December of the previous year. This is an elaborate extravaganza, with the invited guests walking up the red carpet in the creations of the most prominent fashion designers of the day. Black tie dress is the most common outfit for men, although fashion may dictate not wearing a bow-tie, and musical performers sometimes do not adhere to this. (The artists who recorded the nominees for Best Original Song quite often perform those songs live at the awards ceremony, and the fact that they are performing is often used to promote the television broadcast).\n\nThe Oscars were first televised in 1953 by NBC, which continued to broadcast the event until 1960, when ABC took over, televising the festivities (including the first color broadcast of the event in 1966) through 1970, after which NBC resumed the broadcasts. ABC once again took over broadcast duties in 1976, and has broadcast the Oscars ever since; its current contract with the Academy runs through 2020. The Academy has also produced condensed versions of the ceremony for broadcast in international markets (especially those outside of the Americas) in more desirable local timeslots. The ceremony was broadcast live internationally for the first time via satellite in 1970, but only two South American countries, Chile and Brazil, purchased the rights to air the broadcast. By that time, the television rights to the Academy Awards had been sold in 50 countries. A decade later, the rights were already being sold to 60 countries, and by 1984, the TV rights to the Awards were licensed in 76 countries.\n\nThe ceremonies were moved up from late-March or early-April to late February or early March starting in 2004 to help disrupt and shorten the intense lobbying and ad campaigns associated with Oscar season in the film industry. Another reason was because of the growing TV ratings success of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, which would cut into the Academy Awards audience. The earlier date is also to the advantage of ABC, as it now usually occurs during the highly profitable and important February sweeps period. Some years, the ceremony is moved into early March in deference to the Winter Olympics. Another reason for the move to late February and early March is to avoid the awards ceremony occurring so close to the religious holidays of Passover and Easter, which for decades had been a grievance from members and the general public. Advertising is somewhat restricted, however, as traditionally no movie studios or competitors of official Academy Award sponsors may advertise during the telecast. The Awards show holds the distinction of having won the most Emmys in history, with 47 wins and 195 nominations.\n\nAfter many years of being held on Mondays at 9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 p.m Pacific, in 1999 the ceremonies were moved to Sundays at 8:30 pm Eastern/5:30 pm Pacific. The reasons given for the move were that more viewers would tune in on Sundays, that Los Angeles rush-hour traffic jams could be avoided, and that an earlier start time would allow viewers on the East Coast to go to bed earlier. For many years the film industry had opposed a Sunday broadcast because it would cut into the weekend box office. The Academy has contemplated moving the ceremony even further back into January, citing TV viewers' fatigue with the film industry's long awards season. However, such an accelerated schedule would dramatically decrease the voting period for its members, to the point where some voters would only have time to view the contending films streamed on their computers (as opposed to traditionally receiving the films and ballots in the mail). Also, a January or early-February ceremony held on a Sunday would have to compete with National Football League playoff games such as the Super Bowl. \n\nOriginally scheduled for April 8, 1968, the 40th Academy Awards ceremony was postponed for two days, because of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. On March 30, 1981, the 53rd Academy Awards was postponed for one day, after the shooting of President Ronald Reagan and others in Washington, D.C.\n\nIn 1993, an In Memoriam segment was introduced, honoring those who had made a significant contribution to cinema who had died in the preceding 12 months, a selection compiled by a small committee of Academy members. This segment has drawn criticism over the years for the omission of some names. Criticism was also levied for many years regarding another aspect, with the segment having a \"popularity contest\" feel as the audience varied their applause to those who had died by the subject's cultural impact; the applause has since been muted during the telecast, and the audience is discouraged from clapping during the segment and giving silent reflection instead.\n\nIn terms of broadcast length, the ceremony generally averages three and a half hours. The first Oscars, in 1929, lasted 15 minutes. At the other end of the spectrum, the 2000 ceremony lasted four hours and four minutes. In 2010, the organizers of the Academy Awards announced that winners' acceptance speeches must not run past 45 seconds. This, according to organizer Bill Mechanic, was to ensure the elimination of what he termed \"the single most hated thing on the show\" – overly long and embarrassing displays of emotion. In 2016, in a further effort to streamline speeches, winners' dedications were displayed on an on-screen ticker. \n\nAlthough still dominant in ratings, the viewership of the Academy Awards have steadily dropped; the 88th Academy Awards were the lowest-rated in the past eight years (although with increases in male and 18-49 viewership), while the show itself also faced mixed reception. Following the show, Variety reported that ABC was, in negotiating an extension to its contract to broadcast the Oscars, seeking to have more creative control over the broadcast itself. Currently and nominally, AMPAS is responsible for most aspects of the telecast, including the choice of production staff and hosting. \n\nTV ratings\n\nHistorically, the \"Oscarcast\" has pulled in a bigger haul when box-office hits are favored to win the Best Picture trophy. More than 57.25 million viewers tuned to the telecast for the 70th Academy Awards in 1998, the year of Titanic, which generated close to US$600 million at the North American box office pre-Oscars. The 76th Academy Awards ceremony in which The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (pre-telecast box office earnings of US$368 million) received 11 Awards including Best Picture drew 43.56 million viewers. The most watched ceremony based on Nielsen ratings to date, however, was the 42nd Academy Awards (Best Picture Midnight Cowboy) which drew a 43.4% household rating on 7 April 1970. \n\nBy contrast, ceremonies honoring films that have not performed well at the box office tend to show weaker ratings. The 78th Academy Awards which awarded low-budgeted, independent film Crash (with a pre-Oscar gross of US$53.4 million) generated an audience of 38.64 million with a household rating of 22.91%. In 2008, the 80th Academy Awards telecast was watched by 31.76 million viewers on average with an 18.66% household rating, the lowest rated and least watched ceremony to date, in spite of celebrating 80 years of the Academy Awards. The Best Picture winner of that particular ceremony was another independently financed film (No Country for Old Men).\n\nVenues\n\nIn 1929, the first Academy Awards were presented at a banquet dinner at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. From 1930 to 1943, the ceremony alternated between two venues: the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard and the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.\n\nGrauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood then hosted the awards from 1944 to 1946, followed by the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles from 1947 to 1948. The 21st Academy Awards in 1949 were held at the Academy Award Theatre at what was the Academy's headquarters on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. \n\nFrom 1950 to 1960, the awards were presented at Hollywood's Pantages Theatre. With the advent of television, the awards from 1953 to 1957 took place simultaneously in Hollywood and New York, first at the NBC International Theatre (1953) and then at the NBC Century Theatre, after which the ceremony took place solely in Los Angeles. The Oscars moved to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California in 1961. By 1969, the Academy decided to move the ceremonies back to Los Angeles, this time to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Los Angeles County Music Center.\n\nIn 2002, the Kodak Theatre (now known as the Dolby Theatre) became the current venue of the presentation. \n\nAwards of Merit categories\n\nCurrent categories\n\nIn the first year of the awards, the Best Directing award was split into two separate categories (Drama and Comedy). At times, the Best Original Score award has also been split into separate categories (Drama and Comedy/Musical). From the 1930s through the 1960s, the Art Direction (now Production Design), Cinematography, and Costume Design awards were likewise split into two separate categories (black-and-white films and color films). Prior to 2012, the Production Design award was called Art Direction, while the Makeup and Hairstyling award was called Makeup.\n\nAnother award, entitled the Academy Award for Best Original Musical, is still in the Academy rulebooks and has yet to be discontinued. However, due to continuous insufficient eligibility each year, it has not been awarded since 1984 (when Purple Rain won). \n\nDiscontinued categories\n\nProposed categories\n\nThe Board of Governors meets each year and considers new award categories. To date, the following proposed categories have been rejected:\n* Best Casting: rejected in 1999\n* Best Stunt Coordination: rejected every year from 1991 to 2012 \n* Best Title Design: rejected in 1999\n\nSpecial categories\n\nThe Special Academy Awards are voted on by special committees, rather than by the Academy membership as a whole. They are not always presented on a consistent annual basis.\n\nCurrent special categories\n\n* Academy Honorary Award: since 1929\n* Academy Scientific and Technical Award: since 1931\n* Gordon E. Sawyer Award: since 1981\n* Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award: since 1956\n* Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award: since 1938\n\nDiscontinued special categories\n\n* Academy Juvenile Award: 1934 to 1960\n* Academy Special Achievement Award: 1972 to 1995\n\nCriticism\n\nAccusations of commercialism\n\nDue to the positive exposure and prestige of the Academy Awards, studios spend millions of dollars and hire publicists specifically to promote their films during what is typically called the \"Oscar season\". This has generated accusations of the Academy Awards being influenced more by marketing than quality. William Friedkin, an Academy Award-winning film director and former producer of the ceremony, expressed this sentiment at a conference in New York in 2009, describing it as \"the greatest promotion scheme that any industry ever devised for itself\". \n\nTim Dirks, editor of AMC's filmsite.org, has written of the Academy Awards,\n\nAccusations of bias\n\nTypical criticism of the Academy Awards for Best Picture is that among the winners and nominees there is an over-representation of romantic historical epics, biographical dramas, romantic dramedies, and family melodramas, most of which are released in the U.S. the last three months of the calendar year. The Oscars have been infamously known for selecting specific genres of movies to be awarded. This has led to the coining of the term 'Oscar bait', describing such movies. This has led at times to more specific criticisms that the Academy is disconnected from the audience, e.g. by favoring 'Oscar bait' over audience favorites, or favoring historical melodramas over critically acclaimed movies that depict current life issues. The 88th awards ceremony became the target of a boycott, based on critics' perception that its all-white acting nominee list reflected bias. In response, the Academy initiated \"historic\" changes in membership by the year 2020. \n\nSymbolism or sentimentalization\n\nActing prizes in certain years have been criticized for not recognizing superior performances so much as being awarded for sentimental reasons, personal popularity, atonement for past mistakes, or presented as a \"career honor\" to recognize a distinguished nominee's entire body of work. \n\nRefusing the award\n\nSome winners critical of the Academy Awards have boycotted the ceremonies and refused to accept their Oscars. The first to do so was Dudley Nichols (Best Writing in 1935 for The Informer). Nichols boycotted the 8th Academy Awards ceremony because of conflicts between the Academy and the Writers' Guild. George C. Scott became the second person to refuse his award (Best Actor in 1970 for Patton) at the 43rd Academy Awards ceremony. Scott described it as a 'meat parade', saying 'I don't want any part of it.\" The third was Marlon Brando, who refused his award (Best Actor for 1972's The Godfather), citing the film industry's discrimination and mistreatment of Native Americans. At the 45th Academy Awards ceremony, Brando sent Sacheen Littlefeather to read a 15-page speech detailing his criticisms.\n\nAssociated events\n\nThe following events are closely associated with the annual Academy Awards:\n* César Award\n* Nominees luncheon\n* Governors Awards\n* The 25th Independent Spirit Awards (in 2010), usually held in Santa Monica the Saturday before the Oscars, marked the first time it was moved to a Friday and a change of venue to L.A. Live\n* The annual \"Night Before\", traditionally held at the Beverly Hills Hotel, begun in 2002 and generally known as the party of the season, benefits the Motion Picture and Television Fund, which operates a retirement home for SAG actors in the San Fernando Valley\n* Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Party airs the awards live at the nearby Pacific Design Center\n* The Governors' Ball is the Academy's official after-party, including dinner (until 2011), and is adjacent to the awards-presentation venue\n* The Vanity Fair after-party, historically at the former Morton's restaurant, since 2009 has been at the Sunset Tower\n\nPresenter and performer gifts\n\nIt has become a tradition to give out gift bags to the presenters and performers at the Oscars. In recent years these gifts have also been extended to award nominees and winners. The value of each of these gift bags can reach into the tens of thousands of dollars. In 2014 the value was reported to be as high as US$80,000. The value has risen to the point where the U.S. Internal Revenue Service issued a statement regarding the gifts and their taxable status. \nOscar gift bags have included vacation packages to Hawaii and Mexico and Japan, a private dinner party for the recipient and friends at a restaurant, videophones, a four-night stay at a hotel, watches, bracelets, vacation packages, spa treatments, bottles of vodka, maple salad dressing, and weight-loss gummie candy. Some of the gifts have even had a \"risque\" element to them; in 2014 the adult products retailer Adam & Eve had a \"Secret Room Gifting Suite\". Celebrities visiting the gifting suite included Judith Hoag, Carolyn Hennesy, Kate Linder, Chris Mulkey, Jim O'Heir, and NBA player John Salley. \n\nTelevision ratings and advertisement prices\n\nFrom 2006 onwards, results are Live+SD, all previous years are Live viewing\n\nTrademark\n\nThe term \"Oscar\" is a registered trademark of the AMPAS; however, in the Italian language, it is used generically to refer to any award or award ceremony, regardless of which field, an activity the AMPAS discourages.[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/court-oscar-may-be-generic-132235 Court: 'Oscar' may be generic term in Italian - Hollywood Reporter][http://uk.reuters.com/article/industry-oscar-dc-idUKN1527923720070316 Court: Oscar may be generic term in Italian \| Reuters]" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "S.S. Titanic", "HMS Titanic", "Rms titanic", "R. M. S. 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Who won an Oscar wearing an eye patch in True Grit?	tc_1162	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "True_Grit_(2010_film).txt" ], "title": [ "True Grit (2010 film)" ], "wiki_context": [ "True Grit is a 2010 American Revisionist Western film directed, written, produced and edited by the Coen brothers and executive produced by Steven Spielberg. It is the second adaptation of Charles Portis' 1968 novel of the same name, which was previously filmed in 1969 starring John Wayne and Glen Campbell. This version stars Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross and Jeff Bridges as Deputy U.S. Marshal Reuben J. \"Rooster\" Cogburn, along with Matt Damon, Josh Brolin and Barry Pepper. After an outlaw named Tom Chaney murders her father, feisty 14-year-old farm girl Mattie Ross hires Cogburn, a boozy, trigger-happy lawman, to help her find Chaney (Brolin) and avenge her father. The bickering duo are accompanied on their quest by a Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf (Damon), who has been tracking Chaney for killing a State Senator. As they embark on a dangerous adventure, each character has their \"grit\" tested in unprecedented ways.\n\nFilming began in March 2010, and the film was officially released in the U. S. on December 22, 2010, after advance screenings earlier that month. The film opened the 61st Berlin International Film Festival on February 10, 2011. The film was well received by critics, garnering a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score. It was nominated for ten Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Bridges), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Steinfeld), Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Sound Editing, but didn't win any of its nominations. The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD on June 7, 2011.\n\nPlot \n\nMattie Ross, the narrator and protagonist, explains that her father was murdered by Tom Chaney when she was 14 years old. While collecting her father's body in Fort Smith, Arkansas, Mattie asks the local sheriff about the search for Chaney. He tells her that Chaney has fled with \"Lucky\" Ned Pepper and his gang into Indian Territory, where the sheriff has no authority, so she inquires about hiring a Deputy U.S. Marshal. The sheriff gives three recommendations, and Mattie chooses Rooster Cogburn. Cogburn initially rebuffs her offer, not believing she has the money to hire him. She raises the money by aggressively horse-trading with Colonel Stonehill.\n\nTexas Ranger LaBoeuf arrives in town after pursuing Chaney for the murder of a Texas State Senator. LaBoeuf proposes to team up with Cogburn, but Mattie refuses his offer. She wishes Chaney to be hanged in Arkansas for her father's murder, not in Texas for killing the senator. Mattie also insists on traveling with Cogburn but he leaves without her, having gone with LaBoeuf to apprehend Chaney and split the reward.\n\nAfter being refused passage on the ferry that conveyed Cogburn and LaBoeuf, Mattie crosses the river on horseback. LaBoeuf expresses his displeasure by birching Mattie with a stick, but Cogburn eventually allows Mattie to accompany them. After a dispute over their respective service with the Confederate States of America, Cogburn ends their arrangement and LaBoeuf leaves to pursue Chaney on his own. Cogburn and Mattie meet a trail doctor who directs them to an empty dugout for shelter. They find two outlaws, Quincy and Moon, and interrogate them. Quincy insists they have no information about the Pepper gang, but eventually Moon divulges what he knows; Quincy fatally stabs Moon, and Cogburn shoots Quincy dead. Before dying, Moon says Pepper and his gang will be returning for fresh horses that night.\n\nLaBoeuf arrives at the dugout and is confronted by the Pepper gang. Cogburn, hiding on the hillside with Mattie, shoots two gang members and accidentally hits LaBoeuf, but Pepper escapes. The next day, a drunken Cogburn gets in an argument with the wounded LaBoeuf, who departs again. While retrieving water from a stream, Mattie encounters Chaney. She shoots and wounds him, but he survives and drags her back to Ned, who forces Cogburn to leave by threatening to kill her. Ned leaves Mattie alone with Chaney, ordering him not to harm her or he will not get paid after his remount arrives.\n\nChaney tries to knife Mattie, but LaBoeuf appears and knocks Chaney out, explaining that he and Cogburn devised a plan. They watch from a cliff as Cogburn takes on the remaining members of Ned's gang, killing two and wounding Ned before his horse is shot and falls, trapping Cogburn's leg. LaBoeuf snipes Pepper from roughly four hundred yards away. Chaney regains consciousness and surprises LaBoeuf, knocking him unconscious with a rock. Mattie seizes LaBoeuf's rifle and shoots Chaney in the chest. The recoil knocks her into a deep pit. In an attempt to escape, Mattie awakens a rattlesnake. She is bitten before anyone can get to her. Cogburn cuts into her hand to suck out as much of the venom as he can, then rides day and night to get Mattie to a doctor, carrying her on foot after her horse collapses from exhaustion.\n\nTwenty-five years later, in 1903, Mattie reveals through narration that her left forearm was amputated due to gangrene from the snakebite. Cogburn stayed until she was out of danger, but left before she regained consciousness. She never saw Cogburn again, despite a letter she wrote inviting him to collect the money she still owed him. She receives a note from Cogburn inviting her to a travelling Wild West show where he now performs. She arrives, only to learn that Cogburn died three days earlier. She has his body moved to her family cemetery. Standing over Cogburn's grave, she reflects on her decision to move his remains, and about never having married. She also reveals that she never saw LaBoeuf again.\n\nCast \n\n* Jeff Bridges as Deputy U.S. Marshal Reuben J. \"Rooster\" Cogburn\n* Matt Damon as Texas Ranger LaBoeuf\n* Josh Brolin as Tom Chaney\n* Barry Pepper as Ned \"Lucky\" Pepper\n* Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross\n* Domhnall Gleeson as Moon (the Kid)\n* Bruce Green as Harold Parmalee\n* Ed Lee Corbin as Bear Man (Dr. Forrester)\n* Roy Lee Jones as Yarnell Poindexter\n* Paul Rae as Emmett Quincy\n* Nicholas Sadler as Sullivan\n* Dakin Matthews as Colonel Stonehill\n* Elizabeth Marvel and Ruth Morris as 40-year-old Mattie\n* Leon Russom as Sheriff\n* Jake Walker as Judge Isaac Parker\n* Don Pirl as Cole Younger\n* James Brolin as Frank James (uncredited cameo)\n* Jarlath Conroy as the Undertaker\n* J. K. Simmons as Lawyer J. Noble Daggett (voice only; uncredited)\n\nAdaptation and production \n\nThe project was rumored as far back as February 2008; however it was not confirmed until March 2009. \n\nAhead of shooting, Ethan Coen said that the film would be a more faithful adaptation of the novel than the 1969 version.\n\nMattie Ross \"is a pill\", said Ethan Coen in a December 2010 interview, \"but there is something deeply admirable about her in the book that we were drawn to\", including the Presbyterian-Protestant ethic so strongly imbued in a 14-year-old girl. Joel Coen said that the brothers did not want to \"mess around with what we thought was a very compelling story and character\". The film's producer, Scott Rudin, said that the Coens had taken a \"formal, reverent approach\" to the Western genre, with its emphasis on adventure and quest. \"The patois of the characters, the love of language that permeates the whole film, makes it very much of a piece with their other films, but it is the least ironic in many regards\".\n\nNevertheless, there are subtle ways in which the film adaptation differs from the original novel. This is particularly evident in the negotiation scene between Mattie and her father's undertaker. In the film, Mattie bargains over her father's casket and proceeds to spend the night among the corpses to avoid paying for the boardinghouse. This scene is, in fact, nonexistent in the novel, where Mattie is depicted as refusing to bargain over her father's body, and never entertains the thought of sleeping among the corpses. \n\nOpen casting sessions were held in Texas in November 2009 for the role of Mattie Ross. The following month, Paramount Pictures announced a casting search for a 12- to 16-year-old girl, describing the character as a \"simple, tough as nails young woman\" whose \"unusually steely nerves and straightforward manner are often surprising\". Steinfeld, then age 13, was selected for the role from a pool of 15,000 applicants. \"It was, as you can probably imagine, the source of a lot of anxiety\", Ethan Coen told The New York Times. \"We were aware if the kid doesn't work, there's no movie\". \n\nThe film was shot in the Santa Fe, New Mexico area in March and April 2010, as well as in Granger and Austin, Texas. The first trailer was released in September; a second trailer premiered with The Social Network.\n\nTrue Grit received a PG-13 rating for \"some intense sequences of western violence including disturbing images\". It was the first Coen brothers film to receive such a rating since 2003's Intolerable Cruelty.\n\nFor the final segment of the film, a one-armed body double was needed for Elizabeth Marvel (who played the adult Mattie). After a nationwide call, the Coen brothers cast Ruth Morris – a 29-year-old social worker and student who was born without a left forearm. Morris has more screen time in the film than Marvel. \n\nSoundtrack \n\nRelease \n\nBox office \n\nIn the holiday weekend following its December 22 North American debut, True Grit took in $25.6 million at the box office, twice its pre-release projections. By its second weekend ending January 2, the film had earned $87.1 million domestically, becoming the Coen brothers' highest grossing film, surpassing No Country for Old Men, which earned $74.3 million. True Grit was the only mainstream movie of the 2010 holiday season to exceed the revenue expectations of its producers. Based on that performance, The Los Angeles Times predicted that the film would likely become the second-highest grossing western of all time when inflation is discounted, exceeded only by Dances with Wolves. On Thursday, December 23, 2010, it opened to #3 behind Little Fockers and Tron: Legacy. On Friday, December 24, 2010, it went up to #2 behind Little Fockers. On Friday, December 31, 2010 it went up to #1 and then on January 1, 2011, it went back to #2 until January 3, 2011. It stayed #1 until January 14 and then went down to #3 behind The Green Hornet and The Dilemma. On February 11, 2011, it went down to #9 behind Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, Just Go With It, Gnomeo and Juliet, The Eagle, The Roommate, The King's Speech, No Strings Attached, and Sanctum. It closed in theaters on April 28, 2011. True Grit took in an additional $15 million in what is usually a slow month for movie attendance, reaching $110 million. According to Box Office Mojo, True Grit has grossed over $170 million domestically and $250 million worldwide as of July 2011.\n\nBoth the brothers and Paramount Vice Chairman Rob Moore attributed the film's success partly to its \"soft\" PG-13 rating, atypical for a Coen brothers film, which helped broaden audience appeal. Paramount anticipated that the film would be popular with the adults who often constitute the Coen brothers' core audience, as well as fans of the Western genre. But True Grit also drew extended families: parents, grandparents, and teenagers. Geographically, the film played strongest in Los Angeles and New York, but its top 20 markets also included Oklahoma City; Plano, Texas; and Olathe, Kansas. \n\nCritical reception \n\nTrue Grit received critical acclaim. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 96% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 262 reviews, with an average score of 8.4/10 and with its consensus stating: \"Girded by strong performances from Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, and lifted by some of the Coens' most finely tuned, unaffected work, True Grit is a worthy companion to the Charles Portis book. \" Metacritic gave the film an average score of 80/100 based on 41 reviews from mainstream critics, indicating \"generally favorable reviews\". Total Film gave the film a five-star review (denoting 'outstanding'): \"This isn't so much a remake as a masterly re-creation. Not only does it have the drop on the 1969 version, it's the first great movie of 2011\". \n\nRoger Ebert awarded 3.5 stars out of 4, writing, \"What strikes me is that I'm describing the story and the film as if it were simply, if admirably, a good Western. That's a surprise to me, because this is a film by the Coen Brothers, and this is the first straight genre exercise in their career. It's a loving one. Their craftsmanship is a wonder\", and also remarking, \"The cinematography by Roger Deakins reminds us of the glory that was, and can still be, the Western.\" \n\nThe Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, writing, \"The Coens, not known for softening anything, have restored the original's bleak, elegiac conclusion and as writer-directors have come up with a version that shares events with the first film but is much closer in tone to the book... Clearly recognizing a kindred spirit in Portis, sharing his love for eccentric characters and odd language, they worked hard, and successfully, at serving the buoyant novel as well as being true to their own black comic brio.\" \n\nIn his review for the Minneapolis Star Tribune Colin Covert wrote: \"the Coens dial down the eccentricity and deliver their first classically made, audience-pleasing genre picture. The results are masterful. \" Richard Corliss of Time Magazine named Hailee Steinfeld's performance one of the Top 10 Movie Performances of 2010, saying \"She delivers the orotund dialogue as if it were the easiest vernacular, stares down bad guys, wins hearts. That's a true gift\". \n\nRex Reed of The New York Observer criticized the film's pacing, referring to plot points as \"mere distractions ... to divert attention from the fact that nothing is going on elsewhere\". Reed considers Damon \"hopelessly miscast\" and finds Bridges' performance mumbly, lumbering, and self-indulgent. \n\nEntertainment Weekly gave the movie a B+: \"Truer than the John Wayne showpiece and less gritty than the book, this True Grit is just tasty enough to leave movie lovers hungry for a missing spice.\" \n\nThe US Conference of Catholic Bishops review called the film \"exceptionally fine\" and said \"[a]mid its archetypical characters, mythic atmosphere and amusingly idiosyncratic dialogue, writer-directors Joel and Ethan Coen's captivating drama uses its heroine's sensitive perspective – as well as a fair number of biblical and religious references – to reflect seriously on the violent undertow of frontier life.\" \n\nAccolades \n\nThe film won the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Young Performer (Hailee Steinfeld) and received ten additional nominations in the following categories: Best Film, Best Actor (Jeff Bridges), Best Supporting Actress (Steinfeld), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup, and Best Score. The ceremony took place on January 14, 2011. \n\nIt was nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Awards: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Bridges) and Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Steinfeld). The ceremony took place on January 30, 2011. \n\nIt was nominated for eight British Academy Film Awards: Best Film, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Bridges), Best Actress in a Leading Role (Steinfeld), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design. Roger Deakins won the award for Best Cinematography.\n\nIt was nominated for ten Academy Awards, but won none: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor (Bridges), Best Supporting Actress (Steinfeld), Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Sound Editing. When told of all the nominations, the Coen brothers stated, \"Ten seems like an awful lot. We don't want to take anyone else's.\"French, Doug (2011-02-08) [https://mises.org/daily/5021/True-Grit-and-True-Commerce True Grit and True Commerce], Mises Institute\n\nHome media \n\nThe film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 7, 2011." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Michael Morris (John Wayne)", "Marion Morrison", "Marion Robert Morrison", "List of John Wayne films", "Marion Mitchell Morrison", "Michael Morrison (John Wayne)", "Marion Michael Morrison", "John wayne", "List of awards and nominations received by John Wayne", "List of John Wayne Films", "John Wayne" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "list of john wayne films", "marion robert morrison", "list of awards and nominations received by john wayne", "michael morris john wayne", "marion mitchell morrison", "john wayne", "marion michael morrison", "marion morrison", "michael morrison john wayne" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "john wayne", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "John Wayne" }
In which film did David Niven play James Bond?	tc_1163	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe", "Search" ], "filename": [ "David_Niven.txt", "James_Bond.txt", "Casino_Royale_(1967_film).txt" ], "title": [ "David Niven", "James Bond", "Casino Royale (1967 film)" ], "wiki_context": [ "James David Graham Niven (1 March 1910 – 29 July 1983) was a popular English actor and novelist. His many roles included Squadron Leader Peter Carter in A Matter of Life and Death, Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days, and Sir Charles Lytton, (\"the Phantom\") in The Pink Panther. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Separate Tables (1958).\n\nBorn in London, Niven attended Heatherdown Preparatory School and Stowe before gaining a place at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. After Sandhurst, he joined the British Army and was gazetted a second lieutenant in the Highland Light Infantry. Having developed an interest in acting, he left the Highland Light Infantry, travelled to Hollywood, and had several minor roles in film. He first appeared as an extra in the British film There Goes the Bride (1932). From there, he hired an agent and had several small parts in films from 1933 to 1935, including a non-speaking part in MGM's Mutiny on the Bounty. This brought him to wider attention within the film industry and he was spotted by Samuel Goldwyn. Upon the outbreak of the Second World War, Niven returned to Britain and rejoined the army, being recommissioned as a lieutenant.\n\nNiven resumed his acting career after his demobilisation, and was voted the second-most popular British actor in the 1945 Popularity Poll of British film stars. He appeared in A Matter of Life and Death (1946), The Bishop's Wife (1947), and Enchantment (1948), all of which received critical acclaim. Niven later appeared in The Elusive Pimpernel (1950), The Toast of New Orleans (1950), Happy Go Lovely (1951), Happy Ever After (1954) and Carrington V.C. (1955) before scoring a big success as Phileas Fogg in Michael Todd's production of Around the World in 80 Days (1956). Niven appeared in nearly a hundred films, and many shows for television. He also began writing books, with considerable commercial success. In 1982 he appeared in Blake Edwards' final \"Pink Panther\" films Trail of the Pink Panther and Curse of the Pink Panther, reprising his role as Sir Charles Lytton.\n\nEarly life\n\nJames David Graham Niven was born in Belgrave Mansions, London, to William Edward Graham Niven (1878–1915) and his wife, Henrietta Julia (née Degacher) Niven. He was named David for his birth on St. David's Day (1 March). Niven often claimed that he was born in Kirriemuir, in the Scottish county of Angus in 1909, but his birth certificate shows this was not the case. \n\nHenrietta was of French and British ancestry. She was born in Wales, the daughter of army officer William Degacher (1841–1879) by his marriage to Julia Caroline Smith, the daughter of Lieutenant General James Webber Smith. Niven's grandfather William Degacher was killed in the Battle of Isandlwana (1879), during the Zulu War. Born William Hitchcock, he and his brother Henry had followed the lead of their father, Walter Henry Hitchcock, in assuming their mother's maiden name of Degacher in 1874. \n\nWilliam Niven, David's father, was of Scottish descent; his paternal grandfather, David Graham Niven, (1811–1884) was from St. Martin's, a village in Perthshire. William served in the Berkshire Yeomanry in the First World War and was killed during the Gallipoli Campaign on 21 August 1915. He was buried in Green Hill Cemetery, Turkey, in the Special Memorial Section in Plot F. 10. \n\nNiven's mother remarried, to Sir Thomas Comyn-Platt, in London in 1917. Graham Lord, in Niv: The Authorised Biography of David Niven, suggested that Comyn-Platt and Mrs. Niven had been having an affair for some time before her husband's death, and that Sir Thomas may well have been David Niven's biological father, a supposition which has some support from her children. A reviewer of Lord's book stated that Lord's photographic evidence showing a strong physical resemblance between Niven and Comyn-Platt \"would appear to confirm these theories, though photographs can often be misleading.\"\n\nDavid Niven had three older siblings:\nMargaret Joyce (born in Geneva, Switzerland, 5 January 1900 – 18 November 1981) \nHenry Degacher (\"Max\"; born in Buckland, Berkshire, 29 June 1902 – March 1953)\nGrizel Rosemary Graham (born in Belgravia, Middlesex, 28 November 1906 – 28 January 2007).\n\nEducation and army service\n\nEnglish private schools at the time of Niven's boyhood were noted for their strict and sometimes brutal discipline. Niven suffered many instances of corporal punishment owing to his inclination for pranks, which finally led to his expulsion from Heatherdown Preparatory School at the age of 10½. This ended his chances for Eton College, a significant blow to his family. After failing to pass the naval entrance exam because of his difficulty with maths, Niven attended Stowe School, a newly created public school led by headmaster J.F. Roxburgh, who was unlike any of Niven's previous headmasters. Thoughtful and kind, he addressed the boys by their first names, allowed them bicycles, and encouraged and nurtured their personal interests. Niven later wrote, \"How he did this, I shall never know, but he made every single boy at that school feel that what he said and what he did were of real importance to the headmaster.\" He attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, graduating in 1930 with a commission as a second lieutenant in the British Army. \n\nHe did well at Sandhurst, which gave him the \"officer and gentleman\" bearing that was to be his trademark. He requested assignment to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders or the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment), then jokingly wrote on the form, as his third choice, \"anything but the Highland Light Infantry\" (because the HLI wore tartan trews rather than kilts). He was assigned to the HLI, and his comment was known in the regiment. Thus, Niven did not enjoy his time in the army. He served with the HLI for two years in Malta and then for a few months in Dover. In Malta, he became friends with Roy Urquhart, future commander of the British 1st Airborne Division.\n\nNiven grew tired of the peacetime army. Though promoted to lieutenant on 1 January 1933, he saw no opportunity for further advancement. His ultimate decision to resign came after a lengthy lecture on machine guns, which was interfering with his plans for dinner with a particularly attractive young lady. At the end of the lecture, the speaker (a major general) asked if there were any questions. Showing the typical rebelliousness of his early years, Niven asked, \"Could you tell me the time, sir? I have to catch a train.\"\n\nAfter being placed under close-arrest for this act of insubordination, Niven finished a bottle of whisky with the officer who was guarding him: Rhoddy Rose (later Colonel R.L.C. Rose, DSO, MC). With Rose's assistance, Niven was allowed to escape from a first-floor window. He then headed for America. While crossing the Atlantic, Niven resigned his commission by telegram on 6 September 1933. Niven then moved to New York City, where he began an unsuccessful career in whisky sales, after which he had a stint in horse rodeo promotion in Atlantic City. After detours to Bermuda and Cuba, he arrived in Hollywood in 1934.\n\nEarly film career\n\nWhen Niven presented himself at Central Casting, he learned that he needed a work permit to reside and work in the U.S. This meant that Niven had to leave the US, so he went to Mexico, where he worked as a \"gun-man\", cleaning and polishing the rifles of visiting American hunters. He received his resident alien visa from the American consulate when his birth certificate arrived from Britain. He returned to the United States and was accepted by Central Casting as \"Anglo-Saxon Type No. 2,008.\"\n\nHis role in Mutiny on the Bounty brought him to the attention of independent film producer Samuel Goldwyn, who signed him to a contract and established his career. Niven appeared in 19 films in the next four years. He had supporting roles in several major films—Rose-Marie (1936), Dodsworth (1936), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)—and leading roles in The Dawn Patrol (1938), Three Blind Mice (1938) and Wuthering Heights (1939), playing opposite such stars as Errol Flynn, Loretta Young and Laurence Olivier. In 1939 he co-starred with Ginger Rogers in the RKO comedy Bachelor Mother and starred as the eponymous gentleman safe-cracker in Raffles.\n\nNiven joined what became known as the Hollywood Raj, a group of British actors in Hollywood which included Rex Harrison, Boris Karloff, Stan Laurel, Basil Rathbone, Ronald Colman, Leslie Howard, and C. Aubrey Smith. According to his autobiography, Errol Flynn and he were firm friends and rented Rosalind Russell's house at 601 North Linden Drive as a bachelor pad.\n\nSecond World War\n\nAfter Britain declared war on Germany in 1939, Niven returned home and rejoined the British Army. He was alone among British stars in Hollywood in doing so; the British Embassy advised most actors to stay. Niven was recommissioned as a lieutenant into the Rifle Brigade (Prince Consort's Own) on 25 February 1940, and was assigned to a motor training battalion. He wanted something more exciting, however, and transferred into the Commandos. He was assigned to a training base at Inverailort House in the Western Highlands. Niven later claimed credit for bringing future Major General Sir Robert E. Laycock to the Commandos. Niven commanded \"A\" Squadron GHQ Liaison Regiment, better known as \"Phantom\". He worked with the Army Film Unit. He acted in two films made during the war, The First of the Few (1942) and The Way Ahead (1944). Both were made with a view to winning support for the British war effort, especially in the United States. Niven's Film Unit work included a small part in the deception operation that used minor actor M.E. Clifton James to impersonate General Sir Bernard Montgomery. During his work with the Film Unit, Peter Ustinov, though one of the script-writers, had to pose as Niven's batman. (Ustinov also acted in The Way Ahead.) Niven explained in his autobiography that there was no military way that he, as a lieutenant-colonel, and Ustinov, who was only a private, could associate, other than as an officer and his subordinate, hence their strange \"act\". Ustinov later appeared with Niven in Death on the Nile (1978).\n\nNiven took part in the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, although he was sent to France several days after D-Day. He served in the \"Phantom Signals Unit,\" which located and reported enemy positions, and kept rear commanders informed on changing battle lines. Niven was posted at one time to Chilham in Kent. He remained close-mouthed about the war, despite public interest in celebrities in combat and a reputation for storytelling. He once said:I will, however, tell you just one thing about the war, my first story and my last. I was asked by some American friends to search out the grave of their son near Bastogne. I found it where they told me I would, but it was among 27,000 others, and I told myself that here, Niven, were 27,000 reasons why you should keep your mouth shut after the war. \n\nHe had particular scorn for those newspaper columnists covering the war who typed out self-glorifying and excessively florid prose about their meagre wartime experiences. Niven stated, \"Anyone who says a bullet sings past, hums past, flies, pings, or whines past, has never heard one—they go crack!\" He gave a few details of his war experience in his autobiography, The Moon's a Balloon: his private conversations with Winston Churchill, the bombing of London, and what it was like entering Germany with the occupation forces. Niven first met Churchill at a dinner party in February 1940. Churchill singled him out from the crowd and stated, \"Young man, you did a fine thing to give up your film career to fight for your country. Mark you, had you not done so − it would have been despicable.\"\n\nA few stories have surfaced. About to lead his men into action, Niven eased their nervousness by telling them, \"Look, you chaps only have to do this once. But I'll have to do it all over again in Hollywood with Errol Flynn!\" Asked by suspicious American sentries during the Battle of the Bulge who had won the World Series in 1943, he answered, \"Haven't the foggiest idea ... but I did co-star with Ginger Rogers in Bachelor Mother!\" On another occasion, asked how he felt about serving with the British Army in Europe, he allegedly said, \"Well on the whole, I would rather be tickling Ginger Rogers' tits.\"\n\nNiven ended the war as a lieutenant-colonel. On his return to Hollywood after the war, he received the Legion of Merit, an American military decoration. Presented by Eisenhower himself, it honoured Niven's work in setting up the BBC Allied Expeditionary Forces Programme, a radio news and entertainment station for the Allied forces. \n\nPostwar career\n\nNiven resumed his career in 1946, now only in starring roles. His films A Matter of Life and Death (1946), The Bishop's Wife (1947) with Cary Grant, and Enchantment (1948) are all highly regarded. In 1950, he starred in The Elusive Pimpernel, which was made in Britain and which was to be distributed by Samuel Goldwyn. Goldwyn pulled out, and the film did not appear in the US for three years. Niven had a long, complex relationship with Goldwyn, who gave him his first start, but the dispute over The Elusive Pimpernel and Niven's demands for more money led to a long estrangement between the two in the 1950s. \n\nDuring this period, Niven was largely barred from the Hollywood studios. Between 1951 and 1956, he made 11 films, two of which were MGM productions and the rest were low-budget British or independent productions. However, Niven won a Golden Globe Award for his work in The Moon Is Blue (1953), produced and directed by Otto Preminger. In 1955, Cornel Lucas photographed Niven while filming at the Rank Film Studio in Denham, Buckinghamshire. A limited edition of British postage stamps was produced using one of Lucas's images taken during this portrait sitting. Niven worked in television. He appeared several times on various short-drama shows, and was one of the \"four stars\" of the dramatic anthology series Four Star Playhouse, appearing in 33 episodes. The show was produced by Four Star Television, which was co-owned and founded by Niven, Dick Powell, and Charles Boyer. The show ended in 1955, but Four Star TV became a highly successful TV production company. \n\nNiven enjoyed success in 1956, when he starred as Phileas Fogg in producer Michael Todd's Around the World in 80 Days. He won the 1958 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Major Pollock in Separate Tables, his only nomination for an Oscar. Appearing on-screen for only 23 minutes in the film, this was the briefest performance ever to win a Best Actor Oscar, until Anthony Hopkins win for the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs, which is a little over 16 minutes. He was also a co-host of the 30th, 31st, and 46th Academy Awards ceremonies. After Niven had won the Academy Award, Goldwyn called with an invitation to his home. In Goldwyn's drawing room, Niven noticed a picture of himself in uniform which he had sent to Goldwyn from Britain during the Second World War. In happier times with Goldwyn, he had observed this same picture sitting on Goldwyn's piano. Now years later, the picture was still in exactly the same spot. As he was looking at the picture, Goldwyn's wife Frances said, \"Sam never took it down.\"\n\nWith an Academy Award to his credit, Niven's career continued to thrive. In 1959, he became the host of his own TV drama series, The David Niven Show, which ran for 13 episodes that summer. He subsequently appeared in another 30 films, including The Guns of Navarone (1961) The Pink Panther (1963), Murder by Death (1976), Death on the Nile (1978), and The Sea Wolves (1980).\n\nIn 1964, Boyer and he appeared in the Four Star series The Rogues. Niven played Alexander 'Alec' Fleming, one of a family of retired con-artists who now fleece villains in the interests of justice. This was his only recurring role on television. The Rogues ran for only one season, but won a Golden Globe award. In 1965, he starred in [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059905/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_27 Where the Spies Are.] In 1967, he appeared as James Bond 007 in Casino Royale. Niven had been Bond creator Ian Fleming's first choice to play Bond in Dr. No. Casino Royale co-producer Charles K. Feldman said later that Fleming had written the book with Niven in mind, and therefore had sent a copy to Niven. Niven was the only James Bond actor mentioned by name in the text of Fleming's novels. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Bond visits an exclusive ski resort in Switzerland, where he is told that David Niven is a frequent visitor and in You Only Live Twice, Niven is referred to as the only real gentleman in Hollywood. \n\nWhile Niven was co-hosting the 46th Annual Oscars ceremony, a naked man appeared behind him, \"streaking\" across the stage. Niven responded \"Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?\" \n\nIn 1974, he hosted David Niven's World for London Weekend Television, which profiled contemporary adventurers such as hang gliders, motorcyclists, and mountain climbers: it ran for 21 episodes. In 1975, he narrated The Remarkable Rocket, a short animation based on a story by Oscar Wilde. In 1979, he appeared in Escape to Athena, which was produced by his son David, Jr. In July 1982, Blake Edwards brought Niven back for cameo appearances in two final \"Pink Panther\" films (Trail of the Pink Panther and Curse of the Pink Panther), reprising his role as Sir Charles Lytton. By this time, Niven was having serious health problems. When the raw footage was reviewed, his voice was inaudible, and his lines had to be dubbed by Rich Little. Niven only learned of it from a newspaper report. This was his last film appearance. \n\nWriting\n\nNiven wrote four books. The first, Round the Rugged Rocks, (published simultaneously in the US under the title \"Once Over Lightly\") was a novel that appeared in 1951 and was forgotten almost at once. In 1971, he published his autobiography, The Moon's a Balloon, which was well received, selling over five million copies. He followed this with Bring On the Empty Horses in 1975, a collection of entertaining reminiscences from Hollywood's \"Golden Age\" in the 1930s and '40s. It now appears that Niven recounted many incidents from a first-person perspective that actually happened to other people, especially Cary Grant, which he borrowed and embroidered. In 1981 Niven published a second and much more successful novel, Go Slowly, Come Back Quickly, which was set during and after the Second World War, and which drew on his experiences during the war and in Hollywood. He was working on a third novel at the time of his death.\n\nPersonal life\n\nWhile on leave in 1940, Niven met Primula \"Primmie\" Susan Rollo (18 February 1918, London – 21 May 1946), the daughter of London lawyer William H.C. Rollo. After a whirlwind romance, they married on 16 September. A son, David, Jr., was born in December 1942 and a second son, James Graham Niven on 6 November 1945. Primmie died at age 28, only six weeks after the family moved to the U.S. She fractured her skull after an accidental fall in the Beverly Hills, California home of Tyrone Power, while playing a game of \"sardines.\" She had walked through a door believing it led to a closet, but instead, it led to a stone staircase to the basement. \n\nIn 1948, Niven met Hjördis Paulina Tersmeden (née Genberg, 1919–1997), a divorced Swedish fashion model. He recounted their meeting:I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life—tall, slim, auburn hair, up-tilted nose, lovely mouth and the most enormous grey eyes I had ever seen. It really happened the way it does when written by the worst lady novelists ... I goggled. I had difficulty swallowing and had champagne in my knees.\n\nIn New York, Niven and Hjördis were next-door neighbours with Audrey Hepburn, who made her début on Broadway that season. In 1960, while filming Please Don't Eat the Daisies with Doris Day, Niven and Hjördis separated for a few weeks, but later reconciled. \n\nIn 1960, Niven moved to Château-d'Œx near Gstaad in Switzerland for financial reasons, near to close friends in the country including Deborah Kerr, Peter Ustinov, and Noël Coward. Niven's status as a tax exile in Switzerland is believed to have been one of the reasons why he never received a British honour. Niven divided his time in the 1960s and '70s between Château-d'Œx and Cap Ferrat on the Côte d'Azur in the south of France.\n\nHjördis stopped drinking alcohol for a time after Niven's death in 1983, but returned to it before her own death of a stroke in 1997 at age 78. Niven's friend Billie More noted: \"This is not kind, but when Hjördis died I can't think of a single soul who was sorry.\"\n\nIllness and death\n\nIn 1980, Niven began experiencing fatigue, muscle weakness, and a warble in his voice. His 1981 interviews on the talk shows of Michael Parkinson and Merv Griffin alarmed family and friends; viewers wondered if Niven had either been drinking or suffered a stroke. He blamed his slightly slurred voice on the shooting schedule on the film he had been making, Better Late Than Never. He was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or \"Lou Gehrig's disease\" in the US and motor neurone disease (MND) in the UK) later that year. His final appearance in Hollywood was hosting the 1981 American Film Institute tribute to Fred Astaire.\n\nIn February 1983, using a false name to avoid publicity, Niven was hospitalised for 10 days, ostensibly for a digestive problem. Afterwards, he returned to his chalet at Château-d'Œx. His condition continued to decline, but he refused to return to the hospital, and his family supported his decision. He died at his chalet from ALS on 29 July 1983 at age 73, the same day as his The Prisoner of Zenda and A Matter of Life and Death co-star Raymond Massey. He was survived by his four children and his second wife. Niven is buried in Château-d'Œx Cemetery in Château-d'Œx, Switzerland. \n\nLegacy\n\nA Thanksgiving service for Niven was held at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, on 27 October 1983. The congregation of 1,200 included Prince Michael of Kent, Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, Sir John Mills, Sir Richard Attenborough, Trevor Howard, Sir David Frost, Joanna Lumley, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Lord Olivier. \n\nBiographer Graham Lord wrote, \"the biggest wreath, worthy of a Mafia Godfather's funeral, was delivered from the porters at London's Heathrow Airport, along with a card that read: 'To the finest gentleman who ever walked through these halls. He made a porter feel like a king.'\" \n\nIn 1985, Niven was included in a series of British postage stamps, along with Sir Alfred Hitchcock, Sir Charlie Chaplin, Peter Sellers, and Vivien Leigh, to commemorate \"British Film Year\". \n\nQuotations\n\nBy Niven:\n\"It really is amazing. Can you imagine being wonderfully overpaid for dressing up and playing games? It's like being Peter Pan.\" \n\"I've been lucky enough to win an Oscar, write a best-seller—my other dream would be to have a painting in the Louvre. The only way that's going to happen is if I paint a dirty one on the wall of the gentlemen's lavatory.\" \nWhen asked why he seemed so incredibly cheerful all the time: \"Well, old bean, life is really so bloody awful that I feel it's my absolute duty to be chirpy and try and make everybody else happy too.\"\nDeadpanning after a streaker ran across stage during an Academy Award telecast: \"Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was almost bound to happen. But isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?\" \n\nAbout Niven:\n\"I don't think his acting ever quite achieved the brilliance or the polish of his dinner-party conversations.\" — John Mortimer\n\"David's life was Wodehouse with tears.\" John Mortimer speaking at Niven's memorial service, quoted by Niven biographer Graham Lord. \n\"Niv was the twinkling star, the meteor who lit up every room he entered; I am just the dreary drudge whose job it is to try to tell the truth.\" — Niven biographer Graham Lord, in the preface to his book Niv.\n\nFilmography and other works\n\nBibliography\n\n* Niven, David (1951). Round the Rugged Rocks. London: The Cresset Press.\n\n\n", "The James Bond series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have written authorised Bond novels or novelizations: Kingsley Amis, Christopher Wood, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks, Jeffery Deaver, William Boyd and Anthony Horowitz. The latest novel is Trigger Mortis by Anthony Horowitz, published in September 2015. Additionally Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond, and Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the diaries of a recurring series character, Moneypenny.\n\nThe character has also been adapted for television, radio, comic strip, video games and film. The films are the longest continually running and the third-highest-grossing film series to date, which started in 1962 with Dr. No, starring Sean Connery as Bond. As of , there have been twenty-four films in the Eon Productions series. The most recent Bond film, Spectre (2015), stars Daniel Craig in his fourth portrayal of Bond; he is the sixth actor to play Bond in the Eon series. There have also been two independent productions of Bond films: Casino Royale (a 1967 spoof) and Never Say Never Again (a 1983 remake of an earlier Eon-produced film, Thunderball).\n\nThe Bond films are renowned for a number of features, including the musical accompaniment, with the theme songs having received Academy Award nominations on several occasions, and two wins. Other important elements which run through most of the films include Bond's cars, his guns, and the gadgets with which he is supplied by Q Branch. The films are also noted for Bond's relationships with various women, who are sometimes referred to as \"Bond girls\".\n\nPublication history\n\nCreation and inspiration\n\nAs the central figure for his works, Ian Fleming created the fictional character of James Bond, an intelligence officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. Bond was also known by his code number, 007, and was a Royal Naval Reserve Commander.\n\nFleming based his fictional creation on a number of individuals he came across during his time in the Naval Intelligence Division during World War II, admitting that Bond \"was a compound of all the secret agents and commando types I met during the war\". Among those types were his brother, Peter, who had been involved in behind-the-lines operations in Norway and Greece during the war. Aside from Fleming's brother, a number of others also provided some aspects of Bond's make up, including Conrad O'Brien-ffrench, Patrick Dalzel-Job and Bill \"Biffy\" Dunderdale.\n\nThe name James Bond came from that of the American ornithologist James Bond, a Caribbean bird expert and author of the definitive field guide Birds of the West Indies. Fleming, a keen birdwatcher himself, had a copy of Bond's guide and he later explained to the ornithologist's wife that \"It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born\". He further explained that:\n\nOn another occasion, Fleming said: \"I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find, 'James Bond' was much better than something more interesting, like 'Peregrine Carruthers'. Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure—an anonymous, blunt instrument wielded by a government department.\"\n\nFleming decided that Bond should resemble both American singer Hoagy Carmichael and himself and in Casino Royale, Vesper Lynd remarks, \"Bond reminds me rather of Hoagy Carmichael, but there is something cold and ruthless.\" Likewise, in Moonraker, Special Branch Officer Gala Brand thinks that Bond is \"certainly good-looking ... Rather like Hoagy Carmichael in a way. That black hair falling down over the right eyebrow. Much the same bones. But there was something a bit cruel in the mouth, and the eyes were cold.\"\n\nFleming also endowed Bond with many of his own traits, including sharing the same golf handicap, the taste for scrambled eggs and using the same brand of toiletries. Bond's tastes are also often taken from Fleming's own as was his behaviour, with Bond's love of golf and gambling mirroring Fleming's own. Fleming used his experiences of his espionage career and all other aspects of his life as inspiration when writing, including using names of school friends, acquaintances, relatives and lovers throughout his books.\n\nIt was not until the penultimate novel, You Only Live Twice, that Fleming gave Bond a sense of family background. The book was the first to be written after the release of Dr. No in cinemas and Sean Connery's depiction of Bond affected Fleming's interpretation of the character, to give Bond both a sense of humour and Scottish antecedents that were not present in the previous stories. In a fictional obituary, purportedly published in The Times, Bond's parents were given as Andrew Bond, from the village of Glencoe, Scotland, and Monique Delacroix, from the canton of Vaud, Switzerland. Fleming did not provide Bond's date of birth, but John Pearson's fictional biography of Bond, James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007, gives Bond a birth date on 11 November 1920, while a study by John Griswold puts the date at 11 November 1921.\n\nNovels and related works\n\nIan Fleming novels\n\nWhilst serving in the Naval Intelligence Division, Fleming had planned to become an author and had told a friend, \"I am going to write the spy story to end all spy stories.\" On 17 February 1952, he began writing his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica, where he wrote all his Bond novels during the months of January and February each year. He started the story shortly before his wedding to his pregnant girlfriend, Ann Charteris, in order to distract himself from his forthcoming nuptials.\n\nAfter completing the manuscript for Casino Royale, Fleming showed the manuscript to his friend (and later editor) William Plomer to read. Plomer liked it and submitted it to the publishers, Jonathan Cape, who did not like it as much. Cape finally published it in 1953 on the recommendation of Fleming's older brother Peter, an established travel writer. Between 1953 and 1966, two years after his death, twelve novels and two short-story collections were published, with the last two books – The Man with the Golden Gun and Octopussy and The Living Daylights – published posthumously. All the books were published in the UK through Jonathan Cape.\n\nPost-Fleming novels\n\nAfter Fleming's death a continuation novel, Colonel Sun, was written by Kingsley Amis (as Robert Markham) and published in 1968. Amis had already written a literary study of Fleming's Bond novels in his 1965 work The James Bond Dossier. Although novelizations of two of the Eon Productions Bond films appeared in print, James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me and James Bond and Moonraker, both written by screenwriter Christopher Wood, the series of novels did not continue until the 1980s. In 1981 the thriller writer John Gardner picked up the series with Licence Renewed. Gardner went on to write sixteen Bond books in total; two of the books he wrote – Licence to Kill and GoldenEye – were novelizations of Eon Productions films of the same name. Gardner moved the Bond series into the 1980s, although he retained the ages of the characters as they were when Fleming had left them. In 1996 Gardner retired from writing James Bond books due to ill health. \n\nIn 1996 the American author Raymond Benson became the author of the Bond novels. Benson had previously been the author of The James Bond Bedside Companion, first published in 1984. \nBy the time he moved on to other, non-Bond related projects in 2002, Benson had written six Bond novels, three novelizations and three short stories. \n\nAfter a gap of six years, Sebastian Faulks was commissioned by Ian Fleming Publications to write a new Bond novel, which was released on 28 May 2008, the 100th anniversary of Fleming's birth. The book—titled Devil May Care—was published in the UK by Penguin Books and by Doubleday in the US. American writer Jeffery Deaver was then commissioned by Ian Fleming Publications to produce Carte Blanche, which was published on 26 May 2011. The book updated Bond into a post-9/11 agent, independent of MI5 or MI6. On 26 September 2013 Solo, written by William Boyd, was published, set in 1969. In October 2014 it was announced that Anthony Horowitz was to write a Bond continuation novel. Set in the 1950s two weeks after the events of Goldfinger, it contains material written, but previously unreleased, by Fleming. Trigger Mortis was released on 8 September 2015. \n\nYoung Bond\n\nThe Young Bond series of novels was started by Charlie Higson and, between 2005 and 2009, five novels and one short story were published. The first Young Bond novel, SilverFin was also adapted and released as a graphic novel on 2 October 2008 by Puffin Books. In October 2013 Ian Fleming Publications announced that Stephen Cole would continue the series, with the first edition scheduled to be released in Autumn 2014. \n\nThe Moneypenny Diaries\n\nThe Moneypenny Diaries are a trilogy of novels chronicling the life of Miss Moneypenny, M's personal secretary. The novels are penned by Samantha Weinberg under the pseudonym Kate Westbrook, who is depicted as the book's \"editor\". The first instalment of the trilogy, subtitled Guardian Angel, was released on 10 October 2005 in the UK. A second volume, subtitled Secret Servant was released on 2 November 2006 in the UK, published by John Murray. A third volume, subtitled Final Fling was released on 1 May 2008. \n\nAdaptations\n\nTelevision\n\nIn 1954 CBS paid Ian Fleming $1,000 ($ in dollars) to adapt his novel Casino Royale into a one-hour television adventure as part of its Climax! series. The episode aired live on 21 October 1954 and starred Barry Nelson as \"Card Sense\" James Bond and Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre. The novel was adapted for American audiences to show Bond as an American agent working for \"Combined Intelligence\", while the character Felix Leiter—American in the novel—became British onscreen and was renamed \"Clarence Leiter\".\n\nIn 1973 a BBC documentary Omnibus: The British Hero featured Christopher Cazenove playing a number of such title characters (e.g. Richard Hannay and Bulldog Drummond). The documentary included James Bond in dramatised scenes from\nGoldfinger—notably featuring 007 being threatened with the novel's circular saw, rather than the film's laser beam—and Diamonds Are Forever. In 1991 a TV cartoon series James Bond Jr. was produced with Corey Burton in the role of Bond's nephew, also called James Bond. \n\nRadio\n\nIn 1956 the novel Moonraker was adapted for broadcast on South African radio, with Bob Holness providing the voice of Bond. According to The Independent, \"listeners across the Union thrilled to Bob's cultured tones as he defeated evil master criminals in search of world domination\". \n\nThe BBC have adapted five of the Fleming novels for broadcast: in 1990 You Only Live Twice was adapted into a 90-minute radio play for BBC Radio 4 with Michael Jayston playing James Bond. The production was repeated a number of times between 2008 and 2011. On 24 May 2008 BBC Radio 4 broadcast an adaptation of Dr. No. The actor Toby Stephens, who played Bond villain Gustav Graves in the Eon Productions version of Die Another Day, played Bond, while Dr. No was played by David Suchet. Following its success, a second story was adapted and on 3 April 2010 BBC Radio 4 broadcast Goldfinger with Stephens again playing Bond. Sir Ian McKellen was Goldfinger and Stephens' Die Another Day co-star Rosamund Pike played Pussy Galore. The play was adapted from Fleming's novel by Archie Scottney and was directed by Martin Jarvis. \nIn 2012 the novel From Russia, with Love was dramatized for Radio 4; it featured a full cast again starring Stephens as Bond. In May 2014 Stephens again played Bond, in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, with Alfred Molina as Blofeld, and Joanna Lumley as Irma Bunt. \n\nComics medium\n\nIn 1957 the Daily Express approached Ian Fleming to adapt his stories into comic strips, offering him £1,500 per novel and a share of takings from syndication. After initial reluctance, Fleming, who felt the strips would lack the quality of his writing, agreed. To aid the Daily Express in illustrating Bond, Fleming commissioned an artist to create a sketch of how he believed James Bond looked. The illustrator, John McLusky, however, felt that Fleming's 007 looked too \"outdated\" and \"pre-war\" and changed Bond to give him a more masculine look. The first strip, Casino Royale was published from 7 July 1958 to 13 December 1958 and was written by Anthony Hern and illustrated by John McLusky.\n\nMost of the Bond novels and short stories have since been adapted for illustration, as well as Kingsley Amis's Colonel Sun; the works were written by Henry Gammidge or Jim Lawrence with Yaroslav Horak replacing McClusky as artist in 1966. After the Fleming and Amis material had been adapted, original stories were produced, continuing in the Daily Express and Sunday Express until May 1977.\n\nSeveral comic book adaptations of the James Bond films have been published through the years: at the time of Dr. No's release in October 1962, a comic book adaptation of the screenplay, written by Norman J. Nodel, was published in Britain as part of the Classics Illustrated anthology series. It was later reprinted in the United States by DC Comics as part of its Showcase anthology series, in January 1963. This was the first American comic book appearance of James Bond and is noteworthy for being a relatively rare example of a British comic being reprinted in a fairly high-profile American comic. It was also one of the earliest comics to be censored on racial grounds (some skin tones and dialogue were changed for the American market). \n\nWith the release of the 1981 film For Your Eyes Only, Marvel Comics published a two-issue comic book adaptation of the film. When Octopussy was released in the cinemas in 1983, Marvel published an accompanying comic; Eclipse also produced a one-off comic for Licence to Kill, although Timothy Dalton refused to allow his likeness to be used. New Bond stories were also drawn up and published from 1989 onwards through Marvel, Eclipse Comics and Dark Horse Comics.\n\nFilms\n\nThe Eon Productions films\n\nIn 1962 Eon Productions, the company of Canadian Harry Saltzman and American Albert R. \"Cubby\" Broccoli, released the first cinema adaptation of an Ian Fleming novel, Dr. No, featuring Sean Connery as 007. Connery starred in a further four films before leaving the role after You Only Live Twice, which was taken up by George Lazenby for On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Lazenby left the role after just one appearance and Connery was tempted back for his last Eon-produced film Diamonds Are Forever.\n\nIn 1973 Roger Moore was appointed to the role of 007 for Live and Let Die and played Bond a further six times over twelve years before being replaced by Timothy Dalton for two films. After a six-year hiatus, during which a legal wrangle threatened Eon's productions of the Bond films, Irish actor Pierce Brosnan was cast as Bond in GoldenEye, released in 1995; he remained in the role for a total of four films, before leaving in 2002. In 2006, Daniel Craig was given the role of Bond for Casino Royale, which rebooted the series. The twenty-third Eon produced film, Skyfall, was released on 26 October 2012. The series has grossed almost $7 billion to date, making it the third-highest-grossing film series (behind Harry Potter and the Marvel Cinematic Universe), and the single most successful adjusted for inflation. \n\nNon-Eon films\n\nIn 1967 Casino Royale was adapted into a parody Bond film starring David Niven as Sir James Bond and Ursula Andress as Vesper Lynd. Niven had been Fleming's preference for the role of Bond. The result of a court case in the High Court in London in 1963 allowed Kevin McClory to produce a remake of Thunderball titled Never Say Never Again in 1983. The film, produced by Jack Schwartzman's Taliafilm production company and starring Sean Connery as Bond, was not part of the Eon series of Bond films. In 1997 the Sony Corporation acquired all or some of McClory's rights in an undisclosed deal, which were then subsequently acquired by MGM, whilst on 4 December 1997, MGM announced that the company had purchased the rights to Never Say Never Again from Taliafilm. As at 2015 Eon holds the full adaptation rights to all of Fleming's Bond novels. \n\nMusic\n\nThe \"James Bond Theme\" was written by Monty Norman and was first orchestrated by the John Barry Orchestra for 1962's Dr. No, although the actual authorship of the music has been a matter of controversy for many years. In 2001, Norman won £30,000 in libel damages from the The Sunday Times newspaper, which suggested that Barry was entirely responsible for the composition. The theme, as written by Norman and arranged by Barry, was described by another Bond film composer, David Arnold, as \"bebop-swing vibe coupled with that vicious, dark, distorted electric guitar, definitely an instrument of rock 'n' roll ... it represented everything about the character you would want: It was cocky, swaggering, confident, dark, dangerous, suggestive, sexy, unstoppable. And he did it in two minutes.\" Barry composed the scores for eleven Bond films and had an uncredited contribution to Dr. No with his arrangement of the Bond Theme.\n\nA Bond film staple are the theme songs heard during their title sequences sung by well-known popular singers. Several of the songs produced for the films have been nominated for Academy Awards for Original Song, including Paul McCartney's \"Live and Let Die\", Carly Simon's \"Nobody Does It Better\", Sheena Easton's \"For Your Eyes Only\", Adele's \"Skyfall\", and Sam Smith's \"Writing's on the Wall\". Adele won the award at the 85th Academy Awards, and Smith won at the 88th Academy Awards. For the non-Eon produced Casino Royale, Burt Bacharach's score included \"The Look of Love\", which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song. \n\nVideo games\n\nIn 1983 the first Bond video game, developed and published by Parker Brothers, was released for the Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, the Atari 800, the Commodore 64 and the ColecoVision. Since then, there have been numerous video games either based on the films or using original storylines. In 1997 the first-person shooter video game GoldenEye 007 was developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64, based on the 1995 Pierce Brosnan film GoldenEye. The game received very positive reviews, won the BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Award for UK Developer of the Year in 1998 and sold over eight million copies worldwide, grossing $250 million. \n\nIn 1999 Electronic Arts acquired the licence and released Tomorrow Never Dies on 16 December 1999. In October 2000, they released The World Is Not Enough for the Nintendo 64 followed by 007 Racing for the PlayStation on 21 November 2000. In 2003, the company released James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing, which included the likenesses and voices of Pierce Brosnan, Willem Dafoe, Heidi Klum, Judi Dench and John Cleese, amongst others. In November 2005, Electronic Arts released a video game adaptation of 007: From Russia with Love, which involved Sean Connery's image and voice-over for Bond. In 2006 Electronic Arts announced a game based on then-upcoming film Casino Royale: the game was cancelled because it would not be ready by the film's release in November of that year. With MGM losing revenue from lost licensing fees, the franchise was removed from EA to Activision. Activision subsequently released the 007: Quantum of Solace game on 31 October 2008, based on the film of the same name. \n\nA new version of GoldenEye 007 featuring Daniel Craig was released exclusively for the Nintendo Wii and a handheld version for the Nintendo DS in November 2010. A year later another new version was released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 under the title GoldenEye 007: Reloaded. In October 2012 007 Legends was released, which featured one mission from each of the Bond actors of the Eon Productions' series. \n\nGuns, vehicles and gadgets\n\nGuns\n\nFor the first five novels, Fleming armed Bond with a Beretta 418 until he received a letter from a thirty-one-year-old Bond enthusiast and gun expert, Geoffrey Boothroyd, criticising Fleming's choice of firearm for Bond, calling it \"a lady's gun – and not a very nice lady at that!\" Boothroyd suggested that Bond should swap his Beretta for a Walther PPK 7.65mm and this exchange of arms made it to Dr. No. Boothroyd also gave Fleming advice on the Berns-Martin triple draw shoulder holster and a number of the weapons used by SMERSH and other villains. In thanks, Fleming gave the MI6 Armourer in his novels the name Major Boothroyd and, in Dr. No, M introduces him to Bond as \"the greatest small-arms expert in the world\". Bond also used a variety of rifles, including the Savage Model 99 in \"For Your Eyes Only\" and a Winchester .308 target rifle in \"The Living Daylights\". Other handguns used by Bond in the Fleming books included the Colt Detective Special and a long-barrelled Colt .45 Army Special.\n\nThe first Bond film, Dr. No, saw M ordering Bond to leave his Beretta behind and take up the Walther PPK, which the film Bond used in eighteen films. In Tomorrow Never Dies and the two subsequent films, Bond's main weapon was the Walther P99 semi-automatic pistol.\n\nVehicles\n\nIn the early Bond stories Fleming gave Bond a battleship-grey Bentley 4½ Litre with an Amherst Villiers supercharger. After Bond's car was written off by Hugo Drax in Moonraker, Fleming gave Bond a Mark II Continental Bentley, which he used in the remaining books of the series. During Goldfinger, Bond was issued with an Aston Martin DB Mark III with a homing device, which he used to track Goldfinger across France. Bond returned to his Bentley for the subsequent novels.\n\nThe Bond of the films has driven a number of cars, including the Aston Martin V8 Vantage, during the 1980s, the V12 Vanquish and DBS during the 2000s, as well as the Lotus Esprit; the BMW Z3, BMW 750iL and the BMW Z8. He has, however, also needed to drive a number of other vehicles, ranging from a Citroën 2CV to a Routemaster Bus, amongst others.\n\nBond's most famous car is the silver grey Aston Martin DB5, first seen in Goldfinger; it later featured in Thunderball, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, Casino Royale and Skyfall. The films have used a number of different Aston Martins for filming and publicity, one of which was sold in January 2006 at an auction in the US for $2,090,000 to an unnamed European collector. \n\nGadgets\n\nFleming's novels and early screen adaptations presented minimal equipment such as the booby-trapped attaché case in From Russia with Love, although this situation changed dramatically with the films. However, the effects of the two Eon-produced Bond films Dr. No and From Russia with Love had an effect on the novel The Man with the Golden Gun, through the increased number of devices used in Fleming's final story.\n\nFor the film adaptations of Bond, the pre-mission briefing by Q Branch became one of the motifs that ran through the series. Dr. No provided no spy-related gadgets, but a Geiger counter was used; industrial designer Andy Davey observed that the first ever onscreen spy-gadget was the attaché case shown in From Russia with Love, which he described as \"a classic 007 product\". The gadgets assumed a higher profile in the 1964 film Goldfinger. The film's success encouraged further espionage equipment from Q Branch to be supplied to Bond, although the increased use of technology led to an accusation that Bond was over-reliant on equipment, particularly in the later films.\n\nDavey noted that \"Bond's gizmos follow the zeitgeist more closely than any other ... nuance in the films\" as they moved from the potential representations of the future in the early films, through to the brand-name obsessions of the later films. It is also noticeable that, although Bond uses a number of pieces of equipment from Q Branch, including the Little Nellie autogyro, a jet pack and the exploding attaché case, the villains are also well-equipped with custom-made devices, including Scaramanga's golden gun, Rosa Klebb's poison-tipped shoes, Oddjob's steel-rimmed bowler hat and Blofeld's communication devices in his agents' vanity case.\n\nCultural impact\n\nCinematically, Bond has been a major influence within the spy genre since the release of Dr. No in 1962, with 22 secret agent films released in 1966 alone attempting to capitalise on the Bond franchise's popularity and success. The first parody was the 1964 film Carry On Spying, which shows the villain Dr. Crow being overcome by agents who included James Bind (Charles Hawtry) and Daphne Honeybutt (Barbara Windsor). One of the films that reacted against the portrayal of Bond was the Harry Palmer series, whose first film, The Ipcress File was released in 1965. The eponymous hero of the series was what academic Jeremy Packer called an \"anti-Bond\", or what Christoph Lindner calls \"the thinking man's Bond\". The Palmer series were produced by Harry Saltzman, who also used key crew members from the Bond series, including designer Ken Adam, editor Peter R. Hunt and composer John Barry. The four \"Matt Helm\" films starring Dean Martin (released between 1966 and 1969), the \"Flint\" series starring James Coburn (comprising two films, one each in 1966 and 1969), while The Man from U.N.C.L.E. also moved onto the cinema screen, with eight films released: all were testaments to Bond's prominence in popular culture. More recently, the Austin Powers series by writer, producer and comedian Mike Myers, and other parodies such as the 2003 film Johnny English, have also used elements from or parodied the Bond films.\n\nFollowing the release of the film Dr. No in 1962, the line \"Bond ... James Bond\", became a catch phrase that entered the lexicon of Western popular culture: writers Cork and Scivally said of the introduction in Dr. No that the \"signature introduction would become the most famous and loved film line ever\". In 2001, it was voted as the \"best-loved one-liner in cinema\" by British cinema goers, and in 2005, it was honoured as the 22nd greatest quotation in cinema history by the American Film Institute as part of their 100 Years Series. The 2005 American Film Institute's '100 Years' series recognised the character of James Bond himself as the third greatest film hero. He was also placed at number 11 on a similar list by Empire and as the fifth greatest movie character of all time by Premiere. \n\nThe 23 James Bond films produced by Eon Productions, which have grossed $4,910,000,000 in box office returns alone, have made the series one of the highest-grossing ever. It is estimated that since Dr. No, a quarter of the world's population have seen at least one Bond film. The UK Film Distributors' Association have stated that the importance of the Bond series of films to the British film industry cannot be overstated, as they \"form the backbone of the industry\". \n\nTelevision also saw the effect of Bond films, with the NBC series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which was described as the \"first network television imitation\" of Bond, largely because Fleming provided advice and ideas on the development of the series, even giving the main character the name Napoleon Solo. Other 1960s television series inspired by Bond include I Spy, and Get Smart.\n\nBy 2012, James Bond had become such a symbol of the United Kingdom that the character, played by Craig, appeared in the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics as Queen Elizabeth II's escort. \n\nThroughout the life of the film series, a number of tie-in products have been released.\n\nCriticisms of James Bond \n\nThe James Bond character and related media have triggered a number of criticisms and reactions across the political spectrum, and are still highly debated in popular culture studies. Left-leaning observers often accuse Bond novels and films of misogyny and sexism. Geographers have considered the role of exotic locations in the movies in the dynamics of the Cold War, with power struggles among blocs playing out in the peripheral areas. Other critics claim that 21st century Bond movies reflect imperial nostalgia. American conservative critics, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, saw Bond as a nihilistic, hedonistic, and amoral character that challenged family values.", "Casino Royale is a 1967 spy comedy film originally produced by Columbia Pictures starring an ensemble cast of directors and actors. It is loosely based on Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel. The film stars David Niven as the \"original\" Bond, Sir James Bond 007. Forced out of retirement to investigate the deaths and disappearances of international spies, he soon battles the mysterious Dr. Noah and SMERSH. The film's slogan: \"Casino Royale is too much... for one James Bond!\" refers to Bond's ruse to mislead SMERSH in which six other agents are pretending to be \"James Bond\", namely, baccarat master Evelyn Tremble (Peter Sellers); millionaire spy Vesper Lynd (Ursula Andress); Bond's secretary Miss Moneypenny (Barbara Bouchet); Mata Bond (Joanna Pettet), Bond's daughter with Mata Hari; and British agents \"Coop\" (Terence Cooper) and \"The Detainer\" (Daliah Lavi).\n\nCharles K. Feldman, the producer, had acquired the film rights in 1960 and had attempted to get Casino Royale made as an Eon Productions Bond film; however, Feldman and the producers of the Eon series, Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, failed to come to terms. Believing that he could not compete with the Eon series, Feldman resolved to produce the film as a satire. The budget escalated as various directors and writers got involved in the production, and actors expressed dissatisfaction with the project.\n\nCasino Royale was released on 13 April 1967, two months prior to Eon's fifth Bond movie, You Only Live Twice. The film was a financial success, grossing over $41.7 million worldwide, and Burt Bacharach's musical score was praised, earning him an Academy Award nomination for the song \"The Look of Love\". Critical reception to Casino Royale, however, was generally negative; some critics regarded it as a baffling, disorganised affair. Since 1999, the film's rights have been held by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, distributors of the official Bond movies by Eon Productions.\n\nPlot\n\nOverview\n\nThe story of Casino Royale is told in an episodic format. Val Guest oversaw the assembly of the sections, although he turned down the credit of \"co-ordinating director\".\n\nOpening sequence\n\nEvelyn Tremble/James Bond 007 (Peter Sellers) and Inspector Mathis meet in a pissoir, where Mathis presents his credentials—in a shot suggesting a display of Mathis' genitals, and setting the tone of the film by satirising the dramatic opening sequences in the Eon Bond films.\n\nPlot summary\n\nSir James Bond 007, a legendary British spy who retired from the secret service 20 years previously, is visited by the head of British MI6, M, CIA representative Ransome, KGB representative Smernov, and Deuxième Bureau representative Le Grand. All implore Bond to come out of retirement to deal with SMERSH who have been eliminating agents: Bond spurns all their pleas. When Bond continues to stand firm, his mansion is destroyed by a mortar attack at the orders of M, who is, however, killed in the explosion.\n\nBond travels to Scotland to return M's remains to the grieving widow, Lady Fiona McTarry. However, the real Lady Fiona has been replaced by SMERSH's Agent Mimi. The rest of the household have been likewise replaced, with SMERSH’s aim to discredit Bond by destroying his \"celibate image\". Attempts by a bevy of beauties to seduce Bond fail, but Mimi/Lady Fiona becomes so impressed with Bond that she changes loyalties and helps Bond to foil the plot against him. On his way back to London, Bond survives another attempt on his life.\n\nBond is promoted to the head of MI6. He learns that many British agents around the world have been eliminated by enemy spies because of their inability to resist sex. Bond is also told that the \"sex maniac\" who was given the name of \"James Bond\" when the original Bond retired has gone to work in television. He then orders that all remaining MI6 agents will be named \"James Bond 007\", to confuse SMERSH. He also creates a rigorous programme to train male agents to ignore the charms of women. Moneypenny recruits \"Coop\", a karate expert who begins training to resist seductive women: he also meets an exotic agent known as the Detainer.\n\nBond then hires Vesper Lynd, a retired agent turned millionaire, to recruit baccarat expert Evelyn Tremble, whom he intends to use to beat SMERSH agent Le Chiffre. Having embezzled SMERSH's money, Le Chiffre is desperate for money to cover up his theft before he is executed.\n\nFollowing up a clue from agent Mimi, Bond persuades his estranged daughter Mata Bond to travel to East Berlin to infiltrate International Mothers' Help, an au pair service that is a cover for a SMERSH training center. Mata uncovers a plan to sell compromising photographs of military leaders from the US, USSR, China and Great Britain at an \"art auction\", another scheme Le Chiffre hopes to use to raise money: Mata destroys the photos. Le Chiffre's only remaining option is to raise the money by playing baccarat.\n\nTremble arrives at the Casino Royale accompanied by Lynd, who foils an attempt to disable him by seductive SMERSH agent Miss Goodthighs. Later that night, Tremble observes Le Chiffre playing at the casino and realises that he is using infrared sunglasses to cheat. Lynd steals the sunglasses, allowing Evelyn to eventually beat Le Chiffre in a game of baccarat. Lynd is apparently abducted outside the casino, and Tremble is also kidnapped while pursuing her. Le Chiffre, desperate for the winning cheque, hallucinogenically tortures Tremble. Lynd rescues Tremble, only to subsequently kill him. Meanwhile, SMERSH agents raid Le Chiffre's base and kill him.\n\nIn London, Mata Bond is kidnapped by SMERSH in a giant flying saucer, and Sir James and Moneypenny travel to Casino Royale to rescue her. They discover that the casino is located atop a giant underground headquarters run by the evil Dr. Noah, secretly Sir James' nephew Jimmy Bond, a former MI6 agent who defected to SMERSH to spite his famous uncle. Jimmy reveals that he plans to use biological warfare to make all women beautiful and kill all men over 4 ft tall, leaving him as the \"big man\" who gets all the girls. Jimmy has already captured The Detainer, and he tries to convince her to be his partner; she agrees, but only to dupe him into swallowing one of his \"atomic time pills\", turning him into a \"walking atomic bomb\".\n\nSir James, Moneypenny, Mata and Coop manage to escape from their cell and fight their way back to the Casino Director's office where Sir James establishes Lynd is a double agent. The casino is then overrun by secret agents and a battle ensues. American and French support arrive, but just add to the chaos. Eventually, Jimmy's atomic pill explodes, destroying Casino Royale with everyone inside. Sir James and all of his agents then appear in heaven, and Jimmy Bond is shown descending to hell.\n\nCast\n\n David Niven as Sir James Bond – A legendary British secret agent forced out of retirement to fight SMERSH.\n* Peter Sellers as Evelyn Tremble/James Bond 007 – A baccarat master recruited by Vesper Lynd to challenge Le Chiffre at Casino Royale.\n* Ursula Andress as Vesper Lynd/007 – A retired British secret agent forced back into service in exchange for writing off her tax arrears.\n* Orson Welles as Le Chiffre – SMERSH's financial agent, desperate to win at baccarat to repay the money he has embezzled from the organisation.\n* Woody Allen as Dr. Noah/Jimmy Bond – Bond's nephew and head of SMERSH.\n* Barbara Bouchet as Miss Moneypenny – The beautiful daughter of Bond's original Miss Moneypenny. She works for the service in the same position her mother had years before.\n* Deborah Kerr as Agent Mimi/Lady Fiona McTarry – A SMERSH agent who masquerades as the widow of M but cannot help falling in love with Bond. \n* Jacqueline Bisset (credited as Jacky Bisset) as Giovanna Goodthighs – A SMERSH agent who attempts to kill Evelyn Tremble at Casino Royale. Also, as an extra who stands behind Le Chiffre at the casino. \n* Joanna Pettet as Mata Bond – Bond's daughter, born of his love affair with Mata Hari.\n* Daliah Lavi as The Detainer – A British secret agent who successfully poisons Dr. Noah with his own atomic pill.\n* Terence Cooper as Coop – A British secret agent specifically chosen, and trained for this mission to resist the charms of women.\n* Bernard Cribbins as Carlton Towers – A British Foreign Office official who drives Mata Bond all the way from London to Berlin in his taxi.\n* Ronnie Corbett as Polo – A SMERSH agent at the International Mothers' Help who was in love with Mata Hari and expresses the same feelings for Mata Bond.\n* Anna Quayle as Frau Hoffner – Frau Hoffner is Mata Hari's teacher, portrayed as a parody of Cesare in the German Expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (her school is modelled on the film's expressionist decor).\n* John Huston as M/McTarry – Head of MI6 who dies from an explosion caused by his own bombardment of Bond's estate.\n* William Holden as Ransome – A CIA agent who accompanies M to persuade Bond out of retirement, then reappears in the final climactic fight scene.\n* Charles Boyer as LeGrand – A Deuxième Bureau agent who accompanies M and Ransom to see Bond.\n* Geoffrey Bayldon as Q.\n\nCasino Royale also takes credit for the greatest number of actors in a Bond film either to have appeared or to go on to appear in the rest of the Eon series – besides Ursula Andress in Dr. No, Vladek Sheybal appeared as Kronsteen in From Russia with Love, Burt Kwouk featured as Mr. Ling in Goldfinger and an unnamed SPECTRE operative in You Only Live Twice, Jeanne Roland plays a masseuse in You Only Live Twice, and Angela Scoular appeared as Ruby Bartlett in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Jack Gwillim, who had a tiny role as a British army officer, played a Royal Navy officer in Thunderball. Caroline Munro, who can be seen very briefly as one of Dr Noah's gun-toting guards, received the role of Naomi in The Spy Who Loved Me. Milton Reid, who appears in a bit part as the temple guard, opening the door to Mata Bond's hall, played one of Dr. No's guards and Stromberg's underling, Sandor, in The Spy Who Loved Me. John Hollis, who plays the temple priest in Mata Bond's hall, went on to play the unnamed figure clearly intended to be Blofeld in the pre-credits sequence of For Your Eyes Only. John Wells, Q's assistant, appeared in For Your Eyes Only as Denis Thatcher. Hal Galili, who appears briefly as a US army officer at the auction, had earlier played gangster Jack Strap in Goldfinger.\n\nMajor stars like George Raft and Jean-Paul Belmondo were given top billing in the film's promotion and screen trailers despite the fact that they only appeared for a few minutes in the final scene.\n\nUncredited cast\n\nWell established stars like Peter O'Toole and sporting legends like Stirling Moss were prepared to take uncredited parts in the film just to be able to work with the other members of the cast., February 1967 Stunt director Richard Talmadge employed Geraldine Chaplin to appear in a brief Keystone Cops insert. The film also proved to be young Anjelica Huston's first experience in the film industry as she was called upon by her father, John Huston, to cover the screen shots of Deborah Kerr's hands. The film also marks the debut of Dave Prowse, later the physical form of Darth Vader in the Star Wars series, as Frankenstein's monster, a role he would later play again in the Hammer films The Horror of Frankenstein and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell. John Le Mesurier also features in the early scenes of the film as M's driver. \n\nProduction\n\nDevelopment\n\nIn March 1955 Ian Fleming sold the film rights of his novel Casino Royale, the first book featuring the character of James Bond, to the producer Gregory Ratoff for $6,000 ($ in dollars). In 1956 Ratoff set up a production company with Michael Garrison to produce a film adaptation, but wound up not finding financial backers before his death in December 1960. After Ratoff's death, the producer Charles K. Feldman represented Ratoff's widow and obtained the Casino Royale rights. Albert R. Broccoli, who had a long time interest in adapting James Bond, offered to purchase the Casino Royale rights from Feldman, but he declined. Feldman and his friend, the director Howard Hawks, had an interest in adapting Casino Royale, considering Leigh Brackett as a writer and Cary Grant as James Bond. They eventually gave up once they saw the 1962 film Dr. No, the first Bond adaptation made by Broccoli and his partner Harry Saltzman through their company Eon Productions. \n\nBy 1964, with Feldman having invested nearly $550,000 of his own money into pre-production of Casino Royale, he decided to try a deal with Eon Productions and its distributor United Artists. The attempt at a co-production eventually fell through as Feldman frequently argued with Broccoli and Saltzman, specially regarding the profit divisions and when the Casino Royale adaptation would start production. Feldman approached Sean Connery to play Bond, with Connery's offering to do the film for one million dollars being rejected. Feldman eventually decided to offer his project to Columbia Pictures through a script written by Ben Hecht, and the studio accepted. Given Eon's series led to a spy film craze at the time, Feldman opted to make his film a spoof of the Bond series instead of a straightforward adaptation.\n\nScreenplay development\n\nBen Hecht's contribution to the project, if not the final result, was in fact substantial. The Oscar-winning writer was recruited by Feldman to produce a screenplay for the film and wrote several drafts, with various evolutions of the story incorporating different scenes and characters. All of his treatments were \"straight\" adaptations, far closer to the original source novel than the spoof which the final production became. A draft from 1957 discovered in Hecht's papers – but which does not identify the screenwriter – is a direct adaptation of the novel, albeit with the Bond character absent, instead being replaced by a poker-playing American gangster.\n\nLater drafts see vice made central to the plot, with the Le Chiffre character becoming head of a network of brothels (as he is in the novel) whose patrons are then blackmailed by Le Chiffre to fund Spectre (an invention of the screenwriter). The racy plot elements opened up by this change of background include a chase scene through Hamburg's red light district that results in Bond escaping whilst disguised as a female mud wrestler. New characters appear such as Lili Wing, a brothel madam and former lover of Bond whose ultimate fate is to be crushed in the back of a garbage truck, and Gita, wife of Le Chiffre. The beautiful Gita, whose face and throat are hideously disfigured as a result of Bond using her as a shield during a gunfight in the same sequence which sees Wing meet her fate, goes on to become the prime protagonist in the torture scene that features in the book, a role originally Le Chiffre's.\n\nVirtually nothing from Hecht's scripts were ever filmed. He died from a heart attack in April 1964, two days before he was due to present it to Feldman. Time reported in 1966 that the script had been completely re-written by Billy Wilder, and by the time the film reached production only the idea that the name James Bond should be given to a number of other agents remained. This key plot device in the finished film, in the case of Hecht's version, occurs after the demise of the original James Bond (an event which happened prior to the beginning of his story) which, as Hecht's M puts it \"not only perpetuates his memory, but confuses the opposition.\"\n\nPeter Sellers hired Terry Southern to write his dialogue (and not the rest of the script) to \"outshine\" Orson Welles and Woody Allen. \n\nFilming\n\nThe principal filming was carried out at Pinewood Studios, Shepperton Studios and Twickenham Studios in London. Extensive sequences also featured London, notably Trafalgar Square and the exterior of 10 Downing Street. Mereworth Castle in Kent was used as the home of Sir James Bond, which is blown up at the start of the film. Much of the filming for M's Scottish castle was actually done on location in County Meath, Ireland, with Killeen Castle, Dunsany, as the focus. However, the car chase sequences where Bond leaves the castle were shot in the Perthshire village of Killin with further sequences in Berkshire (specifically Old Windsor and Bracknell). \n\nThe production proved to be rather troubled, with five different directors helming different segments of the film and with stunt co-ordinator Richard Talmadge co-directing the final sequence. In addition to the credited writers, Woody Allen, Peter Sellers, Val Guest, Ben Hecht, Joseph Heller, Terry Southern, and Billy Wilder are all believed to have contributed to the screenplay to varying degrees. Val Guest was given the responsibility of splicing the various \"chapters\" together, and was offered the unique title of \"Co-ordinating Director\" but declined, claiming the chaotic plot would not reflect well on him if he were so credited. His extra credit was labelled \"Additional Sequences\" instead.Guest, Val. So you want to be in Pictures, Reynolds & Hearn, 2001, ISBN 1-903111-15-3\n\nPart of the behind-the-scenes drama of this film's production concerned the filming of the segments involving Peter Sellers. Screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz declared that Sellers felt intimidated by Orson Welles to the extent that, except for a couple of shots, neither was in the studio simultaneously. Other versions of the legend depict the drama stemming from Sellers being slighted, in favour of Welles, by Princess Margaret (whom Sellers knew) during her visit to the set. Welles also insisted on performing magic tricks as Le Chiffre, and the director obliged. Director Val Guest wrote that Welles did not think much of Sellers, and had refused to work with \"that amateur\". Director Joseph McGrath, a personal friend of Sellers, was punched by the actor when he complained about Sellers' behavior on the set. \n\nSome biographies of Sellers suggest that he took the role of Bond to heart, and was annoyed at the decision to make Casino Royale a comedy, as he wanted to play Bond straight. This is illustrated in somewhat fictionalised form in the film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, based on the biography by Roger Lewis, who has claimed that Sellers kept re-writing and improvising scenes to make them play seriously. This story is in agreement with the observation that the only parts of the film close to the book are the ones featuring Sellers and Welles.Lewis, Roger. The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, Applause Books, 2000, ISBN 1-55783-248-X In the end, Sellers' involvement with the film was cut abruptly short.\n\nJean-Paul Belmondo and George Raft received major billing, even though both actors appear only briefly. Both appear during the climactic brawl at the end, Raft flipping his trademark coin and promptly shooting himself dead with a backwards-firing pistol, while Belmondo appears wearing a fake moustache as the French Foreign Legion officer who requires an English phrase book to translate \"merde!\" into \"ooch!\" during his fistfight. Raft's coin flip, which originally appeared in Scarface (1932), had been spoofed a few years earlier in Some Like It Hot (1959). \n\nAt the Intercon science fiction convention held in Slough in 1978, David Prowse commented on his part in this film, apparently his big-screen debut. He claimed that he was originally asked to play \"Super Pooh\", a giant Winnie-the-Pooh in a superhero costume who attacks Tremble during the Torture of The Mind sequence. This idea, as with many others in the film's script, was rapidly dropped, and Prowse was re-cast as a Frankenstein-type Monster for the closing scenes. The final sequence was principally directed by former actor and stuntman Richard Talmadge.\n\nDirector credits:\n\nUnfinished scenes\n\nSellers left the production before all his scenes were shot, which is why his character, Tremble, is so abruptly captured in the film. Whether Sellers was fired or simply walked off is unclear. Given that he often went absent for days at a time and was involved in conflicts with Welles, either explanation is plausible. Regardless, Sellers was unavailable for the filming of an ending and of linking footage to explain the details, leaving the filmmakers to devise a way to make the existing footage work without him. The framing device of a beginning and ending with David Niven was invented to salvage the footage. Val Guest said that he was given the task of creating a narrative thread which would link all segments of the film. He chose to use the original Bond and Vesper as linking characters to tie the story together. In the originally released versions of the film, a cardboard cutout of Sellers in the background was used for the final scenes. In later versions, this cardboard cutout was replaced by footage of Sellers in highland dress, inserted by \"trick photography\".\n\nSigns of missing footage from the Sellers segments are evident at various points. Evelyn Tremble is not captured on camera; an outtake of Sellers entering a racing car was substituted. In this outtake, he calls for the car, à la Pink Panther, to chase down Vesper and her kidnappers; the next thing that is shown is Tremble being tortured. Out-takes of Sellers were also used for Tremble's dream sequence (pretending to play the piano on Ursula Andress' torso), in the finale - blowing out the candles whilst in highland dress - and at the end of the film when all the various \"James Bond doubles\" are together. In the kidnap sequence, Tremble's death is also very abruptly inserted; it consists of pre-existing footage of Tremble being rescued by Vesper, followed by a later-filmed shot of her abruptly deciding to shoot him, followed by a freeze-frame over some of the previous footage of her surrounded by bodies (noticeably a zoom-in on the previous shot).\n\nAs well as this, an entire sequence involving Tremble going to the front for the underground James Bond training school (which turns out to be under Harrods, of which the training area was the lowest level) was never shot, thus creating an abrupt cut from Vesper announcing that Tremble will be James Bond to Tremble exiting the lift into the training school.\n\nSo many sequences from the film were removed, that several well-known actors never appeared in the final cut, including Ian Hendry (as 006, the agent whose body is briefly seen being disposed of by Vesper), Mona Washbourne and Arthur Mullard.\n\nMusic\n\nFor the music, Feldman decided to bring Burt Bacharach, who had done the score for his previous production What's New Pussycat?. Bacharach worked over two years writing for Casino Royale, in the meantime composing the After the Fox score and being forced to decline participation in Luv. Lyricist Hal David contributed with various songs, many of which appeared in just instrumental versions. Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass performed some of the songs with Mike Redway singing the lyrics to the title song as the end credits rolled (a version of the song was also sung by Peter Sellers). The title theme was Alpert's second number one on the Easy Listening chart where it spent two weeks at the top in June 1967 and peaked at number 27 on the Billboard Hot 100. \n\nThe fourth chapter of the film features the song \"The Look of Love\" performed by Dusty Springfield. It is played in the scene of Vesper Lynd recruiting Evelyn Tremble, seen through a man-size aquarium in a seductive walk. \"The Look of Love\" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song. The song was a Top 10 radio hit at the KGB and KHJ radio stations. It was heard again in the first Austin Powers film, which was to a degree inspired by Casino Royale. For the European release, Mireille Mathieu sang versions of \"The Look of Love\" in both French (\"Les Yeux D'Amour\"), and German (\"Ein Blick von Dir\"). \n\nBacharach would later rework two tracks of the score into songs: \"Home James, Don't Spare the Horses\" was re-arranged as \"Bond Street\", appearing on Bacharach's album Reach Out (1967), and \"Flying Saucer – First Stop Berlin\", was reworked with vocals as \"Let the Love Come Through\" by orchestra leader and arranger Roland Shaw. A clarinet melody would later be featured in a Cracker Jack commercial. As an in-joke, a brief snippet of John Barry's song \"Born Free\" is used in the film. At the time, Barry was the main composer for the Eon Bond series, and said song won an Academy Award over Bacharach's own \"Alfie\".[https://books.google.com/books?id\nTKJU6CegkogC&pg=PA181 Burt Bacharach, Song by Song: The Ultimate Burt Bacharach Reference for Fans]\n\nThe original album cover art was done by Robert McGinnis, based on the film poster and the original stereo vinyl release of the soundtrack (Colgems #COSO-5005) is still highly sought after by audiophiles. It has been regarded by some music critics as the finest-sounding LP of all time. The original LP was later issued by Varèse Sarabande in the same track order as shown below:\n\n Soundtrack listing \n# \"Casino Royale Theme\" – Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass\n# \"The Look of Love\" – Dusty Springfield\n# \"Money Penny Goes for Broke\"\n# \"Le Chiffre's Torture of the Mind\"\n# \"Home James, Don't Spare the Horses\"\n# \"Sir James' Trip to Find Mata\"\n# \"The Look of Love\" (Instrumental)\n# \"Hi There Miss Goodthighs\"\n# \"Little French Boy\"\n# \"Flying Saucer – First Stop Berlin\"\n# \"The Venerable Sir James Bond\"\n# \"Dream on James, You're Winning\"\n# \"The Big Cowboys and Indians Fight at Casino Royale\" / \"Casino Royale Theme\" (reprise)\n\nThe soundtrack album became famous among audio purists for the excellence of its recording. It then became a standard \"audiophile test\" record for decades to come, especially the vocal performance by Dusty Springfield on \"The Look of Love.\" \n\nThe film soundtrack has since been released by other companies in different configurations (including complete score releases).\n\nBudget\n\nThe studio approved the film's production budget of $6 million, already quite large in 1966. However, during filming the project ran into several problems and the shoot ran months over schedule, with the costs also running well over. When the film was finally completed it had doubled its original budget. The final production budget of $12 million made it one of the most expensive films that had been made to that point. The previous Eon Bond film, Thunderball (1965), had a budget of $11 million while the nearly contemporary You Only Live Twice (1967), had a budget of $9.5 million. The extremely high budget of Casino Royale led to comparisons with a troubled production from 1963, and it was referred to as \"a runaway mini-Cleopatra\". Columbia at first announced the film was due to be released in time for Christmas 1966. The problems postponed the launch until April 1967.\n\nRelease and reception\n\nCasino Royale had its world premiere in London's Odeon Leicester Square on 13 April 1967, breaking many opening records in the theatre's history. Its American premiere was held in New York on 28 April, at the Capitol and Cinema I theatres. It opened two months prior to the fifth Bond film by Eon Productions, You Only Live Twice.\n\nBox office and marketing\n\nDespite the lukewarm nature of the contemporary reviews, the pull of the James Bond name was sufficient to make it the 13th highest grossing film in North America in 1967 with a gross of $22.7 million and a worldwide total of $41.7 million ($ million in dollars). Orson Welles attributed the success of the film to a marketing strategy that featured a naked tattooed woman on the film's posters and print ads as well as a billboard in New York's Times Square. The campaign also included a series of commercials featuring British model Twiggy. As late as 2011, the film was still making money for the estate of Peter Sellers, who negotiated an extraordinary 3% of the gross profits (an estimated £120 million), with the proceeds currently going to Cassie Unger, the daughter and sole heir of Sellers' beneficiary, fourth wife Lynne Frederick. \n\nCritical reception\n\nNo advance press screenings of Casino Royale were held, leading reviews to only appear after the premiere. The chaotic nature of the production was featured heavily in contemporary reviews, while later reviewers have sometimes been kinder towards this. Roger Ebert said \"This is possibly the most indulgent film ever made\", Time described Casino Royale as \"an incoherent and vulgar vaudeville\", and Variety declared the film to be \"a conglomeration of frenzied situations, ‘in’ gags and special effects, lacking discipline and cohesion.\" Bosley Crowther of The New York Times had some positive statements about the film, considering Casino Royale had \"more of the talent agent than the secret agent\" and praising the \"fast start\" and the scenes up to the baccarat game between Bond and Le Chiffre. Afterwards, Crowther felt, the script became tiresome, repetitive and filled with clichés due to \"wild and haphazard injections of 'in' jokes and outlandish gags\", leading to an excessive length that made the film a \"reckless, disconnected nonsense that could be telescoped or stopped at any point\". \n\nSince its release the film has been widely criticised by a number of people. The film currently holds a 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 34 reviews with the consensus stating: \"A goofy, dated parody of spy movie cliches, Casino Royale squanders its all-star cast on a meandering, mostly laugh-free script.\" For instance, Simon Winder called Casino Royale \"a pitiful spoof\", while Robert Druce described it as \"an abstraction of real life\". In his review of the film, Leonard Maltin remarked, \"Money, money everywhere, but [the] film is terribly uneven – sometimes funny, often not.\" \n\nSome later reviewers have been more impressed by the film. Andrea LeVasseur, in the AllMovie review, called it \"the original ultimate spy spoof\", and opined that the \"nearly impossible to follow\" plot made it \"a satire to the highest degree\". Further describing it as a \"hideous, zany disaster\" LeVasseur concluded that it was \"a psychedelic, absurd masterpiece\". Cinema historian Robert von Dassanowsky has written about the artistic merits of the film and says \"like Casablanca, Casino Royale is a film of momentary vision, collaboration, adaption, pastiche, and accident. It is the anti-auteur work of all time, a film shaped by the very zeitgeist it took on.\" Romano Tozzi complimented the acting and humour, although he also mentioned that the film has several dull stretches. \n\nWriting in 1986, Danny Peary noted, \"It's hard to believe that in 1967 we actually waited in anticipation for this so-called James Bond spoof. It was a disappointment then; it's a curio today, but just as hard to get through.\" Peary described the film as being \"disjointed and stylistically erratic\" and \"a testament to wastefulness in the bigger-is-better cinema,\" before adding, \"It would have been a good idea to cut the picture drastically, perhaps down to the scenes featuring Peter Sellers and Woody Allen. In fact, I recommend you see it on television when it's in a two-hour (including commercials) slot. Then you won't expect it to make any sense.\" \n\nHome video and film rights\n\nColumbia Pictures released Casino Royale on VHS in 1989, and on Laserdisc in 1994. In 1997, following the Columbia/MGM/Kevin McClory lawsuit on ownership of the Bond film series, the rights to the film reverted to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (whose sister company United Artists co-owns the Bond film franchise) as a condition of the settlement. MGM then issued the first DVD release of Casino Royale in 2002, followed by a 40th anniversary special edition in 2007. \n\nYears later, as a result of the Sony/Comcast acquisition of MGM, Columbia would once again become responsible for the co-distribution of this film as well as the entire Eon Bond series, including the 2006 adaptation of Casino Royale. However, MGM Home Entertainment changed its distributor to 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment in May 2006. Fox has since been responsible for the debut of the 1967 Casino Royale on Blu-ray disc in 2011. Danjaq LLC, Eon's holding company, is shown as one of its present copyright owners..\n\nAlongside six other MGM-owned films, the studio posted Casino Royale on YouTube." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Casino royale", "Casino Royal", "Royal Casino", "Casino Royale", "Casino Royale (film)", "Casino Royale (disambiguation)", "Casino Roy" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "casino royale", "royal casino", "casino roy", "casino royale film", "casino royal", "casino royale disambiguation" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "casino royale", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Casino Royale" }
Which Emma won an Oscar for her screenplay of Sense and Sensibility?	tc_1165	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Sense_and_Sensibility_(film).txt" ], "title": [ "Sense and Sensibility (film)" ], "wiki_context": [ "Sense and Sensibility is a 1995 American period drama film directed by Ang Lee and based on Jane Austen's 1811 novel of the same name. Actress Emma Thompson wrote the script and stars as Elinor Dashwood, while Kate Winslet plays Elinor's younger sister Marianne. The story follows the Dashwood sisters, members of a wealthy English family of landed gentry, as they must deal with circumstances of sudden destitution. They are forced to seek financial security through marriage. Actors Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman play their respective suitors. The film was released on 13 December 1995 in the United States and on 23 February 1996 in the United Kingdom.\n\nProducer Lindsay Doran, a longtime admirer of Austen's novel, hired Thompson to write the screenplay. The actress spent five years drafting numerous revisions, continually working on the script between other films as well as into production of the film itself. Studios were nervous that Thompson – a first-time screenwriter – was the credited writer, but Columbia Pictures agreed to distribute the film. Though initially intending to have another actress portray Elinor, Thompson was persuaded to take the role.\n\nThompson's screenplay exaggerated the Dashwood family's wealth to make their later scenes of poverty more apparent to modern audiences. It also altered the traits of the male leads to make them more appealing to contemporary viewers. Elinor and Marianne's different characteristics were emphasised through imagery and invented scenes. Ang Lee was selected as director, both due to his work in the 1993 film The Wedding Banquet and because Doran believed he would help the film appeal to a wider audience. Lee was given a budget of $16 million.\n\nA commercial success, the movie garnered overwhelmingly positive reviews upon release and received many accolades, including three awards and eleven nominations at the 1995 British Academy Film Awards. It earned seven Academy Awards nominations, including for Best Picture and Best Actress. Thompson received the Best Adapted Screenplay, becoming the only person to have won Academy Awards for both acting and screenwriting. Sense and Sensibility contributed to a resurgence in popularity for Austen's works, and has led to many more productions in similar genres. It persists in being recognised as one of the best Austen adaptations of all time.\n\nPlot\n\nOn his deathbed, Mr. Dashwood (Tom Wilkinson) tells his son from his first marriage, John (James Fleet), to take care of his second wife (Gemma Jones) and three daughters, Elinor (Emma Thompson), Marianne (Kate Winslet) and Margaret (Emilie François), since they will inherit nothing. John's greedy and snobbish wife Fanny (Harriet Walter) convinces him to give his half sisters practically nothing financially; John and Fanny immediately install themselves in the large house, forcing the Dashwood ladies to look for a new home. Fanny invites her brother Edward Ferrars (Hugh Grant) to stay with them. Elinor and Edward soon form a close friendship, but Fanny haughtily tells Mrs. Dashwood that Edward would be disinherited if he married someone of no importance with no money. Mrs. Dashwood understands her meaning completely.\n\nSir John Middleton (Robert Hardy), a cousin of the widowed Mrs. Dashwood, offers her a small cottage house on his estate, Barton Park in Devonshire. She and her daughters move in, and are frequent guests at Barton Park. The Dashwoods meet the older Colonel Brandon (Alan Rickman), who falls in love with Marianne at first sight. However, Marianne considers him an old bachelor, incapable of feeling love or inspiring it in another.\n\nOne afternoon, Marianne takes a walk with Margaret and slips and falls in the rain. She is carried home by the dashing John Willoughby (Greg Wise), with whom Marianne falls in love. They spend a great deal of time together, but on the morning she expects him to propose marriage to her, he instead leaves hurriedly for London. Unbeknownst to the Dashwood family, Brandon's ward Beth, the illegitimate daughter of his former love Eliza, is pregnant with Willoughby's child. Willoughby's aunt Lady Allen disinherited him upon discovering this.\n\nSir John's mother-in-law, Mrs. Jennings (Elizabeth Spriggs), invites her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Palmer (Hugh Laurie and Imelda Staunton), to visit. They bring with them the impoverished Lucy Steele (Imogen Stubbs). Lucy confides in Elinor that she and Edward have been engaged secretly for five years, dashing Elinor's hopes of a future with him. Mrs. Jennings takes Lucy, Elinor, and Marianne to London, where they meet Willoughby at a ball. He greets Marianne uncomfortably and barely acknowledges their acquaintance, and they soon learn he is engaged to the extremely wealthy Miss Grey. Marianne becomes inconsolable.\n\nLucy is invited to stay with John and Fanny, as a way for Fanny to avoid inviting the Dashwood sisters to visit them. Lucy, falsely believing that she has a friend in Fanny, confides her clandestine engagement to Edward and is thrown out of the house. Edward's mother demands that he break off the engagement. When he refuses, she arranges to have his fortune transferred to his younger brother, Robert (Richard Lumsden). On hearing this, Colonel Brandon offers Edward the living of the parish on his estate, feeling sympathy for the unfortunate but honorable Edward.\n\nOn their way home to Devonshire, Elinor and Marianne stop for the night at the country estate of the Palmers, who live five and a half miles away from Willoughby's estate. Marianne cannot resist going to see the estate; she becomes gravely ill trekking up a hill in a torrential rain. Colonel Brandon finds her in the rain and brings her home. Elinor stays at her side until she recovers, and the sisters return home. Colonel Brandon and Marianne begin spending time together, as Marianne has a new appreciation for him. She admits to Elinor that even if Willoughby had chosen her, she was no longer convinced that love would have been enough to make him happy.\n\nThe Dashwoods soon learn that Miss Steele has become Mrs. Ferrars and assume that she is married to Edward. Later when Edward visits their house, they learn that Miss Steele unexpectedly jilted him in favor of his brother Robert, and Edward is thus released from his engagement. Edward proposes to and marries Elinor. Edward becomes a vicar, under the patronage of Colonel Brandon, whom Marianne marries. Willoughby is seen forlornly watching their wedding from a distance, and then rides away.\n\nProduction\n\nConception and adaptation\n\nIn 1989, Lindsay Doran, the new president of production company Mirage Enterprises, was on a company retreat brainstorming potential film ideas when she suggested the Jane Austen novel Sense and Sensibility to her colleagues. It had been adapted three times, most recently in a 1981 television serial. Doran was a longtime fan of the novel, and had vowed in her youth to adapt it if she ever entered the film industry. She chose to adapt this particular Austen work because there were two female leads. Doran stated that \"all of [Austen's] books are funny and emotional, but Sense and Sensibility is the best movie story because it's full of twists and turns. Just when you think you know what's going on, everything is different. It's got real suspense, but it's not a thriller. Irresistible.\" She also praised the novel for possessing \"wonderful characters ... three strong love stories, surprising plot twists, good jokes, relevant themes, and a heart-stopping ending.\"\n\nPrior to being hired at Mirage, the producer had spent years looking for a suitable screenwriter – someone who was \"equally strong in the areas of satire and romance\" and could think in Austen's language \"almost as naturally as he or she could think in the language of the twentieth century.\" Doran read screenplays by English and American writers until she came across a series of comedic skits, often in period settings, that actress Emma Thompson had written. Doran believed the humour and style of writing was \"exactly what [she'd] been searching for.\" Thompson and Doran were already working together on Mirage's 1991 film Dead Again. A week after its completion, the producer selected Thompson to adapt Sense and Sensibility, although she knew that Thompson had never written a screenplay. Also a fan of Austen, Thompson first suggested they adapt Persuasion or Emma before agreeing to Doran's proposal. The actress found that Sense and Sensibility contained more action than she had remembered, and decided it would translate well to drama.\n\nThompson spent five years writing and revising the screenplay, both during and between shooting other films. Believing the novel's language to be \"far more arcane than in [Austen's] later books,\" Thompson sought to simplify the dialogue while retaining the \"elegance and wit of the original.\" She observed that in a screenwriting process, a first draft often had \"a lot of good stuff in it\" but needed to be edited, and second drafts would \"almost certainly be rubbish ... because you get into a panic.\" Thompson credits Doran for \"help[ing] me, nourish[ing] me and mentor[ing] me through that process ... I learned about screenwriting at her feet.\" \n\nThompson's first draft was more than three hundred handwritten pages, which required her to reduce it to a more manageable length. She found the romances to be the most difficult to \"juggle\", and her draft received some criticism for the way it presented Willoughby and Edward. Doran later recalled the work was criticized for not getting underway until Willoughby's arrival, with Edward sidelined as backstory. Thompson and Doran quickly realised that \"if we didn't meet Edward and do the work and take that twenty minutes to set up those people ... then it wasn't going to work.\" At the same time, Thompson wished to avoid depicting \"a couple of women waiting around for men\"; gradually her screenplay focused as much on the Dashwood sisters' relationship with each other as it did with their romantic interests.\n\nWith the draft screenplay, Doran pitched the idea to various studios in order to finance the film, but found that many were wary of the beginner Thompson as the screenwriter. She was considered a risk, as her experience was as an actress who had never written a film script. Columbia Pictures executive Amy Pascal supported Thompson's work, and agreed to sign as the producer and distributor.\n\nAs Thompson mentioned on the BBC program QI in 2009, at one point in the writing process a laptop failure almost lost the entire work. In panic Thompson called fellow actor and close friend Stephen Fry, the host of QI and a self-professed \"geek\". After seven hours, Fry was able to recover the documents from the device. \n\nLee's hire\n\nTaiwanese director Ang Lee was hired as a result of his work in the 1993 family comedy film The Wedding Banquet, which he co-wrote, produced, and directed. He was not familiar with the author Austen. Doran felt that Lee's films, which depicted complex family relationships amidst a social comedy context, were a good fit with Austen's storylines. She recalled, \"The idea of a foreign director was intellectually appealing even though it was very scary to have someone who didn't have English as his first language.\" The producer sent Lee a copy of Thompson's script, to which he replied that he was \"cautiously interested\". Fifteen directors were interviewed, but according to Doran, Lee was one of the few who recognised Austen's humour; he told them he wanted the film to \"break people's hearts so badly that they'll still be recovering from it two months later.\"\n\nFrom the beginning, Doran wanted Sense and Sensibility to appeal to both a core audience of Austen aficionados as well as younger viewers attracted to romantic comedy films. She felt that Lee's involvement prevented the film from becoming \"just some little English movie\" that appealed only to local audiences instead of to the wider world. Lee said,\n\"I thought they were crazy: I was brought up in Taiwan, what do I know about 19th-century England? About halfway through the script it started to make sense why they chose me. In my films I've been trying to mix social satire and family drama. I realised that all along I had been trying to do Jane Austen without knowing it. Jane Austen was my destiny. I just had to overcome the cultural barrier.\"Because Thompson and Doran had worked on the screenplay for so long, Lee described himself at the time as a \"director for hire\", as he was unsure of his role and position. He spent six months in England \"learn[ing] how to make this movie, how to do a period film, culturally ... and how to adapt to the major league film industry.\"\n\nIn January 1995, Thompson presented a draft to Lee, Doran, co-producer Laurie Borg, and others working on the production, and spent the next two months editing the screenplay based upon their feedback. Thompson would continue making revisions throughout production of the film, including altering scenes to meet budgetary concerns, adding dialogue changes, and changing certain aspects to better fit the actors. Brandon's confession scene, for instance, initially included flashbacks and stylised imagery before Thompson decided it was \"emotionally more interesting to let Brandon tell the story himself and find it difficult.\"\n\nCasting\n\nThompson initially hoped that Doran would cast sisters Natasha and Joely Richardson as Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. Lee and Columbia wanted Thompson herself, now a \"big-deal movie star\" after her critically successful role in the 1992 film Howards End, to play Elinor. The actress replied that at the age of thirty-five, she was too old for the nineteen-year-old character. Lee suggested Elinor's age be changed to twenty-seven, which would also have made the difficult reality of spinsterhood easier for modern audiences to understand. Thompson agreed, later stating that she was \"desperate to get into a corset and act it and stop thinking about it as a script.\"\n\nThe formal casting process began in February 1995, though some of the actors met with Thompson the previous year to help her conceptualise the script. Lee eventually cast all but one of them: Hugh Grant (as Edward Ferrars), Robert Hardy (as Sir John Middleton), Harriet Walter (as Fanny Ferrars Dashwood), Imelda Staunton (as Charlotte Jennings Palmer), and Hugh Laurie (as Mr. Palmer). Amanda Root had also worked with Thompson on the screenplay, but had already committed to star in the 1995 film Persuasion. Commenting on the casting of Laurie, whom she had known for years, Thompson has said, \"There is no one [else] on the planet who could capture Mr. Palmer's disenchantment and redemption so perfectly, and make it funny.\"\n\nThompson wrote the part of Edward Ferrars with Grant in mind, and he agreed to receive a lower salary in line with the film's budget. Grant called her screenplay \"genius\", explaining \"I've always been a philistine about Jane Austen herself, and I think Emma's script is miles better than the book and much more amusing.\" Grant's casting was criticised by the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA), whose representatives said that he was too handsome for the part. Actress Kate Winslet initially intended to audition for the role of Marianne but Lee disliked her work in the 1994 drama film Heavenly Creatures; she auditioned for the lesser part of Lucy Steele. Winslet pretended she had heard that the audition was still for Marianne, and won the part based on a single reading. Thompson later said that Winslet, only nineteen years old, approached the part \"energised and open, realistic, intelligent, and tremendous fun.\" The role helped Winslet become recognised as a significant actress.\n\nAlso appearing in the film was Alan Rickman, who portrayed Colonel Brandon. Thompson was pleased that Rickman could express the \"extraordinary sweetness [of] his nature,\" as he had played \"Machiavellian types so effectively\" in other films. Greg Wise was cast as Marianne's other romantic interest, John Willoughby, his most noted role thus far. Twelve-year-old Emilie François, appearing as Margaret Dashwood, was one of the last people cast in the production; she had no professional acting experience. Thompson praised the young actress in her production diaries, \"Emilie has a natural quick intelligence that informs every movement – she creates spontaneity in all of us just by being there.\" Other cast members included Gemma Jones as Mrs. Dashwood, James Fleet as John Dashwood, Elizabeth Spriggs as Mrs. Jennings, Imogen Stubbs as Lucy Steele, Richard Lumsden as Robert Ferrars, Tom Wilkinson as Mr. Dashwood, and Lone Vidahl as Miss Grey. \n\nCostume design\n\nAccording to Austen scholar Linda Troost, the costumes used in Sense and Sensibility helped emphasise the class and status of the various characters, particularly among the Dashwoods. They were created by Jenny Beavan and John Bright, a team of designers best known for Merchant Ivory films who began working together in 1984. The two attempted to create accurate period dress, and featured the \"fuller, classical look and colours of the late 18th century.\" They found inspiration in the works of the English artists Thomas Rowlandson, John Hopper, and George Romney, and also reviewed fashion plates stored in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The main costumes and hats were manufactured at Cosprop, a London-based costumer company.\n\nTo achieve the tightly wound curls fashionably inspired by Greek art, some of the actresses wore wigs while others employed heated hair twists and slept in pin curls. Fanny, the snobbiest of the characters, possesses the tightest of curls but has less of a Greek silhouette, a reflection of her wealth and silliness. Beavan stated that Fanny and Mrs. Jennings \"couldn't quite give up the frills,\" and instead draped themselves in lace, fur, feathers, jewellery, and rich fabrics. Conversely, sensible Elinor opts for simpler accessories, such as a long gold chain and a straw hat. Fanny's shallow personality is also reflected in \"flashy, colourful\" dresses, while Edward's buttoned-up appearance represents his \"repressed\" personality, with little visible skin. Each of the 100 extras used in the London ballroom scene, depicting \"soldiers and lawyers to fops and dowagers,\" don visually distinct costumes.\n\nFor Brandon's costumes, Beavan and Bright consulted with Thompson and Lee and decided to have him project an image of \"experienced and dependable masculinity.\" Brandon is first seen in black, but later he wears sporting gear in the form of corduroy jackets and shirtsleeves. His rescue of Marianne has him transforming into the \"romantic Byronic hero\", sporting an unbuttoned shirt and loose cravat. In conjunction with his tragic backstory, Brandon's \"flattering\" costumes help his appeal to the audience. Beavan and Bright's work on the film earned them a nomination for Best Costume Design at the 68th Academy Awards. \n\nFilming\n\nThe film was budgeted at $16 million, the largest Ang Lee had yet received as well as the largest awarded to an Austen film that decade. In the wake of the success of Columbia's 1994 film Little Women, the American studio authorised Lee's \"relatively high budget\" out of an expectation that it would be another cross-over hit and appeal to multiple audiences, thus yielding high box office returns. Nevertheless, Doran considered it a \"low budget film\" and many of the ideas Thompson and Lee came up with – such as an early dramatic scene depicting Mr. Dashwood's bloody fall from a horse – were deemed unfilmable from a cost perspective.\n\nAccording to Thompson, Lee \"arrived on set with the whole movie in his head\". Rather than focus on period details, he wanted his film to concentrate on telling a good story. He showed the cast a selection of films adapted from classic novels, including Barry Lyndon and The Age of Innocence, which he believed to be \"great movies; everybody worships the art work, [but] it's not what we want to do.\" Lee criticised the latter film for lacking energy, in contrast to the \"passionate tale\" of Sense and Sensibility. \n\nThe cast and crew experienced \"slight culture shock\" with Lee on a number of occasions. He expected the assistant directors to be the \"tough ones\" and keep production on schedule, while they expected the same of him; this led to a slower schedule in the early stages of production. Additionally, according to Thompson the director became \"deeply hurt and confused\" when she and Grant made suggestions for certain scenes, which was something that was not done in his native country. Lee thought his authority was being undermined and lost sleep, though this was gradually resolved as he became used to their methods. The cast \"grew to trust his instincts so completely,\" making fewer and fewer suggestions. Co-producer James Schamus stated that Lee also adapted by becoming more verbal and willing to express his opinion.\n\nLee became known for his \"frightening\" tendency to not \"mince words\". The director often had his cast do numerous takes for a scene in order to get the perfect shot, and was not afraid to call something \"boring\" if he disliked it. Thompson later recalled the director would \"always come up to you and say something unexpectedly crushing\", such as asking her not to \"look so old.\" She also commented, however, that \"he doesn't indulge us but is always kind when we fail.\" Due to Thompson's extensive acting experience, the director encouraged her to practice t'ai chi to \"help her relax [and] make her do things simpler.\" Other actors soon joined them in meditating – according to Doran, it \"was pretty interesting. There were all these pillows on the floor and these pale-looking actors were saying, 'What have we got ourselves into?' [Lee] was more focused on body language than any director I've ever seen or heard of.\" He suggested Winslet read books of poetry and report back to him in order to best understand her character. He also had Thompson and Winslet live together to develop their characters' sisterly bond. Many of the cast took lessons in etiquette and riding side-saddle.\n\nLee found that in contrast to Chinese cinema, he had to dissuade many of the actors from using a \"very stagy, very English tradition. Instead of just being observed like a human being and getting sympathy, they feel they have to do things, they have to carry the movie.\" Grant in particular often had to be restrained from giving an \"over-the-top\" performance; Lee later recalled that the actor is \"a show stealer. You can't stop that. I let him do, I have to say, less 'star' stuff, the Hugh Grant thing ... and not [let] the movie serve him, which is probably what he's used to now.\" For the scene in which Elinor learns Edward is unmarried, Thompson found inspiration from her reaction to her father's death. Grant had been unaware that Thompson would cry through most of his speech, and the actress attempted to reassure him, \"'There's no other way, and I promise you it'll work, and it will be funny as well as being touching.' And he said, 'Oh, all right,' and he was very good about it\". Lee had one demand for the scene, that Thompson avoid the temptation to turn her head towards the camera.\n\nLocations\n\nProduction of Sense and Sensibility was scheduled for fifty-eight days, though this was eventually extended to sixty-five. Filming commenced in mid-April 1995 at a number of locations in Devon, beginning with Saltram House (standing in for Norland Park), where Winslet and Jones shot the first scene of the production: when their characters read about Barton Cottage. As Saltram was a National Trust property, Schamus had to sign a contract before production began, and staff with the organisation remained on set to carefully monitor the filming. Production later returned to shoot several more scenes, finishing there on 29 April. The second location of filming, Flete House, stood in for part of Mrs. Jennings' London estate, where Edward first sees Elinor with Lucy. Representing Barton Cottage was a Flete Estate stone cottage, which Thompson called \"one of the most beautiful spots we've ever seen.\"\n\nEarly May saw production at the \"exquisite\" village church in Berry Pomeroy for the final wedding scene. From the tenth to the twelfth of May, Marianne's first rescue sequence, depicting her encounter with Willoughby, was shot. Logistics were difficult, as the scene was set upon a hill during a rainy day. Lee shot around fifty takes, with the actors becoming soaked under rain machines; this led to Winslet eventually collapsing from hypothermia. Further problems occurred midway through filming, when Winslet contracted phlebitis in her leg, developed a limp, and sprained her wrist after falling down a staircase.\n\nFrom May to July, production took place at a number of other National Trust estates and stately homes across England. Trafalgar House and Wilton House in Wiltshire stood in for the grounds of Barton Park and the London Ballroom respectively. Mompesson House, an eighteenth-century townhouse located in Salisbury, represented Mrs. Jennings' sumptuous townhouse. Sixteenth-century Montacute House in South Somerset was the setting for the Palmer estate of Cleveland House. Further scenes were shot at Compton Castle in Devon (Mr Willoughby's estate) and at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. \n\nMusic\n\nComposer Patrick Doyle, who had previously worked with his friend Emma Thompson in the films Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, and Dead Again, was hired to produce the music for Sense and Sensibility. Asked by the director to select existing music or compose new \"gentle\" melodies, Doyle wrote a score that reflected the film's events. He explained, \"You had this middle-class English motif, and with the music you would have occasional outbursts of emotion.\" Doyle explains that the score \"becomes a little more grown-up\" as the story progresses to one of \"maturity and an emotional catharsis.\" The score contains romantic elements and has been described by National Public Radio as a \"restricted compass ... of emotion\" with \"instruments [that] blend together in a gentle sort of way\". They also noted that as a reflection of the story, the score is a \"little wistful ... and sentimental.\"\n\nTwo songs are sung by Marianne in the film, with lyrics adapted from seventeenth-century poems. Lee believed that the two songs conveyed the \"vision of duality\" visible both in the novel and script. In his opinion, the second song expressed Marianne's \"mature acceptance,\" intertwined with a \"sense of melancholy\". The melody of \"Weep You No More Sad Fountains\", Marianne's first song, appears in the opening credits, while her second song's melody features again during the ending credits, this time sung by dramatic soprano Jane Eaglen. The songs were written by Doyle before filming began. The composer received his first Academy Award nomination for his score.\n\nEditing\n\nThompson and Doran discussed how much of the love stories to depict, as the male characters spend much of the novel away from the Dashwood sisters. The screenwriter had to carefully balance the amount of screentime she gave to the male leads, noting in her film production diary that such a decision would \"very much lie in the editing.\" Thompson wrote \"hundreds of different versions\" of romantic storylines. She considered having Edward re-appear midway through the film before deciding that it would not work as \"there was nothing for him to do.\" Thompson also opted to exclude the duel scene between Brandon and Willoughby, which is described in the novel, because it \"only seemed to subtract from the mystery.\" She and Doran agonised about when and how to reveal Brandon's backstory, as they wanted to prevent viewers from becoming bored. Thompson described the process of reminding audiences of Edward and Brandon as \"keeping plates spinning\".\n\nA scene was shot of Brandon finding his ward in a poverty-stricken area in London, but this was excluded from the film. Thompson's script included a scene of Elinor and Edward kissing, as the studio \"couldn't stand the idea of these two people who we've been watching all the way through not kissing.\" It was one of the first scenes cut during editing: the original version was over three hours, Lee was less interested in the story's romance, and Thompson found a kissing scene to be inappropriate. The scene was included in marketing materials and the film trailer. Thompson and Doran also cut out a scene depicting Willoughby as remorseful when Marianne is sick. Doran said that despite it \"being one of the great scenes in book history,\" they could not get it to fit into the film.\n\nTim Squyres edited the film, his fourth collaboration with Ang Lee. He reflected in 2013 about the editing process,\n\"It was the first film that I had done with Ang that was all in English, and it's Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman, and Hugh Grant — these great, great actors. When you get footage like that, you realise that your job is really not technical. It was my job to look at something that Emma Thompson had done and say, 'Eh, that's not good, I'll use this other one instead.' And not only was I allowed to pass judgment on these tremendous actors, I was required to.\" \n\nThemes and analysis\n\nChanges from source material\n\nScholar Louise Flavin has noted that Thompson's screenplay contains significant alterations to the characters of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood: in the novel, the former embodies \"sense\", i.e. \"sensible\" in our terms, and the latter, \"sensibility\", i.e. \"sensitivity\" in our terms. Audience members are meant to view self-restrained Elinor as the person in need of reform, rather than her impassioned sister. To heighten the contrast between them, Marianne and Willoughby's relationship includes an \"erotic\" invented scene in which the latter requests a lock of her hair – a direct contrast to Elinor's \"reserved relationship\" with Edward. Lee also distinguishes them through imagery – Marianne is often seen with musical instruments, near open windows, and outside, while Elinor is pictured in door frames. Another character altered for modern viewers is Margaret Dashwood, who conveys \"the frustrations that a girl of our times might feel at the limitations facing her as a woman in the early nineteenth century.\" Thompson uses Margaret for exposition in order to detail contemporary attitudes and customs. For instance, Elinor explains to a curious Margaret – and by extension, the audience – why their half-brother inherits the Dashwood estate. Margaret's altered storyline, giving her an interest in fencing and geography, also allows audience members to see the \"feminine\" side of Edward and Brandon, as they become father or brother figures to her. The film omits the characters of Lady Middleton and her children, as well as that of Ann Steele, Lucy's sister.\n\nWhen adapting the characters for film, Thompson found that in the novel, \"Edward and Brandon are quite shadowy and absent for long periods,\" and that \"making the male characters effective was one of the biggest problems. Willoughby is really the only male who springs out in three dimensions.\" Several major male characters in Sense and Sensibility were consequently altered significantly from the novel in an effort to appeal to contemporary audiences. Grant's Edward and Rickman's Brandon are \"ideal\" modern males who display an obvious love of children as well as \"pleasing manners\", especially when contrasted with Palmer. Thompson's script both expanded and omitted scenes from Edward's storyline, including the deletion of an early scene in which Elinor assumes that a lock of hair found in Edward's possession is hers, when it belongs to Lucy. He was made more fully realised and honourable than in the novel to increase his appeal to viewers. To gradually show viewers why Brandon is worthy of Marianne's love, Thompson's screenplay has his storyline mirroring Willoughby's; they are similar in appearance, share a love of music and poetry, and rescue Marianne in the rain while on horseback.\n\nClass\n\nThompson viewed the novel as a story of \"love and money,\" noting that some people needed one more than the other. During the writing process, executive producer Sydney Pollack stressed that the film be understandable to modern audiences, and that it be made clear why the Dashwood sisters could not just obtain a job. \"I'm from Indiana; if I get it, everyone gets it,\" he said. Thompson believed that Austen was just as comprehensible in a different century, \"You don't think people are still concerned with marriage, money, romance, finding a partner?\" She was keen to emphasise the realism of the Dashwoods' predicament in her screenplay, and inserted scenes to make the differences in wealth more apparent to modern audiences. Thompson made the Dashwood family richer than in the book and added elements to help contrast their early wealth with their later financial predicament; for instance, because it might have been confusing to viewers that one could be poor and still have servants, Elinor is made to address a large group of servants at Norland Park early in the film for viewers to remember when they see their few staff at Barton Cottage. Lee also sought to emphasise social class and the limitations it placed on the protagonists. Lee conveys this in part when Willoughby publicly rejects Marianne; he returns to a more lavishly furnished room, a symbol of the wealth she has lost. \"Family dramas,\" he stated, \"are all about conflict, about family obligations versus free will.\"\n\nThe film's theme of class has attracted much scholarly attention. Carole Dole noted that class constitutes an important element in Austen's stories and is \"impossible\" to avoid when adapting her novels. According to Dole, Lee's film contains an \"ambiguous treatment of class values\" that stresses social differences but \"underplays the consequences of the class distinctions so important in the novel\"; for instance, Edward's story ends upon his proposal to Elinor, with no attention paid to how they will live on his small annual income from the vicarage. Louise Flavin believed that Lee used the houses to represent their occupants' class and character: the Dashwood sisters' decline in eligibility are represented through the contrast between the spacious rooms of Norland Park and those of the isolated, cramped Barton Cottage. James Thompson criticised what he described as the anaesthetised \"mélange of disconnected picture postcard-gift-calendar-perfect scenes,\" in which little connection is made between \"individual subjects and the land that supports them.\" Andrew Higson argued that while Sense and Sensibility includes commentary on sex and gender, it fails to pursue issues of class. Thompson's script, he wrote, displays a \"sense of impoverishment [but is] confined to the still privileged lifestyle of the disinherited Dashwoods. The broader class system is pretty much taken for granted.\" The ending visual image of flying gold coins, depicted during Marianne's wedding, has also drawn attention; Marsha McCreadie noted that it serves as a \"visual wrap-up and emblem of the merger between money and marriage.\"\n\nGender\n\nGender has been seen as another major theme of the film, often intersecting with class. Penny Gay observed that Elinor's early dialogue with Edward about \"feel[ing] idle and useless... [with] no hope whatsoever of any occupation\" reflected Thompson's background as a \"middle class, Cambridge-educated feminist.\" Conversely, Dole wrote that Thompson's version of Elinor \"has a surprising anti-feminist element to it,\" as she appears more dependent on men than the original character; the film presents her as repressed, resulting in her emotional breakdown with Edward. Linda Troost opined that Lee's production prominently features \"radical feminist and economic issues\" while \"paradoxically endorsing the conservative concept of marriage as a woman's goal in life.\" Despite this \"mixed political agenda,\" Troost believed that the film's faithfulness to the traditional heritage film genre is evident through its use of locations, costumes, and attention to details, all of which also emphasize class and status. Gay and Julianne Pidduck stated that gender differences are expressed by showing the female characters indoors, while their male counterparts are depicted outside confidently moving throughout the countryside. Nora Stovel observed that Thompson \"emphasises Austen’s feminist satire on Regency gender economics,\" drawing attention not only to the financial plight of the Dashwoods but also to eighteenth-century women in general.\n\nMarketing and release\n\nIn the United States, Sony and Columbia Pictures released Sense and Sensibility on a slow schedule compared to mainstream films, first premiering it on 13 December 1995. Believing that a limited release would position the film both as an \"exclusive quality picture\" and increase its chances of winning Academy Awards, Columbia dictated that its first weekend involve only seventy cinemas in the US; it opened in eleventh place in terms of box office takings and earned $721,341. To benefit from the publicity surrounding potential Academy Award candidates and increase its chance of earning nominations, the film was released within \"Oscar season\". The number of theatres showing Sense and Sensibility was slowly expanded, with particular surges when its seven Oscar nominations were announced and at the time of the ceremony in late March, until it was present in over one thousand cinemas across the US. By the end of its American release, Sense and Sensibility had been watched by more than eight million people, garnering an \"impressive\" total domestic gross of $43,182,776. \n\nOn the basis of Austen's reputation as a serious author, the producers were able to rely on high-brow publications to help market their film. Near the time of its US release, large spreads in The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, Film Comment, and other media outlets featured columns on Lee's production. In late December, Time magazine declared it and Persuasion to be the best films of 1995. Andrew Higson referred to all this media exposure as a \"marketing coup\" because it meant the film \"was reaching one of its target audiences.\" Meanwhile, most promotional images featured the film as a \"sort of chick flick in period garb.\" New Market Press published Thompson's screenplay and film diary; in its first printing, the hard cover edition sold 28,500 copies in the US. British publisher Bloomsbury released a paperback edition of the novel containing film pictures, same title design, and the cast's names on the cover, whilst Signet Publishing in the US printed 250,000 copies instead of the typical 10,000 a year; actress Julie Christie read the novel in an audiobook released by Penguin Audiobooks. Sense and Sensibility increased dramatically in terms of its book sales, ultimately hitting tenth place on the The New York Times Best Seller list for paperbacks in February 1996.\n\nIn the United Kingdom, Sense and Sensibility was released on 23 February 1996 in order to \"take advantage of the hype from Pride and Prejudice\", another popular Austen adaptation recently broadcast. Columbia Tristar's head of UK marketing noted that \"if there was any territory this film was going to work, it was in the UK.\" After receiving positive responses at previews, marketing strategies focused on selling it as both a costume drama and as a film attractive to mainstream audiences. Attention was also paid to marketing Sense and Sensibility internationally. Because the entire production cycle had consistently emphasised it as being \"bigger\" than a normal British period drama literary film, distributors avoided labelling it as \"just another English period film.\" Instead, marketing materials featured quotations from populist newspapers such as the Daily Mail, which compared the film to Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994). It was watched by more than ten million viewers in Europe. Worldwide, the film ultimately grossed $134,582,776, a sum that reflected its commercial success. It had the largest box office gross out of the Austen adaptations of the 1990s.\n\nReception\n\nCritical response\n\nSense and Sensibility has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from film critics, and was included on more than a hundred top-ten of the year lists. Writing for Variety magazine, Todd McCarthy observed that the film's success was assisted by its \"highly skilled cast of actors,\" as well as its choice of Lee as director. McCarthy clarified, \"Although [Lee's] previously revealed talents for dramatizing conflicting social and generational traditions will no doubt be noted, Lee's achievement here with such foreign material is simply well beyond what anyone could have expected and may well be posited as the cinematic equivalent of Kazuo Ishiguro writing The Remains of the Day.\" \n\nMick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle lauded the film for containing a sense of urgency \"that keeps the pedestrian problems of an unremarkable 18th century family immediate and personal.\" LaSalle concluded that the adaptation has a \"right balance of irony and warmth. The result is a film of great understanding and emotional clarity, filmed with an elegance that never calls attention to itself.\" Film critic John Simon praised most of the film, particularly focusing on Thompson's performance, though he criticised Grant for being \"much too adorably bumbling ... he urgently needs to chasten his onscreen persona, and stop hunching his shoulders like a dromedary.\"\n\nIn The Mail on Sunday, William Leith found Sense and Sensibility to be \"an extremely sharp, subtle, clever, lovely looking film\" that was superior to the serial Pride and Prejudice. Leith especially saved praise for the cast, writing that Grant plays his role \"masterfully\" and Harriet Walter \"conveys sour bitchiness like you never thought she could.\" Jarr Carr of The Boston Globe thought that Lee \"nail[ed] Austen's acute social observation and tangy satire,\" and viewed Thompson and Winslet's age discrepancy as a positive element that helped feed the dichotomy of sense and sensibility. The Radio Times David Parkinson was equally appreciative of Lee's direction, writing that he \"avoid[s] the chocolate-box visuals that cheapen so many British costume dramas\" and \"brings a refreshing period realism to the tale of two sisters that allows Emma Thompson's respectful Oscar-winning script to flourish.\"\n\nAccolades\n\nOut of the 1990s Austen adaptations, Sense and Sensibility received the most recognition from Hollywood. It garnered seven nominations at the 68th Academy Awards ceremony, where Thompson received the Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, making her the only person to have won an Oscar for both her writing and acting (Thompson won the Best Actress award for Howards End, in 1993). The film also was the recipient of twelve nominations at the 49th British Academy Film Awards, including Best Film, Best Actress in a Leading Role (for Thompson), and Best Actress in a Supporting Role (for Winslet). In addition, the film won the Golden Bear at the 46th Berlin International Film Festival, making Lee the first director to win this twice.\n\nDespite the recognition given to the film, Lee was not nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director (though he was nominated for the Golden Globe). The scholar Shu-mei Shih and the journalist Clarence Page have attributed this snub to Hollywood's racism against Lee, and Chinese cinema in general. Lee sought to avoid turning his omission into a scandal and specifically asked the Taiwan state media not to make it a \"national issue,\" explaining that he endured more pressure when forced to act as his country's representative.\n\nLegacy and influence\n\nFollowing the theatrical release of Persuasion by a few months, Sense and Sensibility was one of the first English-language period adaptations of an Austen novel to be released in cinemas in over fifty years, the previous being the 1940 film Pride and Prejudice. The year 1995 saw a resurgence of popularity for Austen's works, as Sense and Sensibility and the serial Pride and Prejudice both rocketed to critical and financial success. The two adaptations helped draw more attention to the previously little-known 1995 television film Persuasion, and led to additional Austen adaptations in the following years. In 1995 and 1996, six Austen adaptations were released onto film or television. The filming of these productions led to a surge in popularity of many of the landmarks and locations depicted; according to the scholar Sue Parrill, they became \"instant meccas for viewers.\"\n\nWhen Sense and Sensibility was released in cinemas in the US, Town & Country published a six-page article entitled \"Jane Austen's England\", which focused on the landscape and sites shown in the film. A press book released by the studio, as well as Thompson's published screenplay and diaries, listed all the filming locations and helped to boost tourism. Saltram House for instance was carefully promoted during the film's release, and saw a 57 percent increase in attendance. In 1996, JASNA's membership increased by fifty percent. The popularity of both Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice led to the BBC and ITV releasing their Austen adaptations from the 1970s and 1980s onto DVD.\n\nAs the mid-1990s included adaptations of four Austen novels, there were few of her works to adapt. Andrew Higson argued that this resulted in a \"variety of successors\" in the genres of romantic comedy and costume drama, as well as with films featuring strong female characters. Cited examples included Mrs Dalloway (1997), Mrs. Brown (1997), Shakespeare in Love (1998), and Bridget Jones's Diary (2001). In 2008, Andrew Davies, the screenwriter of Pride and Prejudice, adapted Sense and Sensibility for television. As a reaction to what he said was Lee's overly \"sentimental\" film, this production featured events found in the novel but excluded from Thompson's screenplay, such as Willoughby's seduction of Eliza and his duel with Brandon. It also featured actors closer to the ages in the source material. \n\nSense and Sensibility has maintained its popularity into the twenty-first century. In 2004, Louise Flavin referred to the 1995 film as \"the most popular of the Austen film adaptations,\" and in 2008, The Independent ranked it as the third-best Austen adaptation of all time, opining that Lee \"offered an acute outsider's insight into Austen in this compelling 1995 interpretation of the book [and] Emma Thompson delivered a charming turn as the older, wiser, Dashwood sister, Elinor.\" Journalist Zoe Williams credits Thompson as the person most responsible for Austen's popularity, explaining in 2007 that Sense and Sensibility \"is the definitive Austen film and that's largely down to her.\" In 2011, The Guardian film critic Paul Laity named it his favourite film of all time, partly because of its \"exceptional screenplay, crisply and skilfully done.\". Devoney Looser reflected on the film in The Atlantic on the 20th anniversary of its release, arguing that the film served as \"a turning point\" for \"pro-feminist masculinity\" in Austen adaptations." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Thompson", "Thompson (disambiguation)" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "thompson disambiguation", "thompson" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "thompson", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Thompson" }
Which film with Ralph Fiennes won Anthony Minghella an Oscar?	tc_1166	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Ralph_Fiennes.txt", "Anthony_Minghella.txt" ], "title": [ "Ralph Fiennes", "Anthony Minghella" ], "wiki_context": [ "Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes (; born 22 December 1962) is an English actor. A noted Shakespeare interpreter, he first achieved success onstage at the Royal National Theatre.\n\nFiennes' portrayal of Nazi war criminal Amon Göth in Schindler's List (1993) earned him nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor, and he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. His performance as Count Almásy in The English Patient (1996) garnered him a second Academy Award nomination, for Best Actor, as well as BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations.\n\nSince then, Fiennes has been in a number of notable films, including Strange Days (1995), The End of the Affair (1999), Red Dragon (2002), The Constant Gardener (2005), In Bruges (2008), The Reader (2008), Clash of the Titans (2010), Great Expectations (2012), and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). He is also known for his roles in major film franchises such as the Harry Potter film series (2005–2011), in which he played Lord Voldemort, and the James Bond series, in which he has played Gareth Mallory / M, starting with the 2012 film Skyfall.\n\nIn 2011, Fiennes made his directorial debut with his film adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy Coriolanus, in which he also played the title character. Fiennes won a Tony Award for playing Prince Hamlet on Broadway. Since 1999, Fiennes has served as an ambassador for UNICEF UK.\n\nEarly life and family\n\nFiennes was born in Ipswich, on 22 December 1962. He is the eldest child of Mark Fiennes (1933–2004), a farmer and photographer, and Jennifer Lash (1938–1993), a writer. He has English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000146/bio?ref_\nnm_ov_bio_sm Ralph Fiennes – Biography – IMDb] His surname is of Norman origin. His grandfathers were industrialist Sir Maurice Fiennes (1907–1994) and Brigadier Henry Alleyne Lash (1901–1975). His great-great-uncle was Edward Pomeroy Colley, a Civil Engineer and first class passenger who died in the sinking of . \n\nFiennes is an eighth cousin of Charles, Prince of Wales, and a third cousin of adventurer Ranulph Fiennes and author William Fiennes. He is the eldest of six children. His siblings are actor Joseph Fiennes; Martha Fiennes, a director (in her film Onegin, he played the title role); Magnus Fiennes, a composer; Sophie Fiennes, a filmmaker; and Jacob Fiennes, a conservationist. His foster brother, Michael Emery, is an archaeologist. His nephew Hero Fiennes-Tiffin played Tom Riddle, young Lord Voldemort, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.\n\nThe Fiennes family moved to Ireland in 1973, living in West Cork and County Kilkenny for some years. Fiennes was educated at St Kieran's College for one year, followed by Newtown School, a Quaker independent school in County Waterford. They moved to Salisbury in England, where Fiennes finished his schooling at Bishop Wordsworth's School. He went on to pursue painting at Chelsea College of Art before deciding that acting was his true passion. \n\nCareer\n\nFiennes trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art between 1983 and 1985. He began his career at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park and also at the National Theatre before achieving prominence at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Fiennes first worked on screen in 1990 and then made his film debut in 1992 as Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights opposite Juliette Binoche.\n\n1993 was his \"breakout year\". He had a major role in the controversial Peter Greenaway film The Baby of Mâcon with Julia Ormond, which was poorly received. Later that year he became known internationally for portraying the amoral Nazi concentration camp commandant Amon Goeth in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List. For this he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He did not win the Oscar, but did win the Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award for the role. His portrayal as Göth also earned him a spot on the American Film Institute's list of Top 50 Film Villains. To look suitable to represent Goeth, Fiennes gained weight, but he managed to shed it afterwards. \n\nFiennes later stated that playing the role had a profoundly disturbing effect on him. In a subsequent interview, Fiennes recalled,\n\nEvil is cumulative. It happens. People believe that they've got to do a job, they've got to take on an ideology, that they've got a life to lead; they've got to survive, a job to do, it's every day inch by inch, little compromises, little ways of telling yourself this is how you should lead your life and suddenly then these things can happen. I mean, I could make a judgment myself privately, this is a terrible, evil, horrific man. But the job was to portray the man, the human being. There’s a sort of banality, that everydayness, that I think was important. And it was in the screenplay. In fact, one of the first scenes with Oskar Schindler, with Liam Neeson, was a scene where I'm saying, \"You don't understand how hard it is, I have to order so many-so many meters of barbed wire and so many fencing posts and I have to get so many people from A to B.\" And, you know, he's sort of letting off steam about the difficulties of the job. \n\nIn 1994, he portrayed American academic Charles Van Doren in Quiz Show. In 1996 he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the World War II epic romance The English Patient in which he starred with Kristin Scott-Thomas. Fiennes' film work has ranged from thrillers (Spider) to animated Biblical epic (The Prince of Egypt) to camp nostalgia (The Avengers) to romantic comedy (Maid in Manhattan) to historical drama (Sunshine).\n\nIn 1999, Fiennes starred in the role of Eugene Onegin in Onegin, a film which he also helped produce. His sister Martha Fiennes directed and brother Magnus composed the score.\n\nThe Constant Gardener was released in 2005 with Fiennes in the central role. The film is set in Kenya, dealing in part with real people in the slums of Kibera and Loiyangalani. The situation affected the cast and crew to the extent that they set up the Constant Gardener Trust to provide basic education for children of these villages. Fiennes is a patron of the charity. \n\nHe is also a patron of the Shakespeare Schools Festival, a charity that enables school children across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres. \n\nFiennes portrayed Lord Voldemort in the 2005 fantasy film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He kept the role for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and both Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2.\n\nFiennes' 2006 performance in the play Faith Healer gained him a nomination for a 2007 Tony Award. In 2008, Fiennes worked with frequent collaborator, director Jonathan Kent, playing the title role in Oedipus the King by Sophocles, at the National Theatre in London. In 2008, he played the Duke of Devonshire in the film The Duchess, and played the protagonist in The Reader.\n\nIn February 2009, Fiennes was the special guest of the Belgrade's Film Festival FEST. He filmed his version of Shakespeare's Coriolanus in the Serbian capital of Belgrade. \n\nFiennes reunited with Kathryn Bigelow for her Iraq War film The Hurt Locker, released in 2009, appearing as an English mercenary. They had previously worked together on Strange Days (1995). In April 2010, he played Hades in Clash of the Titans, a remake of the 1981 film of the same name. In 2012, he starred in the twenty-third James Bond film, Skyfall, directed by Sam Mendes. He will replace Dame Judi Dench as M in future Bond films. Dench had also starred alongside Fiennes' brother, Joseph, in Shakespeare in Love in 1998.\n\nThough he is not noted as a comic actor, in 2014 he made an impression for his farcical turn in The Grand Budapest Hotel. Said one critic about the film, \"In the end it's Fiennes who makes the biggest impression. His stylized, rapid-fire delivery, dry wit and cheerful profanity keep the film bubbling along.\" For his performance, Fiennes was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor.\n\nIn 2015, Fiennes starred in Luca Guadagnino's thriller A Bigger Splash. \n\nPersonal life\n\nFiennes is a UNICEF UK ambassador and has done work in India, Kyrgyzstan, Uganda and Romania. \n\nFiennes met English actress Alex Kingston while they were both students at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. After dating for ten years, they married in 1993 and divorced in 1997. Fiennes had an 11-year relationship with actress Francesca Annis until breaking up in 2006. \n\nFilmography\n\nIn Quebec, Canada, Fiennes's voice has been overdubbed in French in 6 of his films, by Jean-Luc Montminy\n\nStage credits\n\n* Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (1985) – Role: Curio – Directed by Richard Digby Day – New Shakespeare Company – Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London\n* A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (1985) – Role: Cobweb – Directed by Toby Robertson – New Shakespeare Company – Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London\n* A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (1986) – Role: Lysander – Directed by David Conville and Emma Freud – New Shakespeare Company – Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London and New Shakespeare Company's European Tour\n* Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (1986) – Role: Romeo – Directed by Declan Donnellan – New Shakespeare Company – Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London\n* Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello (1987) – Role: Son – Directed by Michael Rudman – National Theatre's Olivier Theatre, London\n* Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (1987) – Role: Arkady Nikolayevich Kirsanov – Directed by Michael Rudman – National Theatre's Lyttelton Theatre, London\n* Ting Tang Mine by Nick Darke (1987) – Role: Lisha Ball – Directed by Michael Rudman – National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre, London\n* Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare (1988) – Role: Claudio – Directed by Di Trevis – Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon\n* The Plantagenets: Henry VI, The Rise of Edward IV, Richard III His Death by William Shakespeare (1988–1989) – Role: Henry VI, ghost of Henry VI – Directed by Adrian Noble – Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon and Barbican Theatre, London\n* King John (1989) by William Shakespeare – Role: Dauphin – Directed by Deborah Warner – The Other Place Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon and The Pit Theatre, London\n* The Man Who Came to Dinner by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman (1989) – Role: Bert Jefferson – Directed by Ron Gene Saks – The Royal Shakespeare Company – Barbican Theatre, London\n* Playing with Trains by Stephen Poliakoff (1989) – Role: Gant – Directed by Ron Daniels – The Royal Shakespeare Company – The Pit Theatre, London\n* Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare (1990) – Role: Troilus – Directed by Sam Mendes – The Royal Shakespeare Company – Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon\n* King Lear by William Shakespeare (1990) – Role: Edmund – Directed by Nicholas Hytner – The Royal Shakespeare Company – Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon\n* Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare (1991) – Role: King of Navarre – Directed by Terry Hands – The Royal Shakespeare Company – Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon and Barbican Theatre, London\n* Hamlet by William Shakespeare (1995) – Role: Hamlet, with Francesca Annis as Gertrude – Directed by Jonathan Kent – The Almeida Theatre Company – Hackney Empire, London and Belasco Theatre on Broadway, NY\n* Ivanov by Anton Chekhov translated by David Hare (February–April 1997) – Role: Ivanov – Directed by Jonathan Kent – The Almeida Theatre Company – Almeida Theatre, London\n* Coriolanus by William Shakespeare (2000) – Role: Coriolanus – Directed by Jonathan Kent – The Almeida Theatre Company – Gainsborough Film Studios in Shoreditch, London and BAM Harvey Theatre in Brooklyn, New York City\n* Richard II by William Shakespeare (2000) – Role: Richard II – Directed by Jonathan Kent – The Almeida Theatre Company – Gainsborough Film Studios in Shoreditch, London and BAM Harvey Theatre in Brooklyn, New York City\n* The Play What I Wrote by Hamish McColl, Sean Foley and Eddie Braben (2001) – Role: Sir Ralph Fiennes – Directed by Kenneth Branagh – The Duo The Right Size – Wyndham's Theatre, West End\n* The Talking Cure by Christopher Hampton (2003) – Role: Carl Jung – Directed by Howard Davies – National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre, London\n* Brand by Henrik Ibsen (2003) – Role: Brand – Directed by Adrian Noble – The Royal Shakespeare Company – Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon and Theatre Royal Haymarket, West End\n* Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (2005) – Role: Mark Antony – Directed by Deborah Warner – Barbican Centre, London & tour\n* Faith Healer by Brian Friel (2006) – Role: Frank Hardy – Directed by Jonathan Kent – Gate Theatre, Dublin and Booth Theatre on Broadway, New York City\n* First Love by Samuel Beckett – Sydney Festival 2007\n* God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza (2008) – Role: Alain Reille – Gielgud Theatre, West End\n* Oedipus the King by Sophocles (2008) – Role: Oedipus – National Theatre, London\n* The Tempest by William Shakespeare (2011) – Role: Prospero – Theatre Royal Haymarket, London\n* National Theatre: 50 Years on Stage (2013) – Role: Lambert Le Roux (Pravda) – National Theatre, London\n* Man and Superman by Bernard Shaw (2015) – Role: Jack Tanner – National Theatre, London \n* The Master Builder by Henrik Ibsen (2016) – Role: Halvard Solness – Directed by Matthew Warchus – Old Vic, London\n* Richard III by William Shakespeare (2016) – Role: Richard, Duke of Gloucester – Directed by Rupert Goold – Almeida Theatre, London\n* Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare (2018 - upcoming) – Role: Antony – Directed by Simon Godwin – National Theatre, London\n\nSelected other projects, contributions\n\nWhen Love Speaks (2002, EMI Classics) – \"Sonnet 129\" (\"Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame\")", "Anthony Minghella, CBE (6 January 1954 - 18 March 2008) was a British film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was chairman of the board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007.\n\nHe won the Academy Award for Best Director for The English Patient (1996). In addition, he received three more Academy Award nominations; he was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for both The English Patient (1996) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), and was posthumously nominated for Best Picture for The Reader (2008), as a co-producer.\n\nEarly life\n\nMinghella was born in Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, an island off the south coast of England that is a popular holiday resort. His family are well-known on the island, where they have run an eponymous business making and selling Italian-style ice cream since the 1950s. His parents were Edoardo Minghella (an Italian immigrant) and Leeds-born Gloria Alberta (née Arcari). His mother's ancestors originally came from Valvori, a small village in the Lazio region of central Italy. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/printable/100058 .\n\nOne of five children, Minghella attended St. Mary's Catholic Primary School, Ryde; Sandown Grammar School and St John's College, Portsmouth. He attended the University of Hull, studying Drama. After several years of teaching at the same university (Samuel Beckett and medieval theatre), he abandoned his pursuit of a PhD to work for the BBC. \n\nCareer\n\nHis debut work was a stage adaptation of Gabriel Josipovici's Mobius the Stripper (1975) and it was his Whale Music (1985) brought him notice. His double bill of Samuel Beckett's Play and Happy Days was his directorial debut and debut feature film as a director was A Little Like Drowning (1978). During the 1980s, he worked in television, starting as a runner on Magpie before moving into script editing the children's drama series Grange Hill for the BBC and later writing The Storyteller series for Jim Henson. He wrote several episodes of the ITV detective drama Inspector Morse and an episode of long-running ITV drama Boon. Made in Bangkok (1986) found mainstream success in the West End.\n\nRadio success followed with a Giles Cooper Award for the radio drama Cigarettes and Chocolate first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988. It was revived on 3 May 2008 as a tribute to its author director following his death. His production starred Juliet Stevenson, Bill Nighy and Jenny Howe. His first radio play Hang Up, starring Anton Lesser and Juliet Stevenson, was revived on 10 May 2008 as part of the BBC Radio 4 Minghella season. \n\nTruly, Madly, Deeply (1990), a feature drama written and directed for the BBC's Screen Two anthology strand, bypassed TV broadcast and instead had a cinema release. He bypassed an offer of another Inspector Morse directorial to do the project, the latter he believed would have been a much higher-profile assignment. The English Patient (1996) brought him two Academy Awards nominations, Best Director (which he won) and Adapted Screenplay. He also received an Adapted Screenplay nomination for The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999).\n\nThe No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, a pilot episode television adaptation which he co-wrote and directed, was broadcast posthumously on BBC One (23 March 2008); watched by 6.3 million viewers. He vocally supported I Know I'm Not Alone, a film of musician Michael Franti's peacemaking excursions into Iraq, Palestine and Israel. He directed a party election broadcast for the Labour Party in 2005. The short film depicted Tony Blair and Gordon Brown working together and was criticised for being insincere: \"The Anthony Minghella party political broadcast last year was full of body language fibs\", said Peter Collett, a psychologist at the University of Oxford. \"When you are talking to me, I'll give you my full attention only if I think you are very high status or if I love you. On that party political broadcast, they are staring at each other like lovers. It is completely false.\" \n\nWith Samuel Beckett's 100th birthday celebrations, he returned to radio on BBC Radio 3 with Eyes Down Looking (2006), with: Jude Law, Juliet Stevenson and David Threlfall. An operatic directorial debut came with Puccini's Madama Butterfly. Premiered at the English National Opera (London, 2005), then at the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre (Vilnius, March 2006) and at the Metropolitan Opera (New York City, September 2006). The latter was transmitted live into cinemas worldwide (7 March 2008) as part of the Met's HD series and is now available on DVD. His was honoured with the naming of The Anthony Minghella Theatre at the Quay Arts Centre (Isle of Wight). He made an appearance in the 2007 film Atonement as a television host interviewing the novelist central to the story.\n\nHis last work was the screenplay of the film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical Nine (1982); Arthur Kopit (book) and Maury Yeston (score). It is based on the film 8½. He shared credit with Michael Tolkin on the screenplay.\n\nThe Film, Theatre & Television department at the University of Reading, opened in 2012, was named in his honour.\n\nPersonal life and death\n\nMinghella met his first wife, Yvonne Miller, when they were students. They had one daughter, Hannah, who worked as a production assistant on The Talented Mr. Ripley, and was President of Sony Pictures Animation for a time before being named President of Production of Columbia Pictures, a position she still holds. Minghella and his first wife eventually divorced. In 1985, Minghella married Hong Kong–born choreographer and dancer Carolyn Jane Choa. They had one son, Max, who is an actor.\n\nMinghella's younger brother, Dominic Minghella, is the creator of the popular British television series Robin Hood and Doc Martin, and a scriptwriter. His sister Loretta is Director of Christian Aid, his sister Edana participated in a jazz event on the Isle of Wight, and his nephew Dante is one of the participants in Channel 4's Child Genius series.\n\nMinghella was a fan of Portsmouth F.C. and appeared in the Channel 4 documentary Hallowed Be Thy Game. His home had two double bedrooms dedicated to the display of Portsmouth memorabilia dating back to the club's founding in 1898. \n\nMinghella died of a haemorrhage on 18 March 2008 in Charing Cross Hospital, Hammersmith, following an operation the previous week to remove cancer of the tonsils and neck. \n\nMemorial plaque\n\nA memorial plaque to Anthony Minghella was unveiled on 2 March 2016 by Jude Law, at Western Gardens, Ryde, Isle of Wight. \n\nFilmography\n\nDirector\n\nProducer\n\nWriter\n\nActor\n\nSelected plays\n\n Whale Music (New End Theatre, Hampstead, June 1981); revived for radio, BBC Radio 4, 10 May 2008\n* Two Planks and a Passion (Greenwich Theatre, November 1984)\n* A Little Like Drowning (Hampstead Theatre, July 1984)\n* Made in Bangkok (West End debut as a playwright, Aldwych Theatre. 18 March 1986, director Michael Blakemore)\n* Hang Up (radio play for BBC Radio 4,1987)\n* Cigarettes and Chocolate (60-minute radio play for BBC Radio 4, 1988)\n* Eyes Down Looking (Beckett 100th Birthday tribute, radio play for BBC Radio 3, 1 April 2006)\n\nAwards\n\n* 1984 Plays and Players: Critics Award – Most Promising Playwright for A Little Like Drowning\n* 1986 Plays and Players: Critics Award – Best New Play for Made in Bangkok\n* 1988 Giles Cooper Award for the radio play Cigarettes and Chocolate\n* 1992 BAFTA Film Award – Best original screenplay for Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990)\n* 1997 Academy Award – Best director for The English Patient (1996)\n* 1997 BAFTA Film Award – Best film for The English Patient (1996) (shared with Saul Zaentz)\n* 1997 Broadcast Film Critics Association Award – Best Director and Best Screenplay for The English Patient (1996)\n* 1997 Directors Guild of America Award – Outstanding Achievement in Motion Pictures for The English Patient (1996)\n* 1997 Satellite Award – Best Adapted Screenplay for The English Patient (1996)\n* 1999 National Board of Review Award – Best Director for The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)\n* 2003 National Board of Review Award – Best Adapted Screenplay for Cold Mountain (2003)\n* 2006 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production for the English National Opera production of Madama Butterfly" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "The English Patient", "The English Patient (novel)", "English Patient" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "english patient", "english patient novel" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "english patient", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "The English Patient" }
I Could Go on Singing was the last film of which screen legend?	tc_1167	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "I_Could_Go_On_Singing.txt" ], "title": [ "I Could Go On Singing" ], "wiki_context": [ "I Could Go On Singing is a 1963 musical drama film directed by Ronald Neame, starring Judy Garland (in her final film role) and Dirk Bogarde.\n\nAlthough not a huge box office success on release, it won Garland much praise for her performance. In Bogarde's autobiographies and in the 2004 biography, it is recounted that Judy Garland's lines were substantially rewritten by Bogarde (with Garland's consent). \n\nThe film had its World Premiere at the Plaza Theatre in London's West End on 6 March 1963. \n\nPlot\n\nJudy Garland plays a superstar singer named Jenny Bowman. She had met a man 15–16 years before who was now a prominent physician (played by British actor Dirk Bogarde). They had a child together whom she let his father raise in England. Jenny wants to finally see him, but in the end is left to the stage. Originally titled The Lonely Stage, it was renamed I Could Go On Singing, so that audiences would know it was the first time Garland sang in a movie since A Star Is Born in 1954. The movie contains Garland concert musical numbers including \"By Myself,\" \"Hello Bluebird,\" \"It Never Was You,\" and the title song, \"I Could Go On Singing.\"\n\nCast \n\nJudy Garland as Jenny Bowman\nDirk Bogarde as David Donne\nJack Klugman as George Kogan\nGregory Phillips as Matt\nAline MacMahon as Ida\nPauline Jameson as Miss Plimpton\nJeremy Burnham as Hospital surgeon\nLorna Luft as girl on boat\nJoseph Luft as boy on boat\n\nMusic \n\nAll songs performed by Judy Garland.\n\nI Am the Monarch of the Sea (Judy Garland and Boys) from H.M.S. Pinafore by Gilbert and Sullivan \nHello Bluebird, words and music by Cliff Friend\nIt Never Was You, Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson\nBy Myself, Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz\nI Could Go On Singing, Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg\n\nFilm reviews \n\n\"Either you are or you aren't - a Judy Garland fan that is. And if you aren't, forget about her new movie, I Could Go On Singing, and leave the discussion to us devotees. You'll see her in close-up...in beautiful, glowing Technicolor and striking staging in a vibrant, vital performance that gets to the essence of her mystique as a superb entertainer. Miss Garland is - as always - real, the voice throbbing, the eyes aglow, the delicate features yielding to the demands of the years - the legs still long and lovely. Certainly the role of a top-rank singer beset by the loneliness and emotional hungers of her personal life is not an alien one to her...\"\n- Judith Crist, The New York Herald Tribune\n\n\"3 stars...Judy Garland is back on screen in a role that might have been custom-tailored for her particular talents. A new song, I Could Go On Singing, provides her with a little clowning, a chance to be gay, a time for wistfulness, an occasion for tears. She and Dirk Bogarde play wonderfully well together, even though the script itself insists on their being mismatched...\"\n- Dorothy Masters, The New York Daily News\n\nSoundtrack and video/DVD releases\n\nIt was released on video in 1989, and on DVD in 2004. The soundtrack album was released at the time of the original movie release, and appeared on CD in 2002 along with the Garland album That's Entertainment! In 2016, it was released on blu-ray with a limited release from Twilight Time." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Joey Luft", "Virgina gumm", "Frances Gumm", "Judy Garland-James Mason", "Judy Garland", "Frances Ethel Gumm", "Judy garland" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "judy garland james mason", "joey luft", "virgina gumm", "judy garland", "frances ethel gumm", "frances gumm" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "judy garland", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Judy Garland" }
Judi Dench won an Oscar as which Queen in Shakespeare in Love?	tc_1169	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Judi_Dench.txt", "The_Queen_(film).txt", "Shakespeare_in_Love.txt" ], "title": [ "Judi Dench", "The Queen (film)", "Shakespeare in Love" ], "wiki_context": [ "Dame Judith Olivia \"Judi\" Dench, (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress and author. Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she performed in several of Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. Although most of her work during this period was in theatre, she also branched into film work, and won a BAFTA Award as Most Promising Newcomer. She drew strong reviews for her leading role in the musical Cabaret in 1968.\n\nOver the next two decades, Dench established herself as one of the most significant British theatre performers, working for the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company. She achieved success in television during this period, in the series A Fine Romance from 1981 until 1984, and in 1992 with a starring role in the romantic comedy series As Time Goes By. Her film appearances were infrequent and included supporting roles in major films such as A Room with a View (1986) supporting Maggie Smith, before she rose to international fame as M in GoldenEye (1995), a role she continued to play in James Bond films until Spectre (2015). She received her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her role as Queen Victoria in Mrs Brown (1997) and the following year won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Shakespeare in Love. A seven-time Oscar nominee, she has also received nominations for her roles in Chocolat (2000), Iris (2001), Mrs Henderson Presents (2005), Notes on a Scandal (2006), and Philomena (2013).\n\nDench has received many award nominations for her acting in theatre, film and television; her competitive awards include six British Academy Film Awards, four BAFTA TV Awards, seven Olivier Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Golden Globes, an Academy Award, and a Tony Award. She has also received the BAFTA Fellowship (2001) and the Special Olivier Award (2004). In June 2011, she received a fellowship from the British Film Institute (BFI). Dench is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).\n\nEarly life\n\nDench was born in Heworth, North Riding of Yorkshire. Her mother, Eleanora Olive (née Jones), was born in Dublin. Her father, Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor, was born in Dorset, and later moved to Dublin, where he was raised. He met Dench's mother while he was studying medicine at Trinity College, Dublin. \n\nDench attended The Mount School, a Quaker independent secondary school in York, and became a Quaker. Her brothers, one of whom was actor Jeffery Dench, were born in Tyldesley, Lancashire. Her niece, Emma Dench, is a Roman historian and professor previously at Birkbeck, University of London, and currently at Harvard University. \n\nCareer\n\nIn Britain, Dench has developed a reputation as one of the greatest actresses of the post-war period, primarily through her work in theatre, which has been her forte throughout her career. She has more than once been named number one in polls for Britain's best actor.\n\nEarly years\n\nThrough her parents, Dench had regular contact with the theatre. Her father, a physician, was also the GP for the York theatre, and her mother was its wardrobe mistress. Actors often stayed in the Dench household. During these years, Judi Dench was involved on a non-professional basis in the first three productions of the modern revival of the York Mystery Plays in the 1950s. In 1957, in one of the last productions in which she appeared during this period, she played the role of the Virgin Mary, performed on a fixed stage in the Museum Gardens. Though she initially trained as a set designer, she became interested in drama school as her brother Jeff attended the Central School of Speech and Drama. She applied and was accepted, where she was a classmate of Vanessa Redgrave, graduating with a first class degree in drama and four acting prizes, one being the Gold Medal as Outstanding Student.\n\nIn September 1957, she made her first professional stage appearance with the Old Vic Company, at the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool, as Ophelia in Hamlet. A recent history of Britain in the years 1957-1962, one volume in a series, cites a contemporaneous review of her performance: \"has talent which will be shown to better advantage when she acquires some technique to go with it.\" Dench then made her London debut in the same production at the Old Vic. She remained a member of the company for four seasons, 1957–1961, her roles including Katherine in Henry V in 1958 (which was also her New York debut), and as directed and designed by Franco Zeffirelli.tr During this period, she toured the United States and Canada, and appeared in Yugoslavia and at the Edinburgh Festival. She joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in December 1961 playing Anya in The Cherry Orchard at the Aldwych Theatre in London, and made her Stratford-upon-Avon debut in April 1962 as Isabella in Measure for Measure. She subsequently spent seasons in repertory both with the Playhouse in Nottingham from January 1963 (including a West African tour as Lady Macbeth for the British Council), and with the Playhouse Company in Oxford from April 1964. That same year, she made her film debut in The Third Secret.\n\nProminence\n\nThe 1966 BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles was made to Dench for her performance in Four in the Morning and this was followed in 1968 by a BAFTA Television Best Actress Award for her role in John Hopkins' 1966 BBC drama Talking to a Stranger.\n\nIn 1968, she was offered the role of Sally Bowles in the musical Cabaret. As Sheridan Morley later reported: \"At first she thought they were joking. She had never done a musical and she has an unusual croaky voice which sounds as if she has a permanent cold. So frightened was she of singing in public that she auditioned from the wings, leaving the pianists alone on stage\". But when it opened at the Palace Theatre in February 1968, Frank Marcus, reviewing for Plays and Players, commented that: \"She sings well. The title song in particular is projected with great feeling.\"\n\nAfter a long run in Cabaret, she rejoined the RSC making numerous appearances with the company in Stratford and London for nearly twenty years, winning several \"best actress\" awards. Among her roles with the RSC, she was the Duchess in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi in 1971. In the Stratford 1976 season, and then at the Aldwych in 1977, she gave two comedy performances, first in Trevor Nunn's musical staging of The Comedy of Errors as Adriana, then partnered with Donald Sinden as Beatrice and Benedick in John Barton's \"British Raj\" revival of Much Ado About Nothing. As Bernard Levin wrote in The Sunday Times: \"...demonstrating once more that she is a comic actress of consummate skill, perhaps the very best we have.\" One of her most notable achievements with the RSC was her performance as Lady Macbeth in 1976. Nunn's acclaimed production of Macbeth was first staged with a minimalist design at The Other Place theatre in Stratford. Its small round stage focused attention on the psychological dynamics of the characters, and both Ian McKellen in the title role, and Dench, received exceptionally favourable notices. \"If this is not great acting I don't know what is\", wrote Michael Billington in The Guardian. \"It will astonish me if the performance is matched by any in this actress's generation\", commented J C Trewin in The Lady. The production transferred to London, opening at the Donmar Warehouse in September 1977, and was adapted for television, later released on VHS and DVD. Dench won the SWET Best Actress Award in 1977.\n\nDench was nominated for a BAFTA for her role as Hazel Wiles in the 1979 BBC drama On Giant's Shoulders. In 1989, she was cast as Pru Forrest, the long-time silent wife of Tom Forrest, in the BBC soap opera The Archers on its 10,000th edition. She had a romantic role in the BBC television film Langrishe, Go Down (1978), with Jeremy Irons and a screenplay by Harold Pinter from the Aidan Higgins novel, directed by David Jones, in which she played one of three spinster sisters living in a fading Irish mansion in the Waterford countryside. Dench made her debut as a director in 1988 with the Renaissance Theatre Company's touring season, Renaissance Shakespeare on the Road, co-produced with the Birmingham Rep, and ending with a three-month repertory programme at the Phoenix Theatre in London. Dench's contribution was a staging of Much Ado About Nothing, set in the Napoleonic era, which starred Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson as Benedick and Beatrice. She has made numerous appearances in the West End including the role of Miss Trant in the 1974 musical version of The Good Companions at Her Majesty's Theatre. In 1981, Dench was due to play Grizabella in the original production of Cats, but was forced to pull out due to a torn Achilles tendon, leaving Elaine Paige to play the role. She has acted with the National Theatre in London where, she played an unforgettable Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra (1987). In September 1995, she played Desiree Armfeldt in a major revival of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, for which she won an Olivier Award.\n\nPopular success\n\nAfter the long period between James Bond films Licence to Kill (1989) and GoldenEye (1995), the producers brought in Dench to take over as the role of M, James Bond's boss. The character was reportedly modeled on Dame Stella Rimington, the real-life head of MI5 between 1992 and 1996,; Dench became the first woman to portray M, succeeding Robert Brown. The seventeenth spy film in the series and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 officer, GoldenEye marked the first Bond film made after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, which provided the plot's back story. The film earned a worldwide gross of US$350.7 million, with critics viewing the film as a modernisation of the series. \n\nIn 1997, Dench appeared in her first starring film role as Queen Victoria in John Madden's teleplay Mrs Brown which depicts Victoria's relationship with her personal servant and favourite John Brown, played by Billy Connolly. Filmed with the intention of being shown on BBC One and on WGBH's Masterpiece Theatre, it was eventually acquired by Miramax mogul Harvey Weinstein, who felt the drama film should receive a theatrical release after seeing it and took it from the BBC to US cinemas. Released to generally positive reviews and unexpected commercial success, going on to earn more than $13 million worldwide, the film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. For her performance, Dench garnered universal acclaim by critics and was awarded her fourth BAFTA and first Best Actress nomination at the 70th Academy Awards. In 2011, while accepting a British Film Institute Award in London, Dench commented that the project launched her Hollywood career and joked that \"it was thanks to Harvey, whose name I have had tattooed on my bum ever since.\"\n\nDench's other film of 1997 was Roger Spottiswoode's Tomorrow Never Dies, her second film in the James Bond series. The spy film follows Bond, played by Brosnan, as he tries to stop a media mogul from engineering world events and starting World War III. Shot in France, Thailand, Germany, the United Kingdom, Vietnam and the South China Sea, it performed well at the box office and earned a Golden Globe nomination despite mixed reviews. The same year, Dench reteamed with director John Madden to film Shakespeare in Love (1998), a romantic comedy-drama that depicts a love affair involving playwright William Shakespeare, played by Joseph Fiennes, while he was writing the play Romeo and Juliet. On her performance as Queen Elizabeth I, The New York Times commented that \"Dench's shrewd, daunting Elizabeth is one of the film's utmost treats.\" The following year, she was nominated for most of the high-profile awards, winning both the Academy Award and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. On her Oscar win, Dench joked on-stage, \"I feel for eight minutes on the screen I should only get a little bit of him.\" \n\nAlso in 1999, Dench won the Tony Award for her 1999 Broadway performance in the role of Esme Allen in Sir David Hare's Amy's View. The same year, she co-starred along with Cher, Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith, and Lily Tomlin in Franco Zeffirelli's semi-autobiographical period drama Tea with Mussolini which tells the story of young Italian boy Luca's upbringing by a circle of British and American women, before and during World War II. 1999 also saw the release of Pierce Brosnan's third Bond film, The World is Not Enough. This film portrayed M in a larger role with the main villain, Renard, coming back to haunt her when he engineers the murder of her old friend Sir Robert King and seemingly attempts to kill his daughter Electra.\n\n2001–2005\n\nIn January 2001, Dench's husband Michael Williams died from lung cancer. Dench went to Nova Scotia, Canada, almost immediately after Williams's funeral to begin production on Lasse Hallström's drama film The Shipping News, a therapy she later credited as her rescue: \"People, friends, kept saying, 'You are not facing up to it; you need to face up to it,' and maybe they were right, but I felt I was – in the acting. Grief supplies you with an enormous amount of energy. I needed to use that up.\" In between, Dench finished work on Richard Eyre's film Iris (2001), in which she portrayed novelist Iris Murdoch. Dench shared her role with Kate Winslet, both actresses portraying Murdoch at different phases of her life. Each of them was nominated for an Academy Award the following year, earning Dench her fourth nomination within five years. In addition, she was awarded both an ALFS Award and the Best Leading Actress Award at the 55th British Academy Film Awards.\n\nFollowing Iris, Dench immediately returned to Canada to finish The Shipping News alongside Kevin Spacey and Julianne Moore. Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by E. Annie Proulx, the drama revolves around a quiet and introspective typesetter (Spacey) who, after the death of his daughter's mother, moves to Newfoundland along with his daughter and his aunt, played by Dench, in hopes of starting his life anew in the small town where she grew up. The film earned mixed reviews from critics, and was financially unsuccessful, taking in just US$24 million worldwide with a budget of US$35 million. Dench however, received BAFTA and SAG Award nominations for her performance.\n\nIn 2002, Dench was cast opposite Rupert Everett, Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon in Oliver Parker's The Importance of Being Earnest, a comedy about mistaken identity set in English high society during the Victorian Era. Based on Oscar Wilde's classic comedy of manners of the same name, she portrayed Lady Bracknell, a role she had repeatedly played before, including a stint at the Royal National Theatre in 1982. The film was released to lukewarm reactions by critics – who called it \"breezy entertainment, helped by an impressive cast\", but felt that it also suffered \"from some peculiar directorial choices\" – and earned just US$17.3 million during its limited release. Dench's other film of 2002 was Die Another Day, the twentieth installment in the James Bond series. The Lee Tamahori–directed spy film marked her fourth appearance as MI6 head M and the franchise's last performance by Pierce Brosnan as Bond. Die Another Day received generally mixed reviews by critics who praised Tamahori's work on the film, but claimed the plot was damaged by excessive use of CGI. Regardless, it became the highest-grossing James Bond film up to that time. \n\nIn 2004, Dench appeared as Aereon, an ambassador of the Elemental race who helps uncover the mysterious past of Richard B. Riddick, played by Vin Diesel, in David Twohy's science fiction sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick. Selected by Diesel, who prompted writers to re-create the character to fit a female persona because he wanted to work with the actress, she called filming \"tremendous fun\", although she \"had absolutely no idea what was going on in the plot.\" The film was a critical and box office failure. In his review of the film, James Berardinelli from ReelViews remarked that he felt that Dench's character served no more \"useful purpose than to give [her] an opportunity to appear in a science fiction movie.\" \n\nShe followed Riddick with a more traditional role in Charles Dance's English drama Ladies in Lavender, also starring friend Maggie Smith. In the film, Dench plays one half of a sister duo and takes it upon herself to nurse a washed up stranger to health, eventually finding herself falling for a man many decades younger than she. The specialty release garnered positive reviews from critics, with Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times calling it \"perfectly sweet and civilized [and] a pleasure to watch Smith and Dench together; their acting is so natural it could be breathing.\" Also in 2004, Dench provided her voice for several smaller projects. In Walt Disney's Home on the Range, she, along with Roseanne Barr and Jennifer Tilly, voiced a mismatched trio of dairy cows who must capture an infamous cattle rustler, for his bounty, in order to save their idyllic farm from foreclosure. The film was mildly successful for Disney. \n\nA major hit for Dench came with Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice, a 2005 adaptation of the novel by Jane Austen, starring Keira Knightley and Donald Sutherland. Wright persuaded Dench to join the cast as Lady Catherine de Bourgh by writing her a letter that read \"I love it when you play a bitch. Please come and be a bitch for me.\" Dench had only one week available to shoot her scenes, forcing Wright to make them his first days of filming. With both a worldwide gross of over US$121 million and several Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations, the film became a critical and commercial success. \n\n2006–2010\n\nDench, in her role as \"M\", was the only cast member carried through from the Brosnan films to appear in Casino Royale (2006), Martin Campbell's reboot of the James Bond film series, starring Daniel Craig in his debut performance as the fictional MI6 agent. The thriller received largely positive critical response, with reviewers highlighting Craig's performance and the reinvention of the character of Bond. It earned over US$594 million worldwide, ranking it among the highest-grossing James Bond films ever released.\n\nIn April 2006, Dench returned to the West End stage in Hay Fever alongside Peter Bowles, Belinda Lang and Kim Medcalf. She finished off 2006 with the role of Mistress Quickly in the RSC's new musical The Merry Wives, a version of The Merry Wives of Windsor.\n\nDench appeared opposite Cate Blanchett as a London teacher with a dedicated fondness for vulnerable women in Richard Eyre's 2006 drama film Notes on a Scandal, an adaption from the 2003 novel of the same name by Zoë Heller. A fan of Heller's book, Dench \"was thrilled to be asked to ... play that woman, to try to find a humanity in that dreadful person.\" The specialty film opened to generally positive reviews and commercial success, grossing US$50 million worldwide, exceeding its £15 million budget. In his review for Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert declared the main actresses \"perhaps the most impressive acting duo in any film of 2006. Dench and Blanchett are magnificent.\" The following year, Dench earned her sixth Academy nomination and went on to win a BIFA Award and an Evening Standard Award.\n\nDench, as Miss Matty Jenkyns, co-starred with Eileen Atkins, Michael Gambon, Imelda Staunton and Francesca Annis in the BBC One five-part series Cranford. The first season of the series began transmission in November 2007.\n\nDench became the voice for the narration for the updated Walt Disney World Epcot attraction Spaceship Earth in February 2008. The same month, she was named as the first official patron of the York Youth Mysteries 2008, a project to allow young people to explore the York Mystery Plays through dance, film-making and circus. Her only film of 2008 was Marc Forster's Quantum of Solace, the twenty-second Eon-produced James Bond film, in which she reprised her role as M along with Daniel Craig. A direct sequel to the 2006 film Casino Royale, Forster felt Dench was underused in the previous films, and wanted to make her part bigger, having her interact with Bond more. The project gathered generally mixed reviews by critics, who mainly felt that Quantum of Solace was not as impressive as the predecessor Casino Royale, but became another hit for the franchise with a worldwide gross of US$591 million. For her performance, Dench was nominated for a Saturn Award the following year. \n\nDench returned to the West End in mid-2009, playing Madame de Montreuil in Yukio Mishima's play Madame de Sade, directed by Michael Grandage as part of the Donmar season at Wyndham's Theatre. The same year, she appeared in Sally Potter's experimental film Rage, a project that featured 14 actors playing fictional figures in and around the fashion world, giving monologues before a plain backdrop. Attracted to the fact that it was unlike anything she had done before, Dench welcomed the opportunity to work with Potter. \"I like to do something that's not expected, or predictable. I had to learn to smoke a joint, and I set my trousers alight,\" she said about filming. Her next film was Rob Marshall's musical film Nine, based on Arthur Kopit's book for the 1982 musical of the same name, itself suggested by Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½. Also starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, and Sophia Loren, she played Lilli La Fleur, an eccentric but motherly French costume designer, who performs the song \"Folies Bergères\" in the film. Despite mixed to negative reviews, Nine was nominated for four Academy Awards, and awarded both the Satellite Award for Best Film and Best Cast.\n\nAlso in 2009, Dench reprised the role of Matilda Jenkyns in Return to Cranford, the two-part second season of a Simon Curtis television series. Critically acclaimed, Dench was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Satellite Award. In 2010, she renewed her collaboration with Peter Hall at the Rose Theatre in Kingston upon Thames in A Midsummer Night's Dream, which opened in February 2010; she played Titania as Queen Elizabeth I in her later years – almost 50 years after she first played the role for the Royal Shakespeare Company. In July 2010, Dench performed \"Send in the Clowns\" at a special celebratory promenade concert from the Royal Albert Hall as part of the proms season, in honour of composer Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday. \n\n2011–present\n\nIn 2011, Dench starred in Jane Eyre, My Week with Marilyn and J. Edgar. In Cary Joji Fukunaga's period drama Jane Eyre, based on the 1847 novel of the same name by Charlotte Brontë, she played the role of Alice Fairfax, housekeeper to Rochester, the aloof and brooding master of Thornfield Hall, where main character Jane, played by Mia Wasikowska, gets employed as a governess. Dench reportedly signed to the project after she had received a humorous personal note from Fukunaga, in which he \"promised her that she'd be the sexiest woman on set if she did the film.\" Acclaimed among critics, it was a mediocre arthouse success at the box office, grossing US$30.5 million worldwide. \n\nIn Simon Curtis' My Week with Marilyn, which depicts the making of the 1957 film The Prince and the Showgirl starring Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier, Dench played actress Sybil Thorndike. The film garnered largely positive reviews, and earned Dench a Best Actress in a Supporting Role nomination at the 65th BAFTA Awards. \n\nDench's last film of 2011 was Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar, a biographical drama film about the career of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, from the Palmer Raids onwards, including an examination of his private life as a closeted homosexual. Hand-picked by Eastwood to play Anna Marie Hoover, Hoover's mother, Dench initially thought a friend was setting her up upon receiving Eastwood's phone call request. \"I didn't take it seriously to start with. And then I realised it was really him and that was a tricky conversation,\" she stated. Released to mixed reception, both with critics and commercially, the film went on to gross US$79 million worldwide. The same year, Dench reunited with Rob Marshall and Johnny Depp for a cameo appearance in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, playing a noblewoman who is robbed by Captain Jack Sparrow, played by Depp. She made a second cameo that year in Ray Cooney's Run for Your Wife. \n\nIn 2011, Dench reunited with director John Madden on the set of the comedy-drama The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012), starring an ensemble cast also consisting of Celia Imrie, Bill Nighy, Ronald Pickup, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson and Penelope Wilton, as a group of British pensioners moving to a retirement hotel in India, run by the young and eager Sonny (Dev Patel). Released to positive reviews by critics, who declared the film a \"sweet story about the senior set featuring a top-notch cast of veteran actors,\" it became a surprise box-office hit following its international release, eventually grossing $US134 million worldwide, mostly from its domestic run. Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was ranked among the highest-grossing specialty releases of the year, and Dench, who Peter Travers from Rolling Stone called \"resilient marvel\", garnered a Best Actress nod at both the British Independent Film Awards and Golden Globe Awards. \n\nAlso in 2012, Friend Request Pending, an indie short film which Dench had filmed in 2011, received a wide release as part of the feature films Stars in Shorts and The Joy of Six. In the 12-minute comedy, directed by My Week with Marilyn assistant director Chris Foggin on a budget of just £5,000, she portrays a pensioner grappling with a crush on her church choirmaster and the art of cyber-flirting via social networking. Dench made her seventh and final appearance as M in the twenty-third James Bond film, Skyfall (2012), directed by Sam Mendes. In the film, Bond investigates an attack on MI6; it transpires that it is part of an attack on M by former MI6 operative, Raoul Silva (played by Javier Bardem) to humiliate, discredit and kill M as revenge against her for betraying him. Dench's position as M was subsequently filled by Ralph Fiennes' character. Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the James Bond series, Skyfall was positively received by critics and at the box office, grossing over $1 billion worldwide, and became the highest-grossing film of all-time in the UK and the highest-grossing film in the James Bond series. Critics called Dench's Saturn Awards-nominated performance \"compellingly luminous\". \n\nIn 2013, Dench starred as the title character in the Stephen Frears directed film, Philomena, a filmed inspired by true events of a woman looking for the son which the Catholic Church took from her a half-century before. The film was screened in the main competition section at the 70th Venice International Film Festival, where it was very favorably received by critics. On Dench's performance, The Times commented that \"this is Dench's triumph. At 78, she has a golden career behind her, often as queens and other frosty matriarchs. So the warmth under pressure she radiates here is nearly a surprise [...] Dench gives a performance of grace, nuance and cinematic heroism.\" She was subsequently nominated for many major acting awards, including a seventh Academy Award nomination. \n\nIn January 2014, principal photography began in Jaipur on The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel with Dench reprising the role of Evelyn. The film was released in March 2015. In October 2014 she began filming as Cecily, Duchess of York to Benedict Cumberbatch's Richard III in the second series of The Hollow Crown. From 24 April 2015 to 7 May 2015; Dench played a mother, with her real-life daughter Finty Williams playing her character's daughter, in The Vote at the Donmar Warehouse. The final performance was broadcast live on More4 at 8:25 pm; the time when the events in the play take place. The appearance marked her first performance at the theatre since 1976. On 20 September 2015 she was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs for the third time, in which she revealed that her first acting performance was as a snail. She reprised her role as M in the 2015 James Bond film, Spectre, in the form of a recording that was delivered to Bond. \n\nPersonal life\n\nOn 5 February 1971, Dench married British actor Michael Williams. They had their only child, Tara Cressida Frances Williams, an actress known professionally as Finty Williams, on 24 September 1972. Dench and her husband starred together in several stage productions and on the Bob Larbey British television sitcom, A Fine Romance (1981–84). Michael Williams died from lung cancer in 2001, aged 65. They have one grandchild, Finty's son Sam Williams (born in 1997). \n\nDench has been in a relationship with conservationist David Mills since 2010. During a 2014 interview with The Times magazine, she discussed how she never expected to find love again after her husband's death, \"I wasn't even prepared to be ready for it. It was very, very gradual and grown up ... It's just wonderful.\" \n\nIn early 2012, Dench discussed her macular degeneration, with one eye \"dry\" and the other \"wet\", for which she has been treated with injections into the eye. She said that she needs someone to read scripts to her. She also underwent knee surgery in 2013, but stated that she recovered from the procedure well and \"It's not an issue for me.\" \n\nDench has been critical of prejudice in the movie industry against older actresses. She stated in 2014, \"I'm tired of being told I'm too old to try something. I should be able to decide for myself if I can't do things and not have someone tell me I'll forget my lines or I'll trip and fall on the set\"; and \"Age is a number. It's something imposed on you ... It drives me absolutely spare when people say, 'Are you going to retire? Isn't it time you put your feet up?' Or tell me [my] age.\" \n\nIn 2013, she spoke about her personal religious faith. Dench, a Quaker, said \"I think it informs everything I do ... I couldn't be without it\". \n\nHonours and charity\n\nDench was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1970 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1988. She was appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 2005. In June 2011, she became a fellow of the British Film Institute (BFI).\n\nDench is a patron of the Leaveners, Friends School Saffron Walden, [http://www.archwaytheatre.co.uk The Archway Theatre], Horley, Surrey and OnePlusOne Marriage and Partnership Research, London. She became president of Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London in 2006, taking over from Sir John Mills, and is president of Questors Theatre, Ealing. In May 2006, she became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). She was also patron of Ovingdean Hall School, a special day and boarding school for the deaf and hard of hearing in Brighton, which closed in 2010, and Vice President of The Little Foundation.\n\nDench is an Honorary Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. In 1996, she was awarded a DUniv degree from Surrey University and in 2000–2001 she received an honorary DLitt degree from Durham University. In July 2000, she was awarded a DLitt degree by Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, whose Drama School at the Gateway Theatre on Elm Row she has actively supported.\n\nOn 24 June 2008, she was honoured by the University of St Andrews, receiving an honorary DLitt degree at the university's graduation ceremony. On 26 June 2013, she was honoured by the University of Stirling, receiving an honorary doctorate at the university's graduation ceremony in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the Arts, particularly to film. In March 2013, she was listed as one of the fifty best-dressed over 50s by The Guardian. \n\nPolitical and social interests and involvement\n\nDench has worked with the non-governmental indigenous organisation, Survival International, campaigning in the defence of the tribal people, the San of Botswana and the Arhuaco of Colombia. She made a small supporting video saying the San are victims of tyranny, greed and racism. Dench is also a patron of the Karuna Trust, a charity that supports work amongst some of India's poorest and most oppressed people, mainly though not exclusively Dalits. \n\nOn 22 July 2010, Dench was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (DLitt) by Nottingham Trent University. The Dr. Hadwen Trust announced on 15 January 2011 that Dench had become a patron of the trust, joining, among others, Joanna Lumley and David Shepherd. On 19 March 2012 it was announced that Dench was to become honorary patron of the charity Everton in the Community, the official charity of Everton F.C. and it was revealed that Dench is an Everton supporter. \n\nDench is an advisor to the American Shakespeare Center. She is a patron of the Shakespeare Schools Festival, a charity that enables school children across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres. She is patron of East Park Riding for the Disabled, a riding school for disabled children at Newchapel, Surrey. Dench is also a Vice-President of national charity [http://www.revitalise.org.uk Revitalise], that provides accessible holidays for those with disabilities. In 2011, along with musician Sting and billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson, she publicly urged policy makers to adopt more progressive drug policies by decriminalizing drug use. \n\nDench was one of 200 celebrities to sign an open letter to the people of Scotland asking them to vote No to independence, published in August 2014, a few weeks before the Scottish referendum. \n\nFilmography\n\nDiscography\n\n* Pericles (1968) Shakespeare Recording Society, Caedmon Records\n* Cabaret (1968), Original London cast album CBS (1973)\n* The Good Companions (1974), Original London cast recording (1974)\n* A Midsummer Night's Dream (1995); from Felix Mendelssohn as Recitant. Conducted by Seiji Ozawa\n* A Little Night Music (1995) by Stephen Sondheim, Royal National Theatre Cast\n* Nine (2009) Original Motion Picture Soundtrack\n\"Spaceship Earth (Epcot)\" narrator of the current version of the attraction . (2008)\n\nAwards and nominations", "The Queen is a 2006 British fictional drama film depicting the British Royal Family's response to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales on 31 August 1997. The film was directed by Stephen Frears, written by Peter Morgan, and starred Helen Mirren in the title role of HM Queen Elizabeth II. \n\nIn the film, the Royal Family regards Diana's death as a private affair and thus not to be treated as an official Royal death. This is in contrast with the views of Tony Blair and Diana's ex-husband, Prince Charles, who favour the general public's desire for an official expression of grief. Matters are further complicated by the media, royal protocol regarding Diana's official status, and wider issues about Republicanism.\n\nThe film's release coincided with a revival of favourable public sentiment in respect to the monarchy and a downturn in fortunes for Blair. Michael Sheen reprised his role as Blair from The Deal, and he did so again in The Special Relationship. The Queen also garnered general critical and popular acclaim for Mirren playing the title role, which earned her numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actress. Mirren was also praised by the Queen herself and invited to dinner at Buckingham Palace (though she could not attend due to filming commitments in Hollywood). \n\nPlot\n\nIn the 1997 general election, Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) becomes Britain's newly elected prime minister. However, the Queen (Helen Mirren) is wary of Blair and his pledge to modernise Britain, despite his promises to respect the Royal Family. Three months later, Diana, Princess of Wales dies in a car crash at the Alma Bridge tunnel in Paris. Blair's director of communications, Alastair Campbell (Mark Bazeley), prepares a speech in which Diana is described as the people's princess. The phrase catches on and millions of people across London display an outpouring of grief at Buckingham and Kensington Palaces. Meanwhile, the royal family is still at their summer estate in Balmoral Castle. Diana's death sparks division amongst members of the family, with some of the view that since Diana was divorced from Prince Charles (Alex Jennings) a year prior to her death, she was no longer a part of the royal family. They argue that Diana's funeral arrangements are thus best left as a private affair of her noble family, the Spencers. Charles, however, argues that the mother of a future king cannot be dismissed so lightly, and persuades the Queen to authorise the use of an aircraft of the Royal Air Force to bring Diana's body back to Britain.\n\nIn London, flowers begin to pile up before the palace railings, which forces the changing of the Queen's Guard to use another gate. British tabloids become inflammatory about the lack of a statement from the royal family. Charles leaves no doubt that he shares Blair's views about the need for a statement. As the royal family's popularity plummets, Blair's acceptance rises, to the delight of his anti-monarchist advisers and wife, Cherie (Helen McCrory). However, Blair does not share these sentiments. While disagreeing with the Queen's course of action, Blair begins to develop an admiration for her. Blair tells his wife that a republican Britain is ludicrous and begins to denounce the anti-monarchical views of his Labour Party advisers. Blair immediately calls the Queen at Balmoral and recommends three strong measures to regain public confidence of the monarchy: attend a public funeral for Diana at Westminster Abbey, fly a Union flag at half-mast over Buckingham Palace, and speak to the nation about Diana's life and legacy in a televised address.\n\nBlair's recommendations outrage several other members of the royal family including Prince Philip (James Cromwell) and the Queen Mother (Sylvia Syms), viewing such steps as an undignified surrender to public hysteria. Philip is surprised that Elton John is asked to attend and sing a song, \"Candle in the Wind\", in Diana's memory. The Queen seems concerned about this and although she shares their feelings, she has doubts as she closely follows the news. The Queen believes that there has been a shift in public values and that perhaps she should abdicate. The Queen Mother dismisses the idea by saying that she is one of the greatest assets the monarchy has ever had, stating: \"The real problem will come when you leave. She also reminds the Queen of the promise she made in Cape Town, South Africa on her 21st birthday, in which she promised that her \"whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong...\". Meanwhile, Philip tries to distract William and Harry (Jake Taylor Shantos and Dash Barber) from Diana's death by taking them deer stalking. While venturing out alone in her Land Rover, the Queen damages it crossing a river and is forced to telephone for assistance. The Queen weeps in frustration, but catches sight of a majestic red deer which Philip had been stalking with William and Harry. The Queen is struck by his beauty and the two stare at each other. Hearing a distant gunshot, the Queen shoos the animal away and decides to carry out Blair's recommendations. While preparing to return to London to attend a public funeral for Diana, the Queen is horrified to learn that the deer has been killed on a neighbouring estate, asks to see the stag, and is upset at its loss.\n\nThe royal family finally returns to London to inspect the floral tributes to Diana. While watching live television coverage with his staff, Blair becomes angry and disappointed at his advisers, declaring that the Queen is admirable and that Diana had rejected everything held most dear by the Queen. The Queen later follows Blair's advice to make a public statement on live television, in which she speaks about the life and legacy of Diana and describes her as an exceptional and gifted human being. Two months after Diana's death, Blair visits Buckingham Palace to attend a weekly meeting with the Queen. The Queen has finally regained her popularity, but she believes that Blair has benefited himself from her acquiescence to his advice and that she will never fully recover from that week. The Queen warns Blair that he will find that public opinion can rapidly turn against him, and states that life in Britain has changed and that the monarchy must modernise in the future. When Blair suggests that he can help with this, the Queen replies to him: \"Don't get ahead of yourself, Prime Minister. Remember, I'm supposed to be the one advising you\".\n\nCast\n\n Helen Mirren as Elizabeth II—This film is the fourth time that Mirren has portrayed a British queen: the first was a queen consort, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in The Madness of King George (1994), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress; the second was a queen regnant, Elizabeth I, in the 2005 miniseries Elizabeth I. She also played a policewoman, under cover as the Queen, in The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu.\n* Michael Sheen as Prime Minister Tony Blair—Sheen had previously played Blair in the Channel 4 television film The Deal, also directed by Frears and written by Morgan. He reprised his role in The Special Relationship.\n* James Cromwell as Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh\n* Helen McCrory as Cherie Blair—Tony Blair's wife. Like Sheen, McCrory reprised this role in The Special Relationship.\n* Alex Jennings as Charles, Prince of Wales\n* Roger Allam as Robin Janvrin (later Lord Janvrin)—In the film, Janvrin is private secretary to the Queen, although he was the deputy private secretary at the time of Diana's death.\n* Sylvia Syms as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother\n* Tim McMullan as Stephen Lamport—Private Secretary to the Prince of Wales\n* Mark Bazeley as Alastair Campbell—Director of Communications and Strategy for the Prime Minister. Another actor who would reprise his role in The Special Relationship.\n* Douglas Reith as Lord Airlie, Lord Chamberlain\n* Robin Soans as Equerry\n* Earl Cameron as Portrait Artist\n* Anthony Debaeck as Catholic Priest\n* Trevor McDonald as Newsreader—ITV newsreader, covered Diana's death\n* Martyn Lewis as Newsreader-BBC newsreader, covered Diana death\n* Jake Taylor Shantos as Prince William\n* Dash Barber as Prince Harry\n\nProduction\n\nFilming\n\nThe screenplay was written by Peter Morgan. It was produced by Pathé Pictures and Granada Productions (ITV Productions). Stephen Frears had a clause in his contract from The Deal that allowed him to direct any follow-ups or sequels, and he was officially announced as director in September 2003. The film was shot on location in the United Kingdom, in England in London, Halton House and Waddesdon Manor, in Buckinghamshire, Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire and in Scotland at Balmoral Castle, Castle Fraser and Cluny Castle in Aberdeenshire, and Blairquhan Castle and Culzean Castle in South Ayrshire.\n\nSet design\n\nThe sets were designed by Alan MacDonald, which won him Best Art Direction in a Contemporary Film from the Art Directors Guild and Best Technical Achievement at the British Independent Film Awards. \nMirren says transforming herself into the Queen came almost naturally after the wig and glasses, since she shares a default facial expression—a slightly downturned mouth – with the monarch. She regularly reviewed film and video footage of Elizabeth and kept photographs in her trailer during production. She also undertook extensive voice coaching, faithfully reproducing the Queen's delivery of her televised speech to the world. Morgan has said that her performance was so convincing that, by the end of production, crew members who had been accustomed to slouching or relaxing when they addressed her were standing straight up and respectfully folding their hands behind their backs. Mirren arranged to spend time off-camera with the supporting cast playing other members of the Royal Family, including James Cromwell, Alex Jennings and Sylvia Syms so they would be as comfortable with each other as a real family.\nShots involving the Queen were shot in 35mm film and shots of Tony Blair were shot in 16mm film to enhance the contrast of different worlds. \n\nTelevision viewership and home media\n\nITV's role in the production of the film allowed them an option for its television premiere and it was broadcast on 2 September 2007 (coinciding that weekend with a memorial service to Diana) to an average audience of 7.9 million, winning its timeslot. The DVD was released in the UK on 12 March 2007. Special features include a making-of featurette and an audio commentary by Stephen Frears, writer Peter Morgan and Robert Lacey, biographer of Queen Elizabeth II. It was released on Blu-ray and DVD in the USA on 24 April 2007 and, , US DVD sales had exceeded $29 million. \n\nHistorical accuracy\n\nSome aspects of the characters are known to be true to their real-life counterparts. Cherie Blair's hostility to the monarchy has been widely reported, including her refusal to curtsey. According to Morgan, \"cabbage\" is an actual term of endearment Philip uses for his wife («mon chou» – \"my cabbage\" – is a standard affectionate nickname in French).\n\nOther elements represent characteristics associated with people depicted. The electric guitar seen behind Blair in his personal office is a reference to his past membership in the band Ugly Rumours while a student. The Newcastle United football jersey he wears to a family breakfast is a reference to his support of that team. The film also shows Alastair Campbell coining the term 'the people's princess', but in 2007 he revealed that it was Tony Blair who came up with it. \n\nA notable inaccuracy is that Robin Janvrin is represented as the Queen's private secretary during the aftermath of Diana's death. In fact, that position was then occupied by Janvrin's predecessor, Sir Robert Fellowes, a brother-in-law of Diana, Princess of Wales; Janvrin was the deputy private secretary until 1999. However, the film is accurate in depicting Janvrin as the person who delivered the news of Diana's accident to the Queen at Balmoral during the night. \n\nReception\n\nBox office\n\nThe film exceeded box-office expectations; with a budget of $15 million the film earned $56.4 million in the United States and Canada. \n\nCritical reception\n\nBefore the film was released, critics praised both Stephen Frears and Peter Morgan, who later received Golden Globe and Academy Award-nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay. Michael Sheen's performance as Tony Blair earned him particular acclaim. Helen Mirren's portrayal garnered her acclaim from critics around the world. Her portrayal made her a favourite for the Academy Award for Best Actress well before the film was released in theatres. After its showing at the Venice Film Festival, Mirren received a five-minute-long standing ovation.[http://www.marinij.com/marin/ci_4461775 Marin Independent Journal – Dame Helen Mirren's appearance at Mill Valley Film Festival fit for 'The Queen'] Roger Ebert came out of recovery from surgery to give the film a review. He called it \"spellbinding\" and gave it four out of four stars. The Queen was the most critically acclaimed film of 2006 with Mirren being the most critically acclaimed actress of the year. The Queen has 97% positive reviews on the film-critics aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes.[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/queen/ The Queen – Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures – Rotten Tomatoes]\n\nAmongst the few negative reviews, Slant Magazine's Nick Schager criticised the insider portraiture of the film as \"somewhat less than revelatory, in part because Morgan's script succumbs to cutie-pie jokiness [...] and broad caricature\", mentioning particularly \"James Cromwell's Prince Philip, who envisions the crowned heads as exiled victims and the gathering crowds as encroaching 'Zulus'\". \n\nTop ten lists\n\nThe film appeared on many US critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2006.\n\n1st – Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter\n1st – William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer\n2nd – Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun Times\n2nd – Lou Lumenick, New York Post\n2nd – Michael Rechtshaffen, The Hollywood Reporter\n3rd – David Ansen, Newsweek\n3rd – Ella Taylor, LA Weekly\n3rd – Richard Schickel, TIME magazine\n3rd – Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter\n4th – Chris Kaltenbach, The Baltimore Sun\n4th – Claudia Puig, USA Today\n4th – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times (tied with Venus)\n4th – Stephen Holden, The New York Times\n5th – Dennis Harvey, Variety\n5th – Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter\n5th – Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle\n5th – Stephanie Zacharek, Salon (tied with Marie Antoinette)\n6th – Marjorie Baumgarten, The Austin Chronicle\n6th – Michael Sragow, The Baltimore Sun\n6th – Shawn Levy, The Oregonian\n7th – Lawrence Toppman, The Charlotte Observer\n\n7th – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone\n9th – Jack Mathews, New York Daily News\n9th – Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly\n9th – Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune\n9th – Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune\n9th – Nathan Rabin, The A.V. Club\n9th – Ty Burr, The Boston Globe\n10th – Glenn Kenny, Premiere\n10th – Staff, Film Threat\nGeneral top ten\nCarina Chocano, Los Angeles Times\nCarrie Rickey, The Philadelphia Inquirer\nDana Stevens, Slate\nJoe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal\nLiam Lacey and Rick Groen, The Globe and Mail\nPeter Rainer, The Christian Science Monitor\nRuthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle\nSteven Rea, The Philadelphia Inquirer\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nMirren won at least 29 major awards for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II, many of which are listed below. She was nominated for at least three more. In most of her acceptance speeches, she expressed her admiration for the real Queen, and dedicated both her Golden Globe and her Oscar to Elizabeth II.\n\n79th Academy Awards (2006)\n* Won: Best Actress—Helen Mirren\n* Nominated: Best Picture—Andy Harries, Christine Langan, Tracey Seaward\n* Nominated: Best Director—Stephen Frears\n* Nominated: Best Original Screenplay—Peter Morgan\n* Nominated: Best Original Score—Alexandre Desplat\n* Nominated: Best Costume Design—Consolata Boyle\n\n2006 British Academy Film (BAFTA) Awards\n* Won: Best Film\n* Won: Actress in a Leading Role—Helen Mirren\n* Nominated: Outstanding British Film—Andy Harries, Christine Langan, Tracey Seaward, Stephen Frears, Peter Morgan\n* Nominated: The David Lean Award for Achievement in Direction—Stephen Frears\n* Nominated: Actor in a Supporting Role—Michael Sheen\n* Nominated: Original Screenplay—Peter Morgan\n* Nominated: Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music—Alexandre Desplat\n* Nominated: Editing—Lucia Zucchetti\n* Nominated: Costume Design—Consolata Boyle\n* Nominated: Makeup and Hair—Daniel Philipps\n\n2006 Screen Actors Guild Awards\n* Won: Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role (Theatrical movie)—Helen Mirren\n\n2006 Directors Guild of America Awards\n* Nominated: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures—Stephen Frears\n\n2006 Writers Guild of America Awards\n* Nominated: Original Screenplay—Peter Morgan\n\n2006 Producers Guild of America Awards\n* Nominated: Best Picture of the Year—Andy Harries, Christine Langan, Tracey Seaward\n\n64th Golden Globe Awards\n* Won: Best Actress, Drama—Helen Mirren\n* Won: Best Screenplay—Peter Morgan\n* Nominated: Best Picture, Drama\n* Nominated: Best Director—Stephen Frears\n\n2006 Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards\nWon: Actress in a Leading Role—Helen Mirren\nNominated: Best Picture\nNominated: Best Director—Stephen Frears\nNominated: Best Writer—Peter Morgan\n\n2006 Toronto Film Critics Association Awards\nWon: Best Picture\nWon: Best Actress—Helen Mirren\nWon: Best Supporting Actor—Michael Sheen\nWon: Best Director—Stephen Frears\nWon: Best Screenplay—Peter Morgan\n\n2006 New York Film Critics Circle Awards\n Won: Best Actress—Helen Mirren\n* Won: Best Screenplay—Peter Morgan\n\n2006 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards\n* Won: Best Actress—Helen Mirren\n* Won: Best Supporting Actor—Michael Sheen\n* Won: Best Screenplay—Peter Morgan\n* Won: Best Music—Alexandre Desplat\n* Runner-up: Best Picture\n\n2006 National Society of Film Critics Awards\nWon: Best Actress—Helen Mirren\nWon: Best Screenplay—Peter Morgan\n\n2006 Satellite Awards\n* Nominated: Best Motion Picture, Drama\n* Won: Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama—Helen Mirren\n* Nominated: Best Director—Stephen Frears\n* Nominated: Best Screenplay, Original—Peter Morgan\n\n2006 National Board of Review Awards\n* Won: Best Actress—Helen Mirren\n\n2006 Chicago International Film Festival\n* Won: Audience Choice Award—Stephen Frears\n\n2006 British Independent Film Awards\n* Won: Best Screenplay—Peter Morgan\n* Nominated: Best British Independent Film\n* Nominated: Best Director—Stephen Frears\n* Nominated: Best Actress—Helen Mirren\n* Nominated: Best Technical Achievement—Alan MacDonald (production design)\n* Nominated: Best Technical Achievement—Daniel Phillips (makeup)\n\n2006 Venice Film Festival\n* Won: Best Actress — Helen Mirren\n* Won: Best Screenplay — Peter Morgan\n* Nominated: Golden Lion\n\nSoundtrack\n\nThe soundtrack album was released on the Milan label on 26 September 2006. The original score and songs were composed by Alexandre Desplat and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. The album was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score. It was also nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Film Music (lost to the score of Babel).\n\n# The Queen – 2:10\n# Hills of Scotland – 2:25\n# People's Princess I – 4:08\n# A New Prime Minister – 1:55\n# H.R.H. – 2:22\n# The Stag – 1:50\n# Mourning – 3:50\n# Elizabeth & Tony – 2:04\n# River of Sorrow – 1:59\n# The Flowers of Buckingham – 2:28\n# The Queen Drives – 1:48\n# Night in Balmoral – 1:09\n# Tony & Elizabeth – 2:06\n# People's Princess II – 4:08\n# Queen of Hearts – 3:33\n# Libera Me (Verdi) – 6:27", "For the theatre adaptation, see Shakespeare in Love (play).\n\nShakespeare in Love is a 1998 British-American romantic comedy-drama film directed by John Madden, written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard. The film depicts an imaginary love affair involving Viola de Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow) and playwright William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) while he was writing Romeo and Juliet. Several characters are based on historical figures, and many of the characters, lines, and plot devices allude to Shakespeare's plays.\n\nShakespeare in Love won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress (Gwyneth Paltrow), and Best Supporting Actress (Judi Dench).\n\nPlot\n\nIn 1593 London, William Shakespeare is a sometime player in the Lord Chamberlain's Men and poor playwright for Philip Henslowe, owner of The Rose Theatre. Shakespeare is working on a new comedy, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter. Suffering from writer's block, he has barely begun the play, but starts auditioning players. Viola de Lesseps, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, who has seen Shakespeare's plays at court, disguises herself as \"Thomas Kent\" to audition, then runs away. Shakespeare pursues Kent to Viola's house and leaves a note with the nurse, asking Thomas Kent to begin rehearsals at the Rose. He sneaks into the house with the minstrels playing that night at the ball, where her parents are arranging her betrothal to Lord Wessex, an impoverished aristocrat. While dancing with Viola, Shakespeare is struck speechless, and after being forcibly ejected by Wessex, uses Thomas Kent as a go-between to woo her. Wessex also asks Will's name, to which he replies that he is Christopher Marlowe.\n\nWhen he discovers her true identity, they begin a secret affair. Inspired by her, Shakespeare writes quickly, with help from his friend and rival playwright Christopher 'Kit' Marlowe, completely transforming the play into what will become Romeo and Juliet. Then, Viola is summoned to court to receive approval for her proposed marriage to Lord Wessex. Shakespeare accompanies her, disguised as her female cousin. There, he persuades Wessex to wager £50 that a play can capture the true nature of love, the exact amount Shakespeare requires to buy a share in the Chamberlain's Men. Queen Elizabeth I declares that she will judge the matter, when the occasion arises.\n\nWhen Richard Burbage, owner of the Curtain, finds out that Shakespeare has cheated him out of both money and the play, he goes to the Rose Theatre with his Curtain Theatre Company and starts a brawl. The Rose Theatre company drives Burbage and his company out and then celebrate at the local pub.\n\nViola is appalled when she learns Shakespeare is married, albeit separated from his wife, and she realises she cannot escape her duty to marry Wessex. Will discovers that Marlowe is dead, and thinks he is to blame. Lord Wessex suspects an affair between Shakespeare and his bride-to-be. Because Wessex thinks that Will is Kit Marlowe, he approves of Kit's death, and tells Viola the news. It is later learned that Marlowe had been killed in an accident. Viola finds out that Will is still alive, and declares her love for him.\n\nWhen Edmund Tilney, the Master of the Revels, is informed there is a woman player at The Rose, he closes the theatre for breaking the ban on women. Viola's identity is exposed, leaving them without a stage or lead actor, until Richard Burbage offers them his theatre. Shakespeare takes the role of Romeo, with a boy actor as Juliet. Following her wedding, Viola learns that the play will be performed that day, and runs away to the Curtain. Planning to watch with the crowd, Viola overhears that the boy playing Juliet cannot perform, and offers to replace him. While she plays Juliet to Shakespeare's Romeo, the audience is enthralled, despite the tragic ending, until Master Tilney arrives to arrest everyone for indecency due to Viola's presence.\n\nBut the Queen is in attendance and restrains Tilney, instead asserting that Kent's resemblance to a woman is, indeed, remarkable. However, even a queen is powerless to end a lawful marriage, and she orders Kent to \"fetch\" Viola because she must sail with Wessex to the Colony of Virginia. The Queen also tells Wessex, who followed Viola to the theatre, that Romeo and Juliet has won the bet for Shakespeare, and has Kent deliver his £50 with instructions to write something \"a little more cheerful next time, for Twelfth Night\".\n\nViola and Shakespeare say their goodbyes, and he vows to immortalise her, as he imagines the beginnings of Twelfth Night, imagining her as a castaway disguised as a man after a voyage to a strange land.\n\nCast\n\n* Gwyneth Paltrow as Viola de Lesseps\n* Joseph Fiennes as William Shakespeare\n* Geoffrey Rush as Philip Henslowe\n* Colin Firth as Lord Wessex\n* Ben Affleck as Ned Alleyn\n* Judi Dench as Elizabeth I of England\n* Simon Callow as Edmund Tilney\n* Jim Carter as Ralph Bashford\n* Martin Clunes as Richard Burbage\n* Antony Sher as Dr. Moth\n* Imelda Staunton as Nurse\n* Tom Wilkinson as Hugh Fennyman\n* Mark Williams as Wabash\n* Daniel Brocklebank as Sam Gosse\n* Jill Baker as Lady de Lesseps\n* Patrick Barlow as Will Kempe\n* Joe Roberts as John Webster\n* John Inman as Lady Capulet\n* Rupert Everett as Christopher 'Kit' Marlowe\n* Sandra Reinton as Rosaline\n\nProduction\n\nThe original idea for Shakespeare in Love came to screenwriter Marc Norman in the late 1980s. He pitched a draft screenplay to director Edward Zwick. The screenplay attracted Julia Roberts who agreed to play Viola. However, Zwick disliked Norman's screenplay and hired the playwright Tom Stoppard to improve it (Stoppard's first major success had been with the Shakespeare-themed play Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead). \n\nThe film went into production in 1991 at Universal, with Zwick as director, but although sets and costumes were in construction, Shakespeare had not yet been cast, because Roberts insisted that only Daniel Day-Lewis could play the role. Day-Lewis was uninterested, and when Roberts failed to persuade him, she withdrew from the film, six weeks before shooting was due to begin. The production went into turnaround, and Zwick was unable to persuade other studios to take up the screenplay.\n\nEventually, Zwick got Miramax interested in the screenplay, but Miramax chose John Madden as director. Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein acted as producer, and persuaded Ben Affleck to take a small role as Ned Alleyn. \n\nThe film was considerably reworked after the first test screenings. The scene with Shakespeare and Viola in the punt was re-shot, to make it more emotional, and some lines were re-recorded to clarify the reasons why Viola had to marry Wessex. The ending was re-shot several times, until Stoppard eventually came up with the idea of Viola suggesting to Shakespeare that their parting could inspire his next play. \n\nAmong the locations used in the production were Hatfield House, Hertfordshire (for the fireworks scene), Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire (which played the role of the de Lesseps home), the beach at Holkham in Norfolk, the chapel at Eton College, Berkshire, and the Great Hall of Middle Temple, London. \n\nReferences to Elizabethan literature\n\nMuch of the action of the film echoes that of Romeo and Juliet. Will and Viola play out the famous balcony and bedroom scenes; like Juliet, Viola has a witty nurse, and is separated from Will by a gulf of duty (although not the family enmity of the play: the \"two households\" of Romeo and Juliet are supposedly inspired by the two rival playhouses). In addition, the two lovers are equally \"star-crossed\" — they are not ultimately destined to be together (since Viola is of rich and socially ambitious merchant stock and is promised to marry Lord Wessex, while Shakespeare himself is poor and already married). There is also a Rosaline, with whom Will is in love at the beginning of the film. There are references to earlier cinematic versions of Shakespeare, such as the balcony scene pastiching the Zeffirelli Romeo and Juliet. \n\nMany other plot devices used in the film are common in Shakespearean comedies and other plays of the Elizabethan era: the Queen disguised as a commoner, the cross-dressing disguises, mistaken identities, the sword fight, the suspicion of adultery, the appearance of a \"ghost\" (cf. Macbeth), and the \"play within a play\". According to Douglas Brode, the film deftly portrays many of these devices as though the events depicted were the inspiration for Shakespeare's own use of them in his plays. \n\nThe film also has sequences in which Shakespeare and the other characters utter words that later appear in his plays, or in other ways echo those plays:\n* On the street, Shakespeare hears a Puritan preaching against the two London stages: \"The Rose smells thusly rank, by any name! I say, a plague on both their houses!\" Two references in one, both to Romeo and Juliet; first, \"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet\" (Act II, scene ii, lines 1 and 2); second, \"a plague on both your houses\" (Act III, scene I, line 94).\n* Backstage at a performance of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Shakespeare sees William Kempe in full make-up, silently contemplating a skull, a reference to the gravediggers scene in Hamlet.\n* Shakespeare utters the lines \"Doubt thou the stars are fire, / Doubt that the sun doth move\" (from Hamlet) to Philip Henslowe.\n* As Shakespeare's writer's block is introduced, he is seen crumpling balls of paper and throwing them around his room. They land near props which represent scenes in several of his plays: a skull (Hamlet), and an open chest (The Merchant of Venice).\n* Viola, as well as being Paltrow's character in the film, is the name of the lead character in Twelfth Night who dresses as a man after the supposed death of her brother.\n* At the end of the film, Shakespeare imagines a shipwreck overtaking Viola on her way to America, inspiring the second scene of his next play, Twelfth Night, a scene which also echoes the beginning of The Tempest.\n* Shakespeare writes a sonnet to Viola which begins: \"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?\" (from Sonnet 18).\n* Shakespeare tells Henslowe that he still owes him for \"one gentleman of Verona\", a reference to Two Gentlemen of Verona, part of which we also see being acted before the Queen later in the film.\n* In a boat, Shakespeare tells Viola, who is disguised as Thomas Kent, of his lady’s beauty and charms, she dismisses his praise, as no real woman could live up to this ideal, this is a 'set up' for Sonnet 130, \"My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun\".\n\nChristopher Marlowe is presented in the film as the master playwright whom the characters consider the greatest English dramatist of that time — this is historically accurate, yet also humorous, since the film's audience knows what will eventually happen to Shakespeare's reputation. Marlowe gives Shakespeare a plot for his next play, \"Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter\" (\"Romeo is Italian...always in and out of love...until he meets...Ethel. The daughter of his enemy! His best friend is killed in a duel by Ethel's brother or something. His name is Mercutio.\") Marlowe's Doctor Faustus is quoted repeatedly: \"Was this the face that launched a thousand ships/ And burned the topless towers of Ilium?\" A reference is also made to Marlowe's final, unfinished play The Massacre at Paris in a scene wherein Marlowe (Rupert Everett) seeks payment for the final act of the play from Richard Burbage (Martin Clunes). Burbage promises the payment the next day, so Marlowe refuses to part with the pages and departs for Deptford, where he is killed. The only surviving text of The Massacre at Paris is an undated octavo that is probably too short to represent the complete original play. It has been suggested to be a memorial reconstruction by the actors who performed the work. \n\nThe child John Webster who plays with mice is a reference to the leading figure in the next, Jacobean, generation of playwrights. His plays (The Duchess of Malfi, The White Devil) are known for their 'blood and gore', which is humorously referred to by the child saying that he enjoys Titus Andronicus, and also saying of Romeo and Juliet, when asked his opinion by the Queen, \"I liked it when she stabbed herself.\" \n\nWhen the clown Will Kempe (Patrick Barlow) says to Shakespeare that he would like to play in a drama, he is told that \"they would laugh at Seneca if you played it,\" a reference to the Roman tragedian renowned for his sombre and bloody plot lines which were a major influence on the development of English tragedy.\n\nWill is shown signing a paper repeatedly, with many relatively illegible signatures visible. This is a reference to the fact that several versions of Shakespeare's signature exist, and in each one he spelled his name differently.\n\nPlot precedents and similarities\n\nAfter the film's release, certain publications, including Private Eye, noted strong similarities between the film and the 1941 novel No Bed for Bacon, by Caryl Brahms and S. J. Simon, which also features Shakespeare falling in love and finding inspiration for his later plays. In a foreword to a subsequent edition of No Bed for Bacon (which traded on the association by declaring itself \"A Story of Shakespeare and Lady Viola in Love\") Ned Sherrin, Private Eye insider and former writing partner of Brahms', confirmed that he had lent a copy of the novel to Stoppard after he joined the writing team, but that the basic plot of the film had been independently developed by Marc Norman, who was unaware of the earlier work.\n\nThe film's plot can claim a tradition in fiction reaching back to Alexandre Duval's \"Shakespeare amoureux ou la Piece a l'Etude\" (1804), in which Shakespeare falls in love with an actress who is playing Richard III. \n\nThe writers of Shakespeare in Love were sued in 1999 by bestselling author Faye Kellerman. She claimed that the plotline was stolen from her 1989 novel The Quality of Mercy, in which Shakespeare romances a Jewish woman who dresses as a man, and attempts to solve a murder. Miramax Films spokesman Andrew Stengel derided the claim, filed in the US District Court six days before the 1999 Academy Awards, as \"absurd\", and argued that the timing \"suggests a publicity stunt\". \n\nHistorical inaccuracies\n\nThe film is \"not constrained by worries about literary or historical accuracy\" and includes anachronisms such as a reference to Virginia tobacco plantations, at a time before the Colony of Virginia existed, also a leading character is a member of the House of Wessex, which died out in 1066. Elizabeth I never entered a public theatre, as she does in the film. Between Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth night, Shakespeare wrote 10 other plays over a period of 6 years. The biggest historical liberty concerns the central theme of Shakespeare struggling to create the story of Romeo and Juliet as he simply adapted an existing story for theatre. The Italian verse tale The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, had been translated into English by Arthur Brooke in 1562, 32 years before Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. \n\nReception\n\nJanet Maslin made the film an \"NYT Critics' Pick\", calling it \"pure enchantment\". According to Maslin, \"Gwyneth Paltrow, in her first great, fully realized starring performance, makes a heroine so breathtaking that she seems utterly plausible as the playwright's guiding light.\" Roger Ebert, who gave the film four stars out of four wrote: \"The contemporary feel of the humor (like Shakespeare's coffee mug, inscribed \"Souvenir of Stratford-Upon-Avon\") makes the movie play like a contest between \"Masterpiece Theatre\" and Mel Brooks. Then the movie stirs in a sweet love story, juicy court intrigue, backstage politics and some lovely moments from \"Romeo and Juliet\"... Is this a movie or an anthology? I didn't care. I was carried along by the wit, the energy and a surprising sweetness.\" \n\nThe review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 92% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 125 reviews and it has an average rating of 8.3 out of 10. The critics consensus states: \"Endlessly witty, visually rapturous, and sweetly romantic, Shakespeare in Love is a delightful romantic comedy that succeeds on nearly every level.\" \n\nShakespeare in Love was among 1999's box office number-one films in the United Kingdom. The U.S. box office reached over $100 million; including the box office from the rest of the world, the film took in over $289 million. \n\nThe Sunday Telegraph claimed that the film prompted the revival of the title of Earl of Wessex. Prince Edward was originally to have been titled Duke of Cambridge following his marriage to Sophie Rhys-Jones in 1999, the year after the film's release. However, after watching Shakespeare in Love, he reportedly became attracted to the title of the character played by Colin Firth, and asked Queen Elizabeth II to be given the title of Earl of Wessex instead. \n\nAccolades\n\nAmerican Film Institute recognition:\n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions – #50 \n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – Nominated \n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - Nominated \n\nCultural influence\n\n* The film was spoofed and homaged, along with Star Wars, in the 1999 short film George Lucas in Love.\n* The film was seen and frequently interrupted by Brenda Meeks in Scary Movie.\n\nStage adaptation\n\nIn November 2011, Variety reported that Disney Theatrical Productions intended to produce a stage version of the film in London with Sonia Friedman Productions. The production was officially announced in November 2013. \n\nThe production opened at the Noël Coward Theatre in London's West End on 23 July 2014, receiving rave reviews from critics, calling it \"A joyous celebration of theatre\" [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/10983777/Shakespeare-in-Love-review-the-best-British-comedy-since-One-Man-Two-Guvnors.html Daily Telegraph ],\"Joyous\" [http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/shakespeare-in-love-noel-coward-theatre-review-deliciously-funny-and-absurd-9623905.html The Independent ] and \"A love letter to theatre\" [http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/jul/24/shakespeare-in-love-theatre-review The Guardian ]\n\nBased on the film screenplay by Norman and Stoppard, it was adapted for the stage by Lee Hall. The production was directed by Declan Donnellan and designed by Nick Ormerod, the joint founders of Cheek by Jowl." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "The Gloriana", "Queen Elisabeth of england", "Elizabeth the First", "Queene Elisabeth of England", "Bess of England", "Elizabeth I of Ireland", "Queen Elizabeth 1", "Queen Elisabeth I", "Elizabeth I (England)", "Elizabeth I of Great Britain", "Queen of England Elizabeth", "Queen Elizabeth the first", "Queen Elizabeth I of England", "Elizabeth the first", "Elizabeth I of the United Kingdom", "Queen of England Elizabeth I", "QEI", "Elizabeth I", "Queen Elizabeth of England", "Elisabeth 1st", "La Vita della Regina Elizabetta", "Elisabeth I of England", "Elisabeth of England", "Queen Elizabeth the First", "Elizabeth I of England", "Good Queen Bess", "Liz 1", "Virgin Queen", "Elizabeth 1", "Queen Elizabeth l", "Elizabeth of England", "Elizabeth I Tudor", "Elizabeth Tudor", "Elizabeth I, Queen of England", "Elizabeth the 1st", "Queen Elizabeth I", "Elizabeth i of england", "Elisabeth I" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "elizabeth first", "elizabeth i of ireland", "elizabeth tudor", "queen elizabeth 1", "elizabeth i", "queen of england elizabeth i", "queen elizabeth i of england", "la vita della regina elizabetta", "good queen bess", "queen elisabeth of england", "elisabeth i", "elisabeth i of england", "elizabeth i england", "elizabeth i of england", "bess of england", "elizabeth of england", "queen elizabeth l", "elisabeth 1st", "elizabeth 1st", "qei", "queen elizabeth of england", "elizabeth 1", "elizabeth i of great britain", "queen of england elizabeth", "queene elisabeth of england", "queen elizabeth i", "elisabeth of england", "gloriana", "elizabeth i of united kingdom", "queen elisabeth i", "queen elizabeth first", "elizabeth i tudor", "virgin queen", "elizabeth i queen of england", "liz 1" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "elizabeth i", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Elizabeth I" }
Who won the Best Actor and Best Director Oscar for Dances With Wolves?	tc_1170	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Dances_with_Wolves.txt" ], "title": [ "Dances with Wolves" ], "wiki_context": [ "Dances with Wolves is a 1990 American epic Western film directed by, produced by, and starring Kevin Costner. It is a film adaptation of the 1988 book of the same name by Michael Blake and tells the story of a Union Army lieutenant who travels to the American frontier to find a military post and his dealings with a group of Lakota Indians.\n\nCostner developed the film with an initial budget of $15 million. Dances with Wolves had high production values and won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama. Much of the dialogue is spoken in Lakota with English subtitles. It was shot in South Dakota and Wyoming, and translated by Albert White Hat, the chair of the Lakota Studies Department at Sinte Gleska University.\n\nThe film is credited as a leading influence for the revitalization of the Western genre of filmmaking in Hollywood. In 2007, Dances with Wolves was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\". \n\nPlot\n\nIn 1864, First Lieutenant John J. Dunbar is wounded in battle at St. David's Field in Tennessee. Choosing suicide in battle over amputation of his leg, he takes a horse and rides up to and along the Confederate front lines. Despite numerous pot shots, the Confederates fail to shoot him, and while they are distracted, the Union Army successfully attack the line. Dunbar survives, receives a citation for bravery, and proper medical care. He recovers fully and is awarded Cisco, the horse who carried him, and his choice of posting. Dunbar requests a transfer to the western frontier so he can see it before it disappears. Dunbar is transferred to Fort Hays, a large fort presided over by a mentally ill and suicidal major who despises Dunbar's enthusiasm, but agrees to post him to the furthest outpost they have, Fort Sedgewick, and kills himself shortly afterwards. Dunbar travels with Timmons, a mule wagon provisioner; they arrive to find the fort deserted and in poor condition. Despite the threat of nearby Indian tribes, Dunbar elects to stay and man the post himself. He begins rebuilding and restocking the fort and prefers the solitude afforded him, recording many of his observations in his diary. Timmons is killed by Pawnee Indians on the journey back to Ft. Hays; his death together with that of the major who had sent them there prevents other soldiers from knowing of Dunbar's assignment to Ft. Sedgewick, and no other soldiers arrive to reinforce the post.\n\nDunbar initially encounters his Sioux neighbors when attempts are made to steal his horse and intimidate him. Deciding that being a target is a poor prospect, he decides to seek out the Sioux camp himself and attempt dialogue, rather than wait. On his way he comes across Stands With A Fist, the white adopted daughter of the tribe's medicine man Kicking Bird, who is attempting suicide in mourning for her husband. Dunbar brings her back to the Sioux to recover, and some of the tribe begin to respect him. Eventually, Dunbar establishes a rapport with Kicking Bird and the warrior Wind In His Hair, initially visiting each other's camps. The language barrier frustrates them, and Stands With A Fist acts as interpreter, although only with difficulty remembering English from her early years before her family died during a Pawnee raid.\n\nDunbar finds that what he had been told of the tribe was generally untrue, and develops a growing respect and appreciation of their lifestyle and customs. Learning their language, he is accepted as an honored guest by the Sioux after he tells them of a migrating herd of buffalo and participates in the hunt. When at Fort Sedgewick, Dunbar also befriends a wolf he dubs \"Two Socks\" for its white forepaws. Observing Dunbar and Two Socks chasing each other, the Sioux give him the name \"Dances With Wolves.\" During this time, Dunbar also forges a romantic relationship with Stands With A Fist and helps defend the village from an attack by the rival Pawnee tribe. Dunbar eventually wins Kicking Bird's approval to marry Stands With A Fist, and abandons Fort Sedgewick.\n\nBecause of the growing Pawnee and white threat, Chief Ten Bears decides to move the tribe to its winter camp. Dunbar decides to accompany them but must first retrieve his diary from Fort Sedgewick as he realizes that it would provide the army with the means to find the tribe. However, when he arrives he finds the fort reoccupied by the U.S. Army. Because of his Sioux clothing, the soldiers open fire, killing Cisco and capturing Dunbar, arresting him as a traitor. Senior officers interrogate him, but Dunbar cannot prove his story, as a corporal has found and discarded his diary. Having refused to serve as an interpreter to the tribes, Dunbar is charged with desertion and transported back east as a prisoner. Soldiers of the escort shoot Two Socks when the wolf attempts to follow Dunbar, despite Dunbar's attempts to intervene.\n\nEventually, the Sioux track the convoy, killing the soldiers and freeing Dunbar. They assert that they do not see him as a white man, but rather, as a Sioux called Dances With Wolves. At the winter camp, Dunbar decides to leave with Stands With A Fist, since his continuing presence will endanger the tribe. As they leave, Wind In His Hair shouts to Dunbar, reminding him that he is Dunbar's friend, a contrast to their original meeting where he shouted at Dunbar in hostility. U.S. troops are seen searching the mountains but are unable to locate them, while a lone wolf howls in the distance. An epilogueThirteen years later, their homes destroyed, their buffalo gone, the last band of free Sioux submitted to white authority at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. The great horse culture of the plains was gone and the American frontier was soon to pass into history. states that thirteen years later the last remnants of the free Sioux were subjugated to the American government, ending the conquest of the Western frontier states and the livelihoods of the tribes on the Great Plains.\n\nCast\n\n* Kevin Costner as Lt. John J. Dunbar / Dances with Wolves (Lakota: Šuŋgmánitu Tȟáŋka Ób Wačhí)\n* Mary McDonnell as Stands With A Fist (Napépȟeča Nážiŋ Wiŋ)\n* Graham Greene as Kicking Bird (Ziŋtká Nagwáka)\n* Rodney A. Grant as Wind In His Hair (Pȟehíŋ Otȟáte)\n* Floyd Red Crow Westerman as Chief Ten Bears (Matȟó Wikčémna)\n* Tantoo Cardinal as Black Shawl (Šiná Sápa Wiŋ)\n* Jimmy Herman as Stone Calf (Íŋyaŋ Ptehíŋčala)\n* Nathan Lee Chasing His Horse as Smiles A Lot (Iȟá S’a)\n* Michael Spears as Otter (Ptáŋ)\n* Jason R. Lone Hill as Worm (Waglúla)\n* Charles Rocket as Lt. Elgin\n* Robert Pastorelli as Timmons\n* Larry Joshua as Sgt. Bauer\n* Tony Pierce as Spivey\n* Kirk Baltz as Edwards\n* Tom Everett as Sgt. Pepper\n* Maury Chaykin as Maj. Fambrough\n* Wes Studi as Toughest Pawnee\n* Wayne Grace as The Major\n* Michael Horton as Captain Cargill (Extended version)\n\nProduction\n\nOriginally written as a spec script by Michael Blake, it went unsold in the mid-1980s. However, Kevin Costner had starred in Blake's only previous film, Stacy's Knights (1983), and encouraged Blake in early 1986 to turn the Western screenplay into a novel to improve its chances of being produced. The novel version of Dances with Wolves was rejected by numerous publishers but finally published in paperback in 1988. As a novel, the rights were purchased by Costner, with an eye on directing it. Actual production lasted for four months, from July 18 to November 23, 1989. Most of the movie was filmed on location in South Dakota, mainly on private ranches near Pierre and Rapid City, with a few scenes filmed in Wyoming. Specific locations included the Badlands National Park, the Black Hills, the Sage Creek Wilderness Area, and the Belle Fourche River area. The bison hunt scenes were filmed at the Triple U Buffalo Ranch outside Fort Pierre, South Dakota, as were the Fort Sedgewick scenes, the set being constructed on the property. \n\nProduction delays were numerous, because of South Dakota's unpredictable weather, the difficulty of directing barely trainable wolves, and the complexity of the Indian battle scenes. Particularly arduous was the film's centerpiece bison hunt sequence: this elaborate chase was filmed over three weeks using 100 Indian stunt riders and an actual stampeding herd of several thousand bison. During one shot, Costner (who did almost all of his own horseback riding) was \"T-boned\" by another rider and knocked off his horse, nearly breaking his back. The accident is captured in The Creation of an Epic, the behind-the-scenes documentary on the Dances with Wolves Special Edition DVD and Blu-ray.\n\nAccording to the documentary, none of the bison were computer animated (CGI was then in its infancy) and only a few were animatronic or otherwise fabricated. In fact, Costner and crew employed the largest domestically owned bison ranch, with two of the tame bison being borrowed from Neil Young; this was the herd used for the bison hunt sequence.\n\nBudget overruns were inevitable, owing to Costner's breaking several unspoken Hollywood rules for first-time directors: traditionally, they avoid both shooting outside and working with children and animals as much as possible. As a result, late in the production Costner was forced to add $3 million personally in out-of-pocket money to the film's original $15 million budget. Referring to the infamous fiasco of Michael Cimino's 1980 Heaven's Gate, considered the most mismanaged Western in film history, Costner's project was satirically dubbed \"Kevin's Gate\" by Hollywood critics and pundits skeptical of a three-hour, partially subtitled Western by a novice filmmaker.\n\nLakota Sioux language instructor Doris Leader Charge (1931–2001) was the on-set Lakota dialogue coach and also portrayed Pretty Shield, wife of Chief Ten Bears.\n\nDespite portraying the adopted daughter of Graham Greene's character Kicking Bird, Mary McDonnell, then 37, was actually two months older than Greene, and less than two years younger than Tantoo Cardinal, the actress playing her adoptive mother.\n\nReception\n\nDefying expectation, Dances with Wolves proved instantly popular, eventually earning great critical acclaim, and making $184 million in U.S. box office sales and $424 million in total sales worldwide. As of 2015, the film holds a positive review score of 82% on Rotten Tomatoes. CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film a rare \"A+\" grade. Because of the film's popularity and lasting impact on the image of Native Americans, the Sioux Nation adopted Costner as an honorary member. At the 63rd Academy Awards ceremony in 1991, Dances with Wolves earned twelve Academy Award nominations and won seven, including Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (Michael Blake), Best Director (Kevin Costner), and Best Picture of the Year. In 2007, the Library of Congress selected Dances with Wolves for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.\n\nNative American activist and actor Russell Means was less kind about some aspects of the film's technical accuracy. In 2009, he said \"Remember Lawrence of Arabia? That was Lawrence of the Plains. The odd thing about making that movie is that they had a woman teaching the actors the Lakota language, but Lakota has a male-gendered language and a female-gendered language. Some of the Indians and Kevin Costner were speaking in the feminine way. When I went to see it with a bunch of Lakota guys, we were laughing.\" Other Native Americans like Michael Smith (Sioux), Director of San Francisco's long-running annual American Indian Film Festival, said, \"There's a lot of good feeling about the film in the Indian community, especially among the tribes. I think it's going to be very hard to top this one.\" \n\nSome of the criticism was inspired by the fact that the pronunciation is not authentic since only one of the movie's actors was a native speaker of the language. The movie's dialogues in the native language have been lauded as a remarkable achievement. However, other writers have noted that earlier otherwise English-language films, such as Eskimo (1933), Wagon Master (1950) and The White Dawn (1974), had also incorporated Native dialogue. \n\nDavid Sirota of Salon referred to Dances with Wolves as a \"white savior\" film, as Dunbar \"fully embeds himself in the Sioux tribe and quickly becomes its primary protector.\" He argued that its use of the \"noble savage\" character type \"preemptively blunts criticism of the underlying White Savior story. The idea is that a film like Dances With Wolves cannot be bigoted or overly white-centric if it at least shows [characters such as] Kicking Bird and Chief Ten Bears as special and exceptional. This, even though the whole story is about a white guy who saves the day.\" \n \nWriter Richard Grenier was strongly critical of the film. Grenier accused Costner of misrepresenting the Sioux as peaceful, claiming that the film's \"portrait of the Sioux, the most bloodthirsty of all Plains Indian tribes and neither pacifists nor environmentalists, is false in every respect\". \n\nAwards and honors\n\nIn addition to becoming the first Western film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture since 1931's Cimarron, Dances with Wolves won the following additional awards, thereby being established as one of the most honored films of 1990: \n\nAmerican Film Institute recognition:\nAFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – #75\nAFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:\n*Lt. John J. Dunbar – Nominated Hero \nAFI's 100 Years of Film Scores – Nominated \nAFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers – #59\nAFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – Nominated \nAFI's 10 Top 10 – Nominated Western and Epic Film \n\nOther accolades:\nSilver Bear for an outstanding single achievement – Kevin Costner at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival \n\nSequel\n\nThe Holy Road, a well-received sequel novel by Michael Blake, the author of both the original Dances with Wolves novel and the movie screenplay, was published in 2001. It picks up eleven years after Dances with Wolves. John Dunbar is still married to Stands with a Fist and they have three children. Stands with a Fist and one of the children are kidnapped by a party of white rangers and Dances with Wolves must mount a rescue mission. As of 2007, Blake was writing a film adaptation, although Kevin Costner was not yet attached to the project. In the end, however, Costner stated he would not take part in this production. Viggo Mortensen has been rumored to be attached to the project, playing Dunbar. As of January 2015, according to IMDb, The Holy Road is a TV mini-series still under development.\n\nHistorical references\n\nJudith A. Boughter wrote: \"The problem with Costner's approach is that all of the Sioux are heroic, while the Pawnees are portrayed as stereotypical villains. Most accounts of Sioux-Pawnee relations see the Pawnees as victims of the more powerful Sioux.\" \n\nFort Sedgwick,In both the novel and film, Sedgwick is spelled Sedgewick. Colorado was erected as Camp Rankin and renamed for General John Sedgwick (1813–64). Sedgwick was killed May 9, 1864, at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia. Fort Sedgwick served as an army post from July 1864 to May 1871. John Sedgwick did erect a fort in Kansas in 1860.\n\nFort Hays, Kansas, was named for General Alexander Hays (1819–64). Hays was killed May 5, 1864, in the Battle of the Wilderness, Virginia. Fort Hays served as an army post from October 11, 1865, to November 8, 1889.\n\nThere was a real John Dunbar who worked as a missionary for the Pawnee in the 1830s–40s, and sided with the Indians in a dispute with government farmers and a local Indian agent. It is unclear whether the name \"John Dunbar\" was chosen as a corollary to the real historical figure. \n\nThe fictional Lieutenant John Dunbar of 1863 is correctly shown in the film wearing a gold bar on his officer shoulder straps, indicating his rank as a First Lieutenant. From 1836–72, the rank of First Lieutenant was indicated by a gold bar; after 1872, the rank was indicated by a silver bar. Similarly, Captain Cargill is correctly depicted wearing a pair of gold bars, indicating the rank of Captain at that time. \n\nIn an interview, author and screenwriter Michael Blake said that Stands With a Fist, the white captive woman who marries Dunbar, was actually based upon the story of Cynthia Ann Parker, the white girl captured by Comanches and mother of Quanah Parker. \n\nTen Bears's account of his grandfather's grandfathers driving out the Spanish conquistadors and later the war on Mexico and then Texas is more the history of the novel's southern Great Plains Comanche tribe (Comanche-Spanish wars, Comanche–Mexico Wars, Texas–Indian wars). In the northern Great Plains, the eastern Sioux had already lost the Dakota War of 1862 with the United States and were driven out of Minnesota to Nebraska and South Dakota. The Sioux were more successful during the Colorado War of 1863–65.\n\nThe epilogue is correct; 13 years after the film is set, after the Great Sioux War of 1876, the last band of free Sioux surrendered at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, and the dominance and prevalence of the Plains Indians was over. The last conflict was the Ghost Dance War, 1890–91, which involved the Wounded Knee Massacre.\n\nHome video editions\n\nThe first Laserdisc release of Dances with Wolves was on November 15, 1991, by Orion Home Video in a two-disc extended play set.\n\nThe first Dances with Wolves VHS version was released in 1991. It was subsequently issued in several further VHS versions. The limited collector's edition set comes with two VHS tapes, six high gloss 14 x lobby photos, Dances with Wolves: The Illustrated Story of the Epic Film book, and an organized collector's edition storage case.\n\nDances with Wolves has been released to DVD on four occasions: the first on November 17, 1998, on a single disc; the second on February 16, 1999, as a two-disc set with a DTS soundtrack; the third was released on May 20, 2003, as a two-disc set featuring the Extended Edition; and the fourth was released on May 25, 2004, as a single disc in full frame.\n\nDances with Wolves was released on Blu-ray in Germany on December 5, 2008, in France on 15 April 2009, in the United Kingdom on 26 October 2009, and in the United States on January 11, 2011. The German, French, and American releases feature the Extended Edition, while the British release features the theatrical cut.\n\nAlternate versions\n\nOne year after the original theatrical release of Dances with Wolves, a 4-hour version of the film opened at select theaters in London. This longer cut was titled Dances with Wolves: The Special Edition, and it restored nearly an hour's worth of scenes that had been removed to keep the original film's running time under 3 hours. \n\nThe genesis of the 4-hour version of the film was further explained in an article for Entertainment Weekly that appeared only 10 months after the premiere of the original film:\n\nThis Special Edition was eventually broadcast in 1993 for the American network television premiere at ABC. For the DVD release, the Special Edition was dubbed an Extended Cut. For Blu-ray, the same cut was renamed Director's Cut.\n\nDirector Kevin Costner would later claim that he did not work on the creation of the 4-hour cut at all. \n\nSoundtrack\n\n* John Barry composed the Oscar-winning score. It was issued in 1990 initially and again in 1995 with bonus tracks and in 2004 with the score \"in its entirety.\"\n* Peter Buffett scored the \"Fire Dance\" scene." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Famous for Killing Each Other: Music from and Inspired By Hatfields & McCoys", "Kevin M. 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Which Jessica was the then oldest Oscar winner for Driving Miss Daisy?	tc_1171	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Driving_Miss_Daisy.txt" ], "title": [ "Driving Miss Daisy" ], "wiki_context": [ "Driving Miss Daisy is a 1989 American comedy-drama film adapted from the Alfred Uhry play of the same name. The film was directed by Bruce Beresford, with Morgan Freeman reprising his role as Hoke Colburn (whom he also portrayed in the play) and Jessica Tandy playing Miss Daisy. The story defines Daisy and her point of view through a network of relationships and emotions by focusing on her home life, synagogue, friends, family, fears, and concerns over a 25-year period.\n\nAt the 62nd Academy Awards in 1990, Driving Miss Daisy received nine nominations, including Best Actor (Morgan Freeman), and won four awards: Best Picture, Best Actress (Jessica Tandy), Best Makeup, and Best Adapted Screenplay. \n\nPlot\n\nIn 1948, Mrs. Daisy Werthan, or Miss Daisy, (Jessica Tandy), a 65-year-old wealthy, white, Jewish, widowed, retired school teacher, lives alone in Atlanta, Georgia, except for a black housemaid named Idella (Esther Rolle). When Miss Daisy wrecks her car, her son, Boolie (Dan Aykroyd), hires Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman), a black chauffeur. Miss Daisy at first refuses to let anyone else drive her, but gradually gives in.\n\nAs Miss Daisy and Hoke spend time together, she gains appreciation for his many skills. After Idella dies in 1962, rather than hire a new maid, Miss Daisy decides to care for her own house and have Hoke do the cooking and the driving.\n \nThe film explores racism against blacks, which affects Hoke at that time. The film also touches on anti-semitism in the South. After her synagogue is bombed, Miss Daisy realizes that she is also a victim of prejudice. But American society is undergoing radical changes, and Miss Daisy attends a dinner at which Dr. Martin Luther King gives a speech. She initially invites Boolie to the dinner, but he declines, and suggests that Miss Daisy invite Hoke. However, Miss Daisy only asks him to be her guest during the car ride to the event and ends up attending the dinner alone, with Hoke insulted by the manner of the invitation, listening to the speech on the car radio outside.\n\nHoke arrives at the house one morning in 1971 to find Miss Daisy agitated and showing signs of dementia. Hoke calms her down. Boolie arranges for Miss Daisy to enter a retirement home. In 1980, Hoke, now 85, retires. Boolie and Hoke drive to the retirement home to visit Miss Daisy, now 97. As Hoke feeds her pumpkin pie, the image fades, with a car driving away in the distance.\n\nCast\n\n* Morgan Freeman as Hoke Colburn\n* Jessica Tandy as Daisy Werthan\n* Dan Aykroyd as Boolie Werthan\n* Patti LuPone as Florine Werthan\n* Esther Rolle as Idella\n* Joann Havrilla as Miss McClatchey\n* William Hall, Jr. as Oscar\n* Muriel Moore as Miriam\n* Sylvia Kaler as Beulah\n* Crystal R. Fox as Katey Bell\n\nWarner Bros. originally wanted Eddie Murphy and Bette Midler to play Hoke and Daisy respectively. \n\nReception\n\nBox office\n\nDriving Miss Daisy was given a limited release on December 15, 1989, earning $73,745 in three theaters. The film was given a wide release on January 26, 1990, earning $5,705,721 over its opening weekend in 895 theaters. The film ultimately grossed $106,593,296 in North America and $39,200,000 in other territories for a worldwide total of $145,793,296.\n\nCritical reaction\n\nDriving Miss Daisy was well received by critics, with particular emphasis on Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy's performances. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 82% based on reviews from 55 critics, with an average score of 7.2/10. The site's consensus states: \"Warm and smartly paced, and boasting impeccable performances from Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy.\" On Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 based on reviews from mainstream critics, the film has a score of 81 based on 16 reviews, indicating \"universal acclaim\". CinemaScore similarly reported that audiences gave the film a rare \"A+\" grade. \n\nGene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune declared Driving Miss Daisy one of the best films of 1989. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it \"a film of great love and patience\" and wrote, \"It is an immensely subtle film, in which hardly any of the most important information is carried in the dialogue and in which body language, tone of voice or the look in an eye can be the most important thing in a scene. After so many movies in which shallow and violent people deny their humanity and ours, what a lesson to see a film that looks into the heart.\" Peter Travers of Rolling Stone also gave the film a positive review, calling Tandy's performance \"glorious\" and opining, \"This is Tandy's finest two hours onscreen in a film career that goes back to 1932.\" The performances of Tandy and Freeman were also praised by Vincent Canby of The New York Times, who observed, \"The two actors manage to be highly theatrical without breaking out of the realistic frame of the film.\"\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nDriving Miss Daisy also achieved the following distinctions at the 62nd Academy Awards:\n* It is the only film based on an off Broadway production ever to win an Academy Award for Best Picture; \n* Jessica Tandy, at age 81, became the oldest winner in the history of the Best Actress category.\n* It was the first Best Picture winner since 1932's Grand Hotel which did not receive a Best Director nomination. (This has only occurred once since, for Argo in 2012). Wings, the 1927 film that was the first to win Best Picture, did not have a nomination for director William Wellman. In his opening monologue at the 62nd Academy Awards, Billy Crystal made fun of this fact by calling it \"the film that apparently directed itself\".\n\nDriving Miss Daisy also won three Golden Globe Awards (Best Picture, Best Actor Morgan Freeman, and Best Actress Jessica Tandy) in the Comedy/Musical categories. At the 1989 Writers Guild of America Awards, the film won in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. Rounding out its United States awards, the film won both Best Picture and Best Actor from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. In the United Kingdom, Driving Miss Daisy was nominated for four British Academy Film Awards, with Jessica Tandy winning in the Best Actress category. Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman won the Silver Bear for the Best Joint Performance at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival. \n\nSoundtrack\n\nThe film's score was composed by Hans Zimmer, who won a BMI Film Music Award and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture or for Television for his work. The score was performed entirely by Zimmer, done electronically using samplers and synthesizers, and did not feature a single live instrument. There is a scene, however, in which the \"Song to the Moon\" from the opera Rusalka by Antonín Dvořák is heard on a radio as sung by Gabriela Beňačková. The soundtrack was issued on Varèse Sarabande.\n\nHome release\n\nThe film was successful on home video. The film was released on DVD in the USA on April 30, 1997 and the special edition was released on February 4, 2003.\nThe movie was first released on Blu-ray disc in Germany and finally was released on Blu-ray in the US in a special edition digibook in January 2013 by Warner Bros." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Tandy", "Tandy (disambiguation)" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "tandy disambiguation", "tandy" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "tandy", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Tandy" }
In the 70s which gangster film won an Oscar as did its sequel?	tc_1174	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Mob_film.txt" ], "title": [ "Mob film" ], "wiki_context": [ "Mob films[http://www.filmsite.org/crimefilms.html Crime and Gangster Films] — or gangster films — are a subgenre of crime films dealing with organized crime, often specifically with the Mafia. Especially in early mob films, there is considerable overlap with film noir.\n\nHistory\n\nThe American movie The Black Hand (1906) is thought to be the earliest surviving gangster film. In 1912, D. W. Griffith directed The Musketeers of Pig Alley, a short drama film about crime on the streets of New York City (filmed, however, at Fort Lee, New Jersey) rumored to have included real gangsters as extras. Critics have also cited Regeneration (1915) as an early crime film.\n\nThough mob films had their roots in such silent films, the genre in its most durable form was defined in the early 1930s. It owed its innovations to the social and economic instability occasioned by the Great Depression, which galvanized the organized crime subculture in the United States. The failure of honest hard work and careful investment to ensure financial security led to the circumstances reflected in the explosion of mob films in Hollywood and to their immense popularity in a society disillusioned with the American way of life.\n\n1930s\n\nThe years 1931 and 1932 saw the genre produce three enduring classics: Warner Bros.' Little Caesar and The Public Enemy, which made screen icons out of Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney, and Howard Hawks' Scarface starring Paul Muni, which offered a dark psychological analysis of a fictionalized Al Capone and launched the film career of George Raft. These films chronicle the quick rise, and equally quick downfall, of three young, violent criminals, and represent the genre in its purest form before moral pressure would force it to change and evolve. Though the gangster in each film would face a violent downfall which was designed to remind the viewers of the consequences of crime, audiences were often able to identify with the charismatic anti-hero. Those suffering from the Depression were able to relate to the gangster character who worked hard to earn his place and success in the world, only to have it all taken away from him. \n\nDespite the genre spanning the decade before dying out, some argue that the gangster film in its purest form only existed until 1933, when restrictions from the Production Code led to films that did not have the same power as the earlier ones. \n\nProduction code\n\nAs the appeal and attraction of gangster movie stars such as Cagney, Robinson, Muni, and Raft grew, so too did the efforts to combat their fascination. Of the early years of the crime film, Scarface, arguably the most violent of gangster films created during the entire decade, particularly was the subject of criticism. Released in 1932, it ushered in the worst year of the Depression, and as profits slid, Hollywood did what it could to restore its earnings, which resulted in the upping of sex and violence in the movies. Scarface can be interpreted as a representation of the American dream gone awry, presented when US capitalism had reached its lowest, and Prohibition was being seen as a failed social experiment and would soon be abolished. It faced opposition from regulators of the Production Code, and its release was delayed for over a year while Hawks attempted to tone down the incestuous overtones of the relationship between Paul Muni's character Tony Camonte and his sister (Ann Dvorak).\n\nEventually the Production Code and general moral concerns became sufficiently influential to cause the crime film in its original form to be abandoned, with a shift to the perspective of the law officers fighting criminals, or criminals seeking redemption. This is illustrated by James Cagney's role as a law officer in the 1935 movie G Men, and his part as Rocky Sullivan in Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), for which he received an Academy Award nomination. These pictures demonstrate the growing acceptance of crime films during the 1930s as long as criminals were not portrayed in a flattering light. For example, in G-Men, Cagney plays a character similar to that of Tom Powers from The Public Enemy, and although the film was as violent and brutal as its predecessors, it had no trouble getting a seal of approval from the Production Code office. It was now the law officers that the films attempted to glamorize, as opposed to the criminals.\n\n1930s culture\n\nPolitics combined with the social and economic climate of the time to influence how crime films were made and how the characters were portrayed. Many of the films imply that criminals are the creation of society, rather than its rebel, and considering the troublesome and bleak time of the 1930s this argument carries significant weight. Often the best of the gangster films are those that have been closely tied to the reality of crime, reflecting public interest in a particular aspect of criminal activity; thus, the gangster film is in a sense a history of crime in the United States. The institution of Prohibition in 1920 led to an explosion in crime, and the depiction of bootlegging is a frequent occurrence in many mob films. However, as the 1930s progressed, Hollywood also experimented with the stories of the rural criminals and bank robbers, such as John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Pretty Boy Floyd. The success of these characters in film can be attributed to their value as news subjects, as their exploits often thrilled the people of a nation who had become weary with inefficient government and apathy in business. However, as the FBI increased in power there was also a shift to favour the stories of the FBI agents hunting the criminals instead of focusing on the criminal characters. In fact, in 1935 at the height of the hunt for Dillinger, the Production Code office issued an order that no film should be made about Dillinger for fear of further glamorizing his character.\n\nMany of the 1930s crime films also dealt with class and ethnic conflict, notably the earliest films, reflecting doubts about how well the American system was working. As stated, many films pushed the message that criminals were the result of a poor moral and economic society, and many are portrayed as having foreign backgrounds or coming from the lower class. Thus, the film criminal is often able to evoke sympathy and admiration out of the viewer, who often will not place the blame on the criminal's shoulders, but rather a cruel society where success is difficult. When the decade came to a close, crime films became more figurative, representing metaphors, as opposed to the more straight forward films produced earlier in the decade, showing an increasing interest in offering a thought provoking message about criminal character. \n\n1950s\n\n1970s\n\nIn the 1970s there was a revival of mob films, notably with The Godfather, based on the novel of the same name by Mario Puzo. It was followed by two sequels: The Godfather Part II and The Godfather Part III. It also inspired other mob films such as The Valachi Papers, starring Charles Bronson.\n\n1980s\n\nThe 1983 remake of Scarface was not particularly well received at the time of its release, but over time it has come to be seen as a classic of the mob film genre. It went on to inspire films such as King of New York. On the other hand, Sergio Leone shot an epic crime drama film Once Upon a Time in America, starring Robert De Niro and James Woods. Though its release of \"US Cut\" was a critical and commercial failure, the \"European Cut\" release and \"Director's Cut\" were both critical success and regained its publicity and reputation. Once Upon a Time in America then became one of the greatest film cinema history.\n\n1990s\n\nThe films of the 1990s produced several critically acclaimed mob films, many of which were loosely based on real crimes and their perpetrators. Many of these films featured long-time actors well known for their roles as mobsters such as Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Chazz Palminteri.\n\nThe most notable from the decade was the 1990 film Goodfellas, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Ray Liotta as real-life associate of the Lucchese crime family Henry Hill. Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci also starred in the film with Pesci earning an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards in all, including Best Picture and Best Director, making Goodfellas one of the most critically acclaimed crime films of all time.\n\nFollowing their collaboration in Goodfellas, Scorsese, De Niro and Pesci would team up again in 1995 with the film Casino, based on Frank Rosenthal, an associate of the Chicago Outfit who ran multiple casinos in Las Vegas during the 1970s and 1980s. The film was De Niro's third mob film of the decade, following Goodfellas (1990) and A Bronx Tale (1993).\n\nDe Niro's fellow mob actor, Al Pacino, also resumed roles in the crime film genre during the 1990s, reprising his role as the iconic Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III (1990). The film served as the final installment in The Godfather trilogy, following Michael Corleone as he tries to legitimize the Corleone family in the twilight of his career.\n\nIn 1993, Pacino starred in the film, Carlito's Way as a former gangster released from prison who vows to go straight. In Donnie Brasco (1997), Pacino starred alongside Johnny Depp in the true story of undercover FBI agent Joseph Pistone and his infiltration of the Bonanno crime family of New York City during the 1970s. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.\n\n2000s\n\nThe 2000s continued to produce box office mob films cast with high profile actors. Road to Perdition, a 2002 American crime film directed by Sam Mendes and based on the graphic novel of the same name by Max Allan Collins, boasted an ensemble cast of Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, and Daniel Craig. The plot takes place in 1931, during the Great Depression, following a mob enforcer and his son as they seek vengeance against a mobster who murdered the rest of their family. Unlike many of its modern mob film predecessors, Road to Perdition sought to recreate the film noir genre while still using contemporary techniques and effects. The cinematography, setting, and the lead performances by Newman (in his final theatrical screen appearance) and Hanks were well received by critics.\n\nIn 2006, director Martin Scorsese returned to the mob genre in The Departed, starring the ensemble cast of Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg and Martin Sheen. The film was a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong Triad film Infernal Affairs. Set in Boston, the film follows the parallel double lives of undercover officer William Costigan Jr. (DiCaprio), who has infiltrated Irish mob boss's Frank Costello (Nicholson) and Colin Sullivan (Damon), who has served as a mole in the Massachusetts State Police. The characters are loosely based on famous gangster Whitey Bulger and corrupt FBI agent John Connolly, who grew up with Bulger. The Departed had gone on to win several awards, including four Oscars at the 79th Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director (Scorsese), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing. Mark Wahlberg was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.\n\nAlso notable is Public Enemies, a 2009 American biographical-crime film directed by Michael Mann and written by Mann, Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman. It is an adaptation of Bryan Burrough's non-fiction book Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933–34. Set during the Great Depression, the film chronicles the final years of the notorious bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) as he is pursued by FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), and his relationship with Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard), as well as Purvis' pursuit of Dillinger associates and fellow criminals Homer Van Meter (Stephen Dorff) and Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham). Scenes from Manhattan Melodrama, are depicted in the 2009 film as being the last motion picture seen by the notorious gangster John Dillinger, who was shot to death by federal agents on 22 July 1934, after leaving Chicago's Biograph Theater where the film was playing.\n\nThe 2007 film American Gangster directed by Ridley Scott and starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe also bares mention in fictionalising the life of Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas and his rivalry with the American Mafia.\n\nThe 2008 Italian mob film Gomorrah was met with much critical acclaim upon its premiere in North America. The film was directed by Matteo Garrone, based on the book by Roberto Saviano that depicts the modern-day of the Casalesi crime family of the southern Italian region of Campania. The film follows five independent plots of people whose lives are influenced by organized crime in Naples and Caserta. Despite failing to represent Italy in the category of Best Foreign Language Film at the 81st Academy Awards, Gomorrah is still regarded as one of the more prominent mafia films from the Italian cinema. \n\n2010s\n\nThe 2010s continued the 2000s trend of bringing new movies featuring both prohibition and post-WWII real life mob incidents into the box office.\n\nLawless 2012 based on the 2008 novel The Wettest County in the World the film follows a trio of siblings who run an illegal moonshine business during the Prohibition.\n\nGangster Squad is a crime film directed by Ruben Fleischer, from a screenplay written by Will Beall, starring an ensemble cast that includes Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Nick Nolte, Emma Stone, and Sean Penn. It is the story of a group of LAPD officers and detectives called the \"Gangster Squad\" who are attempting to keep Los Angeles safe from Mickey Cohen, a real life post-WWII Los Angeles gangster that became a powerful figure in the criminal underworld, and intended to continue to expand his criminal enterprise and his gang during the 1940s and '50s. The film was released January 11, 2013." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "The Godfather trilogy", "Salvatorre Stracci", "Captain McCluskey", "Frankie Falcone", "The Godfather (movie)", "THE GODFATHER", "The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration", "The Godfather I", "Il Padrino", "Godfather (movie)", "The godfather", "The Godfather", "The godfather 1", "Tony Bianchi", "It's not personal. 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For which film about a Scottish hero did Mel Gibson win his first Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director?	tc_1177	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Mel_Gibson.txt" ], "title": [ "Mel Gibson" ], "wiki_context": [ "Mel Colmcille Gerard Gibson (born January 3, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker (screenwriter, producer, and director). Gibson was born in Peekskill, New York, and moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia, when he was 12 years old.\n\nGibson is most well known as an action hero, for roles such as Martin Riggs in the Lethal Weapon buddy cop film series, and Max Rockatansky in the first three films in the Mad Max post-apocalyptic action series.\n\nGibson studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art. During the 1980s, Gibson founded Icon Entertainment, a production company which independent film director Atom Egoyan has called, \"an alternative to the studio system.\" Director Peter Weir cast Gibson as one of the leads in the critically acclaimed World War I drama Gallipoli (1981), which earned Gibson a Best Actor Award from the Australian Film Institute. The film also helped to earn Gibson the reputation of a serious, versatile actor.\n\nIn 1995, Gibson produced, directed, and starred in the epic historical drama film Braveheart, for which he won the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Director, along with the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2004, Gibson directed and produced the financially successful and controversial, biblical drama film The Passion of the Christ. Gibson received further critical notice for his directorial work of the 2006 action-adventure film Apocalypto, which is set in Mesoamerica during the early 16th century.\n\nEarly life\n\nGibson was born in Peekskill, New York, the sixth of eleven children, and the second son of Hutton Gibson, a writer, and Irish-born Anne Patricia (née Reilly, died 1990). Gibson's paternal grandmother was opera contralto Eva Mylott (1875–1920), who was born in Australia, to Irish parents, while his paternal grandfather, John Hutton Gibson, was a millionaire tobacco businessman from the American South. One of Gibson's younger brothers, Donal, is also an actor. Gibson's first name is derived from Saint Mel, fifth-century Irish saint, and founder of Gibson's mother's native diocese, Ardagh, while his second name, Colmcille, is also shared by an Irish saint and is the name of the Aughnacliffe parish in County Longford where Gibson's mother was born and raised. Because of his mother and his father's mother who immigrated to Australia from Ireland, Gibson retains dual Irish and American citizenship. \n\nGibson's father was awarded US$145,000 in a work-related-injury lawsuit against the New York Central Railroad on February 14, 1968, and soon afterwards relocated his family to West Pymble, Sydney, Australia. Mel Gibson was 12 years old at the time. The move to his grandmother's native Australia was for economic reasons, and his father's expectation that the Australian Defence Forces would reject his eldest son for the draft during the Vietnam War. \n\nGibson was educated by members of the Congregation of Christian Brothers at St Leo's Catholic College in Wahroonga, New South Wales, during his high school years. \n\nCareer\n\nOverview\n\nGibson gained very favorable notices from film critics when he first entered the cinematic scene, as well as comparisons to several classic movie stars. In 1982, Vincent Canby wrote that \"Mr. Gibson recalls the young Steve McQueen... I can't define \"star quality,\" but whatever it is, Mr. Gibson has it.\" Gibson has also been likened to \"a combination Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart.\" Gibson's roles in the Mad Max series of films, Peter Weir's Gallipoli, and the Lethal Weapon series of films earned him the label of \"action hero\". Later, Gibson expanded into a variety of acting projects including human dramas such as Hamlet, and comedic roles such as those in Maverick and What Women Want. He expanded beyond acting into directing and producing, with: The Man Without a Face, in 1993; Braveheart, in 1995; The Passion of the Christ, in 2004; and Apocalypto, in 2006. Jess Cagle of Time compared Gibson with Cary Grant, Sean Connery, and Robert Redford. Connery once suggested Gibson should play the next James Bond to Connery's M. Gibson turned down the role, reportedly because he feared being typecast. \n\nStage\n\nGibson studied at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney. The students at NIDA were classically trained in the British-theater tradition rather than in preparation for screen acting. As students, Gibson and actress Judy Davis played the leads in Romeo and Juliet, and Gibson played the role of Queen Titania in an experimental production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. After graduation in 1977, Gibson immediately began work on the filming of Mad Max, but continued to work as a stage actor, and joined the State Theatre Company of South Australia in Adelaide. Gibson's theatrical credits include the character Estragon (opposite Geoffrey Rush) in Waiting for Godot, and the role of Biff Loman in a 1982 production of Death of a Salesman in Sydney. Gibson's most recent theatrical performance, opposite Sissy Spacek, was the 1993 production of Love Letters by A. R. Gurney, in Telluride, Colorado. \n\nAustralian television and cinema\n\nWhile a student at NIDA, Gibson made his film debut in the 1977 film Summer City, for which he was paid $400. \n\nGibson then played the title character in the film Mad Max (1979). He was paid $15,000 for this role. Shortly after making the film he did a season with the South Australian Theatre Company. During this period he shared a $30 a week apartment in Adelaide with his future wife Robyn. After Mad Max, Gibson also played a mentally slow youth in the film Tim. \n\nDuring this period Gibson also appeared in Australian television series guest roles. He appeared in serial The Sullivans as naval lieutenant Ray Henderson, in police procedural Cop Shop, and in the pilot episode of prison serial Punishment which was produced in 1980, screened 1981. \n\nGibson joined the cast of the World War II action film Attack Force Z, which was not released until 1982 when Gibson had become a bigger star. Director Peter Weir cast Gibson as one of the leads in the critically acclaimed World War I drama Gallipoli, which earned Gibson another Best Actor Award from the Australian Film Institute. The film Gallipoli also helped to earn Gibson the reputation of a serious, versatile actor and gained him the Hollywood agent Ed Limato. The sequel Mad Max 2 was his first hit in America (released as The Road Warrior). In 1982 Gibson again attracted critical acclaim in Peter Weir's romantic thriller The Year of Living Dangerously. Following a year hiatus from film acting after the birth of his twin sons, Gibson took on the role of Fletcher Christian in The Bounty in 1984. Gibson earned his first million dollar salary for playing Max Rockatansky for the third time, in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in 1985. \n\nHollywood\n\nEarly Hollywood years\n\nMel Gibson's first American film was Mark Rydell's 1984 drama The River, in which he and Sissy Spacek played struggling Tennessee farmers. Gibson then starred in the Gothic romance Mrs. Soffel for Australian director Gillian Armstrong. He and Matthew Modine played condemned convict brothers opposite Diane Keaton as the warden's wife who visits them to read the Bible. In 1985, after working on four films in a row, Gibson took almost two years off at his Australian cattle station. He returned to play the role of Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon, a film which helped to cement his status as a Hollywood \"leading man\". Gibson's next film was Robert Towne's Tequila Sunrise, followed by Lethal Weapon 2, in 1989. Gibson next starred in three films back-to-back: Bird on a Wire, Air America, and Hamlet; all were released in 1990.\n\n1990s\n\nDuring the 1990s, Gibson alternated between commercial and personal projects. His films in the first half of the decade were Forever Young, Lethal Weapon 3, Maverick, and Braveheart. He then starred in Ransom, Conspiracy Theory, Lethal Weapon 4, and Payback. Gibson also served as the speaking and singing voice of John Smith in Disney's Pocahontas.\n\nAfter 2000\n\nIn 2000, Gibson acted in three films that each grossed over $100 million: The Patriot, Chicken Run, and What Women Want. In 2002, Gibson appeared in the Vietnam War drama We Were Soldiers and M. Night Shyamalan's Signs, which became the highest-grossing film of Gibson's acting career. While promoting Signs, Gibson said that he no longer wanted to be a movie star and would only act in film again if the script were truly extraordinary. In 2010, Gibson appeared in Edge of Darkness, which marked his first starring role since 2002 and was an adaptation of the BBC miniseries, Edge of Darkness. In 2010, following an outburst at his ex-girlfriend that was made public, Gibson was dropped from the talent agency of William Morris Endeavor. \n\nGibson most recently played two villains: Voz in Machete Kills in 2013, opposite Danny Trejo, and Conrad Stonebanks in The Expendables 3 opposite Sylvester Stallone in 2014.\n\nProducer\n\nAfter his success in Hollywood with the Lethal Weapon series, Gibson began to move into producing and directing. With partner Bruce Davey, Gibson formed Icon Productions in 1989 in order to make Hamlet. In addition to producing or co-producing many of Gibson's own star vehicles, Icon has turned out many other small films, ranging from Immortal Beloved to An Ideal Husband. Gibson has taken supporting roles in some of these films, such as The Million Dollar Hotel and The Singing Detective. Gibson has also produced a number of projects for television, including a biopic on The Three Stooges and the 2008 PBS documentary Carrier. Icon has grown from being just a production company to also be an international distribution company and film exhibitor in Australia and New Zealand. \n\nIn June 2010, Gibson was in Brownsville, Texas, filming scenes for the movie, How I Spent My Summer Vacation, about a career criminal put in a tough prison in Mexico. In October 2010, it was reported that Gibson would have a small role in The Hangover: Part II, but he was removed from the film after the cast and crew objected to his involvement. \n\nDirector\n\nMel Gibson has credited his directors, particularly George Miller, Peter Weir, and Richard Donner, with teaching him the craft of filmmaking and influencing him as a director. According to Robert Downey, Jr., studio executives encouraged Gibson in 1989 to try directing, an idea he rebuffed at the time. Gibson made his directorial debut in 1993 with The Man Without a Face, followed two years later by Braveheart, which earned Gibson the Academy Award for Best Director. Gibson had long planned to direct a remake of Fahrenheit 451, but in 1999 the project was indefinitely postponed because of scheduling conflicts. Gibson was scheduled to direct Robert Downey, Jr. in a Los Angeles stage production of Hamlet in January 2001, but Downey's drug relapse ended the project. In 2002, while promoting We Were Soldiers and Signs to the press, Gibson mentioned that he was planning to pare back on acting and return to directing. In September 2002, Gibson announced that he would direct a film called The Passion in Aramaic and Latin with no subtitles because he hoped to \"transcend language barriers with filmic storytelling.\" In 2004, he released the controversial film The Passion of the Christ, with subtitles, which he co-wrote, co-produced, and directed. The film went on to become the highest grossing rated R film of all time with $370,782,930 in U.S. box office sales. Gibson directed a few episodes of Complete Savages for the ABC network. In 2006, he directed the action-adventure film Apocalypto, his second film to feature sparse dialogue in a non-English language.\n\nFilm work\n\nGibson's acting career began in 1976, with a role on the Australian television series The Sullivans. In his career, Gibson has appeared in 43 films, including the Mad Max and Lethal Weapon film series. In addition to acting, Gibson has also directed four films, including Braveheart and The Passion of the Christ; produced 11 films; and written two films. Films either starring or directed by Mel Gibson have earned over US$2.5 billion, in the United States alone. Gibson's filmography includes television series, feature films, television films, and animated films.\n\nMad Max series\n\nGibson got his breakthrough role as the leather-clad post-apocalyptic survivor in George Miller's Mad Max. The independently financed blockbuster helped to make him an international star. In the United States, the actors' Australian accents were dubbed with American accents. The original film spawned two sequels: Mad Max 2 (known in North America as The Road Warrior), and Mad Max 3 (known in North America as Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome). A fourth movie, Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), was made with Tom Hardy in the title role. \n\nGallipoli\n\nThe 1981 Peter Weir film, Gallipoli is about a group of young men from rural Western Australia who enlist in the Australian Imperial Force during World War I. They are sent to invade the Ottoman Empire, where they take part in the 1915 Gallipoli Campaign. During the course of the movie, the young men slowly lose their innocence about the war. The climax of the movie centers on the catastrophic AIF offensive known as the Battle of the Nek.\n\nPeter Weir cast Gibson in the role of Frank Dunne, an Irish-Australian drifter with an intense cynicism about fighting for the British Empire. Newcomer Mark Lee was recruited to play the idealistic Archy Hamilton after participating in a photo session for the director. Gibson later recalled:\n\"I'd auditioned for an earlier film and he told me right up front, 'I'm not going to cast you for this part. You're not old enough. But thanks for coming in, I just wanted to meet you.' He told me he wanted me for Gallipoli a couple of years later because I wasn't the archetypal Australian. He had Mark Lee, the angelic-looking, ideal Australian kid, and he wanted something of a modern sensibility. He thought the audience needed someone to relate to of their own time.\" \n\nGibson later said that Gallipoli is, \"Not really a war movie. That's just the backdrop. It's really the story of two young men.\"\n\nThe critically acclaimed film helped to further launch Gibson's career. He won the award for Best Actor in a Leading Role from the Australian Film Institute.\n\nThe Year of Living Dangerously\n\nGibson played a naïve but ambitious journalist opposite Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hunt in Peter Weir's atmospheric 1982 film The Year of Living Dangerously, based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Koch. The movie was both a critical and commercial success, and the upcoming Australian actor was heavily marketed by MGM studio. In his review of the film, Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, \"If this film doesn't make an international star of Mr. Gibson, then nothing will. He possesses both the necessary talent and the screen presence.\" According to John Hiscock of The Daily Telegraph, the film did, indeed, establish Gibson as an international talent. \n\nGibson was initially reluctant to accept the role of Guy Hamilton. \"I didn't necessarily see my role as a great challenge. My character was, like the film suggests, a puppet. And I went with that. It wasn't some star thing, even though they advertised it that way.\" Gibson saw some similarities between himself and the character of Guy. \"He's not a silver-tongued devil. He's kind of immature and he has some rough edges and I guess you could say the same for me.\" Gibson has cited this screen performance as his personal favorite.\n\nThe Bounty\n\nGibson followed the footsteps of Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, and Marlon Brando by starring as Fletcher Christian in a cinematic retelling of the Mutiny on the Bounty. The resulting 1984 film The Bounty is considered to be the most historically accurate version. However, Gibson has expressed a belief that the film's revisionism did not go far enough. He has stated that his character should have been portrayed as the film's antagonist. He has further praised Anthony Hopkins's performance as Lieutenant William Bligh as the best aspect of the film.\n\nLethal Weapon series\n\nGibson moved into more mainstream commercial filmmaking with the popular buddy cop Lethal Weapon series, which began with the 1987 original. In the films he played LAPD Detective Martin Riggs, a recently widowed Vietnam veteran with a death wish and a penchant for violence and gunplay. In the films, he is partnered with a reserved family man named Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover). Following the success of Lethal Weapon, director Richard Donner and principal cast revisited the characters in three sequels, Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), Lethal Weapon 3 (1993), and Lethal Weapon 4 (1998). With its fourth installment, the Lethal Weapon series embodied \"the quintessence of the buddy cop pic\". \n\nHamlet\n\nGibson made the unusual transition from action to classical drama, playing William Shakespeare's Danish prince in Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet. Gibson was cast alongside experienced Shakespearean actors Ian Holm, Alan Bates, and Paul Scofield. He compared working with Scofield to being \"thrown into the ring with Mike Tyson\". Scofield said of Gibson \"Not the sort of actor you'd think would make an ideal Hamlet, but he had enormous integrity and intelligence.\" \n\nBraveheart\n\nIn 1995, Mel Gibson directed, produced, and starred in Braveheart, a biographical film of Sir William Wallace, a Scottish nationalist who was executed in 1305 for \"high treason\" against King Edward I of England. Gibson received two Academy Awards, Best Director and Best Picture, for his second directorial effort. In winning the Academy Award for Best Director, Gibson became only the sixth actor-turned-filmmaker to do so. Braveheart influenced the Scottish nationalist movement and helped to revive the film genre of the historical epic; the Battle of Stirling Bridge sequence is considered by critics to be one of the all-time-best-directed battle scenes. \n\nThe film's depiction of the Prince of Wales as an effeminate homosexual caused the film to be attacked by the Gay Alliance. The Gay Alliance was especially enraged by a scene in which King Edward I murders his son's male lover by throwing him out of a castle window.\n\nGibson, who had previously been reported making several homophobic statements, now replied, \"The fact that King Edward throws this character out a window has nothing to do with him being gay ... He's terrible to his son, to everybody.\" \n\nGibson asserted that the reason that king Edward I kills his son's lover is because the king is a \"psychopath\". Gibson also expressed bewilderment that some filmgoers laughed at this murder:\n\nThe Passion of the Christ\n\nGibson directed, produced, co-wrote, and funded the 2004 film The Passion of the Christ, which chronicled the passion and death of Jesus (Jim Caviezel). The film was shot exclusively in Aramaic, Latin, and Hebrew. Although Gibson originally intended to release the film without subtitles; he eventually relented for theatrical exhibition. The film sparked divergent reviews, ranging from high praise to criticism of the violence.\n\nThe Anti-Defamation League accused Gibson of anti-semitism over the film's unflattering depiction of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin.\n\nIn The Nation, reviewer Katha Pollitt said, \"Gibson has violated just about every precept of the (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) conference's own 1988 'Criteria' for the portrayal of Jews in dramatizations of the Passion (no bloodthirsty Jews, no rabble, no use of Scripture that reinforces negative stereotypes of Jews, etc.) ... The priests have big noses and gnarly faces, lumpish bodies, yellow teeth; Herod Antipas and his court are a bizarre collection of oily-haired, epicene perverts. The 'good Jews' look like Italian movie stars (Italian sex symbol Monica Bellucci is Mary Magdalene); Mary, who would have been around 50 and appeared 70, could pass for a ripe 35.\" \n\nAmong those to defend Gibson were Orthodox Jewish Rabbi Daniel Lapin and radio personality Michael Medved. Referring to ADL National Director Abraham Foxman, Rabbi Lapin said that by calling The Passion of the Christ anti-Semitic, \"what he is saying is that the only way (for Christians) to escape the wrath of Foxman is to repudiate (their own) faith.\"\n\nIn an interview with the Globe and Mail, Gibson stated, \"If anyone has distorted Gospel passages to rationalize cruelty towards Jews or anyone, it's in defiance of repeated Papal condemnation. The Papacy has condemned racism in any form... Jesus died for the sins of all times, and I'll be the first on the line for culpability\". \n\nEventually, the continued media attacks began to anger Gibson. After his father's Holocaust denial was sharply criticized in print by The New York Times writer Frank Rich, Gibson retorted, \"I want to kill him. I want his intestines on a stick.... I want to kill his dog.\"\n\nGibson's Traditionalist Catholic upbringing was also the target of criticism. In a 2006 interview with Diane Sawyer, Gibson stated that he feels that his \"human rights were violated\" by the often vitriolic attacks on his person, his family, and his religious beliefs which were sparked by The Passion.\n\nThe movie grossed US$611,899,420 worldwide and $370,782,930 in the US alone, surpassing any motion picture starring Gibson.[http://boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?viewActor&id\nmelgibson.htm Mel Gibson Movie Box Office Results] In US box offices, it became the eighth (at the time) highest-grossing film in history and the highest-grossing rated R film of all time. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards and won the People's Choice Award for Favorite Dramatic Motion Picture. \n\nApocalypto\n\nGibson received further critical acclaim for his directing of the 2006 action-adventure film Apocalypto. Gibson's fourth directorial effort is set in Mesoamerica during the early 16th century against the turbulent end times of a Maya civilization. The sparse dialogue is spoken in the Yucatec Maya language by a cast of Native American descent. \n\nGibson himself has stated that the film is an attempt at making a deliberate point about great civilizations and what causes them to decline and disintegrate. Gibson said, \"People think that modern man is so enlightened, but we're susceptible to the same forces – and we are also capable of the same heroism and transcendence.\" This theme is further explored by a quote from Will Durant, which is superimposed at the very beginning of the film: \"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.\"\n\nThe Beaver\n\nGibson starred in The Beaver, a domestic drama about a depressed alcoholic directed by former Maverick co-star Jodie Foster. The Beaver premiered at The South by Southwest Festival in Austin, TX on March 16, 2011. The opening weekend in 22 theaters was considered a flop: it made $104,000 which comes to a per-theater average of $4,745. The film's distributor, Summit Entertainment, had originally planned for a wide release of The Beaver for the weekend of 20 May, but after the initial box-office returns for the film, the company changed course and decided instead to give the film a \"limited art-house run\". Michael Cieply of The New York Times observed on June 5, 2011, that the film had cleared just about $1 million, making it a certified \"flop\". Director Jodie Foster opined that the film did not do well with American audiences because it was a dramedy, and \"very often Americans are not comfortable with [that]\". \n\nBefore its release, much of the coverage focussed on the unavoidable association between the protagonist's issues and Mel Gibson's own well-publicized personal and legal problems (see ), including a conviction of battery of his ex-girlfriend. Wrote Time magazine: \"The Beaver is a somber, sad domestic drama featuring an alcoholic in acute crisis ... It’s hard to separate Gibson’s true-life story from what’s happening onscreen.\" \n\nProspective films\n\nAs of 2013, Gibson's cancelled projects included a film about the writing of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), and a Richard Donner-helmed film with the working title Sam and George. \n\nAsked in 2007 if he planned to return to acting and specifically to action roles, Gibson said: \"I think I'm too old for that, but you never know. I just like telling stories. Entertainment is valid and I guess I'll probably do it again before it's over. You know, do something that people won't get mad with me for.\" \n\nHe has also expressed an intention to direct a movie set during the Viking Age, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Like The Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto, he wants this speculative film to feature dialogue in period languages. However, DiCaprio ultimately opted out of the project. In a 2012 interview, Gibson announced that the project, which he has titled Berserker, was still moving forward. \n\nIn 2011, it was announced that Gibson had commissioned a screenplay from Joe Eszterhas about the Maccabees. The film is to be distributed by Warner Brothers Pictures. The announcement generated significant controversy. In April 2012, Eszterhas wrote a letter to Gibson accusing him of sabotaging their movie about the Maccabees because he \"hates Jews\", and citing a series of private incidents during which he allegedly heard Gibson express extremely racist views. Although written as a private letter, it was subsequently published on a film industry website. In response, Gibson stated that he still intends to make the movie, but will not base it upon Eszterhas' script, which he called substandard. Eszterhas then claimed his son had secretly recorded a number of Gibson's alleged \"hateful rants\". \n\nIn a 2012 interview, Gibson explained that the Maccabees film was still in preparation. He explained that he was drawn to the Biblical account of the uprising due to its similarity to the American Old West genre. \n\nIn June 2016, it was announced that Gibson will reunite with Braveheart screenwriter Randall Wallace to make a sequel for The Passion of the Christ, focusing on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. \n\nPersonal life\n\nFamily\n\nGibson met Robyn Denise Moore in the late 1970s, soon after filming Mad Max, in Adelaide. At the time, Robyn was a dental nurse and Mel was an unknown actor working for the South Australian Theatre Company. On June 7, 1980, Mel and Robyn Gibson were married in a Roman Catholic church in Forestville, New South Wales. They have one daughter, Hannah (b. 1980), and six sons: Edward (b. 1982), Christian (b. 1982), William (b. 1985), Louis (b. 1988), Milo (b. 1990), Thomas (b. 1999); and three grandchildren . \n\nAfter 26 years of marriage, Mel and Robyn Gibson separated on July 29, 2006. In a 2011 interview, Gibson stated that the separation began the day following his arrest for drunk driving in Malibu. Robyn Gibson filed for divorce on April 13, 2009, citing irreconcilable differences. In a joint statement, the Gibsons declared, \"Throughout our marriage and separation we have always strived to maintain the privacy and integrity of our family and will continue to do so.\" The divorce filing followed the March 2009 release of photographs appearing to show him on a beach embracing Russian pianist Oksana Grigorieva. Gibson's divorce was finalized on December 23, 2011, and the settlement with his ex-wife was said to be the highest in Hollywood history at over $400 million. \n\nOn April 28, 2009, Gibson made a red carpet appearance with Grigorieva. Grigorieva, who had previously had a son with actor Timothy Dalton, gave birth to Gibson's daughter Lucia on 30 October 2009. In April 2010, it was made public that Gibson and Grigorieva had split. On June 21, 2010, Grigorieva filed a restraining order against Gibson to keep him away from her and their child. The restraining order was modified the next day regarding Gibson's contact with their child. Gibson obtained a restraining order against Grigorieva on June 25, 2010. \nIn response to claims by Grigorieva that an incident of domestic violence occurred in January 2010, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department launched a domestic violence investigation in July 2010. \n\nOn July 9, 2010, some audio recordings alleged to be of Gibson were posted on the internet. The same day Gibson was dropped by his agency, William Morris Endeavor. Civil rights activists alleged that Gibson had shown patterns of racism, sexism and anti-Semitism and called for a boycott of Gibson's movies. \n\nGibson's estranged wife, Robyn Gibson, filed a court statement declaring that she never experienced any abuse from Gibson, while forensic experts have questioned the validity of some of the tapes. In March 2011, Mel Gibson agreed to plead no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge.\n\nIn April 2011, Gibson finally broke his silence about the incident in question. In an interview with Deadline.com, Gibson expressed gratitude to longtime friends Whoopi Goldberg and Jodie Foster, both of whom had spoken publicly in his defense. About the recordings, Gibson said, \n\nIn the same interview, Gibson stated, \n\nIn August 2011, Gibson settled with Grigorieva and she was awarded $750,000, joint legal custody and a house in Sherman Oaks, California until their three-year-old daughter Lucia turns 18. In 2013, Grigorieva sued her attorneys accusing them of advising her to sign a bad agreement, including one with Gibson that holds her taking legal action against him would compromise her financial settlement. \n\nInvestments\n\nGibson is a property investor, with multiple properties in Malibu, California, several locations in Costa Rica, a private island in Fiji and properties in Australia. In December 2004, Gibson sold his 300 acre Australian farm in the Kiewa Valley for $6 million. Also in December 2004, Gibson purchased Mago Island in Fiji from Tokyu Corporation of Japan for $15 million. Descendants of the original native inhabitants of Mago, who were displaced in the 1860s, have protested the purchase. Gibson stated it was his intention to retain the pristine environment of the undeveloped island. In early 2005, he sold his 45000 acre Montana ranch to a neighbour. In April 2007 he purchased a 400 acre ranch in Costa Rica for $26 million, and in July 2007 he sold his 76 acre Tudor estate in Connecticut (which he purchased in 1994 for $9 million) for $40 million to an unnamed buyer. Also that month, he sold a Malibu property for $30 million that he had purchased for $24 million two years before. In 2008, he purchased the Malibu home of David Duchovny and Téa Leoni. \n\nPrankster\n\nGibson has a reputation for practical jokes, puns, Stooge-inspired physical comedy, and doing outrageous things to shock people. As a director he sometimes breaks the tension on set by having his actors perform serious scenes wearing a red clown nose. Helena Bonham Carter, who appeared alongside him in Hamlet, said of him, \"He has a very basic sense of humor. It's a bit lavatorial and not very sophisticated.\" During the filming of Hamlet, Gibson would relieve pressure on the set by mooning the cast and crew, directly following a serious scene. Gibson inserted a single frame of himself smoking a cigarette into the 2005 teaser trailer of Apocalypto. \n\nPhilanthropy\n\nGibson and his former wife have contributed a substantial amount of money to various charities, one of which is Healing the Children. According to Cris Embleton, one of the founders, the Gibsons gave millions to provide lifesaving medical treatment to needy children worldwide. They also supported the restoration of Renaissance artwork and gave millions of dollars to NIDA. \n\nGibson donated $500,000 to the El Mirador Basin Project to protect the last tract of virgin rain forest in Central America and to fund archeological excavations in the \"cradle of Mayan civilization.\" In July 2007, Gibson again visited Central America to make arrangements for donations to the indigenous population. Gibson met with Costa Rican President Óscar Arias to discuss how to \"channel the funds.\" During the same month, Gibson pledged to give financial assistance to a Malaysian company named Green Rubber Global for a tire recycling factory located in Gallup, New Mexico. While on a business trip to Singapore in September 2007, Gibson donated to a local charity for children with chronic and terminal illnesses. Gibson is also a supporter of Angels at Risk, a nonprofit organization focusing on education about drug and alcohol abuse among teens. \n\nIn a 2011 interview, Gibson said of his philanthropic works, \"It gives you perspective. It's one of my faults, you tend to focus on yourself a lot. Which is not always the healthiest thing for your psyche or anything else. If you take a little time out to think about other people, it's good. It's uplifting.\" \n\nReligious and political views\n\nFaith\n\nGibson was raised a Sedevacantist traditionalist Catholic. When asked about the Catholic doctrine of \"Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus\", Gibson replied, \"There is no salvation for those outside the Church ... I believe it. Put it this way. My wife is a saint. She's a much better person than I am. Honestly. She's... Episcopalian, Church of England. She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she believes in that stuff. And it's just not fair if she doesn't make it, she's better than I am. But that is a pronouncement from the chair. I go with it.\"Boyer, Peter J. The New Yorker. September 15, 2003 When he was asked whether John 14:6 is an intolerant position, he said that \"through the merits of Jesus' sacrifice... even people who don't know Jesus are able to be saved, but through him.\" Acquaintance Father William Fulco has said that Gibson denies neither the Pope nor Vatican II. panel discussion video, time 1:05 Gibson told Diane Sawyer that he believes non-Catholics and non-Christians can go to heaven. \n\nPolitics\n\nGibson has been described as \"ultraconservative\". \n\nGibson complimented filmmaker Michael Moore and his documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 when he and Moore were recognized at the 2005 People's Choice Awards. Gibson's Icon Productions originally agreed to finance Moore's film, but later sold the rights to Miramax Films. Moore said that his agent Ari Emanuel claimed that \"top Republicans\" called Mel Gibson to tell him, \"don't expect to get more invitations to the White House\". Icon's spokesman dismissed this story, saying \"We never run from a controversy. You'd have to be out of your mind to think that of the company that just put out The Passion of the Christ.\" \n\nIn a July 1995 interview with Playboy magazine, Gibson said President Bill Clinton was a \"low-level opportunist\" and someone was \"telling him what to do\". He said that the Rhodes Scholarship was established for young men and women who want to strive for a \"new world order\" and this was a campaign for Marxism.Grobel, Lawrence. \"Interview: Mel Gibson\". Playboy. July 1995. Vol. 42, No. 7, Pg. 51. Retrieved May 17, 2006. Gibson later backed away from such conspiracy theories saying, \"It was like: 'Hey, tell us a conspiracy'... so I laid out this thing, and suddenly, it was like I was talking the gospel truth, espousing all this political shit like I believed in it.\" In the same 1995 Playboy interview, Gibson argued against ordaining women to the priesthood. \n\nIn 2004, he publicly spoke out against taxpayer-funded embryonic stem-cell research that involves the cloning and destruction of human embryos. In March 2005, he condemned the outcome of the Terri Schiavo case, referring to Schiavo's death as \"state-sanctioned murder\". \n\nGibson questioned the Iraq War in March 2004. In 2006, Gibson said that the \"fearmongering\" depicted in his film Apocalypto \"reminds me a little of President Bush and his guys.\"\n\nIn a 2011 interview, Gibson stated:\nThe whole notion of politics is they always present you with this or this or this. I'll get a newspaper to read between the lines. Why do you have to adhere to prescribed formulas that they have and people argue over them and they're all in a box. And you watch Fox claw CNN, and CNN claw Fox. Sometimes I catch a piece of the news and it seems insanity to me. I quietly support candidates. I'm not out there banging a drum for candidates. But I have supported a candidate and it's a whole other world. Once you've been exposed to it, once or twice or however many times, if you know the facts and see how they're presented, it's mind-boggling. It's a very scary arena to be in, but I do vote. I go in there and pull the lever. It's kind of like pulling the lever and watching the trap door fall out from beneath you. Why should we trust any of these people? None of them ever deliver on anything. It's always disappointing.\n\nAlcohol abuse and legal issues\n\nGibson has said that he started drinking at the age of 13. In a 2002 interview about his time at NIDA, Gibson said, \"I had really good highs but some very low lows. I found out recently I'm manic depressive.\" \n\nGibson was banned from driving in Ontario for three months in 1984, after rear-ending a car in Toronto while under the influence of alcohol. He retreated to his Australian farm for over a year to recover, but he continued to struggle with drinking. Despite this problem, Gibson gained a reputation in Hollywood for professionalism and punctuality such that Lethal Weapon 2 director Richard Donner was shocked when Gibson confided that he was drinking five pints of beer for breakfast. Reflecting in 2003 and 2004, Gibson said that despair in his mid-30s led him to contemplate suicide, and he meditated on Christ's Passion to heal his wounds. He took more time off acting in 1991 and sought professional help. That year, Gibson's attorneys were unsuccessful at blocking the Sunday Mirror from publishing what Gibson shared at AA meetings. In 1992, Gibson provided financial support to Hollywood's Recovery Center, saying, \"Alcoholism is something that runs in my family. It's something that's close to me. People do come back from it, and it's a miracle.\" \n\nOn July 28, 2006, Gibson was arrested by a deputy James Mee of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for driving under the influence (DUI) while speeding in his vehicle with an open container of alcohol, which is illegal in much of the United States. According to a 2011 article in Vanity Fair, Gibson first told the arresting officer, \"My life is over. I'm fucked. Robyn's going to leave me.\" According to the arrest report, Gibson exploded into an angry tirade when the arresting officer would not allow him to drive home. Gibson climaxed with the words, \"Fucking Jews... the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. Are you a Jew?\" [http://www.tmz.com/2006/07/28/gibsons-anti-semitic-tirade-alleged-cover-up/ \"Gibson's Anti-Semitic Tirade\"]. TMZ.com. July 28, 2006 Ironically, the arresting Sheriff's Deputy, James Mee, was Jewish. \n\nAfter the arrest report was leaked on TMZ.com, Gibson issued two apologies through his publicist, and—in a televised interview with Diane Sawyer—he affirmed the accuracy of the quotations. He further apologized for his \"despicable\" behavior, saying that the comments were \"blurted out in a moment of insanity\", and asked to meet with Jewish leaders to help him \"discern the appropriate path for healing.\" After Gibson's arrest, his publicist said he had entered a recovery program to battle alcoholism.\n\nOn August 17, 2006, Gibson pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor drunken-driving charge and was sentenced to three years probation. He was ordered to attend self-help meetings five times a week for four and a half months and three times a week for the remainder of the first year of his probation. He was also ordered to attend a First Offenders Program, was fined $1,300, and his license was restricted for 90 days.\n\nAt a May 2007 progress hearing, Gibson was praised for his compliance with the terms of his probation and his extensive participation in a self-help program beyond what was required. \n\nIn October 2011, Robert Downey, Jr., who has a history of overcoming legal problems and drug addiction, was honored at the 25th American Cinematheque Awards. Downey chose Gibson to present him with his award for his life's work. After Gibson's introduction, Downey did not discuss himself but instead explained he had chosen Gibson since he had helped Downey through his hardships. Downey then told the audience: \"I humbly ask that you join me, unless you are completely without sin, and in which case you picked the wrong fucking industry, in forgiving my friend of his trespasses and offering him the same clean slate that you have me and allowing him to continue his great and ongoing contribution to our collective art without shame.\" After the speech, the two friends hugged onstage to applause. \n\nControversies\n\nThe Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) accused Gibson of homophobia after a December 1991 interview in the Spanish newspaper El País in which he made derogatory comments about homosexuals. Gibson later defended his comments and rejected calls to apologize even as he faced fresh accusations of homophobia in the wake of his film Braveheart. However, Gibson joined GLAAD in hosting 10 lesbian and gay filmmakers for an on-location seminar on the set of the movie Conspiracy Theory in January 1997. In 1999 when asked about the comments to El País, Gibson said, \"I shouldn't have said it, but I was tickling a bit of vodka during that interview, and the quote came back to bite me on the ass.\"\n\nIn July 2010, Gibson had been recorded during a phone call with Oksana Grigorieva suggesting that if she got \"raped by a pack of niggers,\" she would be to blame. Gibson was barred from coming near Grigorieva or their daughter due to a domestic violence-related restraining order. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department launched a domestic violence investigation against Gibson, later dropped when Gibson pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge.\n\nTheatre credits\n\nAwards and honors\n\nIn 1985, Gibson was named the \"Sexiest Man Alive\" by People, the first person to be named so. Gibson quietly declined the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the French government in 1995 as a protest against France's resumption of nuclear testing in the Southwest Pacific. On July 25, 1997, Gibson was named an honorary Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), in recognition of his \"service to the Australian film industry\". The award was honorary because substantive awards are made only to Australian citizens. \n\n* Australian Film Institute Award: Best Actor in a Lead Role, for Tim (1979) and Gallipoli (1981) \n* Academy Award: Best Picture, for Braveheart (1995)\n* Academy Award: Best Director, for Braveheart (1995)\n* People's Choice Awards: Favorite Motion Picture Actor (1991, 1997, 2001, 2003, 2004) \n* People's Choice Awards: Favorite Motion Picture Star in a Comedy (2001)\n* ShoWest Award: Male Star of the Year (1993) \n* ShoWest Award: Director of the Year (1996) \n* American Cinematheque Gala Tribute: American Cinematheque Award (1995) \n* Hasty Pudding Theatricals: Man of the Year (1997) \n* Australian Film Institute: Global Achievement Award (2002) \n* Honorary Doctorate Recipient and Undergraduate Commencement Speaker, Loyola Marymount University (2003) \n* World's most powerful celebrity by U.S. business magazine Forbes (2004) \n* The Hollywood Reporter Innovator of the Year (2004) \n* Honorary fellowship in Performing Arts by Limkokwing University (2007) \n* Outstanding Contribution to World Cinema Award at the Irish Film and Television Awards (2008) \n\nNominations\nSaturn Award for Best Actor for Mad Max 2 (1981)\nAustralian Film Institute Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)\nMTV Movie Award for Best Kiss (with Rene Russo) and Most Desirable Male for Lethal Weapon 3 (1992)\nBAFTA Award for Best Direction, Directors Guild of America Award, MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Male, and MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable Male for Braveheart (1995)\nGolden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for Ransom (1996)\nMTV Movie Award for Best Action Sequence (with Danny Glover) for Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)\nGolden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for What Women Want (2000)\nMTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Male for The Patriot (2000)\nSatellite Award for Best Director for The Passion of the Christ (2004)\n BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language and Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film for Apocalypto (2006)" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "They may take away our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!", "Braveheart", "Braveheart (1995 film)", "Brave heart", "For the Love of a Princess", "Braveheart (film)", "Mad stephen" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "braveheart 1995 film", "braveheart film", "they may take away our lives but they ll never take our freedom", "braveheart", "mad stephen", "brave heart", "for love of princess" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "braveheart", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Braveheart" }
Who got her first big break in Grease 2?	tc_1178	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Grease_2.txt" ], "title": [ "Grease 2" ], "wiki_context": [ "Grease 2 is a 1982 American musical romantic comedy film and the sequel to Grease, which is based upon the musical of the same name by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. The film was produced by Allan Carr and Robert Stigwood, and directed and choreographed by Patricia Birch, who also choreographed the first film. It takes place two years after the original film at Rydell High School, with an almost entirely new cast, led by actors Maxwell Caulfield and Michelle Pfeiffer.\n\nThe film grossed over $15 million on an $11.2 million budget.\n\nPlot\n\nIt is 1961, two years after the original Grease. The first day of school has arrived and the T-Birds and the Pink Ladies dance and sing as they enter the school (\"Back to School Again\"). The Pink Ladies are now led by Stephanie Zinone (Michelle Pfeiffer), who feels she has \"outgrown\" her relationship with her ex-boyfriend Johnny Nogerelli (Adrian Zmed), the arrogant and rather immature new leader of the T-Birds.\n\nA new arrival comes in the form of clean-cut British student Michael Carrington (Maxwell Caulfield) (a cousin of Sandy Olsson from the previous film). He is welcomed and introduced to the school atmosphere by Frenchy (Didi Conn), who was asked by Sandy to help show Michael around. Frenchy reveals she has returned to Rydell to get her high school diploma so she can start her own cosmetics company. Michael eventually meets Stephanie and quickly becomes smitten with her. At the local bowling alley, a game (\"Score Tonight\") turns sour due to the animosity between Johnny and Stephanie. Stephanie retaliates by kissing the next man who walks in the door, who happens to be Michael. Bemused by this unexpected kiss, Michael asks her out but learns that she has a very specific vision of her ideal man (\"Cool Rider\"). As he realizes that he will only win her affection if he turns himself into a cool rider, Michael accepts payment from the T-Birds to write papers for them, and uses the cash to buy a motorcycle.\n\nFollowing an unusual biology lesson (\"Reproduction\") given by Mr. Stuart (Tab Hunter), a substitute teacher, a gang of rival motorcyclists called the Cycle Lords (most of whom are members of the defunct Scorpions) led by Leo Balmudo (Dennis C. Stewart) surprise the T-Birds at the bowling alley. Before the fight starts, a lone anonymous biker appears (who is Michael in disguise), defeats the enemy gang and disappears into the night (\"Who's That Guy?\"). Stephanie is fascinated with the stranger. Meanwhile, Louis (Peter Frechette), one of the T-Birds, attempts to trick his sweetheart Sharon (Maureen Teefy), one of the Pink Ladies and Stephanie's friends into losing her virginity to him by taking her to a fallout shelter and faking a nuclear attack (\"Let's Do It for Our Country\").\n\nThe next evening at the garage, Stephanie is surprised again by the Cool Rider and they enjoy a romantic twilight motorcycle ride. Just as Michael is about to reveal his identity, they are interrupted by the arrival of the T-Birds and Pink Ladies; before Michael leaves, he tells Stephanie that he will see her at the talent show, in which the Pink Ladies and T-Birds are performing. Johnny, enraged by Stephanie's new romance, threatens to fight the Cool Rider if he sees him with her again. The Pink Ladies walk away haughtily but this has little effect on the T-Birds' self-confidence (\"Prowlin'\").\n\nAt school, Stephanie's poor grades in English lead her to accept Michael's offer of help. Johnny, upon seeing them together in a discussion, demands that Stephanie quit the Pink Ladies for his \"rep.\" Although still head over heels for the Cool Rider, interactions with Michael reveal that she has become smitten with him as Michael ponders over his continuing charade he puts on for Stephanie (\"Charades\").\n\nAt the talent show, Stephanie and the Cool Rider meet but are ambushed by the T-Birds who pursue Michael with Stephanie and the Pink Ladies following in a car. They chase him to a construction site which conceals a deadly drop, and the biker's absence suggests that he has perished below, leaving Stephanie heartbroken and inconsolable. Johnny and his T-Birds remove the competing Preptones preppie boys by tying them to a shower pole in the boys' locker room and drenching them. During the Pink Ladies' number at the talent show (\"Girl for All Seasons\"), Stephanie enters a dreamlike fantasy world where she is reunited with her mystery biker (\"(Love Will) Turn Back the Hands of Time\"). She is named winner of the contest and crowned the queen of the upcoming graduation luau, with Johnny hailed as king for his performance of \"Prowlin'\" with his fellow T-Birds.\n\nThe school year ends with the luau (\"Rock-a-Hula Luau\"), during which the Cycle Lords suddenly reappear and begin to destroy the celebration. After the Cool Rider reappears and defeats the Cycle Lords again, he reveals himself to be Michael. After his initial shock, Johnny gives him a T-Birds jacket, officially welcoming him into the gang, and Stephanie accepts that she can now be with him. All the couples pair off happily at the seniors' graduation as the graduating class sings (\"We'll Be Together\"). The credits start rolling in yearbook-style, as in the original film.\n\nCast\n\n* Maxwell Caulfield as Michael Carrington, a British exchange student and Sandy's cousin. Caulfield had already made his Broadway debut with roles in The Elephant Man and Entertaining Mr. Sloane. Having seen his performances, Allan Carr offered Caulfield the role of Michael over thousands of applicants.[http://www.superiorpics.com/maxwell_caulfield/ The Maxwell Caulfield Picture Pages] Unlike co-star Pfeiffer, Caulfield's career following Grease 2 was damaged by the film's failure. He has been quoted as saying: \"Before Grease 2 came out, I was being hailed as the next Richard Gere or John Travolta. However, when Grease 2 flopped, nobody would touch me. It felt like a bucket of cold water had been thrown in my face. It took me 10 years to get over Grease 2.\" \n* Michelle Pfeiffer as Stephanie Zinone, the leader of the Pink Ladies. With only a few television roles and small film appearances, the 23-year-old Pfeiffer was an unknown actress when she attended the casting call audition for the role of Stephanie. Other better-known actresses up for the part included Lisa Hartman, Kristy McNichol, Andrea McArdle, and singer Pat Benatar. Pfeiffer was a wild card choice, but according to Birch, she won the part because she \"has a quirky quality you don't expect.\" Despite the disappointing reception of the film, Pfeiffer's meteoric rise to the Hollywood A-list began the following year when she played Elvira Hancock in Scarface.\n\n;The T-Birds\n* Adrian Zmed as Johnny Nogerelli\n* Christopher McDonald as Goose McKenzie\n* Peter Frechette as Louis DiMucci\n* Leif Green as Davey Jaworski\n\n;The Pink Ladies\n* Maureen Teefy as Sharon Cooper\n* Lorna Luft as Paulette Rebchuck\n* Alison Price as Rhonda Ritter\n* Pamela Segall as Dolores Rebchuck\n\n;Reprising roles from Grease\n* Didi Conn as Frenchy\n* Eve Arden as Principal McGee\n* Sid Caesar as Coach Calhoun\n* Dody Goodman as Blanche Hodel\n* Eddie Deezen as Eugene Felsnick\n* Dennis C. Stewart as Leo Balmudo (Craterface), leader of the Cycle Lords (appeared as the gang leader of the Scorpions in the previous film)\n* Dick Patterson as Mr. Spears (appeared as Mr. Rudie in the previous film)\n\n;Supporting cast\n* Tab Hunter as Mr. Stuart\n* Connie Stevens as Miss Yvette Mason\n* Jean and Liz Sagal as Noreen and Doreen\n* Matt Lattanzi as Brad\n* Lucinda Dickey as Girl Greaser\n\nProduction\n\nDevelopment\n\nGrease co-producer Allan Carr had a deal with Paramount Pictures to be paid $5 million to produce a sequel, with production beginning within three years of the original film. Carr decided to hire Patricia Birch as director for the sequel, as she had previously served as the choreographer for the stage and film versions of Grease. Birch was initially hesitant to accept after learning that neither composers Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey nor John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John would be involved in film. The total budget for the production was $11.2 million, almost double the budget of the original.\n\nGrease 2 was intended to be the second film (and first sequel) in a proposed Grease franchise of four films and a television series. (The third and fourth films were to take place in the sixties and during the counterculture era.) However, the projects were scrapped due to the underwhelming box office performance of Grease 2. Maxwell Caulfield was unhappy with the film's \"drab\" title, and unsuccessfully lobbied to change it to Son of Grease. \n\nCasting\n\nBirch proposed an idea to feature Travolta and Newton-John reprising their characters as a now married couple running a gas station near the end of the film, which did not come to fruition. Paramount tried to get Jeff Conaway and Stockard Channing from the first film to do cameos but this did not happen. \n\nTimothy Hutton was announced as a male star, but Maxwell Caulfield was signed after impressing producers on Broadway in Entertaining Mister Sloane.\n\nPfeiffer had only made a few films before:\nThat was really weird for me. I'd been taking singing lessons and I had taken dance, because I loved to dance, but I had never considered myself a professional at all. I went on this audience as a fluke, and somehow, through the process of going back and dancing, and then going back and singing, I ended up getting the part. I went crazy with that movie. I came to New York and the paparazzi were waiting at the hotel. I know the producers put them up to it. I am basically very private, and I'm really nervous about doing publicity. Every time I set up an interview, I say, \"That's it, this is my last one. I'll do this because I committed to doing it, but I'm never doing another one.\" It was insane. \nLorna Luft was the last star cast. The part played by Connie Stevens was originally meant for Annette Funicello but she was unable to appear as she was filming a peanut butter advertisement that week. \n\nFilming\n\nScenes at Rydell High School were filmed at Excelsior High School, an abandoned school in Norwalk, California. Filming took place throughout a 58-day shooting schedule. According to director Birch, the script was still incomplete when filming commenced. Sequences that were filmed but cut during post-production include scenes in which Frenchy helps Michael become a motorcycle rider, and a sequence at the end of the film showing Michael and Stephanie flying off into the sky on a motorcycle.\n\nIn the film, after Stephanie wins the contest, it goes on to show the stakeout in the final scene. Originally, there were a few minutes dedicated to a scene in which Michael (believed to be dead in his alter ego, by Stephanie) comes out on stage as Stephanie is exiting the stage, unbeknownst to her that he is the cool rider and he is alive. He attempts to ask her what's wrong and she storms past him and runs off crying, then it cuts to the stakeout. There was a scene within the \"Who's that Guy?\" number in which Goose accidentally smashes Rhonda's nose at the Bowl-A-Rama door. None of these scenes have been shown since the film's release.\n\nMusic\n\n# \"Back to School Again\" – Cast and The Four Tops (verses by the Pink Ladies are absent from the soundtrack)\n# \"Score Tonight\" – T-Birds, Pink Ladies, Cast\n# \"Brad\" – Noreen and Doreen\n# \"Cool Rider\" – Stephanie\n# \"Reproduction\" – Mr. Stuart and Students\n# \"Who's That Guy?\" – Michael, T-Birds, Pink Ladies, Cycle Lords, and Cast\n# \"Do It for Our Country\" – Louis and Sharon (Sharon's part is absent from the soundtrack)\n# \"Prowlin'\" – Johnny and T-Birds\n# \"Charades\" – Michael\n# \"Girl for All Seasons\" – Sharon, Paulette, Rhonda, and Stephanie\n# \"(Love Will) Turn Back the Hands of Time\" – Stephanie and Michael\n# \"Rock-a-Hula Luau (Summer Is Coming)\" – Cast\n# \"We'll Be Together\" – Michael, Stephanie, Johnny, Paulette, and Cast\n\nFeatured as background music at Rydell Sport Field:\n# \"Moon River\" (Military Band)\n\nFeatured as background music at the bowling alley:\n# \"Our Day Will Come\" – Ruby & The Romantics (Grease 2 takes place in 1961-62 and \"Our Day Will Come\" did not come out until 1963)\n# \"Rebel Walk\" – Duane Eddy (this was the B-side of his biggest hit \"Because They're Young\")\n\nFeatured at the beginning:\n# \"Alma Mater\" – Instrumental (this song was played at the beginning when Principal McGee and Blanche put up the 1961 Rydell flag)\n\nRelease\n\nBox office\n\nThe sequel took in just over $15 million after coming at fifth on opening weekend behind E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Rocky III, and Poltergeist.[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id\ngrease2.htm Grease 2 (1982) – Box Office Mojo]\n\nBarry Diller of Paramount said that the film \"on no level is as good as the first. The quality isn't there.\" Jim Jacobs described it as \"awful... the pits.\" \n\nCritical reception\n\nAs of August 2015, the film had a rating of 32% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 28 critics' reviews, with an average rating of 3.6/10. The site's consensus states: \"Grease 2 is undeniably stocked with solid songs and well-choreographed dance sequences, but there's no getting around the fact that it's a blatant retread of its far more entertaining predecessor.\" Janet Maslin for The New York Times condemned the film as \"dizzy and slight, with an even more negligible plot than its predecessor had. This time the story can't even masquerade as an excuse for stringing the songs together. Songs? What songs? The numbers in Grease 2 are so hopelessly insubstantial that the cast is forced to burst into melody about pastimes like bowling.\" Variety, on the other hand, commended the staging of the musical numbers, writing that Patricia Birch has come up with some unusual settings (a bowling alley, a bomb shelter) for some of the scenes, and employs some sharp montage to give most of the songs and dances a fair amount of punch.\" Roger Ebert for the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2 stars out of 4, saying: \"This movie just recycles \" Grease,\" without the stars, without the energy, without the freshness and without the grease.\" \n\nHowever, Pfeiffer received positive notices for her first major role. The New York Times review cited her performance as the \"one improvement\" on the original film: \"Miss Pfeiffer is as gorgeous as any cover girl, and she has a sullen quality that's more fitting to a Grease character than Miss Newton-John's sunniness was.\" Variety wrote that she was \"all anyone could ask for in the looks department, and she fills Olivia Newton-John's shoes and tight pants very well.\"\n\n\"That film was a good experience for me,\" said Pfeiffer later. \"It taught me a valuable lesson. Before it even came out the hype had started. Maxwell and I were being thrust down the public's throat in huge full page advertisements. There was no way we could live up to any of that and we didn't. So the crash was very loud. But it did teach me not to have expectations.\" \n\nAccolades\n\nPfeiffer was nominated for a 1983 Young Artist Award in the category of Best Young Motion Picture Actress.\n\nThe film was nominated for a Stinkers Bad Movie Awards for Worst Picture. \n\nRemakes\n\nThe film's screenplay was adapted in the Kannada (South India) feature film Premaloka, starring Ravichandran and Juhi Chawla, released in 1987, which went on to become a blockbuster.\n\nPlans for a third film\n\nParamount had intended to turn Grease into a multi-picture franchise with three sequels planned and a TV series down the road. When Grease 2 flopped at the box office, all the plans were scrapped. \n\nIn 2008, it was reported that Paramount was planning a new sequel to Grease that would debut straight to DVD." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Michelle Phifer", "Michelle Pfeiffer", "Michelle Pfeifer", "Michelle Pfeiffer filmography", "Michelle phiffer", "Michelle Pheiffer", "List of awards and nominations received by michelle pfeiffer", "Michelle Pfieffer" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "michelle pfeiffer", "michelle pfeiffer filmography", "michelle pfieffer", "list of awards and nominations received by michelle pfeiffer", "michelle phiffer", "michelle phifer", "michelle pfeifer", "michelle pheiffer" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "michelle pfeiffer", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Michelle Pfeiffer" }
Who played Charlie Chaplin in Richard Attenborough's 1992 film?	tc_1180	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe", "TagMe", "Search" ], "filename": [ "Charlie_Chaplin.txt", "Richard_Attenborough.txt", "1992_in_film.txt", "Chaplin_(film).txt" ], "title": [ "Charlie Chaplin", "Richard Attenborough", "1992 in film", "Chaplin (film)" ], "wiki_context": [ "Sir Charles Spencer \"Charlie\" Chaplin, (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the silent era. Chaplin became a worldwide icon through his screen persona \"the Tramp\" and is considered one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both adulation and controversy.\n\nChaplin's childhood in London was one of poverty and hardship. As his father was absent and his mother struggled financially, he was sent to a workhouse twice before the age of nine. When he was 14, his mother was committed to a mental asylum. Chaplin began performing at an early age, touring music halls and later working as a stage actor and comedian. At 19 he was signed to the prestigious Fred Karno company, which took him to America. Chaplin was scouted for the film industry, and began appearing in 1914 for Keystone Studios. He soon developed the Tramp persona and formed a large fan base. Chaplin directed his own films from an early stage, and continued to hone his craft as he moved to the Essanay, Mutual, and First National corporations. By 1918, he was one of the best known figures in the world.\n\nIn 1919, Chaplin co-founded the distribution company United Artists, which gave him complete control over his films. His first feature-length was The Kid (1921), followed by A Woman of Paris (1923), The Gold Rush (1925), and The Circus (1928). He refused to move to sound films in the 1930s, instead producing City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936) without dialogue. Chaplin became increasingly political, and his next film, The Great Dictator (1940), satirised Adolf Hitler. The 1940s were a decade marked with controversy for Chaplin, and his popularity declined rapidly. He was accused of communist sympathies, while his involvement in a paternity suit and marriages to much younger women caused scandal. An FBI investigation was opened, and Chaplin was forced to leave the United States and settle in Switzerland. He abandoned the Tramp in his later films, which include Monsieur Verdoux (1947), Limelight (1952), A King in New York (1957), and A Countess from Hong Kong (1967).\n\nChaplin wrote, directed, produced, edited, starred in, and composed the music for most of his films. He was a perfectionist, and his financial independence enabled him to spend years on the development and production of a picture. His films are characterised by slapstick combined with pathos, typified in the Tramp's struggles against adversity. Many contain social and political themes, as well as autobiographical elements. In 1972, as part of a renewed appreciation for his work, Chaplin received an Honorary Academy Award for \"the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century\". He continues to be held in high regard, with The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times, and The Great Dictator often ranked on industry lists of the greatest films of all time.\n\nBiography\n\nEarly years (1889–1913)\n\nBackground and childhood hardship\n\nCharles Spencer Chaplin was born on 16 April 1889 to Hannah Chaplin (born Hannah Harriet Pedlingham Hill) and Charles Chaplin Sr. There is no official record of his birth, although Chaplin believed he was born at East Street, Walworth, in South London. His mother and father had married four years previously, at which time Charles Sr. became the legal carer of Hannah's illegitimate son, Sydney John Hill. At the time of his birth, Chaplin's parents were both music hall entertainers. Hannah, the daughter of a shoemaker, had a brief and unsuccessful career under the stage name Lily Harley, while Charles Sr., a butcher's son, was a popular singer. Although they never divorced, Chaplin's parents were estranged by around 1891. The following year, Hannah gave birth to a third son – George Wheeler Dryden – fathered by the music hall entertainer Leo Dryden. The child was taken by Dryden at six months old, and did not re-enter Chaplin's life for 30 years. \n\nChaplin's childhood was fraught with poverty and hardship, making his eventual trajectory \"the most dramatic of all the rags to riches stories ever told\" according to his authorised biographer David Robinson. Chaplin's early years were spent with his mother and brother Sydney in the London district of Kennington; Hannah had no means of income, other than occasional nursing and dressmaking, and Chaplin Sr. provided no financial support. As the situation deteriorated, Chaplin was sent to a workhouse when he was seven years old. The council housed him at the Central London District School for paupers, which Chaplin remembered as \"a forlorn existence\". He was briefly reunited with his mother 18 months later, before Hannah was forced to readmit her family to the workhouse in July 1898. The boys were promptly sent to Norwood Schools, another institution for destitute children. \n\nIn September 1898, Hannah was committed to Cane Hill mental asylum – she had developed a psychosis seemingly brought on by an infection of syphilis and malnutrition. For the two months she was there, Chaplin and his brother Sydney were sent to live with their father, whom the young boys scarcely knew. Charles Sr. was by then a severe alcoholic, and life there was bad enough to provoke a visit from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Chaplin's father died two years later, at 38 years old, from cirrhosis of the liver. \n\nHannah entered a period of remission, but in May 1903 became ill again. Chaplin, then 14, had the task of taking his mother to the infirmary, from where she was sent back to Cane Hill. He lived alone for several days, searching for food and occasionally sleeping rough, until Sydney – who had enrolled in the Navy two years earlier – returned. Hannah was released from the asylum eight months later, but in March 1905 her illness returned, this time permanently. \"There was nothing we could do but accept poor mother's fate\", Chaplin later wrote, and she remained in care until her death in 1928. \n\nYoung performer\n\nBetween his time in the poor schools and his mother succumbing to mental illness, Chaplin began to perform on stage. He later recalled making his first amateur appearance at the age of five years, when he took over from Hannah one night in Aldershot. This was an isolated occurrence, but by the time he was nine Chaplin had, with his mother's encouragement, grown interested in performing. He later wrote: \"[she] imbued me with the feeling that I had some sort of talent\". Through his father's connections, Chaplin became a member of the Eight Lancashire Lads clog-dancing troupe, with whom he toured English music halls throughout 1899 and 1900. Chaplin worked hard, and the act was popular with audiences, but he was not satisfied with dancing and wished to form a comedy act. \n\nIn the years Chaplin was touring with the Eight Lancashire Lads, his mother ensured that he still attended school, but by age 13 he had abandoned education. He supported himself with a range of jobs, while nursing his ambition to become an actor. At 14, shortly after his mother's relapse, he registered with a theatrical agency in London's West End. The manager sensed potential in Chaplin, who was promptly given his first role as a newsboy in H. A. Saintsbury's Jim, a Romance of Cockayne. It opened in July 1903, but the show was unsuccessful and closed after two weeks. Chaplin's comic performance, however, was singled out for praise in many of the reviews. \n\nSaintsbury secured a role for Chaplin in Charles Frohman's production of Sherlock Holmes, where he played Billy the pageboy in three nationwide tours. His performance was so well received that he was called to London to play the role alongside William Gillette, the original Holmes. \"It was like tidings from heaven\", Chaplin recalled. At 16 years old, Chaplin starred in the play's West End production at the Duke of York's Theatre from October to December 1905. He completed one final tour of Sherlock Holmes in early 1906, before leaving the play after more than two-and-a-half years. \n\nStage comedy and vaudeville\n\nChaplin soon found work with a new company, and went on tour with his brother – who was also pursuing an acting career – in a comedy sketch called Repairs. In May 1906, Chaplin joined the juvenile act Casey's Circus, where he developed popular burlesque pieces and was soon the star of the show. By the time the act finished touring in July 1907, the 18-year-old had become an accomplished comedic performer. He struggled to find more work, however, and a brief attempt at a solo act was a failure.\n\nMeanwhile, Sydney Chaplin had joined Fred Karno's prestigious comedy company in 1906, and by 1908 he was one of their key performers. In February, he managed to secure a two-week trial for his younger brother. Karno was initially wary, and considered Chaplin a \"pale, puny, sullen-looking youngster\" who \"looked much too shy to do any good in the theatre.\" But the teenager made an impact on his first night at the London Coliseum and he was quickly signed to a contract. Chaplin began by playing a series of minor parts, eventually progressing to starring roles in 1909. In April 1910, he was given the lead in a new sketch, Jimmy the Fearless. It was a big success, and Chaplin received considerable press attention. \n\nKarno selected his new star to join the section of the company that toured North America's vaudeville circuit. The young comedian headed the show and impressed reviewers, being described as \"one of the best pantomime artists ever seen here\". His most successful role was a drunk called the \"Inebriate Swell\", which drew him significant recognition. The tour lasted 21 months, and the troupe returned to England in June 1912. Chaplin recalled that he \"had a disquieting feeling of sinking back into a depressing commonplaceness\", and was therefore delighted when a new tour began in October. \n\nEntering films (1914–1917)\n\nKeystone\n\nSix months into the second American tour, Chaplin was invited to join the New York Motion Picture Company. A representative who had seen his performances thought he could replace Fred Mace, a star of their Keystone Studios who intended to leave. Chaplin thought the Keystone comedies \"a crude mélange of rough and rumble\", but liked the idea of working in films and rationalised: \"Besides, it would mean a new life.\" He met with the company, and signed a $150-per-week ($ in dollars) contract in September 1913. \n\nChaplin arrived in Los Angeles, home of the Keystone studio, in early December 1913. His boss was Mack Sennett, who initially expressed concern that the 24-year-old looked too young. He was not used in a picture until late January, during which time Chaplin attempted to learn the processes of filmmaking. The one-reeler Making a Living marked his film acting debut, and was released on 2 February 1914. Chaplin strongly disliked the picture, but one review picked him out as \"a comedian of the first water\". For his second appearance in front of the camera, Chaplin selected the costume with which he became identified. He described the process in his autobiography:\n\nThe film was Mabel's Strange Predicament, but \"the Tramp\" character, as it became known, debuted to audiences in Kid Auto Races at Venice – shot later than Mabel's Strange Predicament but released two days earlier. Chaplin adopted the character as his screen persona, and attempted to make suggestions for the films he appeared in. These ideas were dismissed by his directors. During the filming of his eleventh picture, Mabel at the Wheel, he clashed with director Mabel Normand and was almost released from his contract. Sennett kept him on, however, when he received orders from exhibitors for more Chaplin films. Sennett also allowed Chaplin to direct his next film himself, after Chaplin promised to pay $1,500 ($ in dollars) if the film was unsuccessful. \n\nCaught in the Rain, issued 4 May 1914, was Chaplin's directorial debut and was highly successful. Thereafter he directed almost every short film in which he appeared for Keystone, at the rate of approximately one per week, a period which he later remembered as the most exciting time of his career. Chaplin's films introduced a slower form of comedy than the typical Keystone farce, and he developed a large fan base. In November 1914, he had a supporting role in the first feature length comedy film, Tillie's Punctured Romance, directed by Sennett and starring Marie Dressler, which was a commercial success and increased his popularity. When Chaplin's contract came up for renewal at the end of the year, he asked for $1,000 a week ($ in dollars) – an amount Sennett refused as too large. \n\nEssanay\n\nThe Essanay Film Manufacturing Company of Chicago sent Chaplin an offer of $1,250 a week with a signing bonus of $10,000. He joined the studio in late December 1914, where he began forming a stock company of regular players, including Leo White, Bud Jamison, Paddy McGuire and Billy Armstrong. He soon recruited a leading lady – Edna Purviance, whom Chaplin met in a cafe and hired on account of her beauty. She went on to appear in 35 films with Chaplin over eight years; the pair also formed a romantic relationship that lasted into 1917. \n\nChaplin asserted a high level of control over his pictures, and started to put more time and care into each film. There was a month-long interval between the release of his second production, A Night Out, and his third, The Champion. The final seven of Chaplin's 14 Essanay films were all produced at this slower pace. Chaplin also began to alter his screen persona, which had attracted some criticism at Keystone for its \"mean, crude, and brutish\" nature. The character became more gentle and romantic; The Tramp (April 1915) was considered a particular turning point in his development. The use of pathos was developed further with The Bank, in which Chaplin created a sad ending. Robinson notes that this was an innovation in comedy films, and marked the time when serious critics began to appreciate Chaplin's work. At Essanay, writes film scholar Simon Louvish, Chaplin \"found the themes and the settings that would define the Tramp's world.\" \n\nDuring 1915, Chaplin became a cultural phenomenon. Shops were stocked with Chaplin merchandise, he was featured in cartoons and comic strips, and several songs were written about him. In July, a journalist for Motion Picture Magazine wrote that \"Chaplinitis\" had spread across America. As his fame grew worldwide, he became the film industry's first international star. When the Essanay contract ended in December 1915, Chaplin – fully aware of his popularity – requested a $150,000 signing bonus from his next studio. He received several offers, including Universal, Fox, and Vitagraph, the best of which came from the Mutual Film Corporation at $10,000 a week. \n\nMutual\n\nA contract was negotiated with Mutual that amounted to $670,000 a year, which Robinson says made Chaplin – at 26 years old – one of the highest paid people in the world. The high salary shocked the public and was widely reported in the press. John R. Freuler, the studio president, explained: \"We can afford to pay Mr. Chaplin this large sum annually because the public wants Chaplin and will pay for him.\" \n\nMutual gave Chaplin his own Los Angeles studio to work in, which opened in March 1916. He added two key members to his stock company, Albert Austin and Eric Campbell, and produced a series of elaborate two-reelers: The Floorwalker, The Fireman, The Vagabond, One A.M. and The Count. For The Pawnshop he recruited the actor Henry Bergman, who was to work with Chaplin for 30 years. Behind the Screen and The Rink completed Chaplin's releases for 1916. The Mutual contract stipulated that he release a two-reel film every four weeks, which he had managed to achieve. With the new year, however, Chaplin began to demand more time. He made only four more films for Mutual over the first ten months of 1917: Easy Street, The Cure, The Immigrant and The Adventurer. With their careful construction, these films are considered by Chaplin scholars to be among his finest work. Later in life, Chaplin referred to his Mutual years as the happiest period of his career. \n\nChaplin was attacked in the British media for not fighting in the First World War. He defended himself, revealing that he would fight for Britain if called and had registered for the American draft, but he was not summoned by either country. Despite this criticism Chaplin was a favourite with the troops, and his popularity continued to grow worldwide. Harper's Weekly reported that the name of Charlie Chaplin was \"a part of the common language of almost every country\", and that the Tramp image was \"universally familiar\". In 1917, professional Chaplin imitators were so widespread that he took legal action, and it was reported that nine out of ten men who attended costume parties dressed as the Tramp. The same year, a study by the Boston Society for Psychical Research concluded that Chaplin was \"an American obsession\". The actress Minnie Maddern Fiske wrote that \"a constantly increasing body of cultured, artistic people are beginning to regard the young English buffoon, Charles Chaplin, as an extraordinary artist, as well as a comic genius\".\n\nFirst National (1918–1922)\n\nMutual were patient with Chaplin's decreased rate of output, and the contract ended amicably. His primary concern in finding a new distributor was independence; Sydney Chaplin, then his business manager, told the press, \"Charlie [must] be allowed all the time he needs and all the money for producing [films] the way he wants ... It is quality, not quantity, we are after.\" In June 1917, Chaplin signed to complete eight films for First National Exhibitors' Circuit in return for $1 million. He chose to build his own studio, situated on five acres of land off Sunset Boulevard, with production facilities of the highest order. It was completed in January 1918, and Chaplin was given freedom over the making of his pictures. \n\nA Dog's Life, released April 1918, was the first film under the new contract. In it, Chaplin demonstrated his increasing concern with story construction, and his treatment of the Tramp as \"a sort of Pierrot\". The film was described by Louis Delluc as \"cinema's first total work of art\". Chaplin then embarked on the Third Liberty Bond campaign, touring the United States for one month to raise money for the Allies of the First World War. He also produced a short propaganda film, donated to the government for fund-raising, called The Bond. Chaplin's next release was war-based, placing the Tramp in the trenches for Shoulder Arms. Associates warned him against making a comedy about the war but, as he later recalled: \"Dangerous or not, the idea excited me.\" He spent four months filming the 45-minute-long picture, which was released in October 1918 with great success. \n\nUnited Artists, Mildred Harris, and The Kid\n\nAfter the release of Shoulder Arms, Chaplin requested more money from First National, which was refused. Frustrated with their lack of concern for quality, and worried about rumours of a possible merger between the company and Famous Players-Lasky, Chaplin joined forces with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and D. W. Griffith to form a new distribution company – United Artists, established in January 1919. The arrangement was revolutionary in the film industry, as it enabled the four partners – all creative artists – to personally fund their pictures and have complete control.Robinson, p. 269. Chaplin was eager to start with the new company, and offered to buy out his contract with First National. They declined this, and insisted that he complete the final six films he owed them. \n\nBefore the creation of United Artists, Chaplin married for the first time. The 17-year-old actress Mildred Harris had revealed that she was pregnant with his child, and in September 1918 he married her quietly in Los Angeles to avoid controversy. Soon after, the pregnancy was found to be a false alarm. Chaplin was unhappy with the union and, feeling that marriage stunted his creativity, struggled over the production of his film Sunnyside. Harris was by then legitimately pregnant, and on 7 July 1919, gave birth to a son. Norman Spencer Chaplin was born malformed, and died three days later. The marriage eventually ended in April 1920, with Chaplin explaining in his autobiography that they were \"irreconcilably mismated\". \n\nLosing a child is thought to have influenced Chaplin's work, as he planned a film which turned the Tramp into the caretaker of a young boy. For this new venture, Chaplin also wished to do more than comedy and, according to Louvish, \"make his mark on a changed world.\" Filming on The Kid began in August 1919, with four-year-old Jackie Coogan his co-star. It occurred to Chaplin that it was turning into a large project, so to placate First National, he halted production and quickly filmed A Day's Pleasure. The Kid was in production for nine months, until May 1920, and at 68 minutes it was Chaplin's longest picture to date. Dealing with issues of poverty and parent–child separation, The Kid is thought to have been influenced by Chaplin's own childhood and was one of the earliest films to combine comedy and drama. It was released in January 1921 with instant success, and by 1924 had been screened in over 50 countries. \n\nChaplin spent five months on his next film, the two-reeler The Idle Class. Following its September 1921 release, he chose to return to England for the first time in almost a decade. He then worked to fulfil his First National contract, releasing Pay Day in February 1922. The Pilgrim – his final short film – was delayed by distribution disagreements with the studio, and released a year later. \n\nSilent features (1923–1938)\n\nA Woman of Paris and The Gold Rush\n\nHaving fulfilled his First National contract, Chaplin was free to make his first picture as an independent producer. In November 1922 he began filming A Woman of Paris, a romantic drama about ill-fated lovers. Chaplin intended it to be a star-making vehicle for Edna Purviance, and did not appear in the picture himself other than in a brief, uncredited cameo. He wished for the film to have a realistic feel, and directed his cast to give restrained performances. In real life, he explained, \"men and women try to hide their emotions rather than seek to express them\". A Woman of Paris premiered in September 1923 and was acclaimed for its subtle approach, then an innovation. The public, however, seemed to have little interest in a Chaplin film without his presence, and it was a box-office disappointment. The filmmaker was hurt by this failure – he had long wanted to produce a dramatic film and was proud of the result – and withdrew A Woman of Paris from circulation as soon as he could. \n\nChaplin returned to comedy for his next project. Setting his standards high, he told himself: \"This next film must be an epic! The Greatest!\" Inspired by a photograph of the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush, and later the story of the Donner Party of 1846–47, he made what Geoffrey Macnab calls \"an epic comedy out of grim subject matter.\" In The Gold Rush, the Tramp is a lonely prospector fighting adversity and looking for love. With Georgia Hale as his new leading lady, Chaplin began filming the picture in February 1924. Its elaborate production, costing almost $1 million, included location shooting in the Truckee mountains with 600 extras, extravagant sets, and special effects. The last scene was not shot until May 1925, after 15 months of filming. \n\nChaplin felt The Gold Rush was the best film he had made to that point. It opened in August 1925 and became one of the highest-grossing films of the silent era with a profit of $5 million. The comedy contains some of Chaplin's most famous sequences, such as the Tramp eating his shoe and the \"Dance of the Rolls\". Macnab has called it \"the quintessential Chaplin film\".Kemp, p. 64. Chaplin stated, \"This is the picture that I want to be remembered by\" at the time of the film's release. \n\nLita Grey and The Circus\n\nWhile making The Gold Rush, Chaplin married for the second time. Mirroring the circumstances of his first union, Lita Grey was a teenage actress, originally set to star in the film, whose surprise announcement of pregnancy forced Chaplin into marriage. She was 16 and he was 35, meaning Chaplin could have been charged with statutory rape under California law. He therefore arranged a discreet marriage in Mexico on 25 November 1924. Their first son, Charles Spencer Chaplin, Jr., was born on 5 May 1925, followed by Sydney Earl Chaplin on 30 March 1926. \n\nIt was an unhappy marriage, and Chaplin spent long hours at the studio to avoid seeing his wife. In November 1926, Grey took the children and left the family home. A bitter divorce followed, in which Grey's application – accusing Chaplin of infidelity, abuse, and of harbouring \"perverted sexual desires\" – was leaked to the press. Chaplin was reported to be in a state of nervous breakdown, as the story became headline news and groups formed across America calling for his films to be banned. Eager to end the case without further scandal, Chaplin's lawyers agreed to a cash settlement of $600,000the largest awarded by American courts at that time. His fan base was strong enough to survive the incident, and it was soon forgotten, but Chaplin was deeply affected by it. \n\nBefore the divorce suit was filed, Chaplin had begun work on a new film, The Circus. He built a story around the idea of walking a tightrope while besieged by monkeys, and turned the Tramp into the accidental star of a circus. Filming was suspended for 10 months while he dealt with the divorce scandal, and it was generally a trouble-ridden production. Finally completed in October 1927, The Circus was released in January 1928 to a positive reception.Robinson, p. 382. At the 1st Academy Awards, Chaplin was given a special trophy \"For versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing The Circus. Despite its success, he permanently associated the film with the stress of its production; Chaplin omitted The Circus from his autobiography, and struggled to work on it when he recorded the score in his later years. \n\nCity Lights\n\nBy the time The Circus was released, Hollywood had witnessed the introduction of sound films. Chaplin was cynical about this new medium and the technical shortcomings it presented, believing that \"talkies\" lacked the artistry of silent films. He was also hesitant to change the formula that had brought him such success, and feared that giving the Tramp a voice would limit his international appeal. He therefore rejected the new Hollywood craze and began work on a new silent film. Chaplin was nonetheless anxious about this decision, and remained so throughout the film's production.\n\nWhen filming began at the end of 1928, Chaplin had been working on the story for almost a year. City Lights followed the Tramp's love for a blind flower girl (played by Virginia Cherrill) and his efforts to raise money for her sight-saving operation. It was a challenging production that lasted 21 months, with Chaplin later confessing that he \"had worked himself into a neurotic state of wanting perfection\".Chaplin, p. 324. One advantage Chaplin found in sound technology was the opportunity to record a musical score for the film, which he composed himself. \n\nChaplin finished editing City Lights in December 1930, by which time silent films were an anachronism. A preview before an unsuspecting public audience was not a success, but a showing for the press produced positive reviews. One journalist wrote, \"Nobody in the world but Charlie Chaplin could have done it. He is the only person that has that peculiar something called 'audience appeal' in sufficient quality to defy the popular penchant for movies that talk.\" Given its general release in January 1931, City Lights proved to be a popular and financial success – eventually grossing over $3 million. The British Film Institute cites it as Chaplin's finest accomplishment, and the critic James Agee hails the closing scene as \"the greatest piece of acting and the highest moment in movies\". City Lights became Chaplin's personal favourite of his films and remained so throughout his life. \n\nTravels, Paulette Goddard, and Modern Times\n\nCity Lights had been a success, but Chaplin was unsure if he could make another picture without dialogue. He remained convinced that sound would not work in his films, but was also \"obsessed by a depressing fear of being old-fashioned.\" In this state of uncertainty, early in 1931 the comedian decided to take a holiday and ended up travelling for 16 months. In his autobiography, Chaplin recalled that on his return to Los Angeles, \"I was confused and without plan, restless and conscious of an extreme loneliness\". He briefly considered the option of retiring and moving to China. \n\nChaplin's loneliness was relieved when he met 21-year-old actress Paulette Goddard in July 1932, and the pair began a successful relationship. He was not ready to commit to a film, however, and focussed on writing a serial about his travels (published in Woman's Home Companion). The trip had been a stimulating experience for Chaplin, including meetings with several prominent thinkers, and he became increasingly interested in world affairs. The state of labour in America troubled him, and he feared that capitalism and machinery in the workplace would increase unemployment levels. It was these concerns that stimulated Chaplin to develop his new film. \n\nModern Times was announced by Chaplin as \"a satire on certain phases of our industrial life.\" Featuring the Tramp and Goddard as they endure the Great Depression, it took ten and a half months to film. Chaplin intended to use spoken dialogue, but changed his mind during rehearsals. Like its predecessor, Modern Times employed sound effects, but almost no speaking. Chaplin's performance of a gibberish song did, however, give the Tramp a voice for the only time on film. After recording the music, Chaplin released Modern Times in February 1936. It was his first feature in 15 years to adopt political references and social realism, a factor that attracted considerable press coverage despite Chaplin's attempts to downplay the issue. The film earned less at the box-office than his previous features and received mixed reviews, as some viewers disliked the politicising. Today, Modern Times is seen by the British Film Institute as one of Chaplin's \"great features,\" while David Robinson says it shows the filmmaker at \"his unrivalled peak as a creator of visual comedy.\" \n\nFollowing the release of Modern Times, Chaplin left with Goddard for a trip to the Far East. The couple had refused to comment on the nature of their relationship, and it was not known whether they were married or not. Some time later, Chaplin revealed that they married in Canton during this trip. By 1938 the couple had drifted apart, as both focused heavily on their work, although Goddard was again his leading lady in his next feature film, The Great Dictator. She eventually divorced Chaplin in Mexico in 1942, citing incompatibility and separation for more than a year. \n\nControversies and fading popularity (1939–1952)\n\nThe Great Dictator\n\nThe 1940s saw Chaplin face a series of controversies, both in his work and in his personal life, which changed his fortunes and severely affected his popularity in the United States. The first of these was a new boldness in expressing his political beliefs. Deeply disturbed by the surge of militaristic nationalism in 1930s world politics, Chaplin found that he could not keep these issues out of his work. Parallels between himself and Adolf Hitler had been widely noted: the pair were born four days apart, both had risen from poverty to world prominence, and Hitler wore the same toothbrush moustache as Chaplin. It was this physical resemblance that supplied the plot for Chaplin's next film, The Great Dictator, which directly satirised Hitler and attacked fascism. \n\nChaplin spent two years developing the script, and began filming in September 1939 – six days after Britain declared war on Germany. He had submitted to using spoken dialogue, partly out of acceptance that he had no other choice, but also because he recognised it as a better method for delivering a political message. Making a comedy about Hitler was seen as highly controversial, but Chaplin's financial independence allowed him to take the risk. \"I was determined to go ahead,\" he later wrote, \"for Hitler must be laughed at.\" Chaplin replaced the Tramp (while wearing similar attire) with \"A Jewish Barber\", a reference to the Nazi party's belief that he was Jewish. In a dual performance he also played the dictator \"Adenoid Hynkel\", who parodied Hitler. \n\nThe Great Dictator spent a year in production, and was released in October 1940. The film generated a vast amount of publicity, with a critic for The New York Times calling it \"the most eagerly awaited picture of the year\", and it was one of the biggest money-makers of the era. The ending was unpopular, however, and generated controversy. Chaplin concluded the film with a five-minute speech in which he abandoned his barber character, looked directly into the camera, and pleaded against war and fascism. Charles J. Maland has identified this overt preaching as triggering a decline in Chaplin's popularity, and writes, \"Henceforth, no movie fan would ever be able to separate the dimension of politics from [his] star image\". The Great Dictator received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor. \n\nLegal troubles and Oona O'Neill\n\nIn the mid-1940s, Chaplin was involved in a series of trials that occupied most of his time and significantly affected his public image. The troubles stemmed from his affair with an aspirant actress named Joan Barry, with whom he was involved intermittently between June 1941 and the autumn of 1942. Barry, who displayed obsessive behaviour and was twice arrested after they separated, reappeared the following year and announced that she was pregnant with Chaplin's child. As Chaplin denied the claim, Barry filed a paternity suit against him.Maland (1989), pp. 198–201.\n\nThe director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover, who had long been suspicious of Chaplin's political leanings, used the opportunity to generate negative publicity about him. As part of a smear campaign to damage Chaplin's image, the FBI named him in four indictments related to the Barry case. Most serious of these was an alleged violation of the Mann Act, which prohibits the transportation of women across state boundaries for sexual purposes. The historian Otto Friedrich has called this an \"absurd prosecution\" of an \"ancient statute\", yet if Chaplin was found guilty, he faced 23 years in jail. Three charges lacked sufficient evidence to proceed to court, but the Mann Act trial began in March 1944. Chaplin was acquitted two weeks later. The case was frequently headline news, with Newsweek calling it the \"biggest public relations scandal since the Fatty Arbuckle murder trial in 1921.\" \n\nBarry's child, Carole Ann, was born in October 1944, and the paternity suit went to court in February 1945. After two arduous trials, in which the prosecuting lawyer accused him of \"moral turpitude\", Chaplin was declared to be the father. Evidence from blood tests which indicated otherwise were not admissible, and the judge ordered Chaplin to pay child support until Carole Ann turned 21. Media coverage of the paternity suit was influenced by the FBI, as information was fed to the prominent gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, and Chaplin was portrayed in an overwhelmingly critical light. \n\nThe controversy surrounding Chaplin increased when, two weeks after the paternity suit was filed, it was announced that he had married his newest protégée, 18-year-old Oona O'Neill – daughter of the American playwright Eugene O'Neill. Chaplin, then 54, had been introduced to her by a film agent seven months earlier. In his autobiography, Chaplin described meeting O'Neill as \"the happiest event of my life\", and claimed to have found \"perfect love\". Chaplin's son, Charles Jr., reported that Oona \"worshipped\" his father. The couple remained married until Chaplin's death, and had eight children over 18 years: Geraldine Leigh (b. July 1944), Michael John (b. March 1946), Josephine Hannah (b. March 1949), Victoria (b. May 1951), Eugene Anthony (b. August 1953), Jane Cecil (b. May 1957), Annette Emily (b. December 1959), and Christopher James (b. July 1962). \n\nMonsieur Verdoux and communist accusations\n\nChaplin claimed that the Barry trials had \"crippled [his] creativeness\", and it was some time before he began working again. In April 1946, he finally began filming a project that had been in development since 1942. Monsieur Verdoux was a black comedy, the story of a French bank clerk, Verdoux (Chaplin), who loses his job and begins marrying and murdering wealthy widows to support his family. Chaplin's inspiration for the project came from Orson Welles, who wanted him to star in a film about the French serial killer Henri Désiré Landru. Chaplin decided that the concept would \"make a wonderful comedy\", and paid Welles $5,000 for the idea. \n\nChaplin again vocalised his political views in Monsieur Verdoux, criticising capitalism and arguing that the world encourages mass killing through wars and weapons of mass destruction. Because of this, the film met with controversy when it was released in April 1947; Chaplin was booed at the premiere, and there were calls for a boycott. Monsieur Verdoux was the first Chaplin release that failed both critically and commercially in the United States. It was more successful abroad, and Chaplin's screenplay was nominated at the Academy Awards. He was proud of the film, writing in his autobiography, \"Monsieur Verdoux is the cleverest and most brilliant film I have yet made.\" \n\nThe negative reaction to Monsieur Verdoux was largely the result of changes in Chaplin's public image. Along with damage of the Joan Barry scandal, he was publicly accused of being a communist. His political activity had heightened during World War II, when he campaigned for the opening of a Second Front to help the Soviet Union and supported various Soviet–American friendship groups. He was also friendly with several suspected communists, and attended functions given by Soviet diplomats in Los Angeles. In the political climate of 1940s America, such activities meant Chaplin was considered, as Larcher writes, \"dangerously progressive and amoral.\" The FBI wanted him out of the country, and early in 1947 they launched an official investigation.Maland (1989), pp. 265–266.\n\nChaplin denied being a communist, instead calling himself a \"peacemonger\", but felt the government's effort to suppress the ideology was an unacceptable infringement of civil liberties. Unwilling to be quiet about the issue, he openly protested the trials of Communist Party members and the activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Chaplin received a subpoena to appear before HUAC, but was not called to testify. As his activities were widely reported in the press, and Cold War fears grew, questions were raised over his failure to take American citizenship. Calls were made for him to be deported; in one extreme and widely published example, Representative John E. Rankin, who helped establish HUAC, told Congress in June 1947: \"[Chaplin's] very life in Hollywood is detrimental to the moral fabric of America. [If he is deported] ... his loathsome pictures can be kept from before the eyes of the American youth. He should be deported and gotten rid of at once.\" \n\nLimelight and banning from the United States\n\nAlthough Chaplin remained politically active in the years following the failure of Monsieur Verdoux, his next film, about a forgotten vaudeville comedian and a young ballerina in Edwardian London, was devoid of political themes. Limelight was heavily autobiographical, alluding not only to Chaplin's childhood and the lives of his parents, but also to his loss of popularity in the United States. The cast included various members of his family, including his five oldest children and his half-brother, Wheeler Dryden.Maland (1989), p. 293.\n\nFilming began in November 1951, by which time Chaplin had spent three years working on the story. He aimed for a more serious tone than any of his previous films, regularly using the word \"melancholy\" when explaining his plans to his co-star Claire Bloom. Limelight featured a cameo appearance from Buster Keaton, whom Chaplin cast as his stage partner in a pantomime scene. This marked the only time the comedians worked together. \n\nChaplin decided to hold the world premiere of Limelight in London, since it was the setting of the film. As he left Los Angeles, he expressed a premonition that he would not be returning. At New York, he boarded the with his family on 18 September 1952.Maland (1989), p. 280. The next day, attorney general James P. McGranery revoked Chaplin's re-entry permit and stated that he would have to submit to an interview concerning his political views and moral behaviour in order to re-enter the US. Although McGranery told the press that he had \"a pretty good case against Chaplin\", Maland has concluded, on the basis of the FBI files that were released in the 1980s, that the US government had no real evidence to prevent Chaplin's re-entry. It is likely that he would have gained entry if he had applied for it. However, when Chaplin received a cablegram informing him of the news, he privately decided to cut his ties with the United States:\n\nBecause all of his property remained in America, Chaplin refrained from saying anything negative about the incident to the press. The scandal attracted vast attention, but Chaplin and his film were warmly received in Europe. In America the hostility towards him continued, and, although it received some positive reviews, Limelight was subjected to a wide-scale boycott.Maland (1989), pp. 295–298; 307–311. Reflecting on this, Maland writes that Chaplin's fall, from an \"unprecedented\" level of popularity, \"may be the most dramatic in the history of stardom in America\". \n\nEuropean years (1953–1977)\n\nMove to Switzerland and A King in New York\n\nChaplin did not attempt to return to the United States after his re-entry permit was revoked, and instead sent his wife to settle his affairs. The couple decided to settle in Switzerland, and in January 1953 the family moved into their permanent home: Manoir de Ban, a 14 ha estate overlooking Lake Geneva in Corsier-sur-Vevey.Robinson, pp. 580–581. Chaplin put his Beverly Hills house and studio up for sale in March, and surrendered his re-entry permit in April. The next year, his wife renounced her US citizenship and became a British citizen. Chaplin severed the last of his professional ties with the United States in 1955, when he sold the remainder of his stock in United Artists, which had been in financial difficulty since the early 1940s. \n\nChaplin remained a controversial figure throughout the 1950s, especially after he was awarded the International Peace Prize by the communist-led World Peace Council, and after his meetings with Zhou Enlai and Nikita Khrushchev. He began developing his first European film, A King in New York, in 1954. Casting himself as an exiled king who seeks asylum in the United States, Chaplin included several of his recent experiences in the screenplay. His son, Michael, was cast as a boy whose parents are targeted by the FBI, while Chaplin's character faces accusations of communism. The political satire parodied HUAC and attacked elements of 1950s culture – including consumerism, plastic surgery, and wide-screen cinema. In a review, the playwright John Osborne called it Chaplin's \"most bitter\" and \"most openly personal\" film.Robinson, pp. 587–589.\n\nChaplin founded a new production company, Attica, and used Shepperton Studios for the shooting. Filming in England proved a difficult experience, as he was used to his own Hollywood studio and familiar crew, and no longer had limitless production time. According to Robinson, this had an effect on the quality of the film. A King in New York was released in September 1957, and received mixed reviews. Chaplin banned American journalists from its Paris première, and decided not to release the film in the United States. This severely limited its revenue, although it achieved moderate commercial success in Europe. A King in New York was not shown in America until 1973. \n\nFinal works and renewed appreciation\n\nIn the last two decades of his career, Chaplin concentrated on re-editing and scoring his old films for re-release, along with securing their ownership and distribution rights.Maland (1989), p. 326. In an interview he granted in 1959, the year of his 70th birthday, Chaplin stated that there was still \"room for the Little Man in the atomic age\".Robinson, pp. 594–595. The first of these re-releases was The Chaplin Revue (1959), which included new versions of A Dog's Life, Shoulder Arms, and The Pilgrim.\n\nIn America, the political atmosphere began to change and attention was once again directed to Chaplin's films instead of his views. In July 1962, The New York Times published an editorial stating that \"we do not believe the Republic would be in danger if yesterday's unforgotten little tramp were allowed to amble down the gangplank of a steamer or plane in an American port\". The same month, Chaplin was invested with the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by the universities of Oxford and Durham. In November 1963, the Plaza Theater in New York started a year-long series of Chaplin's films, including Monsieur Verdoux and Limelight, which gained excellent reviews from American critics. September 1964 saw the release of Chaplin's memoirs, My Autobiography, which he had been working on since 1957. The 500-page book, which focused on his early years and personal life, became a worldwide best-seller, despite criticism over the lack of information on his film career. \n\nShortly after the publication of his memoirs, Chaplin began work on A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), a romantic comedy based on a script he had written for Paulette Goddard in the 1930s.Robinson, pp. 608–609. Set on an ocean liner, it starred Marlon Brando as an American ambassador and Sophia Loren as a stowaway found in his cabin. The film differed from Chaplin's earlier productions in several aspects. It was his first to use Technicolor and the widescreen format, while he concentrated on directing and appeared on-screen only in a cameo role as a seasick steward. He also signed a deal with Universal Pictures and appointed his assistant, Jerome Epstein, as the producer. Chaplin was paid $600,000 director's fee as well as a percentage of the gross receipts. A Countess from Hong Kong premiered in January 1967, to unfavourable reviews, and was a box-office failure.Epstein, pp. 192–196. Chaplin was deeply hurt by the negative reaction to the film, which turned out to be his last.\n\nChaplin suffered a series of minor strokes in the late 1960s, which marked the beginning of a slow decline in his health.Robinson, p. 619. Despite the setbacks, he was soon writing a new film script, The Freak, a story of a winged girl found in South America, which he intended as a starring vehicle for his daughter Victoria. His fragile health prevented the project from being realised. In the early 1970s, Chaplin concentrated on re-releasing his old films, including The Kid and The Circus. In 1971, he was made a Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honour at the Cannes Film Festival.Robinson, p. 621. The following year, he was honoured with a special award by the Venice Film Festival. \n\nIn 1972, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences offered Chaplin an Honorary Award, which Robinson sees as a sign that America \"wanted to make amends\". Chaplin was initially hesitant about accepting, but decided to return to the US for the first time in 20 years. The visit attracted a large amount of press coverage, and at the Academy Awards gala he was given a twelve-minute standing ovation, the longest in the Academy's history. Visibly emotional, Chaplin accepted his award for \"the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century\". \n\nAlthough Chaplin still had plans for future film projects, by the mid-1970s he was very frail. He experienced several further strokes, which made it difficult for him to communicate, and he had to use a wheelchair. His final projects were compiling a pictorial autobiography, My Life in Pictures (1974) and scoring A Woman of Paris for re-release in 1976.Robinson, pp. 626–628. He also appeared in a documentary about his life, The Gentleman Tramp (1975), directed by Richard Patterson. In the 1975 New Year Honours, Chaplin was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II, though he was too weak to kneel and received the honour in his wheelchair. \n\nDeath\n\nBy October 1977, Chaplin's health had declined to the point that he needed constant care.Robinson, p. 629. In the early morning of 25 December 1977, Chaplin died at home after suffering a stroke in his sleep. He was 88 years old. The funeral, on 27 December, was a small and private Anglican ceremony, according to his wishes. Chaplin was interred in the Corsier-sur-Vevey cemetery. Among the film industry's tributes, director René Clair wrote, \"He was a monument of the cinema, of all countries and all times ... the most beautiful gift the cinema made to us.\"Robinson, p. 631. Actor Bob Hope declared, \"We were lucky to have lived in his time.\"Robinson, p. 632.\n\nOn 1 March 1978, Chaplin's coffin was dug up and stolen from its grave by two unemployed immigrants, Roman Wardas, from Poland, and Gantcho Ganev, from Bulgaria. The body was held for ransom in an attempt to extort money from Oona Chaplin. The pair were caught in a large police operation in May, and Chaplin's coffin was found buried in a field in the nearby village of Noville. It was re-interred in the Corsier cemetery surrounded by reinforced concrete. \n\nFilmmaking\n\nInfluences\n\nChaplin believed his first influence to be his mother, who entertained him as a child by sitting at the window and mimicking passers-by: \"it was through watching her that I learned not only how to express emotions with my hands and face, but also how to observe and study people.\" Chaplin's early years in music hall allowed him to see stage comedians at work; he also attended the Christmas pantomimes at Drury Lane, where he studied the art of clowning through performers like Dan Leno. Chaplin's years with the Fred Karno company had a formative effect on him as an actor and filmmaker. Simon Louvish writes that the company was his \"training ground\", and it was here that Chaplin learnt to vary the pace of his comedy. The concept of mixing pathos with slapstick was learnt from Karno, who also used elements of absurdity that became familiar in Chaplin's gags. From the film industry, Chaplin drew upon the work of the French comedian Max Linder, whose films he greatly admired. In developing the Tramp costume and persona, he was likely inspired by the American vaudeville scene, where tramp characters were common. \n\nMethod\n\nChaplin never spoke more than cursorily about his filmmaking methods, claiming such a thing would be tantamount to a magician spoiling his own illusion. Little was known about his working process throughout his lifetime, but research from film historians – particularly the findings of Kevin Brownlow and David Gill that were presented in the three-part documentary Unknown Chaplin (1983) – has since revealed his unique working method. \n\nUntil he began making spoken dialogue films with The Great Dictator, Chaplin never shot from a completed script. Many of his early films began with only a vague premise – for example \"Charlie enters a health spa\" or \"Charlie works in a pawn shop.\" He then had sets constructed and worked with his stock company to improvise gags and \"business\" using them, almost always working the ideas out on film. As ideas were accepted and discarded, a narrative structure would emerge, frequently requiring Chaplin to reshoot an already-completed scene that might have otherwise contradicted the story. From A Woman of Paris onward Chaplin began the filming process with a prepared plot, but Robinson writes that every film up to Modern Times \"went through many metamorphoses and permutations before the story took its final form.\" \n\nProducing films in this manner meant Chaplin took longer to complete his pictures than almost any other filmmaker at the time. If he was out of ideas he often took a break from the shoot, which could last for days, while keeping the studio ready for when inspiration returned. Delaying the process further was Chaplin's rigorous perfectionism. According to his friend Ivor Montagu, \"nothing but perfection would be right\" for the filmmaker. Because he personally funded his films, Chaplin was at liberty to strive for this goal and shoot as many takes as he wished. The number was often excessive, for instance 53 takes for every finished take in The Kid. For The Immigrant, a 20 minute-short, Chaplin shot 40,000 feet of film – enough for a feature-length. \n\nDescribing his working method as \"sheer perseverance to the point of madness\", Chaplin would be completely consumed by the production of a picture. Robinson writes that even in Chaplin's later years, his work continued \"to take precedence over everything and everyone else.\" The combination of story improvisation and relentless perfectionism – which resulted in days of effort and thousands of feet of film being wasted, all at enormous expense – often proved taxing for Chaplin who, in frustration, would lash out at his actors and crew. \n\nChaplin exercised complete control over his pictures, to the extent that he would act out the other roles for his cast, expecting them to imitate him exactly. He personally edited all of his films, trawling through the large amounts of footage to create the exact picture he wanted. As a result of his complete independence, he was identified by the film historian Andrew Sarris as one of the first auteur filmmakers. Chaplin did receive help, notably from his long-time cinematographer Roland Totheroh, brother Sydney Chaplin, and various assistant directors such as Harry Crocker and Charles Reisner. \n\nStyle and themes\n\nWhile Chaplin's comedic style is broadly defined as slapstick, it is considered restrained and intelligent, with the film historian Philip Kemp describing his work as a mix of \"deft, balletic physical comedy and thoughtful, situation-based gags\". Chaplin diverged from conventional slapstick by slowing the pace and exhausting each scene of its comic potential, with more focus on developing the viewer's relationship to the characters. Unlike conventional slapstick comedies, Robinson states that the comic moments in Chaplin's films centre on the Tramp's attitude to the things happening to him: the humour does not come from the Tramp bumping into a tree, but from his lifting his hat to the tree in apology. Dan Kamin writes that Chaplin's \"quirky mannerisms\" and \"serious demeanour in the midst of slapstick action\" are other key aspects of his comedy, while the surreal transformation of objects and the employment of in-camera trickery are also common features. \n\nChaplin's silent films typically follow the Tramp's efforts to survive in a hostile world. The character lives in poverty and is frequently treated badly, but remains kind and upbeat; defying his social position, he strives to be seen as a gentleman. As Chaplin said in 1925, \"The whole point of the Little Fellow is that no matter how down on his ass he is, no matter how well the jackals succeed in tearing him apart, he's still a man of dignity.\" The Tramp defies authority figures and \"gives as good as he gets\", leading Robinson and Louvish to see him as a representative for the underprivileged – an \"everyman turned heroic saviour\". Hansmeyer notes that several of Chaplin's films end with \"the homeless and lonely Tramp [walking] optimistically ... into the sunset ... to continue his journey\". \n\nThe infusion of pathos is a well-known aspect of Chaplin's work, and Larcher notes his reputation for \"[inducing] laughter and tears\". Sentimentality in his films come from a variety of sources, with Louvish pinpointing \"personal failure, society's strictures, economic disaster, and the elements.\" Chaplin sometimes drew on tragic events when creating his films, as in the case of The Gold Rush (1925), which was inspired by the fate of the Donner Party. Constance B. Kuriyama has identified serious underlying themes in the early comedies, such as greed (The Gold Rush) and loss (The Kid). Chaplin also touched on controversial issues: immigration (The Immigrant, 1917); illegitimacy (The Kid, 1921); and drug use (Easy Street, 1917). He often explored these topics ironically, making comedy out of suffering. \n\nSocial commentary was a feature of Chaplin's films from early in his career, as he portrayed the underdog in a sympathetic light and highlighted the difficulties of the poor. Later, as he developed a keen interest in economics and felt obliged to publicise his views, Chaplin began incorporating overtly political messages into his films. Modern Times (1936) depicted factory workers in dismal conditions, The Great Dictator (1940) parodied Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and ended in a speech against nationalism, Monsieur Verdoux (1947) criticised war and capitalism, and A King in New York (1957) attacked McCarthyism. \n\nSeveral of Chaplin's films incorporate autobiographical elements, and the psychologist Sigmund Freud believed that Chaplin \"always plays only himself as he was in his dismal youth\". The Kid is thought to reflect Chaplin's childhood trauma of being sent into an orphanage, the main characters in Limelight (1952) contain elements from the lives of his parents, and A King in New York references Chaplin's experiences of being shunned by the United States. Many of his sets, especially in street scenes, bear a strong similarity to Kennington, where he grew up. Stephen M. Weissman has argued that Chaplin's problematic relationship with his mentally ill mother was often reflected in his female characters and the Tramp's desire to save them.\n\nRegarding the structure of Chaplin's films, the scholar Gerald Mast sees them as consisting of sketches tied together by the same theme and setting, rather than having a tightly unified storyline. Visually, his films are simple and economic, with scenes portrayed as if set on a stage. His approach to filming was described by the art director Eugène Lourié: \"Chaplin did not think in 'artistic' images when he was shooting. He believed that action is the main thing. The camera is there to photograph the actors\". In his autobiography, Chaplin wrote, \"Simplicity is best ... pompous effects slow up action, are boring and unpleasant ... The camera should not intrude.\" This approach has prompted criticism, since the 1940s, for being \"old fashioned\", while the film scholar Donald McCaffrey sees it as an indication that Chaplin never completely understood film as a medium. Kamin, however, comments that Chaplin's comedic talent would not be enough to remain funny on screen if he did not have an \"ability to conceive and direct scenes specifically for the film medium\". \n\nComposing\n\nChaplin developed a passion for music as a child, and taught himself to play the piano, violin, and cello. He considered the musical accompaniment of a film to be important, and from A Woman of Paris onwards he took an increasing interest in this area. With the advent of sound technology, Chaplin began using a synchronised orchestral soundtrack – composed by himself – for City Lights (1931). He thereafter composed the scores for all of his films, and from the late 1950s to his death, he scored all of his silent features and some of his short films. \n\nAs Chaplin was not a trained musician, he could not read sheet music and needed the help of professional composers, such as David Raksin, Raymond Rasch and Eric James, when creating his scores. Although some critics have claimed that credit for his film music should be given to the composers who worked with him, Raksin – who worked with Chaplin on Modern Times – stressed Chaplin's creative position and active participation in the composing process. This process, which could take months, would start with Chaplin describing to the composer(s) exactly what he wanted and singing or playing tunes he had improvised on the piano. These tunes were then developed further in a close collaboration among the composer(s) and Chaplin. According to film historian Jeffrey Vance, \"although he relied upon associates to arrange varied and complex instrumentation, the musical imperative is his, and not a note in a Chaplin musical score was placed there without his assent.\" \n\nChaplin's compositions produced three popular songs. \"Smile\", composed originally for Modern Times (1936) and later set to lyrics by John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons, was a hit for Nat King Cole in 1954. For Limelight, Chaplin composed \"Terry's Theme\", which was popularised by Jimmy Young as \"Eternally\" (1952). Finally, \"This Is My Song\", performed by Petula Clark for A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), reached number one on the UK and other European charts. Chaplin also received his only competitive Oscar for his composition work, as the Limelight theme won an Academy Award for Best Original Score in 1973 following the film's re-release.\n\nLegacy\n\nIn 1998, the film critic Andrew Sarris called Chaplin \"arguably the single most important artist produced by the cinema, certainly its most extraordinary performer and probably still its most universal icon\". He is described by the British Film Institute as \"a towering figure in world culture\", and was included in Time magazine's list of the \"100 Most Important People of the 20th Century\" for the \"laughter [he brought] to millions\" and because he \"more or less invented global recognizability and helped turn an industry into an art\". \n\nThe image of the Tramp has become a part of cultural history; according to Simon Louvish, the character is recognisable to people who have never seen a Chaplin film, and in places where his films are never shown. The critic Leonard Maltin has written of the \"unique\" and \"indelible\" nature of the Tramp, and argued that no other comedian matched his \"worldwide impact\". Praising the character, Richard Schickel suggests that Chaplin's films with the Tramp contain the most \"eloquent, richly comedic expressions of the human spirit\" in movie history. Memorabilia connected to the character still fetches large sums in auctions: in 2006 a bowler hat and a bamboo cane that were part of the Tramp's costume were bought for $140,000 in a Los Angeles auction. \n\nAs a filmmaker, Chaplin is considered a pioneer and one of the most influential figures of the early twentieth century. He is often credited as one of the medium's first artists. Film historian Mark Cousins has written that Chaplin \"changed not only the imagery of cinema, but also its sociology and grammar\" and claims that Chaplin was as important to the development of comedy as a genre as D.W. Griffith was to drama. He was the first to popularise feature-length comedy and to slow down the pace of action, adding pathos and subtlety to it. Although his work is mostly classified as slapstick, Chaplin's drama A Woman of Paris (1923) was a major influence on Ernst Lubitsch's film The Marriage Circle (1924) and thus played a part in the development of \"sophisticated comedy\". According to David Robinson, Chaplin's innovations were \"rapidly assimilated to become part of the common practice of film craft.\" Filmmakers who cited Chaplin as an influence include Federico Fellini (who called Chaplin \"a sort of Adam, from whom we are all descended\"), Jacques Tati (\"Without him I would never have made a film\"), René Clair (\"He inspired practically every filmmaker\"), Michael Powell, Billy Wilder, Vittorio De Sica, and Richard Attenborough. Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky praised Chaplin as \"the only person to have gone down into cinematic history without any shadow of a doubt. The films he left behind can never grow old.\" \n\nChaplin also strongly influenced the work of later comedians. Marcel Marceau said he was inspired to become a mime artist after watching Chaplin, while the actor Raj Kapoor based his screen persona on the Tramp. Mark Cousins has also detected Chaplin's comedic style in the French character Monsieur Hulot and the Italian character Totò. In other fields, Chaplin helped inspire the cartoon characters Felix the Cat and Mickey Mouse, and was an influence on the Dada art movement. As one of the founding members of United Artists, Chaplin also had a role in the development of the film industry. Gerald Mast has written that although UA never became a major company like MGM or Paramount Pictures, the idea that directors could produce their own films was \"years ahead of its time\". \n\nIn the 21st century, several of Chaplin's films are still regarded as classics and among the greatest ever made. The 2012 Sight & Sound poll, which compiles \"top ten\" ballots from film critics and directors to determine each group's most acclaimed films,\nsaw City Lights rank among the critics' top 50, Modern Times inside the top 100, and The Great Dictator and The Gold Rush placed in the top 250. The top 100 films as voted on by directors included Modern Times at number 22, City Lights at number 30, and The Gold Rush at number 91. Every one of Chaplin's features received a vote. In 2007, the American Film Institute named City Lights the 11th greatest American film of all time, while The Gold Rush and Modern Times again ranked in the top 100. Books about Chaplin continue to be published regularly, and he is a popular subject for media scholars and film archivists. Many of Chaplin's film have had a DVD and Blu-Ray release. \n\nCommemoration and tributes\n\nSeveral memorials have been dedicated to Chaplin. In his home city, London, a statue of Chaplin as the Tramp, sculpted by John Doubleday and unveiled in 1981, is located in Leicester Square.Robinson, p. 677. The city also includes a road named after him in central London, \"Charlie Chaplin Walk\", which is the location of the BFI IMAX. The former Museum of the Moving Image held a permanent display on Chaplin, and hosted a dedicated exhibition to his life and career in 1988. The London Film Museum hosted an exhibition called Charlie Chaplin – The Great Londoner, from 2010 until 2013. \n\nChaplin's final home, Manoir de Ban in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland, was converted into a museum and opened on 17 April 2016, exploring his life and career. The nearby town of Vevey named a park in his honour in 1980 and erected a statue there in 1982. In 2011, two large murals depicting Chaplin on two 14-storey buildings were also unveiled in Vevey. Chaplin has also been honoured by the Irish town of Waterville, where he spent several summers with his family in the 1960s. A statue was erected in 1998, and since 2011 the town has been host to the annual Charlie Chaplin Comedy Film Festival, which was founded to celebrate Chaplin's legacy and to showcase new comic talent. \n\nIn other tributes, a minor planet, 3623 Chaplin – discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina in 1981 – is named after Chaplin. Throughout the 1980s, the Tramp image was used by IBM to advertise their personal computers. Chaplin's 100th birthday anniversary in 1989 was marked with several events around the world, and on 15 April 2011, a day before his 122nd birthday, Google celebrated him with a special Google Doodle video on its global and other country-wide homepages. Many countries, spanning six continents, have honoured Chaplin with a postal stamp. \n\nChaplin's legacy is managed on behalf of his children by the Chaplin office, located in Paris. The office represents Association Chaplin, founded by some of his children \"to protect the name, image and moral rights\" to his body of work, Roy Export SAS, which owns the copyright to most of his films made after 1918, and Bubbles Incorporated S.A., which owns the copyrights to his image and name. Their central archive is held at the archives of Montreux, Switzerland and scanned versions of its contents, including 83,630 images, 118 scripts, 976 manuscripts, 7,756 letters, and thousands of other documents, are available for research purposes at the Chaplin Research Centre at the Cineteca di Bologna. The photographic archive, which includes approximately 10,000 photographs from Chaplin's life and career, is kept at the Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland. The British Film Institute has also established the Charles Chaplin Research Foundation, and the first international Charles Chaplin Conference was held in London in July 2005. \n\nCharacterisations\n\nChaplin is the subject of a biographical film, Chaplin (1992) directed by Richard Attenborough, and starring Robert Downey, Jr. in the title role. He is also a character in the period drama film The Cat's Meow (2001), played by Eddie Izzard, and in the made-for-television movie The Scarlett O'Hara War (1980), played by Clive Revill. A television series about Chaplin's childhood, Young Charlie Chaplin, ran on PBS in 1989, and was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program. \n\nChaplin's life has also been the subject of several stage productions. Two musicals, Little Tramp and Chaplin, were produced in the early 1990s. In 2006, Thomas Meehan and Christopher Curtis created another musical, Limelight: The Story of Charlie Chaplin, which was first performed at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in 2010. It was adapted for Broadway two years later, re-titled Chaplin – A Musical. Chaplin was portrayed by Robert McClure in both productions. In 2013, two plays about Chaplin premiered in Finland: Chaplin at the Svenska Teatern, and Kulkuri (The Tramp) at the Tampere Workers' Theatre. Chaplin has also been characterised in literary fiction, as the central character in Glen David Gold's Sunnyside (2009), a novel set in the First World War period. \n\nAwards and recognition\n\nChaplin received many awards and honours, especially later in life. In the 1975 New Year Honours, he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. He was also awarded honorary Doctor of Letters degrees by the University of Oxford and the University of Durham in 1962. In 1965 he and Ingmar Bergman were joint winners of the Erasmus Prize and in 1971 he was appointed a Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honour by the French government. \n\nFrom the film industry, Chaplin received a special Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1972, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Lincoln Center Film Society the same year. The latter has since been presented annually to filmmakers as The Chaplin Award. Chaplin was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1972, having been previously excluded because of his political beliefs. \n\nChaplin received three Academy Awards: an Honorary Award for \"versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing, and producing The Circus\" in 1929, a second Honorary Award for \"the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century\" in 1972, and a Best Score award in 1973 for Limelight (shared with Ray Rasch and Larry Russell). He was further nominated in the Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture (as producer) categories for The Great Dictator, and received another Best Original Screenplay nomination for Monsieur Verdoux. \n\nSix of Chaplin's films have been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress: The Immigrant (1917), The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), and The Great Dictator (1940). \n\nFilmography\n\nDirected features:\n* The Kid (1921)\n* A Woman of Paris (1923)\n* The Gold Rush (1925)\n* The Circus (1928)\n* City Lights (1931)\n* Modern Times (1936)\n* The Great Dictator (1940)\n* Monsieur Verdoux (1947)\n* Limelight (1952)\n* A King in New York (1957)\n* A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)\n\nNotes", "Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough, CBE (; 29 August 1923 - 24 August 2014) was an English actor, film director, film producer, entrepreneur, and politician. He was the President of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA).\n\nAs a film director and producer, Attenborough won two Academy Awards for Gandhi in 1983. He also won four BAFTA Awards and four Golden Globe Awards. As an actor, he is perhaps best known for his roles in Brighton Rock, The Great Escape, 10 Rillington Place, Miracle on 34th Street (1994), and Jurassic Park. \n\nHe was the older brother of David Attenborough, a naturalist and broadcaster, and John Attenborough, an executive at Alfa Romeo. He was married to actress Sheila Sim from 1945 until his death.\n\nEarly life\n\nAttenborough was born on 29 August 1923 in Cambridge, the eldest of three sons of Mary Attenborough (née Clegg), a founding member of the Marriage Guidance Council, and Frederick Levi Attenborough, a scholar and academic administrator who was a fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and wrote a standard text on Anglo-Saxon law. Attenborough was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester and studied at RADA.\n\nIn September 1939, through the British charitable programme known as Kindertransport, the Attenboroughs took in two German Jewish refugee girls, Helga and Irene Bejach (aged 9 and 11 respectively), who lived with them in College House and were adopted by the family after the war when it was discovered that their parents had been killed. The sisters moved to the United States in the 1950s and lived with an uncle, where they married and took American citizenship; Irene died in 1992 and Helga in 2005. \n\nDuring the Second World War, Attenborough served in the Royal Air Force. After initial pilot training he was seconded to the newly formed R.A.F. Film Unit at Pinewood Studios, under the command of Flight Lieutenant John Boulting (whose brother Peter Cotes would later direct Attenborough in the play The Mousetrap) where he appeared with Edward G. Robinson in the propaganda film Journey Together (1943). He then volunteered to fly with the Film Unit and after further training, where he sustained permanent ear damage, qualified as a sergeant, flying on several missions over Europe filming from the rear gunner's position to record the outcome of Bomber Command sorties. \n\nActing career\n\nAttenborough's acting career started on stage and he appeared in shows at Leicester's Little Theatre, Dover Street, prior to his going to RADA, where he remained Patron until his death. Attenborough's film career began in 1942 in an uncredited role as a sailor deserting his post under fire in the Noël Coward/David Lean production In Which We Serve (his name and character were accidentally omitted from the original release-print credits), a role which would help to type-cast him for many years as a spiv or coward in films like London Belongs to Me (1948), Morning Departure (1950) and his breakthrough role as Pinkie Brown in John Boulting's film adaptation of Graham Greene's novel Brighton Rock (1947), a part that he had previously played to great acclaim at the Garrick Theatre in 1942.\n\nIn 1949, exhibitors voted him the sixth most popular British actor at the box office. \n\nEarly in his stage career, Attenborough starred in the West End production of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, which went on to become the world's longest running stage production. Both he and his wife were among the original cast members of the production, which opened in 1952 at the Ambassadors Theatre and as of 2014 is still running at the St Martins Theatre. They took a 10 percent profit-participation in the production, which was paid for out of their combined weekly salary (\"It proved to be the wisest business decision I've ever made... but foolishly I sold some of my share to open a short-lived Mayfair restaurant called 'The Little Elephant' and later still, disposed of the remainder in order to keep Gandhi afloat.\") \n\nAttenborough worked prolifically in British films for the next 30 years, including in the 1950s, appearing in several successful comedies for John and Roy Boulting, such as Private's Progress (1956) and I'm All Right Jack (1959).\n\nIn 1963, he appeared alongside Steve McQueen and James Garner in The Great Escape as RAF Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett (\"Big X\"), the head of the escape committee, based on the real-life exploits of Roger Bushell. It was his first appearance in a major Hollywood film blockbuster and his most successful film thus far. During the 1960s, he expanded his range of character roles in films such as Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) and Guns at Batasi (1964), for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM). In 1965 he played Lew Moran opposite James Stewart in The Flight of the Phoenix and in 1967 and 1968, he won back-to-back Golden Globe Awards in the category of Best Supporting Actor, the first time for The Sand Pebbles, again co-starring Steve McQueen, and the second time for Doctor Dolittle starring Rex Harrison.\n\nHis portrayal of the serial killer John Christie in 10 Rillington Place (1971) garnered excellent reviews. In 1977, he played the ruthless General Outram, again to great acclaim, in the Indian director Satyajit Ray's period piece The Chess Players.\n\nHe took no acting roles following his appearance in Otto Preminger's version of The Human Factor (1979) until his appearance as John Hammond in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993) and the film's sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997). He starred in the remake of Miracle on 34th Street (1994) as Kris Kringle. Later he made occasional appearances in supporting roles, including as Sir William Cecil in the historical drama Elizabeth (1998), Jacob in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and as \"The Narrator\" in the film adaptation of Spike Milligan's comedy book Puckoon (2002). \n\nHe made his only appearance in a film adaptation of Shakespeare when he played the English ambassador who announces that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead at the end of Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996).\n\nProducer and director\n\nIn the late 1950s, Attenborough formed a production company, Beaver Films, with Bryan Forbes and began to build a profile as a producer on projects including The League of Gentlemen (1959), The Angry Silence (1960) and Whistle Down the Wind (1961), appearing in the cast of the first two films.\n\nHis feature film directorial debut was the all-star screen version of the hit musical Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), after which his acting appearances became sporadic as he concentrated more on directing and producing. He later directed two epic period films: Young Winston (1972), based on the early life of Winston Churchill, and A Bridge Too Far (1977), an all-star account of Operation Market Garden in World War II.\n\nHe won the 1982 Academy Award for Best Director and as the film's producer, the Academy Award for Best Picture for his historical epic Gandhi and another two Golden Globes, this time for Best Director and Best Foreign Film, for the same film in 1983, a project he had been attempting to get made for 18 years. He directed the screen version of the musical A Chorus Line (1985) and the anti-apartheid drama Cry Freedom (1987). He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Director for both films. \n\nHis later films as director and producer include Chaplin (1992) starring Robert Downey, Jr., as Charlie Chaplin and Shadowlands (1993), based on the relationship between C. S. Lewis and Joy Gresham (the star of the latter was Anthony Hopkins, who had appeared in four previous films for Attenborough: Young Winston, A Bridge Too Far, Magic and Chaplin).\n\nBetween 2006 and 2007, he spent time in Belfast, working on his last film as director and producer, Closing the Ring, a love story set in Belfast during the Second World War and starring Shirley MacLaine, Christopher Plummer and Pete Postlethwaite. \n\nLater projects\n\nAfter 33 years of dedicated service as President of the Muscular Dystrophy campaign, Attenborough became the charity's Honorary Life President in 2004. In 2012, the charity, which leads the fight against muscle-wasting conditions in the UK, established the Richard Attenborough Fellowship Fund to honour his lifelong commitment to the charity, and to ensure the future of clinical research and training at leading UK neuromuscular centres. \n\nAttenborough was also the patron of the United World Colleges movement, whereby he contributed to the colleges that are part of the organisation. He was a frequent visitor to the Waterford Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa (UWCSA). With his wife, they founded the Richard and Sheila Attenborough Visual Arts Centre. He founded the Jane Holland Creative Centre for Learning at Waterford Kamhlaba in Swaziland in memory of his daughter who died in the tsunami on 26 December 2004.\n\nHe was a longtime advocate of education that does not judge upon colour, race, creed or religion. His attachment to Waterford was his passion for non-racial education, which were the grounds on which Waterford Kamhlaba was founded. Waterford was one of his inspirations for directing the film Cry Freedom, based on the life of Steve Biko. \n\nHe was elected to the post of Chancellor of the University of Sussex on 20 March 1998, replacing The Duke of Richmond and Gordon. He stood down as Chancellor of the university following graduation in July 2008. There now hangs a 42 inch by 46 inch portrait of him in the university's library. \n\nA lifelong supporter of Chelsea Football Club, Attenborough served as a director of the club from 1969–1982 and between 1993 and 2008 held the honorary position of Life Vice President. On 30 November 2008 he was honoured with the title of Life President at the club's stadium, Stamford Bridge. He was also head of the consortium Dragon International Film Studios, which was constructing a film and television studio complex in Llanilid, Wales, nicknamed \"Valleywood\". In March 2008, the project was placed into administration with debts of £15 million and the site is believed to be being considered for breaking-up with a sale of the assets. \n\nHe had a lifelong ambition to make a film about his hero the political theorist and revolutionary Thomas Paine, whom he called \"one of the finest men that ever lived\". He said in an interview in 2006 that \"I could understand him. He wrote in simple English. I found all his aspirations – the rights of women, the health service, universal education... Everything you can think of that we want is in Rights of Man or The Age of Reason or Common Sense.\" He could not secure the funding to do so. The website \"A Gift for Dickie\" was launched by two filmmakers from Luton in June 2008 with the aim of raising £40m in 400 days to help him make the film, but the target was not met and the money that had been raised was refunded. \n\nPersonal life\n\nAttenborough's father was the principal of University College, Leicester, now the city's university. This resulted in a long association with the university, with Attenborough becoming a patron. The university's Embrace Arts at the RA centre, which opened in 1997 is named in his honour. He had two younger brothers: naturalist and broadcaster David; and John (died 2012), who had made a career in the motor trade.\n\nAttenborough married actress Sheila Sim in 1945. From 1949 until October 2012 they lived in Beaver Lodge on Richmond Green in London. Owing to the couple's deteriorating health, the house was sold in October 2012 for £11.5 million.\n\nIn the 1940s, he was asked to 'improve his physical condition' for his role as Pinkie in Brighton Rock. He was asked to train with Chelsea Football Club for a fortnight, subsequently becoming good friends with those at the club. He went on to become a director during the 1970s, helping to prevent the club losing its home ground by holding onto his club shares. In 2008, Attenborough was appointed Life President of Chelsea Football Club. \n\nOn 26 December 2004, the couple's elder daughter, 49-year-old Mrs Jane Holland, along with her mother-in-law, and Attenborough's 15-year-old granddaughter, Lucy, were killed when a tsunami caused by the Indian Ocean earthquake struck Khao Lak, Thailand, where they were on holiday. \n\nA service was held on 8 March 2005 and Attenborough read a lesson at the national memorial service on 11 May 2005. His grandson Samuel Holland, an actor in his own right, who survived the tsunami uninjured, and granddaughter Alice Holland, who suffered severe leg injuries, also read in the service. A commemorative plaque was placed in the floor of St Mary Magdalen's parish church in Richmond. Attenborough later described the Boxing Day of 2004 as \"the worst day of my life\". Attenborough had two other children, Michael and Charlotte. Michael is a theatre director and the former artistic director of the Almeida Theatre in London and has been married to actress Karen Lewis since 1984; they have two sons. Charlotte is an actress, and has three children.\n\nHe publicly endorsed the Labour Party in the 2005 General Election, despite his opposition to the Iraq War. \n\nAttenborough collected Picasso ceramics from the 1950s. More than 100 items went on display at the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery in Leicester in 2007, in an exhibition dedicated to family members lost in the tsunami. \n\nIn 2008 he published an informal autobiography entitled Entirely Up to You, Darling in association with his long-standing friend and colleague Diana Hawkins.\n\nIllness and death\n\nIn August 2008, Attenborough entered hospital with heart problems and was fitted with a pacemaker. In December 2008, he suffered a fall at his home after a stroke, and was admitted to St George's Hospital in Tooting, southwest London.\n\nIn November 2009 Attenborough, in what he called a \"house clearance\" sale, sold part of his extensive art collection, which included works by L. S. Lowry, Christopher R. W. Nevinson and Graham Sutherland, generating £4.6 million at Sotheby's. \n\nIn January 2011, he sold his Rhubodach estate on the Scottish Isle of Bute for £1.48 million. \n\nIn May 2011, David Attenborough revealed that his brother had been confined to a wheelchair since his stroke in 2008, but was still capable of holding a conversation. He added that \"he won't be making any more films.\"\n\nIn June 2012, shortly before her 90th birthday, Sheila Sim entered the actors' home Denville Hall, for which she and Attenborough had helped raise funds. In July 2012 it was announced that Sim had been diagnosed with senile dementia. \n\nIn October 2012, it was announced that Attenborough was putting the family home, Old Friars, with its attached offices, Beaver Lodge, which come complete with a sound-proofed cinema in the garden, on the market for £11.5 million. His brother David stated: \"He and his wife both loved the house, but they now need full-time care\". It simply isn't practical to keep the house on any more.\" \n\nIn March 2013, in light of his deteriorating health, Attenborough moved into a nursing home in London to be with his wife, as confirmed by their son Michael.\n\nAttenborough died on 24 August 2014, five days before his 91st birthday. He was survived by his wife of 69 years, their two children, six grandchildren and a great-grandchild. \n\nHonours\n\nAttenborough was the subject of This Is Your Life in December 1962 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the Savoy Hotel, during a dinner held to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Agatha Christie play The Mousetrap, in which he had been an original cast member.\n\nIn the 1967 Birthday Honours, he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). He was made a Knight Bachelor in the 1976 New Year Honours, having the honour conferred on 10 February 1976 and on 30 July 1993 he was created a life peer as Baron Attenborough, of Richmond upon Thames in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. \n\nAlthough the appointment by John Major was 'non-political' (it was granted for services to the cinema) and he could have been a crossbencher, Attenborough chose to take the Labour whip and so sat on the Labour benches. In 1992 he had been offered a peerage by Neil Kinnock, then leader of the Labour Party, but refused it as he felt unable to commit himself to the time necessary \"to do what was required of him in the Upper Chamber, as he always put film-making first\". \n\nIn 1983, Attenborough was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian award, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Nonviolence Peace Prize by the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. \n\nIn 1992 he was awarded the Shakespeare Prize for his life's work by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation in Hamburg.\n\nIn 1993, Attenborough was appointed a Fellow of King's College London. \n\nOn 13 July 2006, Attenborough, along with his brother David, were awarded the titles of Distinguished Honorary Fellows of the University of Leicester \"in recognition of a record of continuing distinguished service to the university\". \n\nOn 20 November 2008, Attenborough was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Drama from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) in Glasgow. \n\nAttenborough was an Honorary Fellow of Bangor University for his contributions to film making. \n\nPinewood Studios paid tribute to his body of work by naming a purpose-built film and television stage after him. The Richard Attenborough Stage has an area of 30,000 sq ft. In his absence because of illness, Lord Puttnam and Pinewood Chairman Lord Grade officially unveiled the stage on 23 April 2012. \n\nCorporate appointments\n\n* Actors Charitable Trust. Chairman 1956–88, President 1988–2014\n* Equity. Council Member 1949–73\n* Royal Theatrical Fund Board of Directors. Vice President 1985–2014\n* Muscular Dystrophy Campaign. Vice President 1962–71, President 1971–2004, Life President 2004–2014\n* Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund. Council Member 1962–2003, Vice Patron 2003–2014\n* King George V Fund for Actors. Committee Member 1962–73, Trustee 1973–2014\n* Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Member of Council 1963–73, Chairman 1973–2003, President 2003–2014\n* Combined Theatrical Charities Appeals Council. Chairman 1964–88, President 1988–2014\n* Royal Society of Arts. Life Fellow 1965\n* Chelsea Football Club. Vice President 1966, Director 1969–82, Life Vice President 1993–2008, Life President 2008–2014\n* Cinematograph Films Council Member 1967–73\n* Gardner Centre for the Arts, University of Sussex. Patron 1969–90, President 1990–2014\n* National Film and Television School. Governor 1970–81, President 1977–2014\n* University of Sussex. Pro Chancellor 1970–98, Chancellor 1998–2008\n* BAFTA. Vice President 1971–94, Chairman of David Lean BAFTA Foundation Trustees 1972–2002, President 2002–2014\n* Capital Radio. Chairman 1972–92, Life President 1992–2014\n* The Little Theatre, Leicester. Patron 1973–92, Honorary Life President 1992–2014\n* The Young Vic Theatre Company. Director 1974–84\n* \"Help a London Child\". Founder & Life Patron 1998–2014\n* Tate Gallery. Trustee 1976–82 & 1994–96\n* Waterford Kamhlaba School, Swaziland. Chairman UK Trustees 1976–2004, Member Governing Council 1987–, President 2004–2014\n* Duke of York's Theatre. Chairman 1979–92\n* Channel Four Television Corporation. Deputy Chairman 1980–86, Chairman 1986–92\n* Board of Governors of the British Film Institute. Chairman 1981–92\n* Goldcrest Films & Television. Chairman 1982–87\n* Kingsley Hall Community Centre. (Mahatma Gandhi lodged there in 1931) Patron 1982–2014\n* Committee of Enquiry into the Arts and Disabled People: Reporting on access and inclusion. Chairman 1983–85\n* The Gandhi Foundation. President 1983–2014\n* Brighton Festival. President 1984–85\n* British Film Year. President 1984–86\n* British Screen Advisory Council. Chairman 1987–96, Honorary President 1996–2014\n* UNICEF. Goodwill Ambassador 1987–2014\n* European Script Fund. Chairman 1988–96, Honorary President 1996–2014\n* Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, London. Patron (with Lady Attenborough) 1988–2014\n* Arts For Health. President 1989–2014\n* European Film Academy. Co-founder (with Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini and Claude Chabrol) 1989\n* Richard Attenborough Centre for Disability and the Arts, University of Leicester. Patron 1990–2014\n* Foundation for Sport and the Arts. Trustee 1991–2003, President 2003–2014\n* Chicken Shed Theatre Company. Honorary Patron 1992–2014\n* One World Action. Patron 1992–2014\n* Satyajit Ray Foundation. Patron 1995–2014\n* Oxford University, Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre. 1996\n* Sussex Centre for German-Jewish Studies. Patron 1996–2014\n* United World Colleges. Member of the International Board 1996–2000, International Patron 2000–2014\n* Amnesty International. Patron 1997–2014\n* Mousetrap Theatre Projects. Trustee 1997–2014\n* The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. Trustee 1998\n* UK Film Council. Government Advisor 1999–2014\n* Sir John Gielgud Charitable Trust. Trustee 2001–2014\n* Themba HIV/AIDS Project in South Africa. Patron 2002–2014\n* Unicorn Theatre. Patron 2002–2014\n* Mandela Statue Fund. Chairman 2003–2007\n* St Edward's Oxford North Wall Arts Centre. Patron and Steering Committee Member 2005–2014\n* CLIC Sargent. Ambassador 2006–2014\n* Greater London Fund for the Blind. Vice President 2006–2014\n* The Richard Attenborough Regional Film Critics Award. Patron 2007–2014 \n\nAttenborough also headed a committee awarding the eponymous Attenborough Prize, a £2,000 annual arts prize celebrating creativity by emerging artists.\n\nFilmography\n\nPortrayals\n\nIn early 1973, he was portrayed as \"Dickie Attenborough\" in the British Showbiz Awards sketch late in the third series of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Attenborough is portrayed by Eric Idle as effusive and simpering.\n\nIn 2012 Attenborough was portrayed by Simon Callow in the BBC Four biopic The Best Possible Taste about Kenny Everett.\n\nStyles\n\n* Richard Attenborough, Esq. (1923–1967)\n* Richard Attenborough, CBE (1967–1976)\n* Sir Richard Attenborough, CBE (1976–1993)\n* The Rt Hon. The Lord Attenborough, CBE (1993–2014)", "The year 1992 in film involved many significant films. (For more about films in foreign languages, check sources in those languages.)\n\nHighest-grossing films\n\nThe top ten films released in 1992 by worldwide gross are as follows:\n\nAwards\n\n1992 Wide-release films\n\nJanuary–March\n\nApril–June\n\nJuly–September\n\nOctober–December\n\nNotable films released in 1992\n\nU.S.A. unless stated\n\n#\n1492: Conquest of Paradise, directed by Ridley Scott, starring Gérard Depardieu, Sigourney Weaver, Armand Assante, Loren Dean - (Spain/U.K./France)\n1991: The Year Punk Broke\n588 rue paradis, Directed by Henri Verneuil, starring Richard Berry and Omar Sharif - (France)\n\nA-D\n\nA\nAgantuk (The Stranger), directed by Satyajit Ray - (India) - winner of FIPRESCI Award at Venice Film Festival\nAl-Lail (The Night) - (Syria)\nAladdin, directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios\nAlien 3, directed by David Fincher, starring Sigourney Weaver, Charles S. Dutton, Charles Dance, Pete Postlethwaite\nAll's Well, Ends Well (Ga Yau Hei Si), starring Maggie Cheung and Leslie Cheung - (Hong Kong)\nAmerican Me, directed by and starring Edward James Olmos, with William Forsythe\nAngaar (Fire), starring Jackie Shroff and Dimple Kapadia - (India)\nArmy of Darkness\nArticle 99, directed by Howard Deutch, starring Ray Liotta, Kiefer Sutherland, Forest Whitaker, Lea Thompson\nB\nThe Babe, directed by Arthur Hiller, starring John Goodman (as Babe Ruth), with Kelly McGillis, Trini Alvarado, Bruce Boxleitner, James Cromwell\nBad Lieutenant, directed by Abel Ferrara, starring Harvey Keitel\nBaduk - (Iran)\nBasic Instinct, directed by Paul Verhoeven, starring Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone, Jeanne Tripplehorn, George Dzundza\nBatman Returns, directed by Tim Burton, starring Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer\nBébé's Kids\nBeethoven, directed by Brian Levant, starring Charles Grodin and Bonnie Hunt\nBeing at Home with Claude - (Canada)\nBelle Époque (The Age of Beauty) - (Spain) - Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (for 1993)\nBenny's Video, directed by Michael Haneke - (Austria)\nThe Best Intentions (Den goda viljan), directed by Bille August - (Sweden) - winner of Palme d'Or\nBharatham, starring Mohanlal - (India)\nBitter Moon, directed by Roman Polanski, starring Hugh Grant and Kristin Scott Thomas - (U.K./France)\nBlame It on the Bellboy, starring Dudley Moore, Bryan Brown, Richard Griffiths, Patsy Kensit, Bronson Pinchot\nBlue Ice, starring Michael Caine and Sean Young\nBob Roberts, directed by and starring Tim Robbins, with Giancarlo Esposito, Brian Murray, Alan Rickman, Ray Wise, Gore Vidal\nThe Bodyguard, directed by Mick Jackson, starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston\nBoomerang, directed by Reginald Hudlin, starring Eddie Murphy, David Alan Grier, Halle Berry, Martin Lawrence, Robin Givens\nBraindead, directed by Peter Jackson - (New Zealand)\nBram Stoker's Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu Reeves\nThe Bridge, starring Saskia Reeves and David O'Hara - (U.K.)\nBuffy The Vampire Slayer, directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui, starring Kristy Swanson, Luke Perry, Donald Sutherland, Rutger Hauer, Paul Reubens\nC\nCandyman, starring Virginia Madsen and Tony Todd\nCaptain Ron, starring Kurt Russell and Martin Short\nCareful - (Canada)\nCéline, directed by Jean-Claude Brisseau - (France)\nCentre Stage (yun ling yuk), directed by Stanley Kwan, starring Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Ka-fai - (Hong Kong)\nChain of Desire, starring Linda Fiorentino, Malcolm McDowell, Holly Marie Combs\nChaplin, directed by Richard Attenborough, starring Robert Downey, Jr., Anthony Hopkins, Kevin Kline, Marisa Tomei, Diane Lane, Dan Aykroyd - (U.K./U.S.A.)\nThe Chekist - (Russia)\nChristopher Columbus: The Discovery, directed by John Glen, starring Georges Corraface, Rachel Ward, Tom Selleck, Marlon Brando\nChunuk Bair - (New Zealand)\nCiao, Professore! (Let's Hope I Make It), directed by Lina Wertmüller - (Italy)\nCity of Joy, starring Patrick Swayze - (U.K./France)\nClass Act\nUn coeur en hiver (A Heart in Winter), starring Daniel Auteuil and Emmanuelle Béart - (France)\nThe Comrades of Summer, starring Joe Mantegna\nConsenting Adults, directed by Alan J. Pakula, starring Kevin Kline, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Kevin Spacey, Rebecca Miller, Forest Whitaker\nCool World, starring Kim Basinger, Gabriel Byrne, Brad Pitt\nCrissCross, directed by Chris Menges, starring Goldie Hawn and Arliss Howard\nCrossing the Bridge, starring Josh Charles and Jason Gedrick\nThe Crying Game, directed by Neil Jordan, starring Stephen Rea, Jaye Davidson, Miranda Richardson, Forest Whitaker - (U.K.)\nCrystal Nights (Krystallines nyhtes) - (Greece)\nThe Cutting Edge, directed by Paul Michael Glaser, starring D. B. Sweeney and Moira Kelly\nD\nDaens - (Belgium/Netherlands/France)\nDamage, directed by Louis Malle, starring Jeremy Irons, Juliette Binoche, Miranda Richardson - (U.K.)\nDay of Atonement, starring Roger Hanin, Christopher Walken, Jennifer Beals\nDeath Becomes Her, directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring Meryl Streep, Bruce Willis, Goldie Hawn\nDeep Cover, directed by Bill Duke, starring Laurence Fishburne, Jeff Goldblum, Clarence Williams III, Charles Martin Smith\nDiggstown, directed by Michael Ritchie, starring James Woods, Louis Gossett, Jr., Oliver Platt, Bruce Dern, Heather Graham\nThe Distinguished Gentleman, starring Eddie Murphy\nDream of Light (El Sol del Membrillo) - (Spain)\nDust of Angels (Siàu-liān-ê Àn-la!) - (Taiwan)\n\nE-K\n\nE\nEl Mariachi, directed by Robert Rodriguez - (Mexico/U.S.A.)\nEnchanted April, directed by Mike Newell, starring Miranda Richardson, Joan Plowright, Josie Lawrence, Polly Walker - (U.K.)\nEncino Man, starring Sean Astin, Brendan Fraser, Pauly Shore\nEncore, Once More Encore! (Ankor, eshchyo ankor!) - (Russia)\nThe End of the World (O Fim do Mundo) - (Portugal)\nEquinox, directed by Alan Rudolph, starring Matthew Modine, Kevin J. O'Connor, Lara Flynn Boyle, Tyra Ferrell, Lori Singer, Fred Ward\nF\nFalling from Grace, directed by and starring John Mellencamp, with Mariel Hemingway, Kay Lenz, Claude Akins\nFar and Away, directed by Ron Howard, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman\nFernGully: The Last Rainforest, directed by Bill Kroyer - (Australia/U.S.A.)\nA Few Good Men, directed by Rob Reiner, starring Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollak, Kiefer Sutherland\nFifty/Fifty, starring Peter Weller and Robert Hays\nFinal Analysis, directed by Phil Joanou, starring Richard Gere, Kim Basinger, Uma Thurman, Eric Roberts, Keith David\nFiringoti, Assamese film starring Moloya Goswami\nFolks!, starring Tom Selleck and Don Ameche\nForbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives - (Canada)\nForever Young, starring Mel Gibson, Elijah Wood, Jamie Lee Curtis, George Wendt\nFor a Lost Soldier (\"Voor een verloren soldaat\"), directed by Roeland Kerbosch, starring Jeroen Krabbé, Maarten Smit - (Netherlands)\nFour Eyes and Six Guns, starring Judge Reinhold, Patricia Clarkson, Fred Ward\nFreejack, starring Emilio Estevez, Anthony Hopkins, Rene Russo, Mick Jagger\nFrozen Assets, starring Shelley Long\nG\nGladiator, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. and James Marshall\nGlengarry Glen Ross, directed by James Foley, starring Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, Jonathan Pryce, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey\nGodzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth (Gojira tai Mosura) - (Japan)\nThe Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag, starring Penelope Ann Miller, Cathy Moriarty, Julianne Moore\nH\nThe Hand That Rocks the Cradle, directed by Curtis Hanson, starring Rebecca De Mornay and Annabella Sciorra\nHard Boiled (Lat sau san taam), directed by John Woo, starring Chow Yun-fat and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai - (Hong Kong)\nHero, directed by Stephen Frears, starring Dustin Hoffman, Geena Davis, Andy García, Joan Cusack\nHoffa, directed by Danny DeVito, starring Jack Nicholson, DeVito, Armand Assante, J. T. Walsh, Kevin Anderson, John C. Reilly\nHome Alone 2: Lost in New York, starring Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern\nHoney, I Blew Up the Kid, starring Rick Moranis\nHoneymoon in Vegas, directed by Andrew Bergman, starring James Caan, Nicolas Cage, Sarah Jessica Parker\nHouseSitter, directed by Frank Oz, starring Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn\nHowards End, directed by James Ivory, starring Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter - (U.K.)\nHusbands and Wives, directed by and starring Woody Allen, with Mia Farrow, Judy Davis, Liam Neeson, Sydney Pollack\nHyena's (Hyènes) - (Senegal)\nI\nAn Independent Life (Samostoyatelnaya zhizn) - (Russia)\nIndochine, starring Catherine Deneuve - (France) - Academy and Golden Globe Awards for Best Foreign Language Film\nThe Inheritance or Fuckoffguysgoodday (Dědictví aneb Kurvahošigutntag) - (Czech Republic)\nInnocent Blood, directed by John Landis, starring Anne Parillaud, Anthony LaPaglia, Robert Loggia, Don Rickles\nInto the Sun, starring Anthony Michael Hall and Michael Paré\nInto the West, directed by Mike Newell, starring Gabriel Byrne and Ellen Barkin - (U.K./Ireland)\nIn the Soup, starring Steve Buscemi and Seymour Cassel\nJ\nJamón Jamón, starring Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem - (Spain)\nJennifer 8, starring Andy García, Uma Thurman and John Malkovich\nThe Journey (El viaje) - (Argentina)\nJuice, starring Omar Epps and Tupac Shakur\nJust Another Girl on the I.R.T.\nJustice, My Foot! (Sam sei goon), starring Stephen Chow - (Hong Kong)\nK\nKhiladi (Player) - (India)\nKiller Image, starring Michael Ironside and M. Emmet Walsh - (Canada)\nKnight Moves, starring Christopher Lambert and Diane Lane\nKuffs, starring Christian Slater and Milla Jovovich\n\nL-Q\n\nL\nLadybugs, starring Rodney Dangerfield and Jonathan Brandis\nThe Last of the Mohicans, directed by Michael Mann, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe\nThe Lawnmower Man, starring Jeff Fahey and Pierce Brosnan\nA League of Their Own, directed by Penny Marshall, starring Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Madonna, Lori Petty, Rosie O'Donnell, David Strathairn\nLeap of Faith, directed by Richard Pearce, starring Steve Martin, Liam Neeson, Debra Winger, Lolita Davidovich, Lukas Haas\nLeaving Normal, directed by Edward Zwick, starring Christine Lahti and Meg Tilly\nLéolo - (Canada)\nLethal Weapon 3, starring Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo\nLife According to Agfa (Ha-Chayim Al-Pi Agfa) - (Israel)\nLight Sleeper, directed by Paul Schrader, starring Susan Sarandon, Willem Dafoe, Dana Delany\nLike Water For Chocolate (Como agua para chocolate) - (Mexico)\nLive Wire, directed by Christian Duguay, starring Pierce Brosnan and Ron Silver\nLiving in Bondage - (Nigeria)\nThe Long Day Closes, directed by Terence Davies - (U.K.)\nLorenzo's Oil, directed by George Miller, starring Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon\nLove Crimes, starring Sean Young and Patrick Bergin\nLove Field, directed by Jonathan Kaplan, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Dennis Haysbert\nLove Potion No. 9, starring Sandra Bullock and Tate Donovan\nThe Lover (L'Amant), directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud - (France)\nLuna Park, starring Oleg Borisov - (Russia/France)\nM\nMac, directed by and starring John Turturro\nMad at the Moon, starring Mary Stuart Masterson\nMalcolm X, directed by Spike Lee, starring Denzel Washington\nThe Mambo Kings, starring Armand Assante, Antonio Banderas, Cathy Moriarty, Maruschka Detmers, Desi Arnaz Jr.\nMan Bites Dog (aka C'est arrivé près de chez vous) - (Belgium)\nMan Trouble, directed by Bob Rafelson, starring Jack Nicholson and Ellen Barkin\nManufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media - (International)\nMedicine Man, directed by John McTiernan, starring Sean Connery and Lorraine Bracco\nMemoirs of an Invisible Man, directed by John Carpenter, starring Chevy Chase, Daryl Hannah, Sam Neill, Michael McKean\nMe, Myself and I, starring JoBeth Williams and George Segal\nA Midnight Clear, directed by Keith Gordon, starring Ethan Hawke and Kevin Dillon\nThe Mighty Ducks, starring Emilio Estevez\nMinbo - (Japan)\nMiracle Beach, starring Dean Cameron, Ami Dolenz, Pat Morita\nMistress, starring Robert De Niro, Robert Wuhl, Martin Landau, Danny Aiello, Eli Wallach, Sheryl Lee Ralph\nMo' Money, starring Damon Wayans\nThe Moon Is... the Sun's Dream, directed by Park Chan-wook - (South Korea)\nMorte di un matematico napoletano (Death of a Neapolitan Mathematician) - (Italy)\nMr. Baseball, starring Tom Selleck\nMr. Saturday Night, directed by and starring Billy Crystal, with Helen Hunt, Julie Warner, David Paymer\nThe Muppet Christmas Carol, starring Michael Caine and the Muppets\n* My Cousin Vinny, directed by Jonathan Lynn, starring Joe Pesci, Marisa Tomei, Ralph Macchio, Fred Gwynne\nN\nNemesis - (Denmark/U.S.A.)\nNew Dragon Gate Inn (Sun lung moon hak chan), starring Tony Leung Ka-fai and Maggie Cheung - (Hong Kong)\nNewsies, starring Christian Bale, Robert Duvall, Ann-Margret, and Bill Pullman\nNight and the City, directed by Irwin Winkler, starring Robert De Niro, Jessica Lange, Jack Warden, Alan King\nNitrate Kisses\nNoises Off, directed by Peter Bogdanovich, starring Michael Caine, Carol Burnett, John Ritter, Marilu Henner, Christopher Reeve\nThe Northerners (De Noorderlingen) - (Netherlands)\nO\nThe Oak (Balanţa) - (Romania)\nOf Mice and Men, directed by and starring Gary Sinise, with John Malkovich, Casey Siemaszko, Sherilyn Fenn, Ray Walston\nOnce Upon a Crime, starring John Candy, James Belushi, Cybill Shepherd, Sean Young, Ornella Muti, George Hamilton\nOnce Upon a Time, Cinema (Nasseroddin Shah Actor-e Cinema) - (Iran)\nOnce Upon a Time in China II (Wong Fei Hung II - Nam yi dong ji keung), starring Jet Li - (Hong Kong)\nOne False Move, directed by Carl Franklin, starring Bill Paxton, Cynda Williams, Michael Beach, Billy Bob Thornton\nOnly You, directed by Betty Thomas, starring Andrew McCarthy, Helen Hunt, Kelly Preston\nOriginal Sin (Shindi mo ii), directed by Takashi Ishii - (Japan)\nOrlando, starring Tilda Swinton and Billy Zane - (U.K.)\nOur Twisted Hero (Urideul-ui ilgeuleojin yeongung) - (South Korea)\nOut on a Limb, starring Matthew Broderick\nP-Q\nPassed Away, starring Bob Hoskins, Tim Curry, Blair Brown, Pamela Reed, Peter Riegert, William Petersen, Nancy Travis\nPassenger 57, starring Wesley Snipes, Bruce Payne, Tom Sizemore, Elizabeth Hurley\nPassion Fish, directed by John Sayles, starring Mary McDonnell and Alfre Woodard\nPatriot Games, directed by Phillip Noyce, starring Harrison Ford, Anne Archer, Sean Bean, Patrick Bergin, James Earl Jones, Richard Harris\nPet Sematary Two, starring Edward Furlong, Anthony Edwards and Clancy Brown\nPeter's Friends, directed by Kenneth Branagh, starring Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Rita Rudner, Emma Thompson - (U.K.)\nThe Player, directed by Robert Altman, starring Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Cynthia Stevenson, Vincent D'Onofrio, Peter Gallagher, Whoopi Goldberg — Golden Globe Award for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy)\nPoison Ivy, starring Drew Barrymore, Sara Gilbert, Tom Skerritt, Cheryl Ladd\nPolice Story 3: Super Cop (Jing cha gu shi III: Chao ji jing cha), starring Jackie Chan - (Hong Kong)\nPorco Rosso (Kurenai no Buta) - (Japan)\nThe Power of One, directed by John G. Avildsen\nPrelude to a Kiss, starring Alec Baldwin and Meg Ryan\nThe Public Eye, directed by Howard Franklin, starring Joe Pesci, Barbara Hershey, Stanley Tucci, Jared Harris\nPure Country, starring George Strait\nPushing Hands (tuī shǒu), directed by Ang Lee - (China/Taiwan)\nQuicksand: No Escape, starring Donald Sutherland, Tim Matheson, Felicity Huffman\n\nR-Y\n\nR\nRaat, starring Revathi, Rohini Hattangadi, Om Puri - (India)\nRadio Flyer, starring Elijah Wood\nRain Without Thunder, starring Betty Buckley and Jeff Daniels\nRaising Cain, directed by Brian De Palma, starring John Lithgow and Lolita Davidovich\nRamayana: The Legend of Prince Rama, directed by Ram Mohan - (India/Japan)\nRapid Fire, starring Brandon Lee and Powers Boothe\nRebels of the Neon God (Ch'ing shaonien ne cha) - (Taiwan)\nRemote Control (Sódóma Reykjavík) - (Iceland)\nReservoir Dogs, directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, Chris Penn, Lawrence Tierney\nA River Runs Through It, directed by Robert Redford, starring Craig Sheffer, Brad Pitt, Tom Skerritt, Brenda Blethyn, Emily Lloyd\nRock-a-Doodle, directed by Don Bluth\nRoja (Rose), directed by Mani Ratnam - (India) - nominated for Best Film at Moscow International Film Festival\nRomper Stomper, starring Russell Crowe - (Australia)\nRuby, starring Danny Aiello (as Jack Ruby), Sherilyn Fenn, Arliss Howard\nS\nSamantha, starring Martha Plimpton and Dermot Mulroney\nSavage Nights (Les Nuits Fauves) - (France)\nScent of a Woman, directed by Martin Brest, starring Al Pacino, Chris O'Donnell, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Gabrielle Anwar - Golden Globe Award for Best Picture (Drama)\nSchool Ties, starring Brendan Fraser, Chris O'Donnell, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck\nSchtonk! (aka Schtonk! Der Film zum Buch vom Führer) - (Germany)\nSeedpeople, directed by Peter Manoogian, produced by Charles Band\nShakes the Clown, directed by and starring Bobcat Goldthwait, with Julie Brown, Kathy Griffin, Florence Henderson\nShining Through, directed by David Seltzer, starring Michael Douglas, Melanie Griffith, John Gielgud, Joely Richardson, Liam Neeson\nSidekicks, starring Jonathan Brandis and Chuck Norris\nSingle White Female, directed by Barbet Schroeder, starring Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh\nSingles, directed by Cameron Crowe, starring Bridget Fonda, Matt Dillon, Campbell Scott, Kyra Sedgwick\nSister Act, starring Whoopi Goldberg\nSleepwalkers, directed by Mick Garris, starring Mädchen Amick, Brian Krause, Alice Krige, based on a novel by Stephen King\nSneakers, starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Sidney Poitier, River Phoenix, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell\nThe Spirit of Christmas: Jesus vs. Frosty, directed by Trey Parker and Matt Stone\nSplit Infinity\nSplit Second, starring Rutger Hauer and Kim Cattrall - (U.K.)\nStay Tuned, directed by Peter Hyams, starring John Ritter and Pam Dawber\nThe Stolen Children (Il ladro di bambini) - (Italy)\nStop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, starring Sylvester Stallone and Estelle Getty\nThe Story of Qiu Ju (Qiu Ju da guan si), directed by Zhang Yimou, starring Gong Li - (China) - Golden Lion award\nStoryville, starring James Spader\nStraight Talk, starring Dolly Parton and James Woods\nA Stranger Among Us, directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Melanie Griffith, Eric Thal, John Pankow, Tracy Pollan, Mia Sara\nStrictly Ballroom, directed by Baz Luhrmann - (Australia)\nSumo Do, Sumo Don't (Shiko funjatta) - (Japan) - Japan Academy Prize for Picture of the Year\nThe Sun of the Sleepless (Udzinarta mze) - (Georgia)\nSweet Emma, Dear Böbe (Édes Emma, drága Böbe - vázlatok, aktok), directed by István Szabó - (Hungary)\nT\nA Tale of Winter (Conte d'hiver), directed by Éric Rohmer - (France)\nTalking Head (Tōkingu Heddo) - (Japan)\nThat Night, starring C. Thomas Howell and Juliette Lewis\nThere Goes the Neighborhood, starring Jeff Daniels, Catherine O'Hara, Héctor Elizondo, Rhea Perlman\nThis Is My Life, directed by Nora Ephron, starring Julie Kavner, Dan Aykroyd, Carrie Fisher\nThunderheart, starring Val Kilmer, Sam Shepard, Graham Greene, Fred Ward\nTimescape\nTitanica, IMAX documentary\nTito and Me (Tito i ja) - (Yugoslavia)\nToys, directed by Barry Levinson, starring Robin Williams, Michael Gambon, Joan Cusack, Robin Wright, LL Cool J, Donald O'Connor\nTraces of Red, starring James Belushi and Lorraine Bracco\nTrespass, directed by Walter Hill, starring Ice Cube, Ice-T, Bill Paxton, William Sadler\nTwin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, directed by David Lynch, starring Kiefer Sutherland, Kyle MacLachlan, Sheryl Lee, Moira Kelly, Mädchen Amick, David Bowie\nU-V\nUnder Siege, directed by Andrew Davis, starring Steven Seagal, Tommy Lee Jones, Erika Eleniak, Gary Busey\nUnforgiven, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, with Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris - Academy Award for Best Picture\nUniversal Soldier, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren\nUnlawful Entry, directed by Jonathan Kaplan, starring Kurt Russell, Ray Liotta, Madeleine Stowe\nUtz, starring Armin Mueller-Stahl, Brenda Fricker, Peter Riegert - (U.K.)\nVacas (Cows) - (Spain)\nW\nThe Waterdance, starring Eric Stoltz, Helen Hunt, Wesley Snipes\nWaterland, directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal, starring Jeremy Irons, Sinéad Cusack, Ethan Hawke - (U.K.)\nWayne's World, directed by Penelope Spheeris, starring Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Rob Lowe, Tia Carrere, Brian Doyle-Murray, Lara Flynn Boyle\nWe Are Not Angels (Mi nismo anđeli) - (Yugoslavia)\nWhere the Day Takes You, starring Sean Astin and Lara Flynn Boyle\nWhispers in the Dark, starring Annabella Sciorra, Jamey Sheridan, Jill Clayburgh, Alan Alda, John Leguizamo, Anthony LaPaglia\nWhite Badge (Hayan chonjaeng) - (South Korea)\nWhite Men Can't Jump, directed by Ron Shelton, starring Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson, Rosie Perez\nWhite Sands, directed by Roger Donaldson, starring Willem Dafoe, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Mickey Rourke, Samuel L. Jackson\nWind, directed by Carroll Ballard, starring Matthew Modine, Jennifer Grey, Cliff Robertson, Jack Thompson, Stellan Skarsgård\nWuthering Heights, starring Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes - (U.K.)\nY\nYear of the Comet, starring Penelope Ann Miller, Tim Daly, Louis Jourdan\nThe Yo-Yo Gang - (Canada)\nYodha, starring Mohanlal and Madhoo - (India)\n\nBirths\n\nJanuary 19 - Logan Lerman, actor\nFebruary 11\nTaylor Lautner, actor\nGeorgia Groome, actress\nFebruary 14 - Freddie Highmore, actor\nFebruary 15 - Greer Grammer, actress\nMarch 13 - Kaya Scodelario, actress\nMarch 17 - John Boyega, actor\nMarch 17 - Gabriel Liotta, actor\nApril 4 - Alexa Nikolas, actress\nApril 10 - Daisy Ridley, actress \nApril 23 - Syd tha Kyd, singer and DJ\nMay 4 \nAshley Rickards, actress\nCourtney Jines, actress\nMay 7 - Alexander Ludwig, actor\nMay 18 - Spencer Breslin, actor\nJune 14 - Daryl Sabara, actor\nJune 26 - Jennette McCurdy, actress and singer\nJuly 3 - Nathalia Ramos, actress\nJuly 9 - Douglas Booth, actor\nJuly 22 - Selena Gomez, actress and singer\nAugust 4 - Dylan and Cole Sprouse, actors\nAugust 20 - Demi Lovato, actress and singer\nSeptember 16 - Nick Jonas, singer (Jonas Brothers)\nSeptember 30 - Ross Hinde, Photographer\nOctober 9 - Tyler James Williams, actor\nOctober 12 - Josh Hutcherson, actor\nOctober 13 - Aaron Dismuke, voice actor\nNovember 18 - Nathan Kress, actor\nNovember 23 - Miley Cyrus, actress and singer\nDecember 3 - Martina Tuzza, Photographer\nDecember 18 - Bridgit Mendler, actress\n\nNotable deaths\n\nFilm debuts\n\n* David Arquette - Where the Day Takes You\n* Jack Black - Bob Roberts\n* Toni Collette - Spotswood\n* Daniel Craig - The Power of One\n* Penélope Cruz - Jamón Jamón\n* Alan Cumming - Prague\n* Eliza Dushku - That Night\n* Omar Epps - Juice\n* Ralph Fiennes - Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights\n* Claire Forlani - Gypsy Eyes\n* Jamie Foxx - Toys\n* Joseph Gordon-Levitt - Beethoven\n* Maggie Gyllenhaal - Waterland\n* Cole Hauser - School Ties\n* Lena Headey - Waterland\n* Jennifer Love Hewitt - Munchie\n* Whitney Houston - The Bodyguard\n* Famke Janssen - Fathers & Sons\n* Ashley Judd - Kuffs\n* Ang Lee (director) - Pushing Hands\n* Heath Ledger - Clowning Around\n* Laura Linney - Lorenzo's Oil\n* Baz Luhrmann (director) - Strictly Ballroom\n* Bernie Mac - Mo' Money\n* Rose McGowan - Encino Man\n* Mike Myers - Wayne's World\n* Tim Blake Nelson - This Is My Life\n* Rosie O'Donnell - A League of Their Own\n* Robert Rodriguez (director) - El Mariachi\n* Gary Sinise - A Midnight Clear (actor)\n* Will Smith - Where the Day Takes You\n* Hilary Swank - Buffy the Vampire Slayer\n* Quentin Tarantino (director) - Reservoir Dogs\n* Jeanne Tripplehorn - Basic Instinct\n* Robin Tunney - Encino Man\n* Steve Zahn - Rain Without Thunder", "Chaplin is a 1992 biographical comedy-drama film about the life of British comedian Charlie Chaplin. It was produced and directed by Richard Attenborough and stars Robert Downey, Jr., Marisa Tomei, Dan Aykroyd, Penelope Ann Miller, and Kevin Kline. It also features Geraldine Chaplin in the role of her own paternal grandmother, Hannah Chaplin.\n\nThe film was adapted by William Boyd, Bryan Forbes and William Goldman from the books My Autobiography by Chaplin and Chaplin: His Life and Art by film critic David Robinson. Associate producer Diana Hawkins got a story credit. The original music score was composed by John Barry.\n\nPlot\n\nThe film is structured around lengthy flashbacks as the elderly Charlie Chaplin (now living in Switzerland) recollects moments from his life during a conversation with fictional character George Hayden, the editor of his autobiography. \n\nChaplin's recollections begin with his childhood of extreme poverty from which he escapes by immersing himself in the world of the London music halls. After his mother Hannah Chaplin has an attack of nerves on stage during a performance, the four year old Chaplin takes his mother's place on the stage. Hannah retires from performing and is eventually committed to an asylum after developing psychosis. In the years that follow Chaplin and his brother Sydney gain work with variety show producer Fred Karno, where Chaplin becomes a hit with his comedy drunk act. He begins a relationship with his first love Hetty Kelly, the night before he is due to leave for America he proposes to her but she declines reasoning she is too young. Chaplin promises to return to England for her when he is a success.\n\nChaplin is sent to America by Karno and is given a job by Mack Sennett, the most famous comedy producer in Hollywood. While there, he creates his iconic Tramp persona and due to the terrible directorial capabilities of Sennett's wife Mabel, Chaplin is allowed to direct his own movies. Before the year is over, Chaplin directs over 20 movies and after Sydney joins him in America to become his manager, decides to break away from Sennett to have complete creative control over his films and with the goal of one day owning his own studio. In 1917, Chaplin completes work on The Immigrant which causes some concern over the film's political subject matter and starts a brief romance with actress Edna Purviance. \n\nYears later at an industry party thrown by Douglas Fairbanks, Chaplin meets and begins dating child actress Mildred Harris. Chaplin eventually becomes wealthy and profitable enough to set up his own studio and becomes \"the most famous man in the world\" all before his thirtieth birthday. Chaplin reveals to Fairbanks that he is to marry Harris as she is pregnant, but later at a party thrown by William Randolph Hearst, the pregnancy is revealed to be a hoax. At the same party, Chaplin has an uncomfortable confrontation with J Edgar Hoover about actor / directors and their responsibilities with regards to audiences, this confrontation sparks a forty year long vendetta and Hoover attempts to ruin Chaplin's reputation. \n\nChaplin and Mildred separate after the premature death of their only child and Chaplin's utter devotion to his films. During the divorce proceedings, Harris's lawyers attempt to steal Chaplin's movie The Kid reasoning that it is an asset, however Chaplin and Sydney finish editing the film in a remote hotel in Mexico and smuggle it successfully back into the country. \n\nThe brothers eventually arrange for their mother to join them in America, Chaplin is initially happy to see her but has been away from her for so long that he is unable to cope with her worsening mental illness. In 1921, seeking a break from film-making and his private life, Chaplin returns to England to attend the UK premiere of The Kid. He reunites with Karno and hopes to locate Hetty, but Karno sadly informs him that she died in a flu epidemic shorty after the war. Chaplin also discovers that although most are happy to see him, his success has meant that the poverty stricken working class British no longer consider him to be one of their own and resent him for not fighting in the war as they did. \n\nBack in America, Hoover is beginning to investigate Chaplin's private life, suspecting that he may be a member of the Communist Party, and Chaplin is forced to consider the implications the introduction of \"talkies\" may have on his film-making career. Despite the arrival of sound pictures drawing nearer, Chaplin vows never to make a talkie featuring the Tramp. \n\nIn 1923, Chaplin makes The Gold Rush and marries his leading lady Lita Grey, with whom he goes on to have two children, however Chaplin later confides to George that he always thought of her as a \"total bitch\" and dedicates no more than five lines to her in the finished autobiography. \nYears pass and although Chaplin finds a new wife in Paulette Goddard he feels a sense of guilt and sympathy to the millions of Americans who have recently been made unemployed due to the Wall Street Crash (Chaplin avoided losing all of his money in The Great Depression by selling most of his shares the year before). Chaplin decides to address the issue in his next movie Modern Times (The final movie to feature The Tramp) but his complete dedication to getting the movie finished puts excessive strain on his home life and eventually results in the breakup of his marriage. \n\nAt an industry party Chaplin causes a minor scandal when he refuses to shake hands with a visiting member of the Nazi party. Fairbanks (with his health in great decline) comments that Chaplin looks a lot like Adolf Hitler, providing Chaplin with inspiration for his next movie in their final encounter before Fairbanks' death in 1939. Chaplin's film satirizing the Nazis The Great Dictator is a huge hit throughout the world but Hoover tries to portray the film as a work of anti-American propaganda.\n\nChaplin settles down with, and marries Oona O'Neil an actress who looks identical to his first love Hetty Kelly and the woman he will spend the remainder of his life with. However Chaplin is hit with another scandal when it is alleged that he is father to the child of his former lover Joan Barry and despite a blood test proving that the child is not his, Chaplin is ordered to provide financial support for the child. His reputation severely damaged, Chaplin stays out of the public eye for over seven years until re-emerging to produce a new film Limelight. \n\nIn 1951 during the height of the Joe McCarthy scandal, Chaplin leaves America with Oona on a trip back to Britain, but subsequently finds out that Hoover has terminated his American citizenship and he can never return to America.\n\nIn 1972, 10 years after Chaplin and George complete his autobiography, Chaplin is invited back to America in order to receive a special Lifetime Achievement award at the 1972 Academy Award ceremony. Though initially still resentful at being exiled from the country and fearful that no-one will remember him, the audience happily rejoices upon seeing his classic film clips. Chaplin stands on the stage and is moved to tears when the audience provide him with a standing ovation.\n\nCast\n\n* Robert Downey Jr., as Charlie Chaplin\n* Marisa Tomei as Mabel Normand\n* Geraldine Chaplin as Hannah Chaplin, Charlie's mother\n* Paul Rhys as Sydney Chaplin, Charlie's half-brother\n* John Thaw as Fred Karno, British music-hall impresario\n* Moira Kelly as Hetty Kelly, Charlie's first love / Oona O'Neill, Charlie's final wife\n* Anthony Hopkins as George Hayden, Charlie's biography editor\n* Dan Aykroyd as Mack Sennett, an early Hollywood film producer\n* Penelope Ann Miller as Edna Purviance, a young Hollywood actress\n* Kevin Kline as Douglas Fairbanks, a leading man in early Hollywood movies\n* Matthew Cottle as Stan Laurel, a Hollywood comedian\n* Maria Pitillo as Mary Pickford, a leading lady in early Hollywood movies\n* Milla Jovovich as Mildred Harris, a young Hollywood actress and Charlie's first wife\n* Kevin Dunn as J. Edgar Hoover, head of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation\n* Deborah Moore as Lita Grey, a young Hollywood actress and Charlie's second wife\n* Diane Lane as Paulette Goddard, a young Hollywood actress and Charlie's third wife\n* Nancy Travis as Joan Barry, a young Hollywood actress\n* James Woods as Joseph Scott, a California attorney\n* David Duchovny as Roland Totheroh, Chaplin's long time cameraman\n\nCasting\n \nAlthough Richard Attenborough wanted Robert Downey Jr. for the part of Chaplin, studio executives wanted Robin Williams or Billy Crystal for the role. Jim Carrey was also considered for the role. \n\nRelease\n\nCritical reception\n\nThe film received mixed to positive reviews. Although the film was criticized for taking dramatic licence with some aspects of Chaplin's life, Downey's performance as Chaplin won universal acclaim. Attenborough was sufficiently confident in Downey's performance to include historical footage of Chaplin himself at the end of the film.\n\nThe film was lauded for its high production values, but many critics dismissed it as an overly glossy biopic. One critic wrote that the screenplay \"endeavors to cover too much ground. The life of Charlie Chaplin was so vast and varied that a film is far too restrictive a format to give it justice.\" Chaplin currently holds a 57% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 47 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, \"Chaplin boasts a terrific performance from Robert Downey, Jr. in the title role, but it isn't enough to overcome a formulaic biopic that pales in comparison to its subject's classic films.\" \n\nAwards\n\nHome media\n\nThe film was released on VHS in 1993 and later on DVD in 1997. A fifteenth-anniversary edition was released by Lions Gate Entertainment (who obtained the distribution rights to the film in the interim under license from the copyright holder, StudioCanal) in 2008. The anniversary edition contained extensive interviews with the producers, and included several minutes of home-movie footage shot on Chaplin's yacht. The box for this DVD mistakenly lists the film's running time as 135 minutes (it is 143 minutes, the same as the original theater release). \n\nThe 15th Anniversary Edition was later released on Blu-ray in February 15, 2011.\n\nSoundtrack\n\nThe soundtrack to Chaplin was released on December 15, 1992.\n\n;Track listing" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Yucatan (film)", "Yucatán (film)", "Downey jr", "Robert Downey Jr.", "The Accidental Genius", "Robert Downey, Jr", "The Entire History of You (film)", "Robert Downey Jr", "Robert downey junior", "Robert Downey Junior", "The Accidental Genius (film)", "Emergency! (film)", "Robert Downey, Jr." ], "normalized_aliases": [ "robert downey jr", "emergency film", "entire history of you film", "downey jr", "accidental genius film", "yucatán film", "robert downey junior", "yucatan film", "accidental genius" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "robert downey jr", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Robert Downey Jr" }
Which star of Gypsy and West Side Story married Robert Wagner twice?	tc_1182	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "West_Side_Story.txt", "Robert_Wagner.txt" ], "title": [ "West Side Story", "Robert Wagner" ], "wiki_context": [ "West Side Story is an American musical with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and conception and choreography by Jerome Robbins. It was inspired by William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet.\n\nThe story is set in the Upper West Side neighborhood in New York City in the mid-1950s, an ethnic, blue-collar neighborhood. (In the early 1960s much of the neighborhood would be cleared in an urban renewal project for the Lincoln Center, changing the neighborhood's character.) The musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds. The members of the Sharks, from Puerto Rico, are taunted by the Jets, a white gang. The young protagonist, Tony, a former member of the Jets and best friend of the gang leader, Riff, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks. The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended dance scenes, and focus on social problems marked a turning point in American musical theater. Bernstein's score for the musical includes \"Something's Coming\", \"Maria\", \"America\", \"Somewhere\", \"Tonight\", \"Jet Song\", \"I Feel Pretty\", \"A Boy Like That\", \"One Hand, One Heart\", \"Gee, Officer Krupke\", and \"Cool\".\n\nThe original 1957 Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins and produced by Robert E. Griffith and Harold Prince, marked Sondheim's Broadway debut. It ran for 732 performances before going on tour. The production was nominated for six Tony Awards including Best Musical in 1957, but the award for Best Musical went to Meredith Willson's The Music Man. Robbins won the Tony for his choreography and Oliver Smith won for his scenic designs. The show had an even longer-running London production, a number of revivals and international productions. A 1961 musical film of the same name, directed by Robert Wise and Robbins, starred Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris and Russ Tamblyn. The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won ten, including George Chakiris for Supporting Actor, Rita Moreno for Supporting Actress, and the Best Picture.\n\nBackground \n\nGenesis \n\nIn 1947, Jerome Robbins approached Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents about collaborating on a contemporary musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. He proposed that the plot focus on the conflict between an Irish Catholic family and a Jewish family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, during the Easter–Passover season. The girl has survived the Holocaust and emigrated from Israel; the conflict was to be centered around anti-Semitism of the Catholic \"Jets\" towards the Jewish \"Emeralds\" (a name that made its way into the script as a reference). Eager to write his first musical, Laurents immediately agreed. Bernstein wanted to present the material in operatic form, but Robbins and Laurents resisted the suggestion. They described the project as \"lyric theater\", and Laurents wrote a first draft he called East Side Story. Only after he completed it did the group realize it was little more than a musicalization of themes that had already been covered in plays like Abie's Irish Rose. When he opted to drop out, the three men went their separate ways, and the piece was shelved for almost five years. \n\nIn 1955, theatrical producer Martin Gabel was working on a stage adaptation of the James M. Cain novel Serenade, about an opera singer who comes to the realization he is homosexual, and he invited Laurents to write the book. Laurents accepted and suggested Bernstein and Robbins join the creative team. Robbins felt if the three were going to join forces, they should return to East Side Story, and Bernstein agreed. Laurents, however, was committed to Gabel, who introduced him to the young composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim auditioned by playing the score for Saturday Night, his musical that was scheduled to open in the fall. Laurents liked the lyrics but was not impressed with the music. Sondheim did not care for Laurents' opinion. Serenade ultimately was shelved.\n\nLaurents was soon hired to write the screenplay for a remake of the 1934 Greta Garbo film The Painted Veil for Ava Gardner. While in Hollywood, he contacted Bernstein, who was in town conducting at the Hollywood Bowl. The two met at The Beverly Hills Hotel, and the conversation turned to juvenile delinquent gangs, a fairly recent social phenomenon that had received major coverage on the front pages of the morning newspapers due to a Chicano turf war. Bernstein suggested they rework East Side Story and set it in Los Angeles, but Laurents felt he was more familiar with Puerto Ricans and Harlem than he was with Mexican Americans and Olvera Street. The two contacted Robbins, who was enthusiastic about a musical with a Latin beat. He arrived in Hollywood to choreograph the dance sequences for The King and I, and he and Laurents began developing the musical while working on their respective projects, keeping in touch with Bernstein, who had returned to New York. When the producer of The Painted Veil replaced Gardner with Eleanor Parker and asked Laurents to revise his script with her in mind, he backed out of the film, freeing him to devote all his time to the stage musical.\n\nCollaboration and development \n\nIn New York City, Laurents went to the opening night party for a new play by Ugo Betti, and there he met Sondheim, who had heard that East Side Story, now retitled West Side Story, was back on track. Bernstein had decided he needed to concentrate solely on the music, and he and Robbins had invited Betty Comden and Adolph Green to write the lyrics, but the team opted to work on Peter Pan instead. Laurents asked Sondheim if he would be interested in tackling the task. Initially he resisted, because he was determined to write the full score for his next project (Saturday Night had been aborted), but Oscar Hammerstein convinced him that he would benefit from the experience, and he accepted. Meanwhile, Laurents had written a new draft of the book changing the characters' backgrounds: Anton, once an Irish American, was now of Polish and Irish descent, and the formerly Jewish Maria had become a Puerto Rican.Gottlieb, Jack (Guide and Commentary). [http://www.westsidestory.com/archives_factsheet.php \"'West Side Story' Fact Sheet\"]. WestSideStory.com, 2001, accessed August 18, 2011\n\nThe original book Laurents wrote closely adhered to Romeo and Juliet, but the characters based on Rosaline and the parents of the doomed lovers were eliminated early on. Later the scenes related to Juliet's faking her death and committing suicide also were deleted. Language posed a problem; four-letter curse words were uncommon in the theater at the time, and slang expressions were avoided for fear they would be dated by the time the production opened. Laurents ultimately invented what sounded like real street talk but actually was not: \"cut the frabba-jabba\", for example. Sondheim converted long passages of dialogue, and sometimes just a simple phrase like \"A boy like that would kill your brother\", into lyrics. With the help of Oscar Hammerstein, Laurents convinced Bernstein and Sondheim to move \"One Hand, One Heart\", which he considered too pristine for the balcony scene, to the scene set in the bridal shop, and as a result \"Tonight\" was written to replace it. Laurents felt that the building tension needed to be alleviated in order to increase the impact of the play's tragic outcome, so comic relief in the form of Officer Krupke was added to the second act. He was outvoted on other issues: he felt the lyrics to \"America\" and \"I Feel Pretty\" were too witty for the characters singing them, but they stayed in the score and proved to be audience favorites. Another song, \"Kid Stuff\", was added and quickly removed during the Washington, D.C. tryout when Laurents convinced the others it was helping tip the balance of the show into typical musical comedy.\n\nBernstein composed West Side Story and Candide concurrently, which led to some switches of material between the two works. Tony and Maria's duet, \"One Hand, One Heart\", was originally intended for Cunegonde in Candide. The music of \"Gee, Officer Krupke\" was pulled from the Venice scene in Candide. Laurents explained the style that the creative team finally decided on: \n\nThe show was nearly complete in the fall of 1956, but almost everyone on the creative team needed to fulfill other commitments first. Robbins was involved with Bells Are Ringing, then Bernstein with Candide, and in January 1957 A Clearing in the Woods, Laurents' latest play, opened and quickly closed. When a backers' audition failed to raise any money for West Side Story late in the spring of 1957, only two months before the show was to begin rehearsals, producer Cheryl Crawford pulled out of the project. Every other producer had already turned down the show, deeming it too dark and depressing. Bernstein was despondent, but Sondheim convinced his friend Hal Prince, who was in Boston overseeing the out-of-town tryout of the new George Abbott musical New Girl in Town, to read the script. He liked it but decided to ask Abbott, his longtime mentor, for his opinion, and Abbott advised him to turn it down. Prince, aware that Abbott was the primary reason New Girl was in trouble, decided to ignore him, and he and his producing partner Robert Griffith flew to New York to hear the score. In his memoirs, Prince recalled, \"Sondheim and Bernstein sat at the piano playing through the music, and soon I was singing along with them.\"\n\nProduction period \n\nPrince began cutting the budget and raising money. Robbins then announced he did not want to choreograph the show, but changed his mind when Prince agreed to an eight-week dance rehearsal period (instead of the customary four), since there was to be more dancing in West Side Story than in any previous Broadway show, and allowed Robbins to hire Peter Gennaro as his assistant. Originally, when considering the cast, Laurents wanted James Dean for the lead role of Tony, but the actor had recently died. Sondheim found Larry Kert and Chita Rivera, who created the roles of Tony and Anita, respectively. Getting the work on stage was still not easy. Bernstein said: \n\nThroughout the rehearsal period, the New York newspapers were filled with articles about gang warfare, keeping the show's plot timely. Robbins kept the cast members playing the Sharks and the Jets separate in order to discourage them from socializing with each other and reminded everyone of the reality of gang violence by posting news stories on the bulletin board backstage. Robbins wanted a gritty realism from his sneaker- and jeans-clad cast. He gave the ensemble more freedom than Broadway dancers had previously been given to interpret their roles, and the dancers were thrilled to be treated like actors instead of just choreographed bodies. As the rehearsals wore on, Bernstein fought to keep his score together, as other members of the team called on him to cut out more and more of the sweeping or complex \"operatic\" passages. Columbia Records initially declined to record the cast album, saying the score was too depressing and too difficult.\n\nThere were problems with Oliver Smith's designs. His painted backdrops were stunning, but the sets were, for the most part, either shabby looking or too stylized. Prince refused to spend money on new construction, and Smith was obliged to improve what he had as best he could with very little money to do it.\n\nThe pre-Broadway run in Washington, D.C. was a critical and commercial success, although none of the reviews mentioned Sondheim, listed as co-lyricist, who was overshadowed by the better-known Bernstein. Bernstein magnanimously removed his name as co-author of the lyrics, although Sondheim was uncertain he wanted to receive sole credit for what he considered to be overly florid contributions by Bernstein. Robbins demanded and received a \"Conceived by\" credit, and used it to justify his making major decisions regarding changes in the show without consulting the others. As a result, by opening night on Broadway, none of his collaborators were talking to him.\n\nIt has been rumored that while Bernstein was off trying to fix the musical Candide, Sondheim wrote some of the music for West Side Story, and that Bernstein's co-lyricist billing mysteriously disappeared from the credits of West Side Story during the tryout, presumably as a trade-off. However, Suskin states in Show Tunes that \"As the writing progressed and the extent of Bernstein's lyric contributions became less, the composer agreed to rescind his credit...Contrary to rumor, Sondheim did not write music for the show; his only contribution came on \"Something's Coming\", where he developed the main strain of the chorus from music Bernstein wrote for the verse. )\n\nSynopsis \n\nAct 1 \n\nTwo rival teenage gangs, the Jets (White) and the Sharks (Puerto Rican), struggle for control of the neighborhood somewhere in the Upper West Side of New York City amidst the police (Prologue). They are warned by Lt. Schrank and Officer Krupke to stop fighting on their beat. The police chase the Sharks off, and then the Jets plan how they can assure their continued dominance of the street. The Jets' leader, Riff, suggests setting up a rumble with the Sharks. He plans to make the challenge to Bernardo, the Sharks' leader, that night at the neighborhood dance. Riff wants to convince his friend and former member of the Jets, Tony, to meet the Jets at the dance. Some of the Jets are unsure of his loyalty, but Riff is adamant that Tony is still one of them (\"Jet Song\"). Riff meets Tony while he's working at Doc's Drugstore to persuade him to come. Tony initially refuses, but Riff wins him over. Tony is convinced that something important is round the corner (\"Something's Coming\").\n\nMaria works in a bridal shop with Anita, the girlfriend of her brother, Bernardo. Maria has just arrived from Puerto Rico for her arranged marriage to Chino, a friend of Bernardo's. Maria confesses to Anita that she is not in love with Chino. Anita makes Maria a dress to wear to the neighborhood dance.\n\nAt the dance, after introductions, the teenagers begin to dance; soon a challenge dance is called (\"Dance at the Gym\"), during which Tony and Maria (who aren't taking part in the challenge dance) see each other across the room and are drawn to each other. They dance together, forgetting the tension in the room, and fall in love, but Bernardo pulls his sister from Tony and sends her home. Riff and Bernardo agree to meet for a War Council at Doc's, a drug store which is considered neutral ground, but meanwhile, an infatuated and happy Tony finds Maria's building and serenades her outside her bedroom (\"Maria\"). She appears on her fire escape, and the two profess their love for one another (\"Tonight\"). Meanwhile, Anita, Rosalia, and the other Shark girls discuss the differences between the territory of Puerto Rico and the mainland United States of America, with Anita defending America, and Rosalia yearning for Puerto Rico (\"America\").\n\nThe Jets get antsy while waiting for the Sharks inside Doc's Drug Store. Riff helps them let out their aggression (\"Cool\"). The Sharks arrive to discuss weapons to use in the rumble. Tony suggests \"a fair fight\" (fists only), which the leaders agree to, despite the other members' protests. Bernardo believes that he will fight Tony, but must settle for fighting Diesel, Riff's second-in-command, instead. This is followed by a monologue by the ineffective Lt. Schrank trying to find out the location of the rumble. Tony tells Doc about Maria. Doc is worried for them while Tony is convinced that nothing can go wrong; he is in love.\n\nThe next day, Maria is in a very happy mood at the bridal shop, as she anticipates seeing Tony again. However, she learns about the upcoming rumble from Anita and is dismayed. When Tony arrives, Maria asks him to stop the fight altogether, which he agrees to do. Before he goes, they dream of their wedding (\"One Hand, One Heart\"). Tony, Maria, Anita, Bernardo and the Sharks, and Riff and the Jets all anticipate the events to come that night (\"Tonight Quintet\"). The gangs meet under the highway and, as the fight between Bernardo and Diesel begins, Tony arrives and tries to stop it. Though Bernardo taunts Tony, ridiculing his attempt to make peace and provoking him in every way, Tony keeps his composure. When Bernardo pushes Tony, Riff punches him in Tony's defense. The two draw their switchblades and get in a fight (\"The Rumble\"). Tony attempts to intervene, inadvertently leading to Riff being fatally stabbed by Bernardo. Tony kills Bernardo in a fit of rage, which in turn provokes an all-out fight like the fight in the Prologue. The sound of approaching police sirens is heard, and everyone scatters, except Tony, who stands in shock at what he has done. The tomboy, Anybody's, who stubbornly wishes that she could become a Jet, tells Tony to flee from the scene at the last moment and flees with the knives. Only the bodies of Riff and Bernardo remain.\n\nAct 2 \n\nBlissfully unaware of the gangs' plans for that night, Maria daydreams about seeing Tony with her friends—Rosalia, Consuelo, Teresita and Francisca (\"I Feel Pretty\"). Later, as Maria dances on the roof happily because she has seen Tony and believes he went to stop the rumble, Chino brings the news that Tony has killed Bernardo. Maria flees to her bedroom, praying that Chino is lying. Tony arrives to see Maria and she initially pounds on his chest with rage, but she still loves him. They plan to run away together. As the walls of Maria's bedroom disappear, they find themselves in a dreamlike world of peace (\"Somewhere\").\n\nTwo of the Jets, A-Rab and Baby John, are set on by Officer Krupke, but they manage to escape him. They meet the rest of the gang. To cheer themselves up, they lampoon Officer Krupke, and the other adults who don't understand them, (\"Gee Officer Krupke\"). Anybody's arrives and tells the Jets she has been spying on the Puerto Ricans; she has discovered that Chino is looking for Tony with a gun. The gang separates to find Tony. Action accepts Anybody's into the Jets, and includes her in the search.\n\nA grieving Anita arrives at Maria's apartment. As Tony leaves, he tells Maria to meet him at Doc's so they can run away to the country. In spite of her attempts to conceal it, Anita sees that Tony has been with Maria, and launches an angry tirade against him, (\"A Boy Like That\"). Maria counters by telling Anita how powerful love is, (\"I Have a Love\"), though, and Anita realizes that Maria loves Tony as much as she had loved Bernardo. She admits that Chino has a gun and is looking for Tony.\n\nLt. Schrank arrives to question Maria about her brother's death, and Anita agrees to go to Doc's to tell Tony to wait. Unfortunately, the Jets, including Anybody's, who have found Tony, have congregated at Doc's, and they taunt Anita with racist slurs and eventually simulate rape. Doc arrives and stops them. Anita is furious, and in anger spitefully delivers the wrong message, telling the Jets that Chino has shot Maria dead.\n\nDoc relates the news to Tony, who has been dreaming of heading to the countryside to have children with Maria. Feeling there is no longer anything to live for, Tony leaves to find Chino, begging for him to shoot him as well. Just as Tony sees Maria alive, Chino arrives and shoots Tony. The Jets, Sharks, and adults flock around the lovers. Maria holds Tony in her arms (and sings a quiet, brief reprise of \"Somewhere\") as he dies. Angry at the death of another friend, the Jets move towards the Sharks but Maria takes Chino's gun and tells everyone that \"all of [them]\" killed Tony and the others because of their hate for each other, and, \"Now I can kill too, because now I have hate!\" she yells. However, she is unable to bring herself to fire the gun and drops it, crying in grief. Gradually, all the members of both gangs assemble on either side of Tony's body, showing that the feud is over. The Jets and Sharks form a procession, and together carry Tony away, with Maria the last one in the procession.\n\nCharacters \n\nThe Jets\n* Riff, the leader\n* Tony, his friend, who falls in love with Maria\n* Action, A-Rab, Baby John, Big Deal, Diesel, Gee-Tar, Mouth Piece, Snowboy, Tiger and Anybody's\n\nThe Jets' Girls\n* Graziella, Velma, Minnie, Clarice, and Pauline\n\nThe Sharks\n* Bernardo, the leader\n* Chino, his friend\n* Pepe, Indio, Luis, Anxious, Nibbles, Juano, Toro, and Moose\n\nThe Sharks' Girls\n* Maria, Bernardo's sister, who falls in love with Tony\n* Anita, Bernardo's girl\n* Rosalia, Consuelo, Teresita, Francisca, Estella, and Marguerita\n\nThe Adults\n* Doc, Schrank, Krupke, and Gladhand\n\nPrincipal cast\n\nMusical numbers \n\nAct 1 \n\n* \"Prologue\" – Orchestra, danced by Jets & Sharks\n* \"Jet Song\" – Riff & Jets\n* \"Something's Coming\" – Tony\n* \"The Dance at the Gym\" – Jets & Sharks\n* \"Maria\" – Tony\n* \"Tonight\" – Tony & Maria\n* \"America\" – Anita, Rosalia, & Shark Girls\n* \"Cool\" – Riff & Jets\n* \"One Hand, One Heart\" – Tony & Maria\n* \"Tonight (Quintet & Chorus)\" – Company\n* \"The Rumble\" – Orchestra, danced by Riff, Bernardo, Jets, & Sharks\n\nAct 2 \n\n* \"I Feel Pretty\" – Maria, Rosalia, Estella, & Consuelo\n* \"Somewhere\" – Consuelo, danced by Company\n* \"Gee, Officer Krupke\" – Action, Snowboy & Jets\n* \"A Boy Like That\" – Anita & Maria\n* \"I Have a Love\" – Anita & Maria\n* \"Taunting\" – Anita & Jets\n* \"Finale\" – Company\n\n;Notes\n* In the 1964 and 1980 revivals, \"Somewhere\" was sung by Francisca rather than Consuelo.\n* In the 2009 revival, \"Cool\" was performed by Riff, the Jets, and the Jet Girls. \"I Feel Pretty\" was sung in Spanish as \"\" and \"A Boy Like That\" was sung in Spanish as \"\". \"Somewhere\" was sung by Kiddo, a young Jet.\n\nProductions \n\nOriginal Broadway production \n\nAfter tryouts in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia beginning in August 1957, the original Broadway production opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on September 26, 1957 to positive reviews. The production was directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, produced by Robert E. Griffith and Harold Prince and starred Larry Kert as Tony, Carol Lawrence as Maria, Chita Rivera as Anita and David Winters as Baby John, the youngest of the gang members. Robbins won the Tony Award for Best Choreographer, and Oliver Smith won the Tony for Best Scenic Designer. Also nominated were Carol Lawrence, as Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical, Max Goberman as Best Musical Director and Conductor, and Irene Sharaff for Best Costume Design. Carol Lawrence received the 1958 Theatre World Award. Lighting was designed by Jean Rosenthal. The production ran for 732 performances at the Winter Garden Theatre before touring and then returning to the Winter Garden Theatre in 1960 for another 253 performance engagement.\n\nThe other notable cast members in the original production were: Riff: Michael Callan, A-Rab: Tony Mordente, Big Deal: Martin Charnin, Gee-Tar: Tommy Abbott, Chino: Jamie Sanchez, Rosalia: Marilyn Cooper, Consuelo: Reri Grist and Doc: Art Smith.\n\nSeveral dances from West Side Story were included in the Tony Award-winning 1989 Broadway production, Jerome Robbins' Broadway.\n\nUK productions \n\nThe 1958 European premiere at the Manchester Opera House transferred to London, where it opened at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End on December 12, 1958 and ran until June 1961 with a total of 1,039 performances. Robbins directed and choreographed, and it was co-choreographed by Peter Gennaro, with scenery by Oliver Smith. Featured performers were George Chakiris, who won an Academy Award as Bernardo in the 1961 film version, as Riff, Marlys Watters as Maria, Don McKay as Tony, and Chita Rivera reprising her Broadway role as Anita. David Holliday, who had been playing Gladhand since the London opening, took over as Tony.\n\nA UK national tour started in 1997 and starred David Habbin as Tony, Katie Knight Adams as Maria and Anna-Jane Casey as Anita. The production transferred to London's West End opening at the Prince Edward Theatre in October 1998, transferring to the Prince of Wales Theatre where it closed in January 2000. The production subsequently toured the UK for a second time. \n\n1980 Broadway revival \n\nA Broadway revival opened at the Minskoff Theatre on February 14, 1980 and closed on November 30, 1980, after 333 performances. It was directed and choreographed by Robbins, with the book scenes co-directed by Gerald Freedman; produced by Gladys Nederlander and Tom Abbott and Lee Becker Theodore assisted the choreography reproduction. The original scenic, lighting, and costume designs were used. It starred Ken Marshall as Tony, Josie de Guzman as Maria and Debbie Allen as Anita. Both de Guzman and Allen received Tony Award nominations as Best Featured Actress in a Musical, and the musical was nominated as Best Reproduction (Play or Musical). Allen won the Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical. Other notable cast members in the revival included Brent Barrett as Diesel, Harolyn Blackwell as Francisca, Stephen Bogardus as Mouth Piece and Reed Jones as Big Deal\n\nThe Minskoff production subsequently opened the Nervi Festival in Genoa, Italy in July 1981 with Josie de Guzman as Maria and Brent Barrett as Tony. \n\n2009 Broadway revival \n\nIn 2007, Arthur Laurents stated, \"I've come up with a way of doing [West Side Story] that will make it absolutely contemporary without changing a word or a note.\" He directed a pre-Broadway production of West Side Story at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. that ran from December 15, 2008 through January 17, 2009. The Broadway revival began previews at the Palace Theatre on February 23, 2009 and opened on March 19, 2009. The production wove Spanish lyrics and dialogue into the English libretto. The translations are by Tony Award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda. Laurents stated, \"The musical theatre and cultural conventions of 1957 made it next to impossible for the characters to have authenticity. Every member of both gangs was always a potential killer even then. Now they actually will be. Only Tony and Maria try to live in a different world\". In August 2009, some of the lyrics for \"A Boy Like That\" (\"Un Hombre Asi\") and \"I Feel Pretty\" (\"Me Siento Hermosa\"), which were previously sung in Spanish in the revival, were changed back to the original English. However, the Spanish lyrics sung by the Sharks in the \"Tonight\" (Quintet) remained in Spanish.\n\nThe cast featured Matt Cavenaugh as Tony, Josefina Scaglione as Maria and Karen Olivo as Anita. Olivo won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, while Scaglione was nominated for the award for Leading Actress. The cast recording won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album. In July 2010, the producers reduced the size of the orchestra, replacing five musicians with an off-stage synthesizer. The production closed on January 2, 2011 after 748 performances and 27 previews. The revival sold 1,074,462 tickets on Broadway over the course of nearly two years. \n\nOther notable US productions \n\nThe New York City Center Light Opera Company production played for a four-week limited engagement of 31 performances in 1964. Tony was Don McKay, Maria was Julia Migenes and Anita was played by Luba Lisa. It was staged by Gerald Freedman based on Robbins' original concept, and the choreography was re-mounted by Tom Abbott.\n\nThe Musical Theater of Lincoln Center and Richard Rodgers production opened at the New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, in June 1968 and closed in September 1968 after 89 performances. Direction and choreography were reproduced by Lee Theodore, and scenery was by Oliver Smith. Tony was Kurt Peterson and Maria was Victoria Mallory.\n\nThe musical has also been adapted to be performed as Deaf Side Story using both English and American Sign Language, with deaf Sharks and hearing Jets. \n\nNational tours \n\nA 1959 national tour was launched on July 1, 1959. The show played in Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston. This tour returned to the Winter Garden Theater in New York on April 27, 1960 and closed on December 10 of that year.\n\nA 1987 U.S. tour starred Jack Wagner as Tony, with Valarie Pettiford as Anita and was directed by Alan Johnson. A bus and truck (non-Equity) tour was produced in 1998 by City Vision Theatricals. A national tour, directed by Alan Johnson, was produced in 2002. \n\nA national tour of the 2009 Broadway revival began in October 2010 at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit, Michigan. The cast features Kyle Harris as Tony, Ali Ewoldt as Maria and Eric Hoffmann as Officer Krupke. After a very successful year, the tour was sent out for another year. A Non-equity tour version of the 2009 Revival, presented by Troika Entertainment, began in fall 2012. \n\nInternational productions \n\nIn 1961, a tour of Israel, Africa and the Near East was mounted. In February 1962, the West End (H. M. Tennent) production launched a five-month Scandinavian tour opening in Copenhagen, continuing to Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki. Robert Jeffrey took over from David Holliday as Tony and Jill Martin played Maria. In 1977, \"Amor Sin Barreras\" was produced in Mexico City by Alfonso Rosas Prigo, & Ruben Boido, Direction by Ruben Boido, presented at the Hidalgo Theater. Gualberto Castro played the part of Tony; Maria Medina was Maria, among other cast members was Macaria. From 1982–1984 a tour of South America, Israel and Europe was mounted with talent from New York. The Director/Choreographers for that production were Jay Norman and Lee Theodore, veterans of the original Broadway cast. The Japanese Takarazuka Revue has performed the show twice. It was produced by the Moon Troupe in 1998 and again in 1999 by the Star Troupe. A Hong Kong production was produced in 2000 with Cantonese lyrics, featuring Hong Kong rock star Paul Wong as Tony. It was staged at the outdoor plaza of Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival performed West Side Story in 1999, starring Tyley Ross as Tony and Ma-Anne Dionisio as Maria, and again in 2009, \n\nThe Austrian Bregenz Festival presented West Side Story in a German translation by Marcel Prawy in 2003 and 2004, directed by the Francesca Zambello, followed by a German tour. A French language adaptation, translated by Philippe Gobeille, opened in Montreal, Quebec in March 2008. A Philippine version played in 2008 at the Meralco Theatre. It featured Christian Bautista as Tony, Karylle and Joanna Ampil as Maria. Also in 2008, an adaptation played in Portugal, directed by Filipe La Féria, with the name West Side Story – Amor Sem Barreiras, in the Politeama Theater, in Lisbon, with Ricardo Soler as Tony and Lúcia Moniz and Anabela splitting the role of Anita.\n\nAn international tour (2005–2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, São Paulo, France, Taiwan, China, Italy, Rotterdam and Madrid. In 2011, a Lima production was produced by \"Preludio Asociación Cultural\" with Marco Zunino as Tony, Rossana Fernández-Maldonado as Maria, Jesús Neyra as Bernardo, Tati Alcántara as Anita and Joaquín de Orbegoso as Riff. \n\nCritical reaction \n\nThe creators' innovations in dance, music and theatrical style resulted in strong reactions from the critics. Walter Kerr wrote in the New York Herald Tribune on September 27, 1957: \n\nThe other reviews generally joined in speculation about how the new work would influence the course of musical theater. Typical was John Chapman's review in the New York Daily News on September 27, 1957, headed: \"West Side Story a Splendid and Super-Modern Musical Drama\".\n\nTime magazine found the dance and gang warfare more compelling than the love story and noted that the show's \"putting choreography foremost, may prove a milestone in musical-drama history ...\" \n\nScore \n\nThe score for West Side Story was orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal following detailed instructions from Bernstein, who then wrote revisions on their manuscript (the original, heavily annotated by Ramin, Kostal and Bernstein himself is in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Columbia University). Ramin, Kostal, and Bernstein are billed as orchestrators for the show. The orchestra consisted of 31 players: a large Broadway pit orchestra enhanced to include 5 percussionists, a guitarist and a piano/celesta player.\n\nIn 1961, Bernstein prepared a suite of orchestral music from the show, titled Symphonic Dances from West Side Story:\nPrologue (Allegro Moderato)\n\"Somewhere\" (Adagio)\nScherzo (Vivace e Leggiero)\nMambo (Meno Presto)\nCha-Cha (Andantino Con Grazia)\nMeeting Scene (Meno Mosso)\n\"Cool\", Fugue (Allegretto)\nRumble (Molto Allegro)\nFinale (Adagio)\n\nRecordings \n\nRecordings of West Side Story include the following:\n The 1957 original Broadway cast album, with Carol Lawrence as Maria, Larry Kert as Tony and Chita Rivera as Anita.\n* A 1959 recording by the pianist André Previn comprised jazz versions of eight songs from the musical.\n* The movie soundtrack, with Marni Nixon singing Maria's role (played in the film by Natalie Wood) and Tony (played in the film by Richard Beymer) sung by Jimmy Bryant. It won the Grammy Award for Best Sound Track Album or Recording of Original Cast from Motion Picture or Television. The 1992 remastered re-release of this album included the \"Overture\", the \"End Credits\" music, the complete \"Dance at the Gym\" and dialogue from the film. The 2004 re-release added the \"Intermission\" music.\n* In 1961, Cal Tjader released a jazz version, arranged by Clare Fischer, on Fantasy Records. The album was released again in 2002 as Cal Tjader Plays Harold Arlen & West Side Story (double CD).\n* In 1961, Stan Kenton recorded Kenton's West Side Story (a jazz version) that received a 1962 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance – Large Group (Instrumental).\n* In 1962, Oscar Peterson and his trio recorded a jazz version, West Side Story.\n* In 1962, Dave Brubeck recorded jazz versions of selections from the film score on Music From West Side Story.\n* In 1966, Buddy Rich and his big band performed an arrangement penned by Bill Reddie called West Side Story Medley for many years.\n* In 1984, Bernstein re-recorded the musical, conducting his own music for the first time. Generally known as the \"operatic version\" of West Side Story, it stars Kiri Te Kanawa as Maria, José Carreras as Tony, Tatiana Troyanos as Anita, Kurt Ollmann as Riff, Louise Edeiken as Rosalia, and Marilyn Horne as the offstage voice who sings \"Somewhere\". It won a Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album in 1985. The recording process was filmed as a documentary \"The Making of West Side Story\", which was made by the BBC for Unitel, Produced by Humphrey Burton and Directed by Christopher Swann. The documentary won the Flaherty BAFTA for documentary direction, a Prix Italia and was nominated for a Prime Time Emmy. It is available on YouTube.\n* A 1993 recording, the first recording to document the full score including the overture performed by Britain's National Symphony Orchestra using cast members of the 1992 Leicester Haymarket Theatre production.\n* In 1996, RCA Victor released the tribute album The Songs of West Side Story featuring new versions of the songs from the musical sung by popular music stars, including: \"The Jet Song\" sung by Brian Setzer, \"A Boy Like That\" sung by Selena, \"I feel Pretty\" sung by Little Richard, two versions of \"Somewhere\" performed by Aretha Franklin and Phil Collins, \"Tonight\" sung by Wynonna Judd and Kenny Loggins, \"America\" sung by Patti LaBelle, Natalie Cole and Sheila E., \"I Have a Love\" sung by Trisha Yearwood and \"Rumble\" performed by Chick Corea Elektric Band and Steve Vai's Monsters. Proceeds from the sale of this album go to benefit the Leonard Bernstein Education Through The Arts Fund, the NARAS Foundation and The Leonard Bernstein Center at Nashville, Tennessee.\n* In 2002, Naxos Records released a CD with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra playing the music with soloists Mike Eldred (Tony), Betsi Morrison (Maria), Marianne Cook (Anita), Robert Dean (Riff), Michael San Giovanni, Joanna Chozen, and Michelle Prentice. \n* A 2007 tribute album entitled A Place for Us marking the 50th anniversary of the show. The album features cover versions previously recorded and a new recording of \"Tonight\" by Kristin Chenoweth and Hugh Panaro.\n* A 2007 recording was released by Decca Broadway in honor of West Side Story's 50th anniversary. This album stars Hayley Westenra as Maria and Vittorio Grigolo as Tony. The Bernstein Foundation in New York has authorized the recording. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Show Album.\n* Bernstein recorded the Symphonic Dances suite with the New York Philharmonic in 1961, and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1983. The Symphonic Dances have entered the repertoire of many major world orchestras, most recently by the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra under Gustavo Dudamel. It has been recorded by many orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony under the direction of Seiji Ozawa.\n* The 2009 new Broadway cast album, with Josefina Scaglione as Maria, Matt Cavenaugh as Tony and Karen Olivo as Anita won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.\n* A live, semi-staged 2013 recording by the San Francisco Symphony under Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, featuring Cheyenne Jackson, Alexandra Silber and others, debuted at No.1 on the Billboard Classical Albums chart in May 2014. It was released in 2014 as a hybrid SACD on the SFS Media label, and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.\n\nFilm \n\nOn October 18, 1961, a film adaptation of the musical was released. It received praise from critics and the public, and became the second highest grossing film of the year in the United States. The film won ten Academy Awards in its eleven nominated categories, including Best Picture and a special award for Robbins. The film holds the distinction of being the musical film with the most Academy Award wins (10 wins), including Best Picture. The soundtrack album made more money than any other album before it.\n\nReferences in popular culture \n\nIn addition to Bernstein's own West Side Story Suite, the music from the musical has been adapted by The Buddy Rich Big Band, which arranged and recorded \"West Side Story Medley\" on the 1966 album Buddy Rich's Swingin' New Big Band. The Stan Kenton Orchestra recorded Johnny Richards' 1961 Kenton's West Side Story, an album of jazz orchestrations based on the Bernstein scores. It won the 1962 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Recording by a Large Group. The 1996 album The Songs of West Side Story included such diverse artists as Selena (\"A Boy Like That\"), Little Richard (\"I Feel Pretty\"), Trisha Yearwood (\"I Have a Love\") and Salt-n-Pepa, Def Jef, Lisa Lopes, the Jerky Boys, and Paul Rodriguez all collaborating on \"Gee, Officer Krupke\", as well as Chick Corea Elektric Band collaborating with Steve Vai's Monsters on \"Rumble\".\n\nThe television show Curb Your Enthusiasm extensively referenced West Side Story in the season seven episode \"Officer Krupke\". An episode of Welcome Back, Kotter, \"Sweatside Story\", parodies West Side Story when the Sweathogs engage in a rumble with students from rival New Utrecht High School. In an episode of That 70's Show, Donna and Jackie mention the musical, and Fez's daydream sequence resembles a scene from it. In the series Glee a third season episode features a school production of West Side Story, with multiple songs from the production, performed by several cast members in episode 2 \"I Am Unicorn\", episode 3 \"Asian F\" and episode 5 \"The First Time\". The Animaniacs episode \"West Side Pigeons\" features a parody rivalry that mirrors that of the Jets and the Sharks. Squit falls in love with Carmoota similarly to Tony and Maria. In the Tom and Jerry Tales episode \"The League of Cats\", Tom's and Jerry's respective leagues act very similar to the Jets and the Sharks. They also perform a number similar to the \"Jet Song\".\n\nIn film, Pixar animator Aaron Hartline used the first meeting between Tony and Maria as inspiration for the moment when Ken meets Barbie in Toy Story 3. In the 2013 movie Teen Beach Movie, two teens are trapped inside a movie called Wet Side Story, in which a group of surfers and a group of bikers are competing in a turf war. Bring It On: In It to Win It has a plot that parallels West Side Story, and makes the reference explicit to the point where the two rival cheerleading squads are named the Jets and the Sharks.\n\nFrom 1973 to 2004, Wild Side Story, a camp parody musical, based loosely on West Side Story and adapting parts of the musical's music and lyrics, has been performed a total of more than 500 times in Miami Beach, Florida, Stockholm, Gran Canaria and Los Angeles. The show, which lampoons the musical's tragic love story, and also lip-synching and drag shows, was created and directed by Lars Jacob. \n\nAwards and nominations \n\nOriginal Broadway production \n\n1980 Broadway revival \n\n2008 West End revival \n\n2009 Broadway revival", "Robert John Wagner, Jr. (pronounced; born February 10, 1930) is an American actor of stage, screen, and television, best known for starring in the television shows It Takes a Thief (1968–70), Switch (1975–78), and Hart to Hart (1979–84). He also had a recurring role as Teddy Leopold on the TV sitcom Two and a Half Men and has a recurring role as Anthony DiNozzo Sr. on the police procedural NCIS.\n\nIn movies, Wagner is known for his role as Number Two in the Austin Powers trilogy of films (1997, 1999, 2002), as well as for A Kiss Before Dying, The Pink Panther, Harper, The Towering Inferno and many more.\n\nWagner's autobiography, Pieces of My Heart: A Life, written with author Scott Eyman, was published on September 23, 2008.\n\nEarly life and career\n\nWagner was born in Detroit, Michigan. He is the son of Hazel Alvera (née Boe), a telephone operator, and Robert John Wagner, Sr., a traveling salesman who worked for the Ford Motor Company. His paternal grandparents were born in Germany. and his maternal grandparents were Norwegian. Wagner has a sister, Mary. He graduated from Santa Monica High School in 1949. \n\nAfter an unsuccessful screen test directed by Fred Zinnemann for his film Teresa, Wagner was represented by Albert R. Broccoli as his agent. \n\nHe made his film debut in The Happy Years (1950). He was signed by agent Henry Willson and put under contract with 20th Century-Fox, where he gained attention with a small but showy part as a shell-shocked soldier in With a Song in My Heart (1952). This led to starring roles in a series of films, including: with veteran actor Clifton Webb, Stars and Stripes Forever (1952) and Titanic (1953), Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953), Prince Valiant (1954), and White Feather (1955, with Debra Paget and Jeffrey Hunter). In 1956, A Kiss Before Dying (in a rare villainous role), Between Heaven and Hell, and he co-starred opposite Spencer Tracy in The Mountain, again playing an unsavory character. In 1957 he starred with Jeffrey Hunter in The True Story of Jesse James. Following his Fox contract Wagner moved to Europe.\n\nIn 1960 Wagner signed with Columbia Pictures for three films, but only two were made; Sail a Crooked Ship (1961) with Ernie Kovacs and The War Lover (1962), opposite Steve McQueen, which was filmed in England. Roles soon followed in continental Europe such as The Condemned of Altona (1962), The Longest Day (1962) and The Pink Panther (1963) starring David Niven and Peter Sellers for Blake Edwards. Edwards wanted Wagner for the lead in The Great Race (1965) but Jack L. Warner overruled him. \n\nCareer rise\n\nWagner signed with Universal Studios in 1966 starring in the films How I Spent My Summer Vacation, a made-for-TV movie released in the United Kingdom as Deadly Roulette, and Banning (1967). In 1967, Lew Wasserman convinced Wagner to make his television series debut in It Takes a Thief. While the success of The Pink Panther and Harper began Wagner's comeback, the successful two-and-a-half seasons of his first TV series completed it. In this series, he acted with Fred Astaire, who played his father. Wagner was a longtime friend of Astaire, having gone to school with Astaire's eldest son, Peter. Wagner's friend and agent Albert Broccoli suggested that he audition to play James Bond, but he decided it was not right for him. \n\nIn 1972, he produced and cast himself opposite Bette Davis in the television movie Madame Sin, which was released in foreign markets as a feature film, and was a regular in the BBC/Universal World War II prisoner-of-war drama Colditz for much of its run. He reunited with McQueen, along with Paul Newman and Faye Dunaway, in the disaster film The Towering Inferno released in the same year.\n\nBy the mid-1970s, Wagner's television career was at its peak with the television series Switch opposite Eddie Albert, after re-signing a contract with Universal Studios in 1974. Before Switch, Albert was a childhood hero of Wagner, after he watched the movie Brother Rat along with a few others. The friendship started in the early 1960s, where he also co-starred in a couple of Albert's movies. After the series' end, the two remained friends until Albert's death on May 26, 2005. Wagner spoke at his funeral, and gave a testimonial about his longtime friendship with him.\n\nIn partial payment for starring together in the Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg production of the TV movie The Affair, Wagner and Natalie Wood were given a share in three TV series that the producers were developing for ABC. Only one reached the screen, the very successful TV series Charlie's Angels, for which Wagner and Wood had a 50% share, though Wagner was to spend many years in court arguing with Spelling and Goldberg over what was defined as profit. \n\nWagner and Wood acted with Laurence Olivier in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (as part of Olivier's UK television series Laurence Olivier Presents). Wood also made a small cameo appearance in the pilot episode of Wagner's own television series, Hart to Hart.\n\nHis third successful series was Hart to Hart, which co-starred Stefanie Powers and ran from 1979 to 1984. Before those roles, Wagner also made guest appearances in the pilot episode of The Streets of San Francisco. He would later be nominated for an Emmy Award for Best TV Actor for his performance in It Takes a Thief and for four Golden Globe awards for his role as Jonathan Hart in Hart to Hart.\n\nReturn to film and television\n\nWagner's film career received a revival after his role in the Austin Powers series of spy spoofs starring Mike Myers. Wagner played Dr. Evil's henchman Number 2 in all three films: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) and Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002).\n\nHe also became the host of Fox Movie Channel's Hour of Stars, featuring original television episodes of The 20th Century-Fox Hour (1955), a series which Wagner had appeared on in his early days with the studio.\n\nIn 2005, Wagner became the television spokesman for the Senior Lending Network, a reverse mortgage lender and in 2010 he began serving as a spokesman for the Guardian First Funding Group, also a reverse mortgage lender. As of June 2011, Guardian First Funding was acquired by Urban Financial Group, who continue to use Mr. Wagner as their spokesperson. \n\nIn 2007, Wagner had a role in the BBC/AMC series Hustle. In season four's premiere, Wagner played a crooked Texan being taken for half a million dollars. As Wagner is considered \"a suave icon of American caper television, including It Takes a Thief and Hart to Hart\", Robert Glenister (Hustles fixer, Ash Morgan) commented that \"to have one of the icons of that period involved is a great bonus for all of us\". \n\nWagner also played the pivotal role of President James Garfield in the comedy/horror film Netherbeast Incorporated (2007). The role was written with Wagner in mind. He had a recurring role of a rich suitor to the main characters' mother on the sitcom Two and a Half Men. His most recent appearances on the show were in May 2008.\n\nWagner has guest-starred as Tony's father, Anthony DiNozzo Sr., in eight episodes of NCIS: \"Flesh and Blood\" (2010), \"Broken Arrow\" (2010), \"Sins of the Father\" (2011), \"You Better Watch Out\" (2012), \"Dressed to Kill\" (2014), \"The Artful Dodger\" (2015), \"No Good Deed\" (2015) and \"Reasonable Doubts\" (2016). He was set to star as Charlie in the 2011 reboot of Charlie's Angels, but due to scheduling conflicts, had to exit the project. \n\nPersonal life\n\nIn his memoirs, Wagner revealed he has had affairs with Yvonne De Carlo, Joan Crawford, Elizabeth Taylor, Anita Ekberg, Shirley Anne Field, Lori Nelson and Joan Collins. He had a four-year romantic relationship with Barbara Stanwyck after they acted together in the movie Titanic (1953). Because of the age difference – he was 22, she was 45 – they kept the affair secret in order to avoid damage to their careers. \n\nOn December 28, 1957, Wagner married 19-year-old actress Natalie Wood. They separated in June 1961 and divorced on April 27, 1962.\n\nWhile working on location in Europe, Wagner reconnected with an old friend, actress Marion Marshall. In the spring of 1963, after a brief courtship, Wagner, Marshall, and her two children from her marriage to Stanley Donen moved back to America. Wagner and Marshall married on July 22, 1963, in the Bronx Courthouse. Soon after, they had a daughter, Katie Wagner (born May 11, 1964). They divorced on October 14, 1971 after eight years of marriage.\n\nIn 1971, Wagner was engaged to Tina Sinatra. In early 1972, Wagner reconnected with Natalie Wood and remarried her on July 16, 1972 after a six-month courtship. Their only child together, Courtney Wagner, was born on March 9, 1974. On November 29, 1981, Natalie Wood drowned near their yacht Splendour while it was moored near Catalina Island; also on board were Wagner, Christopher Walken, who was co-starring with her in the motion picture Brainstorm, and Dennis Davern, a captain. Wagner subsequently became the legal guardian of Wood's daughter Natasha Gregson, then eleven. He is estranged from his former sister-in-law, Lana Wood. \n\nWagner and actress Jill St. John became an item in February 1982. After eight years together, they married on May 26, 1990. In 1999, an altercation occurred between Wagner's former sister-in-law Lana Wood and St. John, who had both appeared in the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, at a Vanity Fair shoot in Los Angeles. When photographer Annie Leibovitz asked for a picture of St. John and Wood together, St. John was so adamantly opposed to the idea that it reduced Wood to tears. Her publicicist, however, said it was he who vetoed the photo: \"I know [the Wagner family] would rather not have the current Mrs. Wagner shot with Natalie's sister.\" \n\nOn September 21, 2006, he became a first-time grandfather when Katie Wagner, his daughter with Marion Marshall, gave birth to her son Riley John Wagner-Lewis.\n\nIn November 2011, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department reopened its investigation into Natalie Wood's death after the captain of the boat, Dennis Davern, told NBC News that he lied to police during the initial investigation and that a fight between Wood and Wagner had led to her drowning. After nine months of further investigation, Los Angeles County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran amended Wood's death certificate and changed the cause of her death from accidental drowning to \"drowning and other undetermined factors\". The amended document also states that the circumstances of how Wood ended up in the water are \"not clearly established.\" The police however have stated that Wagner is not a suspect in the case.\n\nFilmography\n\nFilm\n\nSelected television appearances\n\n1953: Jukebox Jury as himself\n1963: The Eleventh Hour, episode: \"And God Created Vanity\" as Kenny Walsh\n1968–70: It Takes a Thief as Alexander Mundy\n1970–71: The Name of the Game as David Corey\n1971: City Beneath the Sea as Brett Matthews (made-for-TV movie)\n1972–74: Colditz as Flight Lieutenant Phil Carrington\n1975–78: Switch as Pete T. Ryan\n1979–84: Hart to Hart as Jonathan Hart\n1980: The Jacques Cousteau Odyssey narrator (2 episodes)\n1981: The Fall Guy as Himself (1 episode)\n1984: To Catch a King as Joe Jackson (TV miniseries)\n1984: There Must Be a Pony as Ben Nichols\n1985: Lime Street (as James Greyson Culver)\n1988: Windmills of the Gods as Mike Slade (TV miniseries)\n1994: Parallel Lives as the sheriff\n1997: Seinfeld, episode: \"The Yada Yada\" as Dr. Abbot\n1999: Fatal Error, as Albert Teal (movie)\n2003: Hope & Faith as Jack Fairfield (7 episodes)\n2005: The Simpsons, episode: \"Goo Goo Gai Pan\" as himself\n2006: Las Vegas, episode: \"Cash Springs Eternal\" as Alex Avery\n2006: Boston Legal as Barry Goal (2 episodes)\n2007: Hustle as Anthony Westley. Episode 1 of Season 4: \"As One Flew Out, One Flew In\"\n2007: Two and a Half Men as Teddy Leopold (5 episodes)\n2010–16: NCIS as Anthony DiNozzo Sr. (8 episodes)\n2012: The League as \"Gumpa\" Duke, episode: \"Bro-Lo El Cordero\"\n2013: Futurama as himself\n\nBooks\n\n*" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Nathalie Wood", "Wood, Natalie", "Natalie Wood", "Natasha Gurdin", "Natalie Wagner", "Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "natalie wagner", "nathalie wood", "wood natalie", "natalia nikolaevna zakharenko", "natasha gurdin", "natalie wood" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "natalie wood", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Natalie Wood" }
Which lyricist who has worked with Elton John and Andrew Lloyd Webber won an award for A Whole New World from Aladdin?	tc_1184	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe", "TagMe", "TagMe", "Search" ], "filename": [ "Elton_John.txt", "Andrew_Lloyd_Webber.txt", "A_Whole_New_World.txt", "Aladdin_(1992_Disney_film).txt", "Tim_Rice.txt" ], "title": [ "Elton John", "Andrew Lloyd Webber", "A Whole New World", "Aladdin (1992 Disney film)", "Tim Rice" ], "wiki_context": [ "Sir Elton Hercules John, (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947), is an English pianist, singer-songwriter and composer. He has worked with lyricist Bernie Taupin as his songwriting partner since 1967; they have collaborated on more than 30 albums to date. In his five-decade career Elton John has sold more than 300million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. He has more than fifty Top 40 hits, including seven consecutive No. 1 US albums, 58 Billboard Top 40 singles, 27 Top 10, four No. 2 and nine No. 1. For 31 consecutive years (1970–2000) he had at least one song in the Billboard Hot 100. His single \"Candle in the Wind 1997\" sold over 33million copies worldwide and is the best-selling single in the history of the UK and US singles charts. See also: Guinness Book of Records, 2009 Edition, pages 14, 15 & 169 [http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/4387/guinness2009.pdf] He has also composed music, produced records, and has occasionally acted in films. John owned Watford Football Club from 1976 to 1987, and 1997 to 2002. He is an honorary Life President of the club, and in 2014 had a stand named after him at the club's home stadium.\n\nElton John was born Reginald Dwight in 1947, and raised in the Pinner area of London. He learned to play piano at an early age, and by 1962 had formed Bluesology. John met his songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin, in 1967, after they had both answered an advert for songwriters. For two years they wrote songs for other artists, including Roger Cook and Lulu, and John also worked as a session musician for artists such as the Hollies and the Scaffold. In 1969 his debut album, Empty Sky, was released. In 1970 a single, \"Your Song\", from his second album, Elton John, reached the top ten in the UK and the US, his first hit single.\n\nHe has received five Grammy Awards, five Brit Awards – winning two awards for Outstanding Contribution to Music and the first Brits Icon in 2013 for his \"lasting impact on British culture\", an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, a Disney Legend award, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him Number 49 on its list of 100 influential musicians of the rock and roll era. In 2013, Billboard ranked him the most successful male solo artist on the Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists (third overall behind the Beatles and Madonna). He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, is an inductee into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, and is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. Having been named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1996, John was made a Knight Bachelor by Elizabeth II for \"services to music and charitable services\" in 1998. John has performed at a number of royal events, such as the funeral of Princess Diana at Westminster Abbey in 1997, the Party at the Palace in 2002 and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert outside Buckingham Palace in 2012.\n\nHe has been heavily involved in the fight against AIDS since the late 1980s. In 1992, he established the Elton John AIDS Foundation and a year later began hosting the annual Academy Award Party, which has since become one of the highest-profile Oscar parties in the Hollywood film industry. Since its inception, the foundation has raised over . John, who announced he was bisexual in 1976 and has been openly gay since 1988, entered into a civil partnership with David Furnish on 21 December 2005, and after same-sex marriage became legal in England and Wales in 2014, wed Furnish on 21 December 2014. He continues to be a champion for LGBT social movements worldwide.\n\nLife and career \n\nEarly life \n\nElton John was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March 1947, in Pinner, Middlesex, the eldest child of Stanley Dwight and only child of Sheila Eileen (née Harris), and was raised in a council house of his maternal grandparents, in Pinner. His parents did not marry until he was 6 years old, when the family moved to a nearby semi-detached house. He was educated at Pinner Wood Junior School, Reddiford School and Pinner County Grammar School, until age 17, when he left just prior to his A Level examinations to pursue a career in the music industry. \n\nWhen he began to seriously consider a career in music, Elton John's father, who served as a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force, tried to steer him toward a more conventional career, such as banking. John has stated that his wild stage costumes and performances were his way of letting go after such a restrictive childhood. Both of John's parents were musically inclined, his father having been a trumpet player with the Bob Millar Band, a semi-professional big band that played at military dances. The Dwights were keen record buyers, exposing John to the popular singers and musicians of the day, and John remembers being immediately hooked on rock and roll when his mother brought home records by Elvis Presley and Bill Haley & His Comets in 1956.\n\nElton John started playing the piano at the age of 3, and within a year, his mother heard him picking out Winifred Atwell's \"The Skater's Waltz\" by ear. After performing at parties and family gatherings, at the age of 7 he took up formal piano lessons. He showed musical aptitude at school, including the ability to compose melodies, and gained some notoriety by playing like Jerry Lee Lewis at school functions. At the age of 11, he won a junior scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. According to one of his instructors, John promptly played back, like a \"gramophone record\", a four-page piece by Handel that he heard for the first time.\n\nFor the next five years, he attended Saturday classes at the Academy in central London, and has stated that he enjoyed playing Chopin and Bach and singing in the choir during Saturday classes, but that he was not otherwise a diligent classical student. \"I kind of resented going to the Academy\", he says. \"I was one of those children who could just about get away without practising and still pass, scrape through the grades.\" He even claims that he would sometimes skip classes and just ride around on the Tube. However, several instructors have testified that he was a \"model student\", and during the last few years he was taking lessons from a private tutor in addition to his classes at the Academy.\n\nElton John's mother, though also strict with her son, was more vivacious than her husband, and something of a free spirit. With Stanley Dwight uninterested in his son and often physically absent, John was raised primarily by his mother and maternal grandmother. When his father was home, the Dwights would have terrible arguments that greatly distressed their son. When John was 14, they divorced. His mother then married a local painter, Fred Farebrother, a caring and supportive stepfather whom John affectionately referred to as \"Derf\", his first name in reverse. They moved into flat No. 1A in an eight-unit apartment building called Frome Court, not far from both previous homes. It was there that John would write the songs that would launch his career as a rock star; he would live there until he had four albums simultaneously in the American Top 40. \n\nPub pianist to staff songwriter (1962–69) \n\nAt the age of 15, with the help of his mother and stepfather, Reginald Dwight became a weekend pianist at a nearby pub, the Northwood Hills Hotel, playing Thursday to Sunday nights. Known simply as \"Reggie\", he played a range of popular standards, including songs by Jim Reeves and Ray Charles, as well as songs he had written himself. A stint with a short-lived group called the Corvettes rounded out his time.\n\nIn 1962, Dwight and his friends formed a band called Bluesology. By day, he ran errands for a music publishing company; he divided his nights between solo gigs at a London hotel bar and working with Bluesology. By the mid-1960s, Bluesology was backing touring American soul and R&B musicians like the Isley Brothers, Major Lance and Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles. In 1966, the band became musician Long John Baldry's supporting band, and played 16 times at the Marquee Club. \n\nIn 1967, Dwight answered an advertisement in the British magazine New Musical Express, placed by Ray Williams, then the A&R manager for Liberty Records. At their first meeting, Williams gave Dwight a stack of lyrics written by Bernie Taupin, who had answered the same ad. Dwight wrote music for the lyrics, and then mailed it to Taupin, beginning a partnership that . When the two first met in 1967 they recorded what would become the first Elton John/Bernie Taupin song: \"Scarecrow\". Six months later Dwight was going by the name \"Elton John\" in homage to Bluesology saxophonist Elton Dean and Long John Baldry.\n\nThe team of Elton John and Bernie Taupin joined Dick James's DJM Records as staff songwriters in 1968, and over the next two years wrote material for various artists, like Roger Cook and Lulu. Taupin would write a batch of lyrics in under an hour and give it to John, who would write music for them in half an hour, disposing of the lyrics if he couldn't come up with anything quickly. For two years, they wrote easy-listening tunes for James to peddle to singers. Their early output included a contender for the UK entry for the Eurovision Song Contest in 1969, for Lulu, called \"I Can't Go On (Living Without You)\". It came sixth of six songs. In 1969, John provided piano for Roger Hodgson on his first released single, \"Mr. Boyd\" by Argosy, a quartet that was completed by Caleb Quaye and Nigel Olsson. Elton John was also a session musician for other artists including playing piano on the Hollies' \"He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother\" and singing backing vocals for the Scaffold. \n\nDebut album to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1969–73) \n\nOn the advice of music publisher Steve Brown, John and Taupin started writing more complex songs for John to record for DJM. The first was the single \"I've Been Loving You\" (1968), produced by Caleb Quaye, former Bluesology guitarist. In 1969, with Quaye, drummer Roger Pope, and bassist Tony Murray, John recorded another single, \"Lady Samantha\", and an album, Empty Sky. For their follow-up album, Elton John, Elton John and Bernie Taupin enlisted Gus Dudgeon as producer and Paul Buckmaster as musical arranger. Elton John was released in April 1970 on DJM Records/Pye Records in the UK and Uni Records in the US, and established the formula for subsequent albums – gospel-chorded rockers and poignant ballads. The first single from the album, \"Border Song\", made into the US Top 100, peaking at Number 92. The second single, \"Your Song\", reached number seven in the UK Singles Chart and number eight in the US, becoming John's first hit single as a singer. The album soon became his first hit album, reaching number four on the US Billboard 200 and number five on the UK Albums Chart.\n\nBacked by former Spencer Davis Group drummer Nigel Olsson and bassist Dee Murray, Elton John's first American concert took place at the Troubadour in Los Angeles in August 1970, and was a success. The concept album Tumbleweed Connection was released in October 1970, and reached number two in the UK and number five in the US. The live album 17-11-70 (11–17–70 in the US) was recorded at a live show aired from A&R Studios on WABC-FM in New York City. Sales of the live album were heavily hit in the US when an east coast bootlegger released the performance several weeks before the official album, including all 60 minutes of the aircast, not just the 40 minutes selected by Dick James Music. \n\nJohn and Taupin then wrote the soundtrack to the obscure film Friends and then the album Madman Across the Water, the latter reaching number eight in the US and producing the hit songs, \"Levon\", and the album's opening track \"Tiny Dancer\". In 1972, Davey Johnstone joined the Elton John Band on guitar and backing vocals. Released in 1972, Honky Château became John's first US number one album, spending five weeks at the top of the Billboard 200, and began a streak of seven consecutive US number one albums. The album reached number two in the UK, and spawned the hit singles \"Rocket Man\" and \"Honky Cat\". both of which were recorded at Trident Studios in London.\n\nThe pop album Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player came out at the start of 1973, and reached number one in the UK, the US, Australia among others. The album produced the hits \"Crocodile Rock\", his first US Billboard Hot 100 number one, and \"Daniel\"; number two US, number four UK. Both the album and \"Crocodile Rock\" were the first album and single, respectively on the consolidated MCA Records label in the US, replacing MCA's other labels including Uni. \n\nGoodbye Yellow Brick Road, released in October 1973, gained instant critical acclaim and topped the chart on both sides of the Atlantic, remaining at number one for two months. It also temporarily established John as a glam rock star. It contained the US number 1 \"Bennie and the Jets\", along with other hits, \"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road\", \"Candle in the Wind\", \"Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting\" and \"Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding\". Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is included in the VH1 Classic Albums series, discussing the making, recording, and popularity of the album through concert and home video footage including interviews. \n\nThe Rocket Record Company to 21 at 33 (1974–79) \n\nJohn formed his own label named The Rocket Record Company (distributed in the US by MCA and initially by Island in the UK) and signed acts to it – notably Neil Sedaka (\"Bad Blood\", on which he sang background vocals) and Kiki Dee – with whom he took a personal interest. Instead of releasing his own records on Rocket, he opted for a dollar contract offered by MCA. When the contract was signed in 1974, MCA reportedly took out a insurance policy on John's life. In 1974, MCA released his Greatest Hits album, a UK and US number one which is certified Diamond by the RIAA for sales of 16million copies in the US. \n\nIn 1974, a collaboration with John Lennon took place, resulting in Lennon appearing on Elton John's single cover of the Beatles' \"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds\", the B-side of which was Lennon's \"One Day at a Time.\" In return, John was featured on \"Whatever Gets You thru the Night\" on Lennon's Walls and Bridges album. Later that year in what would be Lennon's last major live performance, the pair performed these two number 1 hits along with the Beatles classic \"I Saw Her Standing There\" at Madison Square Garden in New York. Lennon made the rare stage appearance with John and his band to keep the promise he made that he would appear on stage with him if \"Whatever Gets You Thru The Night\" became a US number one single. \n\nCaribou was released in 1974 and became John's third number one in the UK, and topped the charts in the US, Canada and Australia. Reportedly recorded in two weeks between live appearances, it featured \"The Bitch Is Back\" and the orchestrated \"Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me\". \"Step into Christmas\" was released as a stand-alone single in November 1973, and appears in the album's 1995 remastered re-issue. \n\nPete Townshend of the Who asked John to play a character called the \"Local Lad\" in the film of the rock opera Tommy, and to perform the song \"Pinball Wizard\". Drawing on power chords, John's version was recorded and used for the movie release in 1975 and the single came out in 1976 (1975 in the US). The song charted at number 7 in the UK. Bally subsequently released a \"Captain Fantastic\" pinball machine featuring an illustration of John in his movie guise. \n\nThe 1975 autobiographical album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy debuted at number one in the US, the first album ever to do so, and stayed at the top for seven weeks. Elton John revealed his previously ambiguous personality on the album, with Taupin's lyrics describing their early days as struggling songwriters and musicians in London. The lyrics and accompanying photo booklet are infused with a specific sense of place and time that is otherwise rare in his music. \"Someone Saved My Life Tonight\" was the hit single from this album and captured an early turning point in Elton John's life. The album's release signalled the end of the Elton John Band, as an unhappy and overworked John dismissed Olsson and Murray, two people who had contributed much of the band's signature sound and who had helped build his live following since the beginning.\n\nAccording to Circus Magazine, a spokesman for John Reid said the decision was reached mutually via phone while John was in Australia promoting Tommy.Circus Magazine, No 115, August 1975. Vol 2, No 8. K48002 pp14–15 She said there was no way Reid could have fired them \"because the band are not employed by John Reid, they're employed by Elton John.\" She went on to say Nigel would be going back to his solo work and Dee would do session work \"and possibly cut a solo album\".\n\nDavey Johnstone and Ray Cooper were retained, Quaye and Roger Pope returned, and the new bassist was Kenny Passarelli; this rhythm section provided a heavier-sounding backbeat. James Newton Howard joined to arrange in the studio and to play keyboards. In June 1975, John introduced the line-up before a crowd of 75,000 in London's Wembley Stadium. \n\nThe rock-oriented Rock of the Westies entered the US albums chart at number 1 like Captain Fantastic, a previously unattained feat. Elton John's stage wardrobe now included ostrich feathers, $5,000 spectacles that spelled his name in lights, and dressing up like the Statue of Liberty, Donald Duck, or Mozart, among others, at his concerts. In 1975, Elton received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. \n\nTo celebrate five years since he first appeared at the venue, in 1975 Elton John played a two-night, four-show stand at the Troubadour. With seating limited to under 500 per show, the chance to purchase tickets was determined by a postcard lottery, with each winner allowed two tickets. Everyone who attended the performances received a hardbound \"yearbook\" of the band's history. That year he also played piano on Kevin Ayers' Sweet Deceiver, and was among the first and few white artists to appear on the black music series Soul Train on American television. On 9 August 1975, John was named the outstanding rock personality of the year at the first annual Rock Music Awards at ceremonies held in Santa Monica, California. \n\nIn 1976, the live album Here and There was released in May, followed by the Blue Moves album in October, which contained the single \"Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word\". His biggest success in 1976 was \"Don't Go Breaking My Heart\", a duet with Kiki Dee that topped both the UK and US charts. Finally, in an interview with Rolling Stone that year entitled \"Elton's Frank Talk\", John stated that he was bisexual. \n\nBesides being the most commercially successful period, 1970–1976 is also held in the most regard critically. Within only a three-year span, between 1972 and 1975 John saw seven consecutive albums reach number one in the US, which had not been accomplished before. Of the six Elton John albums to make Rolling Stones list of \"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time\" in 2003, all are from this period, with Goodbye Yellow Brick Road ranked highest at number 91; similarly, the three Elton John albums given five stars by Allmusic (Tumbleweed Connection, Honky Château, and Captain Fantastic) are all from this period. \n\nDuring the same period, he made a guest appearance on the popular Morecambe and Wise Show on the BBC. The two comics spent the episode pointing him in the direction of everywhere except the stage to prevent him singing. \n\nIn November 1977, Elton John announced he was retiring from performing; Taupin began collaborating with others. Now only producing one album a year, John issued A Single Man in 1978, employing a new lyricist, Gary Osborne; the album produced no singles that made the top 20 in the US but the two singles from the album released in the UK, \"Part-Time Love\" and \"Song for Guy\", both made the top 20 in the UK with the latter reaching the top 5. In 1979, accompanied by Ray Cooper, Elton John became one of the first Western artists to tour the Soviet Union, as well as one of the first in Israel. John returned to the US top ten with \"Mama Can't Buy You Love\" (number 9), a song originally rejected in 1977 by MCA before being released, recorded in 1977 with Philadelphia soul producer Thom Bell. John reported that Thom Bell was the first person to give him voice lessons; Bell encouraged John to sing in a lower register. A disco-influenced album, Victim of Love, was poorly received. In 1979, John and Taupin reunited, though they did not collaborate on a full album until 1983's Too Low For Zero. 21 at 33, released the following year, was a significant career boost, aided by his biggest hit in four years, \"Little Jeannie\" (number 3 US), with the lyrics written by Gary Osborne. \n\n1980s: The Fox to Sleeping with the Past (1980–89) \n\nHis 1981 album, The Fox, was recorded during the same sessions as 21 at 33, and also included collaborations with Tom Robinson and Judie Tzuke. On 13 September 1980, Elton John, with Olsson and Murray back in the Elton John Band, performed a free concert to an estimated 400,000 fans on The Great Lawn in Central Park in New York. His 1982 hit \"Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)\", came from his Jump Up! album, his second under a new US recording contract with Geffen Records.\n\nWith original band members Johnstone, Murray and Olsson together again, he was able to return to the charts with the 1983 hit album Too Low for Zero, which included \"I'm Still Standing\" (No. 4 UK) and \"I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues\", the latter of which featured Stevie Wonder on harmonica and reached No. 4 in the US and No. 5 in the UK. In October 1983, Elton John caused controversy when he broke the United Nations' cultural boycott on apartheid-era South Africa by performing at the Sun City venue. He married his close friend and sound engineer, Renate Blauel, on Valentine's Day 1984 – the marriage lasted three years. \n\nIn 1985, he was one of the many performers at Live Aid held at Wembley Stadium. John played \"Bennie and the Jets\" and \"Rocket Man\"; then \"Don't Go Breaking My Heart\" with Kiki Dee for the first time since the Hammersmith Odeon on 24 December 1982; and introduced his friend George Michael, still then of Wham!, to sing \"Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me\". In 1985 he released Breaking Hearts which featured the hit song \"Sad Songs (Say So Much)\", No. 5 in the US and No. 7 in the UK. Elton John also recorded material with Millie Jackson in 1985. In 1986, he played the piano on two tracks on the heavy metal band Saxon's album Rock the Nations. \n\nA Biography channel special detailed the loss of Elton's voice in 1986 while on tour in Australia. Shortly thereafter he underwent throat surgery, which permanently altered his voice. Several non-cancerous polyps were removed from his vocal cords, resulting in a change in his singing voice. In 1987 he won a libel case against The Sun which published false allegations of sex with rent boys. In 1988, he performed five sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden in New York, giving him 26 for his career. Netting over , 2,000 items of Elton John's memorabilia were auctioned off at Sotheby's in London. \n\nHe placed other hits throughout the 1980s, including \"Nikita\" which featured in a music video directed by Ken Russell, No. 3 in the UK and No. 7 in the US in 1986, a live orchestral version of \"Candle in the Wind\", No. 6 in the US, and \"I Don't Wanna Go on with You Like That\", No. 2 in the US in 1988. His highest-charting single was a collaboration with Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder on \"That's What Friends Are For\" which reached No. 1 in the US in 1985; credited as Dionne and Friends, the song raised funds for AIDS research. His albums continued to sell, but of those released in the latter half of the 1980s, only Reg Strikes Back (number 16, 1988) placed in the top 20 in the US.\n\n1990s: \"Sacrifice\" to Aida (1990–99) \n\nIn 1990, he achieved his first solo UK number one hit single, with \"Sacrifice\" (coupled with \"Healing Hands\") from the previous year's album Sleeping with the Past; it would stay at the top spot for six weeks. The following year, John's \"Basque\" won the Grammy for Best Instrumental, and a guest concert appearance at Wembley Arena he had made on George Michael's cover of \"Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me\" was released as a single and topped the charts in both the UK and the US. At the 1991 Brit Awards in London, Elton John won the award for Best British Male. \n\nIn 1992, he released the US number 8 album The One, featuring the hit song \"The One\". He also released \"Runaway Train\", a duet he recorded with his long-time friend Eric Clapton, and with whom he played on Clapton's World Tour. John and Taupin then signed a music publishing deal with Warner/Chappell Music for an estimated over 12 years, giving them the largest cash advance in music publishing history. In April 1992, John appeared at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium, performing \"The Show Must Go On\" with the remaining members of Queen, and \"Bohemian Rhapsody\" with Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses and Queen. In September, John performed \"The One\" at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, and closed the ceremony performing \"November Rain\" with Guns N' Roses. The following year, he released Duets, a collaboration with 15 artists including Tammy Wynette and RuPaul. This included a new collaboration with Kiki Dee, entitled \"True Love\", which reached the Top 10 of the UK charts. \n\nAlong with Tim Rice, Elton John wrote the songs for the 1994 Disney animated film The Lion King. At the 67th Academy Awards ceremony, The Lion King soundtrack provided three of the five nominees for the Academy Award for Best Song, which he won with \"Can You Feel the Love Tonight\". Both that and \"Circle of Life\" became hit songs for John. \"Can You Feel the Love Tonight\" would also win Elton John the Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 37th Annual Grammy Awards. After the release of The Lion King soundtrack, the album remained at the top of Billboard 200 for nine weeks. On 10 November 1999, the RIAA certified The Lion King \"Diamond\" for selling 15million copies.\n\nIn 1994, Elton John was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose. In 1995 he released Made in England (number 3, 1995), which featured the single \"Believe\". John performed \"Believe\" at the 1995 Brit Awards, and picked up the prize for Outstanding Contribution to Music. A duet with Luciano Pavarotti, \"Live Like Horses\", reached number nine in the UK in December 1996. A compilation album called Love Songs was released in 1996. \n\nEarly in 1997, he held a 50th birthday party, costumed as Louis XIV, for 500 friends. He performed with the surviving members of Queen in Paris at the opening night (17 January 1997) of Le Presbytère N'a Rien Perdu De Son Charme Ni Le Jardin De Son Éclat, a work by French ballet legend Maurice Béjart which draws upon AIDS and the deaths of Freddie Mercury and the company's principal dancer Jorge Donn. Later in 1997, two close friends died: designer Gianni Versace was murdered; Diana, Princess of Wales died in a Paris car crash on 31 August. \n\nIn early September, he contacted his writing partner Bernie Taupin, asking him to revise the lyrics of his 1973 song \"Candle in the Wind\" to honour Diana, and Taupin rewrote the song accordingly. On 6 September 1997, John performed \"Candle in the Wind 1997\" at the funeral of Princess Diana in Westminster Abbey. The song became the fastest and biggest-selling single of all time, eventually selling over 33million copies worldwide, the best-selling single in UK Chart history, the best-selling single in Billboard history and the only single ever certified Diamond in the United States – the single sold over 11million copies in the US The Guinness World Records 2009 states that the song is \"the biggest-selling single since UK and US singles charts began in the 1950s, having accumulated worldwide sales of 33million copies\". The song proceeds of approximately £55million were donated to Diana's charities via the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. It would win Elton John the Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 40th Annual Grammy Awards in 1998.Miles, Barry [https://books.google.com/books?id-oBzTaoZciEC&pg\nPA207 Massive Music Moments] p.207. Anova Books, 2008 \"Something About the Way You Look Tonight\" was released as a double A-side. Elton John has publicly performed \"Candle in the Wind 1997\" only once, at Diana's funeral, vowing never to perform it again unless asked by Diana's sons. \n\nOn 15 September 1997, John appeared at the Music for Montserrat charity concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London, performing \"Your Song\", \"Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me\" and \"Live Like Horses\" solo before finishing with \"Hey Jude\" alongside fellow English artists Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Mark Knopfler and Sting. In November 1997, John performed in the BBC's Children in Need charity single \"Perfect Day\", which reached number one in the UK. \n\nIn the musical theatre world, The Lion King musical debuted on Broadway in 1997 and the West End in 1999. In 2014, it had grossed over $6 billion and became the top-earning title in box-office history for both stage productions and films, surpassing the record previously held by Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical The Phantom of the Opera. In addition to The Lion King, John also composed music for a Disney musical production of Aida in 1999 with lyricist Tim Rice, for which they received the Tony Award for Best Original Score at the 54th Tony Awards, and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards. The musical was given its world premiere in the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta and went on to Chicago and eventually Broadway. John released a live compilation album called Elton John One Night Only – The Greatest Hits from the show he did at Madison Square Garden in New York City that same year. A concept album from the musical titled Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida was also released and featured the duets, \"Written in the Stars\" with LeAnn Rimes, and \"I Know the Truth\" with Janet Jackson. \n\n2000s: Are You Ready for Love and 60th birthday (2000–09)\n\nIn 2000, he and Tim Rice teamed again to create songs for DreamWorks' animated film The Road to El Dorado. he released his 27th album, Songs from the West Coast, in October 2001. At this point, John disliked appearing in his own music videos; \"This Train Don't Stop There Anymore\" featured Justin Timberlake portraying a young Elton John, and \"I Want Love\" featured Robert Downey, Jr. lip-syncing the song. At the 2001 Grammy Awards, Elton performed \"Stan\" with Eminem. One month after the 11 September attacks, Elton John appeared at the Concert for New York City, performing \"I Want Love\" as well as \"Your Song\" in a duet with Billy Joel. \n\nIn August 2003, he scored his fifth UK number one single when \"Are You Ready for Love\" topped the charts. Returning to musical theatre, John composed music for a West End theatre production of Billy Elliot the Musical in 2005 with playwright Lee Hall. Opening to strong reviews, the West End production is scheduled to close on 9 April 2016, due to the theatre's refurbishment programme, after 4,600 performances. The show has been seen by over 5.25 million people in London and nearly 11 million people worldwide (on Broadway, in Sydney, Melbourne, Chicago, Toronto, Seoul, the Netherlands and São Paulo, Brazil etc.), has grossed over $800 million worldwide and is the winner of over 80 theatre awards internationally. His only theatrical project with Bernie Taupin is Lestat: The Musical, based on the Anne Rice vampire novels. However it received harsh reviews from critics and closed in May 2006 after 39 performances. Elton featured on rapper Tupac Shakur's posthumous single \"Ghetto Gospel\", which topped the UK charts in July 2005.\n\nIn October 2003, he announced that he had signed an exclusive agreement to perform 75 shows over three years at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip. The show, entitled The Red Piano, was a multimedia concert featuring massive props and video montages created by David LaChapelle. Effectively, he and Celine Dion shared performances at Caesars Palace throughout the year – while one performs, one rests. The first of these shows took place on 13 February 2004. In February 2006, Elton and Dion sang together at the venue to raise money for Harrah's Entertainment Inc. workers affected by the 2005 hurricanes, performing \"Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word\" and \"Saturday Night's Alright (for Fighting).\" \n\nElton John was named a Disney Legend for his contributions to Disney's films and theatrical works on 9 October 2006, by the Walt Disney Company. In 2006, he told Rolling Stone that he plans for his next record to be in the R&B and hip hop genre. \"I want to work with Pharrell Williams, Timbaland, Snoop [Lion], Kanye [West], Eminem and just see what happens.\"\n\nIn March 2007, he performed at Madison Square Garden for a record breaking 60th time for his 60th birthday, the concert was broadcast live and a DVD recording was released as Elton 60 – Live at Madison Square Garden; a greatest-hits compilation CD, Rocket Man – Number Ones, was released in 17 different versions worldwide, including a CD/DVD combo; and his back catalogue – almost 500 songs from 32 albums – became available for legal paid download. \n\nOn 1 July 2007, John appeared at the Concert for Diana held at Wembley Stadium, London in honour of the late Diana, Princess of Wales on what would have been her 46th birthday, with the proceeds from the concert going to Diana's charities as well as to charities of which her sons Princes William and Harry are patrons. John opened the concert with \"Your Song\", and then later closed it with \"Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting\", \"Tiny Dancer\", and \"Are You Ready For Love\". \n\nOn 21 June 2008, he performed his 200th show in Caesars Palace. A DVD/CD package of The Red Piano was released through Best Buy in November 2008. A two-year global tour was sandwiched between commitments in Las Vegas, Nevada, some of the venues of which were new to John. The Red Piano Tour closed in Las Vegas in April 2009. \n\nIn a September 2008 interview with GQ magazine, John said: \"I'm going on the road again with Billy Joel again next year\", referring to \"Face to Face\", a series of concerts featuring both musicians. The tour began in March and will continue for at least two more years. \n\n2010–present\n\nElton John performed a piano duet with Lady Gaga at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards. On 6 June 2010, John performed at the fourth wedding of conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh for a reported fee. Eleven days later, and 17 years to the day after his last previous performance in Israel, he performed at the Ramat Gan Stadium; this was significant because of other then-recent cancellations by other performers in the fallout surrounding an Israeli raid on Gaza Flotilla the month before. In his introduction to that concert, Elton John noted he and other musicians should not \"cherry-pick our conscience\", in reference to Elvis Costello, who was to have performed in Israel two weeks after John did, but cancelled in the wake of the aforementioned raid, citing his [Costello's] conscience. \n\nHe released The Union on 19 October 2010. John says his collaboration with American singer, songwriter and sideman Leon Russell marks a new chapter in his recording career, saying: \"I don't have to make pop records any more.\" \n\nHe began his new show The Million Dollar Piano at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas on 28 September 2011. John performed the show at Caesars for the next three years. He performed his 3000th concert on Saturday 8 October 2011 at Caesars. In 2011, John performed vocals on Snowed in at Wheeler Street with Kate Bush for her 50 Words for Snow album. On 3 February 2012, Elton John visited Costa Rica for the first time when he performed at the recently built National Stadium. \n\nOn 4 June 2012, he performed at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert at Buckingham Palace, performing a repertoire including \"Your Song\", \"Crocodile Rock\" and \"I'm Still Standing\". On 30 June, John performed in Kiev, Ukraine at a joint concert with Queen + Adam Lambert for the Elena Pinchuk ANTIAIDS Foundation. \n\nAn album containing remixes of songs that he recorded in the 1970s called Good Morning to the Night was released in July 2012. The remixes were conducted by Australian group Pnau and the album reached No. 1 in the UK. At the 2012 Pride of Britain Awards on 30 October, Elton John, along with Michael Caine, Richard Branson, Simon Cowell and Stephen Fry, recited Rudyard Kipling's poem \"If—\" in tribute to the 2012 British Olympic and Paralympics athletes. \n\nIn February 2013, John performed a duet with singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards. Later in 2013 he collaborated with rock band Queens of the Stone Age on their sixth studio album ...Like Clockwork, contributing piano and vocals on the song \"Fairweather Friends\". He stated that he was a fan of frontman Josh Homme's side project, Them Crooked Vultures, and had contacted Homme via phone call, asking if he could perform on the album. \n\nIn September 2013, John received the first Brits Icon Award for his \"lasting impact\" on UK Culture. Rod Stewart presented him the award on stage at the London Palladium before the two performed a duet of \"Sad Songs (Say So Much)\". It had been announced in March 2012 that John had completed work on his thirty-first album, The Diving Board. The album was produced by T-Bone Burnett and was originally set for release in autumn 2012. The album's release date was pushed back multiple times, but on its release in September 2013 it reached No. 3 in the UK and No. 4 in the US. \n\nIn October 2015, it was announced Elton John would release his 32nd studio album, Wonderful Crazy Night, on 5 February 2016. As with his last album, it was produced by T-Bone Burnett. The album's first single, \"Looking Up\", was released that same month. This album marked John's first full album recorded with his touring band since 2006's The Captain & the Kid. John will play piano on \"Sick Love\", a song from the Red Hot Chili Peppers album, The Getaway, released in June 2016. He will also star in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, scheduled for a June 2017 release. \n\nMusicianship\n\nElton John has written with his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin since 1967 when he answered an advertisement for talent placed in the popular UK music publication, New Musical Express, by Liberty records A&R man Ray Williams. The pair have collaborated on more than 30 albums to date. The writing style that Elton John and Bernie Taupin use involves Taupin writing the lyrics on his own, and John then putting them to music, with the two never in the same room during the process. Taupin would write a set of lyrics, then mail them to John, wherever he was in the world, who would then lay down the music, arrange it, and record. \n\nIn 1992, John was inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. He is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA). His voice was once classed as tenor; it is now baritone. His piano playing is influenced by classical and gospel music. He used Paul Buckmaster to arrange the music on his studio albums during the 1970s. \n\nPersonal life\n\nSexuality and family\n\nIn the late 1960s, Elton John was engaged to be married to his first lover, secretary Linda Woodrow, who is mentioned in the song \"Someone Saved My Life Tonight\". He married German recording engineer Renate Blauel on 14 February 1984, in Darling Point, Sydney, with speculation that the marriage was a cover for his homosexuality. John came out as bisexual in a 1976 interview with Rolling Stone, but after his divorce from Blauel in 1988, he told the magazine that he was \"comfortable\" being gay. \n\nIn 1993, he began a relationship with David Furnish, a former advertising executive and now filmmaker originally from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. On 21 December 2005 (the day that the Civil Partnership Act came into force), John and Furnish were amongst the first couples in the UK to form a civil partnership, which was held at the Windsor Guildhall. After gay marriage became legal in England in March 2014, John and Furnish married in Windsor, Berkshire, on 21 December 2014, the ninth anniversary of their civil partnership. They have two sons. Their oldest, Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John, was born to a surrogate mother on 25 December 2010 in California. He also has ten godchildren, including Sean Lennon, David and Victoria Beckham's sons Brooklyn and Romeo, Elizabeth Hurley's son Damian, and the daughter of Seymour Stein. \n\nIn 2010, John was criticised by some Christian groups in the US after describing Jesus as a \"compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems\". William Anthony Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and opponent of gay marriage, responded: \"To call Jesus a homosexual is to label him a sexual deviant. But what else would we expect from a man who previously said, 'From my point of view, I would ban religion completely.'\" \n\nIn 2008, John stated he preferred civil partnerships over marriage for gay people. But by 2012 John had changed his position and become a staunch supporter of same-sex marriage in the United Kingdom. He was quoted: \"There is a world of difference between calling someone your 'partner' and calling them your 'husband'. 'Partner' is a word that should be preserved for people you play tennis with, or work alongside in business. It doesn't come close to describing the love that I have for David, and he for me. In contrast, 'husband' does.\" In 2014, he claimed Jesus would have been in favour of same-sex marriage. \n\nIn 2013, Elton John resisted calls to boycott Russia in protest at the Russian LGBT propaganda law, but told fans at a Moscow concert that the Russian laws were \"inhumane and isolating\" and he was \"deeply saddened and shocked over the current legislation.\" In a January 2014 interview, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke of John in an attempt to show that there was no gay discrimination in Russia, stating; \"Elton John – he's an extraordinary person, a distinguished musician, and millions of our people sincerely love him, regardless of his sexual orientation.\" John responded by offering to introduce the President to Russians abused under Russian legislation banning \"homosexual propaganda\". On 24 September 2015, the Associated Press reported that President Putin called John and invited him to meet in the future about LGBT issues in Russia. Putin's call came just a few days after two phone pranksters called Elton John, pretending to be Putin and his spokesman, and causing John to erroneously thank Putin for the call on the singer's Instagram account. \n\nWealth\n\nIn April 2009, the Sunday Times Rich List estimated John's wealth to be £175million (), and ranked him as the 322nd wealthiest person in Britain. John was estimated to have a fortune of £195million in the Sunday Times Rich List of 2011, making him one of the 10 wealthiest people in the British music industry. Aside from his main home \"Woodside\" in Old Windsor, Berkshire, John owns residences in Atlanta, Nice, London's Holland Park, and Venice. John's property in Nice is based on Mon Boron mountain. Elton John is an art collector, and is believed to have one of the largest private photography collections in the world. \n\nIn 2000, he admitted to spending £30million in just under two years—an average of £1.5million a month. Between January 1996 and September 1997, he spent more than £9.6m on property and £293,000 on flowers. In June 2001 John sold 20 of his cars at Christie's, saying he didn't get the chance to drive them because he was out of the country so often. The sale, which included a 1993 Jaguar XJ220, the most expensive at £234,750, and several Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, and Bentleys, raised nearly £2million. In 2003, John sold the contents of his Holland Park home—expected to fetch £800,000 at Sotheby's—to modernise the decoration and to display some of his contemporary art collection. Every year since 2004, John has opened a shop called \"Elton's Closet\" in which he sells his second-hand clothes. \n\nOther\n\nBy 1975, the pressures of stardom had begun to take a serious toll on him. During \"Elton Week\" in Los Angeles that year, he suffered a drug overdose. He also battled the eating disorder bulimia. In a CNN interview with Larry King in 2002, King asked if John knew of Diana, Princess of Wales' eating disorder. John replied, \"Yes, I did. We were both bulimic.\" \n\nA longtime tennis enthusiast, he wrote the song \"Philadelphia Freedom\" in tribute to long-time friend Billie Jean King and her World Team Tennis franchise of the same name. John and King also co-host an annual pro-am event to benefit AIDS charities, most notably Elton John's own Elton John AIDS Foundation, for which King is a chairwoman. John, who maintains a part-time residence in Atlanta, Georgia, became a fan of the Atlanta Braves baseball team when he moved there in 1991. In 2015, he was named one of GQ's 50 best dressed British men. \n\nWatford Football Club\n\nHaving supported Watford Football Club since growing up locally, Elton John became the club's chairman and director in 1976, appointing Graham Taylor as manager and investing large sums of money as the club rose three divisions into the English First Division. The pinnacle of the club's success was finishing runners up in the First Division to Liverpool F.C. in 1983 and reaching the FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium in 1984. He sold the club to Jack Petchey in 1987, but remained president.\n\nIn 1997, he re-purchased the club from Petchey and once again became chairman. He stepped down in 2002 when the club needed a full-time chairman although he continued as president of the club. Although no longer the majority shareholder, he still holds a significant financial interest. In June 2005 he held a concert at Watford's home stadium, Vicarage Road, donating the funds to the club, and another concert in May 2010. He has remained friends with a number of high-profile players in football, including Pelé and David Beckham. For a time, from late 1975 until 1976, he was a part-owner of the Los Angeles Aztecs of the North American Soccer League. On 13 December 2014, he appeared at Watford's Vicarage Road with David Furnish, and his sons Zachary and Elijah for the opening of the \"Sir Elton John stand\". He described the occasion as \"one of the greatest days of my life\". \n\nAIDS Foundation\n\nJohn has said that he took risks with unprotected sex during the 1980s and considers himself lucky to have avoided the AIDS epidemic. In 1986 he joined with Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight and Stevie Wonder to record the single \"That's What Friends Are For\", with all profits being donated to the American Foundation for AIDS Research. The song won John and the others the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. In April 1990, John performed his 1968 ballad \"Skyline Pigeon\" at the funeral of Ryan White, a teenage haemophiliac he had befriended. \n\nElton John became more closely associated with AIDS charities following the deaths of his friends Ryan White in 1990 and Freddie Mercury in 1991, raising large amounts of money and using his public profile to raise awareness of the disease. He founded the Elton John AIDS Foundation in 1992 as a charity to fund programmes for HIV/AIDS prevention, for the elimination of prejudice and discrimination against HIV/AIDS-affected individuals, and for providing services to people living with or at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. This cause continues to be one of his personal passions. In 1993, he began hosting his annual Academy Award Party, which has become one of the highest-profile Oscar parties in the Hollywood film industry, and has raised over . In early 2006, John donated the smaller of two bright-red Yamaha pianos from his Las Vegas, Nevada show to auction on eBay to raise public awareness and funds for the foundation.\n\nTo raise money for his AIDS charity, he annually hosts a glamorous White Tie & Tiara Ball in the grounds of his home in Old Windsor in Berkshire to which many famous celebrities are invited. On 28 June 2007, the 9th annual White Tie & Tiara Ball took place. The menu consisted of a truffle soufflé followed by Surf and Turf (filet mignon with Maine lobster tail) and a giant Knickerbocker glory ice cream. An auction followed the dinner held by Stephen Fry. A Rolls Royce 'Phantom' drophead coupe and a piece of Tracey Emin's artwork both raised £800,000 for the charity fund, with the total amount raised reaching £3.5million. Later, John sang \"Delilah\" with Tom Jones and \"Big Spender\" with Shirley Bassey. The 2011 guests included Sarah, Duchess of York, Elizabeth Hurley and George Michael (who performed \"Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me\" in a duet with John), and the auction raised £5million, adding to the £45million the Balls have raised for the Elton John Aids Foundation.\n\nHonours and awards\n\nHe was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1994. He and Bernie Taupin had previously been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1992. John was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1995. For his charitable work, John was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II on 24 February 1998. In October 1975, John became the 1,662nd person to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.\n\nHe was awarded Society of Singers Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. He became a recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor in 2004, and a Disney Legends Award in 2006. In 2000 he was named the MusiCares Person of the Year for his artistic achievement in the music industry and dedication to philanthropy. In 2010, he was awarded with the PRS for Music Heritage Award, which was erected on The Namaste Lounge Pub in Northwood, London, where John performed his first ever gig. \n\nMusic awards include the Academy Award for Best Original Song for \"Can You Feel The Love Tonight\" from The Lion King (award shared with Tim Rice); the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song in 1994 for \"Can You Feel The Love Tonight\" from The Lion King (award shared with Tim Rice); and the Tony Award for Best Original Score in 2000 for Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida (award shared with Tim Rice). He has also received five Brit Awards, including the award for Best British Male in 1991, and awards for Outstanding Contribution to Music in 1986 and 1995. In 2013, John received the first Brits Icon award in recognition of his \"lasting impact\" on UK culture, which was presented to him by his close friend Rod Stewart. \n\nFilm awards\n\nAcademy Awards\n\n* 1995: Best Original Song (won) for Can You Feel the Love Tonight from The Lion King\n* 1995: Best Original Song (nominated) for Circle of Life from The Lion King\n* 1995: Best Original Song (nominated) for Hakuna Matata from The Lion King\n\nMusic awards\n\nGrammy Awards\n\n* 1971: Best New Artist (nominated)\n* 1971: Album of the Year (nominated) for Elton John\n* 1971: Best Contemporary Male Vocalist (nominated) for Elton John\n* 1972: Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture (nominated) for Friends\n* 1974: Best Male Pop Vocal Performance (nominated) for \"Daniel\"\n* 1975: Album of the Year (nominated) for Caribou\n* 1975: Record of the Year (nominated) for \"Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me\"\n* 1975: Best Male Pop Vocal Performance (nominated) for \"Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me\"\n* 1976: Album of the Year (nominated) for Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy\n* 1976: Best Male Pop Vocal Performance (nominated) for Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy\n* 1977: Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal (nominated) for \"Don't Go Breaking My Heart\" with Kiki Dee\n* 1980: Best R&B Vocal Performance - Male (nominated) for \"Mama Can't Buy You Love\"\n* 1983: Best Male Pop Vocal Performance (nominated) for \"Blue Eyes\"\n* 1985: Best Male Pop Vocal Performance (nominated) for \"Restless\"\n* 1987: Record of the Year (nominated) for \"That's What Friends Are For\", performed by Dionne Warwick & Friends (award shared with Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight & Stevie Wonder)\n* 1987: Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal (won) for \"That's What Friends Are For\", performed by Dionne Warwick & Friends (award shared with Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight & Stevie Wonder)\n* 1988: Best Male Pop Vocal Performance (nominated) for \"Candle in the Wind\" (live)\n* 1992: Best Instrumental Composition (won) for \"Basque\", performed by James Galway\n* 1993: Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal (nominated) for \"Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me\" with George Michael\n* 1983: Best Male Pop Vocal Performance (nominated) for \"The One\"\n* 1995: Song of the Year (nominated) for \"Can You Feel the Love Tonight\" from The Lion King\n* 1995: Song of the Year (nominated) for \"Circle of Life\" from The Lion King\n* 1995: Best Male Pop Vocal Performance (won) for \"Can You Feel the Love Tonight\" from The Lion King\n* 1995: Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or for Television (nominated) for \"Can You Feel the Love Tonight\" from The Lion King\n* 1995: Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or for Television (nominated) for \"Circle of Life\" from The Lion King\n* 1996: Best Male Pop Vocal Performance (nominated) for \"Believe\"\n* 1997: Best Male Pop Vocal Performance (won) for \"Candle in the Wind 1997\"\n* 1999: Grammy Legend Award\n* 2001: Best Musical Show Album (won) for Elton John & Tim Rice's Aida (award shared with Guy Babylon, Paul Bogaev & Chris (producers), Tim Rice (lyricist) and the original Broadway cast with Heather Headley, Adam Pascal, and Sherie Rene Scott)\n* 2002: Best Pop Vocal Album (nominated) for Songs from the West Coast\n* 2002: Best Male Pop Vocal Performance (nominated) for \"I Want Love\"\n* 2003: Best Male Pop Vocal Performance (nominated) for \"Original Sin\"\n* 2005: Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals (nominated) for \"Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word\" with Ray Charles\n* 2011: Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals (nominated) with Leon Russell for \"If It Wasn't for Bad\"\n\nTheatre awards \n\nTony Awards\n\n* 1998: Best Original Musical Score (nominated) for The Lion King\n* 2000: Best Original Musical Score (won) for Aida\n* 2009: Best Score (Music and/or Lyrics) (nominated) for Billy Elliot, The Musical\n* 2010: Best Play (nominated as producer) for Next Fall\n\nElton John Band \n\nElton John Band members\n\nCurrent members\n* Elton John – lead vocals, piano\n* Nigel Olsson – drums, vocals\n* Davey Johnstone – guitar, musical director, vocals\n* John Mahon – percussion, vocals\n* Kim Bullard – keyboards\n* Matt Bissonette – bass\n* Ray Cooper – percussion\n\nPrevious band members\n* Guy Babylon – keyboards\n* Bob Birch – bass guitar, vocals\n* Tom Costello – drums\n* David Hentschel – synthesiser\n* Tony Murray – bass\n* Roger Pope – drums, percussion\n* Fred Mandel – keyboards, guitars\n* Dee Murray – bass guitar, vocals\n* James Newton Howard – conductor, keyboards, orchestrations\n* Caleb Quaye – guitar, drums, percussion\n* Kenny Passarelli – bass, background vocals\n* Charlie Morgan – drums\n* John Jorgenson – guitars, saxophone, pedal steel, mandolin, vocals\n* David Paton – bass guitar, vocals\n* Tata Vega – lead backing vocals\n* Rose Stone – backing vocals\n* Lisa Stone – backing vocals\n* Jean Witherspoon – backing vocals\n\nOther notable contributors and guests\n* Leon Russell – piano, vocals\n* Gus Dudgeon – production\n* Paul Buckmaster – orchestrations\n* Lesley Duncan – acoustic guitar, vocals, background vocals\n* Dusty Springfield – background vocals\n* Rick Wakeman – organ\n* Jean-Luc Ponty – electric violin\n* Luther Vandross – vocals\n* Kiki Dee – background vocals\n* Bruce Johnston – vocals, background vocals\n* Carl Wilson – vocals, background vocals\n* Toni Tennille – vocals, background vocals\n* Tower of Power – horns\n* John Lennon (credited as Dr. Winston O' Boogie) – guitar\n* Labelle – vocals, background vocals\n* David Crosby – vocals, background vocals\n* Graham Nash – vocals, background vocals\n* London Symphony Orchestra\n* London Philharmonic Orchestra\n* Melbourne Symphony Orchestra\n* Royal Philharmonic Orchestra\n* David Sanborn – saxophone\n* David Paich – organ\n* Jeff Porcaro – drums\n* Pete Townshend – guitar\n* Stevie Wonder – harmonica\n* John Deacon – bass\n* Nik Kershaw – electric guitar\n* Freddie Hubbard – trumpet, flugelhorn\n* Eric Clapton – vocals\n* David Gilmour – guitar\n* k.d. lang – vocals\n* P.M. Dawn – vocals\n* Little Richard – vocals\n* Don Henley – vocals\n* Chris Rea – vocals\n* Tammy Wynette – vocals\n* Gladys Knight – vocals\n* Paul Young – vocals\n* Bonnie Raitt – vocals\n* Leonard Cohen – vocals\n* George Michael – vocals\n* Deon Estus – bass\n* Paul Carrack – organ\n* Ricky Molina – drums, percussion\n\nSince 1970, John's band, of which he is the pianist and lead singer, has been known as the Elton John Band. The band has had multiple line-up changes, but Nigel Olsson, Davey Johnstone, and Ray Cooper have been members (albeit non-consecutively) since 1969 (Olsson) and 1972 (Johnstone and Cooper). Olsson left the band in 1984 but rejoined in 2000. \nRay Cooper has worked on and off with the Elton John Band because he maintains obligations to other musicians as a session player and sideman as a road-tour percussionist.\n\nDiscography\n\nSolo studio albums\n* Empty Sky (1969)\n* Elton John (1970)\n* Tumbleweed Connection (1970)\n* Madman Across the Water (1971)\n* Honky Château (1972)\n* Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player (1973)\n* Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973)\n* Caribou (1974)\n* Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (1975)\n* Rock of the Westies (1975)\n* Blue Moves (1976)\n* A Single Man (1978)\n* Victim of Love (1979)\n* 21 at 33 (1980)\n* The Fox (1981)\n* Jump Up! (1982)\n* Too Low for Zero (1983)\n* Breaking Hearts (1984)\n* Ice on Fire (1985)\n* Leather Jackets (1986)\n* Reg Strikes Back (1988)\n* Sleeping with the Past (1989)\n* The One (1992)\n* Made in England (1995)\n* The Big Picture (1997)\n* Songs from the West Coast (2001)\n* Peachtree Road (2004)\n* The Captain & the Kid (2006)\n* The Diving Board (2013)\n* Wonderful Crazy Night (2016)\n\nCollaborative albums\n* Live in Australia with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (1986)\n* Duets (1993)\n* The Union with Leon Russell (2010)\n* Good Morning to the Night with Pnau (2012)\n\nSoundtracks, scores, and theatre albums\n* Friends (1971)\n* The Lion King (1994)\n* Aida (1998)\n* Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida (1999)\n* The Muse (1999)\n* The Road to El Dorado (2000)\n* Billy Elliot (2005)\n* Lestat (2005)\n* Gnomeo & Juliet (2011)\n\nFilmography\n\n* Born to Boogie, US (1972) as himself with Marc Bolan and Ringo Starr\n* Tommy, UK (1975) as Pinball Wizard\n* Spice World, UK (1997) as himself\n* Elton John: Tantrums & Tiaras (1997) autobiography as himself\n* The Country Bears, US (2002) as himself\n* Elton John: Me, Myself & I (2007) autobiography as himself", "Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (born 22 March 1948) is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. \n\nSeveral of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of variations, two film scores, and a Latin Requiem Mass. Several of his songs have been widely recorded and were hits outside of their parent musicals, notably \"The Music of the Night\" from The Phantom of the Opera, \"I Don't Know How to Love Him\" from Jesus Christ Superstar, \"Don't Cry for Me, Argentina\" and \"You Must Love Me\" from Evita, \"Any Dream Will Do\" from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and \"Memory\" from Cats.\n\nHe has received a number of awards, including a knighthood in 1992, followed by a peerage from Queen Elizabeth II for services to Music, seven Tonys, three Grammys (as well as the Grammy Legend Award), an Academy Award, fourteen Ivor Novello Awards, seven Olivier Awards, a Golden Globe, a Brit Award, the 2006 Kennedy Center Honors, and the 2008 Classic Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is an inductee into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, and is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. \n\nHis company, the Really Useful Group, is one of the largest theatre operators in London. Producers in several parts of the UK have staged productions, including national tours, of the Lloyd Webber musicals under licence from the Really Useful Group. Lloyd Webber is also the president of the Arts Educational Schools London, a performing arts school located in Chiswick, West London. He is involved in a number of charitable activities, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, Nordoff Robbins, Prostate Cancer UK and War Child. In 1992 he set up the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation which supports the arts, culture and heritage in the UK. \n\nEarly life\n\nAndrew Lloyd Webber was born in Kensington, London, the elder son of William Lloyd Webber (1914–1982), a composer and organist, and Jean Hermione Johnstone (1921–1993), a violinist and pianist. His younger brother, Julian Lloyd Webber, is a renowned solo cellist.\n\nLloyd Webber started writing his own music at a young age, a suite of six pieces at the age of nine. He also put on \"productions\" with Julian and his Aunt Viola in his toy theatre (which he built at Viola's suggestion). Later, he would be the owner of a number of West End theatres, including the Palace. His aunt Viola, an actress, took him to see many of her shows and through the stage door into the world of the theatre. He also had originally set music to Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats at the age of 15.\n\nIn 1965, Lloyd Webber was a Queen's Scholar at Westminster School and studied history for a term at Magdalen College, Oxford, although he abandoned the course in Winter 1965 to study at the Royal College of Music and pursue his interest in musical theatre. \n\nProfessional career\n\nEarly years\n\nLloyd Webber's first collaboration with lyricist Tim Rice was The Likes of Us, a musical based on the true story of Thomas John Barnardo. Although composed in 1965, it was not publicly performed until 2005, when a production was staged at Lloyd Webber's Sydmonton Festival. In 2008, amateur rights were released by the National Operatic and Dramatic Association (NODA) in association with the Really Useful Group. The first amateur performance was by a children's theatre group in Cornwall called \"Kidz R Us\". Stylistically, The Likes of Us is fashioned after the Broadway musical of the 1940s and 1950s; it opens with a traditional overture comprising a medley of tunes from the show, and the score reflects some of Lloyd Webber's early influences, particularly Richard Rodgers, Frederick Loewe, and Lionel Bart. In this respect, it is markedly different from the composer's later work, which tends to be either predominantly or wholly through-composed, and closer in form to opera than to the Broadway musical.\n\nIn 1968, Rice and Lloyd Webber were commissioned to write a piece for the Colet Court preparatory school, which resulted in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a retelling of the biblical story of Joseph in which Lloyd Webber and Rice humorously pastiche a number of musical styles such as Elvis-style rock'n'roll, Calypso and country music. Joseph began life as a short cantata that gained some recognition on its second staging with a favourable review in The Times. For its subsequent performances, Rice and Lloyd Webber revised the show and added new songs to expand it to a more substantial length. This culminated in a two-hour-long production being staged in the West End on the back of the success of Jesus Christ Superstar.\n\nIn 1969 Rice and Lloyd Webber wrote a song for the Eurovision Song Contest called \"Try It and See,\" which was not selected. With rewritten lyrics it became \"King Herod's Song\" in their third musical, Jesus Christ Superstar (1970).\n\nThe planned follow-up to Jesus Christ Superstar was a musical comedy based on the Jeeves and Wooster novels by P. G. Wodehouse. Tim Rice was uncertain about this venture, partly because of his concern that he might not be able to do justice to the novels that he and Lloyd Webber so admired. After doing some initial work on the lyrics, he pulled out of the project and Lloyd Webber subsequently wrote the musical with Alan Ayckbourn, who provided the book and lyrics. Jeeves failed to make any impact at the box office and closed after a short run of only three weeks. Many years later, Lloyd Webber and Ayckbourn revisited this project, producing a thoroughly reworked and more successful version entitled By Jeeves (1996). Only two of the songs from the original production remained (\"Half a Moment\" and \"Banjo Boy\").\n\nMid-1970s\n\nLloyd Webber collaborated with Rice once again to write Evita (1978 in London/1979 in U.S.), a musical based on the life of Eva Perón. As with Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita was released first as a concept album (1976) and featured Julie Covington singing the part of Eva Perón. The song \"Don't Cry for Me Argentina\" became a hit single and the musical was staged at the Prince Edward Theatre in a production directed by Harold Prince and starring Elaine Paige in the title role.\n\nPatti LuPone created the role of Eva on Broadway for which she won a Tony. Evita was a highly successful show that ran for ten years in the West End. It transferred to Broadway in 1979. Rice and Lloyd Webber parted ways soon after Evita. In an interview in 2011, LuPone commented \"He writes crap music... Evita was his best score, Evita in its bizarreness - when I first heard it I thought 'I swear to God, he hated women' [...] There are some very romantic moments in his music, and there is some real...trash that he doesn't even think about parting with. He's not a very good editor of his own stuff.\" \n\nIn 1978, Lloyd Webber embarked on a solo project, the \"Variations\", with his cellist brother Julian based on the 24th Caprice by Paganini, which reached number two in the pop album chart in the United Kingdom. The main theme was used as the theme tune for ITV's long-running South Bank Show throughout its 32-year run. The same year, Lloyd Webber also composed a new theme tune for the long-running documentary series Whicker's World, which was used from 1978-80.\n\n1980s\n\nLloyd Webber was the subject of This Is Your Life in November 1980 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in the foyer of Thames Television's Euston Road Studios. He would be honoured a second time by the television programme in November 1994 when Michael Aspel surprised him at the Adelphi Theatre.\n\nLloyd Webber embarked on his next project without a lyricist, turning instead to the poetry of T. S. Eliot. Cats (1981) was to become the longest running musical in London, where it ran for 21 years before closing. On Broadway, Cats ran for 18 years, a record which would ultimately be broken by another Lloyd Webber musical, The Phantom of the Opera. \n\nStarlight Express (1984) was a commercial hit, but received negative reviews from the critics. It enjoyed a record run in the West End, but ran for less than two years on Broadway. The show has also seen two tours of the US, as well as an Australian/Japanese production, a three-year UK touring production, which transferred to New Zealand later in 2009. The show also runs full-time in a custom-built theatre in Bochum, Germany, where it has been running since 1988.\n\nLloyd Webber wrote a Requiem Mass dedicated to his father, William, who had died in 1982. It premiered at St. Thomas Church in New York on 24 February 1985. Church music had been a part of the composer's upbringing and the composition was inspired by an article he had read about the plight of Cambodian orphans. Lloyd Webber had on a number of occasions written sacred music for the annual Sydmonton Festival. Lloyd Webber received a Grammy Award in 1986 for Requiem in the category of best classical composition. Pie Jesu from Requiem achieved a high placing on the UK pop charts. Perhaps because of its large orchestration, live performances of the Requiem are rare.\n\nCricket (1986), also called Cricket (Hearts and Wickets), reunited Lloyd Webber with Tim Rice to create this short musical for Queen Elizabeth's 60th birthday, first performed at Windsor Castle. Several of the tunes were later used for Aspects of Love and Sunset Boulevard.\n\nLloyd Webber also premiered The Phantom of the Opera in 1986, inspired by the 1911 Gaston Leroux novel. He wrote the part of Christine for his then-wife, Sarah Brightman, who played the role in the original London and Broadway productions alongside Michael Crawford as the Phantom. The production was directed by Harold Prince, who had also earlier directed Evita. Charles Hart wrote the lyrics for Phantom with some additional material provided by Richard Stilgoe, with whom Lloyd-Webber co-wrote the book of the musical. It became a hit and is still running in both the West End and on Broadway; in January 2006 it overtook Cats as the longest-running musical on Broadway. On 11 February 2012, Phantom of the Opera played its 10,000th show on Broadway.\n\nAspects of Love followed in 1989, a musical based on the story by David Garnett. The lyrics were by Don Black and Charles Hart and the original production was directed by Trevor Nunn. Aspects had a run of four years in London, but closed after less than a year on Broadway. It has since gone on a tour of the UK.\n\n1990s\n\nLloyd Webber was asked to write a song for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and composed \"Amigos Para Siempre — Friends for Life\" with Don Black providing the lyrics. This song was performed by Sarah Brightman and José Carreras.\n\nLloyd Webber had toyed with the idea of writing a musical based on Billy Wilder's critically acclaimed movie, Sunset Boulevard, since the early 1970s when he saw the film, but the project didn't come to fruition until after the completion of Aspects of Love when the composer finally managed to secure the rights from Paramount Pictures, The composer worked with two collaborators, as he had done on Aspects of Love; this time Christopher Hampton and Don Black shared equal credit for the book and lyrics. The show opened at the Adelphi Theatre in London on 12 July 1993, and ran for 1,529 performances. In spite of the show's popularity and extensive run in London's West End, it lost money due to the sheer expense of the production.\n\nIn 1994, Sunset Boulevard became a successful Broadway show, opening with the largest advance in Broadway history, and winning seven Tony Awards that year. Even so, by its closing in 1997, \"it had not recouped its reported $13 million investment.\" \nFrom 1995-2000, Lloyd Webber wrote the Matters of Taste column in The Daily Telegraph where he reviewed restaurants and hotels, and these were illustrated by Lucinda Rogers. \n\nIn 1998, Lloyd Webber released a film version of \"Cats\", which was filmed at the Adelphi Theatre in London. David Mallet directed the film, and Gillian Lynne choreographed it. The cast consisted of performers who had been in the show before, including Ken Page (the original Old Deuteronomy on Broadway), Elaine Paige (original Grizabella in London) and Sir John Mills as Gus: the Theatre Cat.\n\nIn 1998 Whistle Down the Wind made its debut, a musical written with lyrics supplied by Jim Steinman. Originally opening in Washington, Lloyd Webber was reportedly not happy with the casting or Harold Prince's production and the show was subsequently revised for a London staging directed by Gale Edwards, the production is probably most notable for the number-one hit from Boyzone \"No Matter What\" which left only the UK charts when the price of the CD single was changed to drop it out of the official top ten. His The Beautiful Game opened in London and has never been seen on Broadway. The show had a respectable run at The Cambridge Theatre in London. The show has been re-worked into a new musical, The Boys in the Photograph, which had its world première at The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts in April 2008.\n\n2000s\n\nHaving achieved great popular success in musical theatre, Lloyd Webber was referred to by The New York Times in 2001 as \"the most commercially successful composer in history.\" \n\nIn 2002 he turned producer, bringing the musical Bombay Dreams to London. With music by Bollywood composer A.R. Rahman and lyrics by Don Black, iIt ran for two years at the Apollo Victoria Theatre. A revised Broadway production at the Broadway Theatre two years later ran for only 284 performances.\n\nOn 16 September 2004, his production of The Woman in White opened at the Palace Theatre in London. It ran for 19 months and 500 performances. A revised production opened on Broadway at the Marquis Theatre on 17 November 2005. Garnering mixed reviews from critics, due in part to the frequent absences of the show's star Maria Friedman due to breast cancer treatment, it closed only a brief three months later on 19 February 2006.\n\nLloyd Webber produced a staging of The Sound of Music, which débuted November 2006. He made the controversial decision to choose an unknown to play leading lady Maria, who was found through the BBC's reality television show How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?, in which he was a judge. The winner of the show was Connie Fisher.\n\nIt was announced on 25 August 2006, on his personal website, that his next project would be The Master and Margarita; however, it was announced in late March 2007 that he had abandoned the project. \n\nIn September 2006, Lloyd Webber was named to be a recipient of the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors with Zubin Mehta, Dolly Parton, Steven Spielberg, and Smokey Robinson. He was recognised for his outstanding contribution to American performing arts.[http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/specialevents/honors/home.html The Kennedy Center Honors] He attended the ceremony on 3 December 2006; it aired on 26 December 2006. On 11 February 2007, Lloyd Webber was featured as a guest judge on the reality television show Grease: You're the One that I Want! The contestants all sang \"The Phantom of the Opera\".\n\nBetween April and June 2007, he appeared in BBC One's Any Dream Will Do!, which followed the same format as How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?. Its aim was to find a new Joseph for his revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Lee Mead won the contest after quitting his part in the ensemble – and as understudy in The Phantom of the Opera – to compete for the role. Viewers' telephone voting during the series raised more than £500,000 for the BBC's annual Children in Need charity appeal, according to host Graham Norton on air during the final.\n\nOn 1 July 2007, Lloyd Webber presented excerpts from his musicals as part of the Concert for Diana held at Wembley Stadium, London, an event organised to celebrate the life of Princess Diana almost 10 years after her death. BBC Radio 2 broadcast a concert of music from the Lloyd-Webber musicals on 24 August 2007. Denise Van Outen introduced songs from Whistle Down the Wind, The Beautiful Game, Tell Me on a Sunday, The Woman in White, Evita and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat – as well as Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music, which Lloyd Webber revived in 2006 at the London Palladium, and the 2002 musical Bombay Dreams.\n\nIn April 2008, Lloyd Webber reprised his role as judge, this time in the BBC musical talent show I'd Do Anything. The show followed a similar format to its Maria and Joseph predecessors, this time involving a search for an actress to play the role of Nancy in an upcoming West End production of the Lionel Bart musical Oliver! The show also featured a search for three young actors to play and share the title character's role, but the show's main focus was on the search for Nancy. The role was won by Jodie Prenger despite Lloyd Webber's stated preference for one of the other contestants; the winners of the Oliver role were Harry Stott, Gwion Wyn-Jones and Laurence Jeffcoate. Also in April 2008. Lloyd Webber was featured on the U.S. talent show American Idol, acting as a mentor when the 6 finalists had to select one of his songs to perform for the judges that week. \n\nLloyd Webber accepted the challenge of managing the UK's entry for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in Moscow. In early 2009 a series, called Eurovision: Your Country Needs You, was broadcast to find a performer for a song that he would compose for the competition. Jade Ewen won the right to represent Britain, winning with It's My Time, by Lloyd Webber and Diane Warren. At the contest, Lloyd Webber accompanied her on the piano during the performance. The United Kingdom finished 5th in the contest. The winner was Norway's Alexander Rybak with his world record composition \"Fairytale\".\n\nOn 8 October 2009, Lloyd Webber launched the musical Love Never Dies at a press conference held at Her Majesty's Theatre, where the original Phantom has been running since 1986. Also present were Sierra Boggess, who has been cast as Christine Daaé, and Ramin Karimloo, who portrayed Phantom, a role he most recently played in the West End.\n\n2010s\n\nFollowing the opening of Love Never Dies, Lloyd Webber again began a search for a new musical theatre performer in the BBC One series Over the Rainbow. He cast the winner, Danielle Hope, in the role of Dorothy and a dog to play Toto in his forthcoming stage production of The Wizard of Oz. He and lyricist and composer Tim Rice wrote a number of new songs for the production to supplement the songs from the film.\n\nOn 26 February 2010, he appeared on BBC's Friday Night with Jonathan Ross to promote Love Never Dies.\n\nOn 1 March 2011, The Wizard of Oz opened at The Palladium Theatre, starring Danielle Hope as Dorothy and Michael Crawford as the Wizard.\n\nIn 2012 Lloyd Webber fronted a new ITV primetime show Superstar which gave the UK public the chance to decide who would play the starring role of Jesus in an upcoming arena tour of Jesus Christ Superstar. The arena tour started in September 2012 and also starred comedian Tim Minchin as Judas Iscariot, former Spice Girl Melanie C as Mary Magdalene and BBC Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles as King Herod. Tickets for most venues went on sale on 18 May 2012.\n\nWebber caused controversy with a series of comments about Eurovision in a Radio Times interview. He said: \"I don't think there's any point in beating around the bush. I saw no black faces on the programme Eurovision 2012. I was questioned by the press over Jade Ewen's race, and I think we would have placed second, but there is a problem when you go further east. If you're talking about Western Europe it's fine, but Ukraine, not so good.\" The EBU corrected Webber, telling him Ukraine's singer Gaitana was black, that year's winner Loreen for Sweden was of North African background and accompanied by a black backing dancer, and France's contestant Anggun was Indonesian. The contest organisers also told Webber that black singer Dave Benton won for Estonia in 2001. The EBU thoroughly denied racism in its show, and insisted it unites Europe for three nights in a year.\n\nIn 2013, Webber reunited with Christopher Hampton and Don Black on Stephen Ward the Musical. \n\nIn 2014, it was announced that Webber's next project would be a musical adaptation of the 2003 film School of Rock. On January 19, 2015, auditions opened for children aged nine to fifteen in cooperation with the School of Rock music education program, which predated the film by several years. \n\nAccusations of plagiarism\n\nLloyd Webber has been accused of plagiarism in his works. The Dutch composer Louis Andriessen commented that: \"There are two sorts of stealing (in music) – taking something and doing nothing with it, or going to work on what you've stolen. The first is plagiarism. Andrew Lloyd Webber has yet to think up a single note; in fact, the poor guy's never invented one note by himself. That's rather poor\".\n \nHowever, Lloyd Webber's biographer, John Snelson, countered such accusations. He acknowledged a similarity between the Andante movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor and the Jesus Christ Superstar song \"I Don't Know How to Love Him\", but wrote that Lloyd Webber:\n\n...brings a new dramatic tension to Mendelssohn's original melody through the confused emotions of Mary Magdalene. The opening theme may be Mendelssohn, but the rhythmic and harmonic treatment along with new lines of highly effective melodic development are Lloyd Webber's. The song works in its own right as its many performers and audiences can witness. \n\nIn interviews promoting Amused to Death, Roger Waters, formerly of Pink Floyd, claimed that Lloyd Webber had copied a short chromatic riff from the 1971 song \"Echoes\" for sections of The Phantom of the Opera, released in 1986; nevertheless, he decided he did not want to file a lawsuit. The songwriter Ray Repp also claimed that Lloyd Webber stole a different melody from his own song \"Till You\". Unlike Roger Waters, Ray Repp did decide to sue, but the court ruled in Lloyd Webber's favour. \n\nPersonal life\n\nLloyd Webber has married three times. He married first Sarah Hugill on 24 July 1971 and they divorced on 14 November 1983. Together they had two children; a daughter and a son:\nHon. Imogen Lloyd Webber (born 31 March 1977)\nHon. Nicholas Lloyd Webber (born 2 July 1979)\n\nHe then married singer Sarah Brightman on 22 March 1984 in Hampshire. He cast Brightman in the lead role in his musical The Phantom of the Opera, among other notable roles. They divorced on 3 January 1990.\n\nThirdly, he married Madeleine Gurdon in Westminster on 9 February 1991. They have three children, two sons and one daughter, all of whom were born in Westminster:\nHon. Alastair Adam Lloyd Webber (born 3 May 1992)\nHon. William Richard Lloyd Webber (born 24 August 1993)\nHon. Isabella Aurora Lloyd Webber (born 30 April 1996).\n\nThe Sunday Times Rich List 2006 ranked him the 87th-richest man in Britain with an estimated fortune of £700 million. His wealth increased to £750 million in 2007, but the publication ranked him 101st in 2008. He lives at Sydmonton Court, Hampshire, and owns much of nearby Watership Down.\n\nLloyd Webber is an art collector, with a passion for Victorian art. An exhibition of works from his collection was presented at the Royal Academy in 2003 under the title Pre-Raphaelite and Other Masters – The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection. In 2006, Lloyd Webber planned to sell Portrait of Angel Fernández de Soto by Pablo Picasso to benefit the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation. In November 2006, he withdrew the painting from auction after a claim that the previous owner had been forced to sell it under duress in Nazi Germany. An out-of-court settlement was reached, where the foundation retained ownership rights. On 23 June 2010, the painting was sold at auction for £34.7 million to an anonymous telephone bidder. \n\nLloyd Webber was made a Conservative life peer in 1997, however by the end of 2015, he had voted only 33 times. Politically, Lloyd Webber has supported the UK's Conservative Party, allowing his song \"Take That Look Off Your Face\" to be used on a party promotional film seen by an estimated 1 million people before the 2005 general election. In 2009, he publicly criticised the Labour government's introduction of a new 50% rate of income tax on Britain's top earners, claiming it would damage the country by encouraging talented people to leave. In August 2014, Lloyd Webber was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue. \nIn October 2015 Lloyd Webber was involved in a controversial House of Lords vote over proposed cuts to tax credits, voting with the Government in favour of the plan. \n\nIn late 2009, Lloyd Webber had surgery for early-stage prostate cancer, but had to be readmitted to hospital with post-operative infection in November. In January 2010, he declared he was cancer-free. He had his prostate completely removed as a preventative measure. \n\nHonours and styles of address\n\nHonours\n\nAndrew Lloyd Webber was knighted by the Queen in 1992. In 1997, he was created a life peer as Baron Lloyd-Webber, of Sydmonton in the County of Hampshire. He is properly styled as The Lord Lloyd-Webber; the title is hyphenated, although his surname is not. He sits as a Conservative member of the House of Lords.\n\nStyles of address\n\n1948–1992: Mister Andrew Lloyd Webber\n1992–1997: Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber Kt\n1997–present: The Right Honourable The Lord Lloyd-Webber Kt\n\nAwards\n\nAcademy Awards\n\n1996 – Best Original Song for \"You Must Love Me\" from Evita (award shared with Sir Tim Rice)\nOne nomination for Best Original Song Score and Adaptation: 1973 motion picture Jesus Christ Superstar\n\nOne nomination for Best Original Song: \"Learn to Be Lonely\" from the 2004 motion picture The Phantom of the Opera .\n\nGolden Globes\n\n 1997 – Best Original Song for \"You Must Love Me\" from Evita (award shared with Sir Tim Rice)\nPlus one nomination for Best Original Song: \"Learn to Be Lonely\" from the 2004 motion picture The Phantom of the Opera.\n\nGrammy Awards\n\n1980 – Best Cast Show Album for Evita\n1983 – Best Cast Show Album for Cats\n1986 – Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Composition for Requiem\n1990 – Grammy Legend Award\n\nTony Awards\n\n1979 – Best Musical for Evita\n1980 – Best Original Score for Evita (award shared with Tim Rice)\n1983 – Best Musical for Cats\n1983 – Best Original Score for Cats\n1988 – Best Musical for The Phantom of the Opera\n1995 – Best Musical for Sunset Boulevard\n1995 – Best Original Score for Sunset Boulevard\n\nOlivier Awards\n\n1978 - Best Musical for Evita\n1981 - Best Musical for Cats\n1986 - Best Musical for The Phantom of the Opera\n2008 - Society's Special Award\nThree other Production Awards\n\nOther Awards\n\n* 1988 - Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Orchestrations for The Phantom of the Opera\n* 1993 - Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for live theatre\n* 1995 - Praemium Imperiale\n* 1995 - Songwriter's Hall of Fame\n* 2006 - Kennedy Center Honors\n* 2008 - Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service \n* 2009 - American Theatre Hall of Fame. \n* 14 Ivor Novello Awards from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors\n* 7 Laurence Olivier Awards (including Special Award presented for his 60th birthday in 2008)\n\nShows\n\nNote: Music composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber unless otherwise noted.\n\n* The Likes of Us (1965)\nLyrics by Tim Rice\nNot produced until 2005\n* Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1968)\nLyrics by Tim Rice\n* Jesus Christ Superstar (1970)\nLyrics by Tim Rice\n* Jeeves (1975)\nLyrics by Alan Ayckbourn\nRevised in 1996 as By Jeeves\n* Evita (1976)\nLyrics by Tim Rice\n* Tell Me on a Sunday (1979)\nLyrics by Don Black\n* Cats (1981)\nLyrics based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot \nAdditional lyrics after Eliot by Richard Stilgoe and Trevor Nunn\n* Song and Dance (1982)\nLyrics by Don Black (revised by Richard Maltby, Jr. for Broadway)\nCombination of Variations (1978) and Tell Me On A Sunday (1979)\n* Starlight Express (1984)\nLyrics by Richard Stilgoe\nLater revisions by Don Black and David Yazbek\nInspired by the Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends books by The Rev. W. Awdry.\nCricket (1986)\nLyrics by Tim Rice\nFirst performed for Queen Elizabeth II's 60th birthday\n The Phantom of the Opera (1986)\nLyrics by Charles Hart\nAdditional Lyrics by Richard Stilgoe\nBased on the Gaston Leroux novel\n\n* Aspects of Love (1989)\nLyrics by Don Black and Charles Hart\nBased on the David Garnett novel\n* Sunset Boulevard (1993)\nBook and lyrics by Christopher Hampton and Don Black\nBased on the Billy Wilder film (1950)\n* Whistle Down the Wind (1996)\nLyrics by Jim Steinman\n* The Beautiful Game (2000)\nLyrics by Ben Elton\nUpdated as The Boys in the Photograph (2009)\n* The Woman in White (2004)\nLyrics by David Zippel\nBased on the Wilkie Collins novel\n* Love Never Dies (2010)\nBook & Lyrics by Glenn Slater\nBook by Ben Elton & Frederick Forsyth\nAdditional lyrics by Charles Hart\n* The Wizard of Oz (2011)\nAdapted from the 1939 Motion Picture The Wizard of Oz\nMusic by Harold Arlen\nLyrics by E.Y. Harburg\nAdditional music by Andrew Lloyd Webber\nAdditional lyrics by Tim Rice\n* Stephen Ward the Musical (2013)\nBook and lyrics by Christopher Hampton and Don Black\n* School of Rock (2015)\nLyrics by Glenn Slater\nBook by Julian Fellowes\nBased on the 2003 film\n\nFilm adaptations\n\nThere have been a number of film adaptations of the Lloyd Webber musicals. Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) was directed by Norman Jewison; Evita (1996) was directed by Alan Parker; and The Phantom of the Opera (2004) was directed by Joel Schumacher and co-produced by Lloyd Webber. Cats, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar and By Jeeves have been adapted into made for television films that have been released on DVD and VHS and often air on BBC.\n\nA special performance of The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall for the 25th anniversary was broadcast live to cinemas in early October 2011 and later released on DVD and Blu-ray in February 2012. The same was also done with a reworked version of Love Never Dies. Filmed in Melbourne, Australia, it received a limited cinema release in the US and Canada in 2012, to see if it would be viable to bring the show to Broadway. It received positive reviews and was No.1 on DVD charts in the UK and Ireland, and did well in America.\n\nIn February 2014, it was announced that Elton John's production company had acquired the rights to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and is planning to adapt it as a new theatrical animated musical film. \n\nOther works\n\nVariations (1978) – A set of musical variations on Niccolò Paganini's Caprice in A minor that Lloyd Webber composed for his brother, cellist Julian. This album featured fifteen rock musicians including guitarist Gary Moore and pianist Rod Argent and reached number 2 in the UK album chart upon its release. It was later combined with Tell Me on a Sunday to form one show, Song and Dance. Lloyd Webber also used variation five as the basis for Unexpected Song in Song and Dance. The main theme is used as the theme music to The South Bank Show.\nRequiem (1985) – A classical choral work composed in honour of his father, William.\nWatership Down (1999) - Lloyd Webber and Mike Batt, main soundtrack composer of the animated series adaptation of Richard Adams' novel of the same name, composed the song \"Fields of Sun\". The actual song was never used on the show, nor was it available on the CD soundtrack that was released at the time. He was however still credited for the unused song in the show's opening titles.", "\"A Whole New World\" is a song from Disney's 1992 animated feature film Aladdin, with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Tim Rice. The song is a ballad between the primary characters Aladdin and Jasmine about the new world they are going to discover together while riding on Aladdin's magic carpet. The original version was sung by Brad Kane and Lea Salonga during the film. They also performed the song in their characters at the 65th Academy Awards, where it won Academy Award for Best Original Song as well as the first and only Disney song to win a Grammy Award for Song of the Year at the 36th Annual Grammy Awards. In 2014, Adam Jacobs and Courtney Reed performed the song as Aladdin and Jasmine in the film's Broadway adaptation.\n\nA single version of the song was previously released that year and was performed by Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle. This version is played in the movie's end credits and is referred on the soundtrack as \"Aladdins Theme\". This version peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on March 6, 1993, replacing Whitney Houston's \"I Will Always Love You\", which had spent a then record 14 weeks at the top of the chart. It went gold and sold 600,000 copies domestically. The track peaked at number 12 in the UK Singles Chart in 1992. The song is the first and only song from a Disney animated film to top the Billboard Hot 100. The single version was later included on Belle's studio album Passion (1993) and on Bryson's studio album Through the Fire (1994). The Latin American rendition of the song, \"Un Mundo Ideal\", by Ricardo Montaner and Michelle received airplay throughout Latin America. This rendition was later included on Montaner's greatest hits album Éxitos y... Algo Más (1993). \n\nCharts\n\nCover versions\n\n Girl group Eternal released the song as the B-side to their 1996 single, \"Someday\", recorded for the Disney film The Hunchback of Notre Dame.\n* Country music artist Collin Raye performed the song for the collaboration album The Best of Country Sing the Best of Disney.\n* Hank Marvin did an instrumental version of the song in 1997 on his album Hank Plays the Music of Tim Rice & Andrew Lloyd Webber.\n* LMNT covered the song for DisneyMania 2, released in 2004.\n* Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey covered the song for DisneyMania 3 released in 2005, and on the two-disc Platinum Edition DVD for the Aladdin film.\n* The song was covered in 2006 by British glamour model Katie Price (also known as Jordan) and her now ex-husband, Peter Andre. The track is included on their 2006 album of duets A Whole New World.\n* J-pop artist Kumi Koda and Peabo Bryson included a cover for Koda's 2006 album Best: Second Session.\n* K-pop boy-band TVXQ recorded the song for their 2007 Japanese album, Five in the Black, as a special track.\n* In 2007, Pixar employee Nick Pitera uploaded a video to YouTube where he performs both the male and female characters,\n earning 30 million views (as of January 18, 2013).\n* Saxophonist Dave Koz covered the song on his album At The Movies. The song featured Donna Summer on vocals. \n* On Disney - Koe no Oujisama album the song was sung by Kenichi Suzumura\n* The song was covered in 2013 by Japanese hip-hop/EDM group M-Flo, featuring vocals by Matt Cab, for the album Electronic Disney Music. \n* Christian pop punk band Stellar Kart featured a cover on their Disney cover EP named after this song.\n* Pianist Alex Hardwick has recorded a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kBIBtkU9Wo piano solo version] (released online as a single track).\n* A cappella singer and YouTube star Peter Hollens performed a portion of the song as part of his \"[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfvehnyCQKU Epic Disney Medley]\" with fellow singer Alex G. As of March 2016, the video has 6.2 million views.\n* A Japanese male vocal-dance group Da-iCE members [http://da-ice.livejournal.com/1716.html Sota Hanamura] and [http://da-ice.livejournal.com/885.html Yudai Ohno] has recorded a cover of this song for their group's latest [http://www.jpopasia.com/group/daice/lyrics/watch-out::50647.html 8th Single] [https://itunes.apple.com/jp/album/watch-out-ep/id1095067982 Watch Out] [https://itunes.apple.com/jp/album/watch-out-ep/id1095067982 (Digital Version]).\n\nLive cover performances\n\nSome notable artists that have covered this song live include:\n* Sweetbox, for WOW! DisneyMania in Japan.\n* Charice Pempengco and Super Junior member Kyuhyun on Star King in 2007 \n* Peabo Bryson and Patti LaBelle performed the song along with all 77 contestants at the 1994 Miss Universe Pageant in Manila, Philippines\n* Bryson recorded a version of the song with Japanese pop artist Kumi Koda, which appeared as a bonus track on her album BEST ~second session~.\n* Peabo Bryson and Chilean singer Andrea Tessa performed the song on the Viña del Mar International Song Festival in 2001.\n* David Phelps and Sandi Patty performed the song on \"Mark Lowry On Broadway\" in 2001.\n* In the second season of American Idol in 2003, eventual winner Ruben Studdard sang the song on Movie Night. It was noted that season that \"A Whole New World\" was the most commonly used audition song, and a montage of \"A Whole New World\" auditions was aired to emphasize it.\n* In addition to recording a cover, Peter André and Katie Price performed the song live on Children in Need in 2005.\n* K-pop artists Ivy and Brian Joo\n* K-pop artist BoA and TVXQ member Xiah Junsu performed the song live at the AnyBand Concert in Korea on December 29, 2007.\n* Glee's actor Darren Criss performed the song with Lea Salonga, the singing voice of Princess Jasmine on Aladdin at Billboard/Hollywood Reporter TV & Film Music Conference to Alan Menken.\nGirls' Generation member Tiffany and K.Will \n The song is performed during the fountain show World of Color at Disney California Adventure park while LED lights affixed to Mickey's Fun Wheel twinkle in the backdrop, appearing as stars.\n* [http://da-ice.livejournal.com/1716.html Sota Hanamura] and [http://da-ice.livejournal.com/885.html Yudai Ohno] from Da-iCE had recently [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ-ZHlTsdAE performed the song] on [http://www.sbs.com.au/popasia/blog/2016/05/15/da-ice-will-make-its-first-us-appearance-fanimecon-2016 their US debut] concert at 2016 \n[http://www.fanime.com/community/ FanimeCon] in San Jose, California.\nLea Salonga and Hamilton composer and star Lin-Manuel Miranda sang a cover at the Richard Rogers Theater during a Ham4Ham lottery in 2015.", "Aladdin is a 1992 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Aladdin is the 31st animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, and was part of the Disney film era known as the Disney Renaissance. The film was directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, and is based on the Arab-style folktale Aladdin and the Magic Lamp from One Thousand and One Nights. The voice cast features Scott Weinger, Robin Williams, Linda Larkin, Jonathan Freeman, Frank Welker, Gilbert Gottfried, and Douglas Seale.\n\nLyricist Howard Ashman first pitched the idea, and the screenplay went through three drafts before then-Disney Studios president Jeffrey Katzenberg agreed to its production. The animators based their designs on the work of caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, and computers were used for both finishing the artwork and creating some animated elements. The musical score was written by Alan Menken and features six songs with lyrics written by both Ashman and Tim Rice, who took over after Ashman's death.\n\nAladdin was released on November 25, 1992 and was the most successful film of 1992, earning over $217 million in revenue in the United States, and over $504 million worldwide. The film also won many awards, most of them for its soundtrack. The film is considered by many as the best film that came out during the Disney Renaissance. success led to other material inspired by the film, including two direct-to-video sequels, The Return of Jafar and Aladdin and the King of Thieves, an animated television series of the same name, toys, video games, spin-offs, including a live-action remake about the genie titled Genies, Disney merchandise, and a Broadway adaptation that debuted in 2014.\n\nPlot\n\nA peddler sets up shop in the fictional sultanate of Agrabah, offering to tell the audience about the story of an oil lamp in his possession. Jafar, the Grand Vizier of the Sultan, and his parrot Iago, seek the lamp hidden within the Cave of Wonders but is told that only a “diamond in the rough” may enter. Jafar identifies a street urchin named Aladdin as worthy. Aladdin and his pet monkey Abu cross paths with Princess Jasmine, who has run away from the palace, unwilling to be married off to another snobbish suitor. Aladdin and Jasmine become friends and fall in love, but Jafar has Aladdin apprehended, tricking Jasmine into thinking that he was decapitated.\n\nDisguised as an old man, Jafar frees Aladdin and Abu, taking them to the Cave and promises to reward them if they retrieve the lamp. Inside, Aladdin befriends a magic carpet. Abu greedily tries to steal a jewel, despite the Cave’s request, and it collapses. Trapped underground, Aladdin rubs the lamp, releasing the Genie trapped inside, who explains Aladdin has become his master and will grant him three wishes. Aladdin tricks the Genie into freeing them from the Cave without wasting a wish, and then uses his first to become a prince to be near Jasmine. Jafar, on Iago’s suggestion, plots to become Sultan by marrying Jasmine, but Aladdin parades into the city as “Prince Ali of Ababwa”. However, Jasmine is unimpressed with Aladdin’s bravado.\n\nDespite his friends advising him to tell Jasmine the truth, Aladdin refuses, believing she would never fall “for some street rat”. He takes Jasmine on a worldwide flight on the carpet, where she deduces his identity, though Aladdin says that he dresses as a peasant to escape the stresses of royal life, which convinces her. Aladdin returns Jasmine home, only to be attacked by the palace guards on Jafar’s orders and nearly drowned, until the Genie rescues him using his second wish. Jafar tries to hypnotise the Sultan into agreeing to his marriage to Jasmine, only for Aladdin to appear and expose Jafar’s schemes. Jafar flees, but notices Aladdin has the lamp, realising who he is.\n\nLearning he will become Sultan, Aladdin has second thoughts about freeing the Genie, believing that without him, he would not be able to keep up appearances. Iago steals the lamp, and Jafar becomes the Genie’s new master. He uses his first two wishes to usurp the Sultan and become the world’s most powerful sorcerer, exposing Aladdin’s lies and exiles him, Abu, and the carpet to a frozen wasteland, though they escape death and return to the palace. Jafar orders the Genie to brainwash Jasmine into falling in love with him, but the Genie reveals he is unable to grant the wish. Jasmine feigns interest to distract Jafar and allow Aladdin to get the lamp, but he is caught.\n\nJafar transforms himself into a giant cobra and ensnares Aladdin, saying he is the most powerful being in the world. However, Aladdin points out the Genie is more powerful, inspiring Jafar to use his last wish to become a genie, only to be sucked into his own lamp as part of the genie’s nature, dragging Iago in with him. The Genie chucks Jafar’s lamp into the Cave of Wonders, and asks Aladdin to use his third wish to regain his royal title. However, Aladdin decides to free the Genie. Learning of Aladdin and Jasmine’s love, the Sultan alters the law to allow his daughter to marry whom she chooses. The Genie leaves to explore the world, while Aladdin and Jasmine celebrate their engagement.\n\nCast\n\nScott Weinger as Aladdin, a poor, but kind-hearted Agrabah thief. Weinger sent in a homemade audition tape with his mother playing the Genie, and after several call backs he found six months later that he had the part. Aladdin's supervising animator was by Glen Keane. Brad Kane provides Aladdin's singing voice. \nRobin Williams as The Genie, a comedic genie, with nigh omnipotent power that can only be exercised when his master wishes it. The Genie's supervising animator was Eric Goldberg. Clements and Musker wrote the part of the Genie for Williams, and, when met with resistance, created a reel of Williams' stand-up to animation of the Genie. The directors asked Goldberg to animate a Genie over one of Williams' old stand-up comedy routines to pitch the idea to the actor. The resulting test, where Williams talking about schizophrenia was translated into Genie growing another head to argue with himself, made Williams \"laugh his ass off\" and convinced him to sign on for the role. Williams' appearance in Aladdin (despite his appearance along with Christian Slater and Tim Curry in the early 1992 animated film FernGully) marks the beginning of a transition in animated film to celebrity voice actors, rather than specifically trained voice actors in animated film. Williams provided many celebrity impressions during recording sessions, which were re-adapted into the fabric of the character. These included Ed Sullivan, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Groucho Marx, Rodney Dangerfield, William F. Buckley, Peter Lorre, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Arsenio Hall. Williams also voices the Peddler, a mysterious merchant who appears at the beginning of the film. After promoting useless goods to the audience, he reveals the magic lamp and begins the story of Aladdin. Bruce Adler supplies his singing voice. The scene was completely unscripted — the production left Williams a table with props covered with a sheet and asked him to pull out objects without looking at them and describe them in-character. The double role originally led to the Peddler revealing to be the Genie disguised, but that idea was later dropped. In October 2015, Clements and Musker claimed that the Peddler is actually the Genie's human form.\nJonathan Freeman as Jafar, the power-hungry Grand Vizier of Agrabah. Jafar was originally envisioned as an irritable character, but the directors decided that a calm villain would be scarier. Freeman was the first actor cast and spent one year and nine months recording his dialogue. He later readjusted his voice after Weinger and Larkin were cast as he felt \"Jafar had to be seen as a real threat to Aladdin and Jasmine\". Jafar's supervising animator was Andreas Deja, who tried to incorporate Freeman's facial expressions and gesturing into the character, while Jafar's beggar and snake forms are animated by Kathy Zielinski.\nLinda Larkin as Princess Jasmine: The princess of Agrabah, who is tired of life in the royal palace. Larkin was chosen nine months after her audition, and had to adjust (or lower) her high-pitched voice to reach the voice the filmmakers were looking for in the character. Jasmine's supervising animator was Mark Henn. Lea Salonga provides Jasmine's singing voice. \nFrank Welker as Abu, Aladdin's kleptomaniac pet monkey with a high-pitched voice. The animators filmed monkeys at the San Francisco Zoo to study their movements for Abu's character. In the three years it took to record the film, Welker did not meet Weinger or Williams. Welker also voices Jasmine's tiger Rajah and the Cave of Wonders. Duncan Marjoribanks was the supervising animator for Abu, while Rajah was animated by Aaron Blaise.\nGilbert Gottfried as Iago, Jafar's sarcastic, foul-mouthed parrot assistant. Iago's supervising animator Will Finn tried to incorporate some aspects of Gottfried's appearance into Iago's design, especially his semi-closed eyes and the always-appearing teeth.\nDouglas Seale as The Sultan, the pompous, but kind ruler of Agrabah, who desperately tries to find a suitor for his daughter Jasmine. Some aspects of the character were inspired by the Wizard of Oz, to create a bumbling authority figure. The Sultan's supervising animator was David Pruiksma.\nJim Cummings as Razoul, the Captain of the Guard. He was named after layout supervisor Rasoul Azadani. He and the other guards were animated by Phil Young and Chris Wahl.\nCharlie Adler as Gazeem: A thief that Jafar sends into the Cave of Wonders at the beginning of the film but is trapped inside for being unworthy. Gazeem was animated by T. Daniel Hofstedt.\nCorey Burton as Prince Achmed, a snobbish prince who is rejected by Princess Jasmine as her suitor.\n\nProduction\n\nScript and development\n \nIn 1988, lyricist Howard Ashman pitched the idea of an animated musical adaptation of Aladdin. Ashman had written a 40-page film treatment remaining faithful to the plot and characters of the original story, but envisioned as a campy 1930s-style musical with a Cab Calloway/Fats Waller-like Genie. Along with partner Alan Menken, Ashman conceived several songs and added Aladdin's friends named Babkak, Omar, and Kasim to the story. However, the studio were dismissive of Ashman's treatment and removed the project from development in which Ashman and Menken were later recruited to compose songs for Beauty and the Beast. Linda Woolverton, who had also worked on Beauty and the Beast, used their treatment and developed a draft with inspired elements from The Thief of Bagdad such as a villain named Jaf'far, an aged sidekick retired human thief named Abu, and a human handmaiden for the princess. Then, directors John Musker and Ron Clements joined the production, picking Aladdin out of three projects offered, which also included an adaptation of Swan Lake and King of the Jungle – that eventually became The Lion King. Before Ashman's death in March 1991, Ashman and Menken had composed \"Prince Ali\" and his last song, \"Humiliate the Boy\". \n\nMusker and Clements wrote a draft of the screenplay, and then delivered a story reel to studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg in April 1991. Katzenberg thought the script \"didn't engage\", and on a day known by the staff as \"Black Friday,\" demanded that the entire story to be rewritten without rescheduling the film's November 25, 1992 release date. Among the changes Katzenberg requested from Clements and Musker were to not be dependent on Ashman's vision, and the removal of Aladdin's mother, remarking, \"Eighty-six the mother. The mom's a zero.\" Screenwriting duo Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio were brought in to rework the story, and the changes they made included the removal of Aladdin's mother, the strengthening of the character of Princess Jasmine, and the deletion of several of the Ashman-Menken songs. Aladdin's personality was rewritten to be \"a little rougher, like a young Harrison Ford,\" and the parrot Iago, originally conceived as an uptight British archetype, was reworked into a comic role after the filmmakers saw Gilbert Gottfried in Beverly Hills Cop II. Gottfried was cast to provide Iago's voice. By October 1991, Katzenberg was satisfied with the new version of Aladdin. As with Woolverton's screenplay, several characters and plot elements are based on the 1940 version of The Thief of Bagdad, the location of the film was changed from Baghdad, Iraq to the fictional Arabian city of Agrabah. \n\nDesign and animation\n\nOne of the first issues that the animators faced during production of Aladdin was the depiction of Aladdin himself. Director and producer John Musker explains: \n\nHe was initially going to be as young as 13, but that eventually changed to eighteen. Aladdin was designed by a team led by supervising animator Glen Keane, and was originally made to resemble actor Michael J. Fox. During production, it was decided that the design was too boyish and wasn't \"appealing enough,\" so the character was redesigned to add elements derived from actor Tom Cruise and Calvin Klein models.\n\nThe design for most characters was based on the work of caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, which production designer Richard Vander Wende also considered appropriate to the theme, due to similarities to the swooping lines of Persian miniatures and Arabic calligraphy. Jafar's design was not based on Hirschfeld's work because Jafar's supervising animator, Andreas Deja, wanted the character to be contrasting. Each character was animated alone, with the animators consulting each other to make scenes with interrelating characters. Since Aladdin's animator Glen Keane was working in the California branch of Walt Disney Feature Animation, and Jasmine's animator Mark Henn was in the Florida one at Disney-MGM Studios, they had to frequently phone, fax or send designs and discs to each other. The Magic Carpet is a sentient carpet who is able to fly. Animator Randy Cartwright described working on the Carpet as challenging, since it is only a rectangular shape, who expresses himself through pantomime – \"It's sort of like acting by origami\". Cartwright kept folding a piece of cloth while animating to see how to position the Carpet. After the character animation was done, the carpet's surface design was applied digitally.\n\nFor the scenery design, layout supervisor Rasoul Azadani took many pictures of his hometown of Isfahan, Iran for guidance. Other inspirations for design were Disney's animated films from the 1940s and 50s and the 1940 film The Thief of Bagdad. The coloring was done with the computerized CAPS process, and the color motifs were chosen according to the personality – the protagonists use light colors such as blue, the antagonists darker ones such as red and black, and Agrabah and its palace use the neutral color yellow. Computer animation was used for some elements of the film, such as the tiger entrance of the Cave of Wonders and the scene where Aladdin tries to escape the collapsing cave. \n\nMusker and Clements created the Genie with Robin Williams in mind; even though Katzenberg suggested actors such as John Candy, Steve Martin, and Eddie Murphy, Williams was approached and eventually accepted the role. Williams came for voice recording sessions during breaks in the shooting of two other films he was starring in at the time, Hook and Toys. Unusually for an animated film, much of Williams' dialogue was ad-libbed: for some scenes, Williams was given topics and dialogue suggestions, but allowed to improvise his lines. It was estimated that Williams improvised 52 characters. Eric Goldberg, the supervising animator for the Genie, then reviewed Williams' recorded dialogue and selected the best gags and lines that his crew would create character animation to match.\n\nThe producers added many in-jokes and references to Disney's previous works in the film, such as a \"cameo appearance\" from directors Clements and Musker and drawing some characters based on Disney workers. Beast, Sebastian from The Little Mermaid, and Pinocchio make brief appearances, and the wardrobe of the Genie at the end of the film—Goofy hat, Hawaiian shirt, and sandals—are a reference to a short film that Robin Williams did for the Disney-MGM Studios tour in the late 1980s.\n\nRobin Williams' conflicts with the studio\n\nIn gratitude for his success with Touchstone Pictures' Good Morning, Vietnam, Robin Williams voiced the Genie for SAG scale pay ($75,000), on condition that his name or image not be used for marketing, and his (supporting) character not take more than 25% of space on advertising artwork, since Williams' film Toys was scheduled for release one month after Aladdins debut. For financial reasons, the studio went back on the deal on both counts, especially in poster art by having the Genie in 25% of the image, but having other major and supporting characters portrayed considerably smaller. The Disney Hyperion book Aladdin: The Making of an Animated Film listed both of Williams' characters \"The Peddler\" and \"The Genie\" ahead of main characters, but was forced to refer to him only as \"the actor signed to play the Genie\". \n\nMusic\n\nComposer Alan Menken and songwriters Howard Ashman and Tim Rice were praised for creating a soundtrack that is \"consistently good, rivaling the best of Disney's other animated musicals from the '90s.\" Menken and Ashman began work on the film together, with Rice taking over as lyricist after Ashman died of AIDS-related complications in early 1991. Although fourteen songs were written for Aladdin, only six are featured in the movie, three by each lyricist. The DVD Special Edition released in 2004 includes four songs in early animations tests, and a music video of one, \"Proud of Your Boy\", performed by Clay Aiken, which also appears on the album DisneyMania 3. \n\nThemes\n\nThe filmmakers thought the moral message of the original tale was not appropriate, and decided to \"put a spin on it\", by making the fulfillment of wishes seem like a great thing, but eventually becoming a problem. Another major theme was avoiding an attempt to be what the person is not – both Aladdin and Jasmine get into trouble faking to be different people, and the Prince Ali persona fails to impress Jasmine, who only falls for Aladdin when she finds out who he truly is. Being \"imprisoned\" is also discussed, a fate that occurs to most of the characters – Aladdin and Jasmine are stuck to their lifestyles, Genie is attached to his lamp and Jafar, to the Sultan – and is represented visually by the prison-like walls and bars of the Agrabah palace, and the scene involving caged birds which Jasmine later frees. Jasmine is also depicted as a different Disney Princess, being rebellious to the royal life and the social structure, and trying to make her own way, unlike the princesses who just wait for rescue.\n\nRelease and reception\n\nTheatrical run\n\nA large promotion campaign preceded Aladdins debut in theaters, with the film's trailer being attached to most Disney VHS releases, and numerous tie-ins and licensees being released. After a limited release on November 13, 1992, Aladdin debuted in 1,131 theaters on November 25, 1992, grossing $19.2 million in its opening weekend – number two at the box office, behind Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. It took eight weeks for the film to reach number one at the US box office, breaking the record for the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve with $32.2 million. The film held the top spot five times during its 22-week run. Aladdin was the most successful film of 1992 grossing $217 million in the United States and over $504 million worldwide. It was the biggest gross for an animated film until The Lion King two years later. As of January 2014, it is the thirtieth highest grossing animated film and the third highest grossing traditionally animated feature worldwide, behind The Lion King and The Simpsons Movie. It sold an estimated 52,442,300 tickets in the US. \n\nCritical reception\n\nThe review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 94% of critics gave the film a positive review based on a sample of 68 reviews, with an average score of 8.1/10. \n\nMost critics' praise went to Robin Williams' performance as Genie, with Janet Maslin of The New York Times declaring that children \"needn't know precisely what Mr. Williams is evoking to understand how funny he is\". Warner Bros. Cartoons director Chuck Jones even called the film \"the funniest feature ever made.\" Furthermore, English-Irish comedian Spike Milligan considered it to be the greatest film of all time. James Berardinelli gave it 3.5 out of 4 stars, praising the \"crisp visuals and wonderful song-and-dance numbers\". Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said the comedy made the film accessible to both children and adults, a vision shared with Desson Howe of The Washington Post, who also said \"kids are still going to be entranced by the magic and adventure.\" Brian Lowry of Variety praised the cast of characters, describing the expressive magic carpet as \"its most remarkable accomplishment\" and considered that \"Aladdin overcomes most story flaws thanks to sheer technical virtuosity\". \n\nSome aspects of the film were widely criticized. Ed Gonzalez of Slant Magazine wrote a negative review, describing the film as racist, ridiculous, and a \"narcissistic circus act\" from Robin Williams. Roger Ebert, who generally praised the film in his review, considered the music inferior to its predecessors The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, and claimed Aladdin and Jasmine were \"pale and routine\". \n\nAwards\n\nAladdin also received many award nominations, mostly for its music. It won two Academy Awards, Best Music, Original Score and Best Music, Original Song for \"A Whole New World\" and receiving nominations for Best Song (\"Friend Like Me\"), Best Sound Editing (Mark A. Mangini), and Best Sound (Terry Porter, Mel Metcalfe, David J. Hudson and Doc Kane). At the Golden Globes, Aladdin won Best Original Song (\"A Whole New World\") and Best Original Score, as well as a Special Achievement Award for Robin Williams, with a nomination for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. Other awards included the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature, a MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance to Robin Williams, Saturn Awards for Best Fantasy Film, Performance by a Younger Actor to Scott Weinger and Supporting Actor to Robin Williams, the Best Animated Feature by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and four Grammy Awards, Best Soundtrack Album, and Song of the Year, Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media for \"A Whole New World\". \n\nHome media \n\nThe film was first released in VHS on October 1, 1993, as part of the \"Walt Disney Classics\" line. In its first week of availability, Aladdin sold over 10.6 million copies, and went on to sell over 25 million in total (a record only broken by the later release of The Lion King). It entered moratorium on April 30, 1994. \n\nOn October 5, 2004, Aladdin was released on DVD, as part of Disney's Platinum Edition line. The DVD release featured retouched and cleaned-up animation, prepared for Aladdin's planned but ultimately cancelled IMAX reissue in 2003, and a second disc with bonus features. Accompanied by a $19 million marketing campaign, the DVD sold about 3 million units in its first month, but it was less than the number of copies, sold in that amount of time, by any other Platinum Edition released before it. The film's soundtrack was available in its original Dolby 5.1 track or in a new Disney Enhanced Home Theater Mix. The DVD went into moratorium in January 2008, along with its sequels. \n\nAccording to an insert in the Lady and the Tramp Diamond Edition release case, Aladdin was going to be released on Blu-ray Disc as a Diamond Edition in Spring 2013. Instead, Peter Pan was released on Blu-ray as a Diamond Edition on February 5, 2013 to celebrate its 60th anniversary. A non-Diamond Edition Blu-ray was released in a few select European countries in March 2013. The Belgian edition (released without advertisements, commercials or any kind of fanfare) comes as a 1-disc version with its extras ported over from the Platinum Edition DVD). The same disc was released in the United Kingdom on April 14, 2013. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released the film on a Diamond Edition Blu-ray on October 13, 2015. The film was released on Digital HD on September 29, 2015. Upon its first week of release on home media in the U.S., the film topped the Blu-ray Disc sales chart and debuted at number 2 at the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert chart, which tracks overall disc sales behind the disaster film San Andreas. \n\nControversies\n\nOne of the verses of the opening song \"Arabian Nights\" was altered following protests from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). The lyrics were changed in July 1993 from \"Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face,\" in the original release to \"Where it's flat and immense and the heat is intense.\" The change first appeared on the 1993 video release. The original lyric was intact on the initial CD soundtrack release, but the re-release uses the edited lyric. The rerecording has the original voice on all other lines and then a noticeably deeper voice says the edited line. The Broadway adaptation also uses the edited line. Entertainment Weekly ranked Aladdin in a list of the most controversial films in history, due to this incident. The ADC also complained about the portrayal of the lead characters Aladdin and Jasmine. They criticized the characters' Anglicized features and Anglo-American accents, in contrast to the other characters in the film, which are dark-skinned, have foreign accents and grotesque facial features, and appear villainous or greedy.\n\nProtests were also raised to another scene. When Aladdin is attacked by the tiger Rajah on the palace balcony, Aladdin quietly says a line that some people reported hearing as \"Good teenagers, take off your clothes,\" which they considered a subliminal reference to promiscuity. However, according to the director's commentary on the 2004 DVD, while Musker and Clements did admit Scott Weinger ad-libbed during the scene, they claimed \"we did not record that, we would not record that.\" and said the line was \"Good tiger, take off and go...\" and the word \"tiger\" is overlapped by Rajah's snarl. After the word tiger, a second voice can be heard which has been suggested was accidentally grafted onto the soundtrack. Because of the controversy, Disney removed the line on the DVD release. \n\nAnimation enthusiasts have noticed similarities between Aladdin and Richard Williams' unfinished film The Thief and the Cobbler (also known as Arabian Knight under Miramax Films and The Princess and the Cobbler under Majestic Films International). These similarities include a similar plot, similar characters, scenes and background designs, and the antagonist Zig-Zag's resemblance in character design and mannerisms to Genie and Jafar. Though Aladdin was released prior to The Thief and the Cobbler, The Thief and the Cobbler was started much earlier in the 1960s, its production being mired in difficulties including financial problems, copyright issues, and late production times caused by separate studios trying to finish the film after Richard Williams was fired from the project for lack of finished work. The late release, coupled with Miramax purchasing and re-editing the film, has sometimes resulted in The Thief and the Cobbler being labeled a copy of Aladdin.\n\nLive-action prequel\n\nOn July 15, 2015, the studio started developing a live-action comedy adventure prequel called Genies that is being written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, while Tripp Vinson is on board to produce via his Vinson Films banner. The film is planned to lead for a live-action Aladdin movie. On November 8, Disney revealed it had originally planned to use Robin Williams' unused lines from the 1991–92 recording sessions for the film, but his will prohibited the studio from using his likeness for twenty-five years after his death.", "Sir Timothy Miles Bindon \"Tim\" Rice (born 10 November 1944) is an English author and Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Tony Award, and Grammy Award-winning lyricist. He is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Evita; with Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA, with whom he wrote Chess; for additional songs for the 2011 West End revival of The Wizard of Oz; and for his work for Walt Disney Studios with Alan Menken (Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, King David), Elton John (The Lion King, Aida, The Road to El Dorado), and Ennio Morricone.\n\nRice was knighted by Elizabeth II for services to music. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is an inductee into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, is a Disney Legend recipient, and is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.\n\nEarly life\n\nRice was born at Shardeloes, an historic English country house near Amersham, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom that was requisitioned as a maternity hospital during World War II. His father Hugh Gordon Rice served with the Eighth Army and reached the rank of major during World War II, while his mother Joan Odette (née Bawden) served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) as a photographic interpreter. After the war, they worked for the de Havilland Aircraft Company.\n\nEducation\n\nRice was educated at three independent schools: Aldwickbury School in Hertfordshire, St Albans School, and Lancing College. He left Lancing with GCE A-Levels in History and French and then started work as an articled clerk for a law firm in London, having decided not to apply for a university place. He later attended the Sorbonne in Paris for a year.\n\nCareer\n\nMusic Industry \n\nAfter studying for a year in Paris at the Sorbonne, Rice joined EMI Records as a management trainee on 6 June 1966. When EMI producer Norrie Paramor left to set up his own organisation in 1968, Rice joined him as an assistant producer, working with, among others, Cliff Richard.\n\nMusical theatre \n\nRice has collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cricket, and The Likes of Us. For The Walt Disney Company, Rice has collaborated individually with Alan Menken and Elton John, creating productions including Aladdin (winning an Academy Award, Golden Globe and Grammy Award for Song of the Year for the song \"A Whole New World\") and The Lion King (winning the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Original Song for \"Can You Feel the Love Tonight\"). In 1996, his collaboration with Lloyd Webber for the film version Evita won Rice his third Academy Award for Best Original Song with the song \"You Must Love Me\". Rice has also collaborated with Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA on Chess and with Rick Wakeman on the albums 1984 and Cost of Living. He is writing eight lyrics to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet, The Nutcracker. The working title is The Nutcracker: The Untold Story. \n\nRice was re-united with Andrew Lloyd Webber in 2011 to pen new songs for Lloyd Webber's newest production of The Wizard of Oz which opened in March 2011 at the London Palladium. Rice has, however, rejected working with Webber again, claiming their partnership has run its course, and they are \"no longer relevant as a team\". \n\nMedia \n\nHe has also been a frequent guest panellist for many years on the radio panel games Just a Minute and Trivia Test Match. Rice often jokes that he is most recognised in America for his appearance in the film About a Boy. The film includes several clips from an edition of the game show Countdown on which he was the guest adjudicator. His other interests include cricket (he was President of the MCC in 2002) and maths. He wrote the foreword to the book Why Do Buses Come In Threes by Rob Eastaway and Jeremy Wyndham, and featured prominently in Tony Hawks's One Hit Wonderland, where he co-wrote the song which gave Hawks a top twenty hit in Albania.\n\nOn 2 December 2010 he addressed the eighth Bradman Oration in Adelaide.\n\nOn 15 and 22 October 2011 Rice was guest presenter for the BBC Radio 2 show Sounds of the 60s, standing in for regular presenter Brian Matthew who was unwell. \n\nLiterature \n\nHe released his autobiography Oh What a Circus: The Autobiography of Tim Rice in 1998, which covered his childhood and early adult life until the opening of the original London production of Evita in 1978. He is currently working on a sequel, covering his life and career since then.\n\nHe also took part in the Bush Theatre's 2011 project Sixty Six Books for which he wrote a piece based upon a book of the King James Bible \n\nPublishing \n\nAlong with his brother Jo and the radio presenters Mike Read and Paul Gambaccini, he was a co-founder of the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles and served as an editor from 1977 to 1996. In September 1981, Rice, along with Colin Webb and Michael Parkinson, launched Pavilion Books, a publishing house with a publishing focus on music and the arts. He held it until 1997. \n\nPatronage \n\nRice is patron of London-based drama school, The Associated Studios. \n\nHonours \n\nRice was made a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II in 1994 (entitling him to the address \"Sir Tim Rice\" or \"Sir Tim\"), was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1999, and was named a Disney Legend in 2002.\n\nIn 2008, Rice received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. \n\nHe is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. \n\nPersonal life\n\nRice married Jane McIntosh on 19 August 1974, the couple having met while working at Capital Radio. The marriage dissolved in the late 1980s after the British tabloid newspapers revealed that he had been conducting an affair with actress/singer Elaine Paige. Jane retains the title Lady Rice as, despite obtaining a divorce decree nisi, Sir Tim never made it absolute and therefore they remain technically married.\n\nLady Rice manages the family's 33,000-acre Dundonnell estate which Sir Tim bought in 1998 for £2 million. She has won awards for her conservation work with red squirrels. They have two children, Eva, a novelist and singer/songwriter, and Donald, a film director who also helps to run Dundonnell.\nEva, who was named after Eva Perón, is the author of the novel The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets, which was a finalist for the British Book Award Best Read of the Year.\nSir Tim also has a daughter from another relationship with Nell Sully, an artist, His love life remains colourful with a relationship with the cricketer Isabelle Duncan ending, baby due imminently, with writer Laura-Jane Foley and a friendship with another writer and photographer Amanda Eliasch, all whilst remaining married.\n\nPolitics \n\nHe was also a supporter of the Conservative Party, but in 2007 stated that the Conservatives were no longer interested in him and that his relationship with the Party had \"irrevocably changed.\" He was reported in early 2014 to be a donor for the UK Independence Party However, he has since stated in an interview for Chat Life that the article was referring to a one off payment that he made at a dinner event held by the party around two years earlier advocating opposition to wind turbine construction, and that he was not a member or regular donor to any political party.\n\nDespite his disenchantment with the Conservative Party, Rice joined Andrew Lloyd Webber, both supporters of Margaret Thatcher, at her funeral in 2013. \n\nReligion \n\nDescribing his religion, Rice has stated, “Technically I'm Church of England, which is really nothing. But I don't follow it. I wouldn't say I was a Christian. I have nothing against it.\" Conversely, he also stated that he adapted the biblical stories of Joseph and Jesus to musicals because \"I'd always rather take a true story over an untrue one.\" \n\nSport \n\nRice supports Sunderland A.F.C. football club. He was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters by the University of Sunderland at a ceremony at the Stadium of Light in November 2006. \n\nRice runs his own amateur Heartaches Cricket Club, the name inspired by an Elvis Presley song. \n\nWealth \n\nAccording to The Sunday Times Rich List of British millionaires from the world of music, Rice is worth £149 million as of 2013. \n\nMusical theatre\n\n1968 – Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber\n1970 – Jesus Christ Superstar with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber\n1976 – Evita with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber\n1983 – Blondel with music by Stephen Oliver\n1984 – Chess with music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus\n1986 – Cricket with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber\n1992 – Tycoon with music by Michel Berger (English-language adaptation of the 1979 French musical Starmania, with original French lyrics by Luc Plamondon)\n1994 – Beauty and the Beast with music by Alan Menken for 9 new songs; remaining songs feature the lyrics of Howard Ashman, as written for the 1991 film.\n1996 – Heathcliff with music by John Farrar\n1997 – The Lion King with music by Elton John\n1997 – King David with music by Alan Menken\n2000 – Aida with music by Elton John\n2005 – The Likes of Us with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber (written in 1965, but first staged at the Sydmonton Festival on 9 July 2005 )\n2011 – The Wizard of Oz with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber for 6 new songs; also additional lyrics for 4 songs with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg. The remaining 13 songs are solely by Arlen and Harburg.\n2014 - Aladdin with music by Alan Menken and additional lyrics by Howard Ashman and Chad Beguelin. Based on the film.\n2013 – From Here to Eternity with music by Stuart Bryson, based on the James Jones novel of the same name.\n\nFilm and television work\n\nIn addition to adaptations of his theatrical productions, Rice has worked on several original film and television projects:\n1983 - Octopussy with music by Rita Coolidge\n1992 – Aladdin with music by Alan Menken (uncredited); completed work begun by Howard Ashman, then David Zippel\n1994 – The Lion King with music by Elton John, score by Hans Zimmer\n2000 – The Road to El Dorado with music by Elton John, score by Hans Zimmer and John Powell\n2017 - Beauty and the Beast (2017 film) \n\nLyricist\n\n\"It's Easy for You\", recorded by Elvis Presley on his album Moody Blue\n\"Legal Boys\", recorded by Elton John on his album Jump Up!\n1981 concept album 1984 composed by Rick Wakeman and inspired by the George Orwell novel of the same title\n\"The Second Time\", \"The Last One to Leave\", \"Hot As Sun\" and \"Falling Down to Earth\" on Elaine Paige's 1981 self-titled album\n\"All Time High\", the theme tune to the James Bond film, Octopussy, written with John Barry and sung by Rita Coolidge (1983).\n\"A Winter's Tale\", written with Mike Batt and recorded by David Essex (1982).\n\"The Fallen Priest\" and \"The Golden Boy\" for Freddie Mercury's 1988 album Barcelona.\n\"Peterloo\", was requested by Sir Malcolm Arnold's estate to write lyrics to the Peterloo Overture [commemorating the horrific St Peter's Fields Massacre and maiming of men, women and children at a meeting in Manchester in Aug 1819]. There was in mind to use it in 2012 for the Olympics or for the Queen's Jubilee celebrations [60 years on throne] but instead it had its premiere at the Royal Albert Hall in London at 'The Last Night of the Proms' on Saturday September 13, 2014 which was broadcast on BBC television.\n\nOther work\n\nFrom 1979 to 1982, Rice was co-host of the BBC2 chat show Friday Night, Saturday Morning.\nCo-produced the 1986 London and 1988 Broadway productions of Chess as a partner in 3 Knights Ltd with Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus.\nCo-produced the 1989 London production of Anything Goes as a partner in Anchorage Productions with Elaine Paige.\nCo-produced, with Andrew Powell, Elaine Paige's 1981 self-titled album\nOccasional panellist on the BBC Radio 4 panel game Just a Minute \nAppears as host of the BBC Radio 2 weekly series Tim Rice's American Pie which explores the music and musicians of each state in the USA." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Timothy Miles Bindon Rice", "Tim Rice", "Sir Timothy Miles Bindon Rice", "Sir Tim Rice" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "tim rice", "sir tim rice", "timothy miles bindon rice", "sir timothy miles bindon rice" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "tim rice", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Tim Rice" }
Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head was an Oscar winner from which movie with Robert Redford & Paul Newman?	tc_1185	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe", "Search" ], "filename": [ "Raindrops_Keep_Fallin'_on_My_Head.txt", "Robert_Redford.txt", "Butch_Cassidy_and_the_Sundance_Kid.txt" ], "title": [ "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head", "Robert Redford", "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" ], "wiki_context": [ "\"Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head\" is a song written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach for the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It won an Academy Award for Best Original Song. David and Bacharach also won Best Original Score. The song was recorded by B. J. Thomas in seven takes, after Bacharach expressed dissatisfaction with the first six. In the film version of the song, Thomas had been recovering from laryngitis, which made his voice sound hoarser than in the 7-inch release. The film version featured a separate vaudeville-style instrumental break in double time while Paul Newman performed bicycle stunts.\n\nThe single by B. J. Thomas reached number 1 on charts in the United States, Canada, Norway and reached number 38 in the UK Singles Chart. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks in January 1970 and was also the first American number-one hit of the 1970s. The song also spent seven weeks atop the Billboard adult contemporary chart. Billboard ranked it as the No. 4 song of 1970. According to Billboard magazine, Thomas' single had sold over 2 million copies by March 14, 1970, with eight-track and cassette versions also climbing the charts. \n\nHistory\n\nRay Stevens was first offered the opportunity to record it for the film, but turned it down. He chose instead to record the song \"Sunday Morning Coming Down\", written by Kris Kristofferson. Bob Dylan is supposed to have been approached for the song, but he, too, reportedly declined. The trumpet solos in the song are performed by Chuck Findlay. \n\nIn 2004, it finished at number 23 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema. In 2008, the single was ranked 85th on Billboards Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs and placed 95th in the 55th Anniversary edition of the All-Time Hot 100 list in 2013. Billboard Magazine also ranked the song 15th on its Top 50 Movie Songs of All Time list in 2014. \n\nOn December 3, 2013, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences announced that the single would be inducted into the 2014 Grammy Hall Of Fame. \n\n\"Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head\" was used in the film Spy Hard, which parodied the scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It is on the soundtracks to Forrest Gump and Spider-Man 2, in the latter accentuating Peter Parker's blissful mood after abandoning his Spider-Man identity and its responsibilities. It was used in the Kevin Smith film Clerks II. The first episode of the second season of the popular medical drama Grey's Anatomy is named after the song. It is also used in The Simpsons, episode 16 of the fourth season, called Duffless, at the end of the episode, while credits are presented. It was also used in a season 1 episode of Arrested Development entitled \"Altar Egos\". It was also used in the 2003 film \"The In-Laws\" starring Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks, which was a remake of the 1979 Peter Falk / Alan Arkin film.\n\nChart performance\n\nWeekly singles charts\n\n;B. J. Thomas version\n\n;Johnny Farnham version\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCovers\n\nThe song has been covered numerous times. From January 24, 1970 to March 13 it was a number-one hit (for seven weeks) in Australia on the Go-Set National Top 40 for local pop singer, Johnny Farnham. In 1970, it was also covered by Engelbert Humperdinck on his album We Made It Happen, Johnny Mathis on his album Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head, Perry Como on his album It's Impossible, The Four Tops on their album Changing Times, Andy Williams on his album, Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head, and The Free Design on their album Stars/Time/Bubbles/Love. Portuguese-born television and radio presenter Pedro Biker released a Danish version re-entitled \"Regndråber Drypper I Mit Hår\" in 1970.\n\nIn September 1970, Phyllis George representing Texas performed the song on the piano on her way to winning the Miss America 1971 title.\n\nIt has been covered in Spanish by English singer Matt Monro. This version is known as \"Gotas de lluvia que al caer\".\n\nIt has been covered in French by French singer Sacha Distel, whose version Toute La Pluie Tombe Sur Moi was a number 10 hit in the UK Singles Chart, and number 13 in Ireland, as well as number 10 in France. Distel also recorded a version with the original English lyrics, and another in Italian, Gocce Di Pioggia Su Di Me. Bobbie Gentry's version reached number 40 in the UK chart. Paul Mauriat recorded it with his Grand Orchestra it 1973. It was the only known cover in the USSR. \n\nThe Barry Sisters covered the song in a Yiddish version (\"Trop'ns Fin Regen Oif Mein Kop\") on their 1973 album Our Way. \n\nReggae artist Dennis Brown covered the song on his 1972 debut album No Man Is An Island, stylized, \"Rain Drops Keep Falling\". Delroy Wilson recorded a reggae version of the song that does not appear on any of his official albums. Mute Beat recorded a reggae version for their 1989 album March.\n\nJacques Loussier recorded a cover on his 1987 album In Loussier's Mood. The Flaming Lips covered it on 1996's Brainville EP. Ben Folds Five also covered it for the 1998 Burt Bacharach tribute TV special and soundtrack One Amazing Night. \n\nThe Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers maintain \"Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head\" in their repertoire of live songs, playing it as part of an acoustic set during concerts. The band recorded a version of the song complete with trumpet solo by their drummer Sean Moore. It was the first piece of music the band recorded after the disappearance of guitarist and lyricist Richey Edwards, and saw release on the 1995 charity album Help. That version also appears on their 2003 B-sides and rarities compilation album Lipstick Traces (A Secret History of Manic Street Preachers). The Manics further reference the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with the B-side \"Sepia\".\n\nIn 1998, Shonen Knife covered it as part of Big Deal Recording Artists Perform The Songs Of Burt Bacharach. \n\nLisa Miskovsky covered the song in the extended version of her self-titled (2004) album.\n\nIn 2005, Australian band Jebediah covered it for Triple J's Like a Version compilation. Dionne Warwick has collaborated with Kelis on a cover for her 2006 duets album, while Barry Manilow covered it on his 2006 album The Greatest Songs of the Sixties.", "Charles Robert Redford Jr. (born August 18, 1936) is an American actor, director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, and philanthropist. Redford is the founder of the Sundance Film Festival. \n\nRedford's career began in 1960 as a guest star on numerous TV programs, including: The Untouchables, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and The Twilight Zone, among others. He earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont (1962). His greatest Broadway success was as the stuffy newlywed husband of Elizabeth Ashley in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963).\n\nRedford made his film debut in War Hunt (1962). His role in Inside Daisy Clover (1965) won him a Golden Globe for best new star. He starred in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), which was a huge success and made him a major star. In 1972, he had a critical and box office hit with Jeremiah Johnson (1972), and in 1973 had the greatest hit of his career, the blockbuster crime caper The Sting, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. The popular and acclaimed All the President's Men (1976) was a landmark film for Redford.\n\nThe first film that Redford directed, Ordinary People (1980), was one of the most critically and publicly acclaimed films of the decade, winning four Oscars, and in the same year, he starred in Brubaker (1980). He starred in Out of Africa (1985), which was an enormous critical and box office success, and won seven Oscars including Best Picture, proving to be his greatest success of the decade. He released his third film as a director, A River Runs Through It, in 1992. \n\nRedford won the Academy Award for Best Director in 1981 for directing Ordinary People. He was previously nominated Best Actor in 1974 for his performance in The Sting, and went on to receive Best Director and Best Picture nominations in 1995 for Quiz Show. He won a second Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2002. In 2010, he was made a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. He has won BAFTA, Directors Guild of America, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Awards.\n\nIn April 2014, Time Magazine included Redford in their annual TIME 100 as one of the \"Most Influential People in the World\", declaring him the \"Godfather of Indie Film\". \n\nEarly life \n\nRedford was born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California. His mother, Martha W. (; 1914–55), was born in Texas, to Archibald Hart and Sallie Pate Green; and his father, Charles Robert Redford, Sr. (1914–91), was a milkman-turned-accountant from Pawcatuck, New London County, Connecticut, son of Charles Elijah Redford and Lena Taylor. He has a stepbrother,Stated on Inside the Actors Studio, 2005 William, from his father's remarriage. Redford is of English, Irish, Scottish, and Scots-Irish ancestry (his surname originates in England). \n\nRedford's family moved to Van Nuys, California, while his father worked in El Segundo. He attended Van Nuys High School, where he was classmates with baseball player Don Drysdale. He has described himself as having been a \"bad\" student, finding inspiration outside the classroom, and being interested in art and sports. He hit tennis balls with Pancho Gonzales at the Los Angeles Tennis Club to warm him up.\n\nAfter graduating from high school in 1954, he attended the University of Colorado for a year and a half, where he was a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity. While there, he worked at the restaurant/bar The Sink; a painting of his likeness is prominent in the bar's murals. While at Colorado, Redford began drinking heavily, and as a result lost his scholarship and was kicked out of school. Later he traveled in Europe, living in France, Spain, and Italy. He later studied painting at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and took classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.\n\nCareer \n\nTelevision \n\nRedford's career—like that of almost all major stars who emerged in the 1950s—began in New York, where an actor could find work both in television and on stage. Starting in 1959, he appeared as a guest star on numerous programs, including Naked City, The Untouchables, The Americans, Whispering Smith, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Route 66, Dr. Kildare, Playhouse 90, Tate, The Twilight Zone, and \"Captain Brassbound's Conversion\" with a young Christopher Plummer, among others.\n\nIn 1960, Redford was cast as Danny Tilford, a mentally disturbed young man trapped in the wreckage of his family garage, in \"Breakdown\", one of the last episodes of the syndicated adventure series, Rescue 8, starring Jim Davis and Lang Jeffries.\n\nRedford earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont (ABC, 1962). One of his last television appearances was on October 7, 1963, on Breaking Point, an ABC medical drama about psychiatry.\n\nTheater \n\nRedford's Broadway debut was in a small role in Tall Story (1959), followed by parts in The Highest Tree (1959) and Sunday in New York (1961). His biggest Broadway success was as the stuffy newlywed husband of Elizabeth Ashley in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963).\n\nFilm \n\nRedford made his screen debut in Tall Story (1960). It was a minor role. The stars of the film were Anthony Perkins, Jane Fonda (her debut), and Ray Walston. The film was about a college basketball star, played by Perkins, who gets himself into trouble debating as to whether or not he should accept a bribe to throw a basketball game against a team from Russia. After his Broadway success, he was cast in larger feature roles in movies. In 1962 Robert Redford got his second film role in War Hunt. He was cast alongside screen legend Alec Guinness in the war comedy Situation Hopeless ... But Not Serious, in which he played a soldier who has to spend years of his life hiding behind enemy lines. In Inside Daisy Clover (1965), which won him a Golden Globe for best new star, he played a bisexual movie star who marries starlet Natalie Wood, and rejoined her along with Charles Bronson for Pollack's This Property Is Condemned (1966)—again as her lover, though this time in a film which achieved even greater success. The same year saw his first teaming (on equal footing) with Jane Fonda, in Arthur Penn's The Chase. This film marked the only time Redford would star with Marlon Brando. Fonda and Redford were paired again in the popular big-screen version of Barefoot in the Park (1967) and were again co-stars much later in Pollack's The Electric Horseman (1979).\n\nAfter this initial success, Redford became concerned about his blond male stereotype image and turned down roles in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate. Redford found the niche he was looking for in George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), scripted by William Goldman, in which he was paired for the first time with Paul Newman. The film was a huge success and made him a major bankable star, cementing his screen image as an intelligent, reliable, sometimes sardonic good guy.\n\nRedford suffered through a few films that did not achieve box office success during this time, including Downhill Racer (1969); Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969); Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970), and The Hot Rock (1972). But his overall career was flourishing with the critical and box office hit Jeremiah Johnson (1972); the political satire The Candidate (1972); the hugely popular period drama The Way We Were (1973); and the biggest hit of his career, the blockbuster crime caper The Sting (1973), which became one of the top 20 highest-grossing movies of all time when adjusted for inflation and for which he was also nominated for an Oscar.\n\nBetween 1974 and 1976, exhibitors voted Redford Hollywood's top box-office name. His hits included The Great Gatsby (1974), The Great Waldo Pepper (1975), and Three Days of the Condor (1975). The popular and acclaimed All the President's Men (1976), directed by Alan J. Pakula and scripted once again by Goldman, was a landmark film for Redford. Not only was he the executive producer and co-star, but the film's serious subject matter—the Watergate scandal—and its attempt to create a realistic portrayal of journalism, also reflected the actor's offscreen concerns for political causes.\n\nHe also appeared in a segment of the war film A Bridge Too Far (1977) before starring in the prison drama Brubaker (1980), playing a prison warden attempting to reform the system, and the baseball drama The Natural (1984). Redford continued his involvement in mainstream Hollywood movies, though with a newfound focus on directing. The first film he directed, Ordinary People, which followed the disintegration of an upper-class American family after the death of a son, was one of the most critically and publicly acclaimed films of the decade, winning four Oscars, including Best Director for Redford himself, and Best Picture. His follow-up directorial project, The Milagro Beanfield War (1987), failed to generate the same level of attention. Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa (1985), with Redford in the male lead role opposite Meryl Streep, became an enormous critical and box office success and won seven Oscars including Best Picture, proving to be Redford's biggest success of the decade and Redford and Pollack's most successful of their six movies together. His next film, Legal Eagles (1986), was only a minor success at the box office.\n\nRedford continued as a major star throughout the 1990s and 2000s. He released his third film as a director, A River Runs Through It, in 1992, which was a return to mainstream success for Redford as a director and brought a young Brad Pitt to greater prominence. In 1993, Redford played what became one of his most popular and recognized roles, starring in Indecent Proposal as a millionaire businessman who tests a couple's morals; the film became one of the year's biggest hits. He co-starred with Michelle Pfeiffer in the newsroom romance Up Close & Personal (1996), and with Kristin Scott Thomas in The Horse Whisperer (1998), which he also directed. Redford also continued work in films with political context, such as Havana (1990), playing Jack Weil, a professional gambler in 1959 Cuba during the Revolution, as well as Sneakers (1992), in which he co starred with River Phoenix among others.\n\nHe appeared as a disgraced Army general sent to prison in the prison drama The Last Castle (2001), directed by Rod Lurie. In the same year, Redford reteamed with Brad Pitt for Spy Game, another success for the pair but with Redford switching this time from director to actor. Redford, a leading environmental activist, narrated the IMAX documentary Sacred Planet (2004), a sweeping journey across the globe to some of its most exotic and endangered places. In The Clearing (2004), a thriller co-starring Helen Mirren, Redford was a successful businessman whose kidnapping unearths the secrets and inadequacies that led to his achieving the American Dream.\n\nRedford stepped back into producing with The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), a coming-of-age road film about a young medical student, Ernesto \"Che\" Guevara, and his friend Alberto Granado. It also explored political and social issues of South America that influenced Guevara and shaped his future. With five years spent on the film's making, Redford was credited by director Walter Salles for being instrumental in getting it made and released.\n\nBack in front of the camera, Redford received good notices for his role in director Lasse Hallstrom's An Unfinished Life (2005) as a cantankerous rancher who is forced to take in his estranged daughter-in-law (Jennifer Lopez)—whom he blames for his son's death—and the granddaughter he never knew he had when they fled an abusive relationship. The film, which sat on the shelf for many months while its distributor Miramax was restructured, was generally dismissed as clichéd and overly sentimental. Meanwhile, Redford returned to familiar territory when he reteamed with Meryl Streep 22 years after they starred in Out of Africa, for his personal project Lions for Lambs (2007), which also starred fellow superstar Tom Cruise. After a great deal of hype, the film opened to mixed reviews and disappointing box office. Redford more recently signed on to direct and star in an update of The Candidate.\n\nRedford appeared in the 2011 documentary Buck, where he discussed his experiences with title subject Buck Brannaman during the production of The Horse Whisperer. In 2012, Redford directed and starred in The Company You Keep, about a former Weather Underground activist who goes on the run from a journalist who has discovered his identity. In 2013, he starred in All Is Lost, directed by J.C. Chandor, about a man lost at sea. He received very high acclaim for his performance in the film, in which he is its only cast member and there is almost no dialogue. In April 2014, Redford appeared in the Marvel Studios super hero film Captain America: The Winter Soldier playing Alexander Pierce, the main antagonist who is the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. and leader of the HYDRA cell operating the Triskelion. \n\nDirector \n\nRedford had long harbored ambitions to work on both sides of the camera. As early as 1969, Redford had served as the executive producer for Downhill Racer. His first outing as director was 1980's Best Picture winner Ordinary People, a drama about the slow disintegration of an upper-middle class family, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director. Redford was credited with obtaining a powerful dramatic performance from Mary Tyler Moore, as well as superb work from Donald Sutherland and Timothy Hutton, who also won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.\n\nRedford did not direct again until The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), a well-crafted, though not commercially successful, screen version of John Nichols' acclaimed novel of the Southwest. The Milagro Beanfield War is the story of the people of Milagro, New Mexico (based on the real town of Truchas in northern New Mexico), overcoming big developers who set about to ruin their community and force them out because of tax increases. Other directorial projects have included the period drama A River Runs Through It (1992), based on Norman Maclean's novella, and the exposé Quiz Show (1994), about the quiz show scandal of the late 1950s. In the latter film, Redford worked from a screenplay by Paul Attanasio with noted cinematographer Michael Ballhaus and a strong cast that featured Paul Scofield, John Turturro, Rob Morrow, and Ralph Fiennes. Redford handpicked Morrow for his part in the film (Morrow's only high-profile feature film role to date), because he liked his work on Northern Exposure. Redford also directed Matt Damon and Will Smith in The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000). In 2010, Redford released The Conspirator, a period drama revolving around the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Despite a subject matter of personal interest to Redford, the film received mixed reviews and proved to be a flop at the box office.\n\nHonors \n\nRedford attended the University of Colorado in the 1950s and received an honorary degree in 1988.\n\nIn 1989, the National Audubon Society awarded Redford its highest honor, the Audubon Medal. \n\nIn 1995, he received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Bard College. He was a 2002 Lifetime Achievement Award/Honorary Oscar recipient at the 74th Academy Awards. \n\nIn 1996, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. \n\nIn December 2005, he received the Kennedy Center Honors for his contributions to American culture. The honors recipients are recognized for their lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts: whether in dance, music, theater, opera, motion pictures or television. \n\nIn 2008, he was awarded The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, one of the richest prizes in the arts, given annually to \"a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind's enjoyment and understanding of life.\" \n\nThe University of Southern California (USC) School of Dramatic Arts announced the first annual Robert Redford Award for Engaged Artists in 2009. According to the school's web site, the award was created \"to honor those who have distinguished themselves not only in the exemplary quality, skill and innovation of their work, but also in their public commitment to social responsibility, to increasing awareness of global issues and events, and to inspiring and empowering young people.\" \n\nRedford received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Brown University at the 240th Commencement exercises on May 25, 2008. He also spoke during the ceremonies.\n\nOn October 14, 2010, he was appointed chevalier of the Légion d'honneur. \n\nHe was a 2010 recipient of the New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts \n\nOn May 24, 2015, Redford delivered the [http://www.colby.edu/commencement/commencement-2015/ commencement address] and received an honorary degree from Colby College in Waterville, Maine. \n\nSundance \n\nWith the financial proceeds of his acting success, starting with his salaries from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Downhill Racer, Redford bought an entire ski area on the east side of Mount Timpanogos northeast of Provo, Utah, called \"Timp Haven\", which was renamed \"Sundance\". Redford's wife Lola was from Utah and they had built a home in the area in 1963. Portions of the movie Jeremiah Johnson (1972), a film which is both one of Redford's favorites and one that has heavily influenced him, were shot near the ski area. He founded the Sundance Institute, Sundance Cinemas, Sundance Catalog, and the Sundance Channel, all in and around Park City, Utah, 30 miles (48 km) north of the Sundance ski area. The Sundance Film Festival caters to independent filmmakers in the United States and has received recognition from the industry as a place to open films. In 2008, Sundance exhibited 125 feature-length films from 34 countries, with more than 50,000 attendees. The name Sundance comes from his Sundance Kid character. Redford also owns a restaurant called Zoom, located on Main Street in the former mining town of Park City.\n\nIndependent films \n\nSince founding the nonprofit Sundance Institute in Park City, in 1981, Redford has been deeply involved with independent film. Through its various workshop programs and popular film festival, Sundance has provided much-needed support for independent filmmakers. In 1995, Redford signed a deal with Showtime to start a 24-hour cable television channel devoted to airing independent films. The Sundance Channel premiered on February 29, 1996.\n\nPersonal life \n\nOn September 12, 1958, in Las Vegas, Nevada, Redford married Lola Van Wagenen, who dropped out of college to marry him. They had four children: Scott Anthony (September 1, 1959 - November 17, 1959), Shauna Jean (born November 15, 1960), David James (\"Jamie\") (born May 5, 1962), and Amy Hart Redford (born October 22, 1970). Lola and Redford divorced in 1985.\n\nScott Redford was born on September 1, 1959, and died of sudden infant death syndrome on November 17, 1959, at the age of 2½ months. His remains were buried at Provo City Cemetery in Provo, Utah. Shauna Redford is a painter and married to journalist Eric Schlosser. Jamie Redford is a writer and producer, while Amy Redford is an actress, director, and producer. In 1994 Jamie, suffering from liver disease, had a liver transplant. \nRedford has seven grandchildren. \n\nIn July 2009, Redford married his longtime partner, Sibylle Szaggars, at the Louis C. Jacob Hotel in Hamburg, Germany. She had moved in with Redford in the 1990s and shares his home in Sundance, Utah. \n\nIn May 2011, Alfred A. Knopf published Robert Redford: The Biography by Michael Feeney Callan, written over fifteen years with Redford's input and drawn from his personal papers and diaries.\n\nPolitical activity \n\nRedford supports environmentalism, Native American rights, LGBT rights, and the arts. He has also supported advocacy groups, such as the Political Action Committee of the Directors Guild of America.[http://www.newsmeat.com/celebrity_political_donations/Robert_Redford.php Robert Redford's Federal campaign contributions]. Newsmeat.com Redford has on occasion also supported Republicans, including Brent Cornell Morris in his unsuccessful campaign for the Republican nomination for Utah's 3rd congressional district in 1990. Redford also supported Gary Herbert, another Republican and a friend, in Herbert's successful 2004 campaign to be elected Utah's Lieutenant Governor. Herbert later became Governor of Utah. Redford is an avid environmentalist and is a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council. He endorsed Democratic President Barack Obama for re-election in 2012. Redford is the first quote on the back cover of Donald Trump's book \"Crippled America\" saying of Trump “I’m glad he’s in there because him being the way he is, and saying what he says the way he says it, I think shakes things up and I think that’s very needed.\" \n\nIn April 2014, Redford, a Pitzer College Trustee, and Pitzer College President Laura Skandera Trombley announced that the college will divest fossil fuel stocks from its endowment; at the time, it was the higher education institution with the largest endowment in the US to make this commitment. The press conference was held at the LA Press Club. In November 2012, Pitzer launched the Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability at Pitzer College. The Redford Conservancy educates the next generation of students to create solutions for the most challenging and urgent sustainability problems.\n\nFilmography \n\nActor \n\nDirector \n\nNarrator", "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a 1969 American Western film directed by George Roy Hill and written by William Goldman (who won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film). Based loosely on fact, the film tells the story of Wild West outlaws Robert LeRoy Parker, known as Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman), and his partner Harry Longabaugh, the \"Sundance Kid\" (Robert Redford), who are on the run from a crack US posse after a string of train robberies. The pair and Sundance's lover, Etta Place (Katharine Ross), flee to Bolivia in search of a more successful criminal career, where they meet their end.\n\nIn 2003, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.\" The American Film Institute ranked Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as the 49th-greatest American film on its AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) list.\n\nPlot\n\nIn late 1890s Wyoming, Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) is the affable, clever, talkative leader of the outlaw Hole in the Wall Gang. His closest companion is the laconic dead-shot \"Sundance Kid\" (Robert Redford). The two return to their hideout at Hole-in-the-Wall (Wyoming) to discover that the rest of the gang, irked at Butch's long absences, have selected Harvey Logan (Ted Cassidy) as their new leader. Harvey challenges Butch to a knife fight over the gang's leadership. Butch defeats him using trickery, but embraces Harvey's idea to rob the Union Pacific Overland Flyer train on both its eastward and westward runs, agreeing that the second robbery would be unexpected and likely reap even more money than the first.\n\nThe first robbery goes well. To celebrate, Butch and Sundance visit a favorite brothel in a nearby town and watch, amused, as the town sheriff (Kenneth Mars) unsuccessfully attempts to organize a posse to track down the gang. They then visit Sundance's lover, schoolteacher Etta Place (Katharine Ross). On the second train robbery, Butch uses too much dynamite to blow open the safe, blowing up the baggage car. As the gang scrambles to gather up the money, a second train arrives carrying a six-man team of lawmen pursuing Butch and Sundance, who unsuccessfully try to hide out in the brothel and to seek amnesty from the friendly Sheriff Bledsoe (Jeff Corey). As the posse remains in pursuit despite all attempts to elude them, Butch and Sundance determine that the group includes renowned Indian tracker \"Lord Baltimore\" and relentless lawman Joe Lefors, recognizable by his white skimmer. Butch and Sundance finally elude their pursuers by jumping from a cliff into a river far below. They learn from Etta that the posse has been paid by Union Pacific head E. H. Harriman to remain on their trail until Butch and Sundance are both killed.\n\nButch convinces Sundance and Etta that the three should escape to Bolivia, which Butch envisions as a robber's paradise. On their arrival there, Sundance is dismayed by the living conditions and regards the country with contempt, but Butch remains optimistic. They discover that they know too little Spanish to pull off a bank robbery, so Etta attempts to teach them the language. With her as an accomplice, they become successful bank robbers known as Los Bandidos Yanquis. However, their confidence drops when they see a man wearing a white hat (the signature of determined lawman Lefors) and fear that Harriman's posse is still after them.\n\nButch suggests \"going straight\", and he and Sundance land their first honest job as payroll guards for a mining company. However, they are ambushed by local bandits on their first run and their boss, Percy Garris (Strother Martin), is killed. Butch and Sundance ambush and kill the bandits, the first time Butch has ever shot someone. Etta recommends farming or ranching as other lines of work, but they conclude the straight life isn't for them. Sensing they will be killed if they return to robbery, Etta decides to go back to the United States.\n\nButch and Sundance steal a payroll and the mules carrying it, and arrive in a small town. A boy recognizes the mules' brand and alerts the local police, leading to a gunfight with the outlaws. They take cover in a building but are both seriously wounded, after Butch makes a futile attempt to run to the mules in order to bring more ammunition, while Sundance provides cover fire. As dozens of Bolivian soldiers surround the area, Butch suggests the duo's next destination should be Australia. The film ends with a freeze frame shot on the pair charging out of the building, guns blazing, before the Bolivian forces riddle them with bullets.\n\nCast \n\n* Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy\n* Robert Redford as the Sundance Kid\n* Katharine Ross as Etta Place\n* Strother Martin as Percy Garris\n* Henry Jones as Bike Salesman\n* Jeff Corey as Sheriff Bledsoe\n* George Furth as Woodcock\n* Cloris Leachman as Agnes\n* Ted Cassidy as Harvey Logan\n* Kenneth Mars as Marshal\n* Donnelly Rhodes as Macon\n* Jody Gilbert as Large Woman Train Passenger\n* Timothy Scott as News Carver\n* Don Keefer as Fireman\n* Charles Dierkop as Flat Nose Curry\n* Pancho Córdova as Bank Manager\n* Nelson Olmsted as Photographer\n* Paul Bryar as Card Player No. 1\n* Sam Elliott as Card Player No. 2\n* Charles Akins as Bank Teller\n* Eric Sinclair as Tiffany's Salesman\n* Douglas Bank as Citizen\n* Larry Barton as Citizen\n* Rico Cattani as Bank Guard\n* José Chávez as Bolivian Police Commander\n* Dave Dunlop as Gunman\n* Jill Hall as Minor Role\n* Percy Helton as Sweetface\n* Buck Holland as Posse Member\n* Jack Isbell as Posseman\n* Enrique Lucero as Guard in the 1st Bolivian Bank\n* Thurl Ravenscroft as (singing voice)\n* Jorge Russek as Bolivian Army Officer\n* Peter Lawman as Bolivian Army Officer\n* David Nieland Copas as Indian Tracker Lord Baltimore\n* José Torvay as Bolivian Bandit\n\nProduction \n\nScreenplay\n\nWilliam Goldman first came across the story of Butch Cassidy in the late 1950s and researched it on and off for eight years before sitting down to write the screenplay. Goldman later stated:\nThe whole reason I wrote the... thing, there is that famous line that Scott Fitzgerald wrote, who was one of my heroes, 'There are no second acts in American lives.' When I read about Cassidy and Longbaugh and the superposse coming after them - that's phenomenal material. They ran to South America and lived there for eight years and that was what thrilled me: they had a second act. They were more legendary in South America than they had been in the old West... It's a great story. Those two guys and that pretty girl going down to South America and all that stuff. It just seems to me it's a wonderful piece of material. \nGoldman says he wrote the story as an original screenplay because he did not want to do the research to make it authentic as a novel.\n\nDevelopment\n\nAccording to Goldman, when he first wrote the script and sent it out for consideration, only one studio wanted to buy it—and that was with the proviso that the two lead characters did not flee to South America. When Goldman protested that that was what had happened, the studio head responded, \"I don't give a shit. All I know is John Wayne don't run away.\" \n\nGoldman rewrote the script, \"didn't change it more than a few pages, and subsequently found that every studio wanted it.\"\n \nAccording to the supplemental material on the Blu-ray disc release, Richard Zanuck at 20th Century Fox purchased the script, originally called The Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy, for $400,000, double the price the studio's board of directors had authorized.\n\nThe role of Sundance was offered to Jack Lemmon, whose production company, JML, had produced the film Cool Hand Luke (1967) starring Newman. Lemmon, however, turned down the role; he did not like riding horses, and he felt he had already played too many aspects of the Sundance Kid's character before. Other actors considered for the role of Sundance were Steve McQueen and Warren Beatty, who both turned it down, with Beatty claiming that the film was too similar to Bonnie and Clyde. According to Goldman, McQueen and Newman both read the scripts at the same time and agreed to do the film. McQueen eventually backed out of the film due to biling disagreements with Newman. The two actors would eventually team up in the 1974 disaster film The Towering Inferno.\n\nNewman was eventually cast for the role of Cassidy. Marlon Brando was seriously considered to team with Newman for one of the roles. He turned it down due to his commitment to Burn. He also felt that it was too similar to his role in One-Eyed Jacks (1961).\n\nJoanna Pettet was first offered the role of Etta Place but was forced to turn down the role due to her pregnancy. Katharine Ross was eventually cast for the role of Etta. Sam Elliott made his debut in this film as a card player. He and Ross married in 1984.\n\nFilming \n\nIn addition to some studio interiors and exteriors, the film was shot on location in various parts of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and for the Bolivia scenes, Cuernavaca and Taxco, Mexico. The cast and crew enjoyed the location work. Redford said: \"We had the best locations possible, to my mind. We had Zion National Park [Utah]; Durango, Colorado. … You rode through that, it was a joy.\"\n\nOn the first day of shooting, Katharine Ross came to the set to watch the train robbery scenes being filmed. There were five cameras and there were only four operators, so director of photography Conrad Hall (whom she was dating at the time, according to his DVD commentary) put her on the extra camera, showing her how to operate it, and how to move it to get her shot. Director George Roy Hill was furious about this and banned her from the set. The silent bicycle scene was her favorite scene to film because it was shot by the crew's second unit rather than the first unit, directed by George Roy Hill.\n\nDuring the scenes in Bolivia which were shot in Mexico, almost the entire crew and cast suffered from severe diarrhea due to drinking polluted water. Newman, Redford and Ross were exception to this because they preferred drinking soda and alcohol. Redford didn't agree with Newman on the need for rehearsal, feeling that it lessens the spontaneity, but he conceded out of respect for his co-star.\n\nRedford wanted to do all his own stunts. Newman was especially upset about Redford's desire to jump onto the train roof and run along the tops of the cars as it moved. Redford said that Newman told him, \"I don't want any heroics around here. … I don't want to lose a co-star.\"\n\nNewman did his own bicycle stunts, after his stunt man was unable to stay on the bike, except for the scene where Butch crashes backwards into the fence, which was performed by the director of photography.\n\nThe only major conflict between Newman and George Roy Hill occurred over what became known as \"the Bledsoe scene,\" a break in the extended superposse chase when Butch and Sundance go to visit an old sheriff hoping to get his help enlisting them in the Army to fight in the Spanish–American War. Newman felt the scene should come at the end of the chase and be the motivation for their flight to South America. Hill disagreed strongly. Every day, Newman came on the set with fresh arguments for why it should be done his way and with increasing passion for his opinion. \"Paul was becoming almost anal about it,\" noted Redford, who at one point jokingly suggested they rename the film \"The Bledsoe Scene.\" Ultimately, Hill won the argument.\n\nLula Parker Betenson, sister of the real Butch Cassidy, often visited the set, and her presence was welcome to the cast and crew. During lulls in shooting she would tell stories about her famous brother's escapades, and was amazed at how accurately the script and Paul Newman portrayed him. Before the film was released, the studio found out about her visits and tried to convince her to endorse the movie in a series of ads to be shown in theatres across the country. She said that she would, but only if she saw the film first and truly stood behind it. The studio refused, saying that allowing her to see the film before its release could harm its reputation. Finally, at Robert Redford's suggestion, she agreed to do the endorsements—for a small \"fee.\"\n\nDeleted scene \n\nA scene that was cut from the film had Cassidy, the Kid, and Etta in a Bolivian cinema and seeing a screen re-enactment of their gang, depicting Butch and Sundance as ruthless killers gunned down by the law. As the two men watch incredulously, shouting at the screen that it didn't happen that way, Etta walks off to the station to catch the train that would begin her journey back to America. George Roy Hill thought that the scene was somewhat heavy-handed and unnecessary.\n\nReception \n\nWorld premiere \n\nThe world premiere of the movie was in September 1969, at the Roger Sherman Theater, in New Haven, Connecticut. The premiere was attended by Paul Newman, his wife Joanne Woodward, Robert Redford, George Roy Hill, William Goldman, and John Foreman, among others. \n\nCritical response \n\nThe response of major American movie reviewers was widely favorable. Rotten Tomatoes, a film review aggregator counted 89% of critical reviews as favorable. Newman and Redford's chemistry was praised as was the film's charm and humor.\n\nTime magazine said the film's two male stars are \"afflicted with cinematic schizophrenia. One moment they are sinewy, battered remnants of a discarded tradition. The next they are low comedians whose chaffing relationship—and dialogue—could have been lifted from a Batman and Robin episode.\" Time also criticized the film's score as absurd and anachronistic.\n\nRoger Ebert's review of the movie was a mixed 2.5 out of 4 stars. \"The movie starts promisingly... a scene where Butch puts down a rebellion in his gang [is] one of the best things in the movie... And then we meet Sundance's girlfriend, played by Katharine Ross, and the scenes with the three of them have you thinking you've wandered into a really first-rate film.\" But after Harriman hires his posse, Ebert thought the movie's quality declined: \"Hill apparently spent a lot of money to take his company on location for these scenes, and I guess when he got back to Hollywood he couldn't bear to edit them out of the final version. So the Super-posse chases our heroes unceasingly, until we've long since forgotten how well the movie started.\" The dialogue in the final scenes is \"so bad we can't believe a word anyone says. And then the violent, bloody ending is also a mistake; apparently it was a misguided attempt to copy \"Bonnie and Clyde....\" we don't believe it, and we walk out of the theater wondering what happened to that great movie we were seeing until an hour ago.\" \n\nThe Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay #11 on its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written. \n\nBox office \n\nThe film earned $15 million in rentals in North America during its first year of release. \n\nWith US box office of over US$100 million, it was the top grossing film of the year. Adjusted for inflation, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ranks as the 34th top-grossing film of all time and the top 10 for its decade, due in part to subsequent re-releases.\n\nAwards and nominations \n\nThe film won four Academy Awards: Best Cinematography; Best Original Score for a Motion Picture (not a Musical); Best Music, Song (Burt Bacharach and Hal David for \"Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head\"); and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Material Not Previously Published or Produced. It was also nominated for Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Sound (William Edmondson and David Dockendorf). \n\nButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid also won numerous British Academy Film Awards, including Best Film, Best Direction, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Actor (won by Redford though Newman was also nominated), and Best Actress for Katharine Ross, among others.\n\nWilliam Goldman won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay.\n\nIn 2003, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\".\n\nLegacy \n\nAlso in 1969, the Spaghetti Western titled Sundance Cassidy and Butch the Kid was released, starring Giuliano Gemma and Nino Benvenuti.\n\nThe film inspired the television series Alias Smith and Jones, starring Pete Duel and Ben Murphy as outlaws trying to earn an amnesty. \n\nIn 1979, a prequel, Butch and Sundance: The Early Days, was released by 20th Century Fox and was directed by Richard Lester. The film received mixed reviews and was a box office flop, but was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design.\n\nA parody titled \"Botch Casually and the Somedunce Kid\" was published in MAD. It was illustrated by Mort Drucker and written by Arnie Kogen in issue No. 136, July 1970." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid", "Butch cassidy and the sundance kid", "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969 movie)", "Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "butch cassidy sundance kid", "butch cassidy and sundance kid", "butch cassidy and sundance kid 1969 movie" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "butch cassidy and sundance kid", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" }
The multi-Oscar winning The Deer Hunter was about steelworkers who went to fight where?	tc_1186	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "The_Deer_Hunter.txt" ], "title": [ "The Deer Hunter" ], "wiki_context": [ "The Deer Hunter is a 1978 American epic war drama film co-written and directed by Michael Cimino about a trio of Russian American steelworkers and their service in the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Savage, John Cazale (in his final role), Meryl Streep, and George Dzundza. The story takes place in Clairton, a small working class town on the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and then in Vietnam and in Saigon, during the Vietnam War.\n\nThe film was based in part on an unproduced screenplay called The Man Who Came to Play by Louis Garfinkle and Quinn K. Redeker, about Las Vegas and Russian roulette. Producer Michael Deeley, who bought the script, hired writer/director Michael Cimino who, with Deric Washburn, rewrote the script, taking the Russian roulette element and placing it in the Vietnam War. The film went over-budget and over-schedule, and ended up costing $15 million. The scenes of Russian roulette were highly controversial on release.\n\nThe film won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Michael Cimino, and Best Supporting Actor for Christopher Walken, and was named by the American Film Institute as the 53rd greatest American film of all time in the 10th Anniversary Edition of the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list. In 1996, The Deer Hunter was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\". \n\nPlot\n\nAct I\n\nIn Clairton, a small working-class town in western Pennsylvania, in late 1967, Russian-American steel workers Michael \"Mike\" Vronsky (Robert De Niro), Steven Pushkov (John Savage), and Nikanor \"Nick\" Chevotarevich (Christopher Walken), with the support of their friends and coworkers Stan (John Cazale) and Peter \"Axel\" Axelrod (Chuck Aspegren) and local bar owner and friend John Welsh (George Dzundza), prepare for two rites of passage: marriage and military service.\n\nThe opening scenes set the character traits of the three main characters. Mike is the no-nonsense, serious but unassuming leader; Steven the loving, near-groom, pecked at by his mother for not wearing a scarf with his tuxedo; and Nick the quiet, introspective man who loves deer hunting because, he likes \"…the trees…the way the trees are\". The recurring theme of \"one shot\", which is how Mike prefers to take down a deer, is introduced.\n\nBefore the trio ships out, Steven and his girlfriend Angela (Rutanya Alda), who is pregnant by another man but loved by Steven nonetheless, marry in an Orthodox wedding. In the meantime, Mike contains his feelings for Nick's girlfriend Linda (Meryl Streep). At the wedding reception held at the local VFW bar, the guys get drunk, dance, sing, and have a good time, but then notice a soldier in a U.S. Army Special Forces uniform. Mike buys him a drink and tries starting a conversation to find out what Vietnam is like, but is ignored. After Mike explains that he, Steven, and Nick are going to Vietnam, the Green Beret raises his glass and says \"fuck it\". The soldier again toasts them with \"fuck it\". After being restrained by the others from starting a fight, Mike goes back to the bar and, in a mocking jest to the soldier, raises his glass and toasts him with \"fuck it\". The soldier then glances over at Mike and grins.\n\nLater, Steven and Angela drink from conjoined goblets, a traditional part of the wedding ceremony. It is believed that if they drink without spilling any wine, they will have good luck for life. Two drops of blood-red wine unknowingly spill on her wedding gown, foreshadowing the coming events. After Linda catches the bride's bouquet, Nick asks her to marry him, and she agrees. Later that night, a drunken Mike runs through the town, stripping himself naked along the way. After Nick chases him down, he begs Mike not to leave him \"over there\" if anything happens.\n\nThe next day, Mike, Nick, Stanley, John, and Axel go deer hunting one last time. Mike is exasperated by his friends, especially Stanley, who drink and fool around, showing little respect for the ritual of hunting, which to Mike is a nearly sacred experience. Only Nick understands Mike's attitude, but he is more indulgent toward his friends. Mike again kills a deer with one, clean shot.\n\nAct one finishes with the friends arriving back at Welsh's bar, with Michael's deer strapped to the hood of the car. They enter rambunctiously, spraying beers over each other and singing loudly. Welsh then makes his way over to a piano and begins playing methodically as the others sit quietly. They sit in silence, strewn all over the bar, as their friend plays Chopin's Nocturne No. 6 Op. 15-3, a peaceful yet ominous melody.\n\nAct II\n\nThe film then jumps abruptly to war-torn Vietnam, where U.S. helicopters attack a Communist-occupied village with napalm. A North Vietnamese soldier throws a stick grenade into a hiding place full of civilians. An unconscious Mike (now a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army Special Forces) wakes up to see the NVA soldier shoot a woman carrying a baby. In revenge, Mike kills him with a flame thrower. Meanwhile, a unit of UH-1 \"Huey\" helicopters drops off several U.S. infantrymen, Nick and Steven among them. Mike, Steven, and Nick unexpectedly find each other just before they are captured and held together in a riverside prisoner of war camp with other U.S. Army and ARVN prisoners.\n\nFor entertainment, the sadistic guards force their prisoners to play Russian roulette and gamble on the outcome. All three friends are forced to play. Steven plays against Mike, who offers moral support, but Steven breaks down and loses control of the gun, grazing himself with the bullet when it discharges. As punishment, the guards put him into an underwater cage, full of rats and the bodies of others who earlier faced the same fate. Mike and Nick end up playing against each other, and Mike convinces the guards to let them play with three bullets in the gun. After a tense match, they kill their captors and escape.\n\nMike earlier argued with Nick about whether or not Steven could be saved, but after killing their captors, he rescues Steven. The three float downriver on a tree branch. An American helicopter accidentally finds them, but only Nick is able to climb aboard. The weakened Steven falls back into the water, and Mike plunges in the water to rescue him. Mike helps Steven to reach the river bank, but his legs are broken, so Mike carries him through the jungle to friendly lines. Approaching a caravan of locals escaping the war zone, Mike stops a South Vietnamese military truck and places the wounded Steven on it, asking the soldiers to take care of him.\n\nNick, who is psychologically damaged, recuperates in a military hospital in Saigon with no knowledge on the status of his friends. After being released, he goes AWOL and aimlessly stumbles through the red-light district at night. At one point, he encounters Julien Grinda, a champagne-drinking, friendly Frenchman, outside a gambling den where men play Russian roulette for money. Grinda entices the reluctant Nick to participate and leads him into the den. Mike is present in the den, watching the game, but the two friends do not notice each other at first. When Mike does see Nick, he is unable to get his attention. When Nick is introduced into the game, he grabs the gun, fires it at the current contestant, and then again at his own temple, causing the audience to riot in protest. Grinda hustles Nick outside to his car to escape the angry mob. Mike cannot catch up with Nick and Grinda as they speed away.\n\nAct III\n\nBack in the U.S., Mike returns home but maintains a low profile. He tells a cab driver to drive past the house where all his friends are assembled, as he is embarrassed by the fuss made over him by Linda and the others. He visits Linda and grows close to her, but only because of the friend they both think they have lost. Mike is eventually told about Angela, whom he goes to visit at the home of Steven's mother. Angela is apathetic and barely responsive. When asked by Mike about Steven's whereabouts, she writes a phone number on a scrap of paper, which leads Mike to the local veterans' hospital where Steven has been for several months.\n\nMike goes hunting with Axel, John, and Stan one more time, and after tracking a deer across the woods, takes his one shot but pulls the rifle up and fires into the air. He then sits on a rock escarpment and yells out, \"OK?\", which echoes back at him from the opposing rock faces leading down to the river, signifying his fight with his mental demons over losing Steven and Nick. He also berates Stan for carrying around a small revolver and waving it around, not realizing it is still loaded. Mike visits Steven, who has lost both of his legs and is partially paralyzed. Steven reveals that someone in Saigon has been mailing large amounts of money to him, and Mike is convinced that it is Nick. Mike brings a reluctant Steven home to Angela and then travels to Saigon just before its fall in 1975.\n\nHe tracks down Grinda, who has made a lot of money from the Russian roulette-playing Nick. He finds Nick in a crowded roulette club, but Nick appears to have no recollection of his friends or his home in Pennsylvania. Mike enters himself in a game of Russian roulette against Nick, hoping to jog Nick's memory and persuade him to come home, but Nick's mind is gone. To keep him from taking another turn, Mike grabs Nick's arms, which are covered in scars (implied to be heroin tracks). At the last moment, after Mike reminds Nick of their hunting trips together, he finally breaks through, and Nick recognizes Mike and smiles. Nick then tells Mike, \"one shot\", raises the gun to his temple, and pulls the trigger. The round is in the gun's top chamber, and Nick kills himself. Horrified, Mike tries reviving him, but to no avail.\n\nEpilogue\n\nBack home in 1975, there is a funeral for Nick, whom Mike brings home, good to his promise. The film ends with everyone at John's bar, singing \"God Bless America\". Mike toasts in Nick's honor.\n\nCast\n\n* Robert De Niro as S/Sgt. Michael \"Mike\" Vronsky. Producer Deeley pursued De Niro for The Deer Hunter because he felt that he needed De Niro's star power to sell a film with a \"gruesome-sounding storyline and a barely known director\".Deeley, p. 168 \"I liked the script, and [Cimino] had done a lot of prep,\" said De Niro. \"I was impressed.\" De Niro prepared by socializing with steelworkers in local bars and by visiting their homes. Cimino introduced De Niro as his agent, Harry Ufland. No one recognized him. De Niro claims this was his most physically exhausting film. He explained that the scene where Mike visits Steven in the hospital for the first time was the most emotional scene that he was ever involved with. De Niro was a last-minute replacement for Roy Scheider, who dropped out of the production two weeks before the start of filming due to \"creative differences\"; Universal managed to keep Scheider to his three-picture contract by forcing him into doing Jaws 2 (1978). \n* Christopher Walken as Cpl. Nikanor \"Nick\" Chevotarevich. His performance garnered his first Academy Award, for Best Supporting Actor.\n* John Savage as Cpl. Steven Pushkov.\n* John Cazale as Stan (\"Stosh\"). All scenes involving Cazale, who had terminal cancer, had to be filmed first. Because of his illness, the studio initially wanted to fire him, but Streep, with whom he was in a relationship, and Cimino threatened to walk away if they did. He was also uninsurable, and according to Streep, De Niro paid for his insurance because he wanted Cazale in the film. This was Cazale's last film, as he died shortly after filming wrapped. Cazale never saw the finished film.Parker, p. 129\n* Meryl Streep as Linda. Prior to The Deer Hunter, Streep was seen briefly in Fred Zinnemann's Julia (1977) and the eight-hour miniseries Holocaust (1978). In the screenplay, Streep's role was negligible. Cimino explained the set-up to Streep and suggested that she write her own lines.Parker, p. 128\n* George Dzundza as John Welsh\n* Pierre Segui as Julien Grinda\n* Shirley Stoler as Steven's mother\n* Chuck Aspegren as Peter \"Axel\" Axelrod. Aspegren was not an actor; he was the foreman at an East Chicago steelworks visited early in pre-production by De Niro and Cimino. They were so impressed with him that they offered him the role. He was the second person to be cast in the film, after De Niro.\n* Rutanya Alda as Angela Ludhjduravic-Pushkov\n* Amy Wright as Bridesmaid\n* Joe Grifasi as Bandleader\n\nWhile producer Deeley was pleased with the revised script, he was still concerned about being able to sell the film. \"We still had to get millions out of a major studio,\" wrote Deeley, \"as well as convince our markets around the world that they should buy it before it was finished. I needed someone with the calibre of Robert De Niro.\"Deeley, p. 167 De Niro was one of the biggest stars at that time, coming off Mean Streets (1973), The Godfather Part II (1974), and Taxi Driver (1976). In addition to attracting buyers, Deeley felt De Niro was \"the right age, apparently tough as hell, and immensely talented.\"\n\nHiring De Niro turned out to be a casting coup because he knew nearly every actor in New York. De Niro brought Meryl Streep to the attention of Cimino and Deeley. With Streep came John Cazale.Deeley, p. 170 De Niro also accompanied Cimino to scout locations for the steel mill sequence as well as rehearsed with the actors to use the workshops as a bonding process.\n\nEach of the six principal male characters carried a photo in their back pocket depicting them all together as children, to enhance the sense of camaraderie amongst them. Additionally, director Cimino instructed the props department to fashion complete Pennsylvania IDs for each of them, including driver's licenses, medical cards, and various other pieces of paraphernalia, in order to enhance each actor's sense of his character.\n\nPre-production\n\nThere has been considerable debate, controversy, and conflicting stories about how The Deer Hunter was initially developed and written. Director and co-writer Michael Cimino, writer Deric Washburn, and producers Barry Spikings and Michael Deeley all have different versions of how the film came to be. \n\nDevelopment\n\nIn 1968, the record company EMI formed a new company called EMI Films, headed by producers Barry Spikings and Michael Deeley. Deeley purchased the first draft of a spec script called The Man Who Came to Play, written by Louis Garfinkle and Quinn K. Redeker, for $19,000. The spec script was about people who go to Las Vegas to play Russian roulette. \"The screenplay had struck me as brilliant,\" wrote Deeley, \"but it wasn't complete. The trick would be to find a way to turn a very clever piece of writing into a practical, realizable film.\"Deeley, p. 163 When the movie was being planned during the mid-1970s, Vietnam was still a taboo subject with all major Hollywood studios.Deeley, p. 2 According to producer Michael Deeley, the standard response was \"no American would want to see a picture about Vietnam\".\n\nAfter consulting various Hollywood agents, Deeley found writer-director Michael Cimino, represented by Stan Kamen at the William Morris Agency. Deeley was impressed by Cimino's TV commercial work and crime film Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974).Deeley, p. 164 Cimino himself was confident that he could further develop the principal characters of The Man Who Came to Play without losing the essence of the original. After Cimino was hired, he was called into a meeting with Garfinkle and Redeker at the EMI office. According to Deeley, Cimino questioned the need for the Russian roulette element of the script, and Redeker made such a passionate case for it that he ended up literally on his knees. Over the course of further meetings, Cimino and Deeley discussed the work needed at the front of the script, and Cimino believed he could develop the stories of the main characters in the first 20 minutes of film.\n\nScreenplay\n\nCimino worked for six weeks with Deric Washburn on the script.Realizing The Deer Hunter: An Interview with Michael Cimino. Blue Underground. Interview on the The Deer Hunter UK Region 2 DVD and the StudioCanal Blu-Ray. Cimino and Washburn had previously collaborated with Stephen Bochco on the screenplay for Silent Running (1972). According to producer Spikings, Cimino said he wanted to work again with Washburn. According to producer Deeley, he only heard from office rumor that Washburn was contracted by Cimino to work on the script. \"Whether Cimino hired Washburn as his sub-contractor or as a co-writer was constantly being obfuscated,\" wrote Deeley, \"and there were some harsh words between them later on, or so I was told.\"\n\nCimino's claim\n\nAccording to Cimino, he would call Washburn while on the road scouting for locations and feed him notes on dialogue and story. Upon reviewing Washburn's draft, Cimino said, \"I came back, and read it and I just could not believe what I read. It was like it was written by somebody who was ... mentally deranged.\" Cimino confronted Washburn at the Sunset Marquis in LA about the draft, and Washburn supposedly replied that he couldn't take the pressure and had to go home. Cimino then fired Washburn. Cimino later claimed to have written the entire screenplay himself. Washburn's response to Cimino's comments were, \"It's all nonsense. It's lies. I didn't have a single drink the entire time I was working on the script.\"\n\nWashburn's claim\n\nAccording to Washburn, he and Cimino spent three days together in L.A. at the Sunset Marquis, hammering out the plot. The script eventually went through several drafts, evolving into a story with three distinct acts. Washburn did not interview any veterans to write The Deer Hunter nor do any research. \"I had a month, that was it,\" he explains. \"The clock was ticking. Write the fucking script! But all I had to do was watch TV. Those combat cameramen in Vietnam were out there in the field with the guys. I mean, they had stuff that you wouldn't dream of seeing about Iraq.\" When Washburn was finished, he says, Cimino and Joann Carelli, an associate producer on The Deer Hunter who went on to produce two more of Cimino's later films, took him to dinner at a cheap restaurant off the Sunset Strip. He recalls, \"We finished, and Joann looks at me across the table, and she says, 'Well, Deric, it's fuck-off time.' I was fired. It was a classic case: you get a dummy, get him to write the goddamn thing, tell him to go fuck himself, put your name on the thing, and he'll go away. I was so tired, I didn't care. I'd been working 20 hours a day for a month. I got on the plane the next day, and I went back to Manhattan and my carpenter job.\"Biskind, Peter (March 2008). [http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/03/warmovies200803 \"The Vietnam Oscars\"]. Vanity Fair. Retrieved 2010-09-17.\n\nDeeley's reaction to the revised script\n\nDeeley felt the revised script, now called The Deer Hunter, broke fresh ground for the project. The protagonist in the Redeker/Garfinkle script, Merle, was an individual who sustained a bad injury in active service and was damaged psychologically by his violent experiences, but was nevertheless a tough character with strong nerves and guts. Cimino and Washburn's revised script distilled the three aspects of Merle's personality and separated them out into three distinct characters. They became three old friends who grew up in the same small industrial town and worked in the same steel mill, and in due course were drafted together to Vietnam.Deeley, p. 166 In the original script, the roles of Merle (later renamed Mike) and Nick were reversed in the last half of the film. Nick returns home to Linda, while Mike remains in Vietnam, sends money home to help Steven, and meets his tragic fate at the Russian roulette table. \n\nA Writers Guild arbitration process awarded Washburn sole \"Screenplay by\" credit. Garfinkle and Redeker were given a shared \"Story by\" credit with Cimino and Washburn. Deeley felt the story credits for Garfinkle and Redeker \"did them less than justice.\" Cimino contested the results of the arbitration. \"In their Nazi wisdom,\" added Cimino, \"[they] didn't give me the credit because I would be producer, director and writer.\" All four writers—Cimino, Washburn, Garfinkle, and Redeker—received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay for this film.\n\nFilming\n\nThe Deer Hunter began principal photography on June 20, 1977. This was the first feature film depicting the Vietnam War to be filmed on location in Thailand. All scenes were shot on location (no sound stages). \"There was discussion about shooting the film on a back lot, but the material demanded more realism,\" says Spikings. The cast and crew viewed large amounts of news footage from the war to ensure authenticity. The film was shot over a period of six months. The Clairton scenes comprise footage shot in eight different towns in four states: West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Ohio. The initial budget of the film was $8.5 million.Deeley, p. 171\n\nMeryl Streep accepted the role of the \"vague, stock girlfriend\", in order to remain for the duration of filming with John Cazale, who had been diagnosed with lung cancer. De Niro had spotted Streep in her stage production of The Cherry Orchard and had suggested that she play his girlfriend Linda. Before the beginning of principal photography, Deeley had a meeting with the film's appointed line producer Robert Relyea. Deeley hired Relyea after meeting him on the set of Bullitt (1968) and was impressed with his experience. However, Relyea declined the job, refusing to disclose his reason why. Deeley suspected that Relyea sensed in director Cimino something that would have made production difficult. As a result, Cimino was acting without the day-to-day supervision of a producer.Deeley, p. 172\n\nBecause Deeley was busy overseeing in the production of Sam Peckinpah's Convoy (1978), he hired John Peverall to oversee Cimino's shoot. Peverall's expertise with budgeting and scheduling made him a natural successor to Relyea, and Peverall knew enough about the picture to be elevated to producer status. \"John is a straightforward Cornishman who had worked his way up to become a production supervisor,\" wrote Deeley, \"and we employed him as EMI's watchman on certain pictures.\"\n\nThe wedding scenes\n\nThe wedding scenes were filmed at the historic St. Theodosius Russian Orthodox Cathedral in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. The wedding took five days to film. An actual priest was cast as the priest at the wedding. The reception scene was filmed at nearby Lemko Hall. The amateur extras lined up for the crowded wedding-dance sequences drank real liquor and beer. The scenes were filmed in the summer, but were set in the fall. To accomplish a look of fall, individual leaves were removed from deciduous trees.Shooting The Deer Hunter: An interview with Vilmos Zsigmond. Blue Underground. Interview with the cinematographer, located on The Deer Hunter UK Region 2 DVD and StudioCanal Blu-Ray. . Zsigmond also had to desaturate the colors of the exterior shots, partly in camera and in the laboratory processing.Deeley, p. 178\n\nThe production manager asked each of the Russian immigrant extras to bring to the location a gift-wrapped box to double for wedding presents. The manager figured if the extras did this, not only would the production save time and money, but the gifts would also look more authentic. Once the unit wrapped and the extras disappeared, the crew discovered to their amusement that the boxes weren't empty but filled with real presents, from china to silverware. \"Who got to keep all these wonderful offerings,\" wrote Deeley \"is a mystery I never quite fathomed.\"\n\nCimino originally claimed that the wedding scene would take up 21 minutes of screen time. In the end, it took 51 minutes. Deeley believes that Cimino always planned to make this prologue last for an hour, and \"the plan was to be advanced by stealth rather than straight dealing.\"Deeley, p. 173\n\nAt this point in the production, nearly halfway through principal photography, Cimino was already over budget, and producer Spikings could tell from the script that shooting the extended scene could sink the project.\n\nThe bar and the steel mill\n\nThe bar was specially constructed in an empty storefront in Mingo Junction, Ohio for $25,000; it later became an actual saloon for local steel mill workers. U.S. Steel allowed filming inside its Cleveland mill, including placing the actors around the furnace floor, only after securing a $5 million insurance policy. Other filming took place in Pittsburgh. \n\nHunting the deer\n\nThe first deer to be shot was depicted in a \"gruesome close-up\", although he was hit with a tranquilizer dart. The stag that Michael allows to get away later was the same one used on TV commercials for the Connecticut Life Insurance Company.Deeley, p. 174\n\nVietnam and the Russian roulette scenes\n\nThe Viet Cong Russian roulette scenes were shot in real circumstances, with real rats and mosquitoes, as the three principals (De Niro, Walken, and Savage) were tied up in bamboo cages erected along the River Kwai. The woman who was given the task of casting the extras in Thailand had much difficulty finding a local to play the vicious-looking individual who runs the game. The first actor hired turned out to be incapable of slapping De Niro in the face. The caster thankfully knew a local Thai man with a particular dislike of Americans, and cast him accordingly. De Niro suggested that Walken be slapped for real by one of the guards without any warning. The reaction on Walken's face was genuine. Producer Deeley has said that Cimino shot the brutal Vietcong Russian roulette scenes brilliantly and more efficiently than any other part of the film.Deeley, p. 175\n\nDe Niro and Savage performed their own stunts in the fall into the river, filming the 30 foot drop 15 times in two days. During the helicopter stunt, the runners caught on the ropes of the suspension bridge and as the helicopter rose, it threatened to seriously injure De Niro and Savage. The actors gestured and yelled furiously to the crew in the helicopter to warn them. Footage of this is included in the film.Playing The Deer Hunter: An interview with John Savage. Blue Underground. Interview with the actor Savage, located on the UK Region 2 DVD and StudioCanal Blu-Ray. \n\nAccording to Cimino, De Niro requested a live cartridge in the revolver for the scene in which he subjects John Cazale's character to an impromptu game of Russian roulette, to heighten the intensity of the situation. Cazale agreed without protest, but obsessively rechecked the gun before each take to make sure that the live round wasn't next in the chamber.DVD commentary by director Michael Cimino and film critic F. X. Feeney. Included on The Deer Hunter UK region 2 DVD release and the StudioCanal Blu-Ray.\n\nWhile appearing later in the film, the first scenes shot upon arrival in Thailand were the hospital sequences between Walken and the military doctor. Deeley believed that this scene was \"the spur that would earn him an Academy Award.\"Deeley, p. 176\n\nIn the final scene in the gambling den between Mike and Nick, Cimino had Walken and De Niro improvise in one take. His direction to his actors: \"You put the gun to your head, Chris, you shoot, you fall over and Bobby cradles your head.\"Deeley, p. 177\n\nFilming locations\n\n* St. Theodosius Russian Orthodox Cathedral, in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. The name plaque is clearly visible in one scene.[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077416/locations The Deer Hunter (1978)—Filming locations]\n* Lemko Hall, Cleveland, Ohio. Also located in Tremont, the wedding banquet was filmed here. The name is clearly visible in one scene. \n* U.S. Steel Central Furnaces in Cleveland, Ohio. Opening sequence steel mill scenes.\n* Patpong, Bangkok, Thailand, the area used to represent Saigon's red light district.\n* Sai Yok, Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand\n* North Cascades National Park, Washington, mountain scenes. \n* Steubenville, Ohio, for some mill and neighborhood shots.\n* Struthers, Ohio, for external house and long-range road shots. Also including, the town's bowling alley is the Bowladrome Lanes, located at 56 State Street, Struthers, Ohio.\n* Weirton, West Virginia, for mill and trailer shots. \n* River Kwai, Thailand, Prison camp and initial Russian roulette scene. \n\nPost-production\n\nBy this point, The Deer Hunter had cost $13 million and the film still had to go through an arduous post-production. Film editor Peter Zinner was given 600,000 feet of printed film to edit, a monumental task at the time.[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article2903128.ece \"Peter Zinner—Times Online Obituary\"]. The Times. November 20, 2007. Retrieved 2010-09-18. Producers Spikings and Deeley were pleased with the first cut, which ran for three and a half hours. \"We were thrilled by what we saw,\" wrote Deeley, \"and knew that within the three and a half hours we watched there was a riveting film.\"Deeley, p. 179\n\nExecutives from Universal, including Lew Wasserman and Sid Sheinberg, were not very enthusiastic. \"I think they were shocked,\" recalled Spikings. \"What really upset them was 'God Bless America'. Sheinberg thought it was anti-American. He was vehement. He said something like 'You're poking a stick in the eye of America.' They really didn't like the movie. And they certainly didn't like it at three hours and two minutes.\" Deeley wasn't surprised by the Universal response: \"The Deer Hunter was a United Artists sort of picture, whereas Convoy was more in the style of Universal. I'd muddled and sold the wrong picture to each studio.\" Deeley did agree with Universal that the film needed to be shorter, not just because of pacing but also to ensure commercial success.Deeley, p. 192 \"A picture under two and a half hours can scrape three shows a day,\" wrote Deeley, \"but at three hours you've lost one third of your screenings and one third of your income for the cinemas, distributors, and profit participants.\"\n\nThom Mount, president of Universal at the time, said, \"This was just a... continuing nightmare from the day Michael finished the picture to the day we released it. That was simply because he was wedded to everything he shot. The movie was endless. It was The Deer Hunter and the Hunter and the Hunter. The wedding sequence was a cinematic event all unto its own.\" Mount says he turned to Verna Fields, Universal's then-head of post-production. \"I sicked Verna on Cimino,\" Mount says. \"Verna was no slouch. She started to turn the heat up on Michael, and he started screeching and yelling.\"\n\nZinner eventually cut the film down to 18,000 feet. Cimino later fired Zinner when he discovered that Zinner was editing down the wedding scenes.Deeley, p. 4 Zinner eventually won Best Editing Oscar for The Deer Hunter. Regarding the clashes between him and Cimino, Zinner stated: \"Michael Cimino and I had our differences at the end, but he kissed me when we both got Academy Awards.\" Cimino later commented in The New York Observer, \"[Zinner] was a moron ... I cut Deer Hunter myself.\"Griffin, Nancy (February 10, 2002). [http://www.observer.com/node/45582 \"Last Typhoon Cimino Is Back\"]. The New York Observer 16 (6): pp. 1+15+17. Retrieved 2010-09-18.\n\nSound design\n\nThe Deer Hunter was Cimino's first film to use Dolby noise-reduction system. \"What Dolby does,\" replied Cimino, \"is to give you the ability to create a density of detail of sound—a richness so you can demolish the wall separating the viewer from the film. You can come close to demolishing the screen.\" The film took five months to mix the soundtrack. One short battle sequence—200 feet of film in the final cut—took five days to dub. Another sequence recreated the 1975 American evacuation of Saigon; Cimino brought the film's composer, Stanley Myers, out to the location to listen to the auto, tank, and jeep horns as the sequence was being photographed. The result, according to Cimino: Myers composed the music for that scene in the same key as the horn sounds, so the music and the sound effects would blend with the images to create one jarring, desolate experience.\n\nPreviews\n\nBoth the long and short versions were previewed to Midwestern audiences, although there are different accounts among Cimino, Deeley, and Spikings as to how the previews panned out. Director Cimino claims he bribed the projectionist to interrupt the shorter version, in order to obtain better reviews of the longer one. According to producer Spikings, Wasserman let EMI's CEO Bernard Delfont decide between the two and chose Cimino's longer cut. Deeley claims that the two-and-a-half hour version tested had a better response.Deeley, p. 193\n\nSoundtrack\n\nThe soundtrack to The Deer Hunter was released on audio CD on October 25, 1990.[http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00000DR9S \"The Deer Hunter: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack\"]. Amazon.com. Retrieved 2010-12-25.\n\nSelected tracks\n\n* Stanley Myers' \"Cavatina\" (also known as \"He Was Beautiful\"), performed by classical guitarist John Williams, is commonly known as \"The Theme from The Deer Hunter\". According to producer Deeley, he discovered that the song was originally written for a film called The Walking Stick (1970) and, as a result, had to pay the original purchaser an undisclosed sum.Deeley, p. 195\n* \"Can't Take My Eyes Off You\", a 1967 hit song, sung by Frankie Valli. It is played in John's bar when all of the friends sing along and at the wedding reception. According to Cimino, the actors sang along to a recording of the song as it was played instead of singing to a beat track, a standard filmmaking practice. Cimino felt that would make the sing-along seem more real.\nDuring the wedding ceremonies and party, the Eastern Orthodox Church songs such as \"Slava\", and Russian folk songs such as \"Korobushka\" and \"Katyusha\", are played.\nRussian Orthodox funeral music is also employed during Nick's funeral scene, mainly \"Vechnaya Pamyat\", which means \"eternal memory\". \n\nRelease\n\nThe Deer Hunter debuted at one theater each in New York and Los Angeles for a week on December 8, 1978.[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077416/releaseinfo \"The Deer Hunter (1978)—Release dates\"]. IMDb. Retrieved 2010-07-25.Bach, p. 166 The release strategy was to qualify the film for Oscar consideration and close after a week to build interest. After the Oscar nominations, Universal widened the distribution to include major cities, building up to a full-scale release on February 23, 1979, just following the Oscars. This film was important for helping massage release patterns for so-called prestige pictures that screen only at the end of the year to qualify for Academy Award recognition. The film eventually grossed $48.9 million at the US box office.\n\nCBS paid $3.5 million for three runs of the film. The network later cancelled the acquisition on the contractually permitted grounds of the film containing too much violence for US network transmission.Deeley, p. 181\n\nAnalysis\n\nControversy over Russian roulette\n\nOne of the most talked-about sequences in the film, the Vietcong's use of Russian roulette with POWs, was criticized as being contrived and unrealistic since there were no documented cases of Russian roulette in the Vietnam War.Dirks, Tim. [http://www.filmsite.org/deer.html \"The Deer Hunter (1978)\"]. Greatest Films. Retrieved 2010-05-26.Auster, Albert; Quart, Leonard (2002). \"The seventies\". American film and society since 1945. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 120–1. ISBN 978-0-275-96742-0. Associated Press reporter Peter Arnett, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the war, wrote in the Los Angeles Times, \"In its 20 years of war, there was not a single recorded case of Russian roulette ... The central metaphor of the movie is simply a bloody lie.\" Director Cimino was also criticized for one-sidedly portraying all the North Vietnamese as sadistic racists and killers. Cimino countered that his film was not political, polemical, literally accurate, or posturing for any particular point of view. He further defended his position by saying that he had news clippings from Singapore that confirm Russian roulette was used during the war (without specifying which article).\n\nDuring the 29th Berlin International Film Festival in 1979, the Soviet delegation expressed its indignation with the film which, in their opinion, insulted the Vietnamese people in numerous scenes. Other socialist states also voiced their solidarity with the \"heroic people of Vietnam\". They protested against the screening of the film and insisted that it violated the statutes of the festival, since it in no way contributed to the \"improvement of mutual understanding between the peoples of the world\". The ensuing domino effect led to the walk-outs of the Cubans, East Germans, Bulgarians, Poles and Czechoslovakians, and two members of the jury resigned in sympathy. \n\nCritics' response\n\nIn his review, Roger Ebert defended the artistic license of Russian roulette, arguing \"it is the organizing symbol of the film: Anything you can believe about the game, about its deliberately random violence, about how it touches the sanity of men forced to play it, will apply to the war as a whole. It is a brilliant symbol because, in the context of this story, it makes any ideological statement about the war superfluous.\"\n\nFilm critic and biographer David Thomson also agrees that the film works despite the controversy: \"There were complaints that the North Vietnamese had not employed Russian roulette. It was said that the scenes in Saigon were fanciful or imagined. It was also suggested that De Niro, Christopher Walken, and John Savage were too old to have enlisted for Vietnam (Savage, the youngest of the three, was 28). Three decades later, 'imagination' seems to have stilled those worries ... and The Deer Hunter is one of the great American films.\" \n\nIn her review, Pauline Kael wrote, \"The Vietcong are treated in the standard inscrutable-evil Oriental style of the Japanese in the Second World War movies ... The impression a viewer gets is that if we did some bad things there we did them ruthlessly but impersonally; the Vietcong were cruel and sadistic.\"\n\nIn his Vanity Fair article \"The Vietnam Oscars\", Peter Biskind wrote that the political agenda of The Deer Hunter was something of a mystery: \"It may have been more a by-product of Hollywood myopia, the demands of the war-film genre, garden-variety American parochialism, and simple ignorance than it was the pre-meditated right-wing road map it seemed to many.\"\n\nCast and crew response\n\nAccording to Christopher Walken, the historical context wasn't paramount: \"In the making of it, I don't remember anyone ever mentioning Vietnam!\" De Niro added to this sentiment: \"Whether [the film's vision of the war] actually happened or not, it's something you could imagine very easily happening. Maybe it did. I don't know. All's fair in love and war.\" Producer Spikings, while proud of the film, regrets the way the Vietnamese were portrayed. \"I don't think any of us meant it to be exploitive,\" Spikings said. \"But I think we were ... ignorant. I can't think of a better word for it. I didn't realize how badly we'd behaved to the Vietnamese people ...\"\n\nProducer Deeley, on the other hand, was quick to defend Cimino's comments on the nature and motives of the film: \"The Deer Hunter wasn't really 'about' Vietnam. It was something very different. It wasn't about drugs or the collapse of the morale of the soldiers. It was about how individuals respond to pressure: different men reacting quite differently. The film was about three steel workers in extraordinary circumstances. Apocalypse Now is surreal. The Deer Hunter is a parable ... Men who fight and lose an unworthy war face some obvious and unpalatable choices. They can blame their leaders.. or they can blame themselves. Self-blame has been a great burden for many war veterans. So how does a soldier come to terms with his defeat and yet still retain his self-respect? One way is to present the conquering enemy as so inhuman, and the battle between the good guys (us) and the bad guys (them) so uneven, as to render defeat irrelevant. Inhumanity was the theme of The Deer Hunter's portrayal of the North Vietnamese prison guards forcing American POWs to play Russian roulette. The audience's sympathy with prisoners who (quite understandably) cracked thus completes the chain. Accordingly, some veterans who suffered in that war found the Russian roulette a valid allegory.\"Deeley, p. 198\n\nDirector Cimino's autobiographical intent\n\nCimino frequently referred to The Deer Hunter as a \"personal\" and \"autobiographical\" film, although later investigation by journalists like Tom Buckley of Harper's revealed inaccuracies in Cimino's accounts and reported background.\n\nHomosocial bonding\n\nIn 1986, critic Robin Wood examined a putative homosexual subtext of the film. In the film's central \"male love affair\" Mike supposedly represents the powers of control and repression, whereas Nick stands for release and liberation. An elaborate system of oppositions is built around these two poles: the inferno imagery of the Clairton steel mill corresponds to the hell of Saigon, John's bar is a counterpart to the gambling den, the deer hunting complements the Russian roulette, and the \"orgasmic\" spurting of beer in Clairton anticipates the spurting of blood in Vietnam. \n\nAccording to Wood, \"Nick both is and knows himself to be in love with Mike and Mike reciprocates that love but can't admit it, even to himself\". Nick's fixation on the Russian roulette game is viewed as a displacement of the moment at which he and Mike were most closely bonded, \"a monstrously perverted enactment of the union he has always desired\". After Nick rebels against Mike's obsession with control, he is \"inevitably drawn to the world of pure chance represented by the roulette game\". In the end, Nick shoots himself because \"he has recognized that Mike offers nothing but a return to repression\".\n\nCoda of \"God Bless America\"\n\nThe final scene in which all the main characters gather and sing \"God Bless America\" became a subject of heated debate among critics when the film was released. It raised the question of whether this conclusion was meant ironically or not – \"as a critique of patriotism or a paean to it\".\n\nReception\n\nThe film's initial reviews were largely positive. It was hailed by many critics as the best American epic since Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather.Ebert, Roger & Siskel, Gene (hosts); Flaum, Thea & Solley, Ray (producers); Denny, Patterson (director). (1979). Sneak Previews: Oscar Preview for 1978. [Television Production]. Chicago, IL: WTTW.Deeley, p. 197 The film was praised for its depiction of realistic working-class settings and environment; Cimino's direction; the performances of De Niro, Walken, Streep, Savage, Dzundza and Cazale; the symphonic shifts of tone and pacing in moving from America to Vietnam; the tension during the Russian roulette scenes; and the themes of American disillusionment.Thomson, David (October 26, 2010). The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Fifth Edition, Completely Updated and Expanded (Hardcover ed.). Knopf. p. 178. ISBN 978-0-307-27174-7.\n\nRoger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars and called it \"one of the most emotionally shattering films ever made.\"Ebert, Roger (March 9, 1979). [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID\n/19790309/REVIEWS/903090301/1023 \"The Deer Hunter\"]. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2010-04-30. Gene Siskel from the Chicago Tribune praised the film, saying, \"This is a big film, dealing with big issues, made on a grand scale. Much of it, including some casting decisions, suggest inspiration by The Godfather.\" Leonard Maltin also gave the film four stars, calling it a \"sensitive, painful, evocative work\". Vincent Canby of the New York Times called The Deer Hunter \"a big, awkward, crazily ambitious motion picture that comes as close to being a popular epic as any movie about this country since The Godfather. Its vision is that of an original, major new filmmaker.\"Canby, Vincent (December 15, 1978). [http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?_r\n2&res9F00E1DB1E30E632A25756C1A9649D946990D6CF \"Movie Review: The Deer Hunter (1978)\"]. The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-09-20. David Denby of New York called it \"an epic\" with \"qualities that we almost never see any more—range and power and breadth of experience.\"Bach, p. 167 Jack Kroll of Time asserted it put director Cimino \"right at the center of film culture.\"Bach, p. 168 Stephen Farber pronounced the film in New West magazine as \"the greatest anti-war movie since La Grande Illusion.\"\n\nHowever, The Deer Hunter was not without critical backlash, especially from left-wing critics. Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote a positive review with some reservations: \"[It is] a small minded film with greatness in it ... with an enraptured view of common life ... [but] enraging, because, despite its ambitiousness and scale, it has no more moral intelligence than the Eastwood action pictures.\" Andrew Sarris wrote that the film was \"massively vague, tediously elliptical, and mysteriously hysterical ... It is perhaps significant that the actors remain more interesting than the characters they play.\" Jonathan Rosenbaum disparaged The Deer Hunter as an \"Oscar-laden weepie about macho buddies\" and \"a disgusting account of what the evil Vietnamese did to poor, innocent Americans\". John Simon of New York wrote: \"For all its pretensions to something newer and better, this film is only an extension of the old Hollywood war-movie lie. The enemy is still bestial and stupid, and no match for our purity and heroism; only we no longer wipe up the floor with him—rather, we litter it with his guts.\" \n\nAuthor Karina Longworth notes that Streep \"made a case for female empowerment by playing a woman to whom empowerment was a foreign concept—a normal lady from an average American small town, for whom subservience was the only thing she knew\". She states that The Deer Hunter \"evokes a version of dominant masculinity in which male friendship is a powerful force\". It has a \"credibly humanist message\", and that the \"slow study of the men in blissfully ignorant homeland machismo is crucial to it\".\n\nThe film holds a metascore of 73 on Metacritic, based on seven reviews, and 93% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 48 reviews. The RT summary reads:\n\nIts greatness is blunted by its length and one-sided point of view, but the film's weaknesses are overpowered by Michael Cimino's sympathetic direction and a series of heartbreaking performances from Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, and Christopher Walken.[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/deer_hunter \"The Deer Hunter (1978)\"]. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2009-09-23.\n\nTop-ten lists\n\n* 3rd—Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times. Ebert also placed Deer Hunter on his list of the best films of the 1970s. \n* 3rd—Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune \n\nAcademy Award-winning film director Miloš Forman and Academy Award-nominated actor Mickey Rourke consider The Deer Hunter to be one of the greatest films of all time. \n\nRevisionism following Heaven's Gate\n\nCimino's next film, Heaven's Gate (1980), debuted to lacerating reviews and took in only $3 million in ticket sales, effectively leaving United Artists bankrupt. The failure of Heaven's Gate led several critics to revise their positions on The Deer Hunter. Canby said in his famous review of Heaven's Gate, \"[The film] fails so completely that you might suspect Mr. Cimino sold his soul to the Devil to obtain the success of The Deer Hunter, and the Devil has just come around to collect.\" Andrew Sarris wrote in his review of Heaven's Gate, \"I'm a little surprised that many of the same critics who lionized Cimino for The Deer Hunter have now thrown him to the wolves with equal enthusiasm.\" Sarris added, \"I was never taken in ... Hence, the stupidity and incoherence in Heaven's Gate came as no surprise since very much the same stupidity and incoherence had been amply evident in The Deer Hunter.\" In his book Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of Heaven's Gate, Steven Bach wrote, \"critics seemed to feel obliged to go on the record about The Deer Hunter, to demonstrate that their critical credentials were un-besmirched by having been, as Sarris put it, 'taken in.'\"Bach, p. 370\n\nMore recently, BBC film critic Mark Kermode challenged the film's status, \"At the risk of being thrown out of the 'respectable film critics' circle, may I take this opportunity to declare officially that in my opinion The Deer Hunter is one of the worst films ever made, a rambling self indulgent, self aggrandizing barf-fest steeped in manipulatively racist emotion, and notable primarily for its farcically melodramatic tone which is pitched somewhere between shrieking hysteria and somnambulist sombreness.\"\n\nHowever, many critics, including David Thomson and A. O. Scott., maintain that The Deer Hunter is still a great film, the power of which hasn't since diminished.\n\nAwards\n\nLead-up to awards season\n\nFilm producer and \"old-fashioned mogul\" Allan Carr used his networking abilities to promote The Deer Hunter. \"Exactly how Allan Carr came into The Deer Hunters orbit I can no longer remember,\" recalled producer Deeley, \"but the picture became a crusade to him. He nagged, charmed, threw parties, he created word-of-mouth – everything that could be done in Hollywood to promote a project. Because he had no apparent motive for this promotion, it had an added power and legitimacy and it finally did start to penetrate the minds of the Universal's sales people that they actually had in their hands something a bit more significant than the usual.\" Deeley added that Carr's promotion of the film was influential in positioning The Deer Hunter for Oscar nominations.Deeley, p. 196\n\nOn the Sneak Previews special \"Oscar Preview for 1978\", Roger Ebert correctly predicted that The Deer Hunter would win for Best Picture while Gene Siskel predicted that Coming Home would win. However, Ebert incorrectly guessed that Robert De Niro would win for Best Actor for Deer Hunter and Jill Clayburgh would win for Best Actress for An Unmarried Woman while Siskel called the wins for Jon Voight as Best Actor and Jane Fonda as Best Actress, both for Coming Home. Both Ebert and Siskel called the win for Christopher Walken receiving the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.\n\nAccording to producer Deeley, orchestrated lobbying against The Deer Hunter was led by Warren Beatty, whose own picture Heaven Can Wait had multiple nominations.Deeley, p. 3 Beatty also used ex-girlfriends in his campaign: Julie Christie, serving on the jury at the Berlin Film Festival where Deer Hunter was screened, joined the walkout of the film by the Russian jury members. Jane Fonda also criticized The Deer Hunter in public. Deeley suggested that her criticisms partly stemmed from the competition between her film Coming Home vying with The Deer Hunter for Best Picture. According to Deeley, he planted a friend of his in the Oscar press area behind the stage to ask Fonda if she had seen The Deer Hunter. Fonda replied she had not seen the film, and to this day she still has not.\n\nAs the Oscars drew near, the backlash against The Deer Hunter gathered strength. When the limos pulled up to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on April 9, 1979, they were met by demonstrators, mostly from the Los Angeles chapter of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The demonstrators waved placards covered with slogans that read \"No Oscars for racism\" and \"The Deer Hunter a bloody lie\" and thrust pamphlets berating Deer Hunter into long lines of limousine windows. Washburn, nominated for Best Original Screenplay, claims his limousine was pelted with stones. According to Variety, \"Police and The Deer Hunter protesters clashed in a brief but bloody battle that resulted in 13 arrests.\"\n\nDe Niro was so anxious that he did not attend the Oscars ceremony. He asked the Academy to sit out the show backstage, but when the Academy refused, De Niro stayed home in New York.Deeley, p. 1 Producer Deeley made a deal with fellow producer David Puttnam, whose film Midnight Express was nominated, that each would take $500 to the ceremony so if one of them won, the winner would give the loser the $500 to \"drown his sorrows in style.\"\n\n51st Academy Awards\n\nThe Deer Hunter won five Oscars at the 51st Academy Awards in 1979:\n* Best Picture—Barry Spikings, Michael Deeley, Michael Cimino, and John Peverall (John Wayne's final public appearance was to present the award)\n* Best Director—Michael Cimino\n* Best Actor in a Supporting Role—Christopher Walken\n* Best Film Editing—Peter Zinner\n* Best Sound—Richard Portman, William McCaughey, Aaron Rochin, and Darin Knight.[http://theoscarsite.com/1978.htm \"All the Oscars: 1979—51st Annual Academy Awards\"]. theOscarSite.com. Retrieved 2010-05-26. \n\nIn addition, the film was nominated in four other categories:\n* Best Actor in a Leading Role—Robert De Niro (lost to Jon Voight for Coming Home)\n* Best Actress in a Supporting Role—Meryl Streep (lost to Maggie Smith for California Suite)\n* Best Cinematography—Vilmos Zsigmond (lost to Néstor Almendros for Days of Heaven)\n* Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen—Michael Cimino, Deric Washburn, Louis Garfinkle, and Quinn Redeker (lost to Robert C. Jones, Waldo Salt, and Nancy Dowd for Coming Home)\n\nGolden Globes\n\nCimino won the film's only Golden Globe Award for Best Director. Other nominations the film included Best Motion Picture – Drama, De Niro for Best Motion Picture Actor – Drama, Walken for Best Motion Picture Actor in a Supporting Role, Streep for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Supporting Role, and Washburn for Best Screenplay – Motion Picture.\n\nComplete list of awards\n\nLegacy\n\nThe Deer Hunter was one of the first, and most controversial, major theatrical films to be critical of the American involvement in Vietnam following 1975 when the war officially ended. While the film opened the same year as Hal Ashby's Coming Home, Sidney Furie's The Boys in Company C, and Ted Post's Go Tell the Spartans, it was the first film about Vietnam to reach a wide audience and critical acclaim, culminating in the winning of the Oscar for Best Picture. Other films released in the late 1970s and 1980s that illustrated the 'hellish', futile conditions of bloody Vietnam War combat included:\n\n* Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979)\n* Oliver Stone's Platoon (1986)\n* Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987)\n* John Irvin's Hamburger Hill (1987)\n* Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July (1989)\n* Brian De Palma's Casualties of War (1989)\n* Oliver Stone's Heaven & Earth (1993)\n* Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump (1994)\n\nDavid Thomson wrote in an article titled \"The Deer Hunter: Story of a scene\" that the film changed the way war-time battles were portrayed on film: \"The terror and the blast of firepower changed the war film, even if it only used a revolver. More or less before the late 1970s, the movies had lived by a Second World War code in which battle scenes might be fierce but always rigorously controlled. The Deer Hunter unleashed a new, raw dynamic in combat and action, paving the way for Platoon, Saving Private Ryan and Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima films.\" \n\nIn a 2011 interview with Rotten Tomatoes, actor William Fichtner retrospectively stated that he and his partner were silenced after seeing the film, stating that \"the human experience was just so pointed; their journeys were so difficult, as life is sometimes. I remember after seeing it, walking down the street -- I actually went with a girl on a date and saw The Deer Hunter, and we left the theater and walked for like an hour and nobody said anything; we were just kind of stunned about that.\" \n\nThe deaths of approximately twenty-five people who died playing Russian roulette were reported as having been influenced by scenes in the movie. \n\nHonors and recognition\n\nIn 1996, The Deer Hunter was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\".\n\nThe film ranks 467th in the Empire magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time, noting:\n\nCimino's bold, powerful 'Nam epic goes from blue-collar macho rituals to a fiery, South East Asian hell and back to a ragged singalong of America The Beautiful[sic]. De Niro holds it together, but Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep and John Savage are unforgettable.[http://www.empireonline.com/500/7.asp \"The 500 Greatest Movies Of All Time\"]. Empire. Retrieved 2010-06-02.\n\nJan Scruggs, a Vietnam veteran who became a counselor with the U.S. Department of Labor, thought of the idea of building a National Memorial for Vietnam Veterans after seeing a screening of the film in March 1979, and he established and operated the memorial fund which paid for it. Director Cimino was invited to the memorial's opening.\n\nIn popular culture\n\nComedy\n\n* The Deer Hunter was the genesis of a track on the comedy album Bob & Doug McKenzie: The Great White North (1981) titled \"The Beerhunter\". It's a beer-drinking game where one takes a beer out of six-pack, shakes it, and mixes it up with the other beers. Everyone takes one of the beers and holds it to their head: Russian roulette with beer. Those that don't get their head soaked drink the beer. Bob was tricked by Doug into opening the shaken can. He makes a wethead three times on the album.\n\nFilms\n\n* John Woo's film Bullet in the Head (1990, Die xue jie tou) contains a similar scene as the Russian roulette scene (though its main characters were forced to kill fellow prisoners instead) in a Vietnamese POW camp. The main character in the movie also makes and fulfills a promise to bring his friend home from Vietnam.\n* The Russian roulette scene is parodied in the film Freddy Got Fingered (2001), when Gordy and his father are abducted by Pakistanis.\n\nGames\n\n* Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010) features a Russian Roulette sequence, during the mission \"Payback,\" heavily inspired by the movie's first such sequence.\n* The game Spec Ops: The Line (2012) has an achievement/trophy called \"Deer Hunter\", inspired in the movie.\n\nTelevision\n\n* The Russian roulette scene inspired a skit in the HBO series Hardcore TV titled \"The Moosehunter\", in which De Niro's Michael character is replaced by Bullwinkle. \n* The film is referenced three times in The Simpsons: once in \"Simpson Tide\" (March 29, 1998) when Skinner and Krusty are forced to play Russian roulette while being ordered to by a mob boss, just before Moe interrupts to announce he is closing the bar to join the Naval Reserve (the Vietnamese phrase \"Mau, didi mau!\" (\"Go, go quickly!\") is also referenced to by both Bart and the mob boss to force someone to do an activity they won't willingly do), again in \"Kamp Krusty\" (September 24, 1992), when Krusty is captured and brought before Bart, and a third time in \"Skinner's Sense of Snow\" (December 17, 2000), when Bart overpowers Principal Skinner and forces Skinner to climb a rope while towel snapping him.\n* In Archer, there are two episodes that reference the Russian roulette scene: Killing Utne (where Archer tricks 5 men into playing the game) and Job Offer (where Malory plays it drunk on absinthe).\n\nAmerican Film Institute recognition\n\n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – #79 \n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – #30 \n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – #53 \n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:\n** \"God Bless America\" – Nominated\n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:\n** \"This is this.\" – Nominated\n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:\n** Michael Vronsky – Nominated Hero \n\nHome media\n\nThe Deer Hunter has twice been released on DVD in America. The first 1998 issue was by Universal, with no extra features and a non-anamorphic transfer, and has since been discontinued. A second version, part of the \"Legacy Series\", was released as a two-disc set on September 6, 2005, with an anamorphic transfer of the film. The set features a cinematographer's commentary by Vilmos Zsigmond, deleted and extended scenes, and production notes. \n\nThe Region 2 version of The Deer Hunter, released in the UK and Japan, features a commentary track from director Michael Cimino. \n\nThe film was released on HD DVD on December 26, 2006. \n\nStudioCanal released the film on the Blu-ray format in countries other than the United States on March 11, 2009. It was released on Blu-ray in the U.S. on March 6, 2012." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Độc lập - tự do - hạnh phúc", "Cộng Hòa Xã Hội Chủ Nghĩa Việt Nam", "越南社會主義共和國", "ISO 3166-1:VN", "SRVN", "VIETNAM", "CHXHCN Vietnam", "Viet Nam Socialist Repub", "SRoV", "S.R. 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Who wrote the lyrics for the song form Notting Hill sung by Elvis Costello?	tc_1190	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Elvis_Costello.txt" ], "title": [ "Elvis Costello" ], "wiki_context": [ "Declan Patrick MacManus (born 25 August 1954), better known by his stage name Elvis Costello, is an English musician, singer-songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as part of London's pub rock scene in the early 1970s and later became associated with the first wave of the British punk and new wave movement of the mid-to-late 1970s. His critically acclaimed debut album, My Aim Is True, was recorded in 1977. Shortly after recording it he formed the Attractions as his backing band. His second album, This Year's Model, was released in 1978, and was ranked number 11 by Rolling Stone on its list of the best albums from 1967–1987. His third album, Armed Forces, was released in 1979, and features his most successful single \"Oliver's Army\". His first three albums all appeared on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.\n\nCostello and the Attractions toured and recorded together for the better part of a decade, though differences between them caused a split by 1986. Much of Costello's work since has been as a solo artist, though reunions with members of the Attractions have been credited to the group over the years. Steeped in wordplay, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broad. His music has drawn on many diverse genres; one critic described him as a \"pop encyclopaedia\", able to \"reinvent the past in his own image\".Stephen Thomas Erlewine, [ Get Happy!! [Ryko Bonus Tracks]], Allmusic. Retrieved 17 September 2007.\n\nHe has won multiple awards in his career, including a Grammy Award, and has twice been nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Male Singer. In 2003, Costello and the Attractions were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Costello number 80 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. \n\nCostello has also co-written several original songs for motion pictures, including \"God Give Me Strength\" from Grace of My Heart (1996, with Burt Bacharach) and \"The Scarlet Tide\" from Cold Mountain (2003, with T-Bone Burnett). For the latter, Costello was nominated (along with Burnett) for the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media.\n\nEarly life\n\nCostello was born in St Mary's Hospital, London, the son of Lilian Alda (née Ablett, b. 1927, Liverpool) and Ross MacManus (born in Birkenhead, 1927–2011), a musician and bandleader. He is of Irish descent. Costello lived in Twickenham, attending Archbishop Myers R.C. School, which is now St Mark's Catholic Secondary School, in neighbouring Hounslow. With a musically inclined father (who was a jazz trumpeter and sang with the Joe Loss Orchestra), Costello's first broadcast recording was with his father in a television commercial for R. White's Lemonade (\"I'm a Secret Lemonade Drinker\"). His father wrote and sang the song; Costello provided backing vocals. The advertisement won a silver award at the 1974 International Advertising Festival.\n\nCostello moved with his Liverpool-born mother to Birkenhead, Cheshire, in 1971. There, he formed his first band, a folk duo called Rusty, with Allan Mayes. After completing secondary school at St. Francis Xavier's College he moved back to London where he next formed a band called Flip City, which had a style in the pub rock vein. They were active from 1974 through to early 1976. Around this time, Costello adopted the stage name D.P. Costello. His father had performed under the name Day Costello, and Elvis has said in interviews that he took this name as a tribute to his father.\n\nCostello worked at a number of office jobs to support himself, most famously at Elizabeth Arden – immortalised in the lyrics of \"I'm Not Angry\" as the \"vanity factory\" – where he worked as a data entry clerk. He worked for a short period as a computer operator at the Midland Bank computer centre in Bootle. He continued to write songs and began looking for a solo recording contract. He was signed to independent label Stiff Records on the basis of a demo tape. His manager at Stiff, Jake Riviera, suggested a name change, combining Elvis Presley's first name and Costello, his father's stage name. \n\nCareer\n\n1970s \n\nCostello's first single for Stiff was \"Less Than Zero\", released on 25 March 1977. Four months later, his début album, My Aim Is True (1977), was released to moderate commercial success (No. 14 in the UK and, later, Top 40 in the US) with Costello appearing on the cover in what became his trademark oversize glasses, bearing some resemblance to Buddy Holly. Costello failed to chart with his early singles, which included the anti-fascist \"Less Than Zero\" and the ballad \"Alison\". Stiff's records were initially distributed only in the UK, which meant that Costello's first album and singles were available in the US as imports only. In an attempt to change this, Costello was arrested for busking outside a London convention of CBS Records executives, protesting that no US record company had yet seen fit to release his records in the United States. Costello signed to Columbia Records, CBS in the U.S., a few months later.\n\nThe backing for Costello's debut album was provided by American West Coast band Clover, a country outfit living in England whose members would later go on to join Huey Lewis and the News and the Doobie Brothers. Costello released his first major hit single, \"Watching the Detectives\", which was recorded with Steve Nieve and the pair of Steve Goulding (drums) and Andrew Bodnar (bass), both members of Graham Parker's backing band the Rumour. Added to the U.S. version of My Aim Is True, the song contained scathing verses about the vicarious enjoyment of TV violence over a reggae beat. Later in 1977, Costello formed his own permanent backing band, the Attractions, consisting of Steve Nieve (piano), Bruce Thomas (bass guitar), and Pete Thomas (drums; unrelated to Bruce Thomas).\n\nOn 17 December 1977, Costello and the Attractions, as a replacement act for the Sex Pistols, were scheduled to play \"Less Than Zero\" on Saturday Night Live; however, in imitation of a rebellious act by Jimi Hendrix on a BBC show, Costello stopped the song mid-intro, yelling \"Stop! Stop!\" to his band, and played \"Radio Radio\" instead – a song that criticizes the commercialization of the airwaves, which SNL television executives had forbidden them to play. Costello was subsequently banned from the show (the ban was lifted in 1989) and he received considerable attention as an angry young man. His insistence on performing \"Radio Radio\" on SNL proved a boon to his debut album, and its popularity exploded in the U.S. after the performance. \n\nFollowing a tour with other Stiff artists – captured on the Live Stiffs Live album, which includes Costello's version of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David standard \"I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself\" – the band recorded This Year's Model (1978). Some of the more popular tracks include the British hit \"(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea\" and \"Pump It Up.\" His U.S. record company saw Costello as such a priority that his last name replaced the word Columbia on the label of the disc's original pressing. The Attractions' first tour of Australia in December 1978 was notable for a controversial performance at Sydney's Regent Theatre when, angered by the group's failure to perform an encore after their brief 35-minute set, audience members destroyed some of the seating. By the end of the 70s Costello was firmly established as both performer and songwriter, with Linda Ronstadt and Dave Edmunds having success with his compositions.\n\nA tour of the U.S. and Canada also saw the release of the much-bootlegged Canadian promo-only Live at the El Mocambo, recorded at a Toronto rock club, which finally saw an official release as part of the 2½ Years box set in 1993.\n\nIn 1979, he released his third LP Armed Forces (originally to have been titled Emotional Fascism, a phrase that appeared on the LP's inner sleeve). American editions included a 45rpm EP recorded live at the Hollywood High School Gymnasium in Hollywood in 1978. Both the album and the single \"Oliver's Army\" went to No. 2 in the UK, and the opening track \"Accidents Will Happen\" gained wide television exposure thanks to its innovative animated music video, directed by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton. Costello also found time in 1979 to produce the debut album for the 2 Tone ska revival band the Specials.\n\nCostello's standing in the U.S. was bruised for a time when in March 1979, during a drunken argument with Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett in a Columbus, Ohio, Holiday Inn bar, the singer referred to James Brown as a \"jive-ass nigger\", then upped the ante by pronouncing Ray Charles a \"blind, ignorant nigger\". Costello apologised at a New York City press conference a few days later, claiming that he had been drunk and had been attempting to be obnoxious in order to bring the conversation to a swift conclusion, not anticipating that Bramlett would bring his comments to the press. According to Costello, \"it became necessary for me to outrage these people with about the most obnoxious and offensive remarks that I could muster.\" In his liner notes for the expanded version of Get Happy!! Costello writes that some time after the incident he had declined an offer to meet Charles out of guilt and embarrassment, though Charles himself had forgiven Costello saying \"Drunken talk isn't meant to be printed in the paper.\" Costello worked extensively in Britain's Rock Against Racism campaign both before and after the incident. The incident inspired his Get Happy!! song \"Riot Act.\" In an interview with Questlove (drummer for the Roots, whom Costello collaborated with in 2013), he addressed the controversy, stating: \"It’s upsetting because I can’t explain how I even got to think you could be funny about something like that,\" and further elaborating with, \"I’m sorry. You know? It’s about time I said it out loud.\" \n\nCostello is also an avid country music fan and has cited George Jones as his favourite country singer. In 1977, he appeared on Jones' duet album My Very Special Guests, contributing \"Stranger in the House\", which they later performed together on an HBO special dedicated to Jones.\n\n1980s\n\nThe soul-infused Get Happy!! was the first, and—along with King of America—possibly most successful, of Costello's many experiments with genres beyond those with which he is ordinarily associated. It also marked a distinct change in mood from the angry, frustrated tone of his first three albums to a more upbeat, happy manner. The single, \"I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down\" was an old Sam and Dave song (though Costello increased the tempo considerably). Lyrically, the songs are full of Costello's signature word play, to the point that he later felt he had become something of a self-parody and toned it down on later releases; he has mockingly described himself in interviews as \"rock and roll's Scrabble champion.\" His only 1980 appearance in North America was at the Heatwave festival in August near Toronto.\n\nIn January 1981, Costello released Trust amidst growing tensions within the Attractions, particularly between Bruce and Pete Thomas. In the U.S., the single \"Watch Your Step\" was released and played live on Tom Snyder's Tomorrow show, and received airplay on FM rock radio. In the U.K., the single \"Clubland\" scraped the lower reaches of the charts; follow-up single \"From a Whisper to a Scream\" (a duet with Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze) became the first Costello single in over four years to completely miss the charts. Costello also co-produced Squeeze's popular 1981 album East Side Story (with Roger Bechirian) and also performed backing vocals on the group's hit single \"Tempted\".\n\nOctober saw the release of Almost Blue, an album of country music cover songs written by the likes of Hank Williams (\"Why Don't You Love Me (Like You Used to Do?)\"), Merle Haggard (\"Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down\") and Gram Parsons (\"How Much I Lied\"). The album, which received mixed reviews, was a tribute to the country music that Costello had grown up listening to, especially George Jones. The first pressings of the record in the UK bore a sticker with the message: \"WARNING: This album contains country & western music and may cause a radical reaction in narrow minded listeners.\" Almost Blue did spawn a surprise UK hit single in a version of George Jones' \"Good Year for the Roses\" (written by Jerry Chesnut), which reached No. 6.\n\nImperial Bedroom (1982) had a much darker sound, due in part to the production of Geoff Emerick, famed for engineering several Beatles records. Imperial Bedroom remains one of his most critically acclaimed records, but again failed to produce any hit singles. Costello has said he disliked the marketing pitch for the album. The album also featured Costello's song \"Almost Blue\", inspired by the music of jazz singer and trumpeter Chet Baker, who would later perform and record a version of the song (Chet Baker in Tokyo).\n\nIn 1983, he released Punch the Clock, featuring female backing vocal duo (Afrodiziak) and a four-piece horn section (the TKO Horns), alongside the Attractions. Clive Langer (who co-produced with Alan Winstanley), provided Costello with a melody which eventually became \"Shipbuilding\", which featured a trumpet solo by Chet Baker. Prior to the release of Costello's own version, a version of the song was a minor UK hit for former Soft Machine founder Robert Wyatt.\n\nUnder the pseudonym The Imposter, Costello released \"Pills and Soap\", an attack on the changes in British society brought on by Thatcherism, released to coincide with the run-up to the 1983 U.K. general election. Punch the Clock also generated an international hit in the single \"Everyday I Write the Book\", aided by a music video featuring lookalikes of the Prince and Princess of Wales undergoing domestic strife in a suburban home. The song became Costello's first Top 40 hit single in the U.S. Also in the same year, Costello provided vocals on a version of the Madness song \"Tomorrow's Just Another Day\" released as a B-side on the single of the same name.\n\nTensions within the band—notably between Costello and bassist Bruce Thomas—were beginning to tell, and Costello announced his retirement and the break-up of the group shortly before they were to record Goodbye Cruel World (1984). Costello would later say of this record that they had \"got it as wrong as you can in terms of the execution\". The record was poorly received upon its initial release; the liner notes to the 1995 Rykodisc re-release, penned by Costello, begin with the words \"Congratulations! You've just purchased our worst album\". Costello's retirement, although short-lived, was accompanied by two compilations, Elvis Costello: The Man in the UK, Europe and Australia, and The Best of Elvis Costello & The Attractions in the U.S.\n\nIn 1985, he appeared in the Live Aid benefit concert in England, singing the Beatles' \"All You Need Is Love\" as a solo artist. (The event was overrunning and Costello was asked to \"ditch the band\".) Costello introduced the song as an \"old northern English folk song\", and the audience was invited to sing the chorus. In the same year Costello teamed up with friend T-Bone Burnett for the single \"The People's Limousine\" under the moniker of The Coward Brothers. That year, Costello also produced Rum Sodomy & the Lash for the Irish punk/folk band the Pogues.\n\nGrowing antipathy between Costello and Bruce Thomas contributed to the Attractions' first split in 1986 when Costello was preparing to make a comeback. Working in the U.S. with Burnett, a band containing a number of Elvis Presley's sidemen (including James Burton and Jerry Scheff), and minor input from the Attractions, he produced King of America, an acoustic guitar-driven album with a country sound. It was billed as performed by \"The Costello Show featuring the Attractions and Confederates\" in the UK and Europe and \"The Costello Show featuring Elvis Costello\" in North America. Around this time he legally changed his name back to Declan MacManus, adding Aloysius as an extra middle name. Costello retooled his upcoming tour to allow for multiple nights in each city, playing one night with the Confederates, one night with the Attractions, and one night solo acoustic. In May 1986, he performed at Self Aid, a benefit concert held in Dublin that focused on the chronic unemployment which was widespread in Ireland at that time.\n\nLater that year, Costello returned to the studio with the Attractions and recorded Blood and Chocolate, which was lauded for a post-punk fervour not heard since 1978's This Year's Model. It also marked the return of producer Nick Lowe, who had produced Costello's first five albums. While Blood and Chocolate failed to chart a hit single of any significance, it did produce what has since become one of Costello's signature concert songs, \"I Want You.\" On this album, Costello adopted the alias Napoleon Dynamite, the name he later attributed to the character of the emcee that he played during the vaudeville-style tour to support Blood and Chocolate. (The pseudonym had previously been used in 1982, when the B-side single \"Imperial Bedroom\" was credited to Napoleon Dynamite & the Royal Guard; whether the title of the 2004 film Napoleon Dynamite was inspired by Costello is disputed). After the tour for Blood & Chocolate, Costello split from the Attractions, due mostly to tensions between Costello and Bruce Thomas. Costello would continue to work with Attraction Pete Thomas as a session musician for future releases.\n\nCostello's recording contract with Columbia Records ended after Blood & Chocolate. In 1987 he released compilation album, Out of Our Idiot on his U.K. label, Demon Records consisting of B-sides, side projects, and unreleased songs from recording sessions from 1980 to 1987. He signed a new contract with Warner Bros. and in early 1989 released Spike, which spawned his biggest single in the U.S., the Top 20 hit \"Veronica\", one of several songs Costello co-wrote with Paul McCartney. At the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards on 6 September in Los Angeles, \"Veronica\" won the MTV Award for Best Male Video. \n\n1990s \n\nIn 1991, Costello released Mighty Like a Rose, which featured the single \"The Other Side of Summer\". He also co-composed and co-produced, with Richard Harvey, the title and incidental music for the mini-series G.B.H. by Alan Bleasdale. This entirely instrumental, and largely orchestral, soundtrack garnered a BAFTA, for Best Music for a TV Series for the pair.\n\nIn 1993, Costello experimented with classical music with a critically acclaimed collaboration with the Brodsky Quartet on The Juliet Letters. During this period, he wrote a full album's worth of material for Wendy James, and these songs became the tracks on her 1993 solo album Now Ain't the Time for Your Tears. Costello returned to rock and roll the following year with a project that reunited him with the Attractions, Brutal Youth. In 1995, he released Kojak Variety, an album of cover songs recorded five years earlier, and followed in 1996 with an album of songs originally written for other artists, All This Useless Beauty. This was the final album of original material that he issued under his Warner Bros. contract, and also his final album with the Attractions.\n\nIn the spring of 1996, Costello played a series of intimate club dates, backed only by Steve Nieve on the piano, in support of All This Useless Beauty. An ensuing summer and fall tour with the Attractions proved to be the death knell for the band. With relations between Costello and bassist Bruce Thomas at a breaking point, Costello announced that the current tour would be the Attractions' last. The quartet performed their final U.S. show in Seattle, Washington on 1 September 1996, before wrapping up their tour in Japan. Costello would still continue to work frequently with Attractions Steve Nieve and Pete Thomas; eventually, both would be members of Costello's new back-up band, The Imposters.\n\nTo fulfill his contractual obligations to Warner Bros., Costello released a greatest hits album titled Extreme Honey (1997). It contained an original track titled \"The Bridge I Burned\", featuring Costello's son, Matt, on bass. In the intervening period, Costello had served as artistic chair for the 1995 Meltdown Festival, which gave him the opportunity to explore his increasingly eclectic musical interests. His involvement in the festival yielded a one-off live EP with jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, which featured both cover material and a few of his own songs.\n\nIn 1998, Costello signed a multi-label contract with Polygram Records, sold by its parent company the same year to become part of the Universal Music Group. Costello released his new work on what he deemed the suitable imprimatur within the family of labels. His first new release as part of this contract involved a collaboration with Burt Bacharach. Their work had commenced earlier, in 1996, on a song called \"God Give Me Strength\" for the movie Grace of My Heart. This led the pair to write and record the critically acclaimed album Painted From Memory, released under his new contract in 1998, on the Mercury Records label, featuring songs that were largely inspired by the dissolution of his marriage to Cait O'Riordan. Costello and Bacharach performed several concerts with a full orchestral backing, and also recorded an updated version of Bacharach's \"I'll Never Fall in Love Again\" for the soundtrack to Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, with both appearing in the film to perform the song. He also wrote \"I Throw My Toys Around\" for The Rugrats Movie and performed it with No Doubt. The same year, he collaborated with Paddy Moloney of the Chieftains on \"The Long Journey Home\" on the soundtrack of the PBS/Disney mini-series of the same name. The soundtrack won a Grammy that year.\n\nIn 1999, Costello contributed a version of \"She\", released in 1974 by Charles Aznavour and Herbert Kretzmer, for the soundtrack of the film Notting Hill, with Trevor Jones producing. For the 25th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, Costello was invited to the programme, where he re-enacted his abrupt song-switch: This time, however, he interrupted the Beastie Boys' \"Sabotage\", and they acted as his backing group for \"Radio Radio\".\n\n2000s\n\nIn 2000, Costello appeared at the Town Hall, New York, in Steve Nieve's opera Welcome to the Voice, alongside Ron Sexsmith and John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants. In 2001, Costello was artist-in-residence at UCLA and wrote the music for a new ballet. He produced and appeared on an album of pop songs for the classical singer Anne Sofie von Otter. He released the album When I Was Cruel in 2002 on Island Records, and toured with a new band, the Imposters (essentially the Attractions but with a different bass player, Davey Faragher, formerly of Cracker). He appeared as himself in the \"How I Spent My Strummer Vacation\" episode of The Simpsons.\n\nOn 23 February 2003, Costello, along with Bruce Springsteen, Steve Van Zandt, and Dave Grohl, performed a version of the Clash's \"London Calling\" at the 45th Grammy Awards ceremony, in honour of Clash frontman Joe Strummer, who had died the previous December. In March, Elvis Costello & the Attractions were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He announced his engagement in May to Canadian jazz singer and pianist Diana Krall, whom he had seen in concert and then met backstage at the Sydney Opera House in Australia. That September, he released North, an album of piano-based ballads concerning the breakdown of his former marriage, and his falling in love with Krall. Also that year, Costello made an appearance in the television series Frasier as a folk singer in the Cafe Nervosa, sending Frasier and Niles on a search for a new coffee bar. \n\nOn 12 March 2003, Costello filled in for David Letterman on the Late Show with David Letterman for the evening while Letterman was recovering from an eye infection. \n\nThe song \"Scarlet Tide\" (co-written by Costello and T-Bone Burnett and used in the film Cold Mountain) was nominated for a 2004 Academy Award; he performed it at the awards ceremony with Alison Krauss, who sang the song on the official soundtrack. Costello co-wrote many songs on Krall's 2004 CD, The Girl in the Other Room, the first of hers to feature several original compositions. In July 2004, Costello's first full-scale orchestral work, Il Sogno, was performed in New York. The work, a ballet after Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, was commissioned by Italian dance troupe Aterballeto, and received critical acclaim from the classical music critics. Performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, the recording was released on CD in September by Deutsche Grammophon. In September of the same year, Costello released the album The Delivery Man, recorded in Oxford, Mississippi, on Lost Highway Records, and it was hailed as one of his best.\n\nA CD recording of a collaboration with Marian McPartland on her show Piano Jazz was released in 2005. It featured Costello singing six jazz standards and two of his own songs, accompanied by McPartland on piano. In November, Costello started recording a new album with Allen Toussaint and producer Joe Henry. The River in Reverse was released in the UK on the Verve label the following year in May.\n\nA 2005 tour included a gig at Glastonbury that Costello considered to be so dreadful that he said \"I don't care if I ever play England again. That gig made up my mind I wouldn't come back. I don't get along with it. We lost touch. It's 25 years since I lived there. I don't dig it, they don't dig me....British music fans don't have the same attitude to age as they do in America, where young people come to check out, say Willie Nelson. They feel some connection with him and find a role for that music in their lives.\"\n\nAfter Hurricane Katrina, Costello and Allen Toussaint performed in New York at a series of Hurricane Relief benefit concerts in September 2006. By week’s end, Costello had written \"The River in Reverse\", performed it with Toussaint and discussed plans for an album with Verve Record executives. The result was Costello's The River in Reverse which is a collaboration with New Orleanian, Allen Toussaint and recorded with The Crescent City Horns. Costello turned to older songs to reflect the national malaise at the time.\n\nIn a studio recording of Nieve's opera Welcome to the Voice (2006, Deutsche Grammophon), Costello interpreted the character of Chief of Police, with Barbara Bonney, Robert Wyatt, Sting and Amanda Roocroft, and the album reached No. 2 in the Billboard classical charts. Costello later reprised the piece on the stage of the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in 2008, with Sting, Joe Sumner of Fiction Plane (Sting's son) and Sylvia Schwartz. Also released in 2006 was a live recording of a concert with the Metropole Orkest at the North Sea Jazz Festival, entitled My Flame Burns Blue. The soundtrack for House, M.D. featured Costello's interpretation of \"Beautiful\" by Christina Aguilera, with the song appearing in the second episode of Season 2.\n\nCostello was commissioned to write a chamber opera by the Danish Royal Opera, Copenhagen, on the subject of Hans Christian Andersen's infatuation with Swedish soprano Jenny Lind. Called The Secret Songs it was unfinished. In a performance in 2007 directed by Kasper Bech Holten at the Opera's studio theatre (Takelloftet), finished songs were interspersed with pieces from Costello's 1993 collaborative classical album The Juliet Letters, featuring Danish soprano Sine Bundgaard as Lind. The 2009 album Secret, Profane & Sugarcane includes material from Secret Songs.\n\nOn 22 April 2008, Momofuku was released on Lost Highway Records, the same imprint that released The Delivery Man, his previous studio album. The album was, at least initially, released exclusively on vinyl (with a code to download a digital copy). That summer, in support of the album, Costello toured with the Police on the final leg of their 2007/2008 Reunion Tour. Costello played a homecoming gig at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall on 25 June 2006. and, that month, gave his first performance in Poland, appearing with The Imposters for the closing gig of the Malta theatre festival in Poznań.\n\nIn July 2008, Costello (as Declan McManus) was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Liverpool. \n\nBetween 2008 and 2010, Costello hosted Channel 4/CTV's series Spectacle in which Costello talked and performed with stars in various fields, styled similarly to Inside the Actors Studio. Between its two seasons, the show compiled 20 episodes, including one where Costello was interviewed by actress Mary-Louise Parker. \n\nCostello was featured on Fall Out Boy's 2008 album Folie à Deux, providing vocals on the track \"What a Catch, Donnie\", along with other artists who are friends with the band.\n\nCostello appeared in Stephen Colbert's television special A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All. In the program, he was eaten by a bear, but later saved by Santa Claus; he also sang a duet with Colbert. The special was first aired on 23 November 2008. Costello released Secret, Profane & Sugarcane, a collaboration with T-Bone Burnett, on 9 June 2009. Burnett previously worked with Costello on King of America and Spike. It was his first on the Starbucks Hear Music label and a return to country music in the manner of Good Year for the Roses.\n\nCostello appeared as himself in the finale of the third season of 30 Rock and sang in the episode's celebrity telethon, Kidney Now!. The episode references Costello's given name when Jack Donaghy accuses him of concealing his true identity: \"Declan McManus, international art thief.\"\n\nIn May 2009, Costello made a surprise cameo appearance on-stage at the Beacon Theater in New York as part of Spinal Tap's Unwigged and Unplugged show, singing their fictional 1965 hit \"Gimme Some Money\" with the band backing him up.\n\n2010s\n\nOn 15 May 2010, Costello announced he would withdraw from a concert performed in Israel in opposition to Israel's treatment of Palestinians. In a statement on his website, Costello wrote, \"It has been necessary to dial out the falsehoods of propaganda, the double game and hysterical language of politics, the vanity and self-righteousness of public communiqués from cranks in order to eventually sift through my own conflicted thoughts.\" \n\nAlso in 2010, Elvis Costello appeared as himself in David Simon's television series, Treme. Costello released the album National Ransom in autumn of 2010.\n\nIn 2011, Elvis Costello appeared as himself on Sesame Street to perform a song with Elmo and Cookie Monster, titled \"Monster Went and Ate My Red 2\", a play on (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes.\n\nOn 26 February 2012, Costello paid tribute to music legends Chuck Berry and Leonard Cohen who were the recipients of the first annual PEN Awards for songwriting excellence, at the JFK Presidential Library, in Boston, Massachusetts on 26 February 2012. \n\nIn September 2013 Costello released Wise Up Ghost, a collaboration with the Roots. In a BBC documentary 'Mystery Dance' covering his whole career said that this will be his last album and that, as he nears sixty, he will concentrate on being a father to his sons with Diana Krall and just do occasional concerts when he needs the money. \"That's it\" he said.\n\nOn 25 October 2013, Costello was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from the New England Conservatory. \n\nIn October 2015, Costello's memoir, Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, was released.\n\nPersonal life\n\nRelationships\n\nCostello has been married three times, the first time in 1974 to Mary Burgoyne, with whom he had a son, Matthew. Toward the end of his first marriage, Costello became embroiled in an on-again/off-again romance with Bebe Buell, then-girlfriend of Todd Rundgren (and mother of Steven Tyler's daughter Liv). Buell has said she was the inspiration behind some of Costello's most bitter love songs from the Armed Forces era, though Costello countered by claiming most of those songs had been written before he ever met Buell. \n\nIn 1985, Costello became involved with Cait O'Riordan, then the bassist of the London Irish group the Pogues, while he was producing the Pogues' album Rum Sodomy and the Lash. They married in 1986 and split up by the end of 2002.\n\nCostello became engaged to piano-vocalist Diana Krall in May 2003, and married her at the home of Elton John on 6 December that year. Krall gave birth to twin sons, Dexter Henry Lorcan and Frank Harlan James, on 6 December 2006 in New York City. \n\nRecord Labels\n\nFrom 2001 to 2005, Costello re-issued his back catalogue in the U.S., from My Aim Is True (1977) to All This Useless Beauty (1996), on double-disc collections on the Rhino Records label. These releases, which each contained second discs of bonus material, ultimately fell out of print by 2007 after Universal Music acquired the rights to Costello's catalogue. Universal subsequently released new deluxe editions of My Aim Is True and This Year's Model with new bonus material of full-length concerts from the time of each album's release. These deluxe editions also fell out of print and Universal has reverted to re-releasing Costello's pre-1987 albums in their original context without bonus material.\n\nVegetarianism\n\nA vegetarian since the early 1980s, Costello says he was moved to reject meat after seeing the documentary The Animals Film (1982), which also helped inspire his song \"Pills and Soap\" from 1983's Punch the Clock. In January 2013, Costello teamed up with Paul McCartney to create an ad campaign backing vegetarian foods produced by the Linda McCartney Foods brand. \n\nFootball\n\nCostello is a keen football fan, supporting Premier League football club Liverpool F.C. since childhood, and has appeared on Channel 4's Football Italia as a pundit. On 25 May 2005, Costello was due to take the stage with his band at a gig in Norwich, which clashed with Liverpool appearing in the 2005 UEFA Champions League Final against AC Milan. With Liverpool losing 3-0 at half time, Costello was due on stage and began warming up his voice in preparation for the gig, before deciding: \"I might as well see the first few minutes of the second half.\" With Liverpool staging a remarkable comeback (since dubbed the Miracle of Istanbul) by scoring three goals in six minutes and making it 3-3, Costello delayed his appearance on stage for over an hour. With the game going to penalties, after much delay he had no choice but to take the stage, with Costello recalling: \"I tried my best to keep my eyes from the TV screen over the bar at the back of the room but the words \"Oh s**, he’s missed\" might have accidentally crept into the lyrics of \"Good Year for the Roses\". With Liverpool prevailing while he was on stage, an ecstatic Costello broke out into a performance of the club's anthem \"You'll Never Walk Alone\".\n\nHumanitarian causes \n\nCostello sits on the Advisory Board of the Board of Directors of the Jazz Foundation of America. Costello began working with the Jazz Foundation in 2001, and has been a featured performer in their annual benefit A Great Night in Harlem since 2006. Costello has donated his time working with the Jazz Foundation of America to save the homes and the lives of America's elderly jazz and blues musicians, including musicians who survived Hurricane Katrina.\n\nCollaborations\n\nIn addition to his major recorded collaborations with Burt Bacharach, the Brodsky Quartet, and Anne Sofie von Otter, Costello has frequently been involved in other collaborations.\n\nIn 1981 Glenn Tilbrook from Squeeze and Martin Belmont from the Rumour guested on the song \"From a Whisper to a Scream\" from the album \"Trust\". Around this time he also collaborated with Chris Difford, also of Squeeze, to write additional lyrics for the song \"Boy With A Problem\", which appeared on Costello's 1982 album Imperial Bedroom.\n\nIn 1984 Daryl Hall provided backing vocals for the song \"The Only Flame In Town\", from the album \"Goodbye Cruel World\".\n\nIn 1985 he sang with Annie Lennox on the track 'Adrian' from the Eurythmics record \"Be Yourself Tonight\".\n\nIn 1987, Costello began a songwriting collaboration with Paul McCartney. They wrote a number of songs together in a short period of time, that were released over a period of years. These songs included:\n \"Back On My Feet\", the B-side of McCartney's 1987 single \"Once Upon a Long Ago\", later added as a bonus track on the 1993 re-issue of McCartney's Flowers in the Dirt\n* Costello's \"Veronica\" and \"Pads, Paws and Claws\" from his album Spike (1989)\n* McCartney's \"My Brave Face\", \"Don't Be Careless Love\", \"That Day Is Done\" and the McCartney/Costello duet \"You Want Her Too\", all from McCartney's Flowers in the Dirt (1989)\n* \"So Like Candy\" and \"Playboy to a Man\" from Costello's Mighty Like a Rose (1991)\n* \"The Lovers That Never Were\" and \"Mistress and Maid\" from McCartney's Off the Ground (1993).\n* \"Shallow Grave\" from Costello's All This Useless Beauty (1996).\n* Costello has also issued solo demo recordings of \"Veronica\", \"Pads, Paws and Claws\" and \"Mistress and Maid\" (a song he did not otherwise record.) Two other officially unissued McCartney/Costello compositions also exist as demos (\"Tommy's Coming Home\" and \"Twenty-Five FIngers\"). These two tracks, along with other McCartney/Costello demos of tunes they did release, have been widely bootlegged.\n\nIn 1987, he appeared on the HBO special Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night, which featured his long-time idol Roy Orbison, and was invited back to Saturday Night Live for the first time since 1977.\n\nIn 1988, Costello co-wrote \"At the Other End (of the Telescope)\" with Aimee Mann; this song appears on the Til Tuesday album Everything's Different Now.\n\nIn 1994, he sang \"They Can't Take That Away From Me\" with Tony Bennett for MTV Unplugged, appearing on the album released from the broadcast.\n\nIn 2000, Costello wrote lyrics to \"Green Song\", a solo cello piece by Svante Henryson; this song appears on the Anne Sofie von Otter album For the Stars.\n\nIn 2005, Costello performed with Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong. They played both Costello and Green Day songs together, including \"Alison\", \"No Action\", \"Basket Case\" and \"Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)\".\n\nIn Fall 2005 Costello performed with Allen Toussaint in New York City at some Hurricane Katrina Relief Concerts and produced the studio album, \"The River in Reverse.\" Also, Costello had a collaborative history with Mr. Toussaint, beginning with a couple of scattered album tracks in the 1980s.\n\nIn 2007, Costello collaborated with the Argentinean/Uruguayan electro-tango band Bajofondo on the song \"Fairly Right\" from the album Mar Dulce.\n\nIn 2008, Costello collaborated with Fall Out Boy on the track \"What a Catch, Donnie\" from their album Folie a Deux.\n\nIn Jenny Lewis' 2008 release, Acid Tongue, Costello provided vocals for the song \"Carpetbaggers\".\n\nIn November 2009, Costello appeared live with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at Madison Square Garden and performed the Jackie Wilson song \"(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher\". \n\nIn December 2009, Costello portrayed The Shape on the album Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, a collaboration between rock singer John Mellencamp and novelist Stephen King. \n\nIn February 2010, Costello appeared in the live cinecast of Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion, singing some of his own songs, and participating in many of the show's other musical and acting performances.\n\nOn 30 April 2011, he played the song \"Pump it Up\" with the Odds before the start of a Vancouver Canucks playoff game at Rogers Arena in Vancouver BC. \n\nIn 2012, he played ukulele, mandolin, guitar and added backing vocals on Diana Krall's 11th studio album, Glad Rag Doll (as \"Howard Coward\").\n\nOn 10 September 2013, he played during the Apple September 2013 Event after the introduction of iTunes Radio, iPhone 5C and 5S at Town Hall, at the Apple campus. \n\nOn Gov't Mule's album Shout!, released in September 2013, he sang on the track \"Funny Little Tragedy\".\n\nOn March 2014, Elvis Costello recorded Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes with Rhiannon Giddens, Taylor Goldsmith, Jim James and Marcus Mumford. \n\nDurning the 2016 Detour, he performs with Larkin Poe.\n\nLegacy\n\nMajor artists who have been influenced by Costello include Billy Bragg, the Pogues, Radiohead, Weezer, Dexys Midnight Runners, Pulp, Crowded House, the Futureheads, James, Suzanne Vega, and Foo Fighters. \n\nCostello has worked with Paul McCartney, Tony Bennett, Burt Bacharach, Allen Toussaint, T Bone Burnett, Lucinda Williams, Kid Rock, Lee Konitz, Brian Eno, and Rubén Blades.\n\nCostello is also a music fan, and in print often champions the works of others. He has written several pieces for the magazine Vanity Fair, including the summary of what a perfect weekend of music would be. He has contributed to two Grateful Dead tribute albums and covered Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter tunes such as \"Ship of Fools\", \"Friend of the Devil\", \"It Must Have Been the Roses\", \"Ripple\" and \"Tennessee Jed\" in concert. His collaboration with Bacharach honoured Bacharach's place in pop music history. Costello also appeared in documentaries about singers Dusty Springfield, Brian Wilson, Wanda Jackson, Ron Sexsmith and Memphis, Tennessee-based Stax Records. He has also interviewed one of his own influences, Joni Mitchell, and appeared on the release A Tribute to Joni Mitchell performing \"Edith and the Kingpin\". He also performed the title track of the Charles Mingus tribute collection, Weird Nightmare. In addition, he appeared on the Nick Lowe tribute album Labour of Love, performing the Lowe song \"Egypt\" and the Gram Parsons tribute album The Return of the Grievous Angel, performing the Parsons song \"Sleepless Nights\". He was instrumental in bringing Sexsmith to a wider audience in 1995 by championing his debut album in Mojo magazine, even appearing on the cover with the album. \n\nIn 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him No. 80 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. \n\nCostello has had a long collaborative history with Allen Toussaint, beginning with a couple of scattered album tracks in the 1980s and skipping ahead to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina with the production of The River in Reverse.\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio albums by Elvis Costello (including albums released with the Attractions and the Imposters)\n\nMy Aim Is True (1977)\nThis Year's Model (1978)\nArmed Forces (1979)\nGet Happy!! (1980)\nTrust (1981)\nAlmost Blue (1981)\nImperial Bedroom (1982)\nPunch the Clock (1983)\nGoodbye Cruel World (1984)\nKing of America (1986)\nBlood & Chocolate (1986)\nSpike (1989)\nMighty Like a Rose (1991)\nThe Juliet Letters (1993)\nBrutal Youth (1994)\nKojak Variety (1995)\nAll This Useless Beauty (1996)\nWhen I Was Cruel (2002)\nNorth (2003)\nIl Sogno (2004)\nThe Delivery Man (2004)\nMomofuku (2008)\nSecret, Profane & Sugarcane (2009)\nNational Ransom (2010)\n\nCollaborative albums\n\nG.B.H. (1991, with Richard Harvey)\nJake's Progress (1995, with Richard Harvey)\nPainted from Memory (1998, with Burt Bacharach)\nPiano Jazz (2005, with Marian McPartland)\nThe River in Reverse (2006, with Allen Toussaint)\nWise Up Ghost (2013, with the Roots)\n\nFilmography\n\nActor\n\n* 1979 film debut as \"The Earl of Manchester\" in Americathon\n* 1984 as \"Henry Scully\" in the UK TV series, Scully\n* 1984 as \"Stone Deaf A&R Man\" in The Bullshitters, a movie made by members of the comedy troupe The Comic Strip, first aired on Channel 4.\n* 1985 as inept magician \"Rosco de Ville\" in the Alan Bleasdale film, No Surrender\n* 1987 as \"Hives the Butler\" in the Alex Cox film, Straight to Hell, starring Joe Strummer and Courtney Love\n* 1994 as himself on The Larry Sanders Show in the episode \"People's Choice\"\n* 1997 as a barman in Spice World.\n* 1999 as himself performing \"I'll Never Fall In Love Again\" with Burt Bacharach in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me\n* 1999 as a younger version of himself in 200 Cigarettes\n* 2001 as himself performing \"Fly Me to the Moon\" on the series finale of 3rd Rock from the Sun\n* 2002 as himself on the episode \"How I Spent My Strummer Vacation\" of The Simpsons\n* 2003 as Ben on Frasier, in the season 10 episode \"Farewell Nervosa\".\n* 2003 as himself in I Love Your Work \n* 2004 as himself in the UK TV Dead Ringers New Year Special, apparently and reportedly having serendipitously entered a filming venue \n* 2004 as himself in Two and a Half Men – Season 2, Episode 1 \n* 2004 as himself in De-Lovely\n* 2006 as himself in Delirious\n* 2006 as himself in \"Before The Music Dies\"\n* 2006 as himself in \"Putting the River in Reverse\"\n* 2006 as himself in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby\n* 2008 as himself in \"A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!\"\n* 2009 as himself on the episode of 30 Rock, \"Kidney Now!\" \n* 2010 as himself on Treme\n\nSoundtracks\n\n* 1996, Nominated for Satellite Award for Best Original Song for \"God Give Me Strength\" from Grace Of My Heart, along with Burt Bacharach\n* 2003, Nominated for Academy Award for Best Original Song and Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media for \"The Scarlet Tide\" from Cold Mountain, along with T-Bone Burnett\n\nBibliography\n\n1980 A Singing Dictionary sheet music \n1983 Everyday I Write the Song sheet music \n*2015 Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink memoir" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Herbert Kretzmer" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "herbert kretzmer" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "herbert kretzmer", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Herbert Kretzmer" }
In what year does Demolition Man take place?	tc_1191	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Demolition_Man_(film).txt" ], "title": [ "Demolition Man (film)" ], "wiki_context": [ "Demolition Man is a 1993 American science fiction action film directed by Marco Brambilla in his directorial debut. The film stars Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes. The film was released in the United States on October 8, 1993. \n\nThe film tells the story of two men: an evil crime lord and a risk-taking police officer. Cryogenically frozen in 1996, they are restored to life in the year 2032 to find mainstream society changed and all crime seemingly eliminated.\n\nSome aspects of the film allude to Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel, Brave New World. \n\nPlot\n\nIn 1996, psychopathic career criminal Simon Phoenix kidnaps a number of hostages and takes refuge with his gang in an abandoned building. LAPD Sgt. John Spartan uses a thermal scan of the building and finds no trace of the hostages, and leads an unauthorized assault to capture Phoenix. When he is captured, Phoenix sets off a series of explosives that bring down the building, and when the police search the wreckage, they find the corpses of the hostages. Spartan is charged with manslaughter, and he is incarcerated along with Phoenix in the city's new \"California Cryo-Penitentiary\", where they will be cryogenically frozen. During their time \"in deep freeze\", they are to be rehabilitated through subconscious conditioning.\n\nDuring their incarceration, the \"Great Earthquake\" leads the cities of Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara to merge into a single metropolis under the name San Angeles. The city becomes a utopia run under the pseudo-pacifist guidance and control of the evangelistic Dr. Raymond Cocteau, where human behavior is tightly controlled. In 2032, Phoenix is woken for a parole hearing, but he finds he somehow knows the access codes to the security systems, and is able to escape the prison and begins wreaking havoc on the city. The police, having not dealt with violent crime for many years, are unable to handle Phoenix and opt to wake Spartan and enlist his help. Spartan is assigned to Lieutenant Lenina Huxley to help with acclimation to the future, which he finds depressing. Others on the police force find his behavior brutish and uncivilized, though Huxley, who is fascinated by the lifestyles of the late 20th century, helps Spartan to overcome this, and the two grow close, despite the limitations on displays of public affection.\n\nThey attempt to stop Phoenix from stealing 20th century weapons from a museum display, but Phoenix manages to escape. Phoenix encounters Dr. Cocteau during his escape, and though he tries to shoot him, finds himself unable to do so. Dr. Cocteau calmly asks Phoenix to assassinate Edgar Friendly, the leader of the resistance group called the Scraps that fight against Cocteau's rule, and allows Phoenix to bring other criminals out of cryo-sleep to help at his request. Meanwhile, Spartan and Huxley review the cryo-prison records and find that instead of the normal rehabilitation program, Phoenix had been given the information necessary for his escape by Cocteau directly. They also discover information directing Phoenix towards Friendly, and go off to warn him.\n\nAt the Scraps' underground base, Friendly is initially distrustful but Spartan is able to convince him of the threat and takes sympathy in their cause given what he has seen above ground. When Phoenix and his gang attack, Spartan and the Scraps ward off the attack, leading to a car chase between Spartan and Phoenix. During the chase, Phoenix taunts Spartan by revealing that he had killed the hostages before Spartan had arrived in 1996. Phoenix escapes while Spartan comes to terms that he had been wrongly charged with the crime. Meanwhile, Friendly and the Scraps work with the police to try to help stop Phoenix and his gang of cryo-cons.\n\nPhoenix returns to Dr. Cocteau with his gang, and as the rehabilitation programming prevents him from killing Cocteau, orders one of his gang to do so. Spartan and Huxley arrive soon after, finding that Phoenix has already left to release more prisoners. Spartan enters the prison alone to fight Phoenix, engages in a violent fight that ravages the facility, and eventually uses the cryogenic chemical to freeze Phoenix before shattering him. Spartan escapes the prison before it explodes and regroups with the police and the Scraps. The police fear the loss of Cocteau will send their society into a downward spiral, but Spartan suggests that they and the Scraps work together to recreate a society that returns some of the personal freedoms that were lost. He then kisses Huxley and the two go off together.\n\nCast\n\n* Sylvester Stallone as Sergeant John Spartan\n* Wesley Snipes as Simon Phoenix\n* Sandra Bullock as Lieutenant Lenina Huxley \n* Nigel Hawthorne as Doctor Raymond Cocteau \n* Benjamin Bratt as Officer Alfredo Garcia \n* Denis Leary as Edgar Friendly\n* Rob Schneider as Erwin (uncredited) \n* Bill Cobbs as Zachary Lamb (old)\n* Grand L. Bush as Zachary Lamb (young)\n* Bob Gunton as Chief George Earle \n* Glenn Shadix as Associate Bob\n* Trent Walker as Boggle Guard \n* Troy Evans as James MacMillan\n* David Patrick Kelly as Leon\n* Steve Kahan as Captain Healy\n* Andre Gregory as Warden William Smithers\n* Jack Black as Wasteland Scrap \n* Jesse Ventura as Adam, Cryocon Ally\n* Brandy Ledford as \"wrong number\" video phone girl\n\nBullock replaced original actress Lori Petty in the role of Lenina Huxley after a few days filming. Her character's name is a reference to Aldous Huxley, the author of Brave New World, and Lenina Crowne, a character in Brave New World.\n\nOriginally Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal were offered lead roles in the film. The role of Simon Phoenix was also offered to Jackie Chan. \n\nProduction\n\nGeneral Motors provided the production team with 18 concept vehicles, including the Ultralite concept vehicle. More than 20 fiberglass replicas of the Ultralite were produced to portray civilian and SAPD patrol vehicles in the film. After filming had completed, the remaining Ultralites were returned to Michigan as part of GM's concept vehicle fleet. \n\nThe film featured the actual demolition of one of the buildings of the famed, no longer operative Belknap Hardware and Manufacturing Company in Louisville, Kentucky.\n\nOne of the film's focal points is Taco Bell being the sole surviving restaurant chain in the world. Because Taco Bell is not widely available outside the U.S., the European version substitutes it with Pizza Hut, with lines re-dubbed and logos changed during post-production. \n\nThe film predicts Arnold Schwarzenegger as a politician, here as president, before he served two terms as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011.\n\nPlagiarism controversy\n\nHungarian science fiction writer István Nemere says that most of Demolition Man is based on his novel Holtak harca (Fight of the Dead), published in 1986. In the novel, a terrorist and his enemy, a counter-terrorism soldier, are cryogenically frozen and awakened in the 22nd century to find violence has been purged from society. Nemere claimed that a committee proved that 75% of the film is identical to the book. He chose not to initiate a lawsuit, as it would have been too expensive for him to hire a lawyer and fight against major Hollywood forces in the United States. He also claimed that Hollywood has plagiarized works of many Eastern European writers after the fall of the Iron Curtain, and that he knows the person he claims to be responsible for illegally selling his idea to the filmmakers. \nSoundtrack\n\nThe title theme is a heavier remix of the song originally recorded by Grace Jones and written by Sting during his time as frontman for The Police. The song was first released in March 1981, as an advance single from Jones's fifth album, Nightclubbing. Sting released an EP featuring this song and other live tracks, entitled Demolition Man.\n\nElliot Goldenthal composed the score for the film. It was his second big Hollywood project after the Alien³ score.\n\nRelease \n\nThe film debuted at No. 1 at the box office. Demolition Man grossed $58,055,768 by the end of its box office run in North America and $159,055,768 worldwide. \n\nWarner Bros. released it on VHS in March 1994, on DVD in October 1997 and 2014, and on Blu-ray in August 2011. \n\nReception\n\nRotten Tomatoes gives the film a 64% rating based on 36 reviews. The site's consensus reads: \"A better-than-average sci-fi shoot-em-up with a satirical undercurrent, Demolition Man is bolstered by strong performances by Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, and Sandra Bullock.\" The film scored a 34/100 on Metacritic based on 9 reviews. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film fails to give actions fans what they desire, instead substituting out-of-place satirical commentary. Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it \"a significant artifact of our time or, at least, of this week\". Richard Schickel of Time wrote, \"Some sharp social satire is almost undermined by excessive explosions and careless casting.\" \n\nAdaptations\n\nLiterature\n\nA four-part limited-series comic adaptation was published by DC Comics starting in November 1993. A novelization, written by Robert Tine, was also published in October 1993.\n\nGames\n\nAcclaim Entertainment and Virgin Interactive released Demolition Man on various home video game systems. The 16-bit versions were shooting games distributed by Acclaim. The 3DO version is a multi-genre game that incorporates Full Motion Video scenes, with both Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes reprising their roles as their characters in scenes that were filmed exclusively for the game.\n\nIn April 1994, Williams released a widebody pinball machine, Demolition Man based on the movie. It is designed by Dennis Nordman. The game features sound clips from the movie, as well as original speech by Stallone and Snipes. This game was part of WMS' SuperPin series (Twilight Zone, Indiana Jones, etc.)." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "2032", "two thousand and thirty-two" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "2032", "two thousand and thirty two" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "2032", "type": "Numerical", "value": "2032" }
What was the name of the butler in The Rocky Horror Picture Show?	tc_1197	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "The_Rocky_Horror_Picture_Show.txt" ], "title": [ "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" ], "wiki_context": [ "The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 British musical comedy horror film directed by Jim Sharman. The screenplay was written by Sharman and Richard O'Brien based on the 1973 musical stage production The Rocky Horror Show, music, book and lyrics by O'Brien. The production is a parody tribute to the science fiction and horror B movies of the 1930s through early 1970s. The film stars Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick along with cast members from the original Royal Court Theatre, Roxy Theatre and Belasco Theatre productions.\n\nThe story centres on a young engaged couple whose car breaks down in the rain near a castle where they seek a telephone to call for help. The castle is occupied by strangers in elaborate costumes celebrating an annual convention. They discover the head of the house is Frank N. Furter, an apparent mad scientist who actually is an alien transvestite who creates a living muscle man in his laboratory. The couple is seduced separately by the mad scientist and eventually released by the servants who take control.\n\nThe film was shot in the United Kingdom at Bray Studios and on location at an old country estate named Oakley Court, best known for its earlier use by Hammer Film Productions. A number of props and set pieces were reused from the Hammer horror films. Although the film is both a parody and tribute to many of the kitsch science fiction and horror films, costume designer Sue Blane conducted no research for her designs. Blane stated that costumes from the film have directly impacted the development of punk music fashion trends such as ripped fishnets and dyed hair.\n\nAlthough largely critically panned on initial release, it soon became known as a midnight movie when audiences began participating with the film at the Waverly Theater in New York City in 1976. Audience members returned to the cinemas frequently and talked back to the screen and began dressing as the characters, spawning similar performance groups across the United States. At almost the same time, fans in costume at the King's Court Theater in Pittsburgh began performing alongside the film. This \"shadow cast\" mimed the actions on screen above and behind them, while lip-syncing their character's lines. Still in limited release four decades after its premiere, it is the longest-running theatrical release in film history. Today, the film has a large international following. It was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2005.\n\nThe film's creative team also produced Shock Treatment in 1981, a standalone feature using the characters of Brad and Janet and featuring some of the same cast. This second film was produced as a musical stage production for a 2015 premier on the London stage. A modern-day reimagining of the film, directed by Kenny Ortega and us the original script from the film, is set to air on television in October 2016. The special will feature an ensemble cast starring Laverne Cox as Dr. Frank N. Furter, Ryan McCartan and Victoria Justice as Brad and Janet, and Tim Curry as The Criminologist.\n\nPlot\n\nA criminologist narrates the tale of the newly engaged couple Brad Majors and Janet Weiss who find themselves lost and with a flat tire on a cold and rainy late November evening, somewhere near Denton, Ohio. Seeking a telephone, the couple walk to a nearby castle where they discover a group of strange and outlandish people who are holding an Annual Transylvanian Convention. They are soon swept into the world of Dr. Frank N. Furter, a self-proclaimed \"sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania\". The ensemble of convention attendees also includes servants Riff Raff, his sister Magenta, and a groupie named Columbia.\n\nIn his lab, Frank claims to have discovered the \"secret to life itself\". His creation, Rocky, is brought to life. The ensuing celebration is soon interrupted by Eddie (an ex-delivery boy, both Frank and Columbia's ex-lover, as well as partial brain donor to Rocky) who rides out of a deep freeze on a motorcycle. In a jealous rage, Frank corners him and kills him with an ice axe. He then departs with Rocky to a bridal suite.\n\nBrad and Janet are shown to separate bedrooms where each is visited and seduced by Frank, who poses as Brad (when visiting Janet) and then as Janet (when visiting Brad). Janet, upset and emotional, wanders off to look for Brad, who she discovers, via a television monitor, is in bed with Frank. She then discovers Rocky, cowering in his birth tank, hiding from Riff Raff, who has been tormenting him. While tending to his wounds, Janet becomes intimate with Rocky, as Magenta and Columbia watch from their bedroom monitor.\n\nAfter discovering that his creation is missing, Frank returns to the lab with Brad and Riff Raff, where Frank learns that an intruder has entered the building. Brad and Janet's old high school science teacher, Dr. Everett Scott, has come looking for his nephew, Eddie. Frank suspects that Dr. Scott investigates UFOs for the government. Upon learning of Brad and Janet's connection to Dr. Scott, Frank suspects them of working for him. Frank, Dr. Scott, Brad, and Riff Raff then discover Janet and Rocky together under the sheets in Rocky's birth tank, upsetting Frank and Brad. Magenta interrupts the reunion by sounding a massive gong and stating that dinner is prepared.\n\nRocky and the guests share an uncomfortable dinner, which they soon realize has been prepared from Eddie's mutilated remains. Janet runs screaming into Rocky's arms and is slapped and chased through the halls of the castle by a jealous Frank. Janet, Brad, Dr. Scott, Rocky and Columbia all meet in Frank's lab, where Frank captures them with the Medusa Transducer, transforming them into nude statues. After dressing them in cabaret costume, Frank \"unfreezes\" them, from which they spontaneously perform a live cabaret floor show with Frank as the leader.\n\nRiff Raff and Magenta interrupt the performance, revealing themselves and Frank to be aliens from the planet Transsexual in the galaxy of Transylvania. They stage a coup and announce a plan to return to their homeworld. In the process, they kill Columbia, Rocky and Frank, who has \"failed his mission\". They release Brad, Janet and Dr. Scott, then depart by lifting off in the castle itself. The survivors are then left crawling in the dirt, and the narrator concludes that the human race is equivalent to insects crawling on the planet's surface.\n\nCast\n\n* Tim Curry as Dr. Frank N. Furter, a scientist\n* Susan Sarandon as Janet Weiss, a heroine\n* Barry Bostwick as Brad Majors, a hero\n* Richard O'Brien as Riff Raff, a handyman\n* Patricia Quinn as Magenta, a domestic\n* Nell Campbell as Columbia, a groupie\n* Jonathan Adams as Dr. Everett V. Scott, a rival scientist\n* Peter Hinwood as Rocky Horror, a creation\n* Meat Loaf as Eddie, an ex-delivery boy\n* Charles Gray as The Criminologist, an expert\n* Jeremy Newson as Ralph Hapschatt\n* Hilary Labow as Betty Hapschatt (née Munroe)\n\nProduction\n\nConcept and development\n\nRichard O'Brien was living as an unemployed actor in London during the early 1970s. He wrote most of The Rocky Horror Show during one winter just to occupy himself. Since his youth, O'Brien had loved science fiction and B horror movies. He wanted to combine elements of the unintentional humour of B horror movies, portentous dialogue of schlock-horror, Steve Reeves muscle flicks and fifties rock and roll into his musical.\n\nO'Brien showed a portion of the unfinished script to Australian director Jim Sharman, who decided to direct it at the small experimental space Upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, Chelsea, London, which was used as a project space for new work. O'Brien had appeared briefly in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar, directed by Sharman and the two also worked together in Sam Shepard's The Unseen Hand. Sharman would bring in production designer Brian Thomson. The original creative team was then rounded out by costume designer Sue Blane and musical director Richard Hartley, and stage producer Michael White was also brought in to produce. As the musical went into rehearsal, the working title, They Came from Denton High, was changed just before previews at the suggestion of Sharman to The Rocky Horror Show. \n\nHaving premiered in the small sixty-seat Royal Court Theatre, it quickly moved to larger venues in London, transferring to the 230-seat Chelsea Classic Cinema on Kings Road on 14 August 1973, before finding a quasi-permanent home at the 500-seat King's Road Theatre from 3 November 1973, running for six years. The musical made its U.S. debut in Los Angeles in 1974 before being played in New York City as well as other cities. Producer and Ode Records owner Lou Adler attended the London production in the winter of 1973, escorted by friend Britt Ekland. He immediately decided to purchase the U.S. theatrical rights. His production would be staged at his Roxy Theatre in L.A. In 1975, The Rocky Horror Show premiered on Broadway at the 1,000-seat Belasco Theatre. \n\nFilming and locations\n\nThe film was shot at Bray Studios, and Oakley Court, a country house near Maidenhead, Berkshire, England and Elstree Studios for post production, from 21 October to 19 December 1974. Oakley Court, built in 1857 in the Victorian Gothic style, is known for a number of Hammer films. Much of the location shooting took place there, although at the time the manor was not in good condition. Fox insisted on casting the two characters of Brad and Janet with American actors, Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon. Filming took place during autumn, which made conditions worse, and during filming, Sarandon fell ill with pneumonia. Filming of the laboratory scene and the title character's creation occurred on 30 October 1974. \n\nThe film is both a parody and tribute to many of the science fiction and horror movies from the 1930s up to the 1970s. The film production retains many aspects from the stage version such as production design and music, but adds new scenes not featured in the original stage play. The film's plot, setting, and style echo those of the Hammer Horror films, which had their own instantly recognizable style (just as Universal Studios' horror films did). The originally proposed opening sequence was to contain clips of various films mentioned in the lyrics, as well as the first few sequences shot in black and white, but this was deemed too expensive, and scrapped.\n\nCostumes, make-up and props\n\nIn the stage productions, actors generally did their own make-up; however, for the film, the producers chose Pierre La Roche, who had previously been a make-up artist for Mick Jagger, to redesign the make-up for each character. Production stills were taken by rock photographer Mick Rock, who has published a number of books from his work. In Rocky Horror; From Concept to Cult, designer Sue Blane discusses the Rocky Horror costumes' influence on punk music style. \"[It was a] big part of the build-up [to punk].\" She states that ripped fishnet stockings, glitter and coloured hair were directly attributable to Rocky Horror.\n\nSome of the costumes from the film had been originally used in the stage production. Props and set pieces were reused from old Hammer horror productions and others. The tank and dummy used for Rocky's birth originally appeared in The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958). These references to earlier productions, in addition to cutting costs, enhanced the cult status of the film. \n\nCostume designer Sue Blane was not keen on working for the film until she became aware that Curry, an old friend, was committed to the project. Curry and Blane had worked together in Glasgow's Citizens Theatre in a production of The Maids, where Curry had worn a woman's corset in the production. Blane arranged it with the theatre to loan her the corset from the other production for Rocky Horror. Blane admits that she did not conduct research for her designing and had never seen a science fiction film, and is acutely aware that her costumes for Brad and Janet may have been generalizations.\n\nThe budget for the film's costumes was $1,600, far more than the stage production budget, but having to double up on costumes for filming was expensive. For filming, corsets for the finale had to be doubled for the pool scene, with one version drying while the other was worn on set. While many of the costumes are exact replicas from the stage productions, other costumes were new to filming, such as Columbia's gold sequined swallow-tail coat and top hat and Magenta's maid's uniform.\n\nBlane was amazed by the recreation and understanding of her designs by fans. When she first heard that people were dressing up, she thought it would be tacky, but she was surprised to see the depth to which the fans went to recreate her designs. Rocky Horror fan Mina Credeur, who designs costumes and performed as Columbia for Houston’s performance group, states that \"the best part is when everyone leaves with a big smile on their face\", noting that there's \"such a kitschiness and campiness that it seems to be winking at you\". The film still plays at many theatre locations, and Rocky Horror costumes are often made for Halloween, although many require much time and effort to make. \n\nTitle sequence\n\nThe film starts with the screen fading to black and over-sized, disembodied female lips appear overdubbed with a male voice, establishing the androgynous theme to be repeated as the film unfolds. The opening scene and song, \"Science Fiction/Double Feature\", consists of the lips of Patricia Quinn (who appears in the film later as the character Magenta), but has the vocals of actor and Rocky Horror creator, Richard O'Brien (who appears as Magenta's brother Riff Raff). The lyrics reference science fiction and horror films of the past and list several film titles from the 1930s to the 1970s, including The Day the Earth Stood Still, Flash Gordon, The Invisible Man, King Kong, It Came from Outer Space, Doctor X, Forbidden Planet, Tarantula, The Day of the Triffids, Curse of the Demon and When Worlds Collide. The disembodied lips are featured on posters and other merchandise for the film, with the tagline \"A Different Set of Jaws\", a spoof of the poster for the film Jaws, which was also produced in 1975.\n\nMusic\n\nThe soundtrack was released in 1975 by Ode Records and produced by Richard Hartley. The album peaked at #49 on the Billboard 200 in 1978. It reached No. 40 on the Australian albums chart and No. 11 on the New Zealand albums chart. The album is described as the \"definitive version of the [Rocky Horror] score.\"\n\n# \"Science Fiction/Double Feature\" - The Lips (those of Patricia Quinn; voice of Richard O'Brien)\n# \"Dammit Janet\" - Brad, Janet, and Chorus\n# \"There's a Light (Over at the Frankenstein Place)\" - Janet, Brad, Riff Raff, and Chorus\n# \"The Time Warp\" - Riff Raff, Magenta, The Criminologist, Columbia, and Transylvanians\n# \"Sweet Transvestite\" - Frank\n# \"The Sword of Damocles\" - Rocky and Transylvanians\n# \"I Can Make You a Man\" - Frank with Brad, Janet, Riff Raff, Magenta, and Columbia\n# \"Hot Patootie – Bless My Soul\" - Eddie and Transylvanians\n# \"I Can Make You a Man\" (reprise) - Frank, Janet, and Transylvanians\n# \"Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me\" - Janet with Magenta, Columbia, Rocky, Brad, Frank, and Riff Raff\n# \"Once in a While\" (deleted scene) - Brad\n# \"Eddie\" - Dr. Scott, The Criminologist, Janet, Frank, Rocky, Brad, Riff Raff, and Magenta\n# \"Planet Schmanet Janet (Wise Up Janet Weiss)\" - Frank, Janet, Brad, and Dr. Scott\n# \"Rose Tint My World\" - Columbia, Rocky, Janet, and Brad\n# \"Fanfare/Don't Dream It, Be It\" - Frank with Brad, Janet, Rocky, and Columbia\n# \"Wild and Untamed Thing\" - Frank with Brad, Janet, Rocky, Columbia, and Riff Raff\n# \"I'm Going Home\" - Frank and Chorus\n# \"The Time Warp\" (reprise) - Riff Raff and Magenta\n# \"Super Heroes\" (only present in the original UK release) - Brad, Janet, and Chorus\n# \"Science Fiction/Double Feature\" (reprise) - The Lips\n\nRelease\n\nThe film opened in the United Kingdom at Rialto Theater in London 14 August 1975 and in the United States on 26 September, premiering at the UA Westwood in Los Angeles, California. It did well at that location, but not elsewhere. Prior to the midnight screenings' success, the film was withdrawn from its eight opening cities due to very small audiences, and its planned New York City opening on Halloween night was cancelled. Fox re-released the film around college campuses on a double-bill with another rock music film parody, Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise, but again it drew small audiences.\n\nWith Pink Flamingos (1972) and Reefer Madness (1936) making money in midnight showings nationwide, a Fox executive, Tim Deegan, was able to talk distributors into midnight screenings, starting in New York City on April Fools' Day of 1976. The cult following started shortly after the film began its midnight run at the Waverly Theater in New York City.Rocky Horror was not only found in the larger cities but throughout the United States where many attendees would get in free if they arrived in costume. The western division of the film's release included The U.A. Cinema in Fresno and Merced, The Cinema J in Sacramento, California and the Covell in Modesto. In New Orleans, an early organized performance group was active with the release there as well as in such cities as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Chicago (at the Biograph Theater). Before long nearly every screening of the film was accompanied by a live fan cast.\n\nThe film is considered to be the longest-running release in film history. It has never been pulled by 20th Century Fox from its original 1975 release, and it continues to play in cinemas.\n\nHome media\n\nA Super 8 version of selected scenes of the film was made available. In 1983, Ode Records released \"The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Audience Par-Tic-I-Pation Album\", recorded at the 8th Street Playhouse. The recording consisted of the film's audio and the standardized call-backs from the audience. \n\nA home video release was made available in 1987 in the UK. In the US, the film (including documentary footage and extras) was released on VHS in 1990, retailing for $89.95 and had its US broadcast premiere on the Fox Broadcasting Company, including audience participation edited into the film, on October 25, 1993.\n\nThe film was released on DVD in 2000 for the film's 25th anniversary. A 35th Anniversary edition Blu-ray was released in the US on October 19, 2010. The disc includes a newly created 7.1 surround sound mix, the original theatrical mono sound mix, and a 4K/2K image transfer from the original camera negative. In addition, new content featuring karaoke and a fan performance were included. \n\nReception and reaction\n\nCritical reception\n\nChicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert noted that when first released, The Rocky Horror Picture Show was \"ignored by pretty much everyone, including the future fanatics who would eventually count the hundreds of times they'd seen it\". He considered it more a \"long-running social phenomenon\" than a movie, rating it 2.5 out of 4 stars. Bill Henkin noted that Variety thought that the \"campy hijinks\" of the film seemed labored, and also mentioned that the San Francisco Chronicle John Wasserman, who had liked the stage play in London, found the film \"lacking both charm and dramatic impact\". Newsweek called the film \"tasteless, plotless and pointless\" in 1978. \n\nReview aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 80% based on 41 reviews. A number of contemporary critics find it compelling and enjoyable because of its offbeat and bizarre qualities; the BBC summarized: \"for those willing to experiment with something a little bit different, a little bit outré, The Rocky Horror Picture Show has a lot to offer\". The New York Times called it a \"low-budget freak show/cult classic/cultural institution\" and considered the songs featured in the film to be \"catchy\". Geoff Andrew of Time Out noted that the \"string of hummable songs gives it momentum, Gray's admirably straight-faced narrator holds it together, and a run on black lingerie takes care of almost everything else\", rating it 4 out of 5 stars. Dave Kehr of Chicago Reader on the other hand considered the wit to be \"too weak to sustain a film\", and thought that the \"songs all sound the same\". \n\nIn 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\". \n\nCult phenomenon\n\nNew York City origins\n\nThe Rocky Horror Picture Show helped shape conditions of cult film's transition from art-house to grind-house style. The film developed a cult following in 1976 at the Waverly Theatre in New York, which developed into a standardized ritual. According to J. Hoberman, author of Midnight Movies, it was after five months into the film's midnight run when lines began to be shouted by the audience. Louis Farese Jr., a normally quiet teacher who, upon seeing the character Janet place a newspaper over her head to protect herself from rain yelled, \"Buy an umbrella you cheap bitch\". Originally Louis and along with the other Rocky Horror pioneers Amy Lazarus, Theresa Krakauskas and Bill O'Brian who all sat in the balcony, did this to entertain each other. Each week trying to come up with something new to make each other laugh. This quickly caught on with other theater goers and thus began this self-proclaimed \"counter point dialogue\" became standard practice and was repeated nearly verbatim at each screening. Performance groups became a staple at Rocky Horror screenings due in large part to the prominent New York City fan cast, and fans are credited with the talk back lines. The cast was originally run by former schoolteacher and stand-up comic, Sal Piro and friend Dori Hartley. Dori was one of several performers in a flexible, rotating cast to portray the character of Frank N. Furter, shadowing the film above.\nThe performances of the audience was scripted and actively discouraged improvising, being conformist in a similar way to the repressed characters. \n\nOn Halloween in 1976, people attended in costume and talked back to the screen, and by mid-1978, Rocky Horror was playing in over 50 locations on Fridays and Saturdays at midnight. Newsletters were published by local performance groups, and fans gathered for Rocky Horror conventions. By the end of 1979, there were twice-weekly showings at over 230 theatres. The National Fan Club was established in 1977 and later merged with the International Fan Club. The fan publication The Transylvanian printed a number of issues, and a semi-regular poster magazine was published as well as an official magazine. \n\nLos Angeles, Hollywood\n\nThe Los Angeles area performance groups originated in 1977 at the Fox Theatre, where Michael Wolfson won a look-alike contest as Frank N. Furter, and won another at the Tiffany Theater on Sunset Boulevard. Wolfson's group eventually performed in all of the LA area theaters screening Rocky Horror, including the Balboa Theater in Balboa, The Cove at Hermosa Beach and The Sands in Glendale. He was invited to perform at the Sombrero Playhouse in Phoenix, Arizona.\n\nAt the Tiffany Theatre, the audience performance cast had the theater's full cooperation; the local performers entered early and without charge. The fan playing Frank for this theatre was a transgender performer, D. Garret Gafford, who was out of work in 1978 and trying to raise enough funds for a sex change operation while spending the weekends performing at the Tiffany.\n\nSan Francisco\n\nIn San Francisco, Rocky Horror moved from one location to the Strand Theatre located near the Tenderloin on Market Street. The performance group there would act out and perform almost the entire film, unlike the New York cast at that time. The Strand cast was put together from former members of the Berkeley group, disbanded due to less than enthusiastic management. Their Frank N. Furter was portrayed by Marni Scofidio, who, in 1979, attracted many of the older groups from Berkeley. Other members included Mishell Erickson and her twin sister Denise Erickson who portrayed Columbia and Magenta, Kathy Dolan playing Janet and Linda Woods as Riff Raff. The Strand group had performed at two large science fiction conventions in Los Angeles and San Francisco. They were offered a spot at The Mabuhay, a local punk club, and even performed for children's television of Argentina.\n\nFan following\n\nRocky Horror is one of the last few western rites left that pertain to the carnivalesque. Annual Rocky Horror conventions are held in varying locations lasting days. Tucson, Arizona has been host a number of times, including 1999 with “El Fishnet Fiesta”, and “Queens of the Desert” held in 2006. To the fans, Rocky Horror is ritualistic and comparable to a religious event, with a compulsive, repeated cycle of going home and coming back to see the film each weekend. The audience call backs are similar to responses in church during a mass. Many theatre troupes exist across the United States that produce shadow-cast performances where the actors play each part in the film in full costume and props, and the movie plays on the big screen in a movie theatre. These showings are typically once a week or once a month on a Saturday at midnight.\n\nThe film has a global following and remains popular well into the 21st century. Sub cultures such as Rocky Horror have also found a place on the internet. Audience participation scripts for many cities are available to download on the Internet. The internet has a number of Rocky Horror fan run websites with various quizzes and information specializing in different content allowing fans to participate at a unique level.\n\nSequels\n\nIn 1981, Sharman reunited with O'Brien to do Shock Treatment, a stand-alone feature that was not a direct sequel to the original film. This film reunites characters Brad and Janet and was originally conceived and written to depict the characters filmed in normal settings until the production changed to work around a Screen Actor's Guild strike. The eventual production would now entail the full film being shot entirely within a sound stage and purposely blending that into the story line. Shock Treatment has a cult following but not nearly as strong as the first film, and was a commercial failure in no small part due to the principal cast of Curry, Sarandon and Bostwick not returning. \n\nTen years later, O'Brien wrote another script intended as a direct sequel to the cult classic entitled Revenge of the Old Queen. Producer Michael White had hoped to begin work on the production and described the script as being \"in the same style as the other one. It has reflections of the past in it.\" Although the script has not been published, bootleg copies can be read on the Internet. The script is currently owned by Fox, which produced the two original films. Most individuals associated with the project, including O'Brien, agree that the film will probably never be made, owing to the failure of Shock Treatment and the aging of the cast. \n\nIn 2014, it was announced that O'Brien would produce Shock Treatment for the theatrical stage. The production will premiere at the King’s Head theatre in Islington, London in the United Kingdom in the spring of 2015. \n\nRemake\n\nOn 10 April 2015, it was announced that the Fox Broadcasting Company would air a modern-day reimagining of the film, tentatively titled The Rocky Horror Picture Show Event. On 22 October 2015, it was announced that the role of Dr. Frank N. Furter will be played by actress Laverne Cox. Ryan McCartan and Victoria Justice will play the roles of Brad and Janet, alongside Reeve Carney as Riff Raff and singer/model Staz Nair as Rocky. Adam Lambert will portray Eddie. Tim Curry, who portrayed Dr. Frank N. Furter in the film, will portray The Criminologist. On 1 February 2016, it was announced that Broadway veteran Annaleigh Ashford will portray Columbia. On 5 February 2016, Ben Vereen joined the cast as Dr. Everett von Scott.\n\nKenny Ortega, best known for the High School Musical franchise and Michael Jackson's This Is It, will direct, choreograph and executive-produce; Lou Adler, who was an executive producer on the original film, will have the same role on the new film, which is set to air on Fox in the fall of 2016. \n\nCultural impact\n\nThe Rocky Horror Picture Show has been featured in a number of other feature films and television series over the years. Episodes of The Venture Bros. Glee, The Drew Carey Show, That '70s Show and American Dad! spotlight Rocky Horror, as well as films like Vice Squad, Halloween II and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The 1980 film Fame featured the audience reciting their callback lines to the screen and dancing the Time Warp, the dance from the stage show and film, which has become a common novelty dance at parties. \n\n\"The Rocky Horror Glee Show\" aired on October 26, 2010 as part of the second season of the TV series Glee, which recreated several scenes from the film, including the opening credits, and featured Barry Bostwick and Meat Loaf in cameo roles. \n\n\"Bisexuality, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Me\", by Elizabeth Reba Weise, is a piece in Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out (1991), an anthology edited by Loraine Hutchins and Lani Ka'ahumanu which is one of the seminal books in the history of the modern bisexual rights movement. \n\nRocky Horror remains a cultural phenomenon in both the U.S. and U.K. Cult film participants are often people on the fringe of society that find connection and community at the screenings although the film attracts fans of differing backgrounds all over the world." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Riffraff", "Riff Raff", "Riff Raff (magazine)", "Riff-raff", "Riff Raff (disambiguation)" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "riff raff", "riff raff magazine", "riffraff", "riff raff disambiguation" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "riff raff", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Riff Raff" }
What was the real first name of the silent Marx Brother?	tc_1198	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "Search", "Search" ], "filename": [ "Marx_Brothers.txt", "Harpo_Marx.txt" ], "title": [ "Marx Brothers", "Harpo Marx" ], "wiki_context": [ "The Marx Brothers were a family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. Five of the Marx Brothers' thirteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) as among the top 100 comedy films, with two of them (Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera) in the top twelve. The brothers were included in AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list of the 25 greatest male stars of Classic Hollywood cinema, the only performers to be inducted collectively.\n\nThe group are almost universally known today by their stage names: Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, and Zeppo Marx. The core of the act was the three elder brothers: Chico, Harpo, and Groucho. Each developed a highly distinctive stage persona.\n\nHarpo and Chico \"more or less retired\" after 1949, while Groucho went on to begin a second career in television. The two younger brothers Gummo and Zeppo did not develop their stage characters to the same extent. The two eventually left the act to pursue business careers at which they were successful, as well as a large theatrical agency for a time, through which they represented their brothers and others. Gummo was not in any of the movies; Zeppo appeared in the first five films in relatively straight (non-comedic) roles. The performing lives of the brothers were brought about by their mother Minnie Marx, who also acted as their manager.\n\nBrothers' names, family background, and lifetimes\n\nThe Marx Brothers were five brothers born to U.S. immigrants Miene \"Minnie\" Schoenberg (professionally known as Minnie Palmer, who acted as their manager) and Samuel (born \"Simon\", nicknamed \"Frenchy\") Marx. The brothers are best known by their stage names:\n\nA sixth brother Manfred (\"Mannie\") was actually the first son of Sam and Minnie, who was born in 1886 and died in infancy, though an online family tree states that he was born in 1885: \n\"Family lore told privately of the firstborn son, Manny, born in 1886 but surviving for only three months, and carried off by tuberculosis. Even some members of the Marx family wondered if he was pure myth. But Manfred can be verified. A death certificate of the Borough of Manhattan reveals that he died, aged seven months, on 17 July 1886, of enterocolitis, with 'asthenia' contributing, i.e., probably a victim of influenza. He is buried at New York's Washington Cemetery, beside his grandmother, Fanny Sophie Schönberg (née Salomons), who died on 10 April 1901.\" \n\nMinnie Marx came from a family of performers. Her mother was a yodeling harpist and her father a ventriloquist; both were funfair entertainers. Around 1880, the family emigrated to New York City, where Minnie married Sam in 1884. During the early 20th century, Minnie helped her younger brother Abraham Elieser Adolf (stage name Al Shean) to enter show business; he became highly successful on vaudeville and Broadway as half of the musical comedy double act Gallagher and Shean, and this gave the brothers an entree to musical comedy, vaudeville,and Broadway at Minnie's instigation. Minnie also acted as the brothers' manager, using the name Minnie Palmer so that agents would not realize that she was also their mother. All the brothers confirmed that Minnie Marx had been the head of the family and the driving force in getting the troupe launched, the only person who could keep them in order; she was said to be a hard bargainer with theatre management.\n. \n\nGummo and Zeppo both became successful businessmen: Gummo gained success through his agency activities and a raincoat business, and Zeppo became a multi-millionaire through his engineering business.[http://www.50sville.com/marman.html Marman Twin – Herbert Zeppo Marx – Marx Brothers] \n\nEarly life\n\nThe Marx Brothers were born in New York City, the sons of Jewish immigrants from Germany and France. Their mother Minnie Schönberg was from Dornum in East Frisia, and their father Simon Marx was a native of Alsace and worked as a tailor. (His name was changed to Samuel Marx, and he was nicknamed \"Frenchy\".) The family lived in the poor Yorkville section of New York City's Upper East Side, centered in the Irish, German, and Italian quarters.\n\nStage beginnings\n\nThe brothers were from a family of artists, and their musical talent was encouraged from an early age. Harpo was particularly talented, learning to play an estimated six different instruments throughout his career. He became a dedicated harpist, which gave him his nickname. Chico was an excellent pianist, Groucho a guitarist and singer, and Zeppo a vocalist.\n\nThey got their start in vaudeville, where their uncle Albert Schönberg performed as Al Shean of Gallagher and Shean. Groucho's debut was in 1905, mainly as a singer. By 1907, he and Gummo were singing together as \"The Three Nightingales\" with Mabel O'Donnell. The next year, Harpo became the fourth Nightingale and by 1910, the group briefly expanded to include their mother Minnie and their Aunt Hannah. The troupe was renamed \"The Six Mascots\".\n\nComedy\n\nOne evening in 1912, a performance at the Opera House in Nacogdoches, Texas was interrupted by shouts from outside about a runaway mule. The audience hurried out to see what was happening. Groucho was angered by the interruption and, when the audience returned, he made snide comments at their expense, including \"Nacogdoches is full of roaches\" and \"the jackass is the flower of Tex-ass\". Instead of becoming angry, the audience laughed. The family then realized that it had potential as a comic troupe. (However, in his autobiography Harpo Speaks, Harpo Marx states that the runaway mule incident occurred in Ada, Oklahoma. A 1930 article in the San Antonio Express newspaper states that the incident took place in Marshall, Texas. )\n\nThe act slowly evolved from singing with comedy to comedy with music. The brothers' sketch \"Fun in Hi Skule\" featured Groucho as a German-accented teacher presiding over a classroom that included students Harpo, Gummo, and Chico. The last version of the school act was titled Home Again and was written by their uncle Al Shean. The Home Again tour reached Flint, Michigan in 1915, where 14-year-old Zeppo joined his four brothers for what is believed to be the only time that all five Marx Brothers appeared together on stage. Then Gummo left to serve in World War I, reasoning that \"anything is better than being an actor!\" Zeppo replaced him in their final vaudeville years and in the jump to Broadway, and then to Paramount films.\n\nDuring World War I, anti-German sentiments were common, and the family tried to conceal its German origin. Mother Minnie learned that farmers were excluded from the draft rolls, so she purchased a 27 acre poultry farm near Countryside, Illinois — but the brothers soon found that chicken ranching was not in their blood. During this time, Groucho discontinued his \"German\" stage personality.\n\nBy this time, \"The Four Marx Brothers\" had begun to incorporate their unique style of comedy into their act and to develop their characters. Both Groucho's and Harpo's memoirs say that their now-famous on-stage personae were created by Al Shean. Groucho began to wear his trademark greasepaint mustache and to use a stooped walk. Harpo stopped speaking onstage and began to wear a red fright wig and carry a taxi-cab horn. Chico spoke with a fake Italian accent, developed off-stage to deal with neighborhood toughs, while Zeppo adopted the role of the romantic (and \"peerlessly cheesy\", according to James Agee) straight man.\n\nThe on-stage personalities of Groucho, Chico, and Harpo were said to have been based on their actual traits. Zeppo, on the other hand, was considered the funniest brother offstage, despite his straight stage roles. He was the youngest and had grown up watching his brothers, so he could fill in for and imitate any of the others when illness kept them from performing. \"He was so good as Captain Spaulding [in Animal Crackers] that I would have let him play the part indefinitely, if they had allowed me to smoke in the audience\", Groucho recalled. (Zeppo did impersonate Groucho in the film version of Animal Crackers. Groucho was unavailable to film the scene in which the Beaugard painting is stolen, so the script was contrived to include a power failure, which allowed Zeppo to play the Spaulding part in near-darkness.) In December 1917 the Marx brothers were noted in a advertisement playing in a musical comedy act \"Home Again\". \n\nBy the 1920s, the Marx Brothers had become one of America's favorite theatrical acts, with their sharp and bizarre sense of humor. They satirized high society and human hypocrisy, and they became famous for their improvisational comedy in free-form scenarios. A famous early instance was when Harpo arranged to chase a fleeing chorus girl across the stage during the middle of a Groucho monologue to see if Groucho would be thrown off. However, to the audience's delight, Groucho merely reacted by commenting, \"First time I ever saw a taxi hail a passenger\". When Harpo chased the girl back in the other direction, Groucho calmly checked his watch and ad-libbed, \"The 9:20's right on time. You can set your watch by the Lehigh Valley.\"\n\nThe brothers' vaudeville act had made them stars on Broadway under Chico's management and with Groucho's creative direction — first with the musical revue I'll Say She Is (1924–1925) and then with two musical comedies: The Cocoanuts (1925–1926) and Animal Crackers (1928–1929). Playwright George S. Kaufman worked on the last two and helped sharpen the brothers' characterizations.\n\nOut of their distinctive costumes, the brothers looked alike, even down to their receding hairlines. Zeppo could pass for a younger Groucho, and played the role of his son in Horse Feathers. A scene in Duck Soup finds Groucho, Harpo, and Chico all appearing in the famous greasepaint eyebrows, mustache, and round glasses while wearing nightcaps. The three are indistinguishable, enabling them to carry off the \"mirror scene\" perfectly.\n\nOrigin of the stage names\n\nThe stage names of the brothers (except Zeppo) were coined by monologist Art Fisher during a poker game in Galesburg, Illinois, based both on the brothers' personalities and Gus Mager's Sherlocko the Monk, a popular comic strip of the day which included a supporting character named \"Groucho\". As Fisher dealt each brother a card, he addressed him, for the very first time, by the names they would keep for the rest of their lives.\n\nThe reasons behind Chico's and Harpo's stage names are undisputed, and Gummo's is fairly well established. Groucho's and Zeppo's are far less clear. Arthur was named Harpo because he played the harp, and Leonard became Chico (pronounced \"Chick-o\") because he was, in the slang of the period, a \"chicken chaser\". (\"Chickens\"—later \"chicks\"—was period slang for women. \"In England now,\" said Groucho, \"they were called 'birds'.\") \n\nIn his autobiography, Harpo explains that Milton became Gummo because he crept about the theater like a gumshoe detective. Other sources report that Gummo was the family's hypochondriac, having been the sickliest of the brothers in childhood, and therefore wore rubber overshoes, called gumshoes, in all kinds of weather. Still others report that Milton was the troupe's best dancer, and dance shoes tended to have rubber soles. Groucho stated that the source of the name was Gummo wearing galoshes. Whatever the details, the name relates to rubber-soled shoes.\n\nThe reason that Julius was named Groucho is perhaps the most disputed. There are three explanations:\n\n* Julius' temperament: Maxine, Chico's daughter and Groucho's niece, said in the documentary The Unknown Marx Brothers that Julius was named \"Groucho\" simply because he was grouchy most or all of the time. Robert B. Weide, a director known for his knowledge of Marx Brothers history, said in Remarks On Marx (a documentary short included with the DVD of A Night at the Opera) that, among the competing explanations, he found this one to be the most believable. Steve Allen said in Funny People that the name made no sense; Groucho might have been impudent and impertinent, but not grouchy—at least not around Allen. However, at the very end of his life, Groucho finally admitted that Fisher had named him Groucho because he was the \"moody one\". \n* The grouch bag: This explanation appears in Harpo's biography; it was voiced by Chico in a TV appearance included on The Unknown Marx Brothers; and it was offered by George Fenneman, Groucho's sidekick on his TV game show You Bet Your Life. A grouch bag was a small drawstring bag worn around the neck in which a traveler could keep money and other valuables so that it would be very difficult for anyone to steal them. Most of Groucho's friends and associates stated that Groucho was extremely stingy, especially after losing all his money in the 1929 stock market crash, so naming him for the grouch bag may have been a comment on this trait. Groucho insisted that this was not the case in chapter six of his first autobiography:\n\nI kept my money in a 'grouch bag'. This was a small chamois bag that actors used to wear around their neck to keep other hungry actors from pinching their dough. Naturally, you're going to think that's where I got my name from. But that's not so. Grouch bags were worn on manly chests long before there was a Groucho. \n\n* Groucho's explanation: Groucho himself insisted that he was named for a character in the comic strip Knocko the Monk, which inspired the craze for nicknames ending in \"o\"; in fact, there was a character in that strip named \"Groucho\". However, he is the only Marx or Marx associate who defended this theory, and as he is not an unbiased witness, few biographers take the claim seriously.\n\nGroucho himself was no help on this point; he was discussing the Brothers' names during his Carnegie Hall concert, and he said of his own, \"My name, of course, I never did understand.\" He goes on to mention the possibility that he was named after his unemployed uncle Julius, who lived with his family. The family believed that he was actually a rich uncle hiding a fortune, and Groucho claimed that he may have been named after him by the family trying to get into the will. \"And he finally died, and he left us his will, and in that will he left three razor blades, an 8-ball, a celluloid dicky, and he owed my father $85 beside.\"\n\nHerbert was not nicknamed by Art Fisher, since he did not join the act until Gummo had departed. As with Groucho, three explanations exist for Herbert's name \"Zeppo\":\n\n* Harpo's explanation: Harpo said in Harpo Speaks! that the brothers had named Herbert for Mr. Zippo, a chimpanzee that was part of another performer's act. Herbert found the nickname very unflattering, and when it came time for him to join the act, he put his foot down and refused to be called \"Zippo\". The brothers compromised on \"Zeppo\".\n* Chico's explanation: Chico never wrote an autobiography and gave fewer interviews than his brothers, but his daughter Maxine said in The Unknown Marx Brothers that, when the brothers lived in Chicago, a popular style of humor was the \"Zeke and Zeb\" joke, which made fun of slow-witted Midwesterners in much the same way that Boudreaux and Thibodeaux jokes mock Cajuns and Ole and Lena jokes mock Minnesotans. One day, Chico returned home to find Herbert sitting on the fence. Herbert greeted him by saying \"Hi, Zeke!\" Chico responded with \"Hi, Zeb!\" and the name stuck. The brothers thereafter called him \"Zeb\" and, when he joined the act, they floated the idea of \"Zebbo\", eventually preferring \"Zeppo\".\n* Groucho's explanation: In a tape-recorded interview excerpted on The Unknown Marx Brothers, Groucho said that Zeppo was so named because he was born when the first zeppelins started crossing the ocean. He stated this in his Carnegie Hall concert, around 1972. The first zeppelin flew in July 1900, and Herbert was born seven months later in February 1901. However, the first transatlantic zeppelin flight was not until 1924, long after Herbert's birth.\n\nMaxine Marx reported in The Unknown Marx Brothers that the brothers listed their real names (Julius, Leonard, Adolph, Milton, and Herbert) on playbills and in programs, and only used the nicknames behind the scenes, until Alexander Woollcott overheard them calling one another by the nicknames. He asked them why they used their real names publicly when they had such wonderful nicknames, and they replied, \"That wouldn't be dignified.\" Woollcott answered with a belly laugh. Woollcott did not meet the Marx Brothers until the premiere of I'll Say She Is, which was their first Broadway show, so this would mean that they used their real names throughout their vaudeville days, and that the name \"Gummo\" never appeared in print during his time in the act. Other sources report that the Marx Brothers did go by their nicknames during their vaudeville era, but briefly listed themselves by their given names when I'll Say She Is opened because they were worried that a Broadway audience would reject a vaudeville act if they were perceived as low class. \n\nMotion pictures\n\nParamount\n\nThe Marx Brothers' stage shows became popular just as motion pictures were evolving to \"talkies\". They signed a contract with Paramount Pictures and embarked on their film career at Paramount's Astoria, New York, studios. Their first two released films (after an unreleased short silent film titled Humor Risk) were adaptations of the Broadway shows The Cocoanuts (1929) and Animal Crackers (1930). Both were written by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. Production then shifted to Hollywood, beginning with a short film that was included in Paramount's twentieth anniversary documentary, The House That Shadows Built (1931), in which they adapted a scene from I'll Say She Is. Their third feature-length film, Monkey Business (1931), was their first movie not based on a stage production.\n\nHorse Feathers (1932), in which the brothers satirized the American college system and Prohibition, was their most popular film yet, and won them the cover of Time. It included a running gag from their stage work, in which Harpo produces a ludicrous array of props from his coat, including a wooden mallet, a fish, a coiled rope, a tie, a poster of a woman in her underwear, a cup of hot coffee, a sword; and, just after Groucho warns him that he \"can't burn the candle at both ends,\" a candle burning at both ends.\n\nDuring this period Chico and Groucho starred in a radio comedy series, Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel. Though the series was short lived, much of the material developed for it was used in subsequent films. The show's scripts and recordings were believed lost until copies of the scripts were found in the Library of Congress in the 1980s. After publication in a book they were performed with Marx Brothers impersonators for BBC Radio. \n\nTheir last Paramount film, Duck Soup (1933), directed by the highly regarded Leo McCarey, is the highest rated of the five Marx Brothers films on the American Film Institute's \"100 years ... 100 Movies\" list. It did not do as well financially as Horse Feathers, but was the sixth-highest grosser of 1933. The film sparked a dispute between the Marxes and the village of Fredonia, New York. \"Freedonia\" was the name of a fictional country in the script, and the city fathers wrote to Paramount and asked the studio to remove all references to Freedonia because \"it is hurting our town's image\". Groucho fired back a sarcastic retort asking them to change the name of their town, because \"it's hurting our picture.\"\n\nMGM, RKO, and United Artists\n\nAfter expiration of the Paramount contract Zeppo left the act to become an agent. He and brother Gummo went on to build one of the biggest talent agencies in Hollywood, helping the likes of Jack Benny and Lana Turner get their starts. Groucho and Chico did radio, and there was talk of returning to Broadway. At a bridge game with Chico, Irving Thalberg began discussing the possibility of the Marxes joining Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. They signed, now billed as \"Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Marx Bros.\" \n\nUnlike the free-for-all scripts at Paramount, Thalberg insisted on a strong story structure that made the brothers more sympathetic characters, interweaving their comedy with romantic plots and non-comic musical numbers, and targeting their mischief-making at obvious villains. Thalberg was adamant that scripts include a \"low point\", where all seems lost for both the Marxes and the romantic leads. He instituted the innovation of testing the film's script before live audiences before filming began, to perfect the comic timing, and to retain jokes that earned laughs and replace those that did not. Thalberg restored Harpo's harp solos and Chico's piano solos, which had been omitted from Duck Soup.\n\nThe first Marx Brothers/Thalberg film was A Night at the Opera (1935), a satire on the world of opera, where the brothers help two young singers in love by throwing a production of Il Trovatore into chaos. The film—including its famous scene where an absurd number of people crowd into a tiny stateroom on a ship—was a great success, and was followed two years later by an even bigger hit, A Day at the Races (1937), in which the brothers cause mayhem in a sanitarium and at a horse race. The film features Groucho and Chico's famous \"Tootsie Frootsie Ice Cream\" sketch. In a 1969 interview with Dick Cavett, Groucho said that the two movies made with Thalberg were the best that they ever produced. Despite the Thalberg films' success, the brothers left MGM in 1937; Thalberg had died suddenly on September 14, 1936, two weeks after filming began on A Day at the Races, leaving the Marxes without an advocate at the studio.\n\nAfter a short experience at RKO (Room Service, 1938), the Marx Brothers returned to MGM and made three more films: At the Circus (1939), Go West (1940) and The Big Store (1941). Prior to the release of The Big Store the team announced they were retiring from the screen. Four years later, however, Chico persuaded his brothers to make two additional films, A Night in Casablanca (1946) and Love Happy (1949), to alleviate his severe gambling debts. Both pictures were released by United Artists.\n\nLater years\n\nFrom the 1940s onward Chico and Harpo appeared separately and together in nightclubs and casinos. Chico fronted a big band, the Chico Marx Orchestra (with 17-year-old Mel Tormé as a vocalist). Groucho made several radio appearances during the 1940s and starred in You Bet Your Life, which ran from 1947 to 1961 on NBC radio and television. He authored several books, including Groucho and Me (1959), Memoirs of a Mangy Lover (1964) and The Groucho Letters (1967).\n\nGroucho and Chico briefly appeared together in a 1957 short film promoting the Saturday Evening Post entitled \"Showdown at Ulcer Gulch,\" directed by animator Shamus Culhane, Chico's son-in-law. Groucho, Chico, and Harpo worked together (in separate scenes) in The Story of Mankind (1957). In 1959, the three began production of Deputy Seraph, a TV series starring Harpo and Chico as blundering angels, and Groucho (in every third episode) as their boss, the \"Deputy Seraph.\" The project was abandoned when Chico was found to be uninsurable (and incapable of memorizing his lines) due to severe arteriosclerosis. On March 8 of that year, Chico and Harpo starred as bumbling thieves in The Incredible Jewel Robbery, a half-hour pantomimed episode of the General Electric Theater on CBS. Groucho made a cameo appearance—uncredited, because of constraints in his NBC contract—in the last scene, and delivered the only line of dialogue (\"We won't talk until we see our lawyer!\").\n\nAccording to a September 1947 article in Newsweek, Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo all signed to appear as themselves in a biopic entitled The Life and Times of the Marx Brothers. In addition to being a non-fiction biography of the Marxes, the film would have featured the brothers reenacting much of their previously unfilmed material from both their vaudeville and Broadway eras. The film, had it been made, would have been the first performance by the Brothers as a quartet since 1933.\n\nThe five brothers made only one television appearance together, in 1957, on an early incarnation of The Tonight Show called Tonight! America After Dark, hosted by Jack Lescoulie. Five years later (October 1, 1962) after Jack Paar's tenure, Groucho made a guest appearance to introduce the Tonight Show's new host, Johnny Carson. \n\nAround 1960, the acclaimed director Billy Wilder considered writing and directing a new Marx Brothers film. Tentatively titled A Day at the U.N., it was to be a comedy of international intrigue set around the United Nations building in New York. Wilder had discussions with Groucho and Gummo, but the project was put on hold because of Harpo's ill-health and abandoned when Chico died in 1961. He was 74. Three years later, on September 28, 1964, Harpo died at the age of 75 of a heart attack one day after heart surgery.\n\nIn 1966 Filmation produced a pilot for a Marx Brothers cartoon. Groucho's voice was supplied by Pat Harrington Jr. and other voices were done by Ted Knight and Joe Besser. \n\nIn 1970, the four Marx Brothers had a brief reunion of sorts in the animated ABC television special The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians, produced by Rankin-Bass animation (of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer fame). The special featured animated reworkings of various famous comedians' acts, including W. C. Fields, Jack Benny, George Burns, Henny Youngman, the Smothers Brothers, Flip Wilson, Phyllis Diller, Jack E. Leonard, George Jessel and the Marx Brothers. Most of the comedians provided their own voices for their animated counterparts, except for Fields and Chico Marx (both had died), and Zeppo Marx (who had left show business in 1933). Voice actor Paul Frees filled in for all three (no voice was needed for Harpo). The Marx Brothers' segment was a reworking of a scene from their Broadway play I'll Say She Is, a parody of Napoleon which Groucho considered among the brothers' funniest routines. The sketch featured animated representations, if not the voices, of all four brothers. Romeo Muller is credited as having written special material for the show, but the script for the classic \"Napoleon Scene\" was probably supplied by Groucho.\n\nImpact on modern entertainment\n\nOn January 16, 1977, the Marx Brothers were inducted into the Motion Picture Hall of Fame. With the deaths of Gummo in April 1977, Groucho in August 1977, and Zeppo in November 1979, the brothers were gone. But their impact on the entertainment community continues well into the 21st century.\n\nMany television shows and movies have used Marx Brothers references. Animaniacs and Tiny Toons, for example, have featured Marx Brothers jokes and skits. Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) on MASH occasionally put on a fake nose and glasses, and, holding a cigar, did a Groucho impersonation to amuse patients recovering from surgery. Early episodes also featured a singing and off-scene character named Captain Spaulding as a tribute.\n\nBugs Bunny impersonated Groucho Marx in the 1947 cartoon Slick Hare and in a later cartoon he again impersonated Groucho hosting a TV show called \"You Beat Your Wife,\" asking Elmer Fudd if he had stopped beating his wife. Tex Avery's cartoon Hollywood Steps Out (1941) featured appearances by Harpo and Groucho. They appeared, sometimes with Chico and Zeppo caricatured, in cartoons starring Mickey Mouse, Flip the Frog and others. In the Airwolf episode 'Condemned', four anti-virus formulae for a deadly plague were named after the four Marx Brothers.\n\nIn All in the Family, Rob Reiner often did imitations of Groucho, and Sally Struthers dressed as Harpo in one episode in which she (as Gloria Stivic) and Rob (as Mike Stivic) were going to a Marx Brothers film festival, with Reiner dressing as Groucho. Gabe Kaplan did many Groucho imitations on his sit-com Welcome Back, Kotter and Robert Hegyes sometimes imitated both Chico and Harpo on the show. In Woody Allen's film Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Woody's character, after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, is inspired to go on living after seeing a revival showing of Duck Soup. In Manhattan (1979), he names the Marx Brothers as something that makes life worth living. In an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show Murray calls the new station owner at home late at night to complain when the song \"Hooray for Captain Spaulding\" is cut from a showing of Animal Crackers because of the new owners' policy to cut more and more from shows to sell more ad time, putting his job on the line.\n\nIn Everyone Says I Love You (1996), he and Goldie Hawn dress as Groucho for a Marx Brothers celebration in France, and the song \"Hooray for Captain Spaulding\", from Animal Crackers, is performed, with various actors dressed as the brothers, striking poses famous to Marx fans. (The film itself is named after a song from Horse Feathers, a version of which plays over the opening credits.)\n\nHarpo Marx appeared as himself in a sketch on I Love Lucy in which he and Lucille Ball reprised the mirror routine from Duck Soup, with Lucy dressed up as Harpo. Lucy had worked with the Marxes when she appeared in a supporting role in an earlier Marx Brothers film, Room Service. Chico once appeared on I've Got a Secret dressed up as Harpo; his secret was shown in a caption reading, \"I'm pretending to be Harpo Marx (I'm Chico)\". The Marx Brothers were spoofed in the second act of the Broadway Review A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine.\n\nFilmography\n\nFilms with the four Marx Brothers:\nHumor Risk (1921), previewed once and never released; thought to be lost\nThe Cocoanuts (1929), released by Paramount Pictures; based on a 1925 Marx Brothers Broadway musical\nAnimal Crackers (1930), released by Paramount; based on a 1928 Marx Brothers Broadway musical\nThe House That Shadows Built (1931), released by Paramount (short subject)\nMonkey Business (1931), released by Paramount\nHorse Feathers (1932), released by Paramount\nDuck Soup (1933), released by Paramount\n\nFilms with the three Marx Brothers (post-Zeppo):\nA Night at the Opera (1935), released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer\nA Day at the Races (1937), released by MGM\nRoom Service (1938), released by RKO Radio Pictures; based on a 1937 Broadway play that did not star the Marx Brothers\nAt the Circus (1939), released by MGM\nGo West (1940), released by MGM\nThe Big Store (1941), released by MGM (intended to be their last film)\nA Night in Casablanca (1946), released by United Artists\nLove Happy (1949), released by United Artists\nThe Story of Mankind (1957), released by Warner Brothers (not a Marx Brothers film, but the three brothers perform separate cameos)\nThe Incredible Jewel Robbery (1959), an episode of the TV series General Electric Theater starring Harpo and Chico with an uncredited Groucho in a cameo role\n\nSolo endeavors:\nGroucho:\nCopacabana (1947), released by United Artists\nMr. Music (1951), released by Paramount\nDouble Dynamite (1951), released by RKO\nA Girl in Every Port (1952), released by RKO\nWill Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957), released by 20th Century Fox (uncredited)\nThe Mikado (1960), made for television\nSkidoo (1968), released by Paramount.\nHarpo:\nToo Many Kisses (1925), released by Paramount\nLa Fiesta de Santa Barbara (1935) released by MGM \n*Stage Door Canteen (1943), released by United Artists (cameo)\nChico:\n*Papa Romani (1950), television pilot\nZeppo:\n*A Kiss in the Dark (1925), released by Paramount (cameo)\n\nCharacters\n\nLegacy\n\nAwards and honors\n\nThe Marx Brothers were collectively named #20 on AFI's list of the Top 25 American male screen legends of Classic Hollywood. They are the only group to be so honored.\n\nThe \"Sweathogs\" of the ABC-TV series \"Welcome Back Kotter\" (John Travolta, Robert Hegyes, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, and Ron Palillo) patterned much of their on-camera banter in that series after the Marx Brothers. Series star Gabe Kaplan was reputedly a big Marx Brothers fan.", "Arthur Duer Marx (born Adolph Marx; November 23, 1888 – September 28, 1964), known professionally as Harpo Marx, was an American comedian, film star, mime artist and musician, and the second-oldest of the Marx Brothers. In contrast to the mainly verbal comedy of his brothers Groucho and Chico, Harpo's comic style was visual, being an example of both clown and pantomime traditions. He wore a curly reddish blonde wig, and never spoke during performances (he blew a horn or whistled to communicate). He frequently used props such as a horn cane, made up of a lead pipe, tape, and a bulbhorn, and he played the harp in most of his films.\n\nEarly life and career\n\nHarpo was born in New York City. He grew up in a neighborhood now known as Carnegie Hill on the Upper East Side (E 93rd Street off Lexington Avenue) of Manhattan. The turn-of-the-century building that Harpo called \"the first real home they ever knew\" (in his memoir Harpo Speaks) was populated with European immigrants, mostly artisans – which even included a glass blower. Just across the street were the oldest brownstones in the area, owned by people like the well-connected Loew Brothers and William Orth.\n\nHarpo's parents were Sam Marx (called \"Frenchie\" throughout his life) and his wife, Minnie Schoenberg Marx. Minnie's brother was Al Shean. Marx's family was Jewish. His mother was from East Frisia in Germany, and his father was a native of Alsace in France and worked as a tailor. \n\nHarpo received little formal education and left grade school at age eight (mainly due to bullying) during his second attempt to pass the second grade. He began to work, gaining employment in numerous odd jobs alongside his brother Chico to contribute to the family income, including selling newspapers, working in a butcher shop, and as an errand office boy. \n\nIn January 1910, Harpo joined two of his brothers, Julius (later \"Groucho\") and Milton (later \"Gummo\"), to form \"The Three Nightingales\", later changed to simply \"The Marx Brothers\". Multiple stories—most unsubstantiated—exist to explain Harpo's evolution as the \"silent\" character in the brothers' act. In his memoir, Groucho wrote that Harpo simply wasn't very good at memorizing dialog, and thus was ideal for the role of the \"dunce who couldn't speak\", a common character in vaudeville acts of the time. \n\nHarpo gained his stage name during a card game at the Orpheum Theatre in Galesburg, Illinois. The dealer (Art Fisher) called him \"Harpo\" because he played the harp. He learned how to hold it properly from a picture of an angel playing a harp that he saw in a five-and-dime. No one in town knew how to play the harp, so Harpo tuned it as best he could, starting with one basic note and tuning it from there. Three years later he found out he had tuned it incorrectly, but he could not have tuned it properly; if he had, the strings would have broken each night. Harpo's method placed much less tension on the strings. Although he played this way for the rest of his life, he did try to learn how to play correctly, and he spent considerable money hiring the best teachers. They spent their time listening to him, fascinated by the way he played.\n\nIn the autobiography Harpo Speaks (1961), he recounts how Chico found him jobs playing piano to accompany silent movies. Unlike Chico, Harpo could play only two songs on the piano, \"Waltz Me Around Again, Willie\" and \"Love Me and the World Is Mine,\" but he adapted this small repertoire in different tempos to suit the action on the screen. He was also seen playing a portion of Rachmaninoff's \"Prelude in C# minor\" in A Day at the Races and chords on the piano in A Night at the Opera, in such a way that the piano sounded much like a harp, as a prelude to actually playing the harp in that scene.\n\nHarpo had changed his name from Adolph to Arthur by 1911. This was due primarily to his dislike for the name Adolph (as a child, he was routinely called \"Ahdie\" instead). Urban legends stating that the name change came about during World War I due to anti-German sentiment in the US, or during World War II because of the stigma that Adolf Hitler imposed on the name, are groundless. \n\nIn film\n\nHis first screen appearance was in the 1921 film Humor Risk, with his brothers, although according to Groucho, it was only screened once and then lost. Four years later, Harpo appeared without his brothers in Too Many Kisses, four years before the brothers' first widely released film, The Cocoanuts (1929). In Too Many Kisses, Harpo spoke the only line he would ever speak on-camera in a movie: \"You sure you can't move?\" (said to the film's tied-up hero before punching him). Fittingly, it was a silent movie, and the audience saw only his lips move and the line on a title card.\n\nHarpo was often cast as Chico's eccentric partner-in-crime, whom he would often help by playing charades to tell of Groucho's problem, and/or annoy by giving Chico his leg.\n\nHarpo became famous for prop-laden sight gags, in particular the seemingly infinite number of odd things stored in his topcoat's oversized pockets. In the film Horse Feathers (1932), Groucho, referring to an impossible situation, tells Harpo that he cannot \"burn the candle at both ends.\" Harpo immediately produces from within his coat pocket a lit candle burning at both ends. In the same film, a homeless man on the street asks Harpo for money for a cup of coffee, and he subsequently produces a steaming cup, complete with saucer, from inside his coat. In Duck Soup, he produces a lit blowtorch to light a cigar. As author Joe Adamson put in his book, Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo, \"The president of the college has been shouted down by a mute.\"\n\nHarpo often used facial expressions and mime to get his point across. One of his facial expressions, which he used in every Marx Brothers film and stage play, beginning with Fun in Hi Skule, was known as \"the Gookie.\" Harpo created it by mimicking the expression of Mr. Gehrke, a New York tobacconist who would make a similar face while concentrating on rolling cigars. \n\nHarpo further distinguished his character by wearing a \"fright wig\". Early in his career it was dyed pink, as evidenced by color film posters of the time and by allusions to it in films, with character names such as \"Pinky\" in Duck Soup. It tended to show as blonde on-screen due to the black-and-white film stock at the time. Over time, he darkened the pink to more of a reddish color, again alluded to in films with character names such as \"Rusty\".\n\nHis non-speaking in his early films was occasionally referred to by the other Marx Brothers, who were careful to imply that his character's not speaking was a choice rather than a disability. They would make joking reference to this part of his act. For example, in Animal Crackers his character was ironically dubbed \"The Professor\". In The Cocoanuts, this exchange occurred:\n Groucho: \"Who is this?\"\n* Chico: \"Dat's-a my partner, but he no speak.\"\n* Groucho: \"Oh, that's your silent partner!\"\n\nIn later films, Harpo was put into situations where he would repeatedly attempt to convey a vital message to another person, but only did so through nonverbal means, usually by whistling or pantomime. These scenes reinforced the idea that the character was unable to speak.\n\nIn other media\n\nIn 1933, following U.S. diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union, he spent six weeks in Moscow as a performer and goodwill ambassador. His tour was a huge success. Harpo's name was transliterated into Russian, using the Cyrillic alphabet, as ХАРПО МАРКС, and was billed as such during his Soviet Union appearances. Harpo, having no knowledge of Russian, pronounced it as 'Exapno Mapcase'. At that time Harpo and the Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov became friends and even performed a routine on stage together. During this time he served as a secret courier; delivering communiques to and from the US embassy in Moscow at the request of Ambassador William Christian Bullitt, Jr., smuggling the messages in and out of Russia by taping a sealed envelope to his leg beneath his trousers, an event described in David Fromkin's 1995 book In the Time of the Americans. In Harpo Speaks, Marx describes his relief at making it out of the Soviet Union, recalling how \"I pulled up my pants, ripped off the tape, unwound the straps, handed over the dispatches from Ambassador Bullitt, and gave my leg its first scratch in ten days.\" \n\nThe Russia trip was later memorialized in a bizarre science fiction novella, The Foreign Hand Tie by Randall Garrett, a tale of telepathic spies which is full of references to the Marx Brothers and their films. \n\nIn 1936, he was one of a number of performers and celebrities to appear as caricatures in the Walt Disney Production of Mickey's Polo Team. Harpo was part of a team of polo-playing movie stars which included Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. His mount was an ostrich. Walt Disney would later have Harpo (with Groucho and Chico) appear as one of King Cole's \"Fiddlers Three\" in the Silly Symphony Mother Goose Goes Hollywood.\n\nHarpo was also caricatured in Sock-A-Bye Baby (1934), an early episode of the Popeye cartoon series created by Fleischer Studios. Harpo is playing the harp, and wakes up Popeye's baby, and then Popeye kills him. (After Popeye hits him, a halo appears over his head and he floats to the sky.)\n\nFriz Freleng's 1936 Merrie Melodies cartoon The Coo-Coo Nut Grove featuring animal versions of assorted celebrities, caricatures Harpo as a bird with a red beak. When he first appears, he is chasing a woman, but the woman later turns out to be Groucho.\n\nHarpo also took an interest in painting, and a few of his works can be seen in his autobiography. In the book, Marx tells a story about how he tried to paint a nude female model, but froze up because he simply did not know how to paint properly. The model took pity on him, however, showing him a few basic strokes with a brush, until finally Harpo (fully clothed) took the model's place as the subject and the naked woman painted his portrait. \n\nIn 1955, Harpo made an appearance on the sitcom I Love Lucy, in which they re-enacted the famous mirror scene from the Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup (1933). In this scene, they are both supposed to be Harpo, not Groucho; he stays the same and Lucille Ball is dressed as him. About this time, he also appeared on NBC's The Martha Raye Show.\n\nHarpo recorded an album of harp music for RCA Victor (Harp by Harpo, 1952) and two for Mercury Records (Harpo in Hi-Fi, 1957; Harpo at Work, 1958).\n\nHarpo and Chico played a television anthology episode of General Electric Theater entitled \"The Incredible Jewelry Robbery\" entirely in pantomime in 1959, with a brief surprise appearance by Groucho at the end.\n\nMarx made television appearances in the 1960s. In 1960, he appeared with Ernest Truex in an episode of The DuPont Show with June Allyson entitled \"A Silent Panic\". Marx plays a deaf-mute who, as a \"mechanical man\" in a department store window, witnesses a gangland murder. In 1961, he made guest appearances on The Today Show, Play Your Hunch, Candid Camera, I've Got a Secret, Here's Hollywood, Art Linkletter's House Party, Groucho's quiz show You Bet Your Life, The Ed Sullivan Show, and Your Surprise Package.\n\nIn 1962 he guest-starred with Carol Burnett in an installment of The DuPont Show of the Week entitled \"The Wonderful World of Toys\". The show was filmed in Central Park and featured Marx playing \"Autumn Leaves\" on the harp. A visit to the set inspired poet Robert Lowell to compose a poem about Marx.\n\nMarx's two final television appearances came less than a month apart in late 1962. He portrayed a guardian angel on CBS's The Red Skelton Show on September 25. He guest starred as himself on October 20 in the episode \"Musicale\" of ABC's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, a sitcom starring Fess Parker, based on the 1939 Frank Capra film. \n\nPersonal life\n\nHarpo married actress Susan Fleming on September 28, 1936. The wedding became public knowledge after President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent the couple a telegram of congratulations the following month. Harpo's marriage—like Gummo's—was lifelong. (Groucho was divorced three times, Zeppo twice, Chico once.) The couple adopted four children: Bill, Alex, Jimmy, and Minnie. When he was asked by George Burns in 1948 how many children he planned to adopt, he answered: \"I’d like to adopt as many children as I have windows in my house. So when I leave for work, I want a kid in every window, waving goodbye.\" \n\nHarpo was good friends with theater critic Alexander Woollcott, and became a regular member of the Algonquin Round Table. He once said his main contribution was to be the audience for the quips of other members. In their play The Man Who Came to Dinner, George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart based the character of \"Banjo\" on Harpo. Harpo later played the role in Los Angeles opposite Woolcott, who had inspired the character of Sheridan Whiteside. \n\nIn 1961 Harpo published his autobiography, Harpo Speaks. Because he never spoke a word in character, many believed he actually was mute. In fact, radio and TV news recordings of his voice can be found on the Internet, in documentaries, and on bonus materials of Marx Brothers DVDs. A reporter who interviewed him in the early 1930s wrote that \"he [Harpo]... had a deep and distinguished voice, like a professional announcer\", and like his brothers, spoke with a New York accent his entire life. According to those who personally knew him, Harpo's voice was much deeper than Groucho's, but it also sounded very similar to Chico's. His son, Bill, recalled that in private Harpo had a very deep and mature soft-spoken voice, but that he was \"not verbose\" like the other Marx brothers; Harpo preferred listening and learning from others. \n\nHarpo's final public appearance came on January 19, 1963 with singer/comedian Allan Sherman. Sherman burst into tears when Harpo announced his retirement from the entertainment business. Comedian Steve Allen, who was in the audience, remembered that Harpo spoke for several minutes about his career, and how he would miss it all, and repeatedly interrupted Sherman when he tried to speak. The audience found it charmingly ironic, Allen said, that Harpo, who had never before spoken on stage or screen, \"wouldn't shut up!\" Harpo, an avid croquet player, was inducted into the Croquet Hall of Fame in 1979. \n\nDeath\n\nHarpo Marx died on September 28, 1964 (his and his wife, Susan's, 28th wedding anniversary), at age 75 in a West Los Angeles hospital one day after undergoing heart surgery. Harpo's death was said to have hit the surviving Marx brothers very hard. Groucho's son Arthur Marx, who attended the funeral with most of the Marx family, later said that Harpo's funeral was the only time in his life that he ever saw his father cry. In his will, Harpo Marx donated his trademark harp to the State of Israel. His remains were cremated, and his ashes were scattered at a golf course in Rancho Mirage, California.\n\nLegacy\n\nHarpo is most known for his signature outfit: trench coat with over-large pockets, red wig (he switched to a blonde one for every film after The Cocoanuts), top hat, and a comical horn heard in his movies. He was also well known for playing the harp, though he could not read music. For many moviegoers, Harpo Marx provided their introduction to harp music. Today, thanks to reruns of Marx Brothers films, Harpo continues to entertain audiences old and new. Outside the professional harp community, he remains one of the best \"ambassadors for the harp\" the world has known. In time, his talent earned him an international reputation as he performed in movies as well as in stage shows around the globe. \n\nIn 2002, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him. \n\nFilm portrayal\n\nMarx was portrayed by the actor J. M. Henry in the film Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. \n\nNotes" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Adolf", "Adalwolf", "Adolph", "Adolf (given name)", "Adolphus", "Adolf (name)" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "adolf", "adolphus", "adolf given name", "adolph", "adalwolf", "adolf name" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "adolph", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Adolph" }
What was Steve Martin's first film?	tc_1199	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Steve_Martin.txt" ], "title": [ "Steve Martin" ], "wiki_context": [ "Stephen Glenn \"Steve\" Martin (born August 14, 1945) is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer and musician. Martin came to public notice in the 1960s as a writer for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and later as a frequent guest on The Tonight Show. In the 1970s, Martin performed his offbeat, absurdist comedy routines before packed houses on national tours. Since the 1980s, having branched away from stand-up comedy, Martin has become a successful actor, as well as an author, playwright, pianist and banjo player, eventually earning him an Emmy, Grammy and American Comedy awards, among other honors.\n\nIn 2004, Comedy Central ranked Martin at sixth place in a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics. He was awarded an Honorary Academy Award at the Academy's 5th Annual Governors Awards in 2013. \n\nWhile he has played banjo since an early age, and included music in his comedy routines from the beginning of his professional career, he has increasingly dedicated his career to music since the 2000s, acting less and spending much of his professional life playing banjo, recording, and touring with various bluegrass acts, including Earl Scruggs, with whom he won a Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance in 2002. He released his first solo music album, The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo, in 2009, for which he won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album.\n\nEarly life\n\nMartin was born on August 14, 1945, in Waco, Texas, the son of Mary Lee (née Stewart; 1913–2002) and Glenn Vernon Martin (1914–1997), a real estate salesman and aspiring actor. Martin was raised in Inglewood, California, and then later in Garden Grove, California, in a Baptist family. Martin was a cheerleader of Garden Grove High School. One of his earliest memories is of seeing his father, as an extra, serving drinks onstage at the Call Board Theatre on Melrose Place. During World War II, in England, Martin's father had appeared in a production of Our Town with Raymond Massey. Expressing his affection through gifts of cars, bikes, etc., Martin's father was stern, and not emotionally open to his son. He was proud but critical, with Martin later recalling that in his teens his feelings for his father were mostly ones of hatred. Martin's first job was at Disneyland, selling guidebooks on weekends and full-time during the school's summer break. That lasted for three years (1955–58). During his free time he frequented the Main Street Magic shop, where tricks were demonstrated to potential customers. By 1960, he had mastered several of the tricks and illusions, and took a paying job at the Magic shop in Fantasyland in August. There he perfected his talents for magic, juggling, and creating balloon animals in the manner of mentor Wally Boag,Martin (2007) p18–19 frequently performing for tips. In his authorized biography, close friend Morris Walker suggests that Martin could \"be described most accurately as an agnostic [...] he rarely went to church and was never involved in organized religion of his own volition\". \n\nComedy\n\nAfter high school graduation, Martin attended Santa Ana College, taking classes in drama and English poetry. In his free time, he teamed up with friend and Garden Grove High School classmate Kathy Westmoreland to participate in comedies and other productions at the Bird Cage Theatre. He joined a comedy troupe at Knott's Berry Farm. Later, he met budding actress Stormie Sherk, and they developed comedy routines and became romantically involved. Sherk's influence caused Martin to apply to the California State University, Long Beach, for enrollment with a major in Philosophy. Stormie enrolled at UCLA, about an hour's drive north, and the distance eventually caused them to lead separate lives. \n\nInspired by his philosophy classes, Martin considered becoming a professor instead of an actor-comedian. His time at college changed his life. \"It changed what I believe and what I think about everything. I majored in philosophy. Something about non-sequiturs appealed to me. In philosophy, I started studying logic, and they were talking about cause and effect, and you start to realize, 'Hey, there is no cause and effect! There is no logic! There is no anything!' Then it gets real easy to write this stuff, because all you have to do is twist everything hard—you twist the punch line, you twist the non sequitur so hard away from the things that set it up\".Fong-Torres, Ben (1982) \"Steve Martin Sings: The Rolling Stone Interview\". Rolling Stone February 18, 1982. Issue 363 Martin recalls reading a treatise on comedy that led him to think \"What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax? What would the audience do with all that tension? Theoretically, it would have to come out sometime. But if I kept denying them the formality of a punch line, the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation.\" Martin periodically spoofed his philosophy studies in his 1970s stand-up act, comparing philosophy with studying geology. \"If you're studying geology, which is all facts, as soon as you get out of school you forget it all, but philosophy you remember just enough to screw you up for the rest of your life.\" \n\nIn 1967, Martin transferred to UCLA and switched his major to theater. While attending college, he appeared in an episode of The Dating Game. Martin began working local clubs at night, to mixed notices, and at twenty-one he dropped out of college. \n\nCareer\n\nEarly career: stand-up\n\nIn 1967, his former girlfriend Nina Goldblatt, a dancer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, helped Martin land a writing job with the show by submitting his work to head writer Mason Williams. Williams initially paid Martin out of his own pocket. Along with the other writers for the show, Martin won an Emmy Award in 1969, aged 23. He also wrote for John Denver (a neighbor of his in Aspen, Colorado, at one point), The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. Martin's first TV appearance was on The Steve Allen Show in 1969. He says: \"[I] appeared on The Virginia Graham Show, circa 1970. I looked grotesque. I had a hairdo like a helmet, which I blow-dried to a puffy bouffant, for reasons I no longer understand. I wore a frock coat and a silk shirt, and my delivery was mannered, slow and self-aware. I had absolutely no authority. After reviewing the show, I was depressed for a week.\" During these years his roommates included comedian Gary Mule Deer and singer/guitarist Michael Johnson. Martin opened for groups such as The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The Carpenters, and Toto. He appeared at San Francisco's The Boarding House, among other venues. He continued to write, earning an Emmy nomination for his work on Van Dyke and Company in 1976.\n\nIn the mid-1970s, Martin made frequent appearances as a stand-up comedian on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson., and on The Gong Show, HBO's On Location, The Muppet Show, and NBC's Saturday Night Live (SNL). SNL audience jumped by a million viewers when he made guest appearances, and he was one of the most successful SNL hosts. Martin appeared on 27 Saturday Night Live shows and he guest-hosted 15 times, bested only in number of presentations by host Alec Baldwin (who has hosted 16 times ). On the show, Martin popularized the air quotes gesture, which uses four fingers to make double quote marks in the air. While on the show Martin became close with several of the cast members, including Gilda Radner. Radner died of ovarian cancer on Saturday, May 20, 1989; a visibly shaken Martin hosted SNL that night, and featured footage of himself and Radner together in a 1978 sketch.\n\nIn the 1970s, his TV appearances led to the release of comedy albums that went platinum. The track \"Excuse Me\" on his first album, Let's Get Small, helped establish a national catch phrase. His next album, A Wild and Crazy Guy (1978), was an even bigger success, reaching the No. 2 spot on the U.S. sales chart, selling over a million copies. \"Just a wild and crazy guy\" became another of Martin's known catch phrases. The album featured a character based on a series of Saturday Night Live sketches where Martin and Dan Aykroyd played the Festrunk Brothers; Georgi and Yortuk (respectively) were bumbling Czechoslovak would-be playboys. The album ends with the song \"King Tut\", sung and written by Martin and backed by the \"Toot Uncommons\", members of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. It was later released as a single, reaching No. 17 on the U.S. charts in 1978 and selling over a million copies. The song came out during the King Tut craze that accompanied the popular traveling exhibit of the Egyptian king's tomb artifacts. Both albums won Grammys for Best Comedy Recording in 1977 and 1978, respectively. Martin performed \"King Tut\" on the April 22, 1978 edition of SNL.\n\nDecades later, in 2012, the A.V. Club described Martin's unique style and its impact on audiences:\n\nOn his comedy albums, Martin's stand-up is self-referential and sometimes self-mocking. It mixes philosophical riffs with sudden spurts of \"happy feet\", banjo playing with balloon depictions of concepts like venereal disease, and the \"controversial\" kitten juggling (he is a master juggler) (the \"kittens\" were stuffed animals). His style is off-kilter and ironic, and sometimes pokes fun at stand-up comedy traditions, such as Martin opening his act (from A Wild and Crazy Guy) by saying, \"I think there's nothing better for a person to come up and do the same thing over and over for two weeks. This is what I enjoy, so I'm going to do the same thing over and over and over [...] I'm going to do the same joke over and over in the same show, it'll be like a new thing.\" Or: \"Hello, I'm Steve Martin, and I'll be out here in a minute.\" In one comedy routine, used on the Comedy Is Not Pretty! album, Martin claimed that his real name was \"Gern Blanston\". The riff took on a life of its own. There is a Gern Blanston website, and for a time a rock band took the moniker as their name. \n\nMartin suddenly stopped doing stand-up comedy in 1981 to concentrate on movies, and didn't return for 35 years. About this decision, he states, \"My act was conceptual. Once the concept was stated, and everybody understood it, it was done. [...] It was about coming to the end of the road. There was no way to live on in that persona. I had to take that fabulous luck of not being remembered as that, exclusively. You know, I didn't announce that I was stopping. I just stopped.\" \n\nIn 2016, Martin made a rare return to stand up comedy, opening for Jerry Seinfeld. He performed a 10-minute set before turning the stage over to Seinfeld. Later in 2016 he returned to stand up comedy, staging a national tour with Martin Short and the Steep Canyon Rangers.\n\nActing career\n\nBy the end of the 1970s, Martin had acquired the kind of following normally reserved for rock stars, with his tour appearances typically occurring at sold-out arenas filled with tens of thousands of screaming fans. But unknown to his audience, stand-up comedy was \"just an accident\" for him; his real goal was to get into film.\n\nMartin had a small role in the 1972 film Another Nice Mess. His first substantial film appearance was in a short titled The Absent-Minded Waiter (1977). The seven-minute-long film, also featuring Buck Henry and Teri Garr, was written by and starred Martin. The film was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Short Film, Live Action. He made his first substantial feature film appearance in the musical Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, where he sang The Beatles' \"Maxwell's Silver Hammer\". In 1979, Martin co-wrote and starred in The Jerk, directed by Carl Reiner. The movie was a huge success, grossing over $100 million on a budget of approximately $4 million. \n\nStanley Kubrick met with him to discuss the possibility of Martin starring in a screwball comedy version of Traumnovelle (Kubrick later changed his approach to the material, the result of which was 1999's Eyes Wide Shut). Martin was executive producer for Domestic Life, a prime-time television series starring friend Martin Mull, and a late-night series called Twilight Theater. It emboldened Martin to try his hand at his first serious film, Pennies from Heaven, based on the 1978 BBC serial by Dennis Potter. He was anxious to perform in the movie because of his desire to avoid being typecast. To prepare for that film, Martin took acting lessons from director Herbert Ross, and spent months learning how to tap dance. The film was a financial failure; Martin's comment at the time was \"I don't know what to blame, other than it's me and not a comedy.\" \n\nMartin was in three more Reiner-directed comedies after The Jerk: Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid in 1982, The Man with Two Brains in 1983 and All of Me in 1984, his most critically acclaimed performance up to that point. \nIn 1986, Martin joined fellow Saturday Night Live veterans Martin Short and Chevy Chase in ¡Three Amigos!, directed by John Landis, and written by Martin, Lorne Michaels, and singer-songwriter Randy Newman. It was originally entitled The Three Caballeros and Martin was to be teamed with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. In 1986, Martin was in the movie musical film version of the hit Off-Broadway play Little Shop of Horrors (based on a famous B-movie), playing the sadistic dentist, Orin Scrivello. The film was the first of three films teaming Martin with Rick Moranis. In 1987, Martin joined comedian John Candy in the John Hughes movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles. That same year, Roxanne, the film adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac which Martin co-wrote, won him a Writers Guild of America Award. It also garnered recognition from Hollywood and the public that he was more than a comedian. In 1988, he performed in the Frank Oz film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, a remake of Bedtime Story, alongside Michael Caine. Also in 1988, he appeared at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center in a revival of Waiting for Godot directed by Mike Nichols. He played Vladimir, with Robin Williams as Estragon and Bill Irwin as Lucky. \n\nMartin starred in the Ron Howard film Parenthood, with Moranis in 1989. He later re-teamed with Moranis in the Mafia comedy My Blue Heaven (1990). In 1991, Martin starred in and wrote L.A. Story, a romantic comedy, in which the female lead was played by his then-wife Victoria Tennant. Martin also appeared in Lawrence Kasdan's Grand Canyon, in which he played the tightly wound Hollywood film producer, Davis, who was recovering from a traumatic robbery that left him injured, which was a more serious role for him. Martin also starred in a remake of the comedy Father of the Bride in 1991 (followed by a sequel in 1995), and in the 1992 comedy Housesitter, with Goldie Hawn and Dana Delany. In 1994, he starred in, A Simple Twist of Fate; a film adaptation of Silas Marner.\n\nIn David Mamet's 1997 thriller, The Spanish Prisoner, Martin played a darker role as a wealthy stranger who takes a suspicious interest in the work of a young businessman (Campbell Scott). He went on to star with Eddie Murphy in the 1999 comedy Bowfinger, which Martin also wrote. \n\nIn 1998, Martin guest starred with U2 in the 200th episode of The Simpsons titled \"Trash of the Titans\", providing the voice for sanitation commissioner Ray Patterson. In 1999, Martin and Hawn starred in a remake of the 1970 Neil Simon comedy, The Out-of-Towners. By 2003, Martin ranked fourth on the box office stars list, after starring in Bringing Down The House and Cheaper By The Dozen, each of which earned over $130 million at U.S. theaters. That same year, he also played the villainous Mr. Chairman in the animation/live action blend, Looney Tunes: Back in Action.\n\nIn 2005, Martin wrote and starred in Shopgirl, based on his own novella (2000), and starred in Cheaper by the Dozen 2. In 2006, he starred in the box office hit The Pink Panther, as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau. He reprised the role in 2009's The Pink Panther 2. When combined, the two films grossed over $230 million at the box office. In Baby Mama (2008), Martin played the founder of a health food company, and in It's Complicated (2009), he played opposite Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin. In 2009, an article in The Guardian listed Martin as one of the best actors never to receive an Oscar nomination. In 2011, he appeared with Jack Black, Owen Wilson, and JoBeth Williams in the birdwatching comedy The Big Year. After a three-year hiatus, Martin returned in 2015 when he voiced a role in the animated film Home.\n\nWriting\n\nIn 1993, Martin wrote his first full-length play Picasso at the Lapin Agile. The first reading of the play took place in Beverly Hills, California, at Steve Martin's home, with Tom Hanks reading the role of Pablo Picasso and Chris Sarandon reading the role of Albert Einstein. Following this, the play opened at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, Illinois, and played from October 1993 to May 1994, then went on to run successfully in Los Angeles, New York City and several other US cities. In 2009, the school board in La Grande, Oregon, refused to allow the play to be performed after several parents complained about the content. In an open letter in the local Observer newspaper, Martin wrote \"I have heard that some in your community have characterized the play as 'people drinking in bars, and treating women as sex objects.' With apologies to William Shakespeare, this is like calling Hamlet a play about a castle [...] I will finance a non-profit, off-high school campus production [...] so that individuals, outside the jurisdiction of the school board but within the guarantees of freedom of expression provided by the Constitution of the United States can determine whether they will or will not see the play\". \n\nThroughout the 1990s, Martin wrote various pieces for The New Yorker. In 2002, he adapted the Carl Sternheim play The Underpants, which ran Off Broadway at Classic Stage Company, and in 2008 co-wrote and produced Traitor, starring Don Cheadle. He has also written the novellas Shopgirl (2000) and The Pleasure of My Company (2003), both more wry in tone than raucous. A story of a 28-year-old woman behind the glove counter at the Saks Fifth Avenue department store in Beverly Hills, Shopgirl was made into a film starring Martin and Claire Danes.[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,998225,00.html But Seriously, Folks. Time article. October 16, 2000]. Retrieved August 14, 2010 The film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2005 and was featured at the Chicago International Film Festival and the Austin Film Festival before going into limited release in the US. In 2007, he published a memoir, Born Standing Up, which Time magazine named as one of the Top 10 Nonfiction Books of 2007, ranking it at 6, and praising it as \"a funny, moving, surprisingly frank memoir.\" In 2010, he published the novel An Object of Beauty.\n\nHosting\n\nMartin hosted the Academy Awards solo in 2001 and 2003, and with Alec Baldwin in 2010. In 2005, Martin co-hosted Disneyland: The First 50 Magical Years, marking the park's anniversary. Disney continued to run the show until March 2009, which now plays in the lobby of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.\n\nMusic\n\nMartin first picked up the banjo when he was around 17 years of age. Martin has claimed in several interviews and in his memoir, Born Standing Up, that he used to take 33 rpm bluegrass records and slow them down to 16 rpm and tune his banjo down, so the notes would sound the same. Martin was able to pick out each note, and perfect his playing.\n\nMartin learned how to play the banjo with help from John McEuen, who later joined the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. McEuen's brother later managed Martin as well as the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Martin did his stand-up routine opening for the band in the early 1970s. He had the band play on his hit song, \"King Tut\", being credited as \"The Toot Uncommons\" (as in Tutankhamun).\n\nThe banjo was a staple of Martin's 1970s stand-up career, and he periodically poked fun at his love for the instrument. On the Comedy Is Not Pretty! album he included an all-instrumental jam, titled \"Drop Thumb Medley\", and played the track on his 1979 concert tour. His final comedy album, The Steve Martin Brothers (1981), featured one side of Martin's typical stand-up material, with the other side featuring live performances of Steve playing banjo with a bluegrass band.\n\nIn 2001, he played banjo on Earl Scruggs's remake of \"Foggy Mountain Breakdown\". The recording was the winner of the Best Country Instrumental Performance category at the Grammy Awards of 2002. In 2008, Martin appeared with the band, In the Minds of the Living, during a show in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. \n\nIn 2009, Martin released his first all-music album, The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo with appearances from stars such as Dolly Parton. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album in 2010. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band member John McEuen produced the album.\n\nMartin made his first appearance on The Grand Ole Opry on May 30, 2009. In the American Idol season eight finals, he performed alongside Michael Sarver and Megan Joy in the song \"Pretty Flowers\". In June, Martin played banjo along with the Steep Canyon Rangers on A Prairie Home Companion, and began a two-month U.S. tour with the Rangers in September, including appearances at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, Carnegie Hall and Benaroya Hall in Seattle. In November, they went on to play at the Royal Festival Hall in London with support from Mary Black. In 2010, Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers appeared at the New Orleans Jazzfest, Merlefest Bluegrass Festival in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, at Bonnaroo Music Festival, at the ROMP Bluegrass festival in Owensboro, Kentucky, at the Red Butte Garden Concert series and on the BBC's Later... with Jools Holland. Martin performed \"Jubilation Day\" with the Steep Canyon Rangers on The Colbert Report on March 21, 2011, on Conan on May 3, 2011, and on BBC's The One Show on July 6, 2011. Martin performed a song he wrote called \"Me and Paul Revere\" in addition to two other songs on the lawn of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, at the \"Capitol Fourth Celebration\" on July 4, 2011. In 2011, Martin also narrated and appeared in the PBS documentary \"Give me the Banjo\" chronicling the history of the banjo in America. \n\nLove Has Come For You, a collaboration album with Edie Brickell, was released in April 2013. The two made musical guest appearances on talk shows, such as The View and Late Show with David Letterman, to promote the album. \nThe title track won the Grammy Award for Best American Roots Song. \nStarting in May 2013, he is touring with the Steep Canyon Rangers and Edie Brickell throughout the United States. In 2015, Brickell and Martin released So Familiar as the second installment of their partnership. Inspired by Love has Come for You, Martin and Brickell collaborated on his first musical, Bright Star. It is set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina in 1945-46, with flashbacks to 1923. The musical debuted on Broadway on March 24, 2016. \n\nSteve Martin Prize for Excellence \n\nIn 2010, Martin created the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass, an award established to reward artistry and bring greater visibility to bluegrass performers. The prize includes a USD$50,000 cash award, a bronze sculpture created by the artist Eric Fischl, and a chance to perform with Martin on Late Show with David Letterman. Recipients include Noam Pikelny of the Punch Brothers band (2010), Sammy Shelor of Lonesome River Band (2011), Mark Johnson (2012), Jens Kruger (2013), Eddie Adcock (2014), and Danny Barnes (2015).\n\nPersonal life\n\nMartin was romantically involved with actress and singer Bernadette Peters, his costar in the films The Jerk and Pennies from Heaven, during the 1970s and early 1980s. He married actress Victoria Tennant on November 20, 1986; they divorced in 1994. On July 28, 2007, after three years together, Martin married Anne Stringfield, a writer and former staffer for The New Yorker magazine. Former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey presided over the ceremony at Martin's Los Angeles home. Lorne Michaels, creator of Saturday Night Live, was best man. Several of the guests, including close friends Tom Hanks, Eugene Levy, comedian Carl Reiner, and magician/actor Ricky Jay were not informed that a wedding ceremony would take place. Instead, they were told they were invited to a party, and were surprised by the nuptials. At age 67, Martin became a father for the first time when Stringfield gave birth to a daughter in December 2012. \n\nMartin has been an avid art collector since 1968, when he bought a print by the Los Angeles artist Ed Ruscha. In the first public display of his collection, the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art presented a five-month exhibit of 28 works by Roy Lichtenstein, Pablo Picasso, David Hockney, and Edward Hopper, among others, in 2001. In 2006, he sold Hopper's Hotel Window (1955) at Sotheby's for $26.8 million. In 2015, working with two other curators, he organized a show, \"The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris\", to introduce Americans to Canadian painter and Group of Seven co-founder Lawren Harris. \n\nInvestigators at Berlin's state criminal police office (LKA) think that Martin was one victim of a German master art forger Wolfgang Beltracchi. In July 2004, Martin purchased what he believed to be a 1915 work by the German-Dutch painter Heinrich Campendonk, Landschaft mit Pferden (Landscape With Horses) from a Paris gallery for what should have been a bargain price of around €700,000 (around $850,000 at the time). Before the purchase an expert authenticated the work and identified the painter's signature on a label attached to the back. Fifteen months later Martin put the painting up for sale, and auction house Christie's disposed of it in February 2006, to a Swiss businesswoman for €500,000 – a loss of €200,000. Police believe the fake Campendonk originated from an invented art collection devised by a group of German swindlers caught in 2010. Skillfully forged paintings from this group were sold to French galleries like the one where Martin bought the forgery. \n\nMartin has tinnitus (ringing in the ears), which is a symptom of hearing loss. He got it while filming a pistol-shooting scene for the film Three Amigos in 1986. He has been quoted as saying, \"You just get used to it, or you go insane.\" \n\nAwards and nominations\n\nFilmography \n\nDiscography \n\nAlbums \n\nSingles \n\nMusic videos \n\nReleased stand-up shows\n\n* Steve Martin-Live! (1986, VHS)\n* Saturday Night Live: The Best Of Steve Martin (1998, DVD)\n* Steve Martin: The Television Stuff (2012, DVD; includes content of Steve Martin-Live! as well as his NBC specials and other television appearances)\n\nWritten works by Martin\n\nThe Jerk (1979) (Screenplay written with Carl Gottlieb)\nCruel Shoes (1979) (Essays)\nPicasso at the Lapin Agile and Other Plays: Picasso at the Lapin Agile, the Zig-Zag Woman, Patter for the Floating Lady, WASP (1993) (Play)\nL.A. Story and Roxanne: Two Screenplays (published together in 1987) (Screenplays)\nPure Drivel (1998) (Essays)\nBowfinger (1999) (Screenplay)\nEric Fischl : 1970–2000 (2000) (Afterword)\nModern Library Humor and Wit Series (2000) (Introduction and Series Editor)\nShopgirl (2000) (Novella)\nKindly Lent Their Owner: The Private Collection of Steve Martin (2001) (Art)\nThe Underpants: A Play (2002) (Play)\nThe Pleasure of My Company (2003) (Novel)\nThe Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z (2007) (Children's Books illustrated by Roz Chast)\nBorn Standing Up (2007) (Memoir)\nAn Object of Beauty (2010) (Novel)\nLate For School (2010) (Children's book)\n*The Ten, Make That Nine, Habits of Very Organized People. Make That Ten.: The Tweets of Steve Martin (February 21, 2012) (Collection)" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Navin Johnson", "Steven stein rosen", "The Jerk, Too", "The Jerk (film)", "The Jerk", "Cat Juggling", "Joe gonzalves" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "steven stein rosen", "jerk too", "jerk", "cat juggling", "jerk film", "joe gonzalves", "navin johnson" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "jerk", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "The Jerk" }
Which film tells of the exploits of singer Deco Duffe?	tc_1201	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "Search" ], "filename": [ "Oz_the_Great_and_Powerful.txt" ], "title": [ "Oz the Great and Powerful" ], "wiki_context": [ "Oz the Great and Powerful is a 2013 American fantasy adventure film directed by Sam Raimi, produced by Joe Roth, from a screenplay written by David Lindsay-Abaire and Mitchell Kapner. The film stars James Franco as the titular character, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, and Michelle Williams with Zach Braff, Bill Cobbs, Joey King, and Tony Cox in supporting roles. Based on L. Frank Baum's Oz novels and set 20 years before the events of the original novel, Oz the Great and Powerful is a spiritual prequel to the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film, The Wizard of Oz. The film tells the story of Oscar Diggs, a deceptive magician who arrives in the Land of Oz and encounters three witches: Theodora, Evanora, and Glinda. Oscar is then enlisted to restore order in Oz, while struggling to resolve conflicts with the witches and himself.\n\nKapner began developing an origin story for the Wizard of Oz after a lifelong interest of wanting to create one for the character. Walt Disney Pictures commissioned the film's production in 2009, with Joe Roth as producer and Grant Curtis, Joshua Donen, Philip Steuer, and Palak Patel serving as executive producers. Raimi was hired to direct the following year. After Robert Downey Jr. and Johnny Depp declined the titular role, Franco was cast in February 2011, with principal photography commencing five months later. Danny Elfman composed the film's score.\n\nOz the Great and Powerful premiered at the El Capitan Theatre on February 14, 2013, and with general theatrical release on March 8, 2013, through the Disney Digital 3-D, RealD 3D and IMAX 3D formats, as well as in conventional theaters. It received mixed reviews from critics and grossed over $493 million worldwide against a $215 million budget.\n\nPlot\n\nIn 1905 Kansas, Oscar \"Oz\" Diggs works as a magician in a traveling circus. After his friend Annie tells him that John Gale has asked her to marry him, the circus strongman finds out that Oscar flirted with his wife, and threatens him. Oscar escapes in a hot air balloon, but is sucked into a tornado that takes him to the Land of Oz. There, he encounters a beautiful but naive witch, Theodora. She believes him to be a wizard prophesied to defeat a Wicked Witch who killed the King of Oz and take his place as the next king; the idea of being an immensely wealthy monarch makes Oscar immediately accept. En route to the Emerald City, Theodora falls in love with Oscar, though he does not reciprocate her feelings. They encounter the flying monkey in a blue uniform, Finley, who pledges a life debt to Oscar when he saves him from a lion. Oscar reveals his deception to Finley along the way, forcing him to help maintain the lie that he is a 'Wizard', much to Finley's irritation.\n\nAt the Emerald City, Oscar meets Theodora's beautiful older sister Evanora, the Royal Advisor. Evanora tells him the Wicked Witch resides in the Dark Forest and can be killed by destroying her wand, the source of her powers; only then will Evanora consent to him becoming King of Oz. Oscar and Finley are joined en route to the forest by China Girl, a young, living china doll whose village and family were destroyed by the Wicked Witches flying baboons. Oscar fixes the China Girl's broken legs with glue. They reach the forest and retrieve the wand, but they discover the \"Wicked Witch\" is really Glinda the Good Witch who identifies herself as the daughter of the late King, revealing that Evanora is the true Wicked Witch. Evanora sees this with her crystal ball and tricks the naive Theodora into thinking Oscar is trying to court all three witches. She offers the heartbroken Theodora a magic apple that she says will remove her bad feelings about Oscar; Theodora bites it and realizes that Evanora deceived both her and Oscar before she is transformed into a hideous, green-skinned witch. Glinda brings Oscar and his group to her kingdom in the south of Oz to escape Evanora's army of Winkies and flying baboons. She confides to Oscar that she knows that he's not really a wizard, but still believes he can help stop Evanora. As he reluctantly takes charge of an \"army\" of Quadlings, Tinkers, and Munchkins, Theodora enters Glinda's kingdom and angrily reveals her new, hideous appearance to Oscar. She threatens to kill him and his allies with the Emerald City's well-prepared army. Oscar despairs at his chances of victory. After telling China Girl about the exploits of his hero Thomas Edison, he conceives a plan that relies on trickery and makes preparations with Glinda and his group.\n \nGlinda and her subjects mount a fake attack on the Emerald City using an army of scarecrow puppets whose true nature is hidden by thick fog. The witches are tricked into sending their Flying Baboons through the deadly poppy fields that puts them into everlasting sleep. However, two of the Baboons and Evanora capture Glinda, who is then brought to the city square and chained. Oscar infiltrates the Emerald City with his allies but appears to abandon them in a hot air balloon which he loads with stolen gold. Theodora destroys the balloon with a fireball, but Oscar was never actually in the balloon. As the Wicked sisters prepare to kill Glinda, Oscar secretly reveals his engineered death to his friends. Using a hidden smoke machine and image projector, he presents a giant image of his face amid smoke and flame as his \"true form\", and calls upon \"the stars themselves\" (a fireworks display) to intimidate the wicked sisters. Evanora fearfully hides in the castle, while Theodora flies off on her broom after her attacks fail to hurt the \"invincible\" wizard. Oscar calls after her, telling her that she is welcome to come back if she overcomes her wickedness, but Theodora screams defiance at him and flies to the west, leaving Oscar saddened. China Girl frees Glinda, who engages in a magical duel with Evanora in the throne room. During the fight, Glinda destroys the Wicked Witch's emerald necklace that hides her true, aged, crone-like appearance. Defeated, the banished Evanora is rescued by the two remaining Flying Baboons, swearing revenge as she is carried into the east.\n\nOscar, now the King of Oz, decides to continue using his projector to sustain the belief he is a powerful wizard. He also presents gifts to his friends: Master Tinker, who helped build his machines, receives Oscar's camping tool; Knuck, the grumpy Munchkin herald, receives a mask with a smiley face; the long-suffering Finley receives Oscar's friendship (at last) along with his top hat; and China Girl accepts her friends as her new family. Finally, Oscar takes Glinda behind the curtains of his projector, thanks her for making him a better person, accepts his life in Oz, and they kiss.\n\nCast\n\n* James Franco as Oscar Diggs, or \"Oz\", a womanizing con artist, stage magician, and barnstormer who is part of a traveling circus in the Midwest. He is whisked in a hot air balloon by a tornado to the Land of Oz, where he is believed to be a wizard destined to bring peace to the land, forcing him to overcome his dubious ethics to convince his peers he is the hero needed by the people of Oz. He eventually becomes what is known as the Wizard of Oz.\n* Mila Kunis as Theodora, a naïve good witch who has the Land of Oz's best interests at her heart. She believes that Oscar is the wizard prophesied to defeat the seemingly evil Glinda from the Dark Forest, developing an attraction to him in the process. Evanora gradually manipulates Theodora into thinking Oscar has betrayed her for Glinda, ushering her transformation into the Wicked Witch of the West. \n* Rachel Weisz as Evanora, the protector of the Emerald City, older sister of Theodora, and former advisor to the original King of Oz, whose murder she has committed prior to the events of the film, framing his daughter Glinda for the murder. Being the Wicked Witch of the East, she has a hideous form which she hides by wearing a necklace that gives her the appearance of a young woman. She deceives Oscar by framing Glinda for the King's murder and telling Oscar that Glinda is the Wicked Witch rather than herself.\n* Michelle Williams as Glinda, the daughter of the late king. She rules and protects a peaceful kingdom in Oz inhabited by kind Quadlings, tinkers, and Munchkins. Oscar originally believed her to be the Wicked Witch responsible for terrorizing the land. She guides Oscar to achieve his destiny of defeating Evanora, becoming his love interest in the process.\n** Michelle Williams also plays Annie, an old flame of Oscar's and the future mother of Dorothy Gale. \n* Zach Braff as the voice of Finley: Finley is a winged monkey who pledges an irrevocable life debt to Oscar, believing him to be the prophesied wizard, for saving him from the Cowardly Lion. He quickly regrets his decision when Oscar reveals he is not a wizard, but nonetheless becomes his loyal ally.\n** Braff also plays Frank, Oscar's long-suffering yet loyal assistant in Kansas.\n* Bill Cobbs as the Master Tinker, the leader of the tinkers who are ruled by Glinda. He would later build the Tin Woodman.\n* Joey King as the voice of China Girl, a young, living china doll from China Town where everything, including its inhabitants, is made of china. Her home is destroyed by Evanora, leaving her its only survivor when she is found by Oscar, with whom she forms a strong friendship after he used glue to fix her legs.\n** King also plays a girl in a wheelchair visiting Oscar's magic show in Kansas.\n* Tony Cox plays Knuck, the quick-tempered herald and fanfare player of Emerald City who is allied with Glinda.\n\nStephen R. Hart and Bruce Campbell play Winkie guards at the Emerald City. Abigail Spencer plays May, Oscar's temporary magic assistant in Kansas and one of his several fleeting loves in the film. Tim Holmes plays the strongman who attacks Oscar for trying to court his wife, prompting Oscar to take the hot air balloon that sends him to the Land of Oz.\n\nRaimi, who often casts friends and actor-regulars in cameo roles, cast his brother Ted Raimi as a small-town skeptic at Oscar's magic show who yells \"I see a wire!\", two of his former teachers—Jim Moll and Jim Bird—as Emerald City townspeople, and the three actresses from his 1981 directorial debut The Evil Dead—Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker and Theresa Tilly— as Quadling townspeople. \n\nContinuity\n\nOz the Great and Powerful features several artistic allusions, homages, and technical parallels to Baum's novels and the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film, The Wizard of Oz.\n\nThe film's opening sequence is presented in black and white. When Oscar is caught up in the tornado, the audio transitions from monaural to stereo and eventually surround sound. The film transitions to full color when Oscar arrives in Oz; additionally, the aspect ratio gradually widens from 4:3 Academy ratio to 2.35:1 widescreen. As in the 1939 film, Glinda travels in giant bubbles, and the Emerald City is actually emerald; in the novel, characters wear tinted glasses to make it appear so. However, during the battle preparations sequence Oz can be seen wearing emerald goggles. The iconic green look of the Wicked Witch of the West is closer to her look in the classic film, as the Witch is a short, one-eyed crone in the novel. The Wicked Witches are portrayed as sisters, an idea which originated in the 1939 film. Several actors who play Oz characters make cameos in the Kansas segments, such as Frank, Oscar's assistant whom he refers to as his \"trained monkey\" (Frank's \"Oz\" counterpart is the winged monkey Finley) and a young girl in a wheelchair who serves as the Kansas counterpart to China Girl (in Kansas, Oscar is unable to make the wheelchair-bound young girl walk, and gets a chance to do so when he repairs China Girl's broken legs). A woman wearing a gingham dress, Annie (Michelle Williams), informs Oscar that she has been proposed to by John Gale, presumably hinting at Dorothy Gale's parental lineage. \n\nOther referenced characters include the Scarecrow, who is built by the townspeople as a scare tactic. Similarly, various other races of Oz are depicted besides the Munchkins; the Quadlings, the china doll inhabitants of Dainty China Country, and the Winkies (who went unnamed in the classic film). Similarly, Glinda is referred to by her title in the novel (the Good Witch of the South), unlike the 1939 film, where her character's title is \"Good Witch of the North\" (due to her character being merged with the Good Witch of the North). Theodora's tears leave streaks of scars on her face, reflecting her weakness to water in the original novel/film. Also, Oz is presented as a real place as it is in the novel, and not as a possible dream as the 1939 film presents. Finally, the lion that attacks Finley but was warded off by Oz is a reference to the Cowardly Lion in the original film.\n\nProduction\n\nDisney's history with Oz\n\nAfter the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, Walt Disney planned to produce an animated film based on the first of L. Frank Baum's Oz books. Roy O. Disney, chairman of the Walt Disney Studios, was informed by Baum's estate that they had sold the film rights to the first book to Samuel Goldwyn, who re-sold it to Louis B. Mayer in 1938. The project was developed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer into the well-known musical adaptation released the following year.\n\nIn 1954, when the film rights to Baum's remaining thirteen Oz books were made available, Walt Disney Productions acquired them for use in Walt Disney's television series Disneyland and the live-action film Rainbow Road to Oz, which was abandoned and never completed. Disney's history with the Oz series continued with the 1985 film Return to Oz, which performed poorly, both critically and commercially, but has developed a cult following since its release. After Return to Oz, Disney lost the film rights to the Oz books and they were subsequently reverted to the public domain. \nDevelopment\n\nScreenwriter Mitchell Kapner was intrigued by the prospect of exploring the origins of the Wizard of Oz character after reading the sixth novel in the series, The Emerald City of Oz. Producer Joe Roth became involved for nearly the same reason as Kapner, stating that \"...during the years that I spent running Walt Disney Studios -- I learned about how hard it was to find a fairy tale with a good strong male protagonist. You've got your Sleeping Beauties, your Cinderellas and your Alices. But a fairy tale with a male protagonist is very hard to come by. But with the origin story of the Wizard of Oz, here was a fairy tale story with a natural male protagonist. Which is why I knew that this was an idea for a movie that was genuinely worth pursuing.\" Kapner and co-writer Palak Patel presented the idea to Sony Pictures but were turned down. In 2009, the project was set up at Walt Disney Pictures when the studio's president of production, Sean Bailey commissioned Oz the Great and Powerful under the working title Brick during the tenure of then Walt Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook, who was succeeded by Rich Ross and later Alan Horn, a succession in management that a major studio release is rare to survive. David Lindsay-Abaire was later hired, replacing Patel, who was reassigned as executive producer. \n\nRoth initially sought out Robert Downey, Jr. for the titular role of the Wizard in April 2010. By summer of that year, Sam Raimi was hired to direct the film from a shortlist that reportedly included directors Sam Mendes and Adam Shankman. In January 2011, Raimi met with Downey, but did not secure his casting. With Downey's disinterest acknowledged, Johnny Depp was then approached due to his previous collaboration with the studio in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and Alice in Wonderland. Depp liked the role but declined involvement, citing his commitment to another Disney tentpole film, The Lone Ranger. The film was without a lead until February when James Franco entered final negotiations to star in the film (including a $7 million salary), five months before filming was scheduled to begin. Franco and Raimi had previously worked together on the Spider-Man trilogy. Franco received training with magician Lance Burton to prepare for the role.\n\nScreenwriter Kapner adopted information about the Wizard from L. Frank Baum's novels to conceptualize an original story. Raimi made sure that the film would also \"nod lovingly\" to the 1939 film and inserted several references and homages to that film. Disney wanted to reduce the film's production budget to be approximately $200 million. Casting calls were put out for local actors in Michigan. \n\nIn June 2011, composer Danny Elfman was chosen to score Oz the Great and Powerful, despite Elfman and Raimi having had a falling-out over Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Elfman declaring that they would never again work together. \n\nFilming\n\nPrincipal photography for Oz the Great and Powerful began July 25, 2011, at Raleigh Michigan Studios in Pontiac, Michigan, employing 3D cameras.\n\nRaimi opted to use practical sets in conjunction with computer-generated imagery during filming. Physical sets were constructed so the actors could have a visual reference, as opposed to using green screen technology for every scene. Chroma key compositing was only used for background pieces. Zach Braff and Joey King were on set, recording their dialogue simultaneously with the other actors, whenever their CG characters were present in a scene. Puppetry was employed for a physical version of the China Girl to serve as a visual key-point for actors to manipulate. Braff wore a blue motion capture suit to create Finley's movements and had a camera close to his face for the flying sequences to obtain facial movements.\n\nArt director Robert Stromberg, who worked on Avatar and Alice in Wonderland, drew inspiration from the films of Frank Capra and James Wong Howe to achieve the Art Deco design he envisioned for the Emerald City. Stromberg contrasted the colorful tonal qualities of Oz with the restrained appearance of Alice, affirming that although both films explore similar fantasy worlds, the overall atmosphere and landscape of each \"are completely different.\" In 2011, Stromberg and his team visited the Walt Disney archives during the pre-production phase to reference production art from Disney's animated films such as Pinocchio, Bambi, Fantasia, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, drawing from designs and textures, in order to give certain settings in the film an affectionate nod to the classic Disney style. Costume designer Gary Jones focused on authenticity with his wardrobe designs: \"We started by doing a lot of research and having ideas of the ways (costumes) should look in order to be (historically accurate) but as we went on, we really began creating a whole new world.\" \n\nThe film was technically a prequel to the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film, The Wizard of Oz, but it was not allowed to be considered as such. The filmmakers had to toe a fine line between calling the film to mind but not infringing upon it. To that end, they had a copyright expert on set to ensure no infringement occurred. The production team worked under the constraint of abiding by the stipulations set forth by Warner Bros., the legal owner of the rights to iconic elements of the 1939 film (via its Turner Entertainment division which purchased the MGM film library in 1986), including the ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland. Therefore, Disney was unable to use them nor any character likenesses from that particular film. This extended to the green of the Wicked Witch's skin, for which Disney used what its legal department considered a sufficiently different shade dubbed \"Theostein\" (a portmanteau of \"Theodora\" and \"Frankenstein\"). Additionally, the studio could not use the signature chin mole of Margaret Hamilton's portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West, nor could they employ the yellow brick road's swirl design for Munchkinland. The expert also ensured that the Emerald City was not too close in appearance to the Emerald City in the 1939 film.\n\nWhile WB and Disney did not engage in copyright battle, they did file rival trademarks. Disney filed a trademark on \"Oz the Great and Powerful.\" One week later, WB filed its own trademarks for \"The Great and Powerful Oz.\" The US Patent and Trademark Office suspended WB's attempt at a trademark because Disney had filed basically the same one a week earlier.\n\nIn addition to the legal issues, the film was also faced with delays when several cast members went on hiatus due to unrelated commitments and circumstances. Rachel Weisz left halfway through the shoot to film her entire role in The Bourne Legacy, Michelle Williams was required to promote the release of My Week with Marilyn, and Franco's father died during production. Roth compared the task of managing overlapping schedules to \"being an air-traffic controller.\" Mila Kunis's makeup and prosthetics were supervised by Greg Nicotero and demanded four hours to apply and another hour to remove, with Kunis taking nearly two months to fully recover from the subsequent removal of the makeup from her skin. Raimi had to edit the frightening nature of several scenes to secure Disney's desired PG rating from the MPAA. Sony Pictures Imageworks was contracted to create the film's visual effects. \n\nMusic\n\nComposer Danny Elfman noted that the film's score was accessibly quick to produce, with a majority of the music being written in six weeks. Regarding the tonal quality of the score, Elfman stated, \"We're going to take an approach that's old school but not self-consciously old-fashioned. Let the melodrama be melodrama, let everything be what it is. I also think there's the advantage that I'm able to write narratively, and when I'm able to write narratively I can also move quicker because that's my natural instincts, I can tell a story in the music.\" \n\nAmerican singer-songwriter Mariah Carey recorded a promotional Pop single called \"Almost Home\" written by Carey, Simone Porter, Justin Gray, Lindsey Ray, Tor Erik Hermansen, and Mikkel Eriksen (a.k.a. Stargate) for the soundtrack of the film. The single was released on February 19, 2013 by Island Records. \n\nSoundtrack\n\nThe original soundtrack to Oz the Great and Powerful was released digitally and physically by Walt Disney Records on March 5, 2013. The physical CD release was in association with Intrada Records. \n\nRelease\n\nIn May 2011 before filming began, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures gave Oz the Great and Powerful a March 8, 2013 North American theatrical release date. The film had its world premiere at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood on February 14, 2013. Disney opened the film in wide release in 3,912 theaters. \n\nTo promote the film, Disney partnered with the IMAX Corporation and HSN to coordinate a hot air balloon campaign across the United States beginning in California at the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, stopping at four locations; the El Capitan Theater during the world premiere, the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, the Daytona International Speedway in Florida and Central Park in New York City. Disney also promoted the film through its theme parks; Epcot's International Flower and Garden Festival featured a multi-purpose garden and play area themed to the film and Disney California Adventure hosted sample viewings inside the Muppet*Vision 3D theatre. \n\nHome media\n\nOz the Great and Powerful was released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, DVD and digital download on June 11, 2013. The film is Disney's first home media release to exclude a physical digital copy disc and instead provides only a digital code for the download. Oz the Great and Powerful debuted at number one in its first week of home media release in overall disc sales with 46% of its first week sales from Blu-ray disc. The film has earned $52 million in sales. \n\nReception\n\nBox office\n\nOz the Great and Powerful earned $234.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $258.4 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $493.3 million. Worldwide, it was the thirteenth highest-grossing film of 2013. Calculating in all expenses, Deadline.com estimated that the film made a profit of $36.4 million. It topped the box office on its worldwide opening weekend with $149 million. Before its theatrical release, several media outlets reported that Oz the Great and Powerful was expected to duplicate the box office performance of 2010's Alice in Wonderland. However, Oz accumulated less than half of Alices worldwide gross. \n\nPreliminary reports had the film tracking for an $80–$100 million debut in North America. The movie earned $2 million from 9 p.m. showings on Thursday night. For its opening day, Oz the Great and Powerful grossed $24.1 million, the fourth-highest March opening day. During its opening weekend, the film topped the box office with $79.1 million, the third-highest March opening weekend. Despite the film's solid debut, which was larger than nearly all comparable titles, it clearly lagged behind Alice in Wonderlands opening ($116.1 million). The film's 3-D share of the opening weekend was 53%. Females made up 52% of the audience. Surprisingly, though, families only represented 41% of attendance, while couples accounted for 43%. The film retained first place at the box office during its second weekend with $41.3 million. \n\nOutside North America, the film earned $69.9 million on its opening weekend from 46 territories. Among all markets, its highest-grossing debuts were achieved in Russia and the CIS ($14.7 million), China ($9.06 million) and France and the Maghreb region ($5.77 million). The film's openings trailed Alice in Wonderland in all major markets except Russia and the CIS. It retained first place at the box office outside North America for a second weekend. In total grosses, Ozs largest countries are Russia and the CIS ($27.4 million), China ($25.9 million) and the UK, Ireland and Malta ($23.4 million).\n\nCritical response\n\nOz the Great and Powerful received a 59% approval rating on aggregate review site Rotten Tomatoes with an average score of 6/10, based on 243 reviews. The site's consensus says \"It suffers from some tonal inconsistency and a deflated sense of wonder, but Oz the Great and Powerful still packs enough visual dazzle and clever wit to be entertaining in its own right.\" The film holds a score of 44 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 42 reviews, indicating \"mixed to average\" reviews. \n\nKim Newman, writing for Empire, gave the film 4 out of 5 stars and said, \"If there are post-Harry Potter children who don't know or care about The Wizard Of Oz, they might be at sea with this story about a not-very-nice grownup in a magic land, but long-term Oz watchers will be enchanted and enthralled... Mila Kunis gets a gold star for excellence in bewitchery and Sam Raimi can settle securely behind the curtain as a mature master of illusion.\" Critic Alonso Duralde also admired the movie: \"That Oz the Great and Powerful is so thoroughly effective both on its own terms and as a prequel to one of the most beloved movies ever made indicates that this team has magic to match any witch or wizard.\" Leonard Maltin on IndieWire claimed that \"No movie ever can, or will, replace 1939’s The Wizard Of Oz, but taken on its own terms, this eye-filling fantasy is an entertaining riff on how the Wizard of that immortal film found his way to Oz.\" IGN rated the film 7.8 and said, \"The film is expansive and larger-than-life in scope and so are the performances, overall. Franco in particular hams it up and is often playing to the balcony...The 3D is utilized just as it should be in a children's fantasy epic such as this – overtly, but with skill. Snowflakes, music boxes and mysterious animals all leap through the screen towards the audience as the story unfolds.\" \n\nJustin Chang of Variety had a mixed reaction, writing that the film \"gets some mileage out of its game performances, luscious production design and the unfettered enthusiasm director Sam Raimi brings to a thin, simplistic origin story.\" He also compared the film's scale with the Star Wars prequel trilogy adding, \"In a real sense, Oz the Great and Powerful has a certain kinship with George Lucas' Star Wars prequels, in the way it presents a beautiful but borderline-sterile digital update of a world that was richer, purer and a lot more fun in lower-tech form. Here, too, the actors often look artificially superimposed against their CG backdrops, though the intensity of the fakery generates its own visual fascination.\" /Film rated the film 7 out of 10, saying it had \"many charms\" while considering it to be \"basically Army of Darkness: (Normal guy lands in magical land, is forced to go on quest to save that land.) But just when you see Raimi's kinetic, signature style starting to unleash, the story forces the film back into its Disney shell to play to the masses. We're left with a film that's entertaining, a little scarier than you'd expect, but extremely inconsistent.\" \n\nRichard Roeper, writing for Roger Ebert, noted the film's omnipresent visual effects but was largely disappointed by the performance of some cast members; \"...to see Williams so bland and sugary as Glinda, and Kunis so flat and ineffectual as the heartsick Theodora...\" Marshall Fine of The Huffington Post was unimpressed, writing, \"Oh, it's exciting enough for a six-year-old; anyone older, however, will already have been exposed to so much on TV, at the movies and on the Internet that this will seem like so much visual cotton-candy. Even a sophisticated grade-schooler will find these doings weak and overblown.\" Similarly, Todd McCarthy criticized the characterization, writing that the film's supporting cast \"can't begin to compare with their equivalents in the original ... so the burden rests entirely upon Franco and Williams, whose dialogue exchanges are repetitive and feel tentative.\" Entertainment Weekly agreed, giving the film a C+ and saying that the \"miscast\" Franco \"lacks the humor, charm, and gee-whiz wonder we're meant to feel as he trades wisecracks with a flying monkey... and soars above a field of poppies in a giant soap bubble. If he's not enchanted, how are we supposed to be?\" and complaining that \"while Raimi's Oz is like retinal crack, he never seduces our hearts and minds.\" Alisha Coelho of in.com gave the movie 2.5 stars, saying \"Oz The Great and Powerful doesn't leave a lasting impression, but is an a-ok watch.\" \n\nAccolades\n\nSequel\n\nOn March 7, 2013, Variety confirmed that Disney has already approved plans for a sequel, with Mitchell Kapner returning as screenwriter, and Joe Roth returning as producer. Mila Kunis said during an interview with E! News, \"We're all signed on for sequels.\" On March 8, 2013, Sam Raimi told Bleeding Cool that he has no plans to direct the sequel, saying, \"I did leave some loose ends for another director if they want to make the picture,\" and that \"I was attracted to this story but I don't think the second one would have the thing I would need to get me interested.\" On March 11, 2013, Kapner and Roth have said to the Los Angeles Times that the sequel will \"absolutely not\" involve Dorothy, with Kapner pointing out that there are twenty years between the events of the first film and Dorothy's arrival, and \"a lot can happen in that time.\"" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "The Commitments (disambiguation)", "The Commitments" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "commitments", "commitments disambiguation" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "commitments", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "The Commitments" }
In which category was Mrs. Doubtfire Oscar-nominated?	tc_1202	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Mrs._Doubtfire.txt" ], "title": [ "Mrs. Doubtfire" ], "wiki_context": [ "Mrs. Doubtfire is a 1993 American comedy-drama film, directed by Chris Columbus and based on Madame Doubtfire by Anne Fine. It stars Robin Williams (who also served as co-producer), Sally Field, Pierce Brosnan, Harvey Fierstein, and Robert Prosky. It won the Academy Award for Best Makeup and the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. For his performance in the film, Robin Williams was awarded the Golden Globe for Best Actor.\n\nAlthough the film received mixed reviews during its original theatrical run, more recent reviews have been much more positive: the film was placed 67th in the American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Laughs: America's Funniest Movies and was also rated 40 on Bravo's 100 Funniest Movies of All Time. The original music score was composed by Howard Shore.\n\nIn 2001, a sequel titled Mrs. Doubtfire 2 began production by Bonnie Hunt. Writing for the sequel began in 2003, but it was cancelled in December 2006, after Williams believed the script was \"useless\". However, in April 2014, production resumed, but after Williams's death in August 2014, plans for the sequel were permanently cancelled.\n\nPlot\n\nDaniel Hillard is a freelance voice actor living in San Francisco, California. Though a devoted and loving father to his three children Lydia, Chris, and Natalie, Daniel is an unreliable husband. One day, he quits his job due to a disagreement over a questionable script, then throws a wild birthday party for Chris with a petting zoo against his wife Miranda's objections. Returning home from work due to a neighbor's complaint, Miranda is angry at Daniel for planning the party behind her back and, after an argument, files for divorce. At their first custody hearing, the judge initially grants Miranda sole custody of the children since Daniel has neither a residence nor a steady job, but rules that if Daniel gets a steady job and a residence suitable for children within three months, he will allow Daniel and Miranda to share joint custody.\n\nAs Daniel attempts to rebuild his life, he learns that Miranda intends to hire a housekeeper and secretly alters her classifieds form when she declines his offer to take care of the children. He then calls Miranda several times, using his voice acting skills as several bad job applicants. Finally, he calls as a Scottish-accented nanny, whom he calls Mrs. Euphegenia Doubtfire. Impressed with her alleged qualifications, Miranda invites \"Mrs. Doubtfire\" for an interview. Daniel enlists his older brother Frank, a makeup artist, and his partner Jack to transform him into the character.\n\nAfter being further impressed by the interview, Miranda hires Mrs. Doubtfire. The children initially struggle to adjust to Mrs. Doubtfire's methods, but they soon begin to thrive, becoming happier and doing better in school. At the same time, Miranda is able to heal her strained relationship with the children as she and Mrs. Doubtfire become good friends. Daniel has to learn several skills to play his role, such as cooking and cleaning, and also improves himself.\n\nHowever, despite impressing Miranda greatly with his newfound maturity, Daniel realizes that he has indirectly created another barrier, as when he asks to look after the children again one night, Miranda insists she could never dismiss Mrs. Doubtfire as the family's lives have been made so much better by \"her.\" One night, Lydia and Chris accidentally discover that Mrs. Doubtfire is actually Daniel in disguise and though initially shocked by the revelation, they are overjoyed that their father is back in their lives and agree to keep his disguise a secret.\n\nDaniel also takes a menial job at a television station. One day, CEO Jonathan Lundy sees Daniel playing around with toy dinosaurs on the set of an unsuccessful children's program and, impressed with Daniel's creativity, invites him to dinner at Bridge's Restaurant on the coming Friday night for Daniel to pitch ideas as a possible new host. Meanwhile, Miranda expects Mrs. Doubtfire to attend a birthday dinner arranged by her new love interest, Stu Dunmire, at the same time and place.\n\nUnable to postpone his dinner with Lundy and not wanting to disappoint his family, Daniel goes to the restaurant and tries to rotate between both dinners, changing in and out of the Mrs. Doubtfire costume in the restroom; however, he becomes drunk as both tables provide him with numerous alcoholic beverages. After seasoning Stu's food with cayenne pepper, which Stu is allergic to, Daniel forgets to change out of the Mrs. Doubtfire costume before returning to Mr. Lundy's table. When Lundy questions the costume, Daniel quickly covers for his mistake by explaining that his alter-ego is his idea for a television persona, impressing Lundy. At Miranda's table, Stu starts choking. Regretful, Daniel administers the Heimlich maneuver, partially ripping off his mask in the process and revealing his identity, to Miranda's horror.\n\nAt their next custody hearing, Daniel shows that he has a job and a suitable home, then explains his actions. The judge, however, is disturbed by Daniel's actions, and grants Miranda full custody, with Daniel limited to supervised visitation once a week, leaving Daniel heartbroken. Without Mrs. Doubtfire, the children again become miserable and even Miranda admits their lives were so much better with \"her\". Soon, they are delighted to see Daniel dressed as Mrs. Doubtfire hosting his own television program, \"Euphegenia's House\", which becomes a hit across several American cities. \n\nMiranda pays a visit to Daniel after he wraps up one episode. Congratulating him on his success, she admits that things were better when he was involved, so she forgives him and decides to appeal the custody ruling. Sometime later, the children are greeted by Daniel, revealed as their new babysitter, undisguised and now allowed to see them anytime he wants. \n\nThey head out as Miranda watches a \"Euphegenia's House\" episode where Mrs. Doubtfire answers a letter from a young girl whose parents have separated, saying no matter what arrangements families have, love will prevail.\n\nCast\n\n* Robin Williams as Daniel Hillard / Euphegenia Doubtfire\n* Sally Field as Miranda Hillard\n* Pierce Brosnan as Stuart \"Stu\" Dunmeyer\n* Lisa Jakub as Lydia \"Lydie\" Hillard\n* Matthew Lawrence as Christopher \"Chris\" Hillard\n* Mara Wilson as Natalie \"Nattie\" Hillard\n* Harvey Fierstein as Frank Hillard\n* Scott Capurro as Jack\n* Robert Prosky as Jonathan Lundy\n* Polly Holliday as Gloria Cheney\n* Anne Haney as Mrs. Sellner\n* Martin Mull as Justin Gregory\n* William Newman as Mr. Sprinkles\n* Todd Williams as Todd the Bartender\n* Terry McGovern as Lou\n\nProduction\n\nFilming\n\nChicago was the studio's first choice for filming. However, as two new television series (ER and Chicago Hope) had a lease with the city during the subsequent time period, production was relocated to San Francisco. Various locations in the city were used during filming. Parts were filmed at the studios of television station KTVU in Oakland. Street signs for the intersection near the \"Painted Lady\" home, Steiner, and Broadway, were visible onscreen.\n\nThe exact address 2640 Steiner Street became a tourist attraction for some time after the film's release. Following Williams's death on August 11, 2014, the house became an impromptu memorial. All interior filming for the home took place in a Bay Area warehouse converted for sound stage usage. Williams' character Daniel Hillard lived upstairs from Danilo Bakery at 516 Green Street; his children attended a school at Filbert and Taylor.\n\nThe makeup for Mrs. Doubtfire's appearance took 4 hours to apply. Williams later recounted how he used to walk through San Francisco dressed in full Mrs. Doubtfire makeup and costume and on one occasion, visiting a sex shop to buy a large dildo and other toys. \n\nThe restaurant scene was filmed at Bridges Restaurant & Bar in Danville, California.\n\nMusic\n\n;Track listing\n# \"Mrs. Doubtfire\" – 2:58\n# \"Divorce\" – 2:56\n# \"My Name Is Else Immelman\" – 2:55\n# \"Meeting Mrs. Doubtfire\" – 2:14\n# \"Tea Time with Mrs. Sellner\" – 3:58\n# \"Dinner Is Served\" – 2:18\n# \"Daniel and the Kids\" – 2:29\n# \"Cable Cars\" – 4:56\n# \"Bridges Restaurant\" – 6:13\n# \"Show's Over\" – 3:26 \n# \"The Kids Need You\" – 3:21\n# \"Figaro / Papa's Got a Brand New Bag\" – 3:23\n\nThe score was composed, orchestrated, and conducted by Howard Shore. The CD was mastered by Ted Jensen. The song Robin Williams sings at the cartoon voice-over in the beginning is \"Largo al factotum.\" Other songs featured often were chosen referencing the identity of Mrs. Doubtfire. These songs include:\n\n* \"Dude (Looks Like a Lady)\" performed by Aerosmith\n* \"Walk Like a Man\" performed by The Four Seasons\n* \"Luck Be a Lady\" performed by Frank Sinatra\n* \"Papa's Got a Brand New Bag\" performed by James Brown\n\nAdditionally, these songs were featured:\n\n* \"Jump Around\" performed by House of Pain\n* \"Stormy Monday Blues\" performed by B.B. King and Albert Collins\n\nRelease\n\nThe film was released in the United States on November 24, 1993, and was rated PG-13. \n\nIn January 1994 when released in the United Kingdom the film received a 12 certificate which, at the time, completely refused access to children under the age of 12 at cinemas. This resulted in cinemas requesting their local authorities to override the decision of the British Board of Film Classification after having to turn down disappointed families. In February 1994 The Independent reported that the censors refused the film a U or PG certificate and gave it a 12 instead which was due to 20th Century Fox refusing to remove three controversial lines. \n\nAfter the film's distributors requested the BBFC to reconsider a compromise was reached in which the film was re rated PG with the 13 seconds of sexual innuendos cut and it was re released in May 1994. The cut version was also used in subsequent VHS and DVD releases in the United Kingdom. In November 2012 the distributors resubmitted the uncut version to the BBFC and the 12 certificate was reinstated. On March 4, 2013, the uncut version was released on Blu-ray and downloads in the UK.\n\nReception\n\nBox office\n\nThe film earned $219,195,243 in the United States, along with $222,090,952 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $441,286,195, making it the highest grossing cross-dressing film. It became the second highest grossing film of 1993, behind only Jurassic Park. Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 52.6 million tickets in the US. \n\nCritical reception\n\nAt the time of its release, several critics compared Mrs. Doubtfire unfavorably with Some Like It Hot (1959) and others who viewed the film favorably noted its similarity to Tootsie (1982). \n\nOn Rotten Tomatoes, Mrs. Doubtfire has a rating of 71%, based on 49 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The site's critical reception reads, \"On paper, Mrs. Doubtfire might seem excessively broad or sentimental, but Robin Williams shines so brightly in the title role that the end result is difficult to resist.\" On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 53 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating \"mixed or average reviews\". \n\nAccolades\n\n* 66th Academy Awards[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107614/awards Awards for Mrs. Doubtfire]. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2010-11-12.\n** Best Makeup (Won)\n* 51st Golden Globe Awards\n Best Picture (Musical/Comedy) (Won)\n Best Actor (Musical/Comedy) - Robin Williams (Won)\n* 48th BAFTA Awards\n** Best Makeup and Hair (nominated)\n\nAmerican Film Institute lists\n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – 67\n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:\n** \"Dude (Looks Like a Lady)\" – Nominated \n\nCancelled sequel\n\nIn 2001, Mrs. Doubtfire 2 began being developed by Bonnie Hunt, but writing did not begin until 2003. Robin Williams was set to return in disguise as an old nanny. Due to problems with the script, re-writing began in 2006, as Williams was unhappy with the plot, and the sequel was again \"scrapped\" later that year. The film was expected to be released in late 2007, but following further script problems, the sequel was declared \"scrapped\" in December 2006. \n\nIn 2006, in an Newsday interview, Williams said the sequel was indefinitely scrapped. Stating his reasons, he said, \"The script they had just didn't work.\" The sequel's story involved Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire moving close to Lydia's college, so he could keep an eye on her. In December 2006, during an interview on BBC Radio 1 by DJ Edith Bowman, Williams said that if it is not going to be done right, then it is not worth doing, and that there would not be a sequel with him in it. \n\nIn August 2010, on Alan Carr: Chatty Man, Williams again brought up the topic of a sequel to Mrs. Doubtfire. He blamed the script not being right as the reason a sequel wasn't made. He claimed the script had been written three times and failed, and there was no mention of any ongoing work on the project. Furthermore, in December 2011, during an interview by Moviehole, Williams stated again that the chances of a sequel are \"highly unlikely\".\n\nIn May 2013, Chris Columbus stated that:\n\nIn April 2014, it was announced that a sequel was in development at 20th Century Fox. Williams and Columbus were expected to return, and Elf screenwriter David Berenbaum was hired to write the script. However, after Williams's suicide in August 2014, plans for a sequel were permanently cancelled." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Best Editing", "Best Writing, Screenplay", "Best movie", "Best Adapted Screenplay", "Best Foreign Language Film", "Best Animated picture", "Best Movie", "Best Production Design", "Best Animated Film", "Best Original Song", "Best Makeup", "Best film", "Best Film Editing", "Best Animated Feature", "List of common film awards categories", "Best picture", "Best Sound Editing", "Best Cinematography", "Best Writing, Original Story", "Best Sound", "Best Film", "Best Sound Design", "Best Picture", "Best adapted screenplay", "Best Animated Feature Film", "Best Visual Effects" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "best movie", "best adapted screenplay", "best writing screenplay", "best picture", "best sound", "best cinematography", "best sound editing", "best animated picture", "best film", "best film editing", "best production design", "list of common film awards categories", "best foreign language film", "best editing", "best sound design", "best writing original story", "best visual effects", "best animated feature", "best original song", "best animated film", "best animated feature film", "best makeup" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "best makeup", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Best Makeup" }
Which musical was Victor Fleming making the same time as he was making Gone With the Wind?	tc_1203	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Victor_Fleming.txt", "Gone_with_the_Wind_(film).txt" ], "title": [ "Victor Fleming", "Gone with the Wind (film)" ], "wiki_context": [ "Victor Lonzo Fleming (February 23, 1889 – January 6, 1949) was an American film director, cinematographer, and producer. His most popular films were The Wizard of Oz (1939), and Gone with the Wind (1939), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Director. Fleming holds the achievement of being the only film director to have two films listed in the top 10 of the American Film Institute's 2007 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list.\n\nBiography\n\nEarly life\n\nVictor Fleming was born at the Banbury Ranch near present-date La Cañada Flintridge, California, the son of Elizabeth Evaleen (née Hartman) and William Alonzo \"Lon\" Fleming, who worked in the water industry in Pasadena. His mother was of part German descent.\n\nCareer\n\nHe served in the photographic section during World War I, and acted as chief photographer for President Woodrow Wilson in Versailles, France. He showed a mechanical aptitude early in life; while working as a car mechanic, he met the director Allan Dwan, who took him on as a camera assistant. He soon rose to the rank of cinematographer, working with both Dwan and D. W. Griffith, and directed his first film in 1919. \n\nMany of his silent films were action movies, often starring Douglas Fairbanks, or Westerns. Because of his robust attitude and love of outdoor sports, he became known as a \"man's director\"; however, he also proved an effective director of women. Under his direction, Vivien Leigh won the Best Actress Oscar, Hattie McDaniel won for Best Supporting Actress, and Olivia De Havilland was nominated.\n\nMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer\n\nIn 1932, Fleming joined MGM and directed some of the studio's most prestigious films. Red Dust (1932), Bombshell (1933), and Reckless (1935) showcasing Jean Harlow, while Treasure Island (1934) and Captains Courageous (1937) brought a touch of literary distinction to boy's-own adventure stories. His two most famous films came in 1939, when The Wizard of Oz was closely followed by Gone with the Wind.\n\nFleming's version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), with Spencer Tracy, was generally rated below Rouben Mamoulian's 1931 pre-code version, which had starred Fredric March. Fleming's 1942 film version of John Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat starred Tracy, John Garfield, Hedy Lamarr, and Frank Morgan. Other films that Fleming made with Tracy include Captains Courageous (for which Tracy won his first Oscar), A Guy Named Joe, and Test Pilot. He directed Clark Gable in a total of five films – Red Dust, The White Sister, Test Pilot, Gone with the Wind, and Adventure.\n\nPersonal life\n\nHe owned the Moraga Estate in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, then a horse ranch. Frequent guests to his estate were Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Ingrid Bergman, and Spencer Tracy.\n\nHe died suddenly, while en route to a hospital in Cottonwood, Arizona after suffering a myocardial infarction (heart attack) on January 6, 1949. His death occurred shortly after completing Joan of Arc (1948) with Ingrid Bergman, one of the few films that he did not make for MGM. Despite mixed reviews, Fleming's film version of the life of Joan received seven Academy Award nominations, winning two.\n\nComment by Anne Revere\n\nIt was reported in James Curtis' book Spencer Tracy: A Biography that Anne Revere once said Fleming was \"violently pro-Nazi\" and strongly opposed to the United States entering World War II. According to the Fleming biography Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master, by author Michael Sragow, Fleming had once mocked the UK at the outset of World War II by taking a bet as to how long the country could withstand an attack by Germany. Furthermore, Revere had made her comment because she felt she had been cast in the film The Yearling over Flora Robson because Robson was British. However, at the time of the casting, Fleming was working on the film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which featured a British producer and a cast largely composed of British or British Commonwealth actors. Furthermore, Revere did not know Fleming beyond their professional relationship. According to the cited biography, no other supporting evidence has been found for Revere's claim.\n\nPartial directorial filmography\n\nJoan of Arc (1948)\nAdventure (1945)\nA Guy Named Joe (1943)\nTortilla Flat (1942)\nDr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)\nGone with the Wind (1939)\nThe Wizard of Oz (1939)\nThe Great Waltz (1938) (uncredited)\nTest Pilot (1938)\nCaptains Courageous (1937)\nThe Good Earth (1937) (uncredited)\nThe Farmer Takes a Wife (1935)\nReckless (1935)\nTreasure Island (1934)\nBombshell (1933)\nThe White Sister (1933)\nRed Dust (1932)\nThe Wet Parade (1932)\nRenegades (1930)\nCommon Clay (1930)\nThe Virginian (1929)\nWolf Song (1929)\nAbie's Irish Rose (1929)\nThe Awakening (1928)\nThe Rough Riders (1927)\nHula (1927)\nThe Way of All Flesh (1927)\nMantrap (1926)\nThe Blind Goddess (1926)\nLord Jim (1925)\nA Son of His Father (1925)\nAdventure (1925)\nThe Devil's Cargo (1925)\nCode of the Sea (1924)\nEmpty Hands (1924)\nThe Call of the Canyon (1923)\nTo the Last Man (1923)\nLaw of the Lawless (1923)\nDark Secrets (1923)\nAnna Ascends (1922)\nRed Hot Romance (1922)\nThe Lane That Had No Turning (1922)\nWoman's Place (1921)\nMama's Affair (1921)\nThe Mollycoddle (1920)\nWhen the Clouds Roll By (1919)", "Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American epic-historical romance film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind. It was produced by David O. Selznick of Selznick International Pictures and directed by Victor Fleming. Set in the American South against the backdrop of the American Civil War and Reconstruction era, the film tells the story of Scarlett O'Hara, the strong-willed daughter of a Georgia plantation owner, from her romantic pursuit of Ashley Wilkes, who is married to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton, to her marriage to Rhett Butler. The leading roles are portrayed by Vivien Leigh (Scarlett), Clark Gable (Rhett), Leslie Howard (Ashley), and Olivia de Havilland (Melanie).\n\nThe production of the film was difficult from the start. Filming was delayed for two years due to Selznick's determination to secure Gable for the role of Rhett Butler, and the \"search for Scarlett\" led to 1,400 women being interviewed for the part. The original screenplay was written by Sidney Howard, but underwent many revisions by several writers in an attempt to get it down to a suitable length. The original director, George Cukor, was fired shortly after filming had begun and was replaced by Fleming, who in turn was briefly replaced by Sam Wood while Fleming took some time off due to exhaustion.\n\nThe film received positive reviews upon its release in December 1939, although some reviewers found it dramatically lacking and bloated. The casting was widely praised and many reviewers found Leigh especially suited to her role as Scarlett. At the 12th Academy Awards, it received ten Academy Awards (eight competitive, two honorary) from thirteen nominations, including wins for Best Picture, Best Director (Fleming), Best Adapted Screenplay (posthumously awarded to Sidney Howard), Best Actress (Leigh) and Best Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel, becoming the first African-American to win an Academy Award). It set records for the total number of wins and nominations at the time. The film was immensely popular, becoming the highest-earning film made up to that point, and retained the record for over a quarter of a century. When adjusted for monetary inflation, it is still the most successful film in box-office history.\n\nThe film has been criticized as historical revisionism glorifying slavery, but nevertheless, it has been credited for triggering changes to the way African-Americans are depicted on film. It was re-released periodically throughout the 20th century and became ingrained in popular culture. The film is regarded as one of the greatest films of all time; it has placed in the top ten of the American Film Institute's list of top 100 American films since the list's inception in 1998, and in 1989, the United States Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.\n\nPlot\n\n;Part 1\nOn the eve of the American Civil War in 1861, Scarlett O'Hara lives at Tara, her family's cotton plantation in Georgia, with her parents and two sisters. Scarlett learns that Ashley Wilkes—whom she secretly loves—is to be married to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton, and the engagement is to be announced the next day at a barbecue at Ashley's home, the nearby plantation Twelve Oaks.\n\nAt the Twelve Oaks party, Scarlett secretly declares her feelings to Ashley, but he rebuffs her by responding that he and Melanie are more compatible. Scarlett is incensed when she discovers another guest, Rhett Butler, has overheard their conversation; a smitten Rhett promises Scarlett he will keep her secret. The barbecue is disrupted by the declaration of war and the men rush to enlist. As Scarlett watches Ashley kiss Melanie goodbye, Melanie's younger brother Charles proposes to her. Although she does not love him, Scarlett consents and they are married before he leaves to fight.\n\nScarlett is widowed when Charles dies from a bout of pneumonia and measles while serving in the Confederate Army. Scarlett's mother sends her to the Hamilton home in Atlanta to cheer her up, although the O'Haras' outspoken housemaid Mammy tells Scarlett she knows she is going there only to wait for Ashley's return. Scarlett, who should not attend a party while in mourning, attends a charity bazaar in Atlanta with Melanie where she runs into Rhett again, now a blockade runner for the Confederacy. Celebrating a Confederate victory and to raise money for the Confederate war effort, gentlemen are invited to bid for ladies to dance with them. Rhett makes an inordinately large bid for Scarlett and, to the disapproval of the guests, she agrees to dance with him.\n\nThe tide of war turns against the Confederacy after the Battle of Gettysburg in which many of the men of Scarlett's town are killed. Scarlett makes another unsuccessful appeal to Ashley while he is visiting on Christmas furlough, although they do share a private and passionate kiss in the parlor on Christmas Day, just before he returns to war.\n\nEight months later, as the city is besieged by the Union Army in the Atlanta Campaign, Scarlett and her young house servant Prissy must deliver Melanie's baby without medical assistance after she goes into premature labor. Afterwards, Scarlett calls upon Rhett to take her home to Tara with Melanie, her baby, and Prissy; he collects them in a horse and wagon, but once out of the city chooses to go off to fight, leaving Scarlett and the group to make their own way back to Tara. Upon her return home, Scarlett finds Tara deserted, except for her father, her sisters, and two servants: Mammy and Pork. Scarlett learns that her mother has just died of typhoid fever and her father has become incompetent. With Tara pillaged by Union troops and the fields untended, Scarlett vows she will do anything for the survival of her family and herself.\n\n;Part 2\nAs the O'Haras and their servants work in the cotton fields, Scarlett's father is killed after he is thrown from his horse in an attempt to chase away a scalawag from his land. With the defeat of the Confederacy Ashley also returns, but finds he is of little help at Tara. When Scarlett begs him to run away with her, he confesses his desire for her and kisses her passionately, but says he cannot leave Melanie. Unable to pay the taxes on Tara implemented by Reconstructionists, Scarlett dupes her younger sister Suellen's fiancé, the middle-aged and wealthy mill owner Frank Kennedy, into marrying her, by saying Suellen got tired of waiting and married another beau.\n\nFrank, Ashley, Rhett and several other accomplices make a night raid on a shanty town after Scarlett is attacked while driving through it alone, resulting in Frank's death. With Frank's funeral barely over, Rhett proposes to Scarlett and she accepts. They have a daughter whom Rhett names Bonnie Blue, but Scarlett, still pining for Ashley and chagrined at the perceived ruin of her figure, lets Rhett know that she wants no more children and that they will no longer share a bed.\n\nOne day at Frank's mill, Scarlett and Ashley are seen embracing by Ashley's sister, India, and harboring an intense dislike of Scarlett she eagerly spreads rumors. Later that evening, Rhett, having heard the rumors, forces Scarlett to attend a birthday party for Ashley; incapable of believing anything bad of her beloved sister-in-law, Melanie stands by Scarlett's side so that all know that she believes the gossip to be false. After returning home from the party, Scarlett finds Rhett downstairs drunk, and they argue about Ashley. Rhett kisses Scarlett against her will, stating his intent to have sex with her that night, and carries the struggling Scarlett to the bedroom. The next day, Rhett apologizes for his behavior and offers Scarlett a divorce, which she rejects, saying that it would be a disgrace. When Rhett returns from an extended trip to London Scarlett informs him that she is pregnant, but an argument ensues which results in her falling down a flight of stairs and suffering a miscarriage. As she is recovering, tragedy strikes when Bonnie dies while attempting to jump a fence with her pony. \n\nScarlett and Rhett visit Melanie, who has suffered complications arising from a new pregnancy, on her deathbed. As Scarlett consoles Ashley, Rhett returns to Tara; realizing that Ashley only ever truly loved Melanie, Scarlett dashes after Rhett to find him preparing to leave for good. She pleads with him, telling him she realizes now that she has loved him all along and that she never really loved Ashley, but Rhett says that with Bonnie's death went any chance of reconciliation. Scarlett begs him to stay but Rhett rebuffs her and walks out the door and into the early morning fog, leaving her weeping on the staircase and vowing to one day win back his love.\n\nCast\n\nDespite receiving top-billing in the opening credits, Gable—along with Leigh, Howard, and de Havilland who receive second, third and fourth billing respectively—has a relatively low placing in the cast list, due to its unusual structure. Rather than ordered by conventional billing, the cast is broken down into three sections: the Tara plantation, Twelve Oaks, and Atlanta. The cast's names are ordered according to the social rank of the characters; therefore Thomas Mitchell, who plays Gerald O'Hara, leads the cast list as the head of the O'Hara family, while Barbara O'Neil as his wife receives the second credit and Vivien Leigh as the eldest daughter the third credit, despite having the most screen time. Similarly, Howard C. Hickman as John Wilkes is credited over Leslie Howard who plays his son, and Clark Gable, who plays only a visitor at Twelve Oaks, receives a relatively low credit in the cast list, despite being presented as the \"star\" of the film in all the promotional literature. Following the death of Mary Anderson—who played Maybelle Merriwether—in April 2014, there are only two surviving credited cast members from the film: Olivia de Havilland who played Melanie Wilkes and Mickey Kuhn, who played her son Beau Wilkes. \n\n;Tara plantation\n* Thomas Mitchell as Gerald O'Hara\n* Barbara O'Neil as Ellen O'Hara (his wife)\n* Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara (daughter)\n* Evelyn Keyes as Suellen O'Hara (daughter)\n* Ann Rutherford as Carreen O'Hara (daughter)\n* George Reeves as Brent Tarleton (actually as Stuart)\n* Fred Crane as Stuart Tarleton (actually as Brent)\n* Hattie McDaniel as Mammy (house servant)\n* Oscar Polk as Pork (house servant)\n* Butterfly McQueen as Prissy (house servant)\n* Victor Jory as Jonas Wilkerson (field overseer)\n* Everett Brown as Big Sam (field foreman)\n;At Twelve Oaks\n* Howard Hickman as John Wilkes\n* Alicia Rhett as India Wilkes (his daughter)\n* Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes (his son)\n* Olivia de Havilland as Melanie Hamilton (their cousin)\n* Rand Brooks as Charles Hamilton (Melanie's brother)\n* Carroll Nye as Frank Kennedy (a guest)\n* Clark Gable as Rhett Butler (a visitor from Charleston)\n;In Atlanta\n* Laura Hope Crews as Aunt Pittypat Hamilton\n* Eddie Anderson as Uncle Peter (her coachman)\n* Harry Davenport as Doctor Meade\n* Leona Roberts as Mrs. Meade\n* Jane Darwell as Mrs. Merriwether\n* Ona Munson as Belle Watling\n;Minor supporting roles\n* Paul Hurst as the Yankee deserter\n* Cammie King Conlon as Bonnie Blue Butler\n* J. M. Kerrigan as Johnny Gallagher\n* Jackie Moran as Phil Meade\n* Lillian Kemble-Cooper as Bonnie's nurse in London\n* Marcella Martin as Cathleen Calvert\n* Mickey Kuhn as Beau Wilkes\n* Irving Bacon as the Corporal\n* William Bakewell as the mounted officer\n* Isabel Jewell as Emmy Slattery\n* Eric Linden as the amputation case\n* Ward Bond as Tom, the Yankee captain\n* Cliff Edwards as the reminiscent soldier\n* Yakima Canutt as the renegade\n* Louis Jean Heydt as the hungry soldier holding Beau Wilkes\n* Olin Howland as the carpetbagger businessman\n* Robert Elliott as the Yankee major\n* Mary Anderson as Maybelle Merriwether\n\nProduction\n\nBefore publication of the novel, several Hollywood executives and studios declined to create a film based on it, including Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Pandro Berman at RKO Pictures, and David O. Selznick of Selznick International Pictures. Jack L. Warner liked the story, but Warner Bros.'s biggest star Bette Davis was uninterested, and Darryl Zanuck of 20th Century-Fox did not offer enough money. Selznick changed his mind after his story editor Kay Brown and business partner John Hay Whitney urged him to buy the film rights. In July 1936—a month after it was published—Selznick bought the rights for $50,000. \n\nCasting\n\nThe casting of the two lead roles became a complex, two-year endeavor. For the role of Rhett Butler, Selznick wanted Clark Gable from the start, but Gable was under contract to MGM, who never loaned him to other studios. Gary Cooper was considered, but Samuel Goldwyn—to whom Cooper was under contract—refused to loan him out. Warner offered a package of Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, and Olivia de Havilland for lead roles in return for the distribution rights. By this time, Selznick was determined to get Gable and eventually struck a deal with MGM. Selznick's father-in-law, MGM chief Louis B. Mayer, offered in August 1938 to provide Gable and $1,250,000 for half of the film's budget but for a high price: Selznick would have to pay Gable's weekly salary, and half the profits would go to MGM while Loew's, Inc—MGM's parent company—would release the film. \n\nThe arrangement to release through MGM meant delaying the start of production until the end of 1938, when Selznick's distribution deal with United Artists concluded. Selznick used the delay to continue to revise the script and, more importantly, build publicity for the film by searching for the role of Scarlett. Selznick began a nationwide casting call that interviewed 1,400 unknowns. The effort cost $100,000 and was useless for the film, but created \"priceless\" publicity. Early frontrunners included Miriam Hopkins and Tallulah Bankhead, who were regarded as possibilities by Selznick prior to the purchase of the film rights; Joan Crawford, who was signed to MGM, was also considered as a potential pairing with Gable. After a deal was struck with MGM, Selznick held discussions with Norma Shearer—who was MGM's top female star at the time—but she withdrew herself from consideration. Katharine Hepburn lobbied hard for the role with the support of her friend, George Cukor, who had been hired to direct, but she was vetoed by Selznick who felt she was not right for the part. \n\nMany famous—or soon-to-be-famous—actresses were considered, but only thirty-one women were actually screen-tested for Scarlett including Ardis Ankerson, Jean Arthur, Tallulah Bankhead, Diana Barrymore, Joan Bennett, Nancy Coleman, Frances Dee, Ellen Drew (as Terry Ray), Paulette Goddard, Susan Hayward (under her real name of Edythe Marrenner), Vivien Leigh, Anita Louise, Haila Stoddard, Margaret Tallichet, Lana Turner and Linda Watkins. Although Margaret Mitchell refused to publicly name her choice, the actress who came closest to winning her approval was Miriam Hopkins, who Mitchell felt was just the right type of actress to play Scarlett as written in the book. However, Hopkins was in her mid-thirties at the time and was considered too old for the part. Four actresses, including Jean Arthur and Joan Bennett, were still under consideration by December 1938; however, only two finalists, Paulette Goddard and Vivien Leigh, were tested in Technicolor, both on December 20. Goddard almost won the role, but controversy over her marriage with Charlie Chaplin caused Selznick to change his mind.\n\nSelznick had been quietly considering Vivien Leigh, a young English actress who was still little known in America, for the role of Scarlett since February 1938 when Selznick saw her in Fire Over England and A Yank at Oxford. Leigh's American agent was the London representative of the Myron Selznick talent agency (headed by David Selznick's brother, one of the owners of Selznick International), and she had requested in February that her name be submitted for consideration as Scarlett. By the summer of 1938 the Selznicks were negotiating with Alexander Korda, to whom Leigh was under contract, for her services later that year. Selznick's brother arranged for them to meet for the first time on the night of December 10, 1938, when the burning of Atlanta was filmed. In a letter to his wife two days later, Selznick admitted that Leigh was \"the Scarlett dark horse\", and after a series of screen tests, her casting was announced on January 13, 1939. Just before the shooting of the film, Selznick informed newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan: \"Scarlett O'Hara's parents were French and Irish. Identically, Miss Leigh's parents are French and Irish.\" \n\nScreenplay\n\nOf original screenplay writer Sidney Howard, film historian Joanne Yeck writes, \"reducing the intricacies of Gone with the Winds epic dimensions was a herculean task ... and Howard's first submission was far too long, and would have required at least six hours of film; ... [producer] Selznick wanted Howard to remain on the set to make revisions ... but Howard refused to leave New England [and] as a result, revisions were handled by a host of local writers\". Selznick dismissed director George Cukor three weeks into filming and sought out Victor Fleming, who was directing The Wizard of Oz at the time. Fleming was dissatisfied with the script, so Selznick brought in famed writer Ben Hecht to rewrite the entire screenplay within five days. Hecht returned to Howard's original draft and by the end of the week had succeeded in revising the entire first half of the script. Selznick undertook rewriting the second half himself but fell behind schedule, so Howard returned to work on the script for one week, reworking several key scenes in part two. \n\n\"By the time of the film's release in 1939, there was some question as to who should receive screen credit,\" writes Yeck. \"But despite the number of writers and changes, the final script was remarkably close to Howard's version. The fact that Howard's name alone appears on the credits may have been as much a gesture to his memory as to his writing, for in 1939 Sidney Howard died at age 48 in a farm-tractor accident, and before the movie's premiere.\" Selznick, in a memo written in October 1939, discussed the film's writing credits: \"[Y]ou can say frankly that of the comparatively small amount of material in the picture which is not from the book, most is my own personally, and the only original lines of dialog which are not my own are a few from Sidney Howard and a few from Ben Hecht and a couple more from John Van Druten. Offhand I doubt that there are ten original words of [Oliver] Garrett's in the whole script. As to construction, this is about eighty per cent my own, and the rest divided between Jo Swerling and Sidney Howard, with Hecht having contributed materially to the construction of one sequence.\" \n\nAccording to Hecht biographer, William MacAdams, \"At dawn on Sunday, February 20, 1939, David Selznick ... and director Victor Fleming shook Hecht awake to inform him he was on loan from MGM and must come with them immediately and go to work on Gone with the Wind, which Selznick had begun shooting five weeks before. It was costing Selznick $50,000 each day the film was on hold waiting for a final screenplay rewrite and time was of the essence. Hecht was in the middle of working on the film At the Circus for the Marx Brothers. Recalling the episode in a letter to screenwriter friend Gene Fowler, he said he hadn't read the novel but Selznick and director Fleming could not wait for him to read it. They would act out scenes based on Sidney Howard's original script which needed to be rewritten in a hurry. Hecht wrote, \"After each scene had been performed and discussed, I sat down at the typewriter and wrote it out. Selznick and Fleming, eager to continue with their acting, kept hurrying me. We worked in this fashion for seven days, putting in eighteen to twenty hours a day. Selznick refused to let us eat lunch, arguing that food would slow us up. He provided bananas and salted peanuts ... thus on the seventh day I had completed, unscathed, the first nine reels of the Civil War epic.\"\n\nMacAdams writes, \"It is impossible to determine exactly how much Hecht scripted ... In the official credits filed with the Screen Writers Guild, Sidney Howard was of course awarded the sole screen credit, but four other writers were appended ... Jo Swerling for contributing to the treatment, Oliver H. P. Garrett and Barbara Keon to screenplay construction, and Hecht, to dialogue ...\" \n\nFilming\n\nPrincipal photography began January 26, 1939, and ended on July 1, with post-production work continuing until November 11, 1939. Director George Cukor, with whom Selznick had a long working relationship, and who had spent almost two years in pre-production on Gone with the Wind, was replaced after less than three weeks of shooting. Selznick and Cukor had already disagreed over the pace of filming and the script, but other explanations put Cukor's departure down to Gable's discomfort at working with him. Emanuel Levy, Cukor's biographer, claimed that Clark Gable had worked Hollywood's gay circuit as a hustler and that Cukor knew of his past, so Gable used his influence to have him discharged. Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland learned of Cukor's firing on the day the Atlanta bazaar scene was filmed, and the pair went to Selznick's office in full costume and implored him to change his mind. Victor Fleming, who was directing The Wizard of Oz, was called in from MGM to complete the picture, although Cukor continued privately to coach Leigh and De Havilland. Another MGM director, Sam Wood, worked for two weeks in May when Fleming temporarily left the production due to exhaustion. Although some of Cukor's scenes were later reshot, Selznick estimated that \"three solid reels\" of his work remained in the picture. As of the end of principal photography, Cukor had undertaken eighteen days of filming, Fleming ninety-three, and Wood twenty-four.\n\nCinematographer Lee Garmes began the production, but on March 11, 1939—after a month of shooting footage that Selznick and his associates regarded as \"too dark\"—was replaced with Ernest Haller, working with Technicolor cinematographer Ray Rennahan. Garmes completed the first third of the film—mostly everything prior to Melanie having the baby—but did not receive a credit. Most of the filming was done on \"the back forty\" of Selznick International with all the location scenes being photographed in California, mostly in Los Angeles County or neighboring Ventura County. Tara, the fictional Southern plantation house, existed only as a plywood and papier-mâché facade built on the Selznick studio lot. For the burning of Atlanta, new false facades were built in front of the Selznick backlot's many old abandoned sets, and Selznick himself operated the controls for the explosives that burned them down. Sources at the time put the estimated production costs at $3.85 million, making it the second most expensive film made up to that point, with only Ben-Hur (1925) having cost more. \n\nAlthough legend persists that the Hays Office fined Selznick $5,000 for using the word \"damn\" in Butler's exit line, in fact the Motion Picture Association board passed an amendment to the Production Code on November 1, 1939, that forbade use of the words \"hell\" or \"damn\" except when their use \"shall be essential and required for portrayal, in proper historical context, of any scene or dialogue based upon historical fact or folklore ... or a quotation from a literary work, provided that no such use shall be permitted which is intrinsically objectionable or offends good taste.\" With that amendment, the Production Code Administration had no further objection to Rhett's closing line. \n\nMusic\n\nTo compose the score, Selznick chose Max Steiner, with whom he had worked at RKO Pictures in the early 1930s. Warner Bros.—who had contracted Steiner in 1936—agreed to lend him to Selznick. Steiner spent twelve weeks working on the score, the longest period that he had ever spent writing one, and at two hours and thirty-six minutes long it was also the longest that he had ever written. Five orchestrators were hired, including Hugo Friedhofer, Maurice de Packh, Bernard Kaun, Adolph Deutsch and Reginald Bassett. The score is characterized by two love themes, one for Ashley's and Melanie's sweet love and another that evokes Scarlett's passion for Ashley, though notably there is no Scarlett and Rhett love theme. Steiner drew considerably on folk and patriotic music, which included Stephen Foster tunes such as \"Louisiana Belle,\" \"Dolly Day,\" \"Ringo De Banjo,\" \"Beautiful Dreamer,\" \"Old Folks at Home,\" and \"Katie Belle,\" which formed the basis of Scarlett's theme; other tunes that feature prominently are: \"Marching through Georgia\" by Henry Clay Work, \"Dixie,\" \"Garryowen\" and \"The Bonnie Blue Flag.\" The theme that is most associated with the film today is the melody that accompanies Tara, the O'Hara plantation; in the early 1940s, \"Tara's Theme\" formed the musical basis of the song \"My Own True Love\" by Mack David. In all, there are ninety-nine separate pieces of music featured in the score. Due to the pressure of completing on time, Steiner received some assistance in composing from Friedhofer, Deutsch and Heinz Roemheld, and in addition, two short cues—by Franz Waxman and William Axt—were taken from scores in the MGM library. \n\nRelease\n\nPreview, premiere and initial release\n\nOn September 9, 1939, Selznick, his wife, Irene, investor John \"Jock\" Whitney and film editor Hal Kern drove out to Riverside, California to preview it at the Fox Theatre. The film was still a rough cut at this stage, missing completed titles and lacking special optical effects. It ran for four hours and twenty-five minutes, but would later be cut down to under four hours for its proper release. A double bill of Hawaiian Nights and Beau Geste was playing, and after the first feature it was announced that the theater would be screening a preview; the audience were informed they could leave but would not be readmitted once the film had begun, nor would phone calls be allowed once the theater had been sealed. When the title appeared on the screen the audience cheered, and after it had finished it received a standing ovation. In his biography of Selznick, David Thomson wrote that the audience's response before the film had even started \"was the greatest moment of [Selznick's] life, the greatest victory and redemption of all his failings\", with Selznick describing the preview cards as \"probably the most amazing any picture has ever had.\" When Selznick was asked by the press in early September how he felt about the film, he said: \"At noon I think it's divine, at midnight I think it's lousy. Sometimes I think it's the greatest picture ever made. But if it's only a great picture, I'll still be satisfied.\"\n\nAbout 300,000 people came out in Atlanta for the film's premiere at the Loew's Grand Theatre on December 15, 1939. It was the climax of three days of festivities hosted by Mayor William B. Hartsfield, which included a parade of limousines featuring stars from the film, receptions, thousands of Confederate flags and a costume ball. Eurith D. Rivers, the governor of Georgia, declared December 15 a state holiday. An estimated three hundred thousand residents and visitors to Atlanta lined the streets for up to seven miles to watch a procession of limousines bring the stars from the airport. Only Leslie Howard and Victor Fleming chose not to attend: Howard had returned to England due to the outbreak of World War II, and Fleming had fallen out with Selznick and declined to attend any of the premieres. Hattie McDaniel was also absent, as she and the other black cast members were prevented from attending the premiere due to Georgia's Jim Crow laws, which would have kept them from sitting with their white colleagues. Upon learning that McDaniel had been barred from the premiere, Clark Gable threatened to boycott the event, but McDaniel convinced him to attend. President Jimmy Carter would later recall it as \"the biggest event to happen in the South in my lifetime.\" Premieres in New York and Los Angeles followed, the latter attended by some of the actresses that had been considered for the part of Scarlett, among them Paulette Goddard, Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford.\n\nFrom December 1939 to July 1940, the film played only advance-ticket road show engagements at a limited number of theaters at prices upwards of $1—more than double the price of a regular first-run feature—with MGM collecting an unprecedented 70 percent of the box office receipts (as opposed to the typical 30–35 percent of the period). After reaching saturation as a roadshow, MGM revised its terms to a 50 percent cut and halved the prices, before it finally entered general release in 1941 at \"popular\" prices. Along with its distribution and advertising costs, total expenditure on the film was as high as $7 million. \n\nLater releases\n\nIn 1942, Selznick liquidated his company for tax reasons, and sold his share in Gone with the Wind to his business partner, John Whitney, for $500,000. In turn, Whitney sold it on to MGM for $2.8 million, so that the studio owned the film outright. MGM immediately re-released the film in spring 1942, and again in 1947 and 1954; the 1954 reissue was the first time the film was shown in widescreen, compromising the original Academy ratio and cropping the top and bottom to an aspect ratio of 1.75:1. In doing so, a number of shots were optically re-framed and cut into the three-strip camera negatives, forever altering five shots in the film. A 1961 release commemorated the centennial anniversary of the start of the Civil War, and included a gala \"premiere\" at the Loew's Grand Theater. It was attended by Selznick and many other stars of the film, including Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland; Clark Gable had died the previous year. For its 1967 re-release, it was blown up to 70mm, and issued with updated poster artwork featuring Gable—with his white shirt ripped open—holding Leigh against a backdrop of orange flames. There were further re-releases in 1971, 1974 and 1989; for the fiftieth anniversary reissue in 1989, it was given a complete audio and video restoration. It was released theatrically one more time in the United States, in 1998. In 2013, a 4K digital restoration was released in the United Kingdom to coincide with Vivien Leigh's centenary. In 2014, special screenings were scheduled over a two-day period at theaters across the United States to coincide with the film's 75th anniversary. \n\nTelevision and home video\n\nThe film received its world television premiere on the HBO cable network on June 11, 1976, and played on the channel for a total of fourteen times throughout the rest of the month. It made its network television debut in November later that year: NBC paid $5 million for a one-off airing, and it was broadcast in two parts on successive evenings. It became at that time the highest-rated television program ever presented on a single network, watched by 47.5 percent of the households sampled in America, and 65 percent of television viewers, still the record for the highest rated film to ever air on television. In 1978, CBS signed a deal worth $35 million to broadcast the film twenty times over as many years. Turner Entertainment acquired the MGM film library in 1986, but the deal did not include the television rights to Gone with the Wind, which were still held by CBS. A deal was struck in which the rights were returned to Turner Entertainment and CBS's broadcast rights to The Wizard of Oz were extended. It was used to launch two cable channels owned by Turner Broadcasting System: Turner Network Television (1988) and Turner Classic Movies (1994). It debuted on videocassette in March 1985, where it placed second in the sales charts, and has since been released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats.\n\nReception\n\nCritical response\n\nGone with the Wind was well received upon its release, with most consumer magazines and newspapers generally giving it excellent reviews. However, while its production values, technical achievements, and scale of ambition were universally recognized, some of the more notable reviewers of the time found the film to be dramatically lacking. Frank S. Nugent for The New York Times best summed up the general sentiment by acknowledging that while it was the most ambitious film production made up to that point, it probably was not the greatest film ever made, but he nevertheless found it to be an \"interesting story beautifully told\". Franz Hoellering of The Nation was of the same opinion: \"The result is a film which is a major event in the history of the industry but only a minor achievement in motion-picture art. There are moments when the two categories meet on good terms, but the long stretches between are filled with mere spectacular efficiency.\" \n\nWhile the film was praised for its fidelity to the novel, this aspect was also singled out as the main factor in contributing to the bloated running time, which many critics felt was to the detriment of the overall dramatic impact. John C. Flinn wrote for Variety that Selznick had \"left too much in\", and that as entertainment, the film would have benefited if repetitious scenes and dialog from the latter part of the story had been trimmed. The Manchester Guardian felt that the film's one serious drawback was that the story lacked the epic quality to justify the outlay of time and found the second half, which focuses on Scarlett's \"irrelevant marriages\" and \"domestic squabbles,\" mostly superfluous, and the sole reason for their inclusion had been \"simply because Margaret Mitchell wrote it that way\". The Guardian believed that if \"the story had been cut short and tidied up at the point marked by the interval, and if the personal drama had been made subservient to a cinematic treatment of the central theme—the collapse and devastation of the Old South—then Gone With the Wind might have been a really great film.\" Likewise, Hoellering also found the second half of the film to be weaker than the first half: identifying the Civil War to be the driving force of the first part while the characters dominate in the second part, he concluded this is where the main fault of the picture lay, commenting that \"the characters alone do not suffice\". Despite many excellent scenes, he considered the drama to be unconvincing and that the \"psychological development\" had been neglected.\n\nMuch of the praise was reserved for the casting, with Vivien Leigh in particular being singled out for her performance as Scarlett. Nugent described her as the \"pivot of the picture\" and believed her to be \"so perfectly designed for the part by art and nature that any other actress in the role would be inconceivable\". Similarly, Hoellering found her \"perfect\" in \"appearance and movements\"; he felt her acting best when she was allowed to \"accentuate the split personality she portrays\" and thought she was particularly effective in such moments of characterization like the morning after the marital rape scene. Flinn also found Leigh suited to the role physically and felt she was best in the scenes where she displays courage and determination, such as the escape from Atlanta and when Scarlett kills a Yankee deserter. Leigh won in the Best Actress category for her performance at the 1939 New York Film Critics Circle Awards. Of Clark Gable's performance as Rhett Butler, Flinn felt the characterization was \"as close to Miss Mitchell's conception—and the audience's—as might be imagined\", a view which Nugent concurred with, although Hoellering felt that Gable didn't quite convince in the closing scenes, as Rhett walks out on Scarlett in disgust. Of the other principal cast members, both Hoellering and Flinn found Leslie Howard to be \"convincing\" as the weak-willed Ashley, with Flinn identifying Olivia de Havilland as a \"standout\" as Melanie; Nugent was also especially taken with de Havilland's performance, describing it as a \"gracious, dignified, tender gem of characterization\". Hattie McDaniel's performance as Mammy was singled out for praise by many critics: Nugent believed she gave the best performance in the film after Vivien Leigh, with Flinn placing it third after Leigh's and Gable's performances.\n\nAcademy Awards\n\nAt the 12th Academy Awards, Gone with the Wind set a record for Academy Award wins and nominations, winning in eight of the competitive categories it was nominated in, from a total of thirteen nominations. It won for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Interior Decoration, and Best Editing, and received two further honorary awards for its use of equipment and color (it also became the first color film to win Best Picture). Its record of eight competitive wins stood until Gigi (1958) won nine, and its overall record of ten was broken by Ben-Hur (1959) which won eleven. Gone with the Wind also held the record for most nominations until All About Eve (1950) secured fourteen. It was the longest American sound film made up to that point, and may still hold the record of the longest Best Picture winner depending on how it is interpreted. The running time for Gone with the Wind is just under 221 minutes, while Lawrence of Arabia (1962) runs for just over 222 minutes; however, including the overture, intermission, entr'acte, and exit music, Gone with the Wind lasts for 234 minutes (although some sources put its full length at 238 minutes) while Lawrence of Arabia comes in slightly shorter at 232 minutes with its additional components. \n\nHattie McDaniel became the first African-American to win an Academy Award—beating out her co-star Olivia de Havilland who was also nominated in the same category—but was racially segregated from her co-stars at the awards ceremony at the Coconut Grove; she and her escort were made to sit at a separate table at the back of the room. Meanwhile, screenwriter Sidney Howard became the first posthumous Oscar winner and Selznick personally received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for his career achievements.\n\nAfrican-American reaction\n\nBlack commentators criticised the film for its depiction of black people and as a glorification of slavery. Carlton Moss, a black dramatist, complained in an open letter that whereas The Birth of a Nation was a \"frontal attack on American history and the Negro people\", Gone with the Wind was a \"rear attack on the same\". He went on to dismiss it as a \"nostalgic plea for sympathy for a still living cause of Southern reaction\". Moss further criticized the stereotypical black characterizations, such as the \"shiftless and dull-witted Pork\", the \"indolent and thoroughly irresponsible Prissy\", Big Sam's \"radiant acceptance of slavery\", and Mammy with her \"constant haranguing and doting on every wish of Scarlett\". Following Hattie McDaniel's Oscar win, Walter Francis White, leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, accused her of being an Uncle Tom. McDaniel responded that she would \"rather make seven hundred dollars a week playing a maid than seven dollars being one\"; she further questioned White's qualification to speak on behalf of blacks, since he was light-skinned and only one-eighth black.\n\nOpinion in the black community was generally divided upon release, with the film being called by some a \"weapon of terror against black America\" and an insult to black audiences, and demonstrations were held in various cities. Even so, some sections of the black community recognized McDaniel's achievements to be representative of progression: some African-Americans crossed picket lines and praised McDaniel's warm and witty characterization, while others hoped that the industry's recognition of her work would lead to increased visibility on screen for other black actors. In its editorial congratulation to McDaniel on winning her Academy Award, Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life used the film as reminder of the \"limit\" put on black aspiration by old prejudices. Malcolm X would later recall that \"when Butterfly McQueen went into her act, I felt like crawling under the rug\". \n\nAudience response\n\nUpon its release, Gone with the Wind broke attendance records everywhere. At the Capitol Theatre in New York alone, it was averaging eleven thousand admissions per day in late December, and within four years of its release had sold an estimated sixty million tickets across the United States—sales equivalent to just under half the population at the time. It repeated its success overseas, and was a sensational hit during the Blitz in London, opening in April 1940 and playing for four years. By the time MGM withdrew it from circulation at the end of 1943 its worldwide distribution had returned a gross rental (the studio's share of the box office gross) of $32 million, making it the most profitable film ever made up to that point.\n\nEven though it earned its investors roughly twice as much as the previous record-holder, The Birth of a Nation, the box-office performances of the two films were likely much closer. The bulk of the earnings from Gone with the Wind came from its roadshow and first-run engagements, which represented 70 percent and 50 percent of the box-office gross respectively, before entering general release (which at the time typically saw the distributor's share set at 30–35 percent of the gross). In the case of The Birth of a Nation, its distributor, Epoch, sold off many of its distribution territories on a \"states rights\" basis—which typically amounted to 10 percent of the box-office gross—and Epoch's accounts are only indicative of its own profits from the film, and not the local distributors. Carl E. Milliken, secretary of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association, estimated that The Birth of a Nation had been seen by fifty million people by 1930. \n\nWhen it was re-released in 1947, it earned an impressive $5 million rental in the United States and Canada, and was one of the top ten releases of the year. Successful re-releases in 1954 and 1961 enabled it to retain its position as the industry's top earner, despite strong challenges from more recent films such as Ben-Hur, but it was finally overtaken by The Sound of Music in 1966. The 1967 reissue was unusual in that MGM opted to roadshow it, a decision that turned it into the most successful re-release in the history of the industry. It generated a box-office gross of $68 million, making it MGM's most lucrative picture after Doctor Zhivago from the latter half of the decade. MGM earned a rental of $41 million from the release, with the U.S. and Canadian share amounting to over $30 million, placing it second only to The Graduate for that year. Including its $6.7 million rental from the 1961 reissue, it was the fourth highest-earner of the decade in the North American market, with only The Sound of Music, The Graduate and Doctor Zhivago making more for their distributors. A further re-release in 1971 allowed it to briefly recapture the record from The Sound of Music, bringing its total worldwide gross rental to about $116 million by the end of 1971—more than trebling its earnings from its initial release—before losing the record again the following year to The Godfather. \n\nAcross all releases, it is estimated that Gone with the Wind has sold over 200 million tickets in the United States and Canada, and 35 million tickets in the United Kingdom, generating more theater admissions in those territories than any other film. In total, Gone with the Wind has grossed over $390 million globally at the box office; in 2007 Turner Entertainment estimated the gross to be equivalent to approximately $3.3 billion when adjusted for inflation to current prices, while Guinness World Records arrived at a figure of $3.44 billion in 2014, making it the most successful film in cinema history. \n\nThe film remains immensely popular with audiences into the 21st century, having been voted the most popular film in two nationwide polls of Americans undertaken by Harris Interactive in 2008, and again in 2014. The market research firm surveyed over two thousand U.S. adults, with the results weighted by age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income so their proportions matched the composition of the adult population. \n\nCritical re-evaluation\n\nIn revisiting the film in the 1970s, Arthur Schlesinger noted that Hollywood films generally age well, revealing an unexpected depth or integrity, but in the case of Gone with the Wind time has not treated it kindly. Richard Schickel posits that one measure of a film's quality is to ask what you can remember of it, and the film falls down in this regard: unforgettable imagery and dialogue are simply not present. Stanley Kauffmann, likewise, also found the film to be a largely forgettable experience, claiming he could only remember two scenes vividly. Both Schickel and Schlesinger put this down to it being \"badly written\", in turn describing the dialogue as \"flowery\" and possessing a \"picture postcard\" sensibility. Schickel also believes the film fails as popular art, in that it has limited rewatch value—a sentiment that Kauffmann also concurs with, stating that having watched it twice he hopes \"never to see it again: twice is twice as much as any lifetime needs\". Both Schickel and Andrew Sarris identify the film's main failing is in possessing a producer's sensibility rather than an artistic one: having gone through so many directors and writers the film does not carry a sense of being \"created\" or \"directed\", but rather having emerged \"steaming from the crowded kitchen\", where the main creative force was a producer's obsession in making the film as literally faithful to the novel as possible. \n\nSarris concedes that despite its artistic failings, the film does hold a mandate around the world as the \"single most beloved entertainment ever produced\". Judith Crist observes that, kitsch aside, the film is \"undoubtedly still the best and most durable piece of popular entertainment to have come off the Hollywood assembly lines\", the product of a showman with \"taste and intelligence\". Schlesinger notes that the first half of the film does have a \"sweep and vigor\" that aspire to its epic theme, but—finding agreement with the film's contemporary criticisms—the personal lives take over in the second half, and it ends up losing its theme in unconvincing sentimentality. Kauffmann also finds interesting parallels with The Godfather, which had just replaced Gone with the Wind as the highest-grosser at the time: both were produced from \"ultra-American\" best-selling novels, both live within codes of honor that are romanticized, and both in essence offer cultural fabrication or revisionism.\n\nThe critical perception of the film has shifted in the intervening years, which resulted in it being ranked 235th in Sight & Sounds prestigious decennial critics poll in 2012, and in 2015 sixty-two international film critics polled by the BBC voted it the 97th best American film. \n\nIndustry recognition\n\nThe film has featured in several high-profile industry polls: in 1977 it was voted the most popular film by the American Film Institute (AFI), in a poll of the organization's membership; the AFI also ranked the film fourth on its \"100 Greatest Movies\" list in 1998, with it slipping down to sixth place in the tenth anniversary edition in 2007. Film directors ranked it 322nd in the 2012 edition of the decennial Sight & Sound poll, and in 2016 it was selected as the ninth best \"directorial achievement\" in a Directors Guild of America members poll. In 2014, it placed fifteenth in an extensive poll undertaken by The Hollywood Reporter, which ballotted every studio, agency, publicity firm and production house in the Hollywood region. Gone with the Wind was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry in 1989.\n\nAnalysis\n\nRacial criticism\n\nGone with the Wind has been criticized as having perpetuated Civil War myths and black stereotypes. David Reynolds writes that \"The white women are elegant, their menfolk noble or at least dashing. And, in the background, the black slaves are mostly dutiful and content, clearly incapable of an independent existence.\" Reynolds likened Gone with the Wind to The Birth of a Nation and other re-imaginings of the South during the era of segregation, in which white Southerners are portrayed as defending traditional values and the issue of slavery is largely ignored. The film has been described as a \"regression\" that promotes the myth of the black rapist and the honourable and defensive role of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction, and as a \"social propaganda\" film offering a \"white supremacist\" view of the past. From 1972 to 1996, the Atlanta Historical Society held a number of Gone with the Wind exhibits, among them a 1994 exhibit titled, \"Disputed Territories: Gone with the Wind and Southern Myths\". One of the questions explored by the exhibit was \"How True to Life Were the Slaves in GWTW?\" This section showed slave experiences were diverse and concluded that the \"happy darky\" was a myth, as was the belief that all slaves experienced violence and brutality. \n\nDespite factual inaccuracies in its depiction of the Reconstruction period, it nevertheless reflects contemporary interpretations common throughout the early 20th century. One pervasive viewpoint argued by academics is reflected in a brief scene in which Mammy fends off a leering freedman: a government official can be heard offering bribes to the emancipated slaves for their votes. The clear inference is that freedmen are ignorant about politics and unprepared for freedom, unwittingly becoming the tools of corrupt Reconstruction officials. While perpetuating some Lost Cause myths, the film makes concessions in regards to others. After the attack on Scarlett in the shanty town, a group of men including Scarlett's husband Frank, Rhett Butler and Ashley raid the town; in the novel they belong to the Ku Klux Klan, representing the common trope of protecting the white woman's virtue, but the filmmakers consciously neutralize the presence of the Klan in the film by referring to it only as a \"political meeting\". \n\nThomas Cripps has argued that the film in some respects undercuts racial stereotypes; in particular, the film created greater engagement between Hollywood and black audiences, with dozens of movies making small gestures in recognition of the emerging trend. Only a few weeks after its initial run, a story editor at Warner wrote a memo to Walter Wanger about Mississippi Belle, a script that contained the worst excesses of plantation films, suggesting that Gone with the Wind had made the film \"unproducible\". More than any film since The Birth of a Nation, it unleashed a variety of social forces that foreshadowed an alliance of white liberals and blacks who encouraged the expectation that blacks would one day achieve equality. According to Cripps, the film eventually became a template for measuring social change.\n\nDepiction of marital rape\n\nOne of the most notorious and widely condemned scenes in Gone with the Wind depicts what is now legally defined as \"marital rape\". The scene begins with Scarlett and Rhett at the bottom of the staircase, where he begins to kiss her, refusing to be told 'no' by the struggling and frightened Scarlett; Rhett overcomes her resistance and carries her up the stairs to the bedroom, where the audience is left in no doubt that she will \"get what's coming to her\". The next scene, the following morning, shows Scarlett glowing with barely suppressed sexual satisfaction; Rhett apologizes for his behavior, blaming it on his drinking. The scene has been accused of combining romance and rape by making them indistinguishable from each other, and of reinforcing a notion about forced sex: that women secretly enjoy it, and it is an acceptable way for a man to treat his wife.\n\nMolly Haskell has argued that nevertheless, women are mostly uncritical of the scene, and that by and large it is consistent with what women have in mind when they fantasize about being raped. Their fantasies revolve around love and romance rather than forced sex; they assume that Scarlett was not an unwilling sexual partner and wanted Rhett to take the initiative and insist on having sexual intercourse. \n\nLegacy\n\nIn popular culture\n\nGone with the Wind and its production have been explicitly referenced, satirized, dramatized and analyzed on numerous occasions across a range of media, from contemporaneous works such as Second Fiddle—a 1939 film spoofing the \"search for Scarlett\"—to current television shows, such as The Simpsons. The Scarlett O'Hara War (a 1980 television dramatization of the casting of Scarlett), Moonlight and Magnolias (a 2007 play by Ron Hutchinson that dramatizes Ben Hecht's five-day re-write of the script), and \"Went with the Wind!\" (a sketch on The Carol Burnett Show that parodied the film in the aftermath of its television debut in 1976) are among the more noteworthy examples of its enduring presence in popular culture. It was also the subject of a 1988 documentary, The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind, detailing the film's difficult production history. In 1990, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp depicting Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh embracing in a scene from the film. \n\nSequel\n\nFollowing publication of her novel, Margaret Mitchell was inundated with requests for a sequel but claimed to not have a notion of what happened to Scarlett and Rhett, and that she had \"left them to their ultimate fate\". Mitchell continued to resist pressure from Selznick and MGM to write a sequel until her death in 1949. In 1975, her brother, Stephens Mitchell (who assumed control of her estate), authorized a sequel to be jointly produced by MGM and Universal Studios on a budget of $12 million. Anne Edwards was commissioned to write the sequel as a novel which would then be adapted into a screenplay, and published in conjunction with the film's release. Edwards submitted a 775-page manuscript entitled Tara, The Continuation of Gone with the Wind, set between 1872 and 1882 focusing on Scarlett's divorce from Rhett; MGM was not satisfied with the story and the deal collapsed.\n\nThe idea was revived in the 1990s, when a sequel was finally produced in 1994, in the form of a television miniseries. Scarlett was based upon the novel by Alexandra Ripley, itself a sequel to Mitchell's book. British actors Joanne Whalley and Timothy Dalton were cast as Scarlett and Rhett, and the series follows Scarlett's relocation to Ireland after again becoming pregnant by Rhett." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "The Wizard of Oz (film)", "Wizard of oz", "Ozu No Mahoutsukai", "The wizard of oz", "Wizard of Oz (film)", "Wizard of Oz", "Ozu no Mahotsukai", "Ozu No Mahôtsukai", "The Wizard Of Oz", "Wizard Of Oz", "The Wizard of Oz (disambiguation)", "Ozu No Mahotsukai", "The Wizard of Oz", "Ozu no Mahoutsukai", "Ozu No Mahōtsukai", "Ozu no Mahôtsukai", "Wizard of Oz (disambiguation)" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "ozu no mahôtsukai", "wizard of oz film", "wizard of oz disambiguation", "ozu no mahotsukai", "ozu no mahōtsukai", "wizard of oz", "ozu no mahoutsukai" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "wizard of oz", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "The Wizard of Oz" }
On which film was Three Men and a Baby based?	tc_1207	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Three_Men_and_a_Baby.txt" ], "title": [ "Three Men and a Baby" ], "wiki_context": [ "Three Men and a Baby is a 1987 American comedy film directed by Leonard Nimoy, and stars Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, Ted Danson and Nancy Travis. It follows the mishaps and adventures of three bachelors as they attempt to adapt their lives to pseudo-fatherhood with the arrival of the love child of one of them. The script was based on the 1985 French film Trois hommes et un couffin (Three Men and a Cradle).\n\nThe film was the biggest American box office hit of that year, surpassing Fatal Attraction and eventually grossing US$167 million in the US alone. The film won the 1988 People's Choice Award for Favorite Comedy Motion Picture.\n\nPlot\n\nArchitect Peter Mitchell (Tom Selleck), cartoonist Michael Kellam (Steve Guttenberg), and actor Jack Holden (Ted Danson) are happy living their lives as bachelors in their lofty New York City apartment where they have frequent parties and flings with different women. Their lives are disrupted when a baby named Mary arrives on their doorstep one day. A note with her, written by a lady named Sylvia, indicates that she is Jack's, the result of a tryst between the actor and actress. Mary arrives in his absence – he is in Turkey shooting a B movie, leaving Peter and Michael to fend for themselves in taking care of her. Prior to leaving, Jack had made arrangements with a director friend to have a \"package\" delivered to the apartment as a favor. Before Mary's arrival, he calls and leaves a message with Peter and Michael informing them of it and to keep it a secret per the director friend's wishes. When she arrives, they mistakenly believe she is \"the package\", even though there is a note from her mother.\n\nPeter and Michael are totally befuddled on how to care for Mary, and Peter leaves to go buy whatever supplies are needed. While he is gone, Mrs. Hathaway (Cynthia Harris), the landlady, delivers a small box (which is the actual \"package\" containing heroin) to the apartment and Michael tosses it aside while trying to keep Mary under control. After Peter returns, they eventually figure out her proper care, right down to diaper changes, baths, and feedings. \n\nThe next day, two men (who are drug dealers) arrive at the apartment to pick up the package. Peter and Michael mistakenly give Mary to them instead, and shortly after they leave, Peter discovers the actual package. He runs downstairs to intercept them, but trips and stumbles, and the package's contents spill. He gathers it and retrieves Mary from them, but retains the heroin while allowing them to take a can of powdered milk. After the exchange, a police officer attempts to ticket them for illegal parking, but they escape. He accosts Peter and detains him in the apartment until Sgt. Melkowitz (Philip Bosco), a narcotics officer, arrives to question him and Michael about the drugs. They successfully hide them from him during the interrogation, in which they learn that Jack's friend is a drug dealer as well. He leaves with suspicions and puts them and the apartment under surveillance.\n\nPeter and Michael are able to persuade Mrs. Hathaway to babysit Mary while they work. Once they get home, however, they find her bound and gagged and the apartment ransacked, apparently by the dealers demanding the heroin. Mary is safe, however. They continue with their care of her, adjusting to surrogate fatherhood and growing attached to her, until Jack returns.\n\nOnce Jack returns, Peter and Michael question him about the entire drug deal and Mary. He replies that he knew nothing about the heroin and initially denies everything about Mary until he reads the note from Sylvia. He then recalls the tryst that eventually led to her being born. Peter and Michael do not hesitate in taking their revenge and passing all responsibility of looking after her to him, but he quickly grows to love her. \n\nLater, Peter discovers in the mail a news clipping of Jack's director friend being hospitalized after a mugging (presumably by the drug dealers), with a handwritten note, \"Don't let this happen to you.\" They formulate a plan to meet and trap them when they negotiate a deal to deliver the illicit goods. With a recording of the conversation, they prove their innocence to Melkowitz and the dealers are arrested.\n\nBy now, they have fully embraced their role as Mary's guardians. However, one morning, Sylvia (Nancy Travis) arrives, asking for her back intending to take her to London to live with her family. Handing her over, they quickly find themselves miserable and desperately missing her. Deciding to stop her and Sylvia from leaving, they rush to the airport to try and persuade the latter to stay, but they arrive just as her plane is backing up from the gate. Defeated, they return home, where they find both Mary and Sylvia, who did not go to London after all. Sylvia tearfully explains she doesn't want to give up her acting career but can't do so if she has to raise Mary alone, so Peter quickly invites her and Mary to move in with them with Jack and Michael's agreement, and she agrees.\n\nCast\n\n* Tom Selleck as Peter Mitchell\n* Steve Guttenberg as Michael Kellam\n* Ted Danson as Jack Holden\n* Michelle and Lisa Blair as Mary\n* Margaret Colin as Rebecca\n* Celeste Holm as Mrs. Holden \n* Nancy Travis as Sylvia Bennington\n* Alexandra Amini as Patty\n* Peter Brown as Store Clerk\n* Francine Beers as Woman at Gift Shop\n* Philip Bosco as Sgt. Melkowitz\n* Paul Guilfoyle as Vince\n* Earl Hindman as Satch\n* Barbara Budd as Actress\n* Michael Burgess as Man at Party\n* Claire Cellucci as Angelyne\n* Eugene Clark as Man #2 at Party\n* Derek de Lint as Jan Clopatz\n* Jacob Strackeljahn as Juan Pablo Jr.\n* Jeff Kingsley as Dr. Octavius Agustus Steelex\n* Dave Foley as Grocery Store Clerk\n* Cynthia Harris as Mrs. Hathaway\n\nProduction\n\nMary was played by twins Lisa and Michelle Blair. \n\nThe soundtrack included the Peter Cetera song \"Daddy's Girl\", which was used for the movie's big music montage sequence, and the Miami Sound Machine song \"Bad Boy\", which opened it.\n\nUrban legend\n\nIn the final cut of the film, there is a scene, just over an hour into it, in which Jack and his mother (Celeste Holm) walk through the house with Mary. As they do so, they pass a background window on the left-hand side of the screen, and a black outline that appears to resemble a rifle pointed downward can be seen behind the curtains. As they walk back past the window 40 seconds later, a human figure can be seen in that window. A persistent urban legend began circulating August 1990 (shortly before the sequel, Three Men and a Little Lady, premiered) that this was the ghost of a boy who had been killed in the house where it was filmed. The most common version of this rumor was that a nine-year-old boy committed suicide with a shotgun there, explaining why it was vacant because the grieving family left. This notion was discussed on the first episode of TV Land: Myths and Legends in January 2007 and was referenced in \"Hollywood Babylon\", a second season episode of the TV series Supernatural.\n \n\nThe figure is actually a cardboard cutout \"standee\" of Jack, wearing a tuxedo and top hat, that was left on the set. It was created as part of the storyline, in which he, an actor, appears in a dog food commercial, but this portion was cut from the final version of the film. The standee does show up later in the film, however, when Jack stands next to it as Sylvia comes to reclaim Mary. Snopes.com contends that the one in the first scene looks smaller from its appearance in the later scene because of the distance and angle of the shot, and because the curtains obscure its outstretched arms. As for the contention that a boy died in the house, all the indoor scenes were shot on a Toronto sound stage, and no kind of residential dwellings were used for interior filming. \n\nReception\n\nCritical response\n\nThe critical response to Three Men and a Baby was generally positive. The film holds a 74% \"fresh\" rating on the movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 34 reviews. The site's consensus reads: \"The American remake of the popular French comedy mostly works a charm under the combined talents of the three leads, who play nicely against type -- although forced plot elements and sentimentality at times dampen the fun.\" The film critic Roger Ebert, despite noting several aspects he saw as flaws, praised the film, remarking, \"Because of Selleck and his co-stars... the movie becomes a heartwarming entertainment\". He gave it 3 (out of four) stars. \n\nBox office\n\nThe film grossed USD$168 million. It was notable for the Walt Disney Studios since it was the first production from the studio to gross over $100 million domestically. It was the highest-grossing film of 1987 domestically, with an estimated 42 million tickets sold in the US.\n\nSequel\n\nThe film was followed by a 1990 sequel, Three Men and a Little Lady. A new sequel, Three Men and a Bride, supposedly in development, would reunite Selleck, Guttenberg and Danson. \n\nRemakes\n\nThis film was remade as Thoovalsparsham (1990) in Malayalam, as Chinnari Muddula Papa(1990) in Telugu, as Asathal (2001) in Tamil and Heyy Babyy (2007) in Hindi.\n\nIn popular culture\n\nEarly TV comedy sketch parodies of Three Men and a Baby included a famous sketch on In Living Color where Muhammed Ali, Mike Tyson and Sugar Ray Leonard is played by David Alan Grier, Keenen Ivory Wayans and Tommy Davidson.\n\nIn the 2009 film The Hangover, where three of the main characters acquire a missing baby while searching for their lost friend, character Alan Garner references the film, saying, \"It's got Ted Danson, Magnum, P.I., and that Jewish actor\".\n\nIn the TV show Home Improvement, season 4 episode 21, Tim manages to change a tire in 38 seconds. The head racer says, \"In that amount of time, we could change 23 tires and a baby\", to which Al Borland replies, \"I love that movie.\", referencing the film. Earl Hindman (Wilson) played the minor role of Satch, Vince's assistant, in the film." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Trois Hommes et un Couffin", "3 Hommes et un couffin", "3 hommes et un couffin", "Three Men and a Cradle", "Trois hommes et un couffin", "3 Hommes et un Couffin", "Trois Hommes et un couffin" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "trois hommes et un couffin", "3 hommes et un couffin", "three men and cradle" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "trois hommes et un couffin", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Trois Hommes et un Couffin" }
What was Xanadu in the title of the film?	tc_1209	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Xanadu_(film).txt" ], "title": [ "Xanadu (film)" ], "wiki_context": [ "Xanadu is a 1980 American romantic musical fantasy film written by Richard Christian Danus and Marc Reid Rubel and directed by Robert Greenwald. The title is a reference to the nightclub in the film, which takes its name from Xanadu, the summer capital of Kublai Khan's Yuan Dynasty in China. This city appears in Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a poem that is quoted in the film. The film's plot was inspired by 1947's Down to Earth.\n\nXanadu stars Olivia Newton-John, Michael Beck, and Gene Kelly, and features music by Newton-John, Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), Cliff Richard, and The Tubes. The film also features animation by Don Bluth.\n\nA box office flop, Xanadu earned mixed to negative critical reviews and was an inspiration for the creation of the Golden Raspberry Awards to memorialize the worst films of the year. Despite the lacklustre performance of the film, the soundtrack album became a huge commercial success around the world, and was certified double platinum in the United States. The song \"Magic\" was a U.S. number one hit for Newton-John, and the title track (by Newton-John and ELO) reached number one in the UK and several other countries around the world. \n\nPlot\n\nSonny Malone is a talented artist who dreams of fame beyond his job, which is the non-creative task of painting larger versions of album covers for record-store window advertisements. As the film opens, Sonny is broke and on the verge of giving up his dream. Having quit his day job to try to make a living as a freelance artist, but having failed to make any money at it, Sonny returns to his old job at AirFlo Records. After some humorous run-ins with his imperious boss and nemesis, Simpson, he resumes painting record covers.\n\nAt work, Sonny is told to paint an album cover for a group called The Nine Sisters. The cover features a beautiful woman in front of an art deco auditorium (the Pan-Pacific Auditorium). Earlier that day, this same woman had collided with him, kissed him, then roller-skated away. Now, Malone becomes obsessed with finding her. He finds her at the same auditorium, now abandoned. She identifies herself as Kira, but she will not tell him anything else about herself. Unbeknownst to Sonny, Kira is one of nine mysterious and beautiful women who sprang to life from a local mural in town near the beach. \n\nWalking near the beach, Sonny befriends Daniel \"Danny\" McGuire, a has-been big band orchestra leader turned construction mogul. Danny lost his muse in the 1940s (who is seen in a flashback scene to bear a startling resemblance to Kira), and Sonny has not yet found his muse. Kira encourages the two men to form a partnership and open a nightclub at the old auditorium from the album cover. She falls in love with Sonny, and this presents a problem because she is actually an Olympian Muse (\"Kira's\" real name is Terpsichore, the Muse of Dance). The other eight women from the beginning of the film are her sisters and fellow goddesses, the Muses, and the mural is actually a portal of sorts and their point of entry to Earth.\n\nThe Muses visit Earth often to help inspire others to pursue their dreams and desires, but in Kira's case, she has violated the rules by which Muses are supposed to conduct themselves, as she was only supposed to inspire Sonny but has ended up falling in love with him as well. Her parents, presumably the Greek gods Zeus and Mnemosyne, recall her to the timeless realm of the Olympian gods. Sonny follows her through the mural and professes his love for her. A short debate between Sonny and Zeus occurs, with Mnemosyne interceding on behalf of Kira and Sonny. Kira herself then enters the discussion, saying the emotions she has toward Sonny are new to her; if only they could have one more night together, Sonny's dream of success for the nightclub Xanadu could come true. Zeus ultimately sends Sonny back to Earth. After Kira expresses her feelings for Sonny, Zeus and Mnemosyne decide to let Kira go to him for a \"moment, or maybe forever.\" They cannot keep these straight because mortal time confuses them, and the audience is left to wonder what her fate is to be.\n\nIn the finale, Kira and the Muses perform for a packed house at Xanadu's grand opening, and after Kira's final song, the Muses all return to the realm of the gods in spectacular fashion. With their departure, Sonny is understandably depressed. But that quickly changes when Danny asks for a drink for Sonny from one of the waitresses -- a waitress who looks exactly like Kira. Sonny approaches this seeming double and says he would just like to talk to her. The film ends with the two of them talking, in silhouette, as the credits begin to roll.\n\nCast\n\n* Olivia Newton-John as Kira (Terpsichore)\n* Michael Beck as Sonny Malone\n* Gene Kelly as Danny McGuire\n* Matt Lattanzi as young Danny\n* James Sloyan as Simpson\n* Dimitra Arliss as Helen\n* Katie Hanley as Sandra\n* Fred McCarren as Richie\n* Ren Woods as Jo\n* Melvin Jones as Big Al\n\n* Ira Newborn as '40s Band Leader\n* Jo Ann Harris as '40s Singer\n* Wilfrid Hyde-White as Heavenly Voice #1\n* Coral Browne as Heavenly Voice #2\n* Darcel Wynne as Background Dancer\n* Deborah Jennsen as Background Dancer\n* Alexander Cole as Background Dancer\n* Adolfo Quinones as Xanadu Dancer\n* Matt Lattanzi as Xanadu/Background Dancer\n* Miranda Garrison as Xanadu Dancer\n\nThe Muses\n* Sandahl Bergman\n* Lynn Latham\n* Melinda Phelps\n* Cherise Bate\n* Juliette Marshall\n* Marilyn Tokuda\n* Yvette Van Voorhees\n* Teri Beckerman\n\nMembers of the Tubes\n* John \"Fee\" Waybill\n* Rick Anderson\n* Michael Cotten\n* Prairie Prince\n* Bill Spooner\n* Roger Steen\n* Vince Welnick\n* Re Styles\n\nCast notes:\n* Joe Mantegna was in the film's cast, but the scenes he appeared in were deleted.\n* Olivia Newton-John and Matt Lattanzi met on the set and were married from 1984 to 1995.\n\nMusical numbers\n\nThe album grouped Olivia Newton-John (ONJ) and ELO's songs into the opposite sides of the album, and some tunes were excluded from the album. The following is the actual order in the film:\n* Instrumental medley of \"Whenever You're Away from Me\" and \"Xanadu\", over first part of opening credits\n* \"Whenever You're Away from Me\" excerpt - Danny playing on the clarinet, at the beach \n* Instrumental underscoring of \"Xanadu\" with Sonny drawing and painting\n* Extended intro to \"I'm Alive\" (only a portion of which is in the soundtrack album)\n* \"I'm Alive\" (ELO) - on the film's music track, as Muse wall paintings come to life\n* \"Whenever You're Away from Me\" excerpt - Danny again playing the clarinet, at the beach.\n* \"Magic\" (ONJ) - on the film's music track, while Kira is roller skating in the dark auditorium while Sonny watches and talks to her\n* \"You Made Me Love You\" (ONJ) (non-soundtrack LP track released as B-side of the \"Suddenly\" single) - on Glenn Miller record played by Danny in the ballroom of his home\n* \"Whenever You're Away from Me\" (Gene Kelly and ONJ) - Danny and Kira singing and dancing in the ballroom. This song was heavily influenced by Frank Sinatra. According to the DVD special, this was the last sequence filmed.\n* \"Suddenly\" (ONJ duet with Cliff Richard) – on the track as Kira and Sonny roller-skate through the recording studio.\n* \"Dancin'\" (ONJ duet with The Tubes) – Danny and Sonny, in the auditorium, imagine differing visions of their ideal club. Sonny's hard-rocking glam band and Danny's Big Band female trio lip-synching to ONJ's self-harmony musically and physically merge into a unified whole, leading to agreement on \"Xanadu\" as the name of the club\n* \"Don't Walk Away\" (ELO) - on the film's music track during an animated sequence featuring Sonny and Kira as several animals, such as fish and birds (animation by Don Bluth).\n* \"All Over the World\" (ELO) - on the film's music track in the \"franchised glitz dealer\" store, with Danny running through various dance steps, and some rollerskating, as he tries on different outfits\n* \"The Fall\" (ELO) - on the film's music track, as Sonny roller-skates toward (and through) the Muse wall painting\n* \"Suspended in Time\" (ONJ) – Kira sings\n* \"Drum Dreams\" (ELO) (non-soundtrack LP track released as B-side of the \"I'm Alive\" and \"All Over The World\" singles) - beginning of Xanadu opening night roller disco sequence, with Danny leading the group on skates\n* \"Xanadu\" (ONJ and ELO) - Kira sings\n* \"Fool Country\" (ONJ) (non-soundtrack LP track released as B-side of the \"Magic\" single) - Kira in various costumes, singing\n* \"Xanadu\" reprise, Kira singing; dancing with the other 8 Muses; they disappear, then Kira disappears\n* \"Magic\" (ONJ) reprise, on the film's music track, fades out as Kira reappears\n* Instrumental riff from \"Xanadu\", Kira and Sonny become silhouetted; \"The End\"\n* \"Xanadu\" (ONJ and ELO) short version, over closing credits.\n\nThemes\n\nThe plot of the 1947 film Down to Earth was loosely used as the basis for Xanadu. In the film, Rita Hayworth played Terpsichore, opposite male lead Larry Parks, who played a producer of stage plays.\n\nProduction\n\nThe film was originally conceived as a relatively low-budget roller disco picture. As a number of prominent, A-list performers joined the production, it evolved into a much larger project, while retaining rollerskating as a recurring theme, especially in the final scenes of the club's opening night. \n\nEarlier versions of the story established that Sonny was the artist who created the mural from which the nine goddess sisters emerge. This provided a much stronger explanation for the muses' interest in helping him achieve artistic success. However, continual rewrites and editing during production caused this plot point to be lost, except for one line spoken by Sonny as he laments his failure as a freelance artist; \"I paint his van...I paint somebody else's mural...\". The Marvel Comics adaptation published as Marvel Super Special #17 retained the more strongly emphasized connection between Sonny and the painting.\n\nDanny McGuire, who appeared in Cover Girl, also appears in 'Xanadu' and was Kelly's final film role, except for compilation films of the That's Entertainment! series. Kenny Ortega and Jerry Trent served as choreographers.\n\nThe Pan-Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles was used for exterior shots of the nightclub. Xanadu's nightclub interior was built on Stage 4 of the Hollywood Center Studios (1040 N. Las Palmas Avenue, Hollywood) beginning in 1979. Sonny refers to the Auditorium as \"a dump\", which was a fair characterization of the Pan-Pacific by then. Danny jokes that \"they used to have wrestling here\", which was a true statement about the Auditorium. The building would be consumed by fire a decade later.\n\nReception\n\nXanadu has generally earned mixed to negative reviews. For example, Roger Ebert gave the film two stars, describing the film as \"a mushy and limp musical fantasy\" with a confused story, redeemed only by Newton-John's \"high spirits\" and several strong scenes from Kelly. Moreover, Ebert criticized the choreography, saying \"the dance numbers in this movie do not seem to have been conceived for film.\" He noted that mass dance scenes were not photographed well by cinematographer Victor J. Kemper, who shot at eye level and failed to pick up the larger patterns of dancers, with dancers in the background muddying the movement of the foreground. With a combination of contemporaneous and modern reviews, Xanadu today holds a \"Rotten\" rating of 39% from the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The German television show Die schlechtesten Filme aller Zeiten (in English The worst movies of all time), in which the hosts Oliver Kalkofe and Peter Rütten present a bad movie in each episode, featured the movie in its third season.\n\nThe film barely broke even at the box office in its initial release. A double feature of Xanadu and another musical released at about the same time, Can't Stop the Music, inspired John J. B. Wilson to create the Golden Raspberry Awards (or \"Razzies\"), an annual event \"dishonoring\" what is considered the worst in cinema for a given year. Xanadu won the first Razzie for Worst Director and was nominated for six other awards.\n\nOver the years, the film has developed something of a cult audience. \n\nDespite the film's mediocre success, the soundtrack album (UK #2, US #4), however, was a major hit. It was certified Double Platinum in the US and Gold in the UK, and also spent one week atop the Cashbox and Record World Pop Albums charts. The soundtrack contained five Top 20 singles:\n* \"Magic\" - Olivia Newton-John (No. 1 (4 weeks) Pop, No. 1 (5 weeks) AC, certified gold)\n* \"Xanadu\" - Olivia Newton-John/Electric Light Orchestra (No. 8 Pop, No. 2 AC, No. 1 (2 weeks (UK)))\n* \"All Over the World\" - Electric Light Orchestra (No. 13 Pop, No. 45 AC)\n* \"I'm Alive\" - Electric Light Orchestra (No. 16 Pop, No. 48 AC, certified gold)\n* \"Suddenly\" - Olivia Newton-John/Cliff Richard (No. 20 Pop, No. 4 AC)\n\nHome media\n\nXanadu was re-released on DVD June 24, 2008. The \"Magical Music Edition\" features a \"Going Back to Xanadu\" featurette, the film's theatrical trailer and a photo gallery. A bonus music CD with the soundtrack album was included. The CD was the film's standard soundtrack album, i.e. with no extras such as omitted tracks.\n\nThe film was officially released on Blu-ray on March 8th, 2016.\n\nStage musical\n\nA $5 million Broadway musical adaptation of the same name began previews on May 23, 2007, and opened (with Newton-John and songwriter John Farrar in attendance) on July 10, 2007 starring Kerry Butler as Kira, Cheyenne Jackson as Sonny, and Tony Roberts as Danny. In the musical, Kira is the Muse Clio, not Terpsichore. Jackie Hoffman and Mary Testa co-starred (in a plot twist new to the Broadway version) as \"evil\" Muse sisters. The show, which humorously parodied the plot of the film, was a surprise hit, and was nominated for several Tony Awards. The original cast recording was released December 2007. The Broadway production closed on September 28, 2008 after 49 previews and 512 performances. A successful national tour followed.\n\nAwards and nominations\n\n* Ivor Novello Award Best Motion Picture Film soundtrack Jeff Lynne\n* Grammy Awards\nNominated: Best Female Pop Vocal Performance - \"Magic\" Olivia Newton-John\n* Young Artist Awards\nNominated: Best Major Motion Picture - Family Entertainment\n\n* 1st Golden Raspberry Award\nWon: Worst Director (Robert Greenwald)\nNominated: Worst Picture\nNominated: Worst Screenplay\nNominated: Worst Actor (Michael Beck)\nNominated: Worst Actress (Olivia Newton-John)\nNominated: Worst Original Song (\"Suspended in Time\")\nNominated: Worst \"Musical\" of Our First 25 Years" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Rollerdisco", "Roller disco" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "rollerdisco", "roller disco" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "roller disco", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Roller disco" }
Whose poems returned to the bestsellers list after Four Weddings and a Funeral?	tc_1212	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Four_Weddings_and_a_Funeral.txt" ], "title": [ "Four Weddings and a Funeral" ], "wiki_context": [ "Four Weddings and a Funeral is a 1994 British romantic comedy film directed by Mike Newell. It was the first of several films by screenwriter Richard Curtis to feature Hugh Grant. It was made in six weeks and cost under £3 million,\nBBC Radio 4 – The Reunion – Four Weddings and a Funeral, 13 April 2014 becoming an unexpected success and the highest-grossing British film in cinema history at the time, with worldwide box office in excess of $245.7 million, and receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. \n\nPlot\n\nThe film follows the adventures of a group of friends through the eyes of Charles, a good-natured but socially awkward Englishman living in London, who becomes smitten with Carrie, an American whom Charles meets at four weddings and a funeral.\n\nThe first wedding is that of Angus and Laura, at which Charles is the best man. Charles and his single friends wonder whether they will ever get married. Charles meets Carrie and spends the night with her. Carrie pretends that, now they have slept together, they will have to get married, to which Charles endeavours to respond before realising she is joking. Carrie returns to America, observing that they may have missed an opportunity.\n\nThe second wedding is that of Bernard and Lydia, a couple who became romantically involved at the previous wedding. Charles encounters Carrie again, but she introduces him to her fiancé, Sir Hamish Banks, a wealthy politician. At the reception, Charles finds himself seated with several ex-girlfriends who relate embarrassing stories about his inability to be discreet and afterwards bumps into Henrietta, known among Charles' friends as \"Duckface\", with whom he had a particularly difficult relationship. Charles retreats to an empty hotel suite, seeing Carrie and Hamish leave in a taxicab, only to be trapped in a cupboard after the newlyweds stumble into the room to have sex. After Charles awkwardly exits the room, Henrietta confronts him about his habit of \"serial monogamy\", telling him he is afraid of letting anyone get too close to him. Charles then runs into Carrie, and they end up spending another night together.\n\nA month later, Charles receives an invitation to Carrie's wedding. While shopping for a present, he coincidentally encounters Carrie and ends up helping her select her wedding dress. Carrie lists her more than thirty sexual partners. Charles later awkwardly tries confessing his love to her and hinting that he would like to have a relationship with her, to no avail.\n\nThe third wedding is that of Carrie and Hamish. Charles attends, depressed at the prospect of Carrie's marrying Hamish. At the reception, Gareth instructs his friends to seek potential mates; Fiona's brother, Tom, stumbles through an attempt to connect with a woman until she reveals that she is the minister's wife, while Charles's flatmate, Scarlett, strikes up a conversation with an American named Chester. As Charles watches Carrie and Hamish dance, Fiona deduces his feelings about Carrie. When Charles asks why Fiona is not married, she confesses that she has loved Charles since they first met years earlier. Charles is appreciative and empathetic but does not requite her love. During the groom's toast, Gareth dies of a heart attack.\n\nAt Gareth's funeral, his partner Matthew recites the poem \"Funeral Blues\" (\"Stop all the clocks...\") by W. H. Auden, commemorating his relationship with Gareth. Charles and Tom discuss whether hoping to find your \"one true love\" is just a futile effort and ponder that, while their clique have always viewed themselves as proud to be single, Gareth and Matthew were a \"married\" couple all the while.\n\nThe fourth wedding is ten months later. Charles has decided to marry Henrietta. However, shortly before the ceremony, Carrie arrives, revealing to Charles that she and Hamish are separated. Charles has a crisis of confidence, which he reveals to his deaf brother David and Matthew. When the vicar asks whether anyone knows a reason why the couple should not marry, David, who was reading the vicar's lips, asks Charles to translate for him, and says in sign language that he suspects the groom loves someone else. The vicar asks whether Charles does love someone else, and Charles replies, \"I do.\" Henrietta punches Charles and the wedding is halted.\n\nCarrie visits Charles to apologise for attending the wedding. Charles confesses that, while standing at the altar, he realised that for the first time in his life he totally and utterly loved one person, \"and it wasn't the person standing next to me in the veil.\" Charles makes a proposal of lifelong commitment without marriage to Carrie, who accepts.\n\nHenrietta marries an officer in the Grenadier Guards; David marries his girlfriend Serena; Scarlett marries Chester; Tom marries his distant cousin Deirdre (whom he met, for the second time in 25 years, at Charles's wedding); Matthew finds a new partner; Fiona marries Prince Charles; and Charles and Carrie have a young son.\n\nCast\n\n* Hugh Grant as Charles\n* Andie MacDowell as Carrie\n* James Fleet as Tom\n* Simon Callow as Gareth\n* John Hannah as Matthew\n* Kristin Scott Thomas as Fiona\n* David Bower as David\n* Charlotte Coleman as Scarlett\n* Timothy Walker as Angus\n* Sara Crowe as Laura\n* Rowan Atkinson as Father Gerald\n* David Haig as Bernard\n* Sophie Thompson as Lydia\n* Corin Redgrave as Sir Hamish Banks\n* Anna Chancellor as Henrietta (\"Duckface\")\n* Duncan Kenworthy as Matthew's \"gorgeous\" new boyfriend (uncredited)\n\nProduction\n\nThe film was shot mainly in London and the Home Counties, including Hampstead, Islington where the final moments take place on Highbury Terrace, Greenwich Hospital, Betchworth in Surrey, Amersham in Buckinghamshire, St Bartholomew-the-Great (wedding #4) and West Thurrock in Essex. \t\nExterior shots of guests arriving for the funeral were filmed in Thurrock, Essex overlooking the River Thames with the backdrop of the Dartford River Crossing and at stately homes in Bedfordshire (Luton Hoo for wedding two reception) and Hampshire. Many of the extras were recruited by Amber Rudd who is described in the credits as \"Aristocracy Co-ordinator\"—among those used were Lords Burlington and Woolton.\n\nMusic\n\nThe original score was composed by British composer Richard Rodney Bennett. The movie also featured a soundtrack of popular songs, including a cover version of The Troggs' \"Love Is All Around\" performed by Wet Wet Wet that remained at number 1 in the British charts for fifteen weeks and was then the ninth (now twelfth) biggest selling single of all time in Britain. This song would later be adapted into \"Christmas Is All Around\" and sung by the character of Billy Mack in Richard Curtis' 2003 film Love Actually, in which Grant also stars. The soundtrack also features Elton John's \"Crocodile Rock\", Gershwin's \"But Not for Me\", the song \"Chapel of Love\", and Gloria Gaynor's \"I Will Survive\".\n\nReception\n\nCritical response\n\nThe film was very well received with critics, currently holding a 95% \"Certified Fresh\" approval on reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with the site's consensus stating, \"While frothy to a fault, Four Weddings and a Funeral features irresistibly breezy humor, and winsome performances from Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell.\" \n\nFilm critic Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, calling it \"delightful and sly\", and directed with \"light-hearted enchantment\" by Newell. He praised Grant's performance, describing it as a kind of \"endearing awkwardness\". \n\nThe film did have its detractors, though. Writing for the Chicago Reader, Jonathan Rosenbaum called the film \"generic\" and \"standard issue\", stating that the audience shouldn't \"expect to remember it ten minutes later\". \n\nTime magazine writer Richard Corliss was less scathing, but agreed that it was forgettable, saying that people would \"forget all about [the movie] by the time they leave the multiplex,\" even joking at the end of his review that he had forgotten the film's name. \n\nThe character of Carrie was voted one of the most annoying film characters of all time in a British online poll. \n\nBox office\n\nUpon its North American limited release on 11 March 1994, Four Weddings and a Funeral opened with $138,486 in 5 theatres. But upon its wide release on 15 April 1994, the film topped the box office with $4,162,489. The film would continue to gross $53,700,832 in North America with an additional $193 million internationally, earning $245,700,832 worldwide. \n\nAccolades\n\nWins\n\n;BAFTA Awards \n* Best Film\n* Best Direction (Mike Newell)\n* Best Actor (Hugh Grant)\n* Best Supporting Actress (Kristin Scott Thomas)\n;Australian Film Institute\n* Best Foreign Film\n;British Comedy Awards\n* Best Comedy Film\n;César Awards\n* César Award for Best Foreign Film\n; Chicago Film Critics\n* Most Promising Actor (Hugh Grant)\n;Evening Standard Awards\n* Best Actress (Kristin Scott Thomas)\n* Best Screenplay (Richard Curtis)\n;Golden Globe Awards\n* Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy (Hugh Grant)\n;London Film Awards\n* British Film of the Year\n* British Director of the Year (Mike Newell)\n* British Producer of the Year (Duncan Kenworthy)\n* British Screenwriter of the Year (Richard Curtis)\n;Writers Guild of America Award\n* Best Original Screenplay (Richard Curtis)\n;Writers' Guild of Great Britain\n* Film – Screenplay (Richard Curtis)\n\nNominations\n\n;Academy Awards\n* Best Picture (lost to Forrest Gump)\n* Best Original Screenplay – Richard Curtis (lost to Quentin Tarantino for Pulp Fiction)\n;BAFTA Awards\n* Best Film Music – Richard Rodney Bennett (lost to Backbeat)\n* Best Original Screenplay – Richard Curtis (lost to Quentin Tarantino for Pulp Fiction)\n* Best Supporting Actor – Simon Callow (lost to Samuel L. Jackson for Pulp Fiction)\n* Best Supporting Actor – John Hannah (lost to Samuel L. Jackson for Pulp Fiction)\n* Best Supporting Actress – Charlotte Coleman (lost to Kristin Scott Thomas for this film)\n;Directors Guild of America Award\n* Outstanding Directoring – Feature Film – Mike Newell (lost to Robert Zemeckis for Forrest Gump)\n;Golden Globe Awards\n* Best Musical or Comedy (lost to The Lion King)\n* Best Screenplay – Richard Curtis (lost to Quentin Tarantino for Pulp Fiction)\n* Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy – Andie MacDowell (lost to Jamie Lee Curtis for True Lies)\n\nRecognition\n\nThe film was voted the 27th greatest comedy film of all time by readers of Total Film in 2000. In 2004, the same magazine named it the 34th greatest British film of all time. It is number 96 on Bravo's \"100 Funniest Movies\"." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "W.H Auden", "W Auden", "W.H.Auden", "W.H. 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Who was the voice of O'Malley in The Aristocats?	tc_1213	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "The_Aristocats.txt" ], "title": [ "The Aristocats" ], "wiki_context": [ "The Aristocats is a 1970 American animated musical adventure-comedy film produced and released by Walt Disney Productions and features the voices of Eva Gabor, Hermione Baddeley, Phil Harris, Dean Clark, Sterling Holloway, Scatman Crothers, and Roddy Maude-Roxby. The 20th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film is based on a story by Tom McGowan and Tom Rowe, and revolves around a family of aristocratic cats, and how an alley cat acquaintance helps them after a butler has kidnapped them to gain his mistress' fortune which was intended to go to them. It was originally released to theaters by Buena Vista Distribution on December 11, 1970.\n\nIn 1962, The Aristocats began as an original script for a two-part live-action episode for Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color developed by writers Tom McGowan and Tom Rowe and producer Harry Tytle. Following two years of re-writes, Walt Disney suggested the project would be more suitable for an animated film, and placed the project in turnaround as The Jungle Book advanced into production. When The Jungle Book nearly complete, Disney appointed Ken Anderson to develop preliminary work on Aristocats, which would marked the last film project to actually be approved by Disney himself before his death in December 1966, before the film was released. \n\nThe Aristocats was released on December 11, 1970, to positive reception, and was a box office success.\n\nPlot\n\nIn Paris in 1910, mother cat Duchess and her three kittens, Marie, Berlioz, and Toulouse, live with retired opera diva Madame Adelaide Bonfamille, and her English butler, Edgar. One day while preparing her will with lawyer Georges Hautecourt, Madame declares her fortune to be left to her cats until their deaths, and thereafter to Edgar. Edgar hears this through a speaking tube, and plots to eliminate the cats. Therefore, he sedates the cats by sleeping pills in their food, and enters the countryside to abandon them. There, he is ambushed by two hounds, named Napoleon and Lafayette, and the cats are stranded in the countryside, while Madame Adelaide, Roquefort the mouse, and Frou-Frou the horse discover their absence. In the morning, Duchess meets an alley cat named Thomas O'Malley, who offers to guide her and the kittens to Paris. The group briefly hitchhike in a milk cart before being chased off by the driver. Later, while crossing a railroad trestle, the cats narrowly avoid an oncoming train, but Marie falls into a river and is saved by O'Malley; himself rescued by two English geese, Amelia and Abigail Gabble, who accompany the cats to Paris. Edgar returns to the country to retrieve his possessions from Napoleon and Lafayette, as the only evidence that could incriminate him.\n\nTravelling across the rooftops of the city, the cats meet O'Malley's friend Scat Cat and his musicians, who perform the scat song Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat. After the band has departed, O'Malley and Duchess converse on a nearby rooftop while the kittens listen at a windowsill. Here, Duchess' loyalty to Madame prompts her to decline O'Malley's proposal of marriage. Duchess and the kittens return to Madame's mansion, but Edgar places them in a sack and prepares to ship them to Timbuktu; whereupon they direct Roquefort to retrieve O'Malley. He does so, and O'Malley returns to the mansion, ordering Roquefort to find Scat Cat and his gang. This done, the alley cats and Frou-Frou fight Edgar, while Roquefort frees Duchess and the kittens. In the end of the fight, Edgar is locked in his own packing-case and sent to Timbuktu himself. Madame Adelaide's will is rewritten to exclude Edgar, with Madame expressing surprise at Edgar’s departure. After adopting O’Malley into the family, Madame establishes a charity foundation housing Paris' stray cats (represented by Scat Cat and his band, who reprise their song).\n\nCast\n\n* Eva Gabor as Duchess - Madame Adelaide's cat and mother of three kittens; but forced to choose between loyalty to Madame and her own attachment to Thomas O'Malley, until the end of the film. Robie Lester provided the singing voice for Duchess.\n* Phil Harris as Thomas O'Malley (full name: Abraham de Lacy Giuseppe Casey Thomas O'Malley) – A feral cat who befriends Duchess and her kittens, becoming a father figure to the kittens and falling in love with Duchess.\n* Gary Dubin as Toulouse - the oldest kitten, who idolizes all alley-cats and especially Thomas. He is also a talented painter. \n* Liz English as Marie - Second-eldest kitten; often imperious or snobbish to her brothers, but her mother's especial companion. Something of a singer. \n* Dean Clark as Berlioz - the youngest kitten. He is somewhat timid and shy, but a talented pianist.\n* Roddy Maude-Roxby as Edgar Balthazar - Madame Adelaide's butler who tries to get rid of the cats in order to inherit her fortune. \n* Scatman Crothers as Scat Cat - Thomas's best friend and leader of a gang of jazz-playing alley cats. Scat Cat plays the trumpet.\n* Sterling Holloway as Roquefort - A house mouse and also a friend of the cats, who assists in the expulsion of Edgar. \n* Paul Winchell as Shun Gon - a Chinese cat in Scat Cat's gang. Plays the piano and drums made out of pots.\n* Lord Tim Hudson as Hit Cat - an English cat in Scat Cat's gang. Plays acoustic guitar.\n* Vito Scotti as Peppo - an Italian cat in Scat Cat's gang. Plays the accordion.\n* Thurl Ravenscroft as Billy Boss - a Russian cat in Scat Cat's gang. Plays the double bass.\n* Pat Buttram as Napoleon - a Bloodhound who attacks Edgar when he intrudes in the farm where Napoleon lives. Napoleon insists, whenever cohort Lafayette makes a suggestion, that he is in command, then adopts Lafayette's suggestion as his own.\n* George Lindsey as Lafayette - a Basset Hound and Napoleon's companion. He sometimes proves smarter than Napoleon, but is also more timid. \n* Hermione Baddeley as Madame Adelaide Bonfamille - a former opera singer and owner of Duchess and her kittens.\n* Charles Lane as Georges Hautecourt - Madame Bonfamille's lawyer: an eccentric, lively old man who provides comic relief by attempting stairs too steep for himself.\n* Nancy Kulp as Frou-Frou - Roquefort's horse companion, who subdues Edgar. Ruth Buzzi provided her singing voice.\n* Monica Evans as Abigail Gabble - a goose who befriends the cats.\n* Carole Shelley as Amelia Gabble - Abigail's twin sister.\n* Bill Thompson as Uncle Waldo - the drunken gander uncle of Abigail and Amelia.\n* Peter Renaday as French Milkman/Le Petit Cafe Cook/Truck Movers (uncredited)\n\nProduction\n\nStory development\n\nOn December 9, 1961, Walt Disney suggested that Harry Tytle and Tom McGowan find some animal stories to adapt as a two-part live-action episode for the Wonderful World of Color television program. By New Year's 1962, McGowan had found several stories including a children's book about a mother cat and her kittens set in New York City. However, Tytle felt that a London location had added a significant element to One Hundred and One Dalmatians and suggested setting the story of the cats in Paris. Following a rough storyline, the story became about two servants—a butler and a maid—who were in line to inherit a fortune of an eccentric mistress after the pet cats died and focused on their feeble and foolish attempts to eliminate the felines. Boris Karloff and Francoise Rosay were in mind to portray the butler and the distressed Madame. A subplot centered around a mother cat hiding her kittens to keep them out of danger in a variety of different homes and locales around Paris, France. During the filming of Escapade in Florence, McGowan brought him the story that had been written by Tom Rowe, an American writer who was living in Paris. \n\nBy August 1962, they sent the completed script to Burbank, where it was returned as \"rejected\" by an unknown executive at the Disney studios. Nevertheless, Tytle brought the script to Walt staying at the Connaught in London. Disney approved for the draft, but recommended additional cuts which were made by February 1963. Before filming was to commence Paris, Rowe wrote a letter to Disney addressing his displeasure of the script revisions, in which Tytle responded to Rowe that the changes Walt approved of would be kept. However, by summer 1963, the project was shelved, where Tytle, in a discussion with Walt, recommended to produce The Aristocats as an animated feature. For that reason, Walt temporarily shelved the project as the animation department was occupied with The Jungle Book. Meanwhile, director Wolfgang Reitherman learned of the project suggesting it as a follow-up project to Jungle Book. Because of the production delays, Tytle was advised to centralize his efforts on live action projects and was replaced by Winston Hibler. \n\nIn 1966, Disney assigned Ken Anderson to determine whether Aristocats would be suitable for an animated feature. With occasional guidance from Reitherman, Anderson worked from scratch and simplified the two stories into a story that focused more on the cats. Walt saw the preliminary sketches and approved the project shortly before his death. After The Jungle Book was completed, the animation department began work on Aristocats. Hibler was eventually replaced by Reitherman, who would abandon the more emotional story of Duchess's obsession to find adopters befitting of her kittens' talents initially favored by Walt suggesting instead the film be conceived as an adventure comedy in the vein of One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Furthermore, the character Elmira, the maid, who was intended to be voiced by Elsa Lanchester, was removed from the story placing Edgar as the central villain in order to better simplify the storyline. \n\nCasting\n\nAs with The Jungle Book, the characters were patterned on the personalities of the voice actors. In 1966, Walt Disney contacted Phil Harris to improvise the script, and shortly after, he was cast to voice Thomas O'Malley. To differentiate the character from Baloo, Reitherman noted O'Malley was \"more based on Clark Gable than Wallace Beery, who was partly the model for Baloo.\" Reitherman further cast Eva Gabor as Duchess, remarking she had \"the freshest femme voice we've ever had\", and Sterling Holloway as Roquefort. Louis Armstrong was initially reported to voice Scat Cat, but he backed out of the project in 1969 for unknown reasons. Out of desperation, Scatman Crothers was hired to voice the character under the direction to imitate Armstrong. Pat Buttram and George Lindsey were cast as the farm dogs, which proved so popular with the filmmakers that another scene was included to have the dogs when Edgar returns to the farm to retrieve his displaced hat and umbrella. \n\nAnimation\n\nKen Anderson spent eighteen months developing the design of the characters. Five of Disney's legendary \"Nine Old Men\" worked on it, including the Disney crew that had been working 25 years on average. \n\nMusic\n\nThe Aristocats would be the last Disney animated feature Robert and Richard Sherman worked on as staff songwriters, growing frustrated by the management of the studio following Walt Disney's death. For the Disney studios, the Sherman Brothers completed their work before the release of Bedknobs and Broomsticks, but would return to the studio to compose songs for The Tigger Movie. \n\nThe brothers composed multiple songs, but only the title song and \"Scales and Arpeggios\" were included in the film. Desiring to capture the essence of France, the Sherman Brothers composed the song \"The Aristocats\". Disney film producer Bill Anderson would ask Maurice Chevalier to participate in the film. Following the suggestion, Richard Sherman imitated Chevalier's voice as he performed a demo for the song. Chavalier received the demo and was brought out of retirement to sing the song. Deleted songs that were intended for the film included \"Pourquoi?\" sung by Hermione Baddeley as Madame Bonfamille, and its reprise, \"She Never Felt Alone sung by Robie Lester as Marie. For the show-stopping number, the Sherman Brothers composed \"Le Jazz Hot\", but the filmmakers preferred \"Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat\" composed by Floyd Huddleston and Al Rinker. Lastly, a villainous song was envisioned to be sung by Edgar and his assistant Elvira as a romantic duet, but the song was dropped when Elvira was removed from the story. \n\nAnother deleted song was for Thomas O'Malley titled \"My Way's The Highway\" in which the filmmakers had Terry Gilkyson compose the eponymous song \"Thomas O'Malley Cat\". Gilkyson explained \"It was the same song, but they orchestrated it twice. They used the simpler one, because they may have thought the other too elobarate or too hot. It was a jazz version with a full orchestra.\" \n\nThe instrumental music was composed by George Bruns, who drew from his background with jazz bands in the 1940s and decided to feature the accordion-like musette for French flavor. \n\nOn Classic Disney: 60 Years of Musical Magic, this includes \"Thomas O'Malley Cat\" on the purple disc and \"Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat\" on the orange disc. On Disney's Greatest Hits, this includes \"Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat\" on the red disc. \n\nOn August 21, 2015, in honor of the 45th anniversary of the film, a new soundtrack was released as part of Walt Disney Records: The Legacy Collection. The release includes the songs and score as used in the film, along with The Lost Chords of the Aristocats (featuring songs written for the film but not used), and previously released album versions of the songs as bonus tracks.\n\nRelease and reception\n\nBox office\n\nThe Aristocats was released in December 1970 where it grossed $10 million in domestic rentals. The film was the most popular \"general release\" movie at the British box office in 1971. The film was re-released to theaters on December 19, 1980 where it earned an additional $18 million and again in April 10, 1987 where its gross was $17 million. The Aristocats has had a lifetime gross of $55.7 million.\n\nCritical reaction\n\nThe New York Times praised the film as \"grand fun all the way, nicely flavored with tunes, and topped with one of the funniest jam sessions ever by a bunch of scraggly Bohemians headed by one Scat Cat.\" Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, awarded the film three stars out of four summarizing The Aristocats as \"light and pleasant and funny, the characterization is strong, and the voices of Phil Harris (O'Malley the Alley Cat) and Eva Gabor (Duchess, the mother cat) are charming in their absolute rightness.\" For its 1987 re-release, animation historian Charles Solomon expressed criticism for its episodic plot, anachronisms, and borrowed plot elements from earlier Disney animated features, but nevertheless wrote \"But even at their least original, the Disney artists provide better animation--and more entertainment--than the recent animated features hawking The Care Bears, Rainbow Brite and Transformers. Writing in his book The Disney Films, Disney historian and film critic Leonard Maltin wrote that \"[t]he worst that one could say of The AristoCats is that it is unmemorable. It's smoothly executed, of course, and enjoyable, but neither its superficial story nor its characters have any resonance.\" Additionally, in his book Of Mice and Magic, Maltin criticized the film for re-using Phil Harris's voice to replicate The Jungle Book’s Baloo dismissing the character Thomas O'Malley as \"essentially the same character, dictated by the same voice personality.\" \n\nThe review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film received a 66% approval rating with an average rating of 6/10 based on 29 reviews. Its consensus states \"Though The Aristocats is a mostly middling effort for Disney, it is redeemed by terrific work from its voice cast and some jazzy tunes.\" \n\nThe film was nominated for AFI's 10 Top 10 in the \"Animation\" genre. \n\nHome media\n\nIt was released on VHS in Europe on January 1, 1990. It was first released on VHS in North America in the Masterpiece Collection series on April 24, 1996.\n \nIn January 2000, Walt Disney Home Video launched the Gold Classic Collection, with The Aristocats re-issued on VHS and DVD on April 4, 2000. The DVD contained the film in its 1.33:1 aspect ratio enhanced with 2.0 Dolby surround sound. The Gold Collection release quietly discontinued in 2006. A new single-disc Special Edition DVD (previously announced as a 2-Disc set) was released on February 5, 2008.\n\nDisney released the film for the first time on Blu-ray on August 21, 2012. The 2-disc Special Edition Blu-ray/DVD combo (both in Blu-ray and DVD packaging) featured a new digital transfer and new bonus material. A single disc DVD edition was also released on the same day. \n\nCancelled sequel\n\nIn 2005, DisneyToon Studios originally planned to make a follow-up to the movie, along with sequels to Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons. Originally intended to be a 2D animated feature, Disney executives decided to produce the film in computer animation in order to garner more interest. Additionally, the story was meant to center around Marie, Duchess's daughter, who becomes smitten by another kitten aboard a luxury cruise ship. However, she and her family must soon take on a jewel thief on the open seas. However, the project was cancelled when John Lasseter was named Disney's new chief creative officer, in which he called off all future sequels DisneyToon had planned and instead to make original productions or spin-offs." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Phil Harris" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "phil harris" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "phil harris", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Phil Harris" }
What was the name of Bob Fosse's character in All That Jazz?	tc_1214	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "All_That_Jazz_(film).txt" ], "title": [ "All That Jazz (film)" ], "wiki_context": [ "All That Jazz is a 1979 American musical film directed by Bob Fosse. The screenplay by Robert Alan Aurthur and Fosse is a semi-autobiographical fantasy based on aspects of Fosse's life and career as dancer, choreographer and director. The film was inspired by Bob Fosse's manic effort to edit his film Lenny while simultaneously staging the 1975 Broadway musical Chicago. It borrows its title from the Kander and Ebb tune All That Jazz in that production. The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival. \n\nPlot\n\nJoe Gideon is a theater director and choreographer trying to balance work on his latest Broadway musical with editing a Hollywood film he has directed. He is a workaholic who chain-smokes cigarettes, and without a daily dose of Vivaldi, Visine, Alka-Seltzer, Dexedrine, and sex, he wouldn't have the energy to keep up the biggest \"show\" of all — his life. His girlfriend Katie Jagger, his ex-wife Audrey Paris, and daughter Michelle try to pull him back from the brink, but it is too late for his exhausted body and stress-ravaged heart. In his imagination, he flirts with an angel of death named Angelique.\n\nGideon's condition gets progressively worse. He is rushed to a hospital after experiencing chest pains during a particularly stressful table read (with the penny-pinching backers in attendance) and admitted with severe attacks of angina. Joe brushes off his symptoms, and attempts to leave to go back to rehearsal, but he collapses in the doctor's office and is ordered to stay in the hospital for three to four weeks to rest his heart and recover from his exhaustion. The show is postponed, but Gideon continues his antics from the hospital bed, in brazen denial of his mortality. Champagne flows, endless strings of women frolic around his hospital room and the cigarettes are always lit. Cardiogram readings don't show any improvement as Gideon dances with death. As the negative reviews for his feature film (which has been released without him) come in, Gideon has a massive coronary and is taken straight to coronary artery bypass surgery.\n\nThe backers for the show must then decide whether it's time to pack up or replace Gideon as the director. Their matter-of-fact money-oriented negotiations with the insurers are juxtaposed with graphic scenes of (presumably Joe's) open heart surgery. The producers realize that the best way to recoup their money and make a profit is to bet on Gideon dying — which would bring in a profit of over USD$500,000. Meanwhile, elements from Gideon's past life are staged in dazzling dream sequences of musical numbers he directs from his hospital bed while on life support. Realizing his death is imminent, his mortality unconquerable, Gideon has another heart attack. In the glittery finale, he goes through the five stages of grief — anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance - featured in the stand-up routine he has been editing. As death closes in on Gideon, the fantasy episodes become more hallucinatory and extravagant, and in a final epilogue that is set up as a truly monumental live variety show featuring everyone from his past, Gideon himself takes center stage.\n\nCast\n\n* Roy Scheider as Joseph \"Joe\" Gideon\n* Keith Gordon as young Joe\n* Jessica Lange as \"Angelique\", the angel of death\n* Leland Palmer as Audrey Paris, Gideon's ex-wife\n* Ann Reinking as Katie Jagger, Gideon's current girlfriend.\n* Cliff Gorman as Davis Newman, the \"Stand-Up\"\n* Ben Vereen as O'Connor Flood\n* Erzsébet Földi as Michelle Gideon, Joe's daughter\n* Michael Tolan as Dr. Ballinger\n* Max Wright as Joshua Penn\n* William LeMassena as Jonesy Hecht\n* Deborah Geffner as Victoria Porter\n* John Lithgow as Lucas Sergeant\n* Jules Fisher as Jules\n* Chris Chase as Leslie Perry, film critic\n* Anthony Holland as Paul\n* Sandahl Bergman, Eileen Casey, Bruce Anthony Davis, Gary Flannery, Jennifer Nairn-Smith, Danny Ruvolo, Leland Schwantes, John Sowinski, Candace Tovar, and Rima Vetter as Principal dancers\n* Ben Masters as Dr. Garry\n* Robert Levine as Dr. Hyman\n* C. C. H. Pounder as Nurse Blake\n* Wallace Shawn as Assistant insurance man\n* Tito Goya as hospital assistant\n* Michael Hinton (uncredited) as band drummer\n\nMusic \n\nBackground \n\n* \"On Broadway\" – George Benson\n* \"Perfect Day\" – Harry Nilsson\n* \"Everything Old Is New Again\" – Peter Allen\n* \"There's No Business Like Show Business\" – Ethel Merman\n* Concerto alla rustica – Antonio Vivaldi\n\nNumbers \n\n* \"Take Off with Us\" – Paul\n* \"Take Off with Us (Reprise)\" – Victoria, Dancers\n* \"Hospital Hop\" – Paul\n* \"After You've Gone\" – Audrey, Kate, Michelle (Leland Palmer, Ann Reinking, Erzsébet Földi)\n* \"There'll Be Some Changes Made\" – Kate, Audrey, Michelle\n* \"Who's Sorry Now?\" – Kate, Audrey, Michelle\n* \"Some of These Days\" – Michelle, Kate, Audrey\n* \"Bye Bye Life\" (from the Everly Brothers' \"Bye Bye Love\") – O'Connor and Joe (Ben Vereen and Roy Scheider)\n\nProduction\n\nThe film's structure is often compared to Federico Fellini's 8½, another thinly-veiled autobiographical film with fantastical elements. \n\nThe part of 'Audrey Paris', Joe's ex-wife and continuing mentor, played by Leland Palmer, closely reflects that of Fosse's wife, dancer and actress Gwen Verdon, who continued to work with him on projects including Chicago and All That Jazz itself.\n\nGideon's rough handling of chorus girl Victoria Porter closely resembles Fosse's own treatment of Jennifer Nairn-Smith during rehearsals for Pippin. Nairn-Smith herself appears in the film as Jennifer, one of the NY/LA dancers.\n\nAnn Reinking was one of Bob Fosse's partners at the time, and was more or less playing herself in the film, but nonetheless she was required to audition for the role as Gideon's girlfriend, 'Kate Jagger'.\n\nCliff Gorman was cast in the titular role of The Stand-Up, the film-within-a-film version of Lenny after having played the role of Lenny Bruce in the original theatrical production of the show (culminating in a Tony Award for his acting), but was passed over for the film role in favor of Dustin Hoffman.\n\nFosse himself died from a heart attack on September 23, 1987, at George Washington University Hospital, while a revival of Sweet Charity was opening at the nearby National Theatre (Washington, D.C.).\n\nCritical reception\n\nReviews have been largely positive: All That Jazz scores an 87% \"Fresh\" (or \"good\") rating on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. \n\nIn his review in The New York Times, Vincent Canby called the film \"an uproarious display of brilliance, nerve, dance, maudlin confessions, inside jokes and, especially, ego\" and \"an essentially funny movie that seeks to operate on too many levels at the same time... some of it makes you wince, but a lot of it is great fun... A key to the success of the production is the performance of Roy Scheider as Joe Gideon... With an actor of less weight and intensity, All That Jazz might have evaporated as we watched it. Mr. Scheider's is a presence to reckon with.\" \n\nVariety described it as \"a self-important, egomaniacal, wonderfully choreographed, often compelling film\" and added, \"Roy Scheider gives a superb performance as Gideon, creating a character filled with nervous energy... The film's major flaw lies in its lack of real explanation of what, beyond ego, really motivates [him].\" \n\nTV Guide said, \"The dancing is frenzied, the dialogue piercing, the photography superb, and the acting first-rate, with non-showman Scheider an illustrious example of casting against type . . . All That Jazz is great-looking but not easy to watch. Fosse's indulgent vision at times approaches sour self-loathing.\" \n\nFilm critic Leonard Maltin gave the film two-and-a-half stars (out of four) in his 2009 movie guide; he said that the film was \"self-indulgent and largely negative,\" and that \"great show biz moments and wonderful dancing are eventually buried in pretensions\"; he also called the ending \"an interminable finale which leaves a bad taste for the whole film.\"\n\nTime Out London states, \"As translated onto screen, [Fosse's] story is wretched: the jokes are relentlessly crass and objectionable; the song 'n' dance routines have been created in the cutting-room and have lost any sense of fun; Fellini-esque moments add little but pretension; and scenes of a real open-heart operation, alternating with footage of a symbolic Angel of Death in veil and white gloves, fail even in terms of the surreal.\" \n\nUpon release in 1979, master director Stanley Kubrick (who is referenced in the movie) reportedly believed it to be the \"best film I think I have ever seen\".\nIn 2001, All That Jazz was deemed \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. In 2006, the film ranked #14 on the American Film Institute's Greatest Movie Musicals list. \n\nThe film would be the last musical nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture until Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991) and the last live-action musical nominated until Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge! (2001).\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nThe film won four Academy Awards and was nominated for a further five: \n* Academy Award for Best Picture - Robert Alan Aurthur (nominee - lost to Stanley R. Jaffe for Kramer vs. Kramer)\n* Academy Award for Best Actor - Roy Scheider (nominee - lost to Dustin Hoffman for Kramer vs. Kramer)\n* Academy Award for Best Director - Bob Fosse (nominee - lost to Robert Benton for Kramer vs. Kramer)\n* Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay - Robert Alan Aurthur and Bob Fosse (nominee - lost to Steve Tesich for Breaking Away)\n* Academy Award for Best Cinematography - Giuseppe Rotunno (nominee - lost to Vittorio Storaro for Apocalypse Now)\n* Academy Award for Best Art Direction - Philip Rosenberg, Tony Walton, Edward Stewart, and Gary J. Brink (winner)\n* Academy Award for Best Costume Design - Albert Wolsky (winner)\n* Academy Award for Best Editing - Alan Heim (winner)\n* Original Song Score and Its Adaptation -or- Adaptation Score - Ralph Burns (winner)\n\n;Other awards\n* Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy - Roy Scheider (nominee - lost to Peter Sellers for Being There)\n* BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role - Roy Scheider (nominee - lost to John Hurt for The Elephant Man)\n* BAFTA Award for Best Costume Design - Albert Wolsky (nominee - lost to Seiichiro Momosawa for Kagemusha)\n* BAFTA Award for Best Production Design - Philip Rosenberg (nominee - lost to Stuart Craig for The Elephant Man)\n* BAFTA Award for Best Sound - Maurice Schell, Christopher Newman, and Dick Vorisek (nominee - lost to Christopher Newman, Les Wiggins, and Michael J. Kohut for Fame)\n* BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography - Giuseppe Rotunno (winner)\n* BAFTA Award for Best Editing - Alan Heim (winner)\n* Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or (winner, tied with Kagemusha) \n* American Cinema Editors Eddie Award for Best Edited Feature Film (winner)\n* Bodil Award for Best Non-European Film (winner)\n\nHome media\n\nFox released a \"Special Music Edition\" DVD in 2007, with an audio commentary by the film's Oscar-winning editor, Alan Heim. The DVD issued in 2003 features scene-specific commentary by Roy Scheider and interviews with Scheider and Bob Fosse. A Blu-Ray and DVD edition were released in August 2014 with new supplements through the Criterion Collection brand." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Joe Gideon" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "joe gideon" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "joe gideon", "type": "FreeForm", "value": "Joe Gideon" }
How old was Macaulay Culkin when he was cast for his role in Home Alone?	tc_1215	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Home_Alone.txt" ], "title": [ "Home Alone" ], "wiki_context": [ "Home Alone (stylized as HOME ALONe) is a 1990 American Christmas comedy film written and produced by John Hughes and directed by Chris Columbus. The film stars Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister, a boy who is mistakenly left behind when his family flies to Paris for their Christmas vacation. Kevin initially relishes being home alone, but soon has to contend with two would-be burglars played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. The film also features Catherine O'Hara and John Heard as Kevin's parents.\n\nCulkin was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Musical or Comedy. After its release, Home Alone became the highest-grossing live action comedy film of all time in the US, and also held the record worldwide until it was overtaken by The Hangover Part II in 2011. It is the highest grossing Christmas movie of all time at the North American box office (when adjusted for inflation). Home Alone has spawned a successful film franchise with four sequels, including the 1992 film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, the only Home Alone sequel to have the original cast reprising their roles.\n\nPlot\n\nIn Chicago, Illinois, the McCallister family is preparing for a Christmas vacation in Paris. On the night before their departure, the entire family gathers at Peter and Kate's home, where their 8-year-old son, Kevin, is ridiculed by his siblings and cousins. After a scuffle with his older brother, Buzz, Kevin is sent to the third floor of the house, where he wishes that his family would disappear. During the night, heavy winds cause damage to power lines, which causes the alarm clocks to reset; consequently, the family oversleeps. In the confusion and rush to get to the airport in time to catch their flight, Kevin is accidentally left behind.\n\nMeanwhile, Kevin wakes up to find the house empty and, believing his wish has come true, is overjoyed with his new-found freedom. However, Kevin's joy turns to fear as he encounters his next door neighbor, \"Old Man\" Marley, who is rumored to have murdered his family with a snow shovel in 1958; he also encounters the \"Wet Bandits\", Harry and Marv, a pair of burglars who have been breaking into other vacant houses in the neighborhood and have targeted the McCallisters' house. Kevin is initially able to keep them away by making the house appear as if the family is home, but they eventually realize that Kevin is home alone.\n\nKate realizes mid-flight that Kevin is missing and, upon arrival in Paris, the family finds out all flights to Chicago for the next two days are all booked. Peter and the rest of the family go to Uncle Frank's apartment in the city while Kate manages to get a flight back to the United States but is only able to get as far as Scranton, Pennsylvania. She tries to book a flight to Chicago but again, everything is booked. Unable to accept this, Kate is overheard by Gus Polinski (played by John Candy), the lead member of a traveling polka band, who offers to let her travel with them to Winnetka on their way to Milwaukee in a moving van, which she graciously accepts.\n\nOn Christmas Eve, Kevin overhears Harry and Marv discussing plans for breaking into his house that night. Kevin goes to church and watches a choir perform. He meets Old Man Marley, who sits with Kevin and they briefly speak; he learns that Marley is actually a nice man and that the rumors about him are false. He tells Kevin he is watching the choir because his granddaughter is singing, but he never gets to see her because he and his son are estranged and have not been on speaking terms ever since; Kevin suggests that he try to reconcile with his son.\n\nKevin returns home and rigs the house with numerous booby traps. Harry and Marv break in, springing the traps and suffering various injuries. While the duo chases Kevin around the house, he calls the police and escapes the house, luring the duo into a neighboring vacant home. Harry and Marv manage to catch him and discuss how they will get their revenge, but Marley sneaks in and knocks them unconscious with his snow shovel before they can do anything to Kevin. The police arrive and arrest Harry and Marv, having identified all the houses they burglarized due to Marv's habit of flooding them.\n\nOn Christmas Day, Kevin is disappointed to find that his family is still gone. He then hears Kate enter the house and call for him; they reconcile and are soon joined by the rest of the McCallisters, who waited in Paris until they could get a direct flight to Chicago. Kevin keeps silent about his encounter with Harry and Marv, although Peter finds Harry's missing gold tooth. Kevin then observes Marley reuniting with his son and his family. Marley notices Kevin and the pair acknowledge each other before Marley and his family go home. Buzz suddenly calls out, \"Kevin, what did you do to my room?!\" at which point Kevin runs off.\n\nCast\n\n* Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister, an energetic 8-year-old boy who is the youngest son of the McCallister family. He can be obnoxious and annoying, but he is proven to be extremely clever and resourceful.\n* Joe Pesci as Harry Lime, the short leader of the Wet Bandits. He is intelligent but short tempered and resolute.\n* Daniel Stern as Marv Merchants, the tall member of the Wet Bandits. The dimmer of the duo, he has a childlike enthusiasm for toys and likes to leave the water running to 'mark' the houses they have burgled.\n* John Heard as Peter McCallister, Kevin's father.\n* Catherine O'Hara as Kate McCallister, Kevin's mother.\n* Roberts Blossom as Old Man Marley, the McCallisters' elderly neighbor.\nThe rest of the McCallister family is portrayed by: Devin Ratray as Buzz and Mike Maronna as Jeff, Kevin's brothers; Hillary Wolf as Megan and Angela Goethals as Linnie, Kevin's sisters; Gerry Bamman as Uncle Frank; Terrie Snell as Aunt Leslie; and Kevin's cousins are portrayed by Jedidiah Cohen as Rod, Senta Moses as Tracy, Daiana Campeanu as Sondra, Kieran Culkin (Macaulay Culkin's real-life brother) as Fuller, Anna Slotky as Brooke, and 25-year old Kristin Minter as Heather.\n\nThe cast also includes: John Candy as Gus Polinski, \"the Polka King of the Midwest\"; Ralph Foody as Johnny, a gangster who appears in the fictional film Angels with Filthy Souls; Larry Hankin as Larry Balzak, a police sergeant who works in family crisis; Ken Hudson Campbell as a man dressed as Santa Claus; and Hope Davis as a Paris-Orly Airport receptionist.\n\nProduction\n\nHome Alone was initially a Warner Bros. production; when 20th Century Fox took over the project, the budget grew from $14 to $17 million. Columbus ended up directing the film after Hughes helped him secure a directing gig for National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. However, a few days into the shoot a personality clash between Columbus and Chevy Chase, led to Columbus exiting the project. Hughes then gave him the script to Home Alone which he accepted. \n\nHughes suggested to Columbus that they cast Macaulay Culkin in the main role based on his experience with him while shooting Uncle Buck. Still, Columbus met with other actors for the part, by his count, \"hundreds and hundreds\" as he felt it was his \" directorial responsibility \". Columbus finally me with Culkin at which point he agreed that it was the right choice for the role. Due to Culkins age he could only work until 10 PM which due to the many night scenes in the movie proved to be somewhat of a challenge for the crew. The stunts needed for the script also created tension with Columbus noting \"Every time the stunt guys did one of those stunts it wasn’t funny. We’d watch it, and I would just pray that the guys were alive.\" Stunts were prepared with safety harnessess beforehand, however the technology involved at the time did not allow for digital erasing, so the actual stunts had to be performed without them.\n\nHome Alone was set—and mostly shot—in the greater Chicago area in February 1990. Other shots, such as those of Paris, are either stock footage or film trickery. The Paris-Orly Airport scenes were filmed in one part of O'Hare International Airport. The scene where Kevin wades through a neighbor's flooded basement when trying to outsmart the burglars was shot in the swimming pool of New Trier High School. A mock-up of the McDonnell Douglas DC10 business class was also put together on the school's basketball courts. \n\nSome scenes were shot in a three-story single-family house located at 671 Lincoln Avenue in the village of Winnetka. The kitchen in the film was shot in the house, along with the main staircase, basement and most of the first floor landing. The house's dining room, and all the downstairs rooms (excluding the kitchen) were built on a sound stage. The house was built in 1921 and features five bedrooms, a fully converted attic, a detached double garage and a greenhouse. The tree house in the back yard was built specifically for the film and dismantled after filming ended. \n\nThe scenes inside of the church were shot at Grace Episcopal Church, Oak Park, Illinois. \n\nIn May 2011, the house was listed for sale at $2.4 million; it sold in March 2012 for $1.585 million. The house is promoted as a tourist attraction and cited as an example of \"How to Get Your Home in the Movies.\" \n\nMusic\n\nInitially Columbus hoped to have Bruce Broughton, score the films, and early posters list him as the composer. However Broughton was busy with The Rescuers Down Under and had to cancel at the last minute. From there Columbus was able to get in touch with Steven Spielberg who helped him contact John Williams to produce the final score. Christmas songs, such as \"O Holy Night\" and \"Carol of the Bells\", are featured prominently in the film, as well as the film's theme song \"Somewhere in My Memory\". The soundtrack was released by Sony Classical in cassette on December 4, 1990 and in CD on May 27, 2015. \n\nReception\n\nBox office\n\nIn its opening weekend, Home Alone grossed $17 million in 1,202 theaters, averaging $14,211 per site and just 6% of the final total and added screens over the next six weeks, with a peak screen count of 2,174 during its eighth weekend at the start of January 1991. Home Alone proved so popular that it stayed in theaters well past the Christmas season. It was the 1 film at the box office for 12 straight weeks, from its release weekend of November 16–18, 1990 through the weekend of February 1–3, 1991. It was finally dethroned from the top spot when Sleeping with the Enemy opened with $13 million. It nevertheless remained a top ten draw at the box office until the weekend of April 26 that year, which was well past Easter weekend. It made two more appearances in the top ten (the weekend of May 31 – June 2 and the weekend of June 14–16) before finally falling out of the top ten. After over nine months into its run, the film had earned 16x its debut weekend and ended up making a final gross of $285,761,243, the top grossing film of its year in North America. The film is listed in the Guinness World Records as the highest-grossing live-action comedy ever. \n\nBy the time it had run its course in theaters, Home Alone was the third highest-grossing film of all time worldwide, as well as in the United States and Canada behind only Star Wars ($322 million at the time) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ($399 million at that time), according to the home video box. In total, its cinema run grossed $477,561,243 worldwide. Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 67.7 million tickets in the US. \n\nAccording to William Goldman, the film's success prompted the creation of a Hollywood verb: \"to be Home Aloned\", meaning to have a film's box office reduced by the impact of Home Alone. \n\nCritical response\n\nOn Rotten Tomatoes, Home Alone holds an approval rating of 55%, based on 42 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads: \"Home Alone is frequently funny and led by a terrific starring turn from Macaulay Culkin, but an uneven script and a premise stretched unreasonably thin make it hard to wholeheartedly recommend.\" On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, it has a score of 63 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating \"generally favorable reviews\". \n\nVariety magazine praised the film for its cast. Jeanne Cooper of The Washington Post praised the film for its comedic approach. Hal Hinson, also of The Washington Post, praised Chris Columbus's direction and Culkin's acting. Although Caryn James of The New York Times complained that the film's first half is \"flat and unsurprising as its cute little premise suggests\", she praised the second half for its slapstick humor. She also praised the conversation between Kevin and Marley, as well as the film's final scenes. \n\nRoger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a out of 4-star rating. He compared the elaborate booby-traps in the film to Rube Goldberg, writing \"they're the kinds of traps that any 8-year-old could devise, if he had a budget of tens of thousands of dollars and the assistance of a crew of movie special effects people\" and criticized the plot as \"so implausible that it makes it hard for [him] to really care about the plight of the kid [Kevin]\". However, he praised Culkin's performance. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly magazine gave the film a \"D\" grade, criticizing the film for its \"sadistic festival of adult-bashing\". Gleiberman said that \"[John] Hughes is pulling our strings as though he'd never learn to do anything else\". \n\nHome Alone is often ranked among the greatest Christmas films of all-time. \n\nAccolades\n\nThe film was nominated for two Academy Awards, one for Best Original Score, which was written by John Williams, and the other for Best Original Song for \"Somewhere in My Memory\", music by Williams and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse. \n;American Film Institute Lists:\n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs - Nominated \n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains:\n** Harry Lime & Marv Merchants - Nominated Villains \n\nSequels\n\nThe film was followed by a commercially successful sequel in 1992, Lost in New York, which brings back the first film's cast. The film within a film, Angels with Filthy Souls, had a sequel in Home Alone 2, Angels with Even Filthier Souls. Both Angels meta-films featured character actor Ralph Foody as stereotypical 1930s mobster Johnny. \n\nHome Alone 3, released in 1997, has completely different actors, and a different storyline with Hughes writing the screenplay.\n\nA fourth made-for-TV film followed in 2002, Home Alone 4. This entry features some of the same characters who were in the first two films, but with a new cast and a storyline that does not fall into the same continuity. Hughes did not write the screenplay for the TV film.\n\nOn November 25, 2012, a fifth film, The Holiday Heist premiered during ABC Family's 25 Days of Christmas programming event. \n\nIn December 2015, Culkin reprised his role as an adult Kevin McCallister in the inaugural episode of the Jack Dishel web series, \"DRYVRS\", where a visibly disturbed Kevin recounts his experience of being left home alone by his family. In response to Culkin's video, Daniel Stern appeared in a short video reprising his role as Marv, released in conjunction with Stern's Reddit AMA, where he pleads for Harry to return to help protect him against Kevin's cunning traps. \n\nNovelization\n\nHome Alone (ISBN 0-590-55066-7) was novelized by Todd Strasser and published by Scholastic in 1990 to coincide with the film.\n\nAmong the differences from the film the McCallisters live in Oak Park, Illinois, the Wet Bandits are named as Harry Lyme and Marv Murchens and Buzz's tarantula is named as Axl.\n\nOn October 6, 2015, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the movie, an illustrated book by Kim Smith and Quirk Books was released." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "9", "nine", "Nine" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "nine", "9" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "nine", "type": "Numerical", "value": "Nine" }
In which 70s musical did Paul Michael Glaser star?	tc_1217	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Paul_Michael_Glaser.txt" ], "title": [ "Paul Michael Glaser" ], "wiki_context": [ "Paul Michael Glaser (born March 25, 1943) is an American actor and director perhaps best known for his role as Detective David Starsky on the 1970s television series, Starsky & Hutch. Glaser also appeared as Captain Jack Steeper on the NBC series Third Watch from 2004 to 2005. \n\nBiography\n\nEarly life\n\nGlaser, the youngest of three children, was born Paul Manfred Glaser in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Dorothy and Samuel Glaser, who was an architect. Glaser attended the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School. He then transferred to the Cambridge School of Weston, and went to Tulane University, where he was roommates with film director Bruce Paltrow, and earned a Master's degree in English and theater in 1966. He was a member of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity. He earned a second master's degree from Boston University in acting and directing in 1967.\n\nCareer\n\nAfter appearing in several Broadway productions, Glaser appeared in his first feature film in 1971, playing Perchik in the film version of Fiddler on the Roof. He first gained notice on television playing Dr. Peter Chernak on the daytime series Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, and made guest appearances on shows such as The Waltons, The Streets of San Francisco and The Rockford Files, but found fame playing Detective David Starsky opposite David Soul in the television show Starsky and Hutch, of which he directed several episodes. It ran for four seasons (1975–1979) on ABC.\n\nAfter the series, Glaser continued to act on television and in films, and directed the 1987 movie The Running Man starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as well as the 1992 movie The Cutting Edge. He also directed episodes of several well-known TV series, including Miami Vice, Robbery Homicide Division and Judging Amy. Glaser returned to the big screen in 2003 in Something's Gotta Give, as Diane Keaton's ex-husband, and with a brief cameo in the 2004 film version of Starsky & Hutch, where his old role was reprised by Ben Stiller. He also directed the children's film Kazaam starring Shaquille O'Neal. On November 30, 2007, Glaser starred as Captain Hook in a pantomime version of Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up at the Churchill Theatre in Bromley, Kent, England. He took the lead role in the 2008 pantomime season at Sunderland's Empire Theatre. He guest starred in an episode of CBS's The Mentalist on October 1, 2009 titled \"The Scarlet Letter\". In 2013, Glaser revisited Fiddler on the Roof in a UK stage production on national tour, this time playing the lead character Tevye.\n \nIn addition to television, film, and theater, Glaser is an avid photographer, writes poetry and is currently working on several children's novels. \n\nPersonal life\n\nGlaser has been married twice. He married his first wife, Elizabeth (Meyer) Glaser, in 1980. In August 1981, Elizabeth contracted HIV through a blood transfusion while giving birth to the couple's first child, Ariel. Elizabeth did not find out about the virus until four years later, at which time both Ariel and son Jake (born October 1984) were also found to be HIV positive. Ariel Glaser died in August 1988; Elizabeth Glaser died in 1994, after cofounding the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation with friends Susan DeLaurentis and Susie Zeegen. After Elizabeth's death, Glaser served as chairman of the foundation until 2002 and remains Honorary Chairman, roles in which he has testified before the United States Congress and met with national leaders, as well as headlining annual fundraisers for the organization.\n\nGlaser married producer Tracy Barone in 1996; the couple had a daughter, Zoe, on 7 October 1997. Glaser filed for divorce in June 2007, citing \"irreconcilable differences\" as the reason for ending his 10-year marriage. He was seeking joint legal and physical custody of their daughter.\n\nFilmography\n\nTelevision" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Fiddler on a Roof", "Fiddler on the roof", "Sprintze", "Fiddler On the Roof", "2 life", "Fiddler On The Roof", "The Fiddler on the Roof", "Fiddler on the Roof", "Fiddler on the reoof", "Anatevka" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "fiddler on roof", "sprintze", "anatevka", "2 life", "fiddler on reoof" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "fiddler on roof", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Fiddler on the Roof" }
"In Private ""Benjamin, what is the name of ""Benjamin's captain?"	tc_1219	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Private_Benjamin_(1980_film).txt" ], "title": [ "Private Benjamin (1980 film)" ], "wiki_context": [ "Private Benjamin is a 1980 American comedy film starring Goldie Hawn. The film was one of the biggest box office hits of 1980, and also spawned a short-lived television series. The film is ranked 82 on the American Film Institute's \"100 Funniest Movies\" poll, and 59 on Bravo's \"100 Funniest Movies\". \n\nPlot\n\nJudy Benjamin (Goldie Hawn) a 28-year-old from a rather sheltered wealthy upbringing whose lifelong dream is to \"marry a professional man\", joins the U.S. Army after her new husband (Albert Brooks) dies on their wedding night during sex. Adrift, Benjamin realizes that she has never been independent in her entire life when she meets a sneaky recruiting sergeant, Jim Ballard (Harry Dean Stanton), who leads her to believe military life will provide the \"family\" she seeks. He also tells her that the service is glamorous, comparing it to a spa vacation. She has a rude awakening upon arriving in boot camp. Judy wants to quit almost immediately, and is astonished to learn that she cannot, contrary to the assertions of her recruiting sergeant. \n\nArmy regulations and the continuing disapproval of Captain Lewis (Eileen Brennan) frustrate her, but when Judy's parents arrive at Fort Biloxi to take her home, she decides to stay and finish basic training, which she does with distinction after a wargames exercise. Upon completion of basic training, Judy meets Henri Tremont (Armand Assante), a dashing French doctor, who is in Biloxi for a medical conference. They separate after a brief romance, Henri returns to Paris and Judy enters training for the Thornbirds, an elite paratrooper unit after basic training. \n\nShe quickly finds that she was chosen because the unit's commander finds her attractive; he attempts to sexually assault her. When she refuses, he attempts to have her transferred as far away from Biloxi as possible. Rather than accept what she sees as an undesirable post in Greenland or Guam, she negotiates an assignment to SHAPE in Belgium, and meets up with Henri again on a visit to Paris. He proposes marriage and she accepts, but when Capt. Lewis discovers that Tremont is a communist, Judy is forced to choose either her Army career or love.\n\nAfter she chooses Henri and gets engaged, Judy discovers Henri's controlling side. He tries to \"remake\" her, and also forces her to sign a prenuptial agreement in his favor. Then, when she finds out Henri is still in love with his ex-girlfriend Clare, and has cheated on her with their maid, she realizes that she is capable of doing whatever she wants, and that she does not need Henri in her life. In the final scene, just as Judy is about to get married again, she walks out on Henri at the altar to go and live her own life.\n\nCast\n\n* Goldie Hawn as Judy Benjamin\n* Eileen Brennan as Captain Doreen Lewis\n* Armand Assante as Henri Alan Tremont\n* Robert Webber as Colonel Clay Thornbush\n* Sam Wanamaker as Teddie Benjamin, Judy's father\n* Barbara Barrie as Harriet Benjamin, Judy's mother\n* Mary Kay Place as Private/2nd Lieutenant Mary Lou Glass\n* Harry Dean Stanton as 1st Sergeant Jim Ballard\n* Hal Williams as Sergeant L.C. Ross\n* P.J. Soles as Private Wanda Winter\n* Craig T. Nelson as Captain William Woodbridge\n* Albert Brooks as Yale Goodman\n* Alan Oppenheimer as Rabbi\n* Toni Kalem as Private Gianelli\n* Damita Jo Freeman as Private Gloria Moe\n* Alston Ahern as Private P.J. Soyer\n* Lee Wallace as Mr. Waxman\n* Danny Wells as Slick Guy\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nPrivate Benjamin was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Goldie Hawn), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Eileen Brennan) and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.\n\nAmerican Film Institute recognition\n* 2000: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs #82\n\nTelevision series\n\nIn 1981, Private Benjamin was made into an Emmy and Golden Globe–winning television series of the same name that ran until 1983. It starred Lorna Patterson, Eileen Brennan, Hal Williams, Lisa Raggio, Wendie Jo Sperber and Joel Brooks. Brennan and Williams reprised their roles, that of Captain Doreen Lewis and Sergeant L.C. Ross, from the film for the television series.\n\nRemake\n\nIn March 2010, Anna Faris was originally cast to portray Judy Benjamin in a remake of Private Benjamin from New Line Cinema, but in May 2014, it was confirmed that Rebel Wilson will portray Benjamin in the remake. Amy Talkington is in talks to write the script and Mark Gordon is set to produce.\n\nThe new take will set the story in contemporary times with modern wars as the backdrop. Insiders say the studio does not want to poke fun at the people in the service or take political potshots, but rather focus on the empowerment elements and build on the fish-out-of-water comedy." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Lewis (Isle)", "Lewis, Scotland", "Lewis (Scottish Island)", "Island of Lewis", "Leòdhas", "Lewis", "Isle Of Lewis", "Eilean Leodhais", "Breasclete Primary School", "Leodhais", "Lewis (Scotland)", "Lewis, Outer Hebrides", "Isle of Lewis", "Leodhas" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "leodhais", "island of lewis", "breasclete primary school", "eilean leodhais", "leodhas", "isle of lewis", "lewis", "lewis scotland", "lewis outer hebrides", "lewis isle", "leòdhas", "lewis scottish island" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "lewis", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Lewis" }
How many different hats does Madonna wear in Evita?	tc_1221	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Evita_(1996_film).txt" ], "title": [ "Evita (1996 film)" ], "wiki_context": [ "Evita is a 1996 American musical drama film based on Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical of the same name about Eva Perón. Directed by Alan Parker and written by Parker and Oliver Stone, the film starred Madonna, Antonio Banderas, and Jonathan Pryce. The film was released on December 25, 1996 by Hollywood Pictures and Cinergi Pictures. The film received a mixed critical reception, but was a commercial success, grossing $141 million worldwide against a budget of $55 million.\n\nPlot\n\nIn a cinema in Buenos Aires on July 26, 1952, a film is interrupted when the news breaks of the death of Eva Perón, Argentina's first lady, at the age of 33. The nation goes into public mourning. Ché, a member of the public, marvels at the spectacle and promises to show how Eva did \"nothing, for years.\" The rest of the film follows Eva Duarte (later Eva Duarte de Perón) from her humble beginnings as an illegitimate child of a lower class woman to her rise to become First Lady and Spiritual Leader of the Nation of Argentina, with Ché assuming many different guises throughout Eva's story. \n\nAt the age of 15, Eva lives in the provincial town of Junín, and longs to seek a better life in Buenos Aires. She persuades a tango singer, Agustín Magaldi, with whom she is having an affair, to take her to the city. After Magaldi leaves her, she goes through several relationships with increasingly influential men, becoming a model, actress and radio personality. She meets with the older and handsome Colonel Juan Perón at a fundraiser following the recent 1944 San Juan earthquake. Perón's connection with Eva adds to his populist image, since she is from the working class (as he is). Eva has a radio show during Perón's rise and uses all her skills to promote Perón, even when the controlling administration has him jailed in an attempt to stunt his political momentum. The groundswell of support Eva generates forces the government to release Perón, and he finds the people enamored of him and Eva. Perón wins election to the presidency and marries Eva, who promises the new government will serve the descamisados.\n\nAt the start of the Perón government, Eva dresses glamorously, enjoying the privileges of being the first lady. Soon after, Eva embarks on what was called her \"Rainbow Tour\" to Europe. While there she had mixed receptions; the people of Spain adore her; the people of Italy call her a whore and throw things (such as eggs) at her, while the Pope gives her a small, meager gift; and the French, while kind to her, were upset that she was forced to leave early. There are hints of the illness that eventually caused her death. Upon returning to Argentina, Eva establishes a foundation and distributes aid; the film suggests the Perónists otherwise plunder the public treasury. The military officer corps and social elites despise Eva's common roots and affinity for the poor.\n\nEva is hospitalized and they learn that she has cancer. She declines the position of Vice President because she is too weak, and makes one final broadcast to the people of Argentina. She understands that her life was short because she shone like the \"brightest fire\", and helps Perón prepare to go on without her. A large crowd surrounds the Casa Rosada in a candlelight vigil praying for her recovery when the light of her room goes out, signifying her death. Eva's funeral is shown again. Ché is seen at her coffin, marveling at the influence of her brief life. He walks up to her glass coffin, kisses it, and walks into the crowd of passing mourners.\n\nCast\n\n* Madonna as Evita Perón\n* Antonio Banderas as Ché\n* Jonathan Pryce as Juan Perón\n* Jimmy Nail as Agustín Magaldi\n* Victoria Sus as Dona Juana Ibarguren\n* Julian Littman as Juancito Duarte\n* Olga Merediz as Bianca Duarte\n* Laura Pallas as Elisa Duarte\n* Julia Worsley as Erminda Duarte\n* Peter Polycarpou as Domingo Mercante\n* Gary Brooker as Juan Atilio Bramuglia\n* Andrea Corr as Juan's mistress\n* Alan Parker as Tormented film director\n* Billie Piper (uncredited) as Girl wanting Juan's autograph\n\nProduction\n\nCasting\n\nDiscussion of the film began soon after the original production was staged in London in 1978. Several actresses were considered for the role of Eva Perón.\n\nDirector Ken Russell has said that his own first choice for the film lead was Karla DeVito, who had come to fame in rock tours and on Broadway, where she had impressed the wife of Andrew Lloyd Webber. DeVito had a screen test for the role while in England shooting music videos for her solo album Is This a Cool World or What? DeVito's performance of \"Don't Cry for Me, Argentina\" in the screen test caused much positive buzz. Russell wrote that she brought viewers to tears—except Tim Rice, who wanted Elaine Paige, with whom he was romantically involved. Although Russell rejected the idea, Paige was screen tested twice.\n\nRussell's biography indicates that he met with Barbra Streisand, who dismissed the idea of the role immediately. He wrote that he then suggested Liza Minnelli. A year had passed between the first screen tests and Minnelli's, which Russell reports was \"amazing.\" Russell approached Stigwood with Minnelli's test, convinced she had the necessary talent and star quality, but he was soon after told the role was going to Paige. Having already protested that idea, Russell quit the film. (Years later when he saw DeVito again, Russell addressed her as \"My Evita.\")\n\nRumors through the years include Lloyd Webber considering Charo, Meryl Streep,[http://www.wildaboutmovies.com/interviews/MerylStreepInterviewDevilWearsPradaMovieByTimNasson.php \"Meryl Streep Interview, Devil Wears Prada Movie,\" By Tim Nasson] Cher, Glenn Close, Olivia Newton-John, and Michelle Pfeiffer. \n\nOliver Stone was attached to direct the film for a lengthy period,Maslin, Janet. [http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res\n9B02E0D91E31F936A15751C1A960958260 \"Evita: Madonna, Chic Pop Star, As Chic Political Star,\"] New York Times (Dec. 25, 1996). with Pfeiffer starring. Pfeiffer recorded a number of demo musical tracks, including \"Don't Cry For Me Argentina\", but Stone wanted to shoot the film in the UK, and Pfeiffer did not want to leave California as she had recently given birth to her son. Stone ultimately left the project, but shared screenwriting credit with Alan Parker. \n\nPatti LuPone was not offered the role of Eva Perón, even though LuPone starred in the original Broadway production. As an actress by then in her forties, it was decided LuPone was too old for the title role; Perón herself died at the age of 33. When asked during a later interview, LuPone admitted she has never seen the film adaptation of Evita. For an extended period of time, Madonna campaigned to play Eva Perón. Madonna eventually wrote a letter to Alan Parker, explaining how she would be perfect for the part. Parker took note of Madonna's genuine fervor for the role:\n\nAfter Madonna was cast as Perón, LuPone was then approached to play the role of Eva's mother, but she declined.\n\nUpon securing the role, Madonna underwent intense vocal training and studied the history of Argentina, as well as Perón.\n\nEnglish singer/actress Billie Piper and Irish singer Andrea Corr had minor parts in the film at what was the start of both of their careers.\n\nFilming\n\nPrincipal photography began in February 1996 and was finished in May.[http://www.mad-eyes.net/films/evita.htm \"Madonna movies - Evita\"], Mad-Eyes.net. Accessed Jan. 7, 2014. Madonna was paid a salary of $1 million for her role in the project. She personally lobbied then-Argentine president Carlos Menem for permission to film at the Casa Rosada, the executive mansion. Upon arrival in Argentina, the cast and crew faced protests over fears that the project would tarnish Eva Perón's image. They filmed in Buenos Aires for five weeks before moving to Budapest for a month.\n\nMadonna related the difficulties in changing locations: \n\"We went from 100-degree weather in Argentina, the Latin culture, very embracing, warm, passionate, to a country where people are just learning to be expressive without being afraid. Everybody has a sad expression on their face. And it's difficult to work in an environment where there is no joy. It was the toughest experience of my life.\"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,985780-2,00.html \"MAD FOR EVITA\"], TIME, 30 December 1996, pp. 1-2\n\nDuring shooting, Madonna fell sick many times due to the intense emotional effort required. She published a diary of the film shoot in Vanity Fair.\n\nMadonna said of the experience, \"This is the role I was born to play. I put everything of me into this because it was much more than a role in a movie. It was exhilarating and intimidating at the same time ... And I am prouder of Evita than anything else I have done.\" \n\nMidway through production, Madonna discovered she was pregnant. Her daughter Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon was born on October 14, 1996. \n\nMusic\n\nThe music for the film was completed in a London recording studio in the fall of 1995. The soundtrack album was released in two versions; a two-disc edition titled Evita: The Motion Picture Music Soundtrack and a single-disc containing highlights from the soundtrack titled Evita: Music from the Motion Picture. The double-disc edition includes the entire soundtrack, except for two instrumental pieces heard during the film: a short instrumental medley of \"I'd Be Surprisingly Good for You\" and \"You Must Love Me\" used during the marriage scene (which happens in the middle of \"A New Argentina\"), and a longer medley of the same two songs in reversed order, segueing into the chorus of \"Don't Cry For Me Argentina\", used for the end credits.\n\nRelease\n\nBox office\n\nOn a budget of $55 million, Evita opened at #2 with $8,381,055 in its wide opening weekend against The Relic. The film made $50,047,179 in the United States and an additional $91 million overseas, for a total of $141,047,179 worldwide. \n\nCritical reception\n\nThe film received mixed reviews from critics. It currently holds a 62% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 37 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. On Metacritic, it assigned the film a score of 45/100 (indicating \"mixed or average reviews\") based on 23 critics. Roger Ebert gave the film 3-and-a-half stars (out of 4), praising the work of director Parker and the stars Madonna and Banderas. Critic Zach Conner commented \"It's a relief to say that Evita is pretty damn fine, well-cast, and handsomely visualized. Madonna once again confounds our expectations. She plays Evita with a poignant weariness and has more than just a bit of star quality. Love or hate Madonna-Eva, she is a magnet for all eyes.\" Time's Richard Corliss wrote, \"But this Evita is not just a long, complex music video; it works and breathes like a real movie, with characters worthy of our affection and deepest suspicions.\" On the other hand, Newsweeks David Ansen wrote, \"It's gorgeous. It's epic. It's spectacular. But two hours later, it also proves to be emotionally impenetrable.\" \n\nIt was nominated for five Academy Awards and won the award for \"Best Original Song\" with \"You Must Love Me\", which Lloyd Webber and Rice re-teamed after a gap of 20 years to write especially for the film. Evita had five Golden Globe nominations and three wins (Best Picture – Comedy or Musical; Best Original Song, \"You Must Love Me\"; and Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical, Madonna). It was one of the National Board of Review's Top Ten Films of the Year.\n\nThe government of Argentina undertook its own film project, treating Perón's biography as a drama; Eva Perón: The True Story was released in October 1996 in Argentina and in the US in December 1996, around the same time as the American film.\n\nAwards and nominations\n\n;Academy Awards \n* Best Original Song (\"You Must Love Me\") (Won)\n* Best Art Direction (Nomination)\n* Best Cinematography (Nomination)\n* Best Film Editing (Nomination)\n* Best Sound (Andy Nelson, Anna Behlmer and Ken Weston – Nomination)\n\n;MTV Movie Awards\n* Best Female Performance – Madonna (Nomination)\n\n;Golden Globe Awards\n* Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy (Won)\n* Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Madonna) (Won)\n* Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Antonio Banderas) (Nomination)\n* Best Director – Motion Picture (Alan Parker) (Nomination)\n* Best Original Song (\"You Must Love Me\") (Won)\n\n;BAFTA Awards\n* Best Cinematography (Nomination)\n* Best Costume Design (Nomination)\n* Best Editing (Nomination)\n* Best Makeup and Hair (Nomination)\n* Best Production Design (Nomination)\n* Best Adapted Screenplay (Nomination)\n* Best Sound (Nomination)\n* Best Film Music (Nomination)\n\n;Other awards\n* Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award – Best Production Design (Won)\n* Satellite Award – Best Film – Musical or Comedy (Won)\n* Satellite Award – Best Costume Design (Won)\n* Satellite Award – Best Original Song (\"You Must Love Me\") (Won)\n* Broadcast Film Critics Association Award – Best Picture (Nomination)\n* Satellite Award – Best Art Direction (Nomination)\n* Satellite Award – Best Cinematography (Nomination)\n\nHome media\n\nThe film has no overall worldwide distributor, but was released on VHS, Laserdisc, and DVD. Some DVD versions contain special features such as a making-of, the \"You Must Love Me\" music video, etc. Evita was one of the first films ever to be released on the DVD format. A Blu-ray 15th Anniversary Edition was released on May 22, 2012 in the United States. \n\nWorld record\n\nThe film earned Madonna a Guinness World Record title, \"Most costume changes in a film\". In Evita, Madonna changes costumes 85 times (which included 39 hats, 45 pairs of shoes, and 56 pairs of earrings). The record was previously held by Elizabeth Taylor for the 1963 film Cleopatra (65 costume changes)." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "39", "thirty-nine" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "thirty nine", "39" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "39", "type": "Numerical", "value": "39" }
A Little Night Music was based on which non-musical film?	tc_1222	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "A_Little_Night_Music.txt" ], "title": [ "A Little Night Music" ], "wiki_context": [ "A Little Night Music is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, it involves the romantic lives of several couples. Its title is a literal English translation of the German name for Mozart's Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major, Eine kleine Nachtmusik. The musical includes the popular song \"Send in the Clowns\".\n\nSince its original 1973 Broadway production, the musical has enjoyed professional productions in the West End, by opera companies, in a 2009 Broadway revival, and elsewhere, and it is a popular choice for regional groups. It was adapted for film in 1977, with Harold Prince directing and Elizabeth Taylor, Len Cariou, Lesley-Anne Down and Diana Rigg starring.\n\nSynopsis\n\nAct One\n\nThe setting is Sweden, around the year 1900. One by one, the Quintet – five singers who comment like a Greek chorus throughout the show – enter, tuning up. Gradually, their vocalizing becomes an overture blending fragments of \"Remember,\" \"Soon,\" and \"The Glamorous Life,\" leading into the first \"Night Waltz\". The other characters enter waltzing, each uncomfortable with their particular partner. After they drift back off, the aging and severe Madame Armfeldt and her solemn granddaughter, Fredrika, enter. Madame Armfeldt tells the child that the summer night \"smiles\" three times: first on the young, second on fools, and third on the old. Fredrika vows to watch the smiles occur. Middle aged Fredrik Egerman is a successful lawyer. He has recently married an 18-year-old trophy wife, Anne, a vain girl who is in love with Fredrik, but too immature to grasp the concept of marriage. The two have been married for eleven months, but Anne still protects her virginity. Fredrik laments his inability to make love to his wife (\"Now\"). Meanwhile, his son Henrik, a year older than his stepmother, is feeling extremely frustrated. He is a seminary student and everyone is always teasing him, never taking him seriously or letting him talk (\"Later\"). Anne is intrigued by him, but fails to understand his real meaning. Anne promises her husband that she will consent to have sex shortly (\"Soon\"). Anne's maidservant Petra, an experienced and forthright girl, slightly older than the teen herself, offers her worldly but crass advice.\n\nDesiree Armfeldt is a prominent and glamorous actress who is now reduced to touring in small towns. Madame Armfeldt, Desiree's mother, has taken over the care of Desiree's daughter Fredrika. Fredrika misses her mother, but Desiree continually puts off going to see her, preferring, somewhat ironically, \"The Glamorous Life\". She is performing near Fredrik's home, and he brings Anne to see the play. While there, Desiree notices Fredrik; the two were lovers years before. Anne, suspicious and annoyed because of Desiree's amorous glances, demands that Fredrik take her home immediately. Meanwhile, Petra has been trying to seduce Henrik.\n\nThat night, as Fredrik remembers his past with Desiree, he sneaks out to see her; the two share a happy but strained reunion, as they \"Remember\". They reflect on their new lives, and Fredrik tries to explain how much he loves Anne (\"You Must Meet My Wife\"). Desiree responds sarcastically, boasting of her own adultery, as she has been seeing the married dragoon, Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm. Upon learning that Fredrik has gone for eleven months without sex, she agrees to accommodate him as a favor for an old friend.\n\nMadame Armfeldt offers advice to young Fredrika. The elderly woman reflects poignantly on her own checkered past, and wonders what happened to her refined \"Liaisons\". Back in Desiree's apartment, Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm proclaims his unannounced arrival in his typical booming voice. Fredrik and Desiree fool the gullible Count into believing that their disheveled appearance was entirely innocent, but he is still suspicious. He instantly dislikes Fredrik and returns to his wife, Countess Charlotte. Charlotte is quite aware of her husband's infidelity, but Carl-Magnus is too absorbed in his suspicions of Desiree to talk to her (\"In Praise of Women\"). When she persuades him to blurt out the whole story, a twist is revealed—Charlotte's little sister is a school friend of Anne's.\n\nCharlotte visits Anne, who is talking with Petra. Charlotte describes Fredrik's meeting with Desiree; Anne reacts with shock and horror. The older woman explains to Anne that such is the lot of a wife, and that marriage brings pain (\"Every Day A Little Death\"). Meanwhile, Desiree asks Madame Armfeldt to host a party for Fredrik, Anne, and Henrik. Though reluctant, Madame Armfeldt agrees. She sends out a personal invitation; its receipt sends the women into a frenzy, imagining \"A Weekend in the Country\". Anne does not want to accept the invitation, but Charlotte convinces her to do so to heighten the contrast between the older woman and the young teenager. Meanwhile, the Count has plans of his own — as a birthday present to his wife, the pair will attend the party uninvited. Carl-Magnus plans to challenge Fredrik to a duel, while Charlotte hopes to seduce the lawyer to make her husband jealous and end his philandering. The day of the party dawns.\n\nAct Two\n\nArmfeldt's country estate is bathed in the golden glow of perpetual summer sunset at this high latitude (\"Night Waltz One and Two\"). Everyone arrives, each carrying their own amorous purposes and desires—even Petra, who catches the eye of Armfeldt's fetching manservant, Frid. The women begin to act against each other. Fredrik is astonished to learn the name of Desiree's daughter. Henrik meets Fredrika, and confesses his deep love for Anne to her. Meanwhile, in the garden, Fredrik and Carl-Magnus reflect on how difficult it is to be annoyed with Desiree, agreeing \"It Would Have Been Wonderful\" had she not been quite so wonderful. Dinner is served, and the characters' \"Perpetual Anticipation\" enlivens that meal.\n\nAt dinner, Charlotte attempts to flirt with Fredrik, while Anne and Desiree trade insults. Soon, everyone is shouting and scolding everyone else, except for Henrik, who finally stands up for himself. He shrieks at them for being completely amoral, and flees the scene. Stunned, everyone reflects on the situation and wanders away. Fredrika tells Anne of Henrik's secret love, and the two dash off searching for him. Meanwhile, Desiree meets Fredrik and asks if he still wants to be \"rescued\" from his life. Fredrik answers honestly that he loves Desiree, but only as a dream. Hurt and bitter, Desiree can only reflect on the nature of her life (\"Send in the Clowns\"). Anne finds Henrik, who is attempting to commit suicide. The clumsy boy cannot complete the task, and Anne tells him that she has feelings for him, too. The pair begins to kiss, which leads to Anne's first sexual encounter. Meanwhile, not far away, Frid sleeps in Petra's lap. The maid thinks of the joy and freedom that she longs for before becoming trapped in marriage (\"The Miller's Son\"). Henrik and Anne, happy together, run away to start their new life. However, Carl-Magnus is enraged by this and attempts to shoot the lovers, but Desiree and Charlotte prevent him, while lamenting both the pains of marriage and the strange behavior of married people (\"The World Won't End/Every Day a Little Death (reprise)\"). With Carl-Magnus calmed, Charlotte confesses her plan to Fredrik, and the two commiserate on a bench. Carl-Magnus, preparing to romance Desiree, sees this and challenges Fredrik to Russian Roulette, at which a nervous Fredrik misfires and simply grazes his own ear. Victorious, Carl-Magnus begins to romance Charlotte, granting her wish at last.\n\nAfter the Count and Countess leave, Fredrika and Madame Armfeldt discuss the chaos of the recent turns-of-events. The elderly woman then asks Fredrika a surprising question: \"What is it all for?\" Fredrika thinks about this, and decides that it \"must be worth it\". Madame Armfeldt is surprised, ruefully noting that she rejected love for material wealth at Fredrika's age. She praises her granddaughter and remembers true love's fleeting nature.\n\nFredrik finally confesses his love for Desiree, acknowledges that Fredrika is his daughter, and the two promise to start a new life together (\"Finale\"). Armfeldt sits alone with Fredrika. Fredrika tells her grandmother that she has watched carefully, but still has not seen the night smile. Armfeldt laughs and points out that the night has indeed smiled twice: first on Henrik and Anne, the young, and second on Desiree and Fredrik, the fools. As the two wait for the \"third smile... on the old\", it happens: Madame Armfeldt closes her eyes, and dies peacefully with Fredrika beside her.\n\nMusical numbers \n\n; Act I\n* Overture – Mr. Lindquist, Mrs. Nordstrom, Mrs. Anderssen, Mr. Erlanson and Mrs. Segstrom (the \"Quintet\")\n* \"Night Waltz\" – Company\n* \"Now\" – Fredrik Egerman\n* \"Later\" – Henrik Egerman\n* \"Soon\" – Anne Egerman, Fredrik and Henrik\n* \"The Glamorous Life\" – Fredrika Armfeldt, Desiree Armfeldt, Madame Armfeldt and Quintet\n* \"Remember?\" – Quintet\n* \"You Must Meet My Wife\" – Desiree and Fredrik\n* \"Liaisons\" – Madame Armfeldt\n* \"In Praise of Women\" – Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm\n* \"Every Day a Little Death\" – Countess Charlotte Malcolm and Anne\n* \"Weekend in the Country\" – Company\n\n; Act II\n* Entr'acte – Orchestra\n* \"Night Waltz I (The Sun Won't Set)\" – Quintet\n* \"Night Waltz II (The Sun Sits Low)\" – Quintet\n* \"It Would Have Been Wonderful\" – Fredrik and Carl-Magnus\n* \"Perpetual Anticipation\" – Mrs. Nordstrom, Mrs. Segstrom and Mrs. Anderssen\n* \"Dinner Table Scene\" – Orchestra\n* \"Send in the Clowns\" – Desiree\n* \"The Miller's Son\" – Petra\n* \"The World Won't End/Every Day a Little Death (reprise)\" – Desiree and Charlotte \n* Reprises (\"Soon\", \"You Must Meet My Wife\", \"A Weekend in the Country\" and \"Every Day a Little Death\") – Quintet\n* \"Send in the Clowns\" (Reprise) – Desiree and Fredrik\n* \"Last Waltz\" – Orchestra\n\n; Additional musical numbers\nStage:\n* \"Two Fairy Tales\" – Henrik and Anne (cut for time)\n* \"Silly People\" – Frid (cut for time)\n* \"Bang!\" – Carl-Magnus (replaced by \"In Praise of Women\")\n* \"My Husband the Pig\" – Charlotte (replaced by the second half of \"In Praise of Women\")\n\nScreen:\n* \"Love Takes Time\" – Company (lyrics added to Night Waltz)\n* \"The Glamorous Life\" – Fredrika (solo version)\n\nCharacters\n\n* Fredrik Egerman: A successful widowed middle-aged lawyer. He is married to the 18-year-old Anne and has one son from his previous marriage, Henrik.\nAnne Egerman: Fredrik's new, naive wife.\nHenrik Egerman: Fredrik's son, 20 years old and Anne's stepson. He is serious but confused, as he reads the works of philosophers and theologians as he studies for the Lutheran priesthood.\nPetra: Anne's maid and closest confidante.\nDesiree Armfeldt: Self-absorbed, once-successful actress, now touring the country-side in what is clearly not the \"glamorous life\".\nFredrika Armfeldt: Desiree's thirteen-year-old daughter, who may or may not be the product (unbeknownst to Fredrik) of the actress's and Fredrik's affair.\nMadame Armfeldt: Desiree's mother, who has had \"liaisons\" with royalty.\nCount Carl-Magnus Malcolm: A military dragoon who is Desiree's latest lover.\nCharlotte Malcolm: Carl-Magnus' wife.\nFrid: Madame Armfeldt's manservant.\nThe Quintet: Mr. Lindquist, Mrs. Nordstrom, Mrs. Anderssen, Mr. Erlanson and Mrs. Segstrom. A group of five singers that act as a Greek chorus. Sometimes referred to as the Liebeslieder Singers although Sondheim and Wheeler did not script them to have that title, using Quintet instead. The first usage of Liebeslieders for the Quintet came during the 1990 New York Opera production. Prince said that these characters represent \"people in the show who aren't wasting time ... the play is about wasting time.\" \nMalla: Desiree's maid, with her constantly, silent part\nOsa: Maid at Madame Armfeldt's manse, silent part\n*Bertrand: Page at Madame Armfeldt's manse, silent part\n\nProductions\n\nOriginal Broadway production\n\nA Little Night Music opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre on February 25, 1973, and closed on August 3, 1974, after 601 performances and 12 previews. It moved to the Majestic Theatre on September 17, 1973, where it completed its run. It was directed by Harold Prince with choreography by Patricia Birch and design by Boris Aronson. The cast included Glynis Johns (Desiree Armfeldt), Len Cariou (Fredrik Egerman), Hermione Gingold (Madame Armfeldt), Victoria Mallory (Anne Egerman), Judith Kahan (Fredrika Armfeldt), Mark Lambert (Henrik Egerman), Laurence Guittard (Carl-Magnus Malcolm), Patricia Elliott (Charlotte Malcolm), George Lee Andrews (Frid), and D. Jamin Bartlett (Petra). It won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and the Tony Award for Best Musical.\n\nUnited States tour\n\nA US national tour began on February 26, 1974, at the Forrest Theatre, Philadelphia, and ended on February 13, 1975, at the Shubert Theatre, Boston. Jean Simmons as Desiree Armfeldt, George Lee Andrews as Fredrik Egerman and Margaret Hamilton as Madame Armfeldt headed the cast. \n\nWest End premiere\n\nThe musical premiered in the West End at the Adelphi Theatre on April 15, 1975, and starred Jean Simmons, Joss Ackland, David Kernan, Liz Robertson, and Diane Langton, with Hermione Gingold reprising her role as Madame Armfeldt. It ran for 406 performances. During the run, Angela Baddeley replaced Gingold, and Virginia McKenna replaced Simmons.\n\n1989 West End revival\n\nA revival opened in the West End on October 6, 1989, at the Piccadilly Theatre, directed by Ian Judge, designed by Mark Thompson, and choreographed by Anthony Van Laast. It starred Lila Kedrova as Madame Armfeldt, Dorothy Tutin as Desiree Armfeldt, Peter McEnery as Fredrick, and Susan Hampshire. The production ran for 144 performances, closing on February 17, 1990.\n\n1995 London revival\n\nA revival by the Royal National Theatre opened at the Olivier Theatre on September 26, 1995. It was directed by Sean Mathias, with set design by Stephen Brimson Lewis, costumes by Nicky Gillibrand, lighting by Mark Henderson and choreography by Wayne McGregor. It starred Judi Dench (Desiree), Siân Phillips (Madame Armfeldt), Joanna Riding (Anne Egerman), Laurence Guittard (Fredrik Egerman), Patricia Hodge (Countess Charlotte) and Issy van Randwyck (Petra). The production closed on August 31, 1996. Dench received the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical. \n\n2008 London revival\n\nThe third London revival ran at the Menier Chocolate Factory from November 22, 2008 until March 8, 2009. The production was directed by Trevor Nunn, with choreography by Lynne Page, sets and costumes by David Farley and new orchestrations by Jason Carr. The cast included Hannah Waddingham as Desiree, Alexander Hanson as Frederik, Jessie Buckley (Anne), Maureen Lipman (Mme. Armfeldt), Alistair Robins (the Count), Gabriel Vick (Henrik), Grace Link and Holly Hallam (shared role Fredrika) and Kasia Hammarlund (Petra). This critically acclaimed Nightingale, Benedict.[http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article5289255.ece \"'A Little Night Music' at the Menier Chocolate Factory, London SE1\"] December 5, 2008Spencer, Charles.[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/drama/3687085/A-Little-Night-Music-at-the-Menier-Chocolate-Factory.html \"'A Little Night Music' at the Menier Chocolate Factory\"]The Telegraph, December 4, 2008 production transferred to the Garrick Theatre in the West End for a limited season, opening on March 28, 2009 running until July 25, 2009. This production then transferred to Broadway with a new cast.\n\n2009 Broadway revival\n\nThe 2008 Menier Chocolate Factory production opened on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre in previews November 24, 2009 and officially December 13, 2009, with the same creative team. The cast starred Angela Lansbury as Madame Armfeldt and, in her Broadway debut, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Desiree. Also featured were Alexander Hanson as Frederik, Ramona Mallory (the daughter of original Broadway cast members Victoria Mallory and Mark Lambert) as Anne, Hunter Ryan Herdlicka as Henrik, Leigh Ann Larkin as Petra, Erin Davie as the Countess, Aaron Lazar as the Count, and Bradley Dean as Frid. Zeta-Jones was recognized as Best Leading Actress in a Musical at the 64th Tony Awards.\n\nWhen the contracts of Zeta-Jones and Lansbury ended the production temporarily closed on June 20, 2010 and resumed on July 13, with new stars Bernadette Peters as Desiree Armfeldt and Elaine Stritch as Madame Armfeldt. In an interview, Peters said that Sondheim had \"proposed the idea to her this spring and urged the producers of the revival to cast her.\" Trevor Nunn directed rehearsals with the two new stars, and the rest of the original cast remained. Peters and Stritch extended their contracts until January 9, 2011, when the production closed with 20 previews and 425 regular performances. Before the production closed it recouped its initial investment. \n\nEurope\n\nZarah Leander played Madame Armfeldt in the original Austrian staging (in 1975) as well as in the original Swedish staging in Stockholm in 1978 (here with Jan Malmsjö as Fredrik Egerman), performing Send In The Clowns and Liaisons in both stagings. The successful Stockholm-staging was directed by Stig Olin. In 2010 the musical was scheduled to return to Stockholm and the Stockholm Stadsteater. The cast included Pia Johansson, Dan Ekborg, Yvonne Lombard and Thérese Andersson.\n\nThe Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris production ran from February 15, 2010 through February 20, 2010. Lee Blakeley directed and Andrew George was the choreographer. Italian-born actress Greta Scacchi played Désirée, and Leslie Caron played Madame Armfeldt.\n \n\nThe Turku City Theatre staged the musical in 2011 with Kirsi Tarvainen in the role as Désirée. Tuomas Parkkinen directed and Jussi Vahvaselkä was musical director.\n\nOpera companies\n\nThe musical has also become part of the repertoire of a few opera companies. Michigan Opera Theatre was the first major American opera company to present the work in 1983, and again in November 2009. Light Opera Works (Evanston, IL) produced the work in August 1983. New York City Opera staged it in 1990, 1991 and 2003, the Houston Grand Opera in 1999, the Los Angeles Opera in 2004, and Hartford Opera Theater in 2014. New York City Opera's production in August 1990 and July 1991 (total of 18 performances) won the 1990 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival and was telecast on the PBS show \"Live at Lincoln Center\" on November 7, 1990. The cast included both stage performers: Sally Ann Howes and George Lee Andrews as Desiree and Frederick and opera regular Regina Resnik as Madame Armfeldt (in 1991). The 2003 production featured a young Anna Kendrick as Fredrika Armfeldt, alongside Jeremy Irons as Frederick and Marc Kudisch as Carl-Magnus. \n\nOpera Australia presented the piece in Melbourne in May 2009, starring Sigrid Thornton as Desiree Armfeldt and Nacye Hayes as Madame Armfeldt. The production returned in 2010 at the Sydney Opera House with Anthony Warlow taking on the role of Fredrik Egerman. The production was directed by Stuart Maunder, designed by Roger Kirk, and conducted by Andrew Greene. Opera Theatre of Saint Louis performed the musical in June 2010. Designer Isaac Mizrahi directed and designed the production, with a cast that starred Amy Irving, Siân Phillips, and Ron Raines. \n\nThe piece has also become a popular choice for amateur musical theatre and light opera companies.\n\nFilm adaptation\n\nIn 1977, a film version of A Little Night Music was released, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Lesley-Anne Down and Diana Rigg, with Len Cariou, Hermione Gingold and Laurence Guittard reprising their Broadway roles. The setting for the film was moved from Sweden to Austria. Stephen Sondheim wrote lyrics for the \"Night Waltz\" theme (\"Love Takes Time\") and wrote an entirely new version of \"The Glamorous Life\", which has been incorporated into several subsequent productions of the stage musical. However, other songs, including \"In Praise of Women\", \"The Miller's Son\" and \"Liaisons\", were cut and remain heard only as background orchestrations. The film marked Broadway director Hal Prince's second time as a motion picture director. Critical reaction to the film was mostly negative, with much being made of Taylor's wildly fluctuating weight from scene to scene. Some critics talked more positively of the film, with Variety calling it \"an elegant looking, period romantic charade\". There was praise for Diana Rigg's performance, and orchestrator Jonathan Tunick received an Oscar for his work on the score. A soundtrack recording was released on LP, and a DVD release was issued in June 2007. \n\nMusic analysis\n\nThe score for A Little Night Music has elements not often found in musical theater, presenting challenges for performers, with complex meters, pitch changes, polyphony, and high notes for both males and females. The difficulty is heightened when songs merge, as in \"Now\"/\"Later\"/\"Soon\", because all three have to be performed in the same key, limiting the ability to pick a comfortable key for each singer. Critic Rex Reed noted that \"The score of 'Night Music' ...contains patter songs, contrapuntal duets and trios, a quartet, and even a dramatic double quintet to puzzle through. All this has been gorgeously orchestrated by Jonathan Tunick; there is no rhythm section, only strings and woodwinds to carry the melodies and harmonies aloft.\" \n\nSondheim's engagement with threes extends to his lyrics. He organizes trios with the singers separated, while his duets are sung together, about a third person.\n\nThe work is performed as an operetta in many professional opera companies. For example, it was added to the New York City Opera Company repertoire in 1990. \n\n3/4 time\n\nVirtually all of the music in the show is written in waltz time (3/4). Some parts adopt compound meter, with a time signature such as 12/8.\n Passages in \"Overture\", \"Glamorous Life\", \"Liaisons\", and \"The Miller's Son\" are in duple meter. \n\nCounterpoint and polyphony\n\nAt several points, Sondheim has multiple performers each sing a different song simultaneously. This use of counterpoint maintains coherence even as it extends the notion of a round, familiar in songs such as the traditional \"Frère Jacques\", into something more complex. Sondheim said: \"As for the three songs... going together well, I might as well confess. In those days I was just getting into contrapuntal and choral writing...and I wanted to develop my technique by writing a trio. What I didn't want to do is the quodlibet method...wouldn't it be nice to have three songs you don't think are going to go together, and they do go together... The trick was the little vamp on \"Soon\" which has five-and six-note chords.\"Swayne, Steve. How Sondheim Found His Sound, University of Michigan Press, 2007, ISBN 0-472-03229-1, p. 251 Steve Swayne comments that the \"contrapuntal episodes in the extended ensembles... stand as testament to his interest in Counterpoint.\"\n\n\"Send In The Clowns\"\n\nThe show's best-known and Sondheim's biggest hit song was almost an afterthought, written several days before the start of out of town tryouts. Sondheim initially conceived Desiree as a role for a more-or-less non-singing actress. When he discovered that the original Desiree, Glynis Johns, was able to sing (she had a \"small, silvery voice\"Secrest, Meryle. \"Stephen Sondheim: A Life\" (1998). Dell Publishing. ISBN 0-385-33412-5, pp. 251-252) but could not \"sustain a phrase\", he devised the song \"Send in the Clowns\" for her in a way that would work around her vocal weakness, e.g., by ending lines with consonants that made for a short cut-off. \"It is written in short phrases in order to be acted rather than sung...tailor-made for Glynis Johns, who lacks the vocal power to sustain long phrases.\" \n\nIn analyzing the text of the song, Max Cryer wrote that it \"is not intended to be sung by the young in love, but by a mature performer who has seen it all before. The song remains an anthem to regret for unwise decisions in the past and recognition that there's no need to send in the clowns-they're already here.\" \n\nGraham Wolfe has argued, \"What Desirée is referring to in the famous song is a conventional device to cover over a moment when something has gone wrong on stage. Midway through the second Act she has deviated from her usual script by suggesting to Fredrik the possibility of being together seriously and permanently, and, having been rejected, she falters as a show-person, finds herself bereft of the capacity to improvise and wittily cover. If Desirée could perform at this moment – revert to the innuendos, one-liners and blithe self-referential humour that constitutes her normal character – all would be well. She cannot, and what follows is an exemplary manifestation of Sondheim’s musico-dramatic complexity, his inclination to write music that performs drama. That is, what needs to be covered over (by the clowns sung about in the song) is the very intensity, ragged emotion and utter vulnerability that comes forward through the music and singing itself, a display protracted to six minutes, wrought with exposed silences, a shocked Fredrik sitting so uncomfortably before Desirée while something much too real emerges in a realm where he – and his audience – felt assured of performance.\" \n\nInfluences\n\nThere is a Mozart reference in the title—A Little Night Music is an occasionally used translation of Eine kleine Nachtmusik, the nickname of Mozart's Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major, K. 525. The elegant, harmonically-advanced music in this musical pays indirect homage to the compositions of Maurice Ravel, especially his Valses nobles et sentimentales (whose opening chord is borrowed for the opening chord of the song \"Liaisons\"); part of this effect stems from the style of orchestration that Jonathan Tunick used.\n\nCast recordings\n\nIn addition to the original Broadway and London cast recordings, and the motion picture soundtrack (no longer available), there are recordings of the 1990 studio cast, the 1995 Royal National Theatre revival (starring Judi Dench), and the 2001 Barcelona cast recording sung in Catalan. In 1997 an all-jazz version of the score was recorded by Terry Trotter. \n\nThe 2009 Broadway revival with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury recorded a cast album on January 4, 2010 which was released on April 6. \n\nCritical response\n\nIn his review of the original 1973 Broadway production, Clive Barnes in the New York Times called the musical \"heady, civilized, sophisticated and enchanting.\" He noted that \"the real triumph belongs to Stephen Sondheim...the music is a celebration of 3/4 time, an orgy of plaintively memorable waltzes, all talking of past loves and lost worlds...There is a peasant touch here.\" He commented that the lyrics are \"breathtaking\". \n\nIn its review of the 1989 London revival, the reviewer for The Guardian wrote that the \"production also strikes me as infinitely superior to Harold Prince's 1975 version at the Adelphi. Mr Judge's great innovation is to transform the Liebeslieder Singers from the evening-dressed, after-dinner line-up into 18th century ghosts weaving in and out of the action...But Mr Judge's other great realisation is that, in Sondheim, the lyrics are not an adornment to a song but their very essence: understand them and the show will flow. Thus Dorothy Tutin as Desiree, the touring thesp eventually reunited with her quondam lover, is not the melting romantic of previous productions but a working mother with the sharpness of a hat-pin.\" \n\nThe Independent review of the 1995 National Theatre revival praised the production, writing \"For three hours of gloriously barbed bliss and bewitchment, Sean Mathias's production establishes the show as a minor miracle of astringent worldly wisdom and one that is haunted by less earthy intimations.\" The review went on to state that \"The heart of the production, in both senses, is Judi Dench's superb Desiree Armfeldt...Her husky-voiced rendering of \"Send in the Clowns\" is the most moving I've ever heard.\" \n\nIn reviewing the 2008 Menier Chocolate Factory production, The Telegraph reviewer wrote that \"Sondheim's lyrics are often superbly witty, his music here, mostly in haunting waltz-time, far more accessible than is sometimes the case. The score positively throbs with love, regret and desire.\" But of the specific production, the reviewer went on to note: \"But Nunn's production, on one of those hermetic sets largely consisting of doors and tarnished mirrors that have become such a cliché in recent years, never penetrates the work's subtly erotic heart. And as is often the case with this director's work, the pace is so slow and the mood so reverent, that initial enchantment gives way to bored fidgeting.\"\n\nIn his New York Times review of the 2009 Broadway production, Ben Brantley noted that \"the expression that hovers over Trevor Nunn's revival...feels dangerously close to a smirk...It is a smirk shrouded in shadows. An elegiac darkness infuses this production.\" The production is \"sparing on furniture and heavy on shadows\", with \"a scaled-down orchestra at lugubriously slowed-down tempos...\" He goes on to write that \"this somber, less-is-more approach could be effective were the ensemble plugged into the same rueful sensibility. But there is only one moment in this production when all its elements cohere perfectly. That moment, halfway through the first act, belongs to Ms. Lansbury, who has hitherto been perfectly entertaining, playing Madame Armfeldt with the overripe aristocratic condescension of a Lady Bracknell. Then comes her one solo, \"Liaisons\", in which her character thinks back on the art of love as a profession in a gilded age, when sex 'was but a pleasurable means to a measurable end.' Her face, with its glamour-gorgon makeup, softens, as Madame Armfeldt seems to melt into memory itself, and the wan stage light briefly appears to borrow radiance from her. It's a lovely example of the past reaching out to the present...\" \n\nSteven Suskin, reviewing the new Broadway cast for Variety, wrote \"What a difference a diva makes. Bernadette Peters steps into the six-month-old revival of 'A Little Night Music' with a transfixing performance, playing it as if she realizes her character's onstage billing -- \"the one and only Desiree Armfeldt\"—is cliched hyperbole. By figuratively rolling her eyes at the hype, Peters gives us a rich, warm and comedically human Desiree, which reaches full impact when she pierces the facade with a nakedly honest, tears-on-cheek 'Send in the Clowns.'\" \n\nAwards and nominations \n\nOriginal Broadway production\n\n1995 London revival\n\n2009 London Revival \n\n2009 Broadway revival" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Sommarnattens leende", "Smiles of a Summer Night" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "smiles of summer night", "sommarnattens leende" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "smiles of summer night", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Smiles of a Summer Night" }
What was the name of the high school in Porky's?	tc_1223	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "Search" ], "filename": [ "Porky's.txt", "Porky's_II:_The_Next_Day.txt" ], "title": [ "Porky's", "Porky's II: The Next Day" ], "wiki_context": [ "Porky's is a 1981 Canadian-American sex comedy film, written and directed by Bob Clark about the escapades of teenagers at the fictional Angel Beach High School in Florida in 1954. Released in the United States in 1982 with an R rating, the film spawned three sequels: Porky's II: The Next Day (1983), Porky's Revenge! (1985), and Pimpin' Pee Wee (2009), and influenced many writers in the teen film genre.\n\nDespite generally negative critical reception, Porky's was a box office success. It was the fifth highest-grossing film of 1982.\n\nPlot\n\nA group of Florida high school students plan on losing their virginity. They go to Porky's, a nightclub out in the Everglades, believing that they can hire a prostitute to satisfy their sexual desires. Porky takes their money but humiliates the kids by dumping them in the swamp. When the group demands their money back, the sheriff, who turns out to be Porky's brother, arrives to drive them away, but not before his minions extort the rest of their money and cause them more embarrassment. After Mickey (who returned to Porky's for revenge) is beaten so badly he has to be hospitalized, the gang becomes hellbent on exacting revenge on Porky and his brother, eventually succeeding in sinking his establishment in the swamp. Porky and his men, joined by the sheriff, chase after the group, but they make it across the county line (out of Porky's brother's jurisdiction), where they are met by a group of the local police officers, one of whom is Mickey's older brother Ted, and the high school band. After Ted repeatedly damages Porky's car, he says that all charges against Porky for driving an unsafe vehicle will be dropped if the night's events are forgiven. Because the boys were too young to be legally allowed in Porky's in the first place, Porky and his brother have no choice but to agree. The film ends with the group getting their revenge and Pee Wee finally losing his virginity.\n\nIn a subplot, the boys also peep on female students in their locker room shower. After (apparently) several unsuccessful attempts, Tommy, Billy and Pee Wee finally see several girls showering, but Pee Wee gives them away when he shouts at a particularly fat girl (who has been blocking his view) to move so he can see. While a few girls run out, most stay, finding the situation funny. To test their attitude, Tommy sticks his tongue out through his peephole, but gets it smeared with soap. Infuriated, he drops his pants and sticks his penis through the opening just before female coach Beulah Balbricker (who has a running feud with Tommy) walks into the shower area. Spotting the protruding member, she sneaks up on Tommy, grabs his protruding part and pulls with all her might. Tommy manages to pull free and escape, but Beulah is now determined to prove that the offending member (which has a mole on it) belongs to Tommy, going so far as to request that Principal Carter hold a police-type line-up of the boys in the nude so she can identify it. However, Carter balks at such a request, and while the other basketball coaches laugh almost uncontrollably, Coach Brackett suggests getting the police involved. When this gets even Carter laughing, Balbricker leaves in a huff. The film ends with Ms. Balbricker sneaking out of the bushes to ambush Tommy and actually dragging his pants down, but she is pulled off him by police and dragged away screaming that she saw \"it\" and that she can identify him. The film ends as Tommy breaks the fourth wall and saying \"Jeez!\" to the camera.\n\nCast\n\n* Dan Monahan as Edward \"Pee Wee\" Morris\n* Wyatt Knight as Tommy Turner\n* Mark Herrier as Billy McCarty\n* Roger Wilson as Mickey Jarvis\n* Tony Ganios as Anthony \"Meat\" Tuperello\n* Cyril O'Reilly as Tim Cavanaugh\n* Kaki Hunter as Wendy Williams\n* Scott Colomby as Brian Schwartz\n* Nancy Parsons as Coach Beulah Balbricker\n* Boyd Gaines as Coach Roy Brackett\n* Bill Hindman as Coach Goodenough\n* Doug McGrath as Coach Fred Warren\n* Eric Christmas as Mr. Carter\n* Kim Cattrall as Miss Lynn \"Lassie\" Honeywell\n* Chuck Mitchell as Porky Wallace\n* Art Hindle as Ted Jarvis\n* Ilse Earl as Mrs. Morris\n* Alex Karras as Sheriff Wallace\n* Susan Clark as Cherry Forever\n* Rod Ball as Steve\n* Jack Mulcahy as Frank Bell\n* Lisa O'Reilly as Ginny\n* Wayne Maunder as Cavanaugh\n\nRelease\n\nPorky's was released in Colorado Springs, Colorado on November 13, 1981. It then received a wide release in Canada and the United States on March 19, 1982.\n\nReception\n\nCritical response\n\nPorky's received negative reviews. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 30% based on reviews from 23 critics. \n\nFilm critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were offended by Porky's and later called it one of the worst films of 1982. In particular, they criticized the film for its objectification and degradation of women and the childish nature of its antagonists. \n\nBox office\n\nAlthough it was written and directed by an American and was filmed in Miami, Florida, Porky's was produced by the Canadian company Astral Media. As a result, Porky's can be classed as the highest-grossing Canadian film of all time in Canada's domestic box office, with a total of C$111 million by 1999. \n\nSequels\n\nThe first two Porky's films were directed by Bob Clark and produced by Harold Greenberg, who founded Astral Communications (now known as Astral Media). James Komack directed the third film, Porky's Revenge. Clark based the original Porky's on actual occurrences at Boca Ciega High School in Gulfport, Florida and Fort Lauderdale High School in the early 1960s, and on a venue called Porky's Hide Away in Oakland Park, Florida.\n\nFollowing the success of Porky's in America and Europe there was a sequel in 1983 titled Porky's II: The Next Day. The sequel was poorly received by critics, and was less commercially successful than the original. Bob Clark did not want to make another film in the series, so director James Komack made the third and last part of the saga. The film was called Porky's Revenge!, and was the worst-received of the series both critically and commercially.\n\nHome media\n\nOn May 22, 2007, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released all three films in an \"Ultimate Collection\" box set.\n\nRemake\n\nIn 2002, Howard Stern acquired the remake rights and has long hoped to produce a remake of the film. The potential remake ran into legal trouble in 2011 when two other production companies stepped forward claiming to own the rights to the franchise. \n\nA VOD sequel, Pimpin' Pee Wee, was filmed in 2009.", "Porky's II: The Next Day is the 1983 sequel to the 1982 film Porky's. The film is co-written and directed by Bob Clark. Unlike the previous film, Porky himself does not appear.\n\nPlot\n\nAfter dealing to Porky the \"fatal\" blow that was coming to him, the gang from Angel Beach is ready for a new challenge: The High School Drama Club is producing a Shakespeare Festival in which the gang is participating. Unfortunately, a religious leader named Bubba Flavel wants to halt the production because he and his group, \"The Righteous Flock,\" maintain that Shakespeare is indecent and profane. As part of their effort to keep their school-based Shakespeare production on track, the gang from Angel Beach seeks out the help of Seward County Commissioner Gebhardt, who initially promises the gang from Angel Beach that he will pull some strings to keep the Angel Beach High Shakespeare Festival running. However, after the county commissioners, who all will shortly be standing for re-election, vote unanimously to shut down the Shakespeare Festival, the gang quickly learns that Commissioner Gebhardt has reneged on his promises to the Angel Beach gang because he feared that allowing the Shakespeare Festival to proceed would harm his re-election chances. The local Ku Klux Klan chapter joins the movement to shut down the Shakespeare festival because its members object to an American Indian (Runningfox's Seminole character) playing Romeo opposite a white girl Juliet (Wendy). Flavel, who has previously exposed his bigoted nature, welcomes the Klan's support of his movement. The Angel Beach gang then begins plotting their retaliation and revenge against Flavel, Commissioner Gebhardt, the rest of the county commissioners, and the Klan.\n\nThe teens discover that the county commissioners, who are publicly riding the political wave of decency and morality, enjoy secretly watching pornographic movies in the basement of the courthouse. So, the Angel Beach gang takes a tape recorder with a microphone to the basement of the courthouse while the county commissioners are watching pornographic movies, aim the microphone at the ventilator window, and record the politicos' loud and crude commentary on the events in the porno films, including their irreverent mocking of Flavel (And the fact that Flavel provided some of the pornography).\n\nAfter his success in shutting down the Angel Beach High Shakespeare Festival, Flavel convenes an outdoor revival meeting at Angel Beach High to commemorate his success, and the county commissioners attend and stand on stage with Flavel. In retaliation for an attack and attempt by the Klan members to shave the head of the group's Seminole friend, the gang lures the Klan members (who are on their way to Flavel's revival meeting) into the school gym where the gang along with a gym-ful of Seminole Indians \"persuade\" the Klan members to submit to having their heads shaved. The Angel Beach gang and the Seminole Indians then make the Klan members strip naked and march over to Flavel's revival meeting where they force the hapless and humiliated Klan members into the revival meeting. The sight of naked men shocks the crowd, and in his typical opportunistic fashion, Flavel decries the naked Klan members as being \"The Spawn of Satan.\" During Flavel's prognostications, the gang commandeers the public address system and plays the recording of the county commissioners' raucous commentary on the pornographic movie that they watched in the basement of the courthouse only days before. A comment on the recording about Flavel having donated the pornographic film that the county commissioners were watching ends up being Flavel's undoing as he and the county commissioners stand before the crowd completely discredited, disgraced, and exposed as selfish hypocrites.\n\nMeanwhile, Wendy accepts an out-of-town dinner date in Miami with Commissioner Gebhardt, who intends to seduce her. However, rather than showing up in her normal modest clothing, Wendy shows up at the formal restaurant wearing a deliberately showy, vulgar outfit with her breasts artificially padded with a container to an enormous size. She speaks in an extremely loud voice, constantly blurting out Gebhardt's name and status as a county commissioner of Seward County who will shortly be standing for re-election and alleging that she and Gebhardt became involved while she was a Brownie in Gebhardt wife's girl scout troop and that she is now pregnant with his child. With the help of liquefied corn-and-pea soup concealed in the container that padded her bust, Wendy pretends to throw up in one of the restaurant's decorative fountains to the horror of the maître d' (who had earlier alluded to previous \"dates\" Gebhardt had enjoyed at this establishment) and the disgust of the restaurant's upscale patrons. Pee-Wee snaps a picture of the disgraced Commissioner Gebhardt (with an encouraging, \"Smile and say, 'I'm Ruined!'\") before he, Wendy, and Steve depart in a blaze of glory back to the rally at Angel Beach High to join the triumphant celebration of the defeat of the persons responsible for the cancellation of their Shakespeare Festival, which is promptly reinstated.\n\nCast\n\n* Dan Monahan as Edward \"Pee Wee\" Morris\n* Wyatt Knight as Tommy Turner\n* Mark Herrier as Billy McCarty\n* Tony Ganios as Anthony \"Meat\" Tuperello\n* Scott Colomby as Brian Schwartz\n* Cyril O'Reilly as Tim Cavanaugh\n* Kaki Hunter as Wendy Williams\n* Ilse Earl as Mrs. Morris\n* Eric Christmas as Mr. Carter\n* Bill Wiley as Bubba Flavel\n* Nancy Parsons as Ms. Beulah Balbricker\n* Joseph Runningfox as John Henry\n* Roger Wilson as Mickey Jarvis\n* Art Hindle as Officer Ted Jarvis\n* Bill Hindman as Coach Goodenough\n* Mal Jones as Mayor Abernathy\n* Richard Liberty as Commissioner Couch\n* Fred Buch as Commissioner Hurley\n* Edward Winter as Commissioner Bob Gebhardt\n* Will Knickerbocker as Klan #1\n\nProduction\n\nGreynolds Park in North Miami, Florida stood in for the Everglades and a plant nursery on Old Cutler Road was turned into a cemetery for the graveyard scenes. \n\nReception\n\nBox office\n\nThe film's gross receipts were considerably lower than the first Porky's film. While Porky's grossed $105 million in the North American market, Porky's II: The Next Day only took in $33,759,266.\n\nCritical response\n\n \nPorky's 2: The Next Day was critically panned. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 11% based on the reviews of 9 critics. The movie was nominated for a Stinkers Bad Movie Awards for Worst Picture." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Angel Beach" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "angel beach" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "angel beach", "type": "FreeForm", "value": "Angel Beach" }
Who was Louise Lasser's husband when she stared with him in What's Up Tiger Lily?	tc_1224	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Louise_Lasser.txt", "What's_Up,_Tiger_Lily?.txt" ], "title": [ "Louise Lasser", "What's Up, Tiger Lily?" ], "wiki_context": [ "Louise Lasser (born April 11, 1939) is an American actress and television writer. She is known for her portrayal of the title character on the soap opera satire Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. She was married to Woody Allen and appeared in several of his early films.\n\nPersonal life\n\nLasser was born in New York City, the daughter of Paula and S. Jay Lasser, a tax expert. Her family is Jewish. She studied political science at Brandeis University. She was married to Woody Allen from 1966 to 1970. She lives in Manhattan and teaches acting technique at HB Studio.\n\nEarly career\n\nLasser was the understudy for Barbra Streisand in the Broadway musical I Can Get It for You Wholesale. She also appeared on the soap opera The Doctors and television commercials. She appeared in the Woody Allen films Take the Money and Run (1969), Bananas (1971), and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972), as well as being one of the voices for his earlier spoof dubbing of a Japanese spy movie, What's Up Tiger Lily? (1966). She also appeared in comedies such as Such Good Friends (1971) and Slither (1973). In 1973, she appeared in the episode \"The Roller Coaster Stops Here\" of the NBC romantic anthology television series Love Story.\n\nMary Hartman, Mary Hartman\n\nLasser became a household name for starring as the neurotic, unhappy housewife Mary Hartman in the serialized satire Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman appearing on the covers of Newsweek, People Magazine, and Rolling Stone during the run of the show. Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman aired five nights a week for two seasons from 1976-1977. In his autobiography, producer Norman Lear says that the casting of Lasser took less than a minute after Charles H. Joffe told him there was only one actress to play the part of Mary Hartman and Lear met the former Mrs. Woody Allen. Lasser refused the role at first. Of the casting process, Lear says, \"when she read a bit of the script for me, I all but cried for joy ... Louise brought with her the persona that fit Mary Hartman like a corset.\" \n\nExhausted from the grueling schedule, Lasser left the series after 2 seasons (325 episodes), and the serial was rebranded Forever Fernwood, which continued on for 26 weeks focusing on the trials and tribulations of the other Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman characters. \n\nIn 2000, Lasser appeared on a panel with her former cast members at the Museum of Television and Radio in Beverly Hills (taped for the museum archives). Lasser was also interviewed about the series in the bonus features of the Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman Complete Series DVD box-set from Shout Factory which was released December 2013. In it, she reveals that the idea for Mary Hartman's infamous nervous breakdown at the end of the first season came after she wrote a twelve-page letter suggesting the idea to Norman Lear.\n\nOther roles and appearances\n\nOn July 24, 1976, Lasser hosted Saturday Night Live at the end of the first season. Her performance is best known for her opening monologue in which she recreates a Mary Hartman-esque nervous breakdown and locks herself in her dressing room. She is then coaxed out by Chevy Chase/Land Shark and the promise of appearing on the cover of Time Magazine. Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman producer Norman Lear and co-star Mary Kay Place also hosted Saturday Night Live during the run of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.\n\nFollowing her departure from Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Lasser wrote an NBC made-for-TV movie Just Me and You (1978), starring in it alongside Charles Grodin. She had a recurring role as Alex's ex-wife on the hit series Taxi and starred in the 1981–82 season of It's a Living, playing waitress Maggie McBurney. \n\nLasser had a recurring role as Victor Erlich's Aunt Charise, a neurotic comic character on St. Elsewhere in the mid-1980s. Her 1980s film appearances included In God We Tru$t (1980), Crimewave (1985), Blood Rage (1987), Surrender (1987), Rude Awakening (1989), and as the mother of the main character in Sing (1989).\n\nHer 1990s films included Frankenhooker (1990), The Night We Never Met (1993), Sudden Manhattan (1996), Layin' Low (1996), and as the mother of the three main female characters in Todd Solondz's film Happiness. She appeared in Mystery Men (1999) as the mother of Hank Azaria's character. She also had a role in Darren Aronofsky's film Requiem for a Dream (2000), and co-starred with Renée Taylor in National Lampoon's Gold Diggers (2003). Lasser acted in 2 episodes of HBO's Girls as a Manhattan artist for the series' 3rd season (2014).\n\nShe is currently a member of faculty at HB Studio, where she teaches acting technique.", "What's Up, Tiger Lily? is a 1966 comedy film directed by Woody Allen in his feature-length directorial debut.\n\nAllen took a Japanese spy film, International Secret Police: Key of Keys, and overdubbed it with completely original dialogue that had nothing to do with the plot of the original film. By putting in new scenes and rearranging the order of existing scenes, he completely changed the tone of the film from a James Bond clone into a comedy about the search for the world's best egg salad recipe. \n\nDuring post-production, Allen's original one-hour television version was expanded without his permission to include additional scenes from International Secret Police: A Barrel of Gunpowder, the third film in the International Secret Police series, and musical numbers by the band The Lovin' Spoonful. This experience helped convince Allen that he should secure creative control for all his future projects. The band released a soundtrack album. Louise Lasser, who was married to Allen at the time, served as one of the voice actors for the \"new\" dialogue soundtrack, as did Mickey Rose, Allen's writing partner on Take The Money and Run (1969) and Bananas (1971).\n\nPlot\n\nThe plot provides the setup for a string of sight gags, puns, jokes based on Asian stereotypes, and general farce. The central plot involves the misadventures of secret agent Phil Moskowitz, hired by the Grand Exalted High Majah of Raspur (\"a nonexistent but real-sounding country\") to find a secret egg salad recipe that was stolen from him.\n\nThe movie has an ending unrelated to the plot, in which China Lee, a Playboy Playmate and then-wife of Allen's comic idol Mort Sahl, who does not appear elsewhere in the film, does a striptease while Allen explains that he promised he would put her in the film somewhere.\n\nCast\n\n Tatsuya Mihashi as Phil Moscowitz, a secret agent and self-described \"lovable rogue\" (other people call him \"amiable zany\")\n* Akiko Wakabayashi as Suki Yaki, a beautiful woman who seduces Phil and later works alongside him as a spy\n* Mie Hama as Teri Yaki, Suki's sister who helps Phil as well (cf. sukiyaki, teriyaki)\n* Tadao Nakamaru as Shepherd Wong, an evil gang leader who has stolen the recipe for the world's greatest egg salad\n* Susumu Kurobe as Wing Fat, an evil gangster who teams up with Phil to steal the recipe from Shepherd Wong, but intends to keep it for himself\n* Sachio Sakai as Hoodlum \n* Hideyo Amamoto as Cobra Man \n* Tetsu Nakamura as Foreign Minister \n* Osman Yusuf as Gambler \n* Kumi Mizuno as Phil's date\n* Woody Allen as Himself / Dub Voice / Projectionist \n* Julie Bennett as Dub Voice\n* Frank Buxton as Dub Voice\n* Louise Lasser as Dub Voice\n* Len Maxwell as Dub Voice\n* Mickey Rose as Dub Voice\n* The Lovin' Spoonful as Themselves\n\nSoundtrack album\n\nThe soundtrack album to What's Up Tiger Lily? was released in 1966. It contains music by The Lovin' Spoonful. The audio engineer at National Recording Studios was Fred Weinberg, who went on to produce and engineer many other films and albums. It was re-released on CD along with You're a Big Boy Now, the Spoonful's soundtrack for the 1966 film by Francis Ford Coppola. It reached No. 126 on the Billboard Pop Albums charts.\n\nTrack listing\n\n# \"Introduction to Flick\" (2:14)\n# \"Pow!\" (2:26)\n# \"Gray Prison Blues\" (2:04)\n# \"Pow Revisited\" (2:26)\n# \"Unconscious Minuet\" (2:05)\n# \"Fishin' Blues\" (1:59)\n# \"Respoken\" (1:48)\n# \"Cool Million\" (2:02)\n# \"Speakin' of Spoken\" (2:41)\n# \"Lookin' to Spy\" (2:29)\n# \"Phil's Love Theme\" (2:23)\n# \"End Title\" (4:06)" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Allen Stewart Konigsberg", "Sunyi Previn", "Allen S. Konigsberg", "Allen, Woody", "Heywood Allen", "%22Woody%22 Allen", "Woody Allen", "Soon-yi Previn", "Sun-Yi Previn", "Allan Stewart Konigsberg", "Sun Yi Previn", "Soon-Yi Farrow Previn", "Soon Yi Previn", "Soon-Yi Previn", "Allen S Konigsberg", "Soon-Yi", "Soon Yi-Previn", "Untitled Woody Allen project", "Woddy Allen", "Soon-Yi Farrow", "Woody Allan", "Soon-Yi Allen", "Allan Konigsberg", "Allen Konigsberg", "Woody allen", "Soon Yi", "Woodie Allen" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "woddy allen", "soon yi farrow previn", "soon yi farrow", "woody allan", "allen woody", "allen konigsberg", "sunyi previn", "soon yi", "allan stewart konigsberg", "soon yi previn", "sun yi previn", "untitled woody allen project", "soon yi allen", "allan konigsberg", "22woody 22 allen", "woody allen", "allen s konigsberg", "heywood allen", "woodie allen", "allen stewart konigsberg" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "woody allen", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Woody Allen" }
What was Tootsie's name before he turned into Tootsie?	tc_1225	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Tootsie.txt" ], "title": [ "Tootsie" ], "wiki_context": [ "Tootsie is a 1982 American comedy film that tells the story of a talented but volatile actor whose reputation for being difficult forces him to adopt a new identity as a woman to land a job. The movie stars Dustin Hoffman, with a supporting cast that includes Bill Murray, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman, Charles Durning, Geena Davis (in her acting debut), Doris Belack and producer/director Sydney Pollack. Tootsie was adapted by Larry Gelbart, Barry Levinson (uncredited), Elaine May (uncredited) and Murray Schisgal from the story by Gelbart and Don McGuire.\n\nIn 1998, the Library of Congress deemed the film \"culturally significant\" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. The theme song to the film, \"It Might Be You,\" which was sung by singer-songwriter Stephen Bishop, whose music was composed by Dave Grusin, and whose lyrics were written by Alan and Marilyn Bergman, was a Top 40 hit in the U.S., and also hit 1 on the U.S. adult contemporary chart.\n\nPlot\n\nMichael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman) is a respected but perfectionist actor. Nobody in New York wants to hire him anymore because he is difficult to work with. According to his long-suffering agent George Fields (Sydney Pollack), Michael's attention to detail and difficult reputation led a commercial he worked on to run significantly over-schedule, because the idea of a tomato sitting down was \"illogical\" to him. After many months without a job, Michael hears of an opening on the popular daytime soap opera Southwest General from his friend and acting student Sandy Lester (Teri Garr), who tries out for the role of a hospital administrator Emily Kimberly but does not get it. In desperation, and as a result of his agent telling him that \"no one will hire you\", he dresses as a woman, auditions as \"Dorothy Michaels\" and wins the part. Michael takes the job as a way to raise $8,000 to produce a play, written by his roommate Jeff Slater (Bill Murray) and to star Sandy, titled Return to Love Canal. Michael plays his character as a feisty, feminist administrator, which surprises the other actors and crew who expected Emily to be (as written) another swooning female in the plot. His character quickly becomes a television sensation.\n\nWhen Sandy catches Michael in her bedroom half undressed (he wanted to try on her clothes in order to get more ideas for Dorothy's outfits), he covers up by professing he wants to have sex with her. They have sex despite his better judgment about her self-esteem issues. Michael believes Sandy is too emotionally fragile to handle the truth about him winning the part, especially after noticing her strong resentment of Dorothy. Their relationship, combined with his deception, complicates his now-busy schedule. Exacerbating matters further, he is strongly attracted to one of his co-stars, lovely, soft-spoken Julie Nichols (Jessica Lange), a single mother in an unhealthy relationship with the show's amoral, sexist director, Ron Carlisle (Dabney Coleman). At a party, when Michael (as himself) approaches Julie with a pick-up line that she had previously told Dorothy she would be receptive towards, she throws a drink in his face. Later, as Dorothy, when he makes tentative advances, Julie—having just ended her relationship with Ron per Dorothy's advice—confesses that she has feelings about Dorothy which confuse her, but is not emotionally ready to be in a romantic relationship with a woman.\n\nMeanwhile, Dorothy has her own admirers to contend with: older cast member John Van Horn (George Gaynes) and Julie's widowed father Les (Charles Durning). Les proposes marriage, insisting Michael/Dorothy \"think about it\" before answering; he leaves immediately and returns home to find co-star John, who almost forces himself on Dorothy until Jeff walks in on them. John apologizes for intruding and leaves. The tipping point comes when, due to Dorothy's popularity, the show's producers want to extend her contract for another year. Michael finds a clever way to extricate himself. When the cast is forced to perform the show live, he improvises a grand speech on camera, pulls off his wig and reveals that he is actually the character's twin brother who took her place to avenge her. Sandy and Les, who are all watching at home, react with the same level of shock as the cast and crew of the show, with the exception being Jeff, who simply remarks, \"That is one nutty hospital!\" The revelation allows everybody a more-or-less graceful way out. Julie, however, is so outraged that she slugs him in the stomach in front of the cast once the cameras have stopped rolling before storming off. Some weeks later, Michael is moving forward with producing Jeff's play. He awkwardly makes peace with Les in a bar, and Les shows tentative support for Michael's attraction to Julie. Later, Michael waits for Julie outside the studio. Julie resists talking but finally admits she misses Dorothy. Michael confesses, \"I was a better man with you as a woman than I ever was with a woman as a man.\" At that, she forgives him and they walk off, Julie asking him to lend her a dress.\n\nCast\n\n* Dustin Hoffman as Michael Dorsey / Dorothy Michaels\n* Bill Murray as Jeff Slater\n* Jessica Lange as Julie Nichols\n* Teri Garr as Sandra \"Sandy\" Lester\n* Dabney Coleman as Ron Carlisle\n* Charles Durning as Leslie \"Les\" Nichols\n* Sydney Pollack as George Fields\n* George Gaynes as John Van Horn\n* Geena Davis as April Page\n* Doris Belack as Rita Marshall\n* Lynne Thigpen as Jo as\n* Estelle Getty as Middle Aged Woman\n* Willy Switkes as Man at Cab\nTobin Bell as Waiter (uncredited)\n\nProduction\n\nIn the 1970s, fashion company executive Charles Evans decided to get into movie-making. It was an industry which his brother, Robert Evans, was successful in as an actor, producer, and studio executive. Evans told the Los Angeles Times in 1995 that he got into producing \"because I enjoy movies very much. I have the time to do it. And I believe if done wisely, it can be a profitable business.\" His first foray into film production was a massive success. Playwright Don McGuire had written a play in the early 1970s about an unemployed male actor who cross-dresses in order to get jobs. Titled Would I Lie to You?, the play was shopped around Hollywood for several years until it came to the attention of comedian and actor Buddy Hackett in 1978. Hackett, interested in playing the role of the talent agent, showed the script to Evans. Evans purchased an option on the play. (Delays in the film's production forced Evans to renew the option once or twice. ) During 1979, Evans co-wrote a screenplay based on the film with director Dick Richards and screenwriter Bob Kaufman. A few months into the writing process, Richards showed it to actor Dustin Hoffman, his partner in a company which bought and developed properties for development into films, but Hoffman wanted complete creative control, and Evans agreed to remove himself from screenwriting tasks. Instead, Evans became a producer on the film, which was renamed Tootsie. Before Hoffman officially got involved, his role was previously offered to Peter Sellers and Michael Caine. \n\nThe film remained in development for an additional year as producers waited on a revised script. As pre-production began, the film ran into additional delays when Richards left the role of director due to \"creative differences\". He assumed the role of producer instead, being replaced as director by Hal Ashby. Ashby was subsequently forced to leave the project by Columbia Pictures because of the threat of legal action if his post-production commitments on Lookin' to Get Out were not fulfilled. In November 1981, Sydney Pollack signed on to the film as both director and producer as per the suggestion of Columbia. \n\nThe idea of having director Sydney Pollack play Hoffman's agent, George Fields, was Hoffman's. Originally the role was written for, and to be played by, Dabney Coleman. Pollack initially resisted the idea, but Hoffman eventually convinced him to take the role; it was Pollack's first acting work in years. Afterwards, Pollack still wanted to keep Coleman on board, and recast him, as the sexist, arrogant soap opera director Ron Carlisle. \n\nTo prepare for his role, Hoffman watched the film La Cage aux Folles several times. He also visited the set of General Hospital for research, and conducted extensive make-up tests. In an interview for the American Film Institute, Hoffman said that he was shocked that although he could be made-up to appear as a credible woman, he would never be a beautiful one. He said that he had an epiphany when he realized that although he found this woman interesting, he would not have spoken to her at a party because she was not beautiful and that as a result he had missed out on many conversations with interesting women. He concluded that he had never regarded Tootsie as a comedy. \n\nScenes set in the New York City Russian Tea Room were filmed in the actual restaurant, with additional scenes shot at Central Park and in front of Bloomingdale's Scenes also filmed in Hurley, New York as well as at the National Video Studios in NYC. \n\nReception\n\nBox office\n\nIts opening weekend gross in the United States was $5,540,470. Its final gross in the United States was $177,200,000, making it the second-highest grossing movie of 1982 after E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 56.9 million tickets in the US. \n\nCritical response\n\nRoger Ebert praised the film, giving it 4 out of 4 stars and observing:\n\nTootsie is the kind of Movie with a capital M that they used to make in the 1940s, when they weren't afraid to mix up absurdity with seriousness, social comment with farce, and a little heartfelt tenderness right in there with the laughs. This movie gets you coming and going...The movie also manages to make some lighthearted but well-aimed observations about sexism. It also pokes satirical fun at soap operas, New York show business agents and the Manhattan social pecking order. \n\nRotten Tomatoes awarded the film an 89% \"Certified Fresh\" rating among all critics. \n\nAccolades\n\nThe film was nominated for ten Academy Awards; Lange was the only winner, for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. \n\nThe other nominations were:\nBest Picture: Sydney Pollack and Dick Richards\nBest Actor in a Leading Role: Dustin Hoffman\nBest Actress in a Supporting Role: Teri Garr\nBest Director: Sydney Pollack\nBest Original Screenplay: Larry Gelbart, Murray Schisgal and Don McGuire\nBest Original Song (\"It Might Be You\"): Dave Grusin (music), Alan and Marilyn Bergman (lyrics)\nBest Sound: Arthur Piantadosi, Les Fresholtz, Dick Alexander and Les Lazarowitz\nBest Cinematography: Owen Roizman\nBest Film Editing: Fredric Steinkamp and William Steinkamp\n\nGolden Globe Awards\nBest Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy (won)\nBest Director: Sydney Pollack\nBest Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy: Dustin Hoffman (won)\nBest Actress in a Supporting Role - Motion Picture: Jessica Lange (won)\nBest Screenplay:Larry Gelbart & Murray Schisgal\n\nIn 2011, ABC aired a primetime special, Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time, that counted down the best movies chosen by fans based on results of a poll conducted by both ABC and People Weekly Magazine. Tootsie was selected as the 5 Best Comedy. \n\nAmerican Film Institute recognition\n\n 1998: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – #62 \n* 2000: AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – #2 \n* 2004: AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:\n** \"It Might Be You\" – Nominated \n* 2005: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:\n** Rita: \"I'd like to make her look a little more attractive. How far can you pull back?\"\n: Cameraman: \"How do you feel about Cleveland?\"\n: – Nominated \n* 2007: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – #69 \n\nHome media\n\nThe film was first released on CED Videodisc in 1983, on VHS and Betamax videocassettes by RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video in 1985, and on DVD in 2001. These releases were distributed by Columbia Tristar Home Video. The film was also released by The Criterion Collection in a laserdisc edition in 1992. A special 25th Anniversary edition DVD, released by Sony Pictures, arrived in 2008. In the high-definition era, the film was released on the visually superior Blu-ray Disc format in 2013, albeit at this point in time it was only distributed in selected international territories such as Germany and Japan. The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD as part of The Criterion Collection on December 16, 2014." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Michael Dorsey", "Michael K. Dorsey" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "michael k dorsey", "michael dorsey" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "michael dorsey", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Michael Dorsey" }
What was the first sequel to The Pink Panther called?	tc_1226	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "The_Pink_Panther.txt" ], "title": [ "The Pink Panther" ], "wiki_context": [ "The Pink Panther is a series of comedy films featuring an inept French police detective, Inspector Jacques Clouseau. The series began with the release of The Pink Panther (1963). The role of Clouseau was originated by, and is most closely associated with, Peter Sellers. Most of the films were directed and co-written by Blake Edwards, with theme music composed by Henry Mancini.\n\nIn the films, the Pink Panther is a large and valuable pink diamond which is first shown in the opening film in the series. The diamond is called the \"Pink Panther\" because the flaw at its center, when viewed closely, is said to resemble a leaping pink panther. The phrase reappears in the title of the fourth film The Return of the Pink Panther, in which the theft of the diamond is again the center of the plot. The phrase was used for all the subsequent films in the series, even when the jewel did not figure in the plot. It ultimately appeared in six of the eleven films.\n\nThe first film in the series had an animated opening sequence, created by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises and set to the theme music by Mancini, which featured the Pink Panther character. This character, designed by Hawley Pratt and Friz Freleng, was subsequently the subject of its own series of animated cartoons which gained its highest profile when aired on Saturday mornings as The Pink Panther Show. The character would be featured in the opening of every film in the movie series except A Shot in the Dark and Inspector Clouseau.\n\nDevelopment \n\nAlthough there are two later Pink Panther films starring Steve Martin, most of the films in the series starred Sellers as Inspector Clouseau and were directed and co-written by Blake Edwards. The jazz-based theme music was composed by Henry Mancini. In addition to the credits sequences, the theme often accompanies any suspenseful sequence in the first film and in subsequent films using the character.\n\nThe \"Pink Panther\" of the title is a diamond supposedly containing a flaw which forms the image of a \"leaping panther\" which can be seen if held up to light in a certain way. This is explained in the beginning of the first film, and the camera zooms in on the diamond to reveal the blurry flaw, which focuses into the Panther (albeit not actually leaping) to start the opening credits sequence (this is also done in Return). The plot of the first film is based on the theft of this diamond. The diamond reappears in several later films in the series, The Return of the Pink Panther, Trail of the Pink Panther and Curse of the Pink Panther, all with Sellers. It also appears in the revival of the Inspector Clouseau character in the much later Steve Martin films The Pink Panther (2006), and its sequel The Pink Panther 2 (2009). The name \"the Pink Panther\" became attached to Inspector Clouseau in much the same way that Frankenstein has been used in film titles to refer to Dr. Frankenstein's creation, or The Thin Man was used in a series of detective films.\n\nA Shot in the Dark, a film which was not originally intended to feature Clouseau, is the first of two films in the series (the other being Inspector Clouseau) that features neither the diamond nor the distinctive animated Pink Panther in the opening credits and ending. Many critics, including Leonard Maltin, regard this film as the best in the series.\n\nIn the original film, released in 1963, the main focus was on David Niven's role as Sir Charles Litton, the infamous jewel thief nicknamed \"the Phantom,\" and his plan to steal the Pink Panther. Inspector Clouseau was only a secondary character as Litton's incompetent antagonist and provided slapstick comic relief to a film that was otherwise a subtle, lighthearted crime drama, a somewhat jarring contrast of styles which is typical of Edwards' films. The popularity of Clouseau caused him to become the main character in subsequent Pink Panther films, which were more straightforward slapstick comedies.\n\nMancini's theme, with variations in arrangement, is used at the start of all but the first two of the subsequent films. Mancini's other themes for the first film include an Italian-language set-piece called Meglio Stasera, whose purpose seems primarily to introduce young actress Fran Jeffries. Portions of an instrumental version also appear in the film's musical score several times. Other segments include \"Shades of Sennett,\" a \"honky tonk\" piano number introducing the film's climactic chase scene through the streets of Rome. Most of the remaining tracks on the soundtrack album are early 1960s orchestral jazz pieces, matching the style of the era. Although variations of the main theme would reprise for many of the Pink Panther series entries, as well as the cartoon series, Mancini composed a different theme for A Shot in the Dark that was later adopted by the animated spin-off series The Inspector.\n\nThe first five Sellers–Edwards films were originally released by United Artists. Trail, Curse, and Son were released by MGM/UA. DVD rights to The Return of the Pink Panther are now controlled by Universal Pictures' Focus Features division, in partnership with British production company ITC Entertainment and successor-in-interest ITV Global Entertainment Ltd. Focus Features issued this film on DVD for Region 1.\n\nITC originally intended to make an Inspector Clouseau television series, but Blake Edwards convinced the production company to back a feature film first and a series later, if the film should prove successful. The film exceeded expectations by becoming the most profitable film of 1975. UA quickly bought out ITC's investment, and work immediately started on the next feature film.\n\nAlthough official, the live-action film Inspector Clouseau (1968) is generally not considered by fans to be part of the series canon, since it involved neither Sellers nor Edwards. Some elements of Arkin's performance and costuming, however, were retained when Peter Sellers resumed the role for Return in 1975. Despite speculation, Alan Arkin does not appear in Trail of the Pink Panther.\n\nThe film that launched the second Pink Panther series, The Pink Panther, starring Martin as Clouseau, directed by Shawn Levy and produced by Robert Simonds, was released in February 2006 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and was co-produced with Columbia Pictures. It is set in the present day and introduces different main characters, therefore belonging to a different continuity. Martin also stars in the sequel, The Pink Panther 2, released in 2009.\n\nLive-action/animated \n\nOn March 31, 2014, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer announced that they will develop a new live-action/animated Pink Panther film, to be directed by David Silverman and produced by Walter Mirisch and Julie Andrews. This film will not focus on Inspector Clouseau but will focus instead on the Pink Panther. As of March 2015, the film is still in development. \n\nFilms \n\nCharacters \n\nInspector Jacques Clouseau \n\n* First appearance: The Pink Panther (1963)\n* Appearances: All Panther films except Son of the Pink Panther\n\nJacques Clouseau is a clumsy, incompetent, but zealous policeman and detective who speaks English—with a ludicrous French accent—while other characters speak English, often with their own accents. Clouseau's accent is not emphasized in the first film, but from A Shot in the Dark onwards, the exaggerated accent became part of the joke. It has been suggested that portraying the incompetent policeman as French is based on a British stereotype of the French police or even the French population as a whole.\n\nPeter Sellers, the actor portraying Clouseau, remarked that, in his opinion, Clouseau knew he was a buffoon, but had an incredible knack for survival. Sheer luck or clumsiness usually saves him, as in the first film wherein a farcical car chase around a fountain results in the collision of all the vehicles and the capture of the thieves. This approach accelerates, with Clouseau falling down stairs, falling into pools and fountains, causing fires and disasters, and even being bombed repeatedly, an idea worked into Steve Martin's portrayal of the character. In The Pink Panther Strikes Again, assassins from all over the world are sent to kill Clouseau, whereupon he moves from their target at just the right moment to ensure that the killers eliminate one another. In Trail of the Pink Panther, we see that during World War II, Clouseau fought in the French Resistance, but the flashbacks only serve to reiterate the fact that Clouseau can survive anything despite of, or perhaps due to, his incompetence.\n\nInspector Clouseau is a patriotic Frenchman whose country is professedly his highest priority, has been prone to infatuation (often reciprocated) after being cuckolded by Sir Charles Litton, and is repeatedly perplexed by transvestites, to the extent that he addresses them as \"Sir or Madame.\"\n\nThe role was originated and developed by Peter Sellers over the years but has also been played by Alan Arkin (in Inspector Clouseau), Daniel Peacock and Lucca Mezzofonti (as younger versions in flashbacks in Trail of the Pink Panther), Roger Moore (in a cameo appearance at the conclusion of Curse of the Pink Panther), and Steve Martin (in the 2006 Pink Panther film and its 2009 sequel).\n\nChief Inspector Charles LaRousse Dreyfus \n\n* First Appearance: A Shot in the Dark (1964)\n* Appearances: All Panther films except the first film and Inspector Clouseau.\n\nClouseau's superior, Charles Dreyfus, was introduced in A Shot in the Dark, wherein he held the rank of Commissioner. He is constantly driven to distraction by Clouseau's bungling and is eventually driven insane. In The Return of the Pink Panther, Dreyfus holds the rank of Chief Inspector—but again becomes insane by the end of the film—which shows Dreyfus straitjacketed in a padded cell, writing \"Kill Clouseau\" on the wall (with his toes). As in A Shot in the Dark, Dreyfus initially suffers a variety of personal injuries (involving his gun and a cigarette lighter of a similar shape and accidentally cutting off his thumb with a cigar cutter)---before accidentally strangling his therapist while fantasizing Clouseau's death, then trying to assassinate Clouseau with a sniper's rifle. In The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Dreyfus is about to be released from an asylum after a complete recovery; however, within five minutes of Clouseau's arrival to speak to the board on Dreyfus' behalf, he suffers a variety of injuries, causing him to relapse. Thence Dreyfus escapes the asylum and kidnaps a scientist, forcing him to build a disintegrator ray later used to intimidate the rest of the world into attempting to assassinate Clouseau. Dreyfus appears to disintegrate at the end of Strikes Again, but subsequently (and without any explanation) re-appears in Revenge of the Pink Panther and is reinstated Chief Inspector when Clouseau is mistakenly declared dead. Herbert Lom famously gave his character a pronounced tic which occurred under particular stress...and an accompanying childlike giggle when plotting Clouseau's murder.\n\nIn Son of the Pink Panther, Dreyfus (a Commissioner once again) deals with Clouseau's equally buffoonish son Jacques Gambrelli, but he is more tolerant of Gambrelli. At the end of the film, Dreyfus weds Clouseau's former lover Maria Gambrelli (Jacques Gambrelli's mother) but is shocked to learn that Clouseau and Maria conceived twins: Jacques (Roberto Benigni) and Jacqueline Gambrelli (Nicoletta Braschi).\n\nIn the 2006 reboot of The Pink Panther, Dreyfus (again as Chief Inspector) uses Clouseau as a decoy while he himself attempts to solve the crimes. Dreyfus merely views Clouseau as an idiot and never attempts to have him killed, whereas Clouseau attacks his employer at one point, mistaking his identity. Later in the film, Dreyfus is dragged accidentally behind Clouseau's Smart Car and appears in the hospital, where Clouseau's bumbling causes him to fall out of a window. In the 2009 sequel, Dreyfus plays a much smaller role than in the previous film and is less hostile towards Clouseau.\n\nDreyfus was played by Herbert Lom in the Blake Edwards films, and by Kevin Kline in the 2006 film. He was played by John Cleese in the 2009 sequel.\n\nCato Fong \n\n* First Appearance: A Shot in the Dark (1964)\n* Appearances: All Panther films except the first film, the 1968 film Inspector Clouseau and the 2006-2009 films.\n\nCato (spelled \"Kato\" in A Shot in the Dark) is Clouseau's manservant, and an expert in martial arts. It is unclear whether he believes Clouseau to be a great detective or whether he merely humors him. It is a running joke that he is instructed to attack Clouseau unexpectedly, to keep Clouseau's combat skills and vigilance sharp. Cato often takes these instructions to the point of ambushing Clouseau in his own house or at times when Clouseau obviously would prefer not to be disturbed. If they are interrupted during such an attack (as by a telephone call), Cato ceases to project the image of assailant and becomes a well-disciplined valet. Regardless of who comes off worse in the actual battle (and it is Clouseau who is more often humiliated, since Cato's ambushes usually do take him by surprise) Clouseau always gets his revenge on Cato by dealing him a sucker blow after it seems the fight is over.\n\nIn later films, Cato helps Clouseau on some cases, as in Hong Kong, when Clouseau takes advantage of his own assumed death to determine the identity of his would-be killer. Here, Cato wears spectacles as a disguise but collides with various objects when the spectacles impair his vision.\n\nIn Revenge, Cato, believing his master to be dead, runs a covert brothel in Clouseau's apartment: the entrance password is \"Inspector Clouseau\", which causes a humorous scene when the true Inspector Clouseau appears. Cato opens another brothel in Curse of the Pink Panther, and converts Clouseau's apartment into a museum featuring all the disguises the inspector has worn over the years.\n\nIn the earlier series, Cato was played by Burt Kwouk. In the re-launch, the role of Cato was offered to Jackie Chan, but the character was later scrapped for fear that the Chinese stereotype would be offensive, and Cato was replaced by a new character, Gendarme Gilbert Ponton (Jean Reno), assigned by Chief Inspector Dreyfus to watch over Clouseau. In a reversal of the Cato-Clouseau relationship, Clouseau often attacks Ponton unexpectedly, only to be stopped by a single blow.\n\nFrançois \n\nFrançois, Dreyfus' assistant, generally observes his boss' interactions with Clouseau (and subsequent emotional breakdowns) with placid bemusement. André Maranne, a French actor, played François in six Panther films. In Son of the Pink Panther, he was replaced by Dermot Crowley. In A Shot in the Dark, Trail of the Pink Panther and Curse of the Pink Panther he is referred to as Sergeant François Duval whereas in the three sequels of the 1970s he is Sergeant François Chevalier. In the 2006 reboot, Philip Goodwin plays a similar character named Renard. Goodwin returned as Renard in the 2009 sequel.\n\nSir Charles Lytton/The Phantom \n\n\"The Phantom\" is a jewel thief, Clouseau's archenemy (after Dreyfus) in several of the films and known to the public as Sir Charles Lytton. He serves as the primary villain of the first film, at the end of which (and with help from Clouseau's wife and an exiled princess) he frames Clouseau for his past robberies and has him temporarily sent to prison. This ignites Clouseau's thirst for revenge in the third Sellers/Edwards film, in which the Pink Panther is stolen from a museum.\n\nIn the first film he was played by David Niven, and in Return by Christopher Plummer. In later films, an aging and frail Niven made cameo appearances in the role, with his voice dubbed by impressionist Rich Little. In these later films, Lytton is supposed to have been married to Clouseau's ex-wife after the events of the first Pink Panther, even though in Return, his wife had been a different character, yet seemingly familiar with Clouseau (seeing through, and laughing at, his disguises). In The Pink Panther 2, the diamond is stolen by a similar master thief, \"the Tornado\" (Johnny Hallyday).\n\nProfessor Auguste Balls \n\nProfessor Auguste Balls is an eccentric shop owner who supplies Clouseau with his numerous disguises. He was portrayed by Graham Stark in Revenge of the Pink Panther and Son of the Pink Panther, while Harvey Korman played him in Trail of the Pink Panther and Curse of the Pink Panther. Although Korman was the first actor to portray Balls, his scenes in The Pink Panther Strikes Again were cut and were not used until Trail of the Pink Panther six years later.\n\nProfessor Balls has a wife, Martha (Liz Smith), and an assistant, Cunny (Danny Schiller), who make brief appearances.\n\nCrew \n\nFilm series statistics \n\nHomages and references to the films \n\n* In a 1978 episode of the anime series Lupin the Third, titled \"Black Panther\" (American-dub title \"My Birthday Pursuit\"), Lupin attempts to steal the Black Panther diamond as a birthday gift for his girlfriend. Inspector Zenigata is aided by a clearly Clouseau-inspired character, Inspector Conaiseau. Conaiseau is even assisted by a Cato-inspired character, Hageito. Also within the episode, Lupin and Conaiseau both infiltrate a nudist colony, much like Clouseau does in A Shot in the Dark.\n* The Simpsons: in the season five episode \"Homer the Vigilante\" (1994), when the Springfield Cat Burglar burgles the Simpsons' house, the background music resembles the Pink Panther theme, and he steals the world's largest cubic zirconia from a museum, much like the Phantom stealing the Pink Panther diamond. When he is captured he turns out to be a suave, David Niven-like character. In another season five episode \"The Boy Who Knew Too Much\", when it was revealed the waiter's injuries were self-inflicted due to his clumsiness and not a result of Freddie Quimby assaulting him, the waiter proclaims \"This is an outrage! I am not a clumsy Clouseau-esque waiter!\" before tripping over a chair and falling out of the window into an open-roof truck filled with rat traps. In the 1998 episode \"This Little Wiggy\", an announcer on Chief Wiggum's television is heard saying \"We now return to The Return of the Pink Panther Returns, starring Ken Wahl as Inspector Clouseau\".\nCato appears in the 1999 movie Inspector Gadget during the Minions Anonymous meeting.\n In a 2000 episode of the animated series Jackie Chan Adventures, entitled \"Enter the Viper\", Jackie Chan and his niece Jade must protect the \"Pink Puma\" diamond from a female jewel thief called Viper.\n* In The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004) great homage is paid to the character of Clouseau in scenes played by Geoffrey Rush, and also the story covers Sellers' relationship with Blake Edwards, notably where Sellers describes his relationship with Edwards via Clouseau dressed as the Swedish sailor from Revenge of the Pink Panther.\n* In the 2005 Family Guy episode Breaking Out is Hard to Do there is a chase scene through Asiantown which is a parody of the original chase scene near the end of Revenge of the Pink Panther, using the same music.\n* In the Taiwanese series Hi My Sweetheart (2009), the Pink Panther is an essential point in the series ambient, and appearing a lot of times in the form of plushes or several other items. Also the male protagonist takes the name of \"Da lung\" in reference to the Pink Panther song.\n* In the 2012 30 Rock episode \"Standards and Practices\", Jack (Alec Baldwin) hires a man named Kato to attack him at random. As with Inspector Clouseau, these attacks take place in his apartment.\n\nThe Pink Panther character and animated cartoons \n\nThe opening title sequence of the original 1963 The Pink Panther film was such a success with the United Artists executives that they decided to adapt the title sequence into a series of theatrical animated shorts. DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, run by former Warner Bros. Cartoons creators David H. DePatie and Friz Freleng produced the opening sequences, with Freleng as director. United Artists commissioned a long series of The Pink Panther shorts, the first of which, 1964's The Pink Phink, won the 1964 Academy Award for Animated Short Film. This was the first (and to date only) time a studio's first work won an Oscar.\"[http://www.bcdb.com/cartoon/10259-Pink_Phink.html The Pink Phink]\". www.bcdb.com, April 13, 2013\n\nBy autumn 1969, the shorts were being broadcast on NBC\"[http://www.bcdb.com/cartoons/Other_Studios/D/DePatie-Freleng_Enterprises/The_Pink_Panther_Show/index.html The Pink Panther Show]\". www.bcdb.com, April 14, 2014 during Saturday mornings on The Pink Panther Show; after 1969, new shorts were produced for both television broadcast and theatrical release. A number of sister series also joined the Pink Panther character on movie screens and on the airwaves, including The Inspector, featuring a comical French police officer based on the Jacques Clouseau character.\n\nThe animated Pink Panther character has also appeared in computer and console video games, as well as advertising campaigns for several companies, most notably for Owens Corning Fiberglas insulation. There was also a short-lived animated series called Pink Panther and Pals (2010) which is aimed at younger children. In 2014, MGM announced that it was planning an animation / live action hybrid film reboot of the franchise, to be directed by David Silverman and produced by Walter Mirisch and Julie Andrews." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Shot in the dark", "Shot in the Dark", "A Shot in the Dark (song)", "Shot In the Dark", "A Shot in the Dark", "A Shot In The Dark", "Shot in the Dark (disambiguation)", "A Shot in the Dark (film)" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "shot in dark film", "shot in dark disambiguation", "shot in dark", "shot in dark song" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "shot in dark", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "A Shot in the Dark" }
Who played the title role in the film version of Jesus Christ Superstar?	tc_1227	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Jesus_Christ_Superstar.txt" ], "title": [ "Jesus Christ Superstar" ], "wiki_context": [ "Jesus Christ Superstar is a 1970 rock opera with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice. The musical started as a rock opera concept album before its Broadway debut in 1971. The musical is sung-through, with no spoken dialogue. The story is loosely based on the Gospels' accounts of the last week of Jesus's life, beginning with the preparation for the arrival of Jesus and his disciples in Jerusalem and ending with the crucifixion. It highlights political and interpersonal struggles between Judas Iscariot and Jesus that are not present in the Bible narratives.\n\nThe work's depiction offers a free interpretation of the psychology of Jesus and the other characters. A large part of the plot focuses on the character of Judas, who is depicted as a tragic figure dissatisfied with the direction in which Jesus steers his disciples. Contemporary attitudes and sensibilities, as well as slang, pervade the lyrics, and ironic allusions to modern life are scattered throughout the depiction of political events. Stage and film productions accordingly feature many intentional anachronisms.\n\nPlot \n\nAct I\n\nThe apostle Judas Iscariot expresses his concern over Jesus's rising popularity as a \"king\" and the negative repercussions that will have. He strongly criticises Jesus for accepting his followers' unrealistic views, and for not heeding his concerns (\"Heaven on Their Minds\"). While Judas still loves Jesus, he believes that Jesus is just a man, not God, and worries that Jesus's following will be seen as a threat to the Roman Empire which would then punish both Jesus and his associates. Judas's warning falls on deaf ears, as Jesus's followers have their minds set on going to Jerusalem with Jesus. As they ask Jesus when they will be going to Jerusalem, Jesus tells them to stop worrying about the future, since whatever will happen is determined by God (\"What's the Buzz?\").\n\nRecognizing that Jesus is irritated by the badgering and lack of understanding from his followers, Mary Magdalene tries to help Jesus relax. Judas is concerned that Jesus is associating with a woman of \"her profession\", i.e., a prostitute. It seems to Judas that Jesus is contradicting his own teaching, and he worries that this apparent lack of judgment will be used against Jesus and his followers (\"Strange Thing Mystifying\"). Jesus tells Judas that Mary is with him (Jesus) now, and unless Judas is without sin he should not judge the character of others. Jesus then reproaches his apostles for being \"shallow, thick and slow\" and somewhat bitterly answers that not a single one of them cares about him. Mary Magdalene tries to assure Jesus that everything is alright while anointing him with oil (\"Everything's Alright\"). Judas angrily insists that the money used to obtain the oil should have been used to help the poor instead. Jesus sadly explains that he and his followers do not have the resources to alleviate poverty and that they should be glad for the privileges they have. He claims that once his followers no longer have him, they will lose their path.\n\nMeanwhile, Caiaphas (the high priest), Annas, and other Jewish priests (who have been studying Jesus's movements) meet to discuss Jesus and his disciples. Jesus's growing following consists of Jews unwilling to accept the Romans as their rulers, and the priests believe that Jesus may become seen as a threat to the priesthood's integrity and the Roman Empire. If the Romans retaliate, many Jews will suffer, even those who are not following Jesus. Caiaphas tells them they are \"fools\" for not seeing the inevitable consequence of Jesus's activities. He believes there could be great bloodshed and the stakes are \"frighteningly high!\" For the greater good, he has to \"crush him completely! So like John before him, this Jesus must die!\" Annas and the other priests concur (\"This Jesus Must Die\"). As Jesus and his followers arrive exultantly in Jerusalem they are confronted by Caiaphas, who demands that Jesus disband them, which Jesus says would be futile and change nothing. As the crowd cheers him on, Caiaphas suddenly asks, \"Hey JC, JC, won't you die for me?\" To this, Jesus visibly reacts with concern (\"Hosanna\"). Jesus is approached by Simon the Zealot, who suggests that Jesus lead his mob in a war against Rome and gain absolute power (\"Simon Zealotes\"). Jesus rejects this suggestion, stating that none of his followers understand what true power is, nor do they understand his true message (\"Poor Jerusalem\").\n\nPontius Pilate, the governor of Judea, has had a dream, in which he meets with a Galilean (Jesus) and that he, Pilate, will receive all of the blame for the man's violent and mournful death (\"Pilate's Dream\"). Jesus arrives at the Temple in Jerusalem and finds that it has become a haven of sin and debauchery as it is being used for selling everything from weapons to prostitutes and drugs. He is furious and demands that the merchants and money changers leave (\"The Temple\"). Angry, disconsolate, and tired by his burden, Jesus rests and falls asleep. In a chilling nightmare, he is confronted by lepers, cripples, and beggars, all wanting to be healed. Even though he heals some, their number increases, and he is overwhelmed. Unable to solve everyone's problems, Jesus tells the crowd to heal themselves. He awakes to find Mary Magdalene by his side. She lays him to rest (\"Everything's Alright (Reprise)\"). While Jesus is asleep, Mary acknowledges that she is unconditionally in love with Jesus, unlike any man she has known before, and it frightens her (\"I Don't Know How to Love Him\").\n\nJudas gradually becomes more and more envious of Mary; he believes she has usurped him as Jesus's most trusted ally and that he prefers her to his Apostles. Conflicted, Judas seeks out the priests and promises to help them capture Jesus, while belaboring that he is acting with unselfish motives and that Jesus himself would approve if he knew those motives; he bids the priests not declare him damned. Caiaphas demands that Judas reveal the location of Jesus so that the authorities can apprehend him. In exchange for the information, Judas is offered money as a \"fee\" so that he can assuage his conscience by using the money charitably (\"Damned for All Time/Blood Money\"). Judas decides that it would be better to turn Jesus in before his popularity leads to the deaths of Jesus and his followers, Judas included. He reveals that on Thursday night, Jesus will be at the Garden of Gethsemane.\n\nAct II\n\nAt what Jesus knows will be the Last Supper, he pours wine and passes bread for his apostles (\"The Last Supper\"). Very aware of the ordeal he faces, he is stung when the others pay little attention to him; \"For all you care this wine could be my blood / For all you care this bread could be my body,\" he remarks, alluding to (and anticipating) the Christian doctrine of the Eucharist. He asks them to remember him when they eat and drink; he predicts that Peter will deny him three times \"in just a few hours\" and that one of them will betray him. Judas, believing that Jesus already knows (\"cut the dramatics, you know very well who\"), admits he is the one and angrily accuses Jesus of acting recklessly and egotistically. Claiming he does not understand Jesus's decisions, he leaves to bring the Roman soldiers.\n\nThe remaining apostles fall asleep, and Jesus retreats to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray (\"Gethesemane (I Only Want to Say)\"). He admits to God his doubts, fears and anger, that he is tired and has done all he can. He asks powerfully if any of it has meaning and implores God not let him suffer the horrible death that portends for him. He feels disillusioned with his quest as the Messiah, does not understand what it has achieved and wishes to give up. Receiving no answer, Jesus realises that he cannot defy God's will, and surrenders to God. His prayer ends with a request that God take him immediately, \"before I change my mind.\"\n\nJudas arrives with Roman soldiers and identifies Jesus by kissing him on the cheek (\"The Arrest\"). Jesus is arrested, and his apostles attempt to fight the soldiers. Jesus tells them to let the soldiers take him to Caiaphas. On the way, a mob (acting like—and sometimes represented as—modern-day news reporters) asks Jesus what he plans to do, but Jesus declines to comment. When Jesus is brought to trial before the Sanhedrin, Caiaphas asks if he is the son of God. Jesus responds: \"That's what you say, you say that I am.\" This answer is affirmative according to Jewish custom, and that provides enough justification for the high priests to send Jesus to Pontius Pilate. Meanwhile, Jesus's apostle Peter is confronted by an old man, a soldier and a maid, and Peter denies to each that he knows Jesus (\"Peter's Denial\"). Mary asks Peter why he denied Jesus, and Peter responds that he had to do it in order to save himself. Mary wonders how Jesus knew that Peter would deny him three times.\n\nPilate asks Jesus if he is the son of God. Jesus gives the same answer that he gave Caiaphas: \"that's what you say.\" Since Jesus is from Galilee, Pilate says that he is not under his jurisdiction and sends him to King Herod (\"Pilate and Christ\"). As Jesus is dragged away, the chorus asks where Jesus's power has gone. The decadent and flamboyant King Herod asks Jesus to prove his divinity by performing miracles, offering to free him if he complies; but Jesus ignores him (\"King Herod's Song (Try It And See)\"). Herod decides that Jesus is just another phony messiah and angrily sends him back to Pilate. The apostles and Mary Magdalene remember when they first began following Jesus, and wish that they could return to a time of peace (\"Could We Start Again, Please?\") \n\nJudas is horrified upon beholding Jesus's harsh treatment by the authorities. Feeling extreme guilt for this, and panicking that he will be seen as responsible, Judas expresses regret to the priests, fearing he will forever be remembered as a traitor. Caiaphas and Annas say that what he has done will save everyone and that he should not feel remorse for his actions before throwing him out of their temple. Left alone, recognition dawns that memories of this could haunt the rest of his life, that God chose him to be the one to betray Jesus, and that he has been used as a pawn for the \"foul bloody crime!\" He suffers a mental breakdown during the epiphany, cursing God for his manipulative ways, and in a final attempt to detach himself from his destiny, he commits suicide by hanging himself from a tree (\"Judas's Death\").\n\nAt Jesus's trial Pilate asks the crowd if they would crucify Jesus, their king, and they declare: \"We have no king but Caesar!\" Pilate remembers the dream he had about the crowd and the unjust execution of Jesus. Pilate tells the crowd that, while Jesus should be imprisoned, he does not deserve to die. Pilate demands that the crowd give him a reason to condemn Jesus, and the crowd breaks into a pep rally-style cheer about how Jesus is a blasphemer and has defied Rome. After revealing Jesus as nothing more than a pathetic human being (\"Behold the man!\"), Pilate calls the crowd hypocrites, as he knows they hate Roman rule. He attempts to satisfy their bloodlust by having Jesus whipped, counting thirty-nine bloody strokes (\"Trial Before Pilate, (Including The Thirty-Nine Lashes)\"). Pilate, clearly disturbed by the whole ordeal, pleads with Jesus to defend himself; but Jesus says weakly that everything has been determined, by God, and Pilate cannot change it. The crowd still screams for Jesus to be crucified, and Pilate recalls his duty to keep the peace. He reluctantly agrees to crucify Jesus to keep the crowd from getting violent. Pilate then washes his hands of Jesus's death: \"I wash my hands of your demolition! Die if you want to, you – innocent puppet....\"\n\nAs Jesus prepares to be crucified, he is mocked by the spirit of Judas. Judas questions why Jesus chose to arrive in the manner and time that he did, and if what happened to him was really part of a divine plan, but Jesus does not say (\"Superstar\"). After reciting his final words and commending his spirit to God, Jesus slowly dies on the cross, his fate coming full circle (\"The Crucifixion\"). In the end, the Apostles, Mary and Judas, mourning the death of their fallen saviour, reflect on the impact he has had on their lives (\"John Nineteen: Forty-One\"). \n\nPrincipal roles\n\nMusical numbers \n\nAct One\n* \"Overture\" – Orchestra\n* \"Heaven on Their Minds\" – Judas\n* \"What's the Buzz\" / \"Strange Thing Mystifying\" – Apostles, Jesus, Mary, Judas, Peter, Woman\n* \"Everything's Alright\" – Mary, Women, Judas, Jesus, Apostles\n* \"This Jesus Must Die\" – Annas, Caiaphas, Apostles, Priests\n* \"Hosanna\" – Apostles, Caiaphas, Jesus, Ensemble\n* \"Simon Zealotes\" / \"Poor Jerusalem\" – Apostles, Simon, Jesus, Ensemble\n* \"Pilate's Dream\" – Pilate\n* \"The Temple\" – Ensemble, Jesus\n* \"Everything's Alright (reprise)\" – Mary, Jesus\n* \"I Don't Know How to Love Him\" – Mary\n* \"Damned For All Time\" / \"Blood Money\" – Judas, Annas, Caiaphas, Chorus\n\nAct Two\n* \"The Last Supper\" – Apostles, Jesus, Judas\n* \"Gethsemane (I Only Want to Say)\" – Jesus\n* \"The Arrest\" – Judas, Jesus, Peter, Apostles, Ensemble, Annas, Caiaphas\n* \"Peter's Denial\" – Maid by the Fire, Peter, Soldier, Old Man, Mary\n* \"Pilate and Christ\" – Pilate, Annas, Jesus, Ensemble\n* \"King Herod's Song (Try it and See)\" – Herod, Dancers\n* \"Could We Start Again Please?\" – Mary, Apostles, Peter\n* \"Judas' Death\" – Judas, Annas, Caiaphas, Chorus\n* \"Trial Before Pilate (Including the Thirty-Nine Lashes)\" – Pilate, Caiaphas, Annas, Jesus, Ensemble\n* \"Superstar\" – Judas, Soul Sisters, Angels\n* \"The Crucifixion\" – Jesus, Ensemble\n* \"John Nineteen: Forty-One\" – Orchestra\n\nFrom album to stage\n\nThe songs were first written and conceived as a concept album, before the musical was created and staged. On the original album, the part of Jesus was sung by Ian Gillan, with Murray Head as Judas, Michael d'Abo as King Herod, Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene, and Barry Dennen as Pilate. In July 1971, the first authorised American concert of the rock opera took place in front of an audience of 13,000 people at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's Civic Arena with Jeff Fenholt singing the role of Jesus, Carl Anderson as Judas and Elliman repeating as Mary Magdalene. \n\nOriginal Broadway production \n\nThe musical opened on Broadway on 12 October 1971, directed by Tom O'Horgan, at the Mark Hellinger Theatre. It starred Jeff Fenholt as Jesus, Ben Vereen as Judas and Bob Bingham as Caiaphas. Dennen and Elliman created the roles that they had sung on the album. Kurt Yaghjian was Annas, and Ted Neeley (as a Christ understudy), Samuel E. Wright and Anita Morris appeared in the cast. Carl Anderson replaced Vereen when he fell ill, and the two performers later took turns playing the role. The show closed on 30 June 1973 after 711 performances. The production received mixed reviews; the reviewer from The New York Times deemed it to be a heartless over-hyped production. Lloyd Webber said in 2012: \"I hugely objected to the original New York production, which was probably the worst night of my life. It was a vulgar travesty.\" The show was nominated for five Tony Awards, including Best Score, but didn't win any. Lloyd Webber won a Drama Desk Award as \"Most Promising Composer\", and Vereen won a Theatre World Award.\n\nControversy \n\nThe Broadway show and subsequent productions were condemned by some religious groups. Tim Rice was quoted as saying \"It happens that we don't see Christ as God but simply the right man at the right time at the right place.\" Some Christians considered such comments to be blasphemous, the character of Judas too sympathetic and some of his criticisms of Jesus offensive. At the same time, some Jews claimed that it bolstered the antisemitic belief that the Jews are responsible for Jesus' death by showing most of the villains as Jewish (Caiaphas and the other priests, Herod) and showing the crowd in Jerusalem calling for the crucifixion. The musical was banned in South Africa for being \"irreligious\". A 1972 production of the play was banned in the Hungarian People's Republic for \"distribution of religious propaganda\". \n\nOther 1970s and 1980s productions \n\nSuperstar opened at the Palace Theatre in London in 1972, starring Paul Nicholas as Jesus, Stephen Tate as Judas and Dana Gillespie as Mary Magdalene. It was directed by Australian Jim Sharman. This production was much more successful than the original production on Broadway, running for eight years and becoming the United Kingdom's longest-running musical at the time. Dmitri Shostakovich attended this production in London just before his death. He regretted that he could not have composed something like it; he lauded especially a rock band underpinning full symphonic strings, brass and woodwind. \n\nOne of the earliest foreign productions was a five-day run in Sweden at Scandinavium in Gothenburg, opening on 18 February 1972 and playing to 74,000 people (a record at the time). Starring as Mary Magdalene was Agnetha Fältskog. On 16 March 1972 an oratorio version was performed at Memorial Drive Park in Adelaide, South Australia as part of the Adelaide Festival of the Arts. This was followed in May by the first full Australian production, at the Capitol Theatre, Sydney, later moving to the Palais Theatre in Melbourne. Sharman again directed, and the cast featured Trevor White as Jesus, Jon English as Judas, and Michele Fawdon (1972–1973) and Marcia Hines (1973–1974) as Mary Magdalene. Hines was the first black woman to play the role. Other cast members included Reg Livermore, John Paul Young, Stevie Wright, and Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock, who met during the production and subsequently formed the band Air Supply. The production ran until February 1974. In June 1972 the show opened in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in Atelje 212 theatre, in adaptation by Jovan Ćirilov. The role of Jesus Christ was played by Korni Grupa vocalist Zlatko Pejaković, the role of Mary Magdalen by Azra Halinović and the role of Pontius Pilate by Branko Milićević. The premiere was directly broadcast by Radio Television of Belgrade. The show also featured at the time little known musicians Bora Đorđević and Srđan Marjanović as members of the choir. The production was praised by the Yugoslav public.\n\nIn 1973, the show opened in Paris at the Théâtre de Chaillot in a French adaptation by Pierre Delanoë. The title role was sung by Daniel Beretta, and Maria Magdalena was Anne-Marie David. The critics were unimpressed, and the production stopped after 30 performances. In 1974, first Spanish-language production ran in Mexico with the title \"Jesucristo Super Estrella\". Julissa played Mary Magdalen. The musical was seen in 1974 in Peru and Singapore. \n\nRobert Stigwood launched two road touring companies in 1971 to cover North America, one of which featured Robert Corff as Jesus. The first major US National Tour, however began In 1976, managed by Laura Shapiro Kramer. The tour continued until 1980. In 1977, the show had its first Broadway revival, running from 23 November 1977 to 12 February 1978. It was directed by William Daniel Grey, with choreography by Kelly Carrol and starred William Daniel Grey as Jesus, Patrick Jude as Judas, and Barbara Niles as Mary Magdalene. Regional productions followed.\n\nIn 1981, Emilio de Soto directed an English-language version in Venezuela, with 163 actors. From 1982 to 1984, an Australian production toured Australia and South-East Asia, directed by Trevor White, who also reprised his role of Jesus. The cast featured Doug Parkinson as Judas and Marcia Hines (reprising her role as Mary Magdalene).\n\n1990s and 2000s \n\nThe North American touring revival of Superstar in 1992 starred Neeley and Anderson reprising their respective Broadway and 1973 film roles as Jesus and Judas, receiving positive reviews for their performances. This production also starred both Dennis DeYoung as Pilate, and Syreeta and Irene Cara sharing Mary Magdalene. Originally expected to run for three to four months, the tour ended up running for five years. Replacements in this tour included Jason Raize as Pontius Pilate and Simone as the Maid by the Fire and understudy for Mary. In 1994, a New Zealand production starred Darryl Lovegrove as Jesus, Jay Laga'aia as Judas and Frankie Stevens as Caiaphas. Also in 1994, a stage version titled Jesus Christ Superstar: A Resurrection was performed in Atlanta, Austin and Seattle featuring Amy Ray as Jesus, Emily Saliers as Mary Magdalene and Michael Lorant as Judas.\n\nIn 1996, the musical was revived in London at the Lyceum Theatre and ran for a year and a half. Directed by Gale Edwards, it starred Steve Balsamo and Zubin Varla as Jesus and Judas, and Joanna Ampil as Mary Magdalene. It featured Alice Cooper as King Herod. The production was nominated for a Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival but did not win. It was followed by a UK tour. This production was revived on Broadway at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts in 2000, starring Glenn Carter as Jesus and Tony Vincent as Judas. It opened to mixed reviews and ran for 161 performances. It was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical but did not win. In 2002, a national tour starred Sebastian Bach as Jesus and Anderson once again as Judas. Bach received mixed reviews while Anderson was again praised. In April 2003, Bach was replaced by Eric Kunze. Anderson left the show later in 2003 after being diagnosed with leukaemia and died in 2004. The tour closed shortly after Anderson's departure.\n\nIn 2004 a year-long UK tour began, directed by Bob Tomson and Bill Kenwright. Carter reprised his role as Jesus, with James Fox as Judas. In 2005, a successful Scandinavian tour starred Australian Peter Murphy (Jesus), American Kristen Cummings (Mary), Englishman Jon Boydon née Stokes (Judas), Frenchman Jérôme Pradon (King Herod) and Australian Michael-John Hurney (Pilate). A US tour starring Neeley, reprising his role as Jesus and Corey Glover as Judas, began in 2006 and played for five years. A Chilean heavy metal version has played annually in Santiago since 2004.[http://www.jesucristometalstar.cl Jesucristo Metalstar] In Boston, Gary Cherone portrayed Jesus in productions in 1994, 1996 and 2003 and Judas in 2000.\n\n2010s; other international productions\n\nA new production of Jesus Christ Superstar was mounted at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, in Stratford, Ontario in 2011. Directed by Des McAnuff, the cast starred Paul Nolan as Jesus, Josh Young as Judas, Brent Carver as Pilate, Chilina Kennedy as Mary Magdalene, Bruce Dow as Herod and Melissa O'Neil as Martha. This moved to La Jolla Playhouse later in the year and transferred to the Neil Simon Theatre on Broadway in 2012, with Tom Hewitt taking over the role of Pilate. Reviews were mixed. The revival was nominated for two Tonys: Best Revival and, for Young, Best Actor. Neither award was won, but Young won a Theatre World Award. The revival closed after 116 performances and 24 previews. \n\nThrough a 2012 ITV competition TV show called Superstar, produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the UK public chose Ben Forster for the role of Jesus in an arena tour of the musical that started in September 2012. The production also starred Tim Minchin as Judas, Melanie C as Mary Magdalene and Chris Moyles as King Herod. Lloyd Webber stated that the show was meant to be presented outside the confines of a proscenium theatre. The tour resumed in March 2013 in the UK, and an Australian leg of the tour commenced in Perth in May 2013. Andrew O'Keefe played King Herod in Australia, with Jon Stevens as Pilate. Stevens had played Judas in an Australian arena tour in 1992. \n\nThe musical has been produced in Ireland, Brazil, Hungary, India, New Zealand, Italy, France, Mexico, Chile, Bulgaria, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Russia, Poland, Czech Republic, Greece, Australia, The Philippines, South Africa, Panama, Colombia, Croatia, Bolivia (where it was also released as a TV movie), Netherlands, Portugal, and others. Two notable Jesuses were Takeshi Kaga, in the 1976 Japanese production, and Camilo Sesto in the 1975 Spanish production. Mary Magdalene was Rocío Banquells in a 1981 production in Mexico. A Czech version premiered in 1994 in Prague's Spirála Theatre and ran until 1998, with 1288 performances. In the 2000s, a Venezuelan production ran for two years (2006–2008), directed by Michel Hausmann. A Spanish production produced by Stage Entertainment ran from 2007 to 2009, followed by long-running productions in Italy and Sweden (featuring Ola Salo) and Norway.\n\nIn 2010, an Australian production presented by Harvest Rain Theatre Company and directed by Tim O'Connor featured Luke Kennedy as Jesus, Naomi Price as Mary, Tod Strike as Judas, and Steven Tandy in a special guest appearance as Herod. A 2014 production in São Paulo, Brazil starred Igor Rickli as Jesus. Negra Li was Mary Magdalene. A 2014 production in Lima, Peru at the Sarita Colonia prison, as part of a rehabilitation program for inmates, received some press. Eighty prisoners mounted the production, directed by inmate Freddy Battifora, who also played the role of Jesus. The Catholic Church approved of the production.\n\nConcerts of the show have been mounted in Vienna, Austria, since 1981, including one on Easter of 2015 starring Drew Sarich in the title role. \n\nRecordings and broadcasts \n\nThe original 1970 concept album was very popular; its 1971 US release topped the US Billboard Pop Albums in 1971. The 1972 and 1992 Australian cast recordings were also both highly successful. In 1994, a studio recording under the name of Jesus Christ Superstar: A Resurrection was released. A 1996 radio production for BBC Radio 2 starred Tony Hadley as Jesus, Roger Daltrey as Judas, and Frances Ruffelle as Mary Magdalene.\n\nIn 2000, an Italian performance of Jesus Christ Superstar was broadcast on Rai Radio 2. Carl Anderson appeared on this recording, singing the song \"Superstar\".\n\nFilms \n\nA film adaptation of Jesus Christ Superstar was released in 1973 and was the eighth highest-grossing film of that year. The film, directed by Norman Jewison, was shot in Israel and other Middle Eastern locations. Ted Neeley and Carl Anderson were each nominated for a Golden Globe Award for their portrayals of Jesus and Judas, respectively, and Yvonne Elliman was nominated for a Golden Globe Award as Mary Magdalene. Bob Bingham (Caiaphas) and Barry Dennen (Pilate) also reprised their roles. Though it attracted criticism from some religious groups, the film was generally well received. A new song, called \"Then We Are Decided\" and phrased as a dialogue between Caiaphas and Annas, was written and composed for this adaptation.\n\nA second film adaptation was released in 2000 for television, starring Glenn Carter as Jesus, Jérôme Pradon as Judas, Reneé Castle as Mary Magdalene, and Rik Mayall as Herod. The film was directed by Gale Edwards and Nick Morris. It won an Emmy Award in 2001 for Best Performing Arts film. The style of the film is more like the stage version than the location-based 1973 adaptation and used many of the ideas from Edwards' 1998 UK tour. Several members of the film's cast went on to the 2000 Broadway production after shooting the film.\n\nA live recording of the 2012 arena tour was shown in Australian cinemas in November 2012. A DVD and Blu-ray copy of the film was subsequently released. \n\nAwards and nominations\n\nOriginal Broadway production\n\n1996 London revival\n\n2000 Broadway revival\n\n2011 Stratford Shakespeare Festival / 2012 Broadway revival" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Ted Neeley", "Ted Neely" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "ted neely", "ted neeley" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "ted neely", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Ted Neely" }
Who was the leader of the band that appeared in The Brady Bunch Movie?	tc_1230	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "The_Brady_Bunch_Movie.txt" ], "title": [ "The Brady Bunch Movie" ], "wiki_context": [ "The Brady Bunch Movie is a 1995 American comedy film based on the 1969–1974 television series The Brady Bunch. The film features all the original regular characters, all played by new actors. It also took the unusual route of placing the original sitcom characters, with their 1970s fashion sense and 1970s sitcom family morality, in a contemporary 1990s setting, drawing humor from the resulting culture clash. The film was followed by A Very Brady Sequel in 1996 and a television film called The Brady Bunch in the White House in 2002. This film was the first by Paramount Pictures under Viacom ownership.\n\nPlot\n\nThe film opens with a montage of scenes reflecting life in the 1990s, with heavy traffic, rushing commuters, and homeless people on the street. Larry Dittmeyer (Michael McKean), an unscrupulous real estate developer, explains to his boss that almost all the families in his neighborhood have agreed to sell their property as part of a plan to turn the area into a shopping mall. The only exception is one family, which prompts his angry boss to ask, \"What's their story?\" which leads into the opening blue-box credits of The Brady Bunch.\n\nThe concept of the film is that although it is set in the 1990s, the Brady family are still portrayed as their 1970s television incarnations and are unaware of the disparity between their lives and their surroundings. The parents, Mike (Gary Cole) and Carol (Shelley Long), are having breakfast prepared by their housekeeper, Alice (Henriette Mantel), while the six children prepare for school. Jan (Jennifer Elise Cox) is jealous of her elder, popular sister Marcia (Christine Taylor); Cindy (Olivia Hack) is tattling about everything she's hearing; Greg (Christopher Daniel Barnes) is dreaming of becoming a singer; Peter (Paul Sutera) is nervous that his voice is breaking; Bobby (Jesse Lee) is excited about his new role as hall monitor at school.\n\nCindy gives Mike and Carol a tax delinquency notice (which was earlier mistakenly delivered to the Dittmeyers) stating that they face foreclosure on their house if they do not pay $20,000 in back taxes. The two initially ignore the crisis, but when Mike's architectural design is turned down by two potential clients, he tells Carol that they may have to sell the house. Cindy overhears this and tells her siblings and they look for work to raise money to save the house, but their earnings are nowhere near enough to reach the required sum. Mike manages to sell a Japanese company on one of his dated designs, thereby securing the money, only for Larry to sabotage it by claiming that Mike's last building collapsed.\n\nOn the night before the Bradys have to move out, Marcia suggests that they enter a \"Search for the Stars\" contest, the prize of which is exactly $20,000. Jan, having originally suggested this and been rejected, runs away from home. Cindy sees her leave and tattles, and the whole family goes on a search for her. They use their car's C.B. radio, and their transmission is heard by Schultzy (Ann B. Davis, who played Alice in the original series), a driver who picks up Jan and convinces her to return home.\n\nThe next day, the children join the \"Search for the Stars\" contest with a dated performance that receives poor audience response compared to the more modern performances of other bands. However, the judges — Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, and Peter Tork, all of the 1960s band The Monkees — vote for them, and they win the contest as a result. The tax bill is paid and their neighbors withdraw their homes from the market, foiling Larry's plan and securing the neighborhood.\n\nThe film ends with the arrival of Carol's mother (Florence Henderson, who played Carol in the original series), who finally convinces Jan to stop being jealous of Marcia, only for Cindy to start feeling jealous of Jan.\n\nIn the end credits, the Bradys are in their traditional blue boxes, but are updated for the time and include various humorous outtakes, such as Marcia taking over Jan's box, Alice removing her uniform to reveal bondage gear underneath, Mrs. Dittmeyer aggressively seducing the married (and seemingly smitten) Mike, and grandma coming into Carol's box.\n\nCast\n\n* Gary Cole as Mike Brady\n* Shelley Long as Carol Brady\n* Christopher Daniel Barnes as Greg Brady\n* Christine Taylor as Marcia Brady\n* Paul Sutera as Peter Brady\n* Jennifer Elise Cox as Jan Brady\n* Jesse Lee as Bobby Brady\n* Olivia Hack as Cindy Brady\n* Henriette Mantel as Alice Nelson\n* David Graf as Sam Franklin\n* Alanna Ubach as Noreen\n* Megan Ward as Donna Leonard\n* Michael McKean as Larry Dittmeyer\n* Jean Smart as Dena Dittmeyer\n* Jack Noseworthy as Eric Dittmeyer\n* Moriah Snyder as Missy Dittmeyer\n* Shane Conrad as Doug Simpson\n* Marissa Ribisi as Holly\n* R.D. Robb as Charlie Anderson\n* Elisa Pensler-Gabrielli as Miss Linley\n* RuPaul as Mrs. Cummings\n* Darion Basco as Eddie\n* Davy Jones as himself\n* Micky Dolenz as himself\n* Peter Tork as himself\n* \"Mudd Pagoda\" David Darling, vocals; Marc Danzeisen, drums; Roger Joseph Manning, Jr., keyboards; Eric Dover, guitar; and Sheldon Strickland, bass guitar as members of the high school band\n\n;Cameos by original Brady Bunch actors\n* Florence Henderson (the original Carol) as the family's grandmother\n* Ann B. Davis (the original Alice) as Schultzy, a trucker (\"Schultzy\" is a reference to her most famous role prior to The Brady Bunch on The Bob Cummings Show)\n* Barry Williams (the original Greg) as a record producer who rejects the film's Greg's attempts to sell his song\n* Maureen McCormick (the original Marcia) as a Lemonade Lady\n* Christopher Knight (the original Peter) as a coach who stops two boys from bullying the film's Peter in a cafeteria scene\n* Mike Lookinland (the original Bobby) as a cop\n* Susan Olsen (the original Cindy) as a news reporter\n\nProduction\n\nThe film was shot almost entirely in Los Angeles, California, with the Brady house being located in Sherman Oaks. The school scenes were shot at Taft High School in Woodland Hills. Some scenes were filmed at Bowcraft amusement park in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. \n\nThe producers had sought to film the original house that had been used for exterior shots during the original Brady Bunch series, but the owner of the Studio City, California home refused to restore the property to its 1969 appearance. The filmmakers instead erected a facade around a house in nearby Encino and filmed scenes in the front yard.\n\nReception\n\nThe film's response among critics has been mixed to positive. It bears a 63% \"Fresh\" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the consensus stating, \"Though lightweight and silly, The Brady Bunch Movie still charms as homage to the 70s sitcom.\" The film opened at #1 at the box office with $14,827,066 and grossed $46,576,136, in the U.S. and Canada and $7,500,000 overseas making a total gross of $54,076,136 worldwide.\n\nSequels\n\nThe film was followed by two sequels:\nA Very Brady Sequel sees the family routine thrown into disarray when a man claiming to be Carol's long-lost first husband arrives on their doorstep. The family must then follow Carol to Hawaii in order to set things straight.\nThe second sequel, The Brady Bunch in the White House, sees a convoluted series of mishaps end with Mike and Carol Brady elected as President and Vice President of the United States. Despite innocent efforts to improve the country, the Brady family is beset on all sides by controversy and imagined scandals which threaten to tear them apart. Although the original actors for Mike and Carol return, the children and Alice are all recast for this film, which was released as a filmed-for-television movie." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Davey Jones", "Davy Jones (disambiguation)", "Davy Jones", "Davi Jones" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "davi jones", "davy jones disambiguation", "davy jones", "davey jones" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "davy jones", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Davy Jones" }
"In which film was chorus girl Peggy Sawyer told to ""come back a star?"""	tc_1231	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "Search" ], "filename": [ "42nd_Street_(musical).txt" ], "title": [ "42nd Street (musical)" ], "wiki_context": [ "42nd Street is an American musical with a book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble, lyrics by Al Dubin, and music by Harry Warren. The 1980 Broadway production, produced by David Merrick, directed by an ailing Gower Champion and orchestrated by Philip J. Lang, won the Tony Award for Best Musical and became a long-running hit. The show was produced in London in 1984 (winning the Olivier Award for Best Musical) and its 2001 Broadway revival won the Tony for Best Revival.\n\nBased on the novel by Bradford Ropes and the subsequent 1933 Hollywood film adaptation, the show focuses on the efforts of famed dictatorial Great White Way director Julian Marsh to mount a successful stage production of a musical extravaganza at the height of the Great Depression.\n\nBackground\n\nProducer David Merrick \"took a huge gamble with his $3 million production based on the 1933 Warner Brothers film musical\", as \"only one other show had made the transfer from original movie musical to the stage -- 'Gigi,' a flop in 1974.\"[http://www.pbs.org/wnet/broadway/musicals/42nd.html 42nd Street History] pbs.org, accessed April 8, 2011[http://www.sptimes.com/2003/04/28/Floridian/Renovating__42nd_Stre.shtml \"Floridian Renovating 42nd_Street\"] sptimes, April 28, 2003 He felt audiences once again were ready to embrace the nostalgia craze started by the successful revivals of No, No, Nanette, Irene, and his own Very Good Eddie several years earlier, and augmented the familiar songs from the film's soundtrack with a liberal dose of popular tunes from the Dubin-Warren catalogue. According to theater historian John Kenrick, \"When the curtain slowly rose to reveal forty pairs of tap-dancing feet, the star-studded opening night audience at the Winter Garden cheered...Champion followed this number with a series of tap-infused extravaganzas larger and more polished than anything Broadway really had in the 1930s.\" \n\nProductions\n\n;Original Broadway\nIn June 1980, the musical premiered in out-of-town tryouts at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The musical opened on Broadway on August 25, 1980, at the Winter Garden Theatre,Rich, Frank. \"Theater:Musical 42ND Street\", The New York Times, August 25, 1980, p. C7 and then moved to the Majestic and finally to the St. James, closing on January 8, 1989 after 3,486 performances and 6 previews. (Frank Rich called this a sign of the \"shift of power\" on Broadway, as the show had to leave the Winter Garden to make way for Cats and the Majestic to accommodate The Phantom of the Opera.) The original cast included Jerry Orbach as Julian Marsh, Tammy Grimes as Dorothy Brock, Wanda Richert as Peggy Sawyer, and Lee Roy Reams as Billy Lawlor. Replacements later in the run included Barry Nelson and Don Chastain and Jamie Ross who played Julian for the last three years of its Broadway run, Elizabeth Allen, Dolores Gray and Millicent Martin as Dorothy, and Lisa Brown and Karen Ziemba as Peggy. (Karen Prunzik, who originated the role of Anytime Annie, briefly played the role of Peggy when Wanda Richert became ill and her understudy abruptly quit the show.) The show's designers, Robin Wagner (sets), Theoni V. Aldredge (costumes), and Tharon Musser (lights) were the same team who had designed the original Broadway production of A Chorus Line. The original Broadway production is the 14th longest running show in Broadway history, as of September 22, 2015. \n\nHowever, the opening night triumph was overshadowed by tragedy. Following a lengthy standing ovation, Merrick went onstage and stated, \"It is tragic...Gower Champion died this afternoon.\" He went on to explain that Champion died hours before the performance, \"when he said that Mr. Champion had died, there were gasps and screams.\" The producer had advised only Bramble of Champion's death and managed to keep the news a secret from the cast (including Richert, the director's girlfriend), crew, and the public prior to his announcement. \n\n42nd Street proved to be not only Champion's last show but Merrick's final success. Merrick lived until 2000, but, as described by Anthony Bianco, 42nd Street \"was his last big hit, his swan song.\" \n\nThis Tony–nominated wardrobe, designed by Theoni V. Aldredge, is on rotating display at the Wick Theatre and Costume Museum in Boca Raton, Florida. \n\n;West End – 1984\nThe West End production opened at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on August 8, 1984. The career of teenaged Catherine Zeta-Jones, a chorus member in the 1984 West End production, was launched when a vacation and an illness felled both the actress portraying Peggy Sawyer and her understudy when one of the producers happened to be in the audience. Zeta-Jones filled in and was impressive enough to be cast permanently in the role shortly afterward. \n\n;San Francisco – 1985\nA San Francisco production opened at the Golden Gate Theatre on February 19, 1985 and ran through July 20, concurrently with the original Broadway production. \n\n;Broadway revival – 2001\nBramble revised the book for and directed the Broadway revival, with choreography by Randy Skinner (dance assistant for the original production). It opened, after 31 previews, on May 2, 2001 at the Foxwoods Theatre (formerly the Ford Center for the Performing Arts),Brantley, Ben.[http://theater.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?_r\n1&html_title&tols_title\n42ND%20STREET%20(PLAY)&bylineBy%20BEN%20BRANTLEY&pdate\n20010503&id1077011420413&oref\nslogin \"Theater Review:You've Got to Come Back a . . . You Know\"] The New York Times, May 3, 2001 where it ran for 1,524 performances. The cast included Michael Cumpsty as Julian, Christine Ebersole as Dorothy, Kate Levering as Peggy, and David Elder as Billy. Meredith Patterson, who made her Broadway musical debut in the chorus and was the understudy for the role of Peggy Sawyer, took over the role in August 2001. Todd Lattimore, who had been a swing and understudy, took the role of Billy. Other notable replacements included Patrick CassidyJones, Kenneth.[http://www.playbill.com/news/article/85120-Shirley-Jones-and-Patrick-Cassidy-Announced-for-Bways-42nd-Street-Starting-May-7 \"Shirley Jones and Patrick Cassidy Announced for Bway's '42nd Street', Starting May 7\"] playbill.com, March 23, 2004 and Tom Wopat as Julian and Shirley Jones and Beth Leavel as Dorothy.\n\n;UK Tour – 2007\nThe Broadway revival production, by UK Productions, toured the UK in 2007. The cast included Paul Nicholas as Julian for the first part of the tour, later replaced by Dave Willetts, Julia J. Nagle as Dorothy, Jessica Punch as Peggy, and Ashley Nottingham as Billy. \n\n;Asian Tour – 2007-08\nAn Asian tour of the Broadway revival played major venues throughout China and South Korea, with an English–speaking company directed by Mark Bramble. The cast included Paul Gregory Nelson as Julian, Natalie Buster as Dorothy, Kristen Martin as Peggy, and Charles MacEachern as Billy.\n\n;Regional – 2009\nA production directed by director/choreographer Randy Skinner made its debut at the Westchester Broadway Theatre in Elmsford, New York on September 24, 2009 through February 2010. A one-act condensed version played for several months at the Reno Eldorado Hotel, Reno, Nevada showroom using recorded music track, closing in October 2009. \n\n;Chichester and Leicester UK, 2011/12\nA new production was staged for the Chichester Festival at the Chichester Festival Theatre in summer 2011. It was directed by Paul Kerryson with new choreography by Andrew Wright and starred Kathryn Evans as Dorothy and Tim Flavin as Julian. This production transferred to Curve in Leicester for the Christmas 2011 season (breaking all previous box office records for the theatre). Tim Flavin reprised his role, Ria Jones played Dorothy and Daisy Maywood portrayed Peggy.\n\n;UK Tour – 2012\nUK Productions mounted a provincial UK tour of the show in 2012 with Dave Willetts reprising the role of Julian, Marti Webb playing Dorothy, and Mark Bramble directing. \n\n;US Tour – 2015–16\nA slightly updated version of the 2001 revival, revised and directed by Mark Bramble, began a United States tour in September 2015, opening in Salt Lake City, Utah on September 22. Matthew J. Taylor played Julian Marsh, Caitlin Ehlinger played Peggy Sawyer, and Blake Standik played Billy Lawlor. \n\nPlot\n\n;Act I\nAuditions for 1933's newest show, Pretty Lady, are nearly over when Peggy Sawyer, fresh off the bus from Allentown, Pennsylvania, arrives in New York City with valise in hand. Billy Lawlor, already cast as one of the juvenile leads, notices her and hopes to charm her into accepting a date with him. He informs her she has missed the audition but he can help her bypass that process, but choreographer Andy Lee has no time for Billy's latest conquest and tells her, \"Amscray, toots.\" Embarrassed and flustered, she rushes off, only to run into director Julian Marsh.\n\nOne-time star Dorothy Brock, indignant at being asked to audition for a role, is reassured by Bert that he merely wants to make sure the songs are in her key. Despite his feeling she is a prima donna past her prime, he agrees to cast her in order to get financial backing from her wealthy beau, Abner Dillon. Outside the theatre, writer Maggie and chorus girls Anytime Annie, Phyllis, and Lorraine take pity on Peggy and invite her to join them for lunch and some advice. They encourage her to show them a dance routine that is witnessed by Julian, who decides there might be room for one more chorus girl after all.\n\nJulian learns that Dorothy is seeing her old boyfriend, Pat Denning, behind Abner's back. Knowing this could destroy the show's future, he decides to put an end to the affair. A phone call to an unsavory acquaintance brings Pat a visit from a couple of thugs who convince him to break it off with her. The show's cast then departs to Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia, for the out-of-town tryout.\n\nOn opening night, someone bumps Peggy who trips and crashes into Dorothy, knocking her to the stage. Julian fires Peggy on the spot.\n\n;Act II\nDorothy's ankle is broken, and the show may close. The chorus kids, certain Peggy could fill the lead role, find Julian and tell him that she's a fresh young face who can sing and dance circles around Dorothy. He decides it is worth a shot and rushes off to the train station to catch her before she departs.\n\nAt Philadelphia's Broad Street Station, Julian apologizes to Peggy and asks her to stay and star in the show, but she responds that she has had enough of show business and wants to go home to Allentown. Dumbfounded, he tries to coax her with the words \"Come on along and listen to the lullaby of Broadway...\" After the cast joins him in the serenade, she decides to accept his offer. \n\nForced to learn the part in two days, Peggy is on the verge of a nervous breakdown when she has an unexpected visit from Dorothy, who has been watching the rehearsals and realizes that beneath her nervous exterior, Peggy is good, \"maybe even better than I would have been.\" She even offers a little friendly advice on how to perform the last song, \"About a Quarter to Nine.\"\n\nThe opening night curtain is about to rise when Julian, who is completely in love with Peggy at this point, stops by for a last minute lip-lock and pep talk in which he utters the now iconic line, \"You're going out there a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!\" The show is a huge success sure to catapult her into stardom. In addition, even though she is invited to and expected to attend the official opening night party, she decides to go to the chorus one instead. Julian is left alone onstage with only a single ghost light casting his huge shadow on the back wall. He quietly begins to sing, \"Come and meet those dancing feet on the avenue I'm taking you to...42nd Street.\"\n\nCharacters\n\nSource: Tams-Witmark Synopsis \n\nPeggy Sawyer – Nervous but enthusiastic new chorus girl from Allentown, Pennsylvania\nBilly Lawlor – Leading tenor in Pretty Lady\nDorothy Brock – Past her prime Prima Donna, renowned for inability to dance\nJulian Marsh – Famous, but notorious, director\nMaggie Jones – Co-writer and producer of Pretty Lady\nBert Barry – Co-writer and producer of Pretty Lady\nAbner Dillon – Producer of \"Pretty Lady\"; Dorothy's \"Sugar Daddy\" and Texan admirer\nAndy Lee – Choreographer/Dance Director\nPat Denning – Dorothy's former vaudeville partner and romantic interest\nMac – Stage Manager\nOscar – Onstage rehearsal pianist for the show \"Pretty Lady\"\nAnn “Anytime Annie” Reilly, Lorraine Flemming, Phyllis Dale, and Gladys – Experienced chorus girls who help Peggy\nDoctor\nOther small speaking roles (Thugs, waiter, etc.)\nLarge Tap/Chorus Ensemble\n\nMusical numbers\n\n;Act I\n“Overture” – Orchestra\n“Audition” – Dancers\n“Young and Healthy” – Billy and Peggy\n“Shadow Waltz” – Maggie, Dorothy, and Girls\n“Shadow Waltz (Reprise)” – Dorothy\n“Go into Your Dance” – Maggie, Peggy, Annie, Phyllis, Lorraine, Gladys, and Andy\n“You’re Gettin to Be a Habit with Me” – Dorothy\n“Getting Out of Town” – Maggie, Bert, Pat, and Chorus\n“Dames” – Billy and Chorus\n\"Keep Young and Beautiful/Dames Reprise\" - Bert, Maggie and Ensemble\n\"I Only Have Eyes for You\" - Dorothy and Billy\n“I Know Now” – Dorothy, Chorus and Billy\n“We're in the Money” – Annie, Phyllis, Lorraine, Gladys, Peggy, Billy, and Chorus\n“Act One Finale” – Dorothy and Orchestra\n\n;Act II\n“Entr’acte” – Orchestra\n“There’s a Sunny Side to Every Situation” – Annie and Chorus\n“Lullaby of Broadway” – Julian and Company\n“About a Quarter to Nine” – Dorothy and Peggy\n\"With Plenty of Money and You\" - Men Ensemble\n“Shuffle Off to Buffalo” – Maggie, Bert, Annie, and Girls\n“Forty-Second Street” – Peggy with Dancing Company\n“Forty-Second Street (Reprise)” – Julian\n*“Finale Ultimo” – Full Company and Orchestra\n\nIn the 2001 revival, a reprise of \"Getting Out of Town\" followed \"Lullaby of Broadway\" and \"With Plenty of Money and You\" followed \"About a Quarter to Nine\", \"Keep Young and Beautiful\" followed \"Dames\", and \"I Only Have Eyes for You\" followed \"We're in the Money\".\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nOriginal Broadway production\n\nOriginal London production\n\n2001 Broadway revival\n\nNotes" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "42nd Street (New York City Subway)", "42nd Street (disambiguation)", "42nd Street", "42nd street", "42nd Street (New York City Subway station)", "42nd Street (NYCS)" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "42nd street new york city subway station", "42nd street disambiguation", "42nd street new york city subway", "42nd street nycs", "42nd street" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "42nd street", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "42nd Street" }
What are the last lines of My Fair Lady?	tc_1233	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "My_Fair_Lady.txt" ], "title": [ "My Fair Lady" ], "wiki_context": [ "My Fair Lady is a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a phoneticist, so that she may pass as a lady. The original Broadway, London and film versions all starred Rex Harrison.\n\nThe musical's 1956 Broadway production was a momentous hit, setting a record for the longest run of any major musical theatre production in history. It was followed by a hit London production, a popular film version, and numerous revivals. It has been called \"the perfect musical\". \n\nSynopsis\n\n;Act I\nOn a rainy night in Edwardian London, opera patrons are waiting under the arches of Covent Garden for cabs. Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl, runs into a young man called Freddy. She admonishes him for spilling her bunches of violets in the mud, but she cheers up after selling one to an older gentleman. She then flies into an angry outburst when a man copying down her speech is pointed out to her. The man explains that he studies phonetics and can identify anyone's origin by their accent. He laments Eliza's dreadful speech, asking why so many English people don't speak properly and explaining his theory that this is what truly separates social classes, rather than looks or money (\"Why Can't the English?\"). He declares that in six months he could turn Eliza into a lady by teaching her to speak properly. The older gentleman introduces himself as Colonel Pickering, a linguist who has studied Indian dialects. The phoneticist introduces himself as Henry Higgins, and, as they both have always wanted to meet each other, Higgins invites Pickering to stay at his home in London. He distractedly throws his change into Eliza's basket, and she and her friends wonder what it would be like to live a comfortable, proper life (\"Wouldn't It Be Loverly?\").\n\nEliza's father, Alfred P. Doolittle, and his drinking companions, Harry and Jamie, all dustmen, stop by the next morning. He is searching for money for a drink, and Eliza shares her profits with him (\"With a Little Bit of Luck\"). Pickering and Higgins are discussing vowels at Higgins's home when Mrs. Pearce, the housekeeper, informs Higgins that a young woman with a ghastly accent has come to see him. It is Eliza, who has come to take speech lessons so she can get a job as an assistant in a florist's shop. Pickering wagers that Higgins cannot make good on his claim and volunteers to pay for Eliza's lessons. An intensive makeover of Eliza's speech, manners and dress begins in preparation for her appearance at the Embassy Ball. Higgins sees himself as a kindhearted, patient man who cannot get along with women (\"I'm an Ordinary Man\"). To others he appears self-absorbed and misogynistic.\n\nAlfred Doolittle is informed that his daughter has been taken in by Professor Higgins, and considers that he might be able to make a little money from the situation (\"With a Little Bit of Luck\" [Reprise]).\n\nDoolittle arrives at Higgins's house the next morning, claiming that Higgins is compromising Eliza's virtue. Higgins is impressed by the man's natural gift for language and brazen lack of moral values. He and Doolittle agree that Eliza can continue to take lessons and live at Higgins's house if Higgins gives Doolittle five pounds for a spree. Higgins flippantly recommends Doolittle to an American millionaire who has written to Higgins seeking a lecturer on moral values. Meanwhile, Eliza endures speech tutoring, endlessly repeating phrases like \"In Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen” (initially, the only \"h\" she aspirates is in \"hever\") and \"The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain\" (to practice the \"long a\" phoneme). Frustrated, she dreams of different ways to kill Higgins, from sickness to drowning to a firing squad (\"Just You Wait\"). The servants lament the hard \"work\" Higgins does (\"The Servants' Chorus\"). Just as they give up, Eliza suddenly recites \"The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain\" in perfect upper-class style. Higgins, Eliza, and Pickering happily dance around Higgins's study (\"The Rain in Spain\"). Thereafter she speaks with impeccable received pronunciation. Mrs. Pearce, the housekeeper, insists that Eliza go to bed; she declares she is too excited to sleep (\"I Could Have Danced All Night\").\n\nFor her first public tryout, Higgins takes Eliza to his mother's box at Ascot Racecourse (\"Ascot Gavotte\"). Henry's mother reluctantly agrees to help Eliza make conversation, following Henry's advice that Eliza should stick to two subjects: the weather and everybody's health. Eliza makes a good impression at first with her polite manners but later shocks everyone with her vulgar Cockney attitudes and slang. She does, however, capture the heart of Freddy Eynsford-Hill, the young man she ran into in the opening scene. Freddy calls on Eliza that evening, but she refuses to see him. He declares that he will wait for her as long as necessary in the street outside Higgins's house (\"On the Street Where You Live\").\n\nEliza's final test requires her to pass as a lady at the Embassy Ball, and after weeks of preparation, she is ready. All the ladies and gentlemen at the ball admire her, and the Queen of Transylvania invites her to dance with her son, the prince (\"Embassy Waltz\"). Eliza then dances with Higgins. A rival and former student of Higgins, a Hungarian phonetician named Zoltan Karpathy, is employed by the hostess to discover Eliza's origins through her speech. Though Pickering and his mother caution him not to, Higgins allows Karpathy to dance with Eliza.\n\n;Act II\nThe event is revealed to have been a success, with Zoltan Karpathy having concluded that Eliza is \"not only Hungarian, but of royal blood. She is a princess!\" After the ball, Pickering flatters Higgins on his triumph, and Higgins expresses his pleasure that the experiment is now over (\"You Did It\"). The episode leaves Eliza feeling used and abandoned. Higgins completely ignores Eliza until he mislays his slippers. He asks her where they are, and she lashes out at him, leaving the clueless professor mystified by her ingratitude. When Eliza decides to leave Higgins, he insults her in frustration and storms off. Eliza cries as she prepares to leave (\"Just You Wait\" [Reprise]). She finds Freddy still waiting outside (\"On the Street Where You Live\" [Reprise]). He begins to tell her how much he loves her, but she cuts him off, telling him that she has heard enough words; if he really loves her, he should show it (\"Show Me\"). She and Freddy return to Covent Garden, where her friends do not recognize her with her newly refined bearing (\"The Flower Market/Wouldn't It Be Loverly?\" [Reprise]). By chance, her father is there as well, dressed in a fine suit. He explains that he received a surprise bequest of four thousand pounds a year from the American millionaire, which has raised him to middle-class respectability, and now must marry Eliza's \"stepmother\", the woman he has been living with for many years. Eliza sees that she no longer belongs in Covent Garden, and she and Freddy depart. Doolittle and his friends have one last spree before the wedding (\"Get Me to the Church on Time\").\n\nHiggins awakens the next morning to find that, without Eliza, he has tea instead of coffee, and cannot find his own files. He wonders why she left after the triumph at the ball and concludes that men (especially himself) are far superior to women (\"A Hymn to Him\"). Pickering, becoming annoyed with Higgins, leaves to stay with his friend at the Home Office. Higgins seeks his mother's advice and finds Eliza having tea with her. Higgins's mother leaves Higgins and Eliza together. Eliza explains that Higgins has always treated her as a flower girl, but she learned to be a lady because Pickering treated her as one. Higgins claims he treated her the same way that Pickering did because both Higgins and Pickering treat all women alike. Eliza accuses him of wanting her only to fetch and carry for him, saying that she will marry Freddy because he loves her. She declares she no longer needs Higgins, saying she was foolish to think she did (\"Without You\"). Higgins is struck by Eliza's spirit and independence and wants her to stay with him, but she tells him that he will not see her again.\n\nAs Higgins walks home, he realizes he's grown attached to Eliza (\"I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face\"). He cannot bring himself to confess that he loves her, and insists to himself that if she marries Freddy and then comes back to him, he will not accept her. But he finds it difficult to imagine being alone again. He reviews the recording he made of the morning Eliza first came to him for lessons. He hears his own harsh words: \"She's so deliciously low! So horribly dirty!\" Then the phonograph turns off, and a real voice speaks in a Cockney accent: \"I washed me face an' 'ands before I come, I did\". It is Eliza, standing in the doorway, tentatively returning to him. The musical ends on an ambiguous moment of possible reconciliation between teacher and pupil, as Higgins slouches and asks, \"Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?\"\n\nCharacters and original Broadway cast\n\nThe original cast of the Broadway stage production:[http://guidetomusicaltheatre.com/shows_m/my_fair_lady.htm \"'My Fair Lady' Synopsis, Cast, Scenes and Settings and Musical Numbers\"] guidetomusicaltheatre.com, accessed December 7, 2011\n\n* Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics – Rex Harrison\n* Eliza Doolittle, a young Cockney flowerseller – Julie Andrews \n* Alfred P. Doolittle, Eliza's father, a dustman – Stanley Holloway\n* Mrs. Higgins, Higgins's socialite mother – Cathleen Nesbitt\n* Colonel Hugh Pickering, Higgins's friend and fellow phoneticist – Robert Coote\n* Freddy Eynsford-Hill, a young aristocrat and Eliza's suitor – John Michael King\n* Mrs. Pearce, Higgins's housekeeper – Philippa Bevans\n* Mrs. Eynsford-Hill, Freddy's mother – Viola Roache\n* Zoltan Karpathy, Higgins's former student and rival – Christopher Hewett\n\nMusical numbers\n\nAct I\n* Overture – The Orchestra\n* Busker Sequence – The Orchestra\n* Why Can't the English? – Professor Higgins\n* Wouldn't It Be Loverly? – Eliza and Male Quartet\n* With a Little Bit of Luck – Alfred Doolittle, Harry, and Jamie\n* I'm an Ordinary Man – Professor Higgins\n* With a Little Bit of Luck (Reprise) – Alfred Doolittle and Ensemble\n* Just You Wait – Eliza\n* The Servants' Chorus (Poor Professor Higgins) – Mrs. Pearce and Servants\n* The Rain in Spain – Professor Higgins, Eliza, and Colonel Pickering\n* I Could Have Danced All Night – Eliza, Mrs. Pearce, and Servants\n* Ascot Gavotte – Ensemble\n* On the Street Where You Live – Freddy\n* Eliza's Entrance/Embassy Waltz – The Orchestra\n\nAct II\n* You Did It – Colonel Pickering, Professor Higgins, Mrs. Pearce, and Servants\n* Just You Wait (Reprise) – Eliza\n* On the Street Where You Live (Reprise) – Freddy\n* Show Me – Eliza and Freddy\n* The Flower Market/Wouldn't It Be Loverly? (Reprise) – Eliza and Male Quartet\n* Get Me to the Church on Time – Alfred Doolittle and Ensemble\n* A Hymn to Him – Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering\n* Without You – Eliza and Professor Higgins\n* I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face – Professor Higgins\n* I Could Have Danced All Night (Reprise) / Finale – The Orchestra\n\nBackground\n\nIn the mid-1930s, film producer Gabriel Pascal acquired the rights to produce film versions of several of George Bernard Shaw's plays, Pygmalion among them. However, Shaw, having had a bad experience with The Chocolate Soldier, a Viennese operetta based on his play Arms and the Man, refused permission for Pygmalion to be adapted into a musical. After Shaw died in 1950, Pascal asked lyricist Alan Jay Lerner to write the musical adaptation. Lerner agreed, and he and his partner Frederick Loewe began work. They quickly realized, however, that the play violated several key rules for constructing a musical: the main story was not a love story, there was no subplot or secondary love story, and there was no place for an ensemble. Many people, including Oscar Hammerstein II, who, with Richard Rodgers, had also tried his hand at adapting Pygmalion into a musical and had given up, told Lerner that converting the play to a musical was impossible, so he and Loewe abandoned the project for two years. \n\nDuring this time, the collaborators separated and Gabriel Pascal died. Lerner had been trying to musicalize Li'l Abner when he read Pascal's obituary and found himself thinking about Pygmalion again. When he and Loewe reunited, everything fell into place. All the insurmountable obstacles that stood in their way two years earlier disappeared when the team realized that the play needed few changes apart from (according to Lerner) \"adding the action that took place between the acts of the play\". They then excitedly began writing the show. However, Chase Manhattan Bank was in charge of Pascal's estate, and the musical rights to Pygmalion were sought both by Lerner and Loewe and by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, whose executives called Lerner to discourage him from challenging the studio. Loewe said, \"We will write the show without the rights, and when the time comes for them to decide who is to get them, we will be so far ahead of everyone else that they will be forced to give them to us\". For five months Lerner and Loewe wrote, hired technical designers, and made casting decisions. The bank, in the end, granted them the musical rights.\n\nLerner settled on the title My Fair Lady, relating both to one of Shaw's provisional titles for Pygmalion, Fair Eliza, and to the final line of every verse of the nursery rhyme \"London Bridge Is Falling Down\". Recalling that the Gershwins' 1925 musical Tell Me More had been titled My Fair Lady in its out-of-town tryout, and also had a musical number under that title, Lerner made a courtesy call to Ira Gershwin, alerting him to the use of the title for the Lerner and Loewe musical.\n\nNoël Coward was the first to be offered the role of Henry Higgins, but turned it down, suggesting the producers cast Rex Harrison instead. After much deliberation, Harrison agreed to accept the part. Mary Martin was an early choice for the role of Eliza Doolittle, but declined the role. Young actress Julie Andrews was \"discovered\" and cast as Eliza after the show's creative team went to see her Broadway debut in The Boy Friend. Moss Hart agreed to direct after hearing only two songs. The experienced orchestrators Robert Russell Bennett and Philip J. Lang were entrusted with the arrangements and the show quickly went into rehearsal.\n\nThe musical's script used several scenes that Shaw had written especially for the 1938 film version of Pygmalion, including the Embassy Ball sequence and the final scene of the 1938 film rather than the ending for Shaw's original play. The montage showing Eliza's lessons was also expanded, combining both Lerner and Shaw's dialogue. The artwork on the original Playbill (and sleeve of the cast recording) is by Al Hirschfeld, who drew the playwright Shaw as a heavenly puppetmaster pulling the strings on the Henry Higgins character, while Higgins in turn attempts to control Eliza Doolittle.\n\nProductions\n\nOriginal Broadway production\n\nThe musical had its pre-Broadway tryout at New Haven's Shubert Theatre. On opening night Rex Harrison, who was unaccustomed to singing in front of a live orchestra, \"announced that under no circumstances would he go on that night...with those thirty-two interlopers in the pit\". He locked himself in his dressing room and came out little more than an hour before curtain time. The whole company had been dismissed but were recalled, and opening night was a success. In 1973, on an episode of her Emmy Award-winning ABC-TV variety series, Julie Andrews recalled that during the New Haven tryout, one of the songs written for the show, \"Say A Prayer For Me Tonight\" was dropped and then used two years later for the 1958 MGM musical Gigi. My Fair Lady then played for four weeks at the Erlanger Theatre in Philadelphia, beginning on February 15, 1956.\n\nThe musical premiered on Broadway March 15, 1956, at the Mark Hellinger Theatre in New York City. It transferred to the Broadhurst Theatre and then The Broadway Theatre, where it closed on September 29, 1962 after 2,717 performances, a record at the time. Moss Hart directed and Hanya Holm was choreographer. In addition to stars Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews and Stanley Holloway, the original cast included Robert Coote, Cathleen Nesbitt, John Michael King, and Reid Shelton.Suskin, Steven. [https://books.google.com/books?id\nZ_usBBxC_TQC&pgPA224&lpg\nPA224&dq%22Ian+Richardson%22+%22My+Fair+Lady%22+%22St.+James+Theatre%22&source\nbl&ots7AgxpKYYiq&sig\n7WjWAX8uMsll8kDm0R5N0cPuXoI&hlen#v\nonepage&q%22Ian%20Richardson%22%20%22My%20Fair%20Lady%22%20%22St.%20James%20Theatre%22&f\nfalse \"'My Fair Lady', 1956, 1976, and 1981\"]Show tunes: the songs, shows, and careers of Broadway's major composers (2010, 4ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-531407-7, p. 224 Edward Mulhare and Sally Ann Howes replaced Harrison and Andrews later in the run. The Original Cast Recording went on to become the best-selling album in the country in 1956. The original costumes were designed by Cecil Beaton and are on display at the Costume World Broadway Collection in Pompano Beach, Florida, along with many of the original patterns.\n\nOriginal London production\n\nThe West End production, in which Harrison, Andrews, Coote, and Holloway reprised their roles, opened April 30, 1958, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where it ran for five and a half years (2,281 performances). Stage star Zena Dare made her last appearance in the musical as Mrs. Higgins. Leonard Weir played Freddy.\n\n1970s revivals\n\nThe first revival opened at the St. James Theatre on Broadway on March 25, 1976 and ran there until December 5, 1976; it then transferred to the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, running from December 9, 1976 until it closed on February 20, 1977, after a total of 377 performances and 7 previews. The director was Jerry Adler, with choreography by Crandall Diehl, based on the original choreography by Hanya Holm. Ian Richardson starred as Higgins, with Christine Andreas as Eliza, George Rose as Alfred P. Doolittle and Robert Coote recreating his role as Pickering. Both Richardson and Rose were nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, with the award going to Rose.\n\nA London revival opened at the Adelphi Theatre in October 1979, with Tony Britton as Higgins, Liz Robertson as Eliza, Dame Anna Neagle as Higgins' mother, Peter Bayliss, Richard Caldicot and Peter Land. The revival was produced by Cameron Mackintosh and directed by the author, Alan Jay Lerner. A national tour was directed by Robin Midgley. Gillian Lynne choreographed. Britton and Robertson were both nominated for Olivier Awards. \n\n1981 and 1993 Broadway revivals\n\nAnother Broadway revival of the original production opened at the Uris Theatre on August 18, 1981 and closed on November 29, 1981 after 120 performances and 4 previews. Rex Harrison recreated his role as Higgins, with Jack Gwillim, Milo O'Shea, and Cathleen Nesbitt, at 93 years old reprising her role as Mrs. Higgins. The revival co-starred Nancy Ringham as Eliza. The director was Patrick Garland, with choreography by Crandall Diehl, recreating the original Hanya Holm dances. \n\nA new revival directed by Howard Davies opened at the Virginia Theatre on December 9, 1993 and closed on May 1, 1994 after 165 performances and 16 previews. The cast starred Richard Chamberlain, Melissa Errico and Paxton Whitehead. Julian Holloway, son of Stanley Holloway, recreated his father's role of Alfred P. Doolittle. Donald Saddler was the choreographer. \n\n2001 London revival; 2003 Hollywood Bowl production\n\nCameron Mackintosh produced a new production on March 15, 2001 at the Royal National Theatre, which transferred to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on July 21. Directed by Trevor Nunn, with choreography by Matthew Bourne, the musical starred Martine McCutcheon as Eliza and Jonathan Pryce as Higgins, with Dennis Waterman as Alfred P. Doolittle. This revival won three Olivier Awards: Outstanding Musical Production, Best Actress in a Musical (Martine McCutcheon) and Best Theatre Choreographer (Matthew Bourne), with Anthony Ward receiving a nomination for Set Design. In December 2001 Joanna Riding took over the role of Eliza and in May 2002 Alex Jennings took over as Higgins, both winning Olivier Awards for Best Actor and Best Actress in a Musical respectively in 2003. In March 2003, Anthony Andrews and Laura Michelle Kelly took over the roles until the show closed on August 30, 2003. \n\nA UK tour of this production began September 28, 2005. The production starred Amy Nuttall and Lisa O'Hare as Eliza, Christopher Cazenove as Henry Higgins, Russ Abbot and Gareth Hale as Alfred Doolittle, and Honor Blackman and Hannah Gordon as Mrs. Higgins. The tour ended August 12, 2006. \n\nIn 2003 a production of the musical at the Hollywood Bowl starred John Lithgow as Henry Higgins, Melissa Errico as Eliza Doolittle, Roger Daltrey as Alfred P. Doolittle and Paxton Whitehead as Colonel Pickering. \n\nOther major productions\n\n;2007 New York Philharmonic concert and US tour\nIn 2007 the New York Philharmonic held a full-costume concert presentation of the musical. The concert had a four-day engagement lasting from March 7–10 at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. It starred Kelsey Grammer as Higgins, Kelli O'Hara as Eliza, Charles Kimbrough as Pickering, and Brian Dennehy as Alfred Doolittle. Marni Nixon played Mrs. Higgins; Nixon had provided the singing voice of Audrey Hepburn in the film version. \n\nA U.S. tour of Mackintosh's 2001 West End production ran from September 12, 2007 to June 22, 2008. The production starred Christopher Cazenove as Higgins Lisa O'Hare as Eliza, Walter Charles as Pickering, Tim Jerome as Alfred Doolittle and Nixon as Mrs. Higgins, replacing Sally Ann Howes. \n\n;2008 Australian tour\nAn Australian tour produced by Opera Australia commenced in May 2008. The production starred Reg Livermore as Higgins, Taryn Fiebig as Eliza, Robert Grubb as Alfred Doolittle and Judi Connelli as Mrs Pearce. John Wood took the role of Alfred Doolittle in Queensland, and Richard E. Grant played the role of Henry Higgins at the Theatre Royal, Sydney.\n\n;2010 Paris revival\nA new production was staged by Robert Carsen at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris for a limited 27-performance run, opening December 9, 2010 and closing January 2, 2011. It was presented in English. The costumes were designed by Anthony Powell and the choreography was by Lynne Page. The cast was as follows: Sarah Gabriel / Christine Arand (Eliza Doolittle), Alex Jennings (Henry Higgins), Margaret Tyzack (Mrs. Higgins), Nicholas Le Prevost (Colonel Pickering), Donald Maxwell (Alfred Doolittle), and Jenny Galloway (Mrs. Pearce). \n\n;2012 Sheffield production\nA new production of My Fair Lady opened at Sheffield Crucible on December 13, 2012. Dominic West played Henry Higgins, and Carly Bawden played Eliza Doolittle. Sheffield Theatres' Artistic Director Daniel Evans was the director. The production ran until January 26, 2013. \n\n;2016 Australian production\nThe Gordon Frost Organisation, together with Opera Australia, will present a production at the Sydney Opera House in August 2016. The production will be a remounting of the original 1956 production with designs by Oliver Smith and Cecil Beaton, and directed by Dame Julie Andrews. \n\nCritical reception\n\nAccording to Geoffrey Block, \"Opening night critics immediately recognized that 'My Fair Lady' fully measured up to the Rodgers and Hammerstein model of an integrated musical...Robert Coleman...wrote 'The Lerner-Loewe songs are not only delightful, they advance the action as well. They are ever so much more than interpolations, or interruptions.'\" The musical opened to \"unanimously glowing reviews, one of which said 'Don't bother reading this review now. You'd better sit right down and send for those tickets...' Critics praised the thoughtful use of Shaw's original play, the brilliance of the lyrics, and Loewe's well-integrated score.\" \n\nA sampling of praise from critics, excerpted from a book form of the musical, published in 1956. \n* \"My Fair Lady is wise, witty, and winning. In short, a miraculous musical.\" Walter Kerr, New York Herald Tribune.\n* \"A felicitous blend of intellect, wit, rhythm and high spirits. A masterpiece of musical comedy ... a terrific show.\" Robert Coleman, New York Daily Mirror.\n* \"Fine, handsome, melodious, witty and beautifully acted ... an exceptional show.\" George Jean Nathan, New York Journal American.\n* \"Everything about My Fair Lady is distinctive and distinguished.\" John Chapman, New York Daily News.\n* \"Wonderfully entertaining and extraordinarily welcomed ... meritorious in every department.\" Wolcott Gibbs, The New Yorker.\n* \"One of the 'loverliest' shows imaginable ... a work of theatre magic.\" John Beaufort, The Christian Science Monitor.\n* \"An irresistible hit.\" Variety.\n* \"One of the best musicals of the century.\" Brooks Atkinson, The New York Times.\n\nThe reception from Shavians was more mixed, however. Eric Bentley, for instance, called it \"a terrible treatment of Mr. Shaw's play, [undermining] the basic idea [of the play]\", even though he acknowledged it as \"a delightful show\". \n\nAwards and nominations\n\nOriginal Broadway production\n\nSources: BroadwayWorld TheatreWorldAwards \n \n\n1976 Broadway revival\n\nSources: BroadwayWorld Drama Desk \n\n1979 London revival\n\nSource: Olivier Awards \n\n1981 Broadway revival\n\nSource: BroadwayWorld \n\n1993 Broadway revival\n\nSource: Drama Desk \n\n2001 London revival\n\nSource: Olivier Awards \n\nAdaptations\n\n1964 film\n\nAn Oscar-winning film version was made in 1964, directed by George Cukor and with Harrison again in the part of Higgins. The casting of Audrey Hepburn instead of Julie Andrews as Eliza was controversial, partly because theatregoers regarded Andrews as perfect for the part and partly because Hepburn's singing voice had to be dubbed (by Marni Nixon). Jack L. Warner, the head of Warner Bros., which produced the film, wanted \"a star with a great deal of name recognition\", but since Julie Andrews did not have any film experience, he thought a movie with her would not be as successful. (Andrews went on to star in Mary Poppins that same year and won the Golden Globe for Best Actress over Audrey Hepburn, and the Academy Award for Best Actress; Mary Poppins became Disney's most successful live-action film, until Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was released in 2003.) Lerner in particular disliked the film version of the musical, thinking it did not live up to the standards of Moss Hart's original direction. He was also unhappy with Hepburn's replacement of Andrews in the role of Eliza Doolittle and that the film was shot in its entirety on the Warner Brothers backlot rather than, as he would have preferred, in London. My Fair Lady eventually won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture of the Year, Best Actor for Rex Harrison, and Best Director for George Cukor— the lone Oscar win in his fifty-year film career.\n\nPlanned film\n\nA new film adaptation was announced by Columbia Pictures in 2008, but as of May 5, 2014, the project had been shelved. The intention was to shoot on location in Covent Garden, Drury Lane, Tottenham Court Road, Wimpole Street and the Ascot Racecourse.[http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117986985.html?categoryid\n13&cs=1 Variety, June 5, 2008] In December 2009, it was announced that John Madden had been signed to direct it and in 2011 it was reported that Colin Firth and Carey Mulligan were possible choices for the leading roles. Emma Thompson wrote a new screenplay adaptation for the project." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Where the devil are my slippers?" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "where devil are my slippers" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "where devil are my slippers", "type": "FreeForm", "value": "Where the devil are my slippers?" }
In The Muppet Movie what was the name of the restaurant Doc Hopper wanted to open?	tc_1234	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "The_Muppet_Movie.txt" ], "title": [ "The Muppet Movie" ], "wiki_context": [ "The Muppet Movie is a 1979 musical road comedy film and the first theatrical film featuring the Muppets. Directed by James Frawley and produced by Jim Henson, the film's screenplay was written by The Muppet Show writers Jerry Juhl and Jack Burns. \n\nAn American and British venture produced by Henson Associates and ITC Entertainment between the third and fourth seasons of The Muppet Show, the film depicts Kermit the Frog as he embarks on a cross-country trip to Hollywood, California. Along the way, he encounters several of the Muppets—who all share the same ambition of finding success in professional show business—while being pursued by Doc Hopper, a relentless restaurateur with intentions of employing Kermit as a spokesperson for his frog legs business.\n\nNotable for its surreal humour, meta-references and prolific use of cameos, The Muppet Movie was released in the United Kingdom on May 31, 1979 and in the United States on June 22, 1979, and received critical praise; including two Academy Award nominations for Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher's musical score and their song, \"Rainbow Connection\". In 2009, The Muppet Movie was deemed \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.\n\nPlot\n\nThe Muppets have gathered in a theatre, in a Hollywood movie studio, to screen their new biographical film, The Muppet Movie.\n\nIn the film-within-a-film, Kermit the Frog enjoys a relaxing afternoon in a Florida swamp, strumming his banjo and singing \"Rainbow Connection\", when he is approached by Bernie, a Hollywood agent who encourages Kermit to pursue a career in show business. Inspired by the idea of \"making millions of people happy\", Kermit sets off on a cross-country trip to Los Angeles, but is soon pursued by entrepreneur Doc Hopper and his shy assistant Max in an attempt to convince Kermit to be the new spokesman of his struggling French-fried frog legs restaurant franchise, to Kermit's horror. As Kermit continuously declines Doc's offers, Hopper resorts to increasingly vicious means of persuasion.\n\nMeeting Fozzie Bear, who works as a hapless comedian in the El Sleezo Cafe, Kermit invites Fozzie to accompany him. The two set out in a 1951 Studebaker loaned to Fozzie by his hibernating uncle. The duo’s journey includes misadventures which introduce them to a variety of eccentric human and Muppet characters, including Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem and their manager Scooter, who receives a copy of the script from the pair (one of a number of self-references) at an old Presbyterian church; Gonzo, who works as a plumber, and his girlfriend Camilla the Chicken; Sweetums, who runs after them after they mistakenly think that he has turned them down at a used car lot; and the immediately love-stricken Miss Piggy at a fair.\n\nWhile Kermit and Miss Piggy form a relationship over dinner that night, Doc Hopper and Max kidnap Miss Piggy to lure Kermit into a trap. Using an electronic cerebrectomy device, scientist Professor Krassman (decides to brainwash Kermit in an attempt to force Kermit to perform in Doc’s commercials until an infuriated Miss Piggy knocks out Doc Hopper's henchmen and causes the scientist to be brainwashed by his own device. After receiving a job offer, however, she promptly abandons a devastated Kermit.\n\nAfter an incident in the theater where the projector briefly breaks down, with film tangled around the Swedish Chef, who was the projectionist, the film starts up again. Having been joined by Rowlf the Dog and reunited with Miss Piggy, the Muppets continue their journey. Fozzie's 1946 Ford Woodie station wagon trade-in breaks down in the New Mexico desert. During a campfire that night, the group sadly considers that they may miss the audition tomorrow, and Kermit wanders off, ashamed of himself for seemingly bringing his friends on a fruitless journey. Upon consulting a more optimistic vision of himself, Kermit remembers that it was not just his friends' belief in the dream that brought them this far, but also his own faith in himself. Reinvigorated, he returns to camp to find that the Electric Mayhem and Scooter have read the script in advance, and arrived to help them the rest of the way.\n\nJust as it seems they are finally on their way, the group is warned by Max that Doc Hopper has hired an assassin named Snake Walker to kill Kermit. Kermit decides he will not be hunted down by a bully any longer and proposes a Western-style showdown in a nearby ghost town occupied by Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant Beaker, who invent materials that have yet to be tested. While confronting Hopper, Kermit explains his motivations, attempting to appeal to Hopper’s own hopes and dreams, but Hopper is unmoved and orders his henchmen to kill him and all his friends. They are saved only when one of Dr. Bunsen's inventions, \"insta-grow\" pills, temporarily turns Animal into a giant, causing Hopper and his men to flee.\n\nThe Muppets proceed to Hollywood, and after getting by his secretary, Miss Tracy, via causing her allergic reactions to their dander and fur, are hired by producer and studio executive Lew Lord. The Muppets attempt to make their first movie involving a surreal pastiche of their experiences. The first take goes awry when Gonzo, holding pastiche versions of the balloons he flew away on earlier, crashes into the rainbow, breaking it in half and sending it falling onto the rest of the set, bringing it down as well, then Crazy Harry pulls two levers in the control room, which overloads the electricity circuits and causes enough of an explosion to blow a hole in the roof of the studio. However, in their stunned silence of the whole chain of events, a rainbow suddenly shines through the hole into the studio right onto the Muppets. The Muppets, joined by the characters from The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, and the \"The Land of Gorch\" segment of Saturday Night Live, sing the final verses of \"Rainbow Connection\".\n\nAs the screening ends, Sweetums jumps through the theater's screen, having finally caught up with the other Muppets.\n\nCast\n\n* Charles Durning as Doc Hopper, a businessman, entrepreneur, and restaurateur.\n* Austin Pendleton as Max, Doc Hopper's shy assistant.\n* Scott Walker as Snake Walker, an assassin who specializes in killing frogs.\n* Hard Boiled Haggerty as Lumberjack\n* Bruce Kirby as Gate Guard\n* Tommy Madden as One-Eyed Midget\n* James Frawley as El Sleezo Café Waiter\n* Melinda Dillon as a Woman with Balloon\n\nMuppet performers\n\n* Jim Henson as Kermit the Frog, Rowlf the Dog, Dr. Teeth, Waldorf, Swedish Chef\n* Frank Oz as Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, Sam Eagle, Marvin Suggs\n* Jerry Nelson as Floyd Pepper, Crazy Harry, Robin the Frog, Lew Zealand, Camilla the Chicken\n* Richard Hunt as Scooter, Statler, Janice, Sweetums, Beaker\n* Dave Goelz as The Great Gonzo, Zoot, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Doglion\n* Caroll Spinney as Big Bird\n\nFrank Oz appears in a cameo as a biker who beats up Fozzie Bear while Steve Whitmire appears as a man in the Bogen County Fair.\n\nCameo guest stars\n\n* Edgar Bergen as Himself and Charlie McCarthy, playing judges at the Bogen County Fair. This would be Bergen's final film role, as he died the year before.\n* Milton Berle as Mad Man Mooney, a used car salesman that Sweetums (as Jack Job) worked for.\n* Mel Brooks as Professor Max Krassman, a mad scientist who is hired by Doc Hopper.\n* James Coburn as El Sleezo Café Owner\n* Dom DeLuise as Bernie, a Hollywood agent that meets Kermit in the swamp.\n* Elliott Gould as Compère\n* Bob Hope as Ice Cream Vendor\n* Madeline Kahn as an El Sleazo Patron, with the same rhotacism and personality Kahn used for Lili von Shtupp in Blazing Saddles\n* Carol Kane as \"Myth\" (summoned by name)\n* Cloris Leachman as Miss Tracy, Lew Lord's secretary who is allergic to animals.\n* Steve Martin as Insolent Waiter, a sarcastic waiter that works at the motel that Rowlf used to work at.\n* Richard Pryor as Balloon Vendor, a man who sells balloons to Gonzo at the Bogen County Fair.\n* Telly Savalas as El Sleazo Tough\n* Orson Welles as Lew Lord, a Hollywood producer and studio executive.\n* Paul Williams as El Sleazo Pianist\n\nProduction\n\nThe main obstacle the filmmakers were faced with during the development of The Muppet Movie was whether the Muppets would transition seamlessly from television to film. In 1978, director James Frawley, Jim Henson, and Frank Oz filmed several camera tests outside London to test how the characters would appear in real-world locations.\n\nTo perform Kermit static on a log, Henson squeezed into a specially designed metal container complete with an air hose (to breathe), a rubber sleeve which came out of the top to perform Kermit and a monitor to see his performance, and placed himself under the water, log, and the Kermit puppet. He was also assisted in this operation by Kathryn Mullen and Steve Whitmire. This scene took five days to film.\n\nBefore this, no film had a hand puppet act with its entire body appearing on-screen. That is, hand puppets were only seen from the waist up, and it became a major plot point to show Kermit with legs. To have Kermit ride a bicycle in a full-body shot, a Kermit puppet with legs was posed onto the seat and his legs and arms were attached to the pedals and handlebars. An overhead crane with a marionette system held the bicycle through strong strings invisible to the camera, guiding the bicycle forward. The crane and system was out of the camera's frame of vision.\n\nOther shots required Muppets standing and acting in a full-body shot. Specially-made, remote-controlled puppets were placed on the set and controlled by puppeteers out of the frame. A dancing Kermit and Fozzie Bear were operated by Henson and Frank Oz in front of a blue screen, and were composited onto a separate reel of the stage. Both of these effects and the bicycle effect would be used again, and refined, in subsequent Muppet films.\n\nAustin Pendleton recalled that the film was shot on \"a very unhappy set, because Jim [Frawley] was very unhappy directing that movie. And I noticed that was the only time the Muppet people used an outside person to direct a Muppet movie. They never did that again. After that, it was either Jim Henson or Frank Oz. And I would have liked to have been in one of those, because those sets were very harmonious. But this was not.\" Filming locations included Albuquerque, New Mexico. \n\nThe closing reprise of \"Rainbow Connection\" featured a crowd of more than 250 Muppet characters—virtually every Muppet that had been created up to that point in time. According to Henson Archivist Karen Falk: \"137 puppeteers were enlisted from the Puppeteers of America (along with the regular Muppet performers) to perform every Muppet extant. Prior to the day-long filming of the shot, Jim Henson gave the enthusiastic participants a lesson in the art of cinematic puppetry. Amazingly, it did take just one day.\" The Muppet Show Fan Club newsletter answered the question of \"How did they do it?\" They response was \"There are 250 puppets in the last shot of the film, and they're all moving. How? 150 puppeteers in a 6' deep, 17' wide pit, that's how. They were recruited through the Los Angeles Guild of The Puppeteers of America and almost every puppeteer west of the Rockies reported for pit duty.\" The film is dedicated to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen who appears in the movie in a cameo role and died during production in September 1978.\n\nStyle\n\nThe Muppet Movie uses meta-references as a source of humor, as characters occasionally break the fourth wall to address the audience or comment on their real-life circumstances. In one scene, Kermit and Fozzie encounter Big Bird on the road, offering him a lift to Hollywood, but he declines, heading to New York City to break into public television, referencing the character's role in Sesame Street.\n\nIn a particularly meta-fictional plot twist, Kermit and Fozzie actually give the screenplay to Dr. Teeth, who later uses it to find and rescue them after they have been stranded in the desert.\n\nProp vehicles\n\nSeveral classic cars were specially selected by Henson for appearances in the film. The most prominent were a pair of 1951 Studebaker Commander Coupes driven by Fozzie Bear in the film. One car was painted but unmodified and driven by a person in the front seat. It was used for long, traveling shots. The second car was driven by a person in the trunk, who viewed the road through a TV set. The television received its image from a camera located in the center nose of the car's front grille. This made it possible for Frank Oz to perform Fozzie Bear in the front seat, and have the character seemingly drive the car in close-up shots. This car is now on display at the Studebaker Museum in South Bend, Indiana.\n\nDoc Hopper is chauffeured throughout the movie by Max in a 1959 Cadillac Fleetwood Limousine.\n\nThe final car driven by the Muppets is a 1946 Ford Woodie station wagon, famous for its wood panel siding and is a valuable collectible.\n\nMusic\n\nThe film's music was written by Kenneth Ascher and Paul Williams . Regarding the music's composition, Williams said; \"Jim Henson gave you more [creative] freedom than anybody I've ever worked with in my life. I said, 'You want to hear the songs as we're writing them?' He said, 'No. I'll hear them in the studio. I know I'm gonna love them.' You just don't get that kind of freedom on a project these days.\" \n\n\"Movin' Right Along\", \"Never Before, Never Again\", and \"I Hope That Somethin' Better Comes Along\" were shortened in the film, compared to their soundtrack versions, for continuity purposes. The latter, a duet between Rowlf and Kermit, contained references that the studio considered too mature for children, although the song appeared complete in the British theatrical and home video debut versions. In \"Finale: The Magic Store\", a line performed by Kermit in the film is sung by Fozzie on the soundtrack recording.\n\nRelease\n\nBox office\n\nThe film proved to be a huge hit at the box office during the summer of 1979 and ended up grossing $76,657,000 domestically (adjusted for inflation, this would equal $265,703,546 in 2016 dollars), making it the seventh highest-grossing film of 1979 and also, the second highest-grossing Muppet film after the release of The Muppets in 2011. The success of the film gave Jim Henson Productions an opportunity to release more Muppet productions theatrically.\n\nThe film's successful theatrical release encouraged Lew Grade into furthering his own film distribution company, which later backfired with the massive box office failures of Can't Stop the Music and Raise the Titanic, both released by ITC Entertainment just a year later. \n\nCritical reception\n\nThe Muppet Movie received positive reviews. The film holds an 87% approval rating on aggregate review site Rotten Tomatoes with an average score of 8/10, based on 47 reviews. The site's consensus says \"The Muppet Movie, the big-screen debut of Jim Henson's plush creations, is smart, lighthearted, and fun for all ages.\" \n\nRoger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars. In his favorable review, he was fascinated that \"The Muppet Movie not only stars the Muppets but, for the first time, shows us their feet.\" Vincent Canby of The New York Times offered equal praise, stating that the film \"demonstrates once again that there's always room in movies for unbridled amiability when it's governed by intelligence and wit.\" \n\nIn 2009, it was named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant and will be preserved for all time. \n\n;American Film Institute Lists:\n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – Nominated \n* AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:\n** \"Rainbow Connection\" – #74\n* AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals – Nominated \n\nHome media\n\nThe Muppet Movie was the first film released by ITC Entertainment to be released on home video when Magnetic Video released it in January 1, 1980, having bought the video rights to ITC's films. It was reissued a few times more by CBS/Fox before it was released by Jim Henson Video in 1993. The film was first released on VHS by Columbia Tristar Home Video on June 1, 1999. The film was first released on DVD by Sony Pictures Entertainment on June 5, 2001. The film was re-released by Walt Disney Home Entertainment on DVD and reissued as a Walt Disney Pictures release on November 29, 2005 as Kermit's 50th Anniversary Edition.\n\nWalt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released The Muppet Movie as the Nearly 35th Anniversary Edition on Blu-ray Disc and DVD on August 13, 2013. \n\nAccolades\n\nFootnotes\n\n# The film's distribution rights were transferred to Walt Disney Studios in 2004, and was subsequently reissued in home media formats as a Walt Disney Pictures release in 2005." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Frog legs", "Frogs’ legs", "Frogs' legs", "Frogs' Legs", "Frog leg", "Frogslegs", "Frog's legs", "Frogs legs" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "frog legs", "frogslegs", "frog leg", "frogs legs", "frog s legs" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "frogs legs", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Frogs' Legs" }
Who directed The Cable Guy?	tc_1235	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "Search" ], "filename": [ "The_Cable_Guy.txt", "David_Cross.txt" ], "title": [ "The Cable Guy", "David Cross" ], "wiki_context": [ "The Cable Guy is a 1996 American satirical black comedy film directed by Ben Stiller, starring Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick. It was released in the United States on June 14, 1996. The film co-stars Leslie Mann, Jack Black, George Segal, Diane Baker, Eric Roberts, Owen Wilson, Janeane Garofalo, David Cross, Andy Dick, Amy Stiller, and Bob Odenkirk.\n\nPlot\n\nAfter a failed marriage proposal to his girlfriend Robin Harris, Steven M. Kovacs moves into his own apartment. Taking advice from his friend Rick, Steven bribes cable guy, Ernie \"Chip\" Douglas, to give him free movie channels, which he does. Chip gets Steven to hang out with him the next day and makes him one of his \"preferred customers.\"\n\nChip takes Steven to the satellite dish responsible for sending out television signals. Steven tells his problems with Robin to Chip, who advises him to admit his faults to Robin and invite her over to watch Sleepless in Seattle. Steven takes Chip's advice, and Robin agrees to watch the movie with him. Chip begins acting more suspiciously, running into Steven and his friends at the gym and leaving several messages on Steven's answering machine. When Robin arrives to watch the movie, the cable is out, due to Chip, who intentionally sabotaged Steven's cable. Chip fixes the cable under the condition that they hang out again, to which Steven agrees.\n\nChip takes Steven to Medieval Times, where Chip arranges for them to battle in the arena, referencing the Star Trek episode \"Amok Time.\" Chip behaves aggressively, nearly killing Steven, who eventually bests him in combat. When they arrive at Steven's home, Chip reveals that he's installed an expensive home theater system in his living room. Chip and Steven later host a party and with Chip's help, Steven sleeps with Heather, who later Chip reveals is a prostitute and Steven throws Chip out.\n\nChip tracks down Robin, who is on a date with another man. When the man goes to the bathroom, Chip severely beats him and tells him to stay away from Robin. He later upgrades Robin's cable, saying that it is on Steven and Robin decides to get back together as a result. Steven tells Chip that they cannot be friends, which hurts Chip, which sets Chip on a series of vengeful acts. He gets Steven arrested for possession of stolen property, although Steven is released on bail.\n\nDuring a dinner with his family and Robin, Steven is horrified to see Chip in attendance. Steven tells him to leave, but Chip tells him to play along or he will show everyone a picture of Steven with the prostitute. The evening goes from bad to worse, with Steven punching Chip after the latter implies he slept with Robin. Steven is fired from his job when Chip sends out a video of Steven insulting his boss that was recorded on a hidden camera in his apartment.\n\nAfter doing some investigating, Rick tells Steven that Chip has been fired from the cable company for stalking customers, and uses the names of television characters as aliases. Chip calls Steven that night, telling him he is paying Robin a visit. Steven tracks them down to the satellite dish, where Chip holds Robin hostage. After a physical altercation and a chase, Steven is able to save Robin. As the police arrive, Chip goes into a speech on how he was raised by television and apologizes to Steven for being a bad friend. Chip dives into the satellite dish, knocking out the television signal to the entire town, just as the verdict in a highly publicized case involving a case like the \"Lyle and Erik Menendez\" killing is about to be revealed.\n\nChip survives the fall, but injures his back. As Steven and Robin reunite, Steven forgives Chip and asks for his real name. Chip jokingly replies \"Ricky Ricardo.\" Chip is later taken to the hospital in a helicopter. When one of the paramedics addresses him as \"buddy\", Chip asks the paramedic if he is truly his buddy, to which the paramedic replies \"Yeah, sure you are\", causing Chip to smile deviously.\n\nCast\n\nJim Carrey as Ernie \"Chip\" Douglas\nMatthew Broderick as Steven M. Kovacs\nLeslie Mann as Robin Harris\nJack Black as Rick\nGeorge Segal as Mr. Kovacs\nDiane Baker as Mrs. Kovacs\nBen Stiller as Sam Sweet / Stan Sweet\nEric Roberts as himself\nOwen Wilson as Robin's date\nCharles Napier as a police officer\nJaneane Garofalo as Medieval Times waitress\nDavid Cross as the sales manager\nAndy Dick as Medieval Times host \nAmy Stiller as Steven's secretary\nBob Odenkirk as Steven's brother\nKyle Gass as couch potato\nAllen Covert as himself (uncredited)\n\nProduction\n\nFirst-time screenwriter Lou Holtz, Jr. had the idea for The Cable Guy while working as a prosecutor in Los Angeles, declaring that once he saw the cable guy in the hallway of his mother's apartment he started thinking \"What's he doing here so late?\". The screenplay became the focus of a bidding war, won by Columbia Pictures at a price of $1 million. The role of the Cable Guy was originally written for Chris Farley, who turned it down due to scheduling difficulties. Jim Carrey joined the production, receiving a then-record $20 million to star. Following Carrey's signing, Columbia hired Judd Apatow to produce. The studio denied Apatow's interest in directing, but accepted his suggestion to invite Ben Stiller, star of his eponymous show on which Apatow had worked. \n\nThe original screenplay by Lou Holtz, Jr. was a lighter comedy, described by Apatow as \"a What About Bob? annoying-friend movie\" where the Cable Guy was a likable loser who intrudes upon the cable subscriber's life, but never in a physically threatening way. Carrey, Apatow and Stiller liked the setup of \"somebody who is really smart with technology invading somebody's life\", and opted to add slapstick and darker tones, changing into a satire of thrillers such as Cape Fear, Unlawful Entry and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. The dialogue would also fit Carrey's style of comedy.\n\nHoltz wrote four additional drafts, each one darker than the previous, before leaving the project and Apatow took over the writing. Apatow and Stiller visited Carrey as he was filming Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls in South Carolina, and over a few days, riffed a lot of the setpieces that were added to the script, and how Carrey wanted to perform this character. The final script had elements so disturbing that Columbia had many complaints on some scenes. In turn Apatow declared that the studio did not specifically order removals, \"but we took [the scenes] out as part of the natural evolution of our creative process\". Stiller stated that he shot every scene with \"a dark version and a light version\", and that he was surprised that the studio did not object to the violent ending. \n\nThe fight sequence at Medieval Times between Chip (Jim Carrey) and Steven (Matthew Broderick) is a homage to the Star Trek episode \"Amok Time\" — including the use of Vulcan weapons (lirpa), the dialogue and the background music. Director Ben Stiller is an admitted Star Trek fan. \n\nReception\n\nCritical response\n\nThe Cable Guy is regarded as having a darker tone than most of Carrey's previous work. Audiences had mixed reactions to this change of tone for Carrey and film critics gave mixed reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 54% based on 56 reviews. \n\nThe film was on J. Hoberman's Top 10 best of the year. \nRoger Ebert included The Cable Guy in his worst of the year list for 1996, though colleague Gene Siskel disagreed, calling it \"a very good film. (Carrey's) best since The Mask\". \n\nThe film was also noted for its similarities to the 1979 Australian telemovie The Plumber, which was written and directed by Peter Weir, who would later direct Carrey in The Truman Show (1998).\n\nBox office\n\nThe film grossed $19,806,226 on its opening weekend. It grossed a total $60,240,295 in the North American domestic market, and $42,585,501 outside the U.S, making a total of $102,825,796 worldwide gross. Despite the critic perception that the movie was a flop, it made a profit in excess of its $47 million production budget. It has gained cult-like status among movie-goers.\n\nAwards and nominations\n\n1997 MTV Movie Awards\n Best Comic Performance – Jim Carrey (Won)\n* Best Villain – Jim Carrey (Won)\n* Best Fight – Jim Carrey vs. Matthew Broderick (Nominated)\n\n1997 Kid's Choice Awards\n* Favorite Movie Actor – Jim Carrey (Won)\n\nHome media\n\nThe Cable Guy was released on VHS on December 3, 1996, DVD on September 15, 1997 and Blu-ray on March 1, 2011.\n\nSoundtrack \n\nThe Cable Guy: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the official soundtrack. It consists of previously unreleased songs, largely of alternative rock and heavy metal bands, and includes the first solo recording by Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains fame. The soundtrack includes Jim Carrey's version of Jefferson Airplane's \"Somebody to Love\" which was performed by him in the film. It also includes a song from $10,000 Gold Chain, a side project of Pearl Jam lead guitarist Mike McCready. However, it does not include White Zombie's \"More Human than Human\", which is featured in a dramatic scene of the film.\n\nCantrell's \"Leave Me Alone\" served as the soundtrack's promotional vehicle and had a music video. This featured various footage from Cable Guy in a dark manner typical of Cantrell's style. It also had Jim Carrey's haunting face reaching out of a television screen at the observing Cantrell. While the album as a whole was not well received, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic noted that \"Leave Me Alone\" positively \"rocks as hard as any Alice in Chains track.\"\n\nThe track \"Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand\" gained popularity for its appearance in the film and reached #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks in 1996.\n\nTrack listing\n\n# \"I'll Juice You Up\" – Jim Carrey\n# \"Leave Me Alone\" – Jerry Cantrell\n# \"Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand\" – Primitive Radio Gods\n# \"Blind\" – Silverchair\n# \"Oh! Sweet Nuthin'\" (The Velvet Underground cover) – $10,000 Gold Chain\n# \"End of the World is Coming\" – David Hilder\n# \"Satellite of Love\" – Porno for Pyros\n# \"Get Outta My Head\" – Cracker\n# \"Somebody to Love\" – Jim Carrey\n# \"The Last Assassin\" – Cypress Hill\n# \"This Is\" – Ruby\n# \"Hey Man, Nice Shot\" (Promo-Only Remix) – Filter\n# \"Unattractive\" – Toadies\n# \"Download\" – Expanding Man\n# \"This Concludes Our Broadcast Day\" – John Ottman\n\nChart positions\n\nSingles", "David Cross (born April 4, 1964) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and writer, known primarily for his stand-up performances, the HBO sketch comedy series Mr. Show, and his role as Tobias Fünke in the sitcom Arrested Development. Cross created, wrote, executive produced, and starred in The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, developed and had a prominent role in Freak Show, appeared on Modern Family, portrayed Ian Hawke in the Alvin and the Chipmunks film franchise, and voiced Crane in the Kung Fu Panda film franchise.\n\nEarly life\n\nCross was born in Atlanta, Georgia on April 4, 1964, the son of Barry and Susi, the former of whom emigrated from Leeds, England. Six months after his birth, Cross' family moved to Florida. After additional moves to New York and Connecticut, the family settled back in Roswell, Georgia, where Cross remained for nearly a decade. His family was poor and Barry left the family when Cross was 10 years old; the two have not spoken since he was 19, though they both primarily resided in New York City until Cross sold his home there in 2011. Cross and his family were evicted from their home while living in Georgia. He spent some time living in motels and at friends' homes while growing up. He has two sisters and once bailed his youngest sibling out of jail. \n\nCareer\n\nBeginnings in comedy\n\nAt age 17, Cross began performing stand-up comedy. The day after he graduated from Northside High School in Atlanta, Cross relocated to New York City. Lacking a plan, he drifted, working briefly for a lawn care company on Long Island. Later, he enrolled at Emerson College in Boston. He would drop out after only a semester, but during his time there, Cross joined This is Pathetic, a college sketch group, where he met John Ennis. In the summer of 1985, the two aspiring actors took a road trip to Los Angeles, although this did not significantly further their acting careers. In Boston, Cross began to perform stand-up more regularly. From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, Boston had a booming comedy scene, although Cross did not fit the types of acts being booked most of the time. He recalls that it was \"a loud-, dumb-, pandering-, racist-, homophobic-type scene\".Odenkirk, Naomi. (2002). Mr. Show What Happened?! Beverly Hills, CA: The Management Group. ISBN 0-9713597-8-4\n\nIn 1990, a new comedy scene began to emerge at the famous comedy club chain called Catch a Rising Star (where many of the comedians of the 1970s and 1980s got their start). Alongside Janeane Garofalo, Louis C.K., and other comics, Cross appeared regularly several nights a week. Cross formed the sketch comedy group \"Cross Comedy\" with 12 other performers, and they put on a new show every week. They were known for playing tricks on the audience, such as introducing fake comics or planting fake hecklers. Cross became increasingly focused on his comedy work. Cross performed at the alternative comedy club Un-Cabaret in Los Angeles.\n\nRadio artist Joe Frank heard David Cross at Un-Cabaret in Los Angeles, and hired him to appear in Frank's 1994 radio programs, \"A Hearing\" and \"The Last Run\" which in 1997 was combined to become \"The OJ Chronicles\" where David appears as OJ's Valet. Cross also starred in the Joe Frank program Jam, produced in 1999 and has more recently worked with Joe Frank on radio shows for KCRW's Unfictional. \n\nCross continues to perform stand-up comedy in which he blends political commentary and satire. In 1999, he performed a one-hour comedy special, The Pride Is Back, on HBO. He has released three recordings: Shut Up You Fucking Baby!, It's Not Funny, and Bigger and Blackerer. Cross' stand up material was featured in Comedy Central's animated series Shorties Watchin' Shorties. In 2004, Shut Up You Fucking Baby! was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. In 2003, he released his first tour film Let America Laugh and was named #85 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 greatest stand-ups of all time. He appears on Un-Cabaret compilation albums, including Freak Weather Feels Different and The Good, the Bad and the Drugly.\n\nWork on The Ben Stiller Show, Mr. Show and other projects\n\nCross began his professional television career as a writer on The Ben Stiller Show. The series hired him toward the end of its run, and he occasionally made brief appearances in the sketches. He had a speaking role in \"The Legend of T.J. O'Pootertoot\", a sketch written almost entirely by Cross. It was during this period that he first met Bob Odenkirk, with whom he would later co-create the HBO sketch comedy series Mr. Show in 1995. Cross won an Emmy for his work on The Ben Stiller Show in 1993. \n\nHe later co-starred as Tobias Fünke in Arrested Development, which was originally intended to be only a minor role. He has also played smaller roles on programs such as Just Shoot Me!, The Drew Carey Show, NewsRadio, Strangers with Candy, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. From October 2005, Cross regularly appeared on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report as Stephen Colbert's nemesis Russ Lieber, a fictional liberal radio talk show host from Madison, Wisconsin. Cross also developed an animated series for Comedy Central called Freak Show, which co-starred H. Jon Benjamin and was cancelled due to low ratings. He has appeared several times on Wonder Showzen.\n\nCross teamed up with Mr. Show director and producer Troy Miller and Odenkirk to produce a feature film Run Ronnie Run, based on one of their Mr. Show characters. The film satirized the reality television craze, and featured cameos from many stars; however, Odenkirk got into conflict with the studio New Line Cinema, and they then released it direct-to-video. In 1994 and again in 1999, Cross was a guest voice actor on Joe Frank's radio show, featured in the episodes \"The Last Run\", \"A Hearing\", \"The O.J. Chronicles\", and \"Jam\". In 2013, he returned, making an appearance in an episode of Frank's radio show, entitled \"A Conversation.\" \n\nIn 2004, Cross provided voices for a Marine in Halo 2 and a store clerk named Zero in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. He was also the voice of the \"Happy-Time Harry\" doll and Bert Banana in Aqua Teen Hunger Force (although the part was credited as Sir Willups Brightslymoore). Cross has made guest appearances in Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!. He directed the music video for The Black Keys' song \"10 A.M. Automatic,\" a spoof of public-access television. Paste Magazine ranked it number 24 on their list of the 50 Best Music Videos of the Decade (2000–2009). \n\nCross appeared in The Strokes' music video for \"Juicebox\" as a bad local \"morning zoo\" radio DJ. He also appeared in the New Pornographers' video for \"Use It,\" in Superchunk's video for \"Watery Hands\" (along with Janeane Garofalo), and in Yo La Tengo's video for \"Sugarcube\" (along with Bob Odenkirk and John Ennis). Cross contributes to Vice magazine, writing a column, My America.\n\nIn 2005, he contributed to the UNICEF benefit song \"Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?\" and appeared in one of PETA's \"I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur\" campaigns. \n\nIn the Beastie Boys' 2006 concert film Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!, Cross portrays Nathaniel Hörnblowér in the fictional segment \"A Day in the Life of Nathaniel Hörnblowér.\" In I'm Not There, Cross portrays Allen Ginsberg. Both Bill Lawrence and Zach Braff of the TV series Scrubs were eager to have Cross make a cameo appearance on the series as Tobias Fünke, but due to the series' cancellation, the plan never came to fruition. \n\nCross provided commentary on the Vicarious music video DVD for Tool. He has previously performed comedy as an opening act for the band and its members appeared on Mr. Show several times. He portrayed Ian Hawke in Alvin and the Chipmunks, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked and voiced Crane in the Kung Fu Panda film franchise.\n\nHe starred in David's Situation, a pilot for HBO. It filmed in May 2008 and included many Mr. Show alumni at the taping. On August 6, 2008, Bob Odenkirk announced on bobanddavid.com that David's Situation would not be produced. \n\nCross' black comedy series The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, in which he stars and co-writes with Shaun Pye, has run on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom and IFC in the United States since October 2010.\n\nIn 2009, Cross released his first book I Drink for a Reason. The book features memoirs, satirical fictional memoirs, and material from Cross that originally appeared in other publications. \n\nIn September 2009, Cross performed at his own comedy stage at the ATP New York 2009 music festival, for which he picked Eugene Mirman, H. Jon Benjamin, Jon Glaser, and Derrick Brown & The Navy Gravy to join him. In the same year, Cross and Benjamin created and wrote for Paid Programming on Adult Swim. Paid Programming was not picked up for a full series and Benjamin referred to it as an \"abject failure\". \n\nOn March 29, 2010, his first comedy special in six years, Bigger and Blackerer, was streamed on Epix HD. A CD with \"slightly different content\" was released on May 25, 2010. \n\nCross starred alongside Julia Stiles and America Ferrera in It's a Disaster, which premiered at the 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival. Oscilloscope Laboratories has acquired the US distribution rights to the film and plans to release it in select theaters, which started on April 13, 2013.\n\nHis directorial debut film Hits premiered at 2014 Sundance Film Festival. Instead of selling the film rights to distributors, Cross instead opted to sell the movie over Bit Torrent through their \"bundles\" program, which BitTorrent launched to help \"legitimize\" the platform. According to The Verge it is the first feature film to be distributed in such a format. At the same time Cross launched a Kickstarter campaign for the movie's general release which would then distribute the movie using a pay what you want methodology.\n\nIn April 2015, episodes were ordered for a new sketch comedy show starring Cross and Odenkirk called W/ Bob & David. It premiered in November 2015 on Netflix. Cross and Odenkirk write, star in, and produce the show.\n\nCross announced that he would embark on a 51-date nationwide stand-up tour from Jan. 26, 2016, in San Diego through April 24, 2016, in Oklahoma City. Titled “Making America Great Again!”, it is his first tour in six years. \n\nOn the January 10, 2016, broadcast of the National Public Radio-syndicated quiz show Ask Me Another, Cross appeared as a celebrity guest and performed well enough that at the audience's request the show's producers took the unusual step of allowing him to advance to the show's final, championship round; he then won that round and became that episode's overall champion, winning a prize package that included a pair of denim cutoff shorts that he himself had autographed.\n\nControversies\n\nIn October 2005, Cross was sued by Nashville club owner Thomas Weber, who accused Cross of taping him without permission for Shut Up You Fucking Baby and Let America Laugh in violation of Weber's privacy rights. In April 2006, the case against Cross himself was dismissed and the case proceeded with Warner Music, Subpop Records, WEA Corporation, and the Alternative Distribution Alliance. \n\nIn a 2012 interview with Playboy magazine, Cross revealed that he had snorted a small amount of cocaine at the 2009 White House Correspondents' Dinner. Cross said, \"It wasn’t like I got high...It was just about being able to say that I did it, that I did cocaine in the same room as the president.\" \n\nCriticisms\n\nLarry the Cable Guy\n\nIn April 2005, Cross criticized stand-up comedian Larry the Cable Guy in a Rolling Stone interview, saying, \"It's a lot of anti-gay, racist humor—which people like in America—all couched in 'I'm telling it like it is.' He's in the right place at the right time for that gee-shucks, proud-to-be-a-redneck, I'm-just-a-straight-shooter-multimillionaire-in-cutoff-flannel-selling-ring-tones act. That's where we are as a nation now. We're in a state of vague American values and anti-intellectual pride.\"\n\nIn response, Larry devoted a chapter in his book GIT-R-DONE to Cross and the \"PC left\", claiming that Cross had \"screwed with my fans, it was time for me to say something\". Larry claimed that Rolling Stone was baiting comedians to attack him, and they turned to Cross only after Lewis Black refused (due to the fact that Larry and Lewis are good friends ). Cross responded with An Open Letter to Larry the Cable Guy posted on his website. He continued to mock Larry in his stand-up, satirizing Blue Collar TV during a guest appearance on Wonder Showzen. In December 2005, he ended his performance on Comedy Central's Last Laugh '05 by mockingly yelling Larry's catchphrase, \"GIT-R-DONE!\", to the audience as he left the stage. He pokes fun at Larry's comedy in Freak Show with a character called \"Danny the Plumber Guy\".\n\nJames Lipton\n\nCross has criticized Inside the Actors Studio host James Lipton on a Mr. Show sketch and in his stand-up performance The Pride Is Back, calling him \"pretentious.\" Lipton, who thought that Cross's impression of him was not good-natured, would later appear alongside Cross in Arrested Development, in the recurring role of Prison Warden Stefan Gentles. During filming, Cross was impressed with Lipton's acting and comedic ability, and the two became good friends. On one commentary track for season four of Mr. Show, Cross discussed the encounter, complimenting Lipton for his professionalism and performance, saying that he liked Lipton personally but still \"didn't care for\" Inside The Actors Studio.\n\nAlvin and the Chipmunks\n\nResponding to critics of his decision to appear in the critically panned, but commercially successful, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Cross noted that the film paid for a summer home, and more than \"all my other projects combined: book, TV show, the two pilots, Year One, yeah.\" Although he has admitted to taking the role primarily for the money, he has said that he does not regret doing so or consider it to be \"selling out\" as he has nothing against entertainment designed for children to enjoy that does not send a bad message. Cross reprised his Chipmunks role in the film's two sequels, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. In 2011, Cross said the third film was \"the most unpleasant experience I've ever had in my professional life.\" He stated that this was due to clashes with one particular producer involved in the movie that he would not name, though he specified that it was not anyone in the cast, nor the director, and later posted a note to his Facebook page clarifying that it was not executive producers Janice Karman or Ross Bagdasarian, Jr. either, whom he stated \"were never anything but warm, giving, and gracious\" and regretted that some speculated they were the producers to whom he referred. \n\nScott Stapp\n\nCross has been critical of several pop music acts in his standup comedy, notably Creed and lead singer, Scott Stapp. On his 2004 album, \"It's Not Funny\" Cross referred to Creed as, \"the third-worst band in history,\" and maligned the group's pop sensibilities for being too ubiquitous, suggesting that Stapp hung around \"10th grade girls' locker rooms\" to find inspiration for his song lyrics. Cross then goes on to relate an anecdote about meeting Stapp at a taping of Celebrity Poker Showdown in 2003. According to Cross, Stapp was not originally scheduled to appear on the show, but was called in as a last minute replacement when another celebrity canceled. Cross wasn't informed of this until he was in the makeup chair, and became somewhat nervous that a confrontation would take place since he had, \"said the most awful shit about that guy (Stapp) on stage and in print.\" According to Cross, as the taping was preparing to commence, he approached Stapp and extended his hand saying, \"Hey, Scott, David Cross.\" Stapp's response as they shook hands, according to Cross, was to lean in and sarcastically intone, \"Thanks for the words,\" to which Cross merely replied, \"Well, you know...\" suggesting that he stood by his inflammatory remarks and in no way felt they were unjustified. \n\nPersonal life\n\nCross was raised Jewish, but became an atheist in later life and no longer practices Judaism. \n\nIn August 2011, after two years of dating, Cross became engaged to Amber Tamblyn who is 19 years younger than Cross. The couple wed on October 6, 2012. \n\nOn September 26, 2013, Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler revealed that Cross was the first investor in the crowdfunding platform. Strickler included Cross among the \"friends and family\" who first financed Kickstarter in 2006. \n\nDiscography\n\nComedy albums\n\nTour documentary\n\nCompilation appearances\n\nBibliography\n\nRadio appearances\n\nFilmography\n\nFilm\n\nTelevision\n\nMusic videos\n\nVideo games" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Benjamin Stiller", "Benjamin Edward Stiller", "BEN STIiller", "Ben Stiller", "Quinlin Dempsey Stiller" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "quinlin dempsey stiller", "benjamin stiller", "benjamin edward stiller", "ben stiiller", "ben stiller" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "ben stiller", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Ben Stiller" }
What type of drug is Sherman Klump trying to perfect in The Nutty Professor?	tc_1236	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Sherman_Klump.txt", "The_Nutty_Professor_(1996_film).txt" ], "title": [ "Sherman Klump", "The Nutty Professor (1996 film)" ], "wiki_context": [ "Professor Sherman Klump (known as Julius Kelp in the original film and by his alter ego Buddy Love) is a fictional character portrayed by Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor, and by Eddie Murphy in the 1996 version and its 2000 sequel Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. Sherman is a jolly, kind hearted science teacher at Welman College. Although this was the main character Eddie played he also played the part of the rest of Sherman's family (excluding his youngest nephew, Ernie Jr, for obvious reasons).\n\nFilms\n\nThe Nutty Professor\n\nThroughout the first film, the professor is portrayed as highly intelligent and generally respected by his students, but his occasional accidents- such as when he accidentally opens every hamster cage in his lab when leaving it because his stomach shifted the release mechanism without him realizing it- and lack of confidence leave him victim to bullying and verbal abuse from the Dean of the university, especially since they now have only one possible source for grant money left to continue his research, their last supporter having left after she nearly swallowed one of the escaped hamsters. Having recently fallen in love with grad student and chemistry teacher Carla Purty (Jada Pinkett Smith), Sherman uses his latest discovery, a weight-loss serum that rewrites the subject's genes, to lose weight in order to spend time with her. Unfortunately, this serum creates the confident but mean-spirited individual known as Buddy Love, due to the testosterone imbalance caused by the transformation causing Buddy to manifest as an independent personality rather than simply being a thin Sherman. When his student and assistant Jason learns what has happened, he realizes that Buddy is gaining increasingly greater freedom from the professor's influence, such as Buddy taking credit for Sherman's work and essentially replacing Sherman on the faculty. This encourages Sherman to take back control of his life, disposing of most of the serum and 'fighting' Buddy for control of the body before Buddy can drink enough serum to eliminate Sherman forever. At the conclusion, Sherman admits what has happened to the faculty staff after he transforms back to normal in public, concluding that he must learn to accept himself as he is rather than worry about his weight.\n\nJerry Lewis' response\n\nLewis was not fond on Murphy's characters, due to excessive fart jokes in the film.\n\nNutty Professor II: The Klumps\n\nIn the second movie his kind personality is polluted by the Buddy Love gene in his DNA, causing him to occasionally say offensive or insulting things to people without realizing, especially when talking to his new love interest Denise (Janet Jackson). In an attempt to eliminate this, he uses a risky experiment to extract Buddy's DNA from his system. Sherman later proposes to Denise and she accepts. But Sherman's experiment unfortunately results in Buddy manifesting as an independent entity (albeit with some dog-like traits as his genetic make-up filled in the gaps with samples of canine DNA) while leaving Sherman gradually losing his intelligence due to the damage his brain cells have sustained as a result of Buddy being extracted from his system. Eventually, he is able to reabsorb Buddy by using a powerful version of his new youth serum to regress Buddy to amniotic fluid allowing him to 'drink' Buddy and regain his old intellect. Unfortunately, Buddy dies and evaporates into a public coin fountain. Denise and Cletus arrive just in time to help him when he loses his intelligence. Cletus forces Sherman to drink the water from the fountain, which still retains enough of Buddy's genetic pattern, and he regains all of his intelligence. A little while later, he and Denise are finally married and with Buddy dead, he can no longer take over Sherman's mind. He lives happily ever after with his wife.\n\nIn other media\n\nSherman Klump appears in the 3rd season Robot Chicken episode \"Endless Breadsticks\".", "The Nutty Professor is a 1996 American comic science fiction film starring Eddie Murphy. It is a remake of the 1963 film of the same name, which starred Jerry Lewis, and was itself based on Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The film co-stars Jada Pinkett, James Coburn, Larry Miller, Dave Chappelle and John Ales. Montell Jordan has a cameo role as himself. The original music score was composed by David Newman. The film won Best Makeup at the 69th Academy Awards.\n\nMurphy portrays a university professor, Sherman Klump, a kind-hearted professor who is morbidly obese. A research scientist, academic, and lecturer, Klump develops a miraculous, but experimental, weight-loss pharmaceutical, and, hoping to win the affection of the girl of his dreams, tests it upon himself. Like the original film's Julius Kelp, Klump's vigorous, charismatic, but evil alter ego takes the name \"Buddy Love\". Murphy plays a total of seven characters in the film, including Sherman, most of Sherman's family (except for his nephew, Ernie Klump Jr. played by actor Jamal Mixon), and an over-the-top parody of Richard Simmons.\n\nThe film received positive reviews, with critics particularly praising the makeup and Murphy's performance. The film's success spawned a sequel, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, which was released in 2000. The film was re-released on Blu-ray combo pack on March 6, 2012, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Universal Studios.\n\nPlot\n\nAt Wellman College, thousands of hamsters overrun the campus, due to the massively obese, yet loving and kind-hearted, professor Sherman Klump, who accidentally releases them. Meanwhile, Sherman has created an experimental formula that reconstructs the DNA of an obese person in a way that allows them to lose weight more easily\n\nAfter class, Sherman meets and instantly falls in love with Carla Purty, a chemistry graduate student who is a big fan of his work. After dinner with his obese, impolite family, Sherman asks Carla out on a date, which she accepts, much to Sherman's surprise. The date begins well with Carla showing admiration for Sherman's work, but the club's obnoxious comic Reggie Warrington publicly humiliates him about his weight. Sherman becomes depressed and has a nightmare in which he becomes a rampaging giant and wrecks the city with a single fart that is ignited to cause an explosion. He tests his serum on himself and loses 300 pounds in seconds. Overwhelmed by his thinness, he goes out and buys copious amounts of normal-sized clothing to celebrate, and a $47,000 Viper sports car on his faculty expense account.\n\nTo conceal his true identity, Sherman adopts a fake name, \"Buddy Love\", and invites Carla out on a date at the same club again (while the serum begins to wear off). Reggie is present again and Buddy takes revenge and heckles him mercilessly. Sherman's \"Buddy\" persona starts to develop an independent personality due to the heightened testosterone levels of the transformation, causing him to be overly assertive and confident. Klump's assistant Jason witnesses Buddy fleeing the scene after he is identified as the person who left Klump's credit card on the bar. Jason follows Buddy and witnesses the transformation back into Klump.\n\nThe next morning, Dean Richmond has set up a meeting with wealthy Harlan Hartley at The Ritz to have Sherman explain the serum in the hopes of gaining Hartley's $10 million donation to the science department. Sherman arrives at The Ritz as Buddy with Carla. When the dean spots him, Carla asks Buddy if he will take Sherman's place. He does, and he takes all the credit of his work to Hartley. Hartley and the dean are very impressed, and the dean invites him to the Alumni Ball the next night. Meanwhile, Buddy picks up three beautiful women who seem to idolize him, much to Carla's anger who dumps him and walks out. He then invites the three women back to his place for the night so he can have sex with them.\n\nAfter the falling out with Carla, Richmond gleefully telling Sherman that Buddy will be taking his place at the Alumni Ball, and seeing a taunting video tape from his alter ego, Sherman has had enough. He and Jason destroy all of the serum samples. Sherman plans to set things right with Carla and get the grant from Hartley. Unfortunately, Buddy knew that this would happen and prepared himself by hiding a sample of the serum in one of Sherman's diet shake cans, which Sherman drinks, causing him to transform into Buddy again. Jason tries to stop him from going to the ball, but Buddy knocks him out with a single blow to the face and departs.\n\nAt the ball, Buddy demonstrates the effects of the serum to the audience, but Jason arrives in time, as he has found out that Buddy's testosterone levels are at a lethally high 60,000%. Buddy plans to drink a large sums of the potion to get rid of Sherman for good. Jason knows that if he drinks it, it will kill Sherman and possibly Buddy. The two of them get into a brief fistfight, but Sherman begins to fight Buddy from within. Sherman eventually transforms into his regular self and admits to the shocked audience, including his parents, of his misdeeds, that Buddy was who he thought he and everybody else wanted him to be, and that he should accept himself for who he is. As he leaves, Carla stops him and asks why he lied; he says he did not believe that she would accept him, but she says it doesn't matter if he is overweight or not. Sherman and Carla share a dance and Hartley gives the donation to Sherman because he is \"a brilliant scientist and a gentleman.\"\n\nCast\n\n* Eddie Murphy as Professor Sherman Klump/Buddy Love\n** Murphy also plays Papa Cletus Klump (Sherman's father), Mama Anna Klump (Sherman's mother), Granny Klump (Sherman's Grandma, Anna's Mama), Ernie Klump, Sr. (Sherman's brother) and Lance Perkins, a parody of Richard Simmons\n* Jada Pinkett as Carla Purty\n* James Coburn as Harlan Hartley\n* Larry Miller as Dean Richmond\n* Dave Chappelle as Reggie Warrington\n* John Ales as Jason\n* Jamal Mixon as Ernie Klump, Jr.\n* Montell Jordan as himself\n\nProduction\n\nThe Nutty Professor was the first Tom Shadyac film to feature outtakes over the closing credits. The film also has a series of scenes with Murphy and comedian Dave Chappelle who plays insult comic, Reggie Warrington. Much of their dialogue was improvised. Murphy was one of Chappelle's biggest comedic influences. Reggie Warrington is named after Reginald and Warrington Hudlin, brothers, and directors of one of Murphy's previous films, Boomerang. \n\nWhile the film was made with the help of Jerry Lewis (he was an executive producer for both this film and the 2000 sequel The Klumps), he later recanted his position in an interview in the January 30/February 6, 2009 edition of Entertainment Weekly magazine. He was quoted as saying, \"I have such respect for Eddie, but I should not have done it. What I did was perfect the first time around and all you're going to do is diminish that perfection by letting someone else do it.\" \n\nReception\n\nCritical response\n\nThe Nutty Professor has received positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 65% based on reviews from 54 critics. Metacritic gave the film a score of 62 out of 100, indicating \"generally favorable reviews\". \n\nRoger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 stars out of 4, calling it \"a movie that's like a thumb to the nose for everyone who said [Murphy had] lost it. He's very good. And the movie succeeds in two different ways: it's sweet and good-hearted, and then again it's raucous slapstick and bathroom humor. I liked both parts.\" Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B+, writing \"You can feel Murphy rediscovering his joy as a performer. He rediscovers it, too, as Sherman Klump, a fellow who, much like Murphy, is on the bottom rung, desperate to reinvent himself, and — at long last — does.\" \n\nBox office\n\nThe Nutty Professor was a box office success, opening with $25,411,725 and reaching a domestic sum of $128,814,019, and $145,147,000 overseas, for a total of $273,961,019 worldwide.\n\nAwards\n\n \n\n* 69th Academy Awards\n** Best Makeup (Won)\n* 54th Golden Globe Awards\n** Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy - Eddie Murphy (Nominated)\n\nSoundtrack" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Weightloss", "Weight reduction", "Fat loss", "Lose weight", "Unintentional weight loss", "Involuntary weight loss", "Abnormal loss of weight", "Abnormal weight loss", "Weight Loss", "Natural weight loss", "Slimming", "Weight loss", "Weight-loss", "Loss of weight", "Weight loss pills", "Loses weight", "Losing weight", "Losing Weight" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "lose weight", "unintentional weight loss", "weight reduction", "abnormal loss of weight", "loss of weight", "weight loss pills", "abnormal weight loss", "slimming", "weight loss", "fat loss", "loses weight", "weightloss", "involuntary weight loss", "losing weight", "natural weight loss" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "weight loss", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Weight loss" }
Which First Lady had to give evidence over the Whitewater scandal?	tc_1238	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "First_Lady_of_the_United_States.txt", "Whitewater_controversy.txt" ], "title": [ "First Lady of the United States", "Whitewater controversy" ], "wiki_context": [ "The First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS), is an unofficial title and position traditionally held by the wife of the President of the United States, concurrent with the president's term of office. \n\nThe position of the First Lady is unofficial and carries no official duties. The role of the First Lady has evolved over the centuries. The main role of the First Ladies, besides their private role as spouse, has been as hostess and organizer to the White House. She organizes and attends official ceremonies and functions of state either along with, or in place of, the president. \n\nThe position is largely one of status, and First Ladies have held influence in a range of sectors, from fashion to public opinion on policy. Historically, should a president be unmarried, or the president's wife is unable to act as First Lady, the president usually asks a relative or friend to act as White House hostess.\n\nCurrent First Lady \n\nThe current First Lady is Michelle Obama. At present, there are four living former first ladies: Rosalynn Carter, wife of Jimmy Carter; Barbara Bush, wife of George H. W. Bush; Hillary Clinton, wife of Bill Clinton; and Laura Bush, wife of George W. Bush.\n\nOrigins of the title \n\nThe use of the title First Lady to describe the spouse or hostess of an executive began in the United States. In the early days of the republic, there was not a generally accepted title for the wife of the president. Many early first ladies expressed their own preference for how they were addressed, including the use of such titles as \"Lady\", \"Mrs. President\", and \"Mrs. Presidentress\"; Martha Washington was often referred to as \"Lady Washington.\" One of the earliest uses of the term \"First Lady\" was applied to her in an 1838 newspaper article that appeared in the St. Johnsbury (VT) Caledonian, the author, \"Mrs. Sigourney\", discussing how Martha Washington had not changed, even after her husband George became president, wrote that \"The first lady of the nation still preserved the habits of early life. Indulging in no indolence, she left the pillow at dawn, and after breakfast, retired to her chamber for an hour for the study of the scriptures and devotion\". \n\nDolley Madison was reportedly referred to as \"First Lady\" in 1849 at her funeral in a eulogy delivered by President Zachary Taylor; however, no written record of this eulogy exists, nor did any of the newspapers of her day refer to her by that title. Sometime after 1849, the title began being used in Washington, D.C., social circles. One of the earliest known written examples comes from the November 3, 1863, diary entry of William Howard Russell, in which he referred to gossip about \"the First Lady in the Land,\" referring to Mary Todd Lincoln. The title first gained nationwide recognition in 1877, when newspaper journalist Mary C. Ames referred to Lucy Webb Hayes as \"the First Lady of the Land\" while reporting on the inauguration of Rutherford B. Hayes. The frequent reporting on Lucy Hayes' activities helped spread use of the title outside Washington. A popular 1911 comedic play about Dolley Madison by playwright Charles Nirdlinger, titled The First Lady in the Land, popularized the title further. By the 1930s it was in wide use. Use of the title later spread from the United States to other nations.\n\nWhen Edith Wilson took control of her husband's schedule in 1919 after he had a debilitating stroke, one Republican senator labeled her \"the Presidentress who had fulfilled the dream of the suffragettes by changing her title from First Lady to Acting First Man.\" \n\nThe wife of the :Vice President of the United States is sometimes referred to as the Second Lady of the United States, but this title is much less common.\n\nSeveral women who were not presidents' wives have served as First Lady, as when the president was a bachelor or widower, or when the wife of the president was unable to fulfill the duties of the First Lady herself. In these cases, the position has been filled by a female relative or friend of the president, such as Martha Jefferson Randolph during Jefferson's presidency, Emily Donelson and Sarah Yorke Jackson during Jackson's, Mary Elizabeth (Taylor) Bliss during Taylor's, Mary Harrison McKee during Benjamin Harrison's presidency, upon her mother's death, Harriet Lane during Buchanan's, and Rose Cleveland prior to Cleveland's marriage.\n\nRole \n\nBurns identifies four successive main themes of the First Ladyship: as public woman (1900–1929); as political celebrity (1932–1961); as political activist (1964–1977); and as political interloper (1980–2001).\n\nThe position of the First Lady is not an elected one and carries no official duties. Nonetheless, first ladies have held a highly visible position in American society. The role of the First Lady has evolved over the centuries. She is, first and foremost, the hostess of the White House. She organizes and attends official ceremonies and functions of state either along with, or in place of, the president.\n\nMartha Washington created the role and hosted many affairs of state at the national capital (New York and Philadelphia). This socializing became known as \"the Republican Court\" and provided elite women with an opportunity to play backstage political role. Both Martha Washington and Abigail Adams were treated as if they were \"ladies\" of the British royal court. \n\nDolley Madison popularized the First Ladyship by engaging in efforts to assist orphans and women, by dressing in elegant fashions and attracting newspaper coverage, and by risking her life to save iconic treasures during the War of 1812. Madison set the standard for the ladyship and her actions were the model for nearly every First Lady until Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1930s. She traveled widely and spoke to many groups, often voicing personal opinions to the left of the president's. She authored a weekly newspaper column and hosted a radio show. Jacqueline Kennedy led an effort to redecorate and restore the White House. \n\nOver the course of the 20th century it became increasingly common for first ladies to select specific causes to promote, usually ones that are not politically divisive. It is common for the First Lady to hire a staff to support these activities. Lady Bird Johnson pioneered environmental protection and beautification. Pat Nixon encouraged volunteerism and traveled extensively abroad; Betty Ford supported women's rights; Rosalynn Carter aided those with mental disabilities; Nancy Reagan founded the Just Say No drug awareness campaign; Barbara Bush promoted literacy; Hillary Clinton sought to reform the healthcare system in the U.S.; and Laura Bush supported women's rights groups and encouraged childhood literacy. Michelle Obama has become identified with supporting military families and tackling childhood obesity. \n\nClinton very much changed the role of the First Lady. In championing her cause of healthcare reform, she was made Chairperson in Charge of Healthcare and delivered a speech directly to the American Medical Association. In addition to her role as First Lady, Clinton ran for office. Clinton was elected a U.S. Senator from New York in 2001 and was the Secretary of State in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2013. Many first ladies, including Jacqueline Kennedy, Nancy Reagan, and Michelle Obama have been significant fashion trendsetters. There is a strong tradition against the First Lady holding outside employment while serving as White House hostess. However, some first ladies have exercised a degree of political influence by virtue of being an important adviser to the president. During Hillary Clinton's campaign for election to the U.S. Senate, the couple's daughter, Chelsea, took over much of the First Lady's role.\n\nOffice of the First Lady \n\nThe Office of the First Lady of the United States is accountable to the First Lady for her to carry out her duties as hostess of the White House, and is also in charge of all social and ceremonial events of the White House. The First Lady has her own staff that includes a chief of staff, press secretary, White House Social Secretary, Chief Floral Designer, etc. The Office of the First Lady is an entity of the White House Office, a branch of the Executive Office of the President. When First Lady Hillary Clinton decided to pursue a run for Senator of New York, she set aside her duties as first lady and moved to Chappaqua, New York to establish state residency. She resumed her duties as First Lady after winning her senatorial campaign, and retained her duties as both first lady and U.S. Senator for the seventeen-day overlap before Bill Clinton's term came to an end. \n\nExhibitions and collections \n\nEstablished in 1912, the First Ladies Collection has been one of the most popular attractions at the Smithsonian Institution. The original exhibition opened in 1914 and was one of the first at the Smithsonian to prominently feature women. Originally focused largely on fashion, the exhibition now delves deeper into the contributions of first ladies to the presidency and American society. In 2008, \"First Ladies at the Smithsonian\" opened at the National Museum of American History as part of its reopening year celebration. That exhibition served as a bridge to the museum's expanded exhibition on first ladies' history that opened on November 19, 2011. \"The First Ladies\" explores the unofficial but important position of first lady and the ways that different women have shaped the role to make their own contributions to the presidential administrations and the nation. The exhibition features 26 dresses and more than 160 other objects, ranging from those of Martha Washington to Michelle Obama, and includes White House china, personal possessions and other objects from the Smithsonian's unique collection of first ladies' materials. \n\nFirst Ladies of the United States \n\nFor a complete list of the first ladies, see List of First Ladies of the United States\n\nFirst Lady and fashion \n\nSome first ladies have garnered attention for their dress and style. Jacqueline Kennedy, for instance, became a global fashion icon: her style was copied by commercial manufacturers and imitated by many young women, and she was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1965. Michelle Obama has also received significant attention for her fashion choices: style writer Robin Givhan praised her in The Daily Beast, arguing that the First Lady's style has helped to enhance the public image of the office. \n\nFictional First Ladies of the United States", "The Whitewater controversy (also known as the Whitewater scandal, or simply Whitewater) began with an investigation into the real estate investments of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their associates, Jim and Susan McDougal, in the Whitewater Development Corporation, a failed business venture in the 1970s and 1980s. \n\nA March 1992, New York Times article published during the U.S. presidential campaign reported that the Clintons, then governor and first lady of Arkansas, had invested and lost money in the Whitewater Development Corporation. The article stimulated the interest of L. Jean Lewis, a Resolution Trust Corporation investigator who was looking into the failure of Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, owned by Jim and Susan McDougal. Lewis looked for connections between the savings and loan company and the Clintons, and on September 2, 1992, she submitted a criminal referral to the FBI naming Bill and Hillary Clinton as witnesses in the Madison Guaranty case. Little Rock U.S. Attorney Charles A. Banks and the FBI determined that the referral lacked merit, but Lewis continued to pursue the case. From 1992 to 1994, Lewis issued several additional referrals against the Clintons, and repeatedly called the U.S. Attorney's Office in Little Rock and the Justice Department regarding the case. Her referrals eventually became public knowledge, and she testified before the Senate Whitewater Committee in 1995.\n\nDavid Hale, the source of criminal allegations against the Clintons, claimed in November 1993, that Bill Clinton had pressured him into providing an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, the Clintons' partner in the Whitewater land deal. Clinton supporters regarded Hale's allegations as questionable, as Hale had not mentioned Clinton in reference to this loan during the original FBI investigation of Madison Guaranty in 1989; only after coming under indictment in 1993, did Hale make allegations against the Clintons. A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation did result in convictions against the McDougals for their role in the Whitewater project. Jim Guy Tucker, Bill Clinton's successor as governor, was convicted of fraud and sentenced to four years of probation for his role in the matter. Susan McDougal served 18 months in prison for contempt of court for refusing to answer questions relating to Whitewater. The Clintons themselves were never prosecuted, after three separate inquiries found insufficient evidence linking them with the criminal conduct of others related to the land deal, and Susan McDougal was granted a pardon by President Clinton before he left office.\n\nThe term Whitewater is also sometimes used to include other controversies from the Bill Clinton administration, especially Travelgate, Filegate, and the circumstances surrounding Vince Foster's death, that were investigated by the Whitewater independent counsel. \n\nHistory\n\nOrigins of Whitewater Development Corporation\n\nBill Clinton had known Arkansas businessman and political figure Jim McDougal since 1968, and had made a previous small real estate investment with him in 1977. The Clintons were seeking ways of supplementing their income: Bill Clinton's salary was $26,500 as Arkansas Attorney General (which would rise to $35,000 if his campaign for Governor of Arkansas succeeded) and Hillary Clinton's salary was $24,500 as a Rose Law Firm associate. It was around this time that Hillary Clinton also began trading cattle futures.\n\nIn spring of 1978, McDougal proposed that the Clintons join him and his wife, Susan, in buying 230 acre of undeveloped land along the south bank of the White River near Flippin, Arkansas, in the Ozark Mountains. The goal was to subdivide the site into lots for vacation homes, intended for the many people coming south from Chicago and Detroit who were interested in low property taxes, fishing, rafting, and mountain scenery. The plan was to hold the property for a few years and then sell the lots at a profit.\n\nThe four borrowed $203,000 to buy land, and subsequently transferred ownership of the land to the newly created Whitewater Development Corporation, in which all four participants had equal shares. Susan McDougal chose the name \"Whitewater Estates\" and their sales pitch was, \"One weekend here and you'll never want to live anywhere else.\" The business was incorporated on June 18, 1979.\n\nFailure of Whitewater Development Corporation\n\nBy the time the Whitewater lots were surveyed and available for sale at the end of 1979, interest rates had climbed to near 20 percent. Prospective buyers could no longer afford to buy vacation homes. Rather than take a loss on the venture, the four decided to build a model home and wait for better economic conditions.\n\nFollowing the land purchase, Jim McDougal asked the Clintons for additional funds for interest payments on the loan and other expenses; the Clintons later claimed to have no knowledge of how these contributions were used. When Bill Clinton failed to win re-election in 1980, Jim McDougal lost his job as the governor's economic aide and decided to go into banking. He acquired the Bank of Kingston in 1980 and the Woodruff Savings & Loan in 1982, renaming them the Madison Bank & Trust and the Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, respectively.\n\nIn spring 1985, McDougal held a fundraiser at Madison Guaranty's office in Little Rock that paid off Clinton's 1984 gubernatorial campaign debt of $50,000. McDougal raised $35,000; $12,000 of that was in Madison Guaranty cashier's checks. \n\nIn 1985, Jim McDougal invested in a local construction project called Castle Grande. The 1,000 acres (4 km²), located south of Little Rock, were priced at about $1.75 million, more than McDougal could afford on his own. According to current law, McDougal could borrow only $600,000 from his own savings and loan, Madison Guaranty. Therefore, McDougal involved others to raise the additional funds. Among these was Seth Ward, an employee of the bank, who helped funnel the additional $1.15 million required. To avoid potential investigations, the money was moved back and forth among several other investors and intermediaries. Hillary Clinton, then an attorney at Rose Law Firm (which is based in Little Rock) provided legal services to Castle Grande.\n\nIn 1986, federal regulators realized that all of the necessary funds for this real estate venture had come from Madison Guaranty; regulators called Castle Grande a sham. In July of that year, McDougal resigned from Madison Guaranty. Seth Ward fell under investigation, along with the lawyer who helped him draft the agreement.\nCastle Grande earned $2 million in commissions and fees for McDougal's business associates, as well as an unknown amount in legal fees for Rose Law Firm, but in 1989, it collapsed, at a cost to the government of $4 million. This in turn helped trigger the 1989 collapse of Madison Guaranty, which federal regulators then had to take over. Taking place in the midst of the nationwide savings and loan crisis, the failure of Madison Guaranty cost the United States $73 million. \n\nThe Clintons lost between $37,000 and $69,000 on their Whitewater investment; this was less than the McDougals lost. The reasons for the unequal capital contributions by the Clintons and McDougals are unknown but the President's critics cited the discrepancy as evidence that then-Governor Clinton was to contribute to the project in other ways.\n\nThe White House and the President's supporters claimed that they were exonerated by the Pillsbury Report. This was a $3 million study done for the Resolution Trust Corporation by the Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro law firm at the time that Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan was dissolved. The report concluded that James McDougal, who had set up the deal, was the managing partner, and Bill Clinton was a passive investor in the venture; the Associated Press characterized it as \"generally support[ing] the Clintons' description of their involvement in Whitewater.\" However, Charles Patterson, the attorney who supervised the report, \"refused … to call it a vindication\" of the Clintons, stating in testimony before the Senate Whitewater Committee that \"it was not our purpose to vindicate, castigate, exculpate.\" \n\nBill Clinton's first run for president\n\nDuring Bill Clinton's first bid for the presidency in 1992, he was asked by New York Times reporters about the failure of the Whitewater development. The subsequent New York Times article, by reporter Jeff Gerth, appeared on March 8, 1992.\n\nRemoval of documents\n\nWithin hours of the death of Vince Foster in July 1993, chief White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum removed documents, some of them concerning the Whitewater Development Corporation, from Foster's office and gave them to Maggie Williams, Chief of Staff to the First Lady. According to the New York Times, Williams placed the documents in a safe in the White House for five days before turning them over to their personal lawyer. \n\nSubpoena of the presidential couple\n\nAs a result of the exposé in the New York Times, the Justice Department opened an investigation into the failed Whitewater deal. Media pressure continued to build, and on April 22, 1994, Hillary Clinton gave an unusual press conference under a portrait of Abraham Lincoln in the State Dining Room of the White House, to address questions on both Whitewater and the cattle futures controversy; it was broadcast live on several networks. In it, she claimed that the Clintons had a passive role in the Whitewater venture and had committed no wrongdoing, but admitted that her explanations had been vague. She said that she no longer opposed appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the matter. Afterwards, she won media praise for the manner in which she conducted herself during the press conference; Time called her \"open, candid, but above all unflappable...the real message was her attitude and her poise. The confiding tone and relaxed body language...immediately drew approving reviews\". By that time there was growing backlash from Democrats and other members of the political left against the press' investigations of Whitewater. The New York Times was criticized by Gene Lyons of Harper's Magazine, who felt its reporters were exaggerating the significance and possible impropriety of what they were uncovering. \n\nAt Clinton's request, Attorney General Janet Reno appointed a special prosecutor, Robert B. Fiske, to investigate the legality of the Whitewater transactions in 1994. Two allegations surfaced: 1) that Clinton had exerted pressure on an Arkansas businessman, David Hale, to make a loan that would benefit him and the owners of Madison Guaranty; and 2) that an Arkansas bank had concealed transactions involving Clinton's gubernatorial campaign in 1990. In May 1994, Fiske issued a grand jury subpoena to the President and his wife for all documents relating to Madison Guaranty, with a deadline of 30 days. They were reported as missing by the Clintons. Almost two years later, the subpoenaed billing records of the Rose Law Firm were discovered in the Clintons' private residence in the White House by a staffer.\n\nThe Kenneth Starr investigation\n\nIn August 1994, Kenneth Starr was appointed by a three-judge panel to continue the Whitewater investigation, replacing Robert B. Fiske, who had been specially appointed by the attorney general, prior to the re-enactment of the Independent Counsel law. Fiske was replaced because he had been chosen and appointed by Janet Reno, Clinton's attorney general, creating a conflict of interest.\n\nDavid Hale, the key witness against President Clinton in Starr's Whitewater investigation, alleged in November 1992 that Clinton, while governor of Arkansas, pressured him to provide an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, the partner of the Clintons in the Whitewater deal.\n\nHale's defense strategy, as proposed by attorney Randy Coleman, was to present himself as the victim of high-powered politicians who forced him to give away all of the money. This self-caricature was undermined by testimony from November 1989, wherein FBI agents investigating the failure of Madison Guaranty had questioned Hale about his dealings with Jim and Susan McDougal, including the $300,000 loan. According to the agents' official memorandum of that interview, Hale described in some detail his dealings with Jim Guy Tucker (then an attorney in private practice, later Bill Clinton's lieutenant governor), both McDougals, and several others, but never mentioned Governor Bill Clinton. Nor did Clinton's name come up when Hale testified at Mcdougall's 1990 trial, which ended in an acquittal.\n\nClinton denied that he pressured Hale to approve the loan to Susan McDougal. By this time, Hale had already pleaded guilty to two felonies and secured a reduction in his sentence in exchange for his testimony against Bill Clinton. Charges were made by Clinton supporters that Hale had received numerous cash payments from representatives of the so-called Arkansas Project, a $2.4 million campaign established to assist in Hale's defense strategy, and to investigate Clinton and his associates between 1993 and 1997. These charges were the topic of a separate investigation by former Department of Justice investigator, Michael E. Shaheen, Jr. Shaheen filed his report in July 1999 to Starr, who stated that the allegations that Hale had been paid in hopes of influencing his testimony were \"unsubstantiated or, in some cases, untrue\". Furthermore, no charges were brought against Hale or the Arkansas Project outlet, The American Spectator. Writers from Salon complained that the full, 168-page, report had not been made public, a complaint still being reiterated by Salon as of 2001. \n\nState prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Hale in early July 1996, charging that Hale had misrepresented the solvency of his insurance company, National Savings Life, to the state insurance commission. The prosecutors also alleged in court papers that Hale had made those misrepresentations to conceal the fact that he had looted the insurance company. Hale said that any infraction was a technicality and that no one had lost any money. In March 1999, Hale was convicted of the first charge, with the jury recommending a 21-day jail sentence.\n\nStarr drafted an impeachment referral to the House of Representatives in the fall of 1997, alleging that there was \"substantial and credible evidence\" that Bill Clinton had committed perjury regarding Hale's allegations.\n\nTheodore B. Olson, who with several associates, launched the plan that later became known as the \"Arkansas Project\", wrote several essays for The American Spectator, accusing Clinton and many of his associates of wrongdoing. The first of those pieces appeared in February 1994, alleging a wide variety of criminal offenses by the Clintons and others, including Webster Hubbell. These allegations led to the discovery that Hubbell, a friend and former Rose Law Firm partner of Hillary Clinton, had committed multiple frauds, mostly against his own firm. Hillary Clinton, instead of being complicit in Hubbell's crimes, had been among his victims. In December 1994, one week after Hubbell pleaded guilty to mail fraud and tax evasion, Associate White House Counsel, Jane C. Sherburne, created a \"Task List\" which included a reference to monitoring Hubbell's cooperation with Starr. Hubbell was later recorded in prison saying \"I need to roll over one more time\" regarding the Rose Law firm lawsuit. In his next court appearance, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination (see United States v. Hubbell).\n\nIn February 1997, Starr announced he would leave the investigation to pursue a position at the Pepperdine University School of Law. However, he \"flip flopped\" in the face of \"intense criticism\", and new evidence of sexual misconduct. \n\nBy April 1998, diverted to some degree by the burgeoning Lewinsky scandal, Starr's investigations in Arkansas were winding down, with his Little Rock grand jury about to expire. Hubbell, Jim Guy Tucker, and Susan McDougal had all refused to cooperate with Starr. Tucker and McDougal were later pardoned by President Clinton. When the Arkansas grand jury did conclude its work in May 1998, after 30 months in panel, it came up with only a contempt indictment against Susan McDougal. Although she refused to testify under oath regarding the Clintons' involvement in Whitewater, Susan McDougal did make the case in the media that the Clintons had been truthful in their account of the loan, and had cast doubt on her former husband's motives for cooperating with Starr. She also claimed that James McDougal felt abandoned by Clinton, and told her \"he was going to pay back the Clintons\". She said to the press, again not under oath, that her husband had told her that Republican activist and Little Rock lawyer, Sheffield Nelson, was willing to \"pay him some money\" for talking to the New York Times about Bill Clinton, and in 1992, he told her that one of Clinton's political enemies was paying him to tell the New York Times about Whitewater.\n\nFrom the beginning, Susan McDougal charged that Starr offered her \"global immunity\" from other charges if she would cooperate with the Whitewater investigation. McDougal told the jury that refusing to answer questions about the Clintons and Whitewater wasn't easy for her, or her family. \"It's been a long road, a very long road...and it was not an easy decision to make\", McDougal told the court. McDougal refused to answer any questions while under oath, leading to her being imprisoned by the judge for civil contempt of court for the maximum 18 months, including eight months in isolation. Starr's subsequent indictment of McDougal for criminal contempt of court charges resulted in a jury hung 7-5, in favor of acquittal. President Clinton later pardoned her, shortly before leaving office.\n\nIn September 1998, Independent Counsel Starr released the Starr Report, concerning offenses alleged to have been committed by President Clinton, as part of the Lewinsky scandal. The report mentioned Whitewater only in passing; Clinton friend and advisor, Vernon Jordan, had tried to help Webster Hubbell financially with \"no-show\" consulting contracts while he was under pressure to cooperate with the Whitewater investigations. Indeed, it was on this basis that Starr took on the Lewinsky investigation, under the umbrella of the Whitewater Independent Counsel mandate.\n\nThere was much acrimony from the most fervent critics of the Clintons, after the release of the Starr report on the Foster matter and after Starr's departure and return to the case. The death of Foster had been the source of many conspiracy theories. Christopher Ruddy, a reporter for Richard Mellon Scaife's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, helped fuel much of this speculation with claims that Starr had not pursued this line of inquiry far enough. \n\nReaction of the Clintons\n\nOn January 26, 1996, Hillary Clinton testified before a grand jury concerning her investments in Whitewater. This was the first time in American history that a first lady had been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury. She testified that they never borrowed any money from the bank, and denied having caused anyone to borrow money on their behalf. Over the course of the investigation, fifteen individuals—including Jim and Susan McDougal, White House counsel Webster Hubbell, and Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker—were convicted of federal charges. Other than Jim McDougal, none of the convicted agreed to cooperate with the Whitewater investigators, and Clinton pardoned four of them in the final hours of his presidency (see list of people pardoned by Bill Clinton).\n\nReaction of Senate and Congress\n\nParallel to the Independent Counsel track, both houses of the United States Congress had been investigating Whitewater and holding hearings on it. The House Committee on Financial Services had been scheduled to begin hearings in late March 1994, but they were postponed after an unusually angry, written communication from Democratic Banking Committee chair Henry B. Gonzalez to Republican Jim Leach. Gonzalez called Leach \"obstinate\", \"obdurate\", \"in willful disregard\" of House etiquette, and \"premeditatedly\" plotting a \"judicial adventure\". The House Banking Committee began its hearings in late July 1994. \n\nThe Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee also began hearings on Whitewater in July 1994. These hearings intensified in May 1995, following the Republican gain of control, when the Republican Banking Committee chairman Al D'Amato also became chair of the newly formed Special Whitewater Committee. The Whitewater committee's hearings were much more extensive than those held previously by the Democrats, running for 300 hours over 60 sessions across 13 months, and taking over 10,000 pages of testimony and 35,000 pages of depositions from almost 250 people. The hearings' testimony and senatorial lines of investigation mostly followed partisan lines, with Republicans investigating the President and the Democrats defending him. The Senate Special Whitewater Committee issued an 800-page majority report on June 18, 1996, which only hinted at one possible improper action by President Clinton, but spoke of the Clinton Administration as \"an American presidency [that] misused its power, circumvented the limits on its authority and attempted to manipulate the truth\". The first lady came in for much stronger criticism, as she was \"the central figure\" in all aspects of the alleged wrongdoings. The Democratic minority on the Committee called these findings \"a legislative travesty\", \"a witch hunt\", and \"a political game\".\n\nOn November 19, 1998, Independent Counsel Starr testified before the House Judiciary Committee in connection with the Impeachment of Bill Clinton over charges related to the Lewinsky scandal. Starr said that in late 1997, he had considered preparing an impeachment report regarding the fraudulent $300,000 loan to Susan Mcdougall and the question of whether the President had testified truthfully regarding the loan. Starr said that he held back the charges because he was not sure that the two major witnesses had told the truth, but that the investigation was still ongoing. Regarding the reappearance of Hillary Clinton's Rose Law Firm billing records in the White House residential section, Starr said the investigation had found no explanation for the disappearance or the reappearance. \"After a thorough investigation, we have found no explanation how the billing records got where they were or why they were not discovered and produced earlier. It remains a mystery to this day.\" Starr also chose this occasion to completely exonerate President Clinton of any wrongdoing in the Travelgate and Filegate matters; Democrats on the committee immediately criticized Starr for withholding these findings, as well as the Whitewater one, until after the 1998 Congressional elections.\n\nConvictions\n\nUltimately the Clintons were never charged, but 15 other persons were convicted of more than 40 crimes, including Bill Clinton's successor as governor, who was removed from office. \n* Jim Guy Tucker: Governor of Arkansas at the time, removed from office (fraud, 3 counts)\n* John Haley: attorney for Jim Guy Tucker (tax evasion)\n* William J. Marks, Sr.: Jim Guy Tucker's business partner (conspiracy)\n* Stephen Smith: former Governor Clinton aide (conspiracy to misapply funds). Bill Clinton pardoned.\n* Webster Hubbell: Clinton political supporter; Rose Law Firm partner (embezzlement, fraud)\n* Jim McDougal: banker, Clinton political supporter: (18 felonies, varied)\n* Susan McDougal: Clinton political supporter (multiple frauds). Bill Clinton pardoned.\n* David Hale: banker, self-proclaimed Clinton political supporter: (conspiracy, fraud)\n* Neal Ainley: Perry County Bank president (embezzled bank funds for Clinton campaign)\n* Chris Wade: Whitewater real estate broker (multiple loan fraud). Bill Clinton pardoned.\n* Larry Kuca: Madison real estate agent (multiple loan fraud)\n* Robert W. Palmer: Madison appraiser (conspiracy). Bill Clinton pardoned.\n* John Latham: Madison Bank CEO (bank fraud)\n* Eugene Fitzhugh: Whitewater defendant (multiple bribery)\n* Charles Matthews: Whitewater defendant (bribery)\n\nTax returns\n\nIn March 1992, during his presidential campaign, the Clintons acknowledged that on their 1984 and 1985 tax returns, they had claimed improper tax deductions for interest payments made by the Whitewater Development Company. Due to the age of mistake, the Clintons were not obligated to make good the error, but Bill Clinton announced that they would nonetheless do so.\n\nDeputy White House counsel Vince Foster looked into this matter, but did not take any action before his death. On December 28, 1993, almost two years after the original announcement, the Clintons did make a reimbursement payment, for $4,900, to the Internal Revenue Service. This was done just before Justice Department investigators started seeking the Clintons' Whitewater files. The payment was made without filing an amended return (possibly because the three-year period for amended return filing had passed), but did include full interest on the amount of the error, including the additional two-year delay. The Whitewater files in question, publicly released in August 1995, cast some doubt on the Clintons' assertions in the matter, as they showed that the couple was aware that the interest payments in question were paid by the Whitewater corporation, and not them personally.\n\nRay report\n\nKenneth Starr's successor as Independent Counsel, Robert Ray, released a report in September 2000, that stated \"This office determined that the evidence was insufficient to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that either President or Mrs. Clinton knowingly participated in any criminal conduct.\" Nevertheless, Ray criticized the White House saying that delays in the production of evidence and \"unmeritorious litigation\" by the president's lawyers severely impeded the investigation's progress, leading to a total cost of nearly $60 million. Ray's report effectively closed the Whitewater investigation.\n\nEpilogue\n\nBill and Hillary Clinton never visited the actual Whitewater property. In May 1985, Jim McDougal sold the remaining lots of the failed Whitewater Development Corporation to local realtor, Chris Wade. By 1993, there were a few occupied houses on the site, but most of the properties were still for sale. One owner, tired of the many reporters who visited the site, hung a sign saying \"Go Home, Idiots.\" By 2007, there were about 12 houses in the subdivision, with the last lot up for sale by son, Chris Wade, Jr., for $25,000. In Flippin, Jim McDougal's savings and loan bank had been replaced by a variety of small businesses, most recently a barbershop. \n\nThe length, expense, and results of the Whitewater investigations turned the public against the Office of the Independent Counsel; even Kenneth Starr was opposed to it. The Independent Counsel law was allowed to expire in 1999. Indeed, no one ended up happy with the Whitewater investigation; Democrats felt that the investigation was a political witch-hunt, Republicans were frustrated that both Clintons had escaped formal charges, and those without partisan involvement found press coverage of Whitewater, which spanned four decades, difficult to understand." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Hillary R. 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"About which British politician did Francois Mitterrand say, ""She has the mouth of Marilyn Monroe and the eyes of Caligula?"""	tc_1239	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "François_Mitterrand.txt" ], "title": [ "François Mitterrand" ], "wiki_context": [ "François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand (; 26 October 1916 – 8 January 1996) was a French statesman who was President of France from 1981 to 1995. He was the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the first figure from the left elected President under the Fifth Republic.\n\nReflecting family influences, Mitterrand started political life on the Catholic nationalist right. He served under the Vichy Regime in its earlier years. Subsequently, however, he joined the Resistance, moved to the left, and held ministerial office repeatedly under the Fourth Republic. He opposed de Gaulle's establishment of the Fifth Republic. Although at times a politically isolated figure, Mitterrand outmaneuvered rivals to become the left's standard bearer in every presidential election from 1965 to 1988, except 1969. Elected President in the May 1981 presidential election, he was re-elected in 1988 and held office until 1995.\n\nMitterrand invited the Communist Party into his first government, a controversial move at the time. In the event, the Communists were boxed in as junior partners and, rather than taking advantage, saw their support erode. They left the cabinet in 1984. Early in his first term, Mitterrand followed a radical economic program, including nationalization of key firms, but after two years, with the economy in crisis, he reversed course. His foreign and defense policies built on those of his Gaullist predecessors. His partnership with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl advanced European integration via the Maastricht Treaty, but he accepted German reunification only reluctantly. During his time in office he was a strong promoter of culture and implemented a range of costly \"Grands Projets\". He was twice forced by the loss of a parliamentary majority into \"cohabitation governments\" with conservative cabinets led, respectively, by Jacques Chirac (1986–88), and Édouard Balladur (1993–95). Less than eight months after leaving office, Mitterrand died from the prostate cancer he had successfully concealed for most of his presidency.\n\nBeyond making the French left electable, Mitterrand presided over the rise of the Socialist Party to dominance of the left, and the decline of the once-mighty Communist Party (as a share of the popular vote in the first presidential round, the Communists shrank from a peak of 21.27% in 1969 to 8.66% in 1995, at the end of Mitterrand's second term, and to 1.93% in the 2007 election).\n\nFamily\n\nMitterrand was born in Jarnac, Charente, and baptized François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand, the son of Joseph Mitterrand and Yvonne Lorrain. His family was devoutly Roman Catholic and conservative. His father worked as an engineer for the Compagnie Paris Orléans railway. He had three brothers, Robert, Jacques and Philippe, and four sisters, Antoinette, Marie-Josèphe, Colette and Geneviève.\n\nMitterrand's wife, Danielle Mitterrand (née Gouze, 1924–2011), came from a socialist background and worked for various left-wing causes. They married on 24 October 1944 and had three sons: Pascal (10 June 1945 – 17 September 1945), Jean-Christophe, born in 1946, and Gilbert, born on 4 February 1949. He also had two children as results of extra-marital affairs: a daughter, Mazarine (born 1974) with his mistress Anne Pingeot, and a son, Hravn Forsne (born 1988), with Swedish journalist Christina Forsne. Hravn Forsne is currently running for a seat in the Swedish parliamentary election. \n\nMitterrand's nephew Frédéric Mitterrand is a journalist, Minister of Culture and Communications under Nicolas Sarkozy (and a supporter of Jacques Chirac, former French President), and his wife's brother-in-law Roger Hanin was a well-known French actor.\n\nEarly life\n\nMitterrand studied from 1925 to 1934 in the Collège Saint-Paul in Angoulême, where he became a member of the Jeunesse Etudiante Chrétienne (JEC), the student organisation of Action catholique. Arriving in Paris in autumn 1934, he then went to the École Libre des Sciences Politiques until 1937, where he obtained his diploma in July of that year. Mitterrand took membership for about a year in the Volontaires nationaux (National Volunteers), an organisation related to François de la Rocque's far-right league, the Croix de Feu; the league had just participated in the 6 February 1934 riots which led to the fall of the second Cartel des Gauches (Left-Wing Coalition). \n\nContrary to some reports, Mitterrand never became a formal member of the Parti Social Français (PSF) which was the successor to the Croix de Feu and may be considered the first French right-wing mass party. However, he did write news articles in the L'Echo de Paris newspaper, which was close to the PSF. He participated in the demonstrations against the \"métèque invasion\" in February 1935 and then in those against law teacher Gaston Jèze, who had been nominated as juridical counsellor of Ethiopia's Negus, in January 1936.\n\nWhen Mitterrand's involvement in these conservative nationalist movements was revealed in the 1990s, he attributed his actions to the milieu of his youth. Mitterrand furthermore had some personal and family relations with members of the Cagoule, a far-right terrorist group in the 1930s. \n\nMitterrand then served his conscription from 1937 to 1939 in the 23rd régiment d'infanterie coloniale. In 1938, he became the best friend of Georges Dayan, a Jewish socialist, whom he saved from anti-Semite aggressions by the national-royalist movement Action française. His friendship with Dayan caused Mitterrand to begin to question some of his nationalist ideas. Finishing his law studies, he was sent in September 1939 to the Maginot line near Montmédy, with the rank of Sergeant-chief (infantry sergeant). He became engaged to Marie-Louise Terrasse (future actress Catherine Langeais) in May 1940 (but she broke it off in January 1942). Following an observation of Nazi concentration camps at the end of World War II, Mitterrand broke from the Catholic ideology he was raised in and identified himself as an agnostic. \n\nSecond World War\n\nFrançois Mitterrand's actions during World War II were the cause of much controversy in France in the 1980s and 1990s.\n\nMitterrand was at the end of his national service when the war broke out. He fought as an infantry sergeant and was injured and captured by the Germans on 14 June 1940. He was held prisoner at Stalag IXA near Ziegenhain (today part of Schwalmstadt, a town near Kassel in Hesse). Mitterrand became involved in the social organisation for the POWs in the camp. He claims this, and the influence of the people he met there, began to change his political ideas, moving them towards the left. He had two failed escape attempts in March and then November 1941 before he finally escaped on 16 December 1941, returning to France on foot. In December 1941 he arrived home in the unoccupied zone controlled by the French. With help from a friend of his mother he got a job as a mid-level functionary of the Vichy government, looking after the interests of POWs. This was very unusual for an escaped prisoner, and he later claimed to have served as a spy for the Free French Forces.\n\nMitterrand worked from January to April 1942 for the Légion française des combattants et des volontaires de la révolution nationale (Legion of French combatants and volunteers of the national revolution) as a civil servant on a temporary contract. He worked under Jean-Paul Favre De Thierrens who was a spy for the British secret service. He then moved to the Commissariat au reclassement des prisonniers de guerre (Service for the orientation of POWS). During this period, Mitterrand was aware of Thierrens's activities and may have helped in his disinformation campaign. At the same time, he published an article detailing his time as a POW in the magazine France, revue de l'État nouveau (the magazine was published as propaganda by the Vichy Regime). \n\nMitterrand has been called a \"Vichysto-résistant\" (an expression used by the historian Jean-Pierre Azéma to describe people who supported Marshal Philippe Pétain, the head of the Vichy Regime, before 1943, but subsequently rejected the Vichy Regime). \n\nFrom spring 1942, he met other escaped POWs Jean Roussel, Max Varenne, and Dr. Guy Fric, under whose influence he became involved with the resistance. In April, Mitterrand and Fric caused a major disturbance in a public meeting held by the collaborator Georges Claude. From mid-1942, he sent false papers to POWs in Germany (ref unknown) and on 12 June and 15 August 1942, he joined meetings at the Château de Montmaur which formed the base of his future network for the resistance. From September, he made contact with France libre, but clashed with Michel Cailliau, General Charles de Gaulle's nephew (and de Gaulle's candidate to head-up all POW-related resistance organizations). On 15 October 1942, Mitterrand and Marcel Barrois (a member of the resistance deported in 1944) met Marshal Philippe Pétain along with other members of the Comité d'entraide aux prisonniers rapatriés de l'Allier (Help group for repatriated POWs in the department of Allier). By the end of 1942, Mitterrand met Pierre Guillain de Bénouville, an old friend from his days with La Cagoule. Bénouville was a member of the resistance groups Combat and Noyautage des administrations publiques (NAP).\n\nIn late 1942, the non-occupied zone was invaded by the Germans. Mitterrand left the Commissariat in January 1943, when his boss Maurice Pinot, another vichysto-résistant, was replaced by the collaborator André Masson, but he remained in charge of the centres d'entraides. In the spring of 1943, along with Gabriel Jeantet, a member of Marshal Pétain's cabinet, and Simon Arbellot (both former members of La Cagoule), Mitterrand received the Ordre de la francisque (the honorific distinction of the Vichy Regime).\n\nDebate rages in France as to the significance of this. When Mitterrand's Vichy past was exposed in the 1950s, he at first denied having received the Francisque (some sources say he was designated for the award, but never received the medal because he went into hiding before the ceremony took place) Jean Pierre-Bloch says that Mitterrand was ordered to accept the medal as cover for his work in the resistance. Pierre Moscovici and Jacques Attali remain skeptical of Mitterrand's beliefs at this time, accusing him of having at best a \"foot in each camp\" until he was sure who the winner would be. They noted Mitterrand's friendship with René Bousquet and the wreaths he was said to have placed on Pétain's tomb in later years (see below) as examples of his ambivalent attitude. \n\nMitterrand built up a resistance network (ref unknown), composed mainly of former POWs. The POWs National Rally (Rassemblement national des prisonniers de guerre or RNPG) was affiliated with General Henri Giraud, a former POW who had escaped from a German prison and made his way across Germany back to the Allied forces. In 1943 Giraud was contesting with General Charles de Gaulle for the leadership of the French Resistance. From the beginning of 1943, Mitterrand became involved with setting up a powerful resistance group called the (ref unknown)Organisation de résistance de l'armée (ORA). He obtained funding for his own RNPG network, which he set up with Pinot in February. From this time on, Mitterrand was a member of the ORA. In March, Mitterrand met Henri Frenay, who encouraged the resistance in France to support Mitterrand over Michel Cailliau. 28 May 1943, when Mitterrand met with Gaullist Philippe Dechartre, is generally taken as the date Mitterrand split with Vichy. \n\nDuring 1943, the RNPG gradually changed from providing false papers to information-gathering for France libre. Pierre de Bénouville said, \" Mitterrand created a true spy network in the POW camps which gave us information, often decisive, about what was going on behind the German borders.\" On 10 July Mitterrand and Piatzook (a militant communist) interrupted a public meeting in the Salle Wagram in Paris. The meeting was about allowing French POWs to go home if they were replaced by young French men forced to go and work in Germany (in French this was called \"la relève\"). When André Masson began to talk about \"la trahison des gaullistes\" (the Gaullist treason), Mitterrand stood up in the audience and shouted him down, saying Masson had no right to talk on behalf of POWs and calling \"la relève\" a \"con\" (i.e., something stupid). Mitterrand avoided arrest as Piatzook covered his escape. \n\nIn November 1943 the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) raided a flat in Vichy, where they hoped to arrest François Morland, a member of the resistance. \n\"Morland\" was Mitterrand's cover name. He also used Purgon, Monnier, Laroche, Captain François, Arnaud et Albre as cover names. The man they arrested was Pol Pilven, a member of the resistance who was to survive the war in a concentration camp. Mitterrand was in Paris at the time.\n\nWarned by his friends, he escaped to London aboard a Lysander plane on 15 November 1943 (piloted by then-Squadron Leader Lewis Hodges). From there he went to Algiers, where he met de Gaulle, by then the uncontested leader of the Free French. The two men clashed. Mitterrand refused to merge his group with other POW movements if de Gaulle's nephew Cailliau was to be the leader. Under the influence of Henri Frenay, de Gaulle finally agreed to merge his nephew's network and the RNPG with Mitterrand in charge. \n\nMitterrand returned to France by boat via England. In Paris, the three Resistance groups made up of POWs (Communists, Gaullists, RNPG) finally merged as the POWs and Deportees National Movement (Mouvement national des prisonniers de guerre et déportés or MNPGD) and Mitterrand took the lead. In his memoirs, he says that he had started this organisation while he was still officially working for the Vichy Regime. From 27 November 1943 Mitterrand ran the Bureau central de renseignements et d'action. \n\nIn December 1943 Mitterrand ordered the execution of Henri Marlin (who was about to order attacks on the \"Maquis\") by Jacques Paris and Jean Munier, who later hid out with Mitterrand's father. After a second visit to London in February 1944, Mitterrand took part in the liberation of Paris. When de Gaulle entered Paris following the Liberation, he was introduced to various men who were to be part of the provisional government. Among them was Mitterrand, as secretary general of POWs. When they came face to face, de Gaulle is said to have muttered: \"You again!\" He dismissed Mitterrand 2 weeks later.\n\nIn October 1944 Mitterrand and Jacques Foccart developed a plan to liberate the POW and concentration camps. This was called operation Viacarage. On the orders of de Gaulle, in April 1945 Mitterrand accompanied General Lewis as the French representative at the liberation of the camps at Kaufering and Dachau. By chance Mitterrand discovered his friend and member of his network, Robert Antelme, suffering from typhus. Antelme was restricted to the camp to prevent the spread of disease, but Mitterrand arranged for his \"escape\" and sent him back to France for treatment. \n\nFourth Republic\n\nAfter the war Mitterrand quickly moved back into politics. At the June 1946 legislative election, he led the list of the Rally of the Republican Lefts (Rassemblement des gauches républicaines or RGR) in the Western suburb of Paris, but he was not elected. The RGR was an electoral entity composed of the Radical Party, the centrist Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (Union démocratique et socialiste de la Résistance or UDSR) and several conservative groupings. It opposed the policy of the \"Three-parties alliance\" (Communists, Socialists and Christian Democrats).\n\nIn the November 1946 legislative election, he succeeded in winning a seat as deputy from the Nièvre département. To be elected, he had to win a seat at the expense of the French Communist Party (PCF). As leader of the RGR list, he led a very anti-communist campaign. He became a member of the UDSR party. In January 1947, he joined the cabinet as War Veterans Minister. He held various offices in the Fourth Republic as a Deputy and as a Minister (holding eleven different portfolios in total), including as a mayor of Château-Chinon from 1959 to 1981.\n\nIn May 1948 Mitterrand participated in the Congress of The Hague, together with Konrad Adenauer, Winston Churchill, Harold Macmillan, Paul-Henri Spaak, Albert Coppé and Altiero Spinelli. It originated the European Movement.\n\nAs Overseas Minister (1950–1951), he opposed the colonial lobby to propose a reform program. He connected with the left when he resigned from the cabinet after the arrest of Morocco's sultan (1953). As leader of the progressive wing of the UDSR, he took the head of the party in 1953, replacing the conservative René Pleven.\n\nIn June 1953 Mitterrand attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Seated next to the elderly Princess Marie Bonaparte, he reported having spent much of the ceremony being psychoanalyzed by her.\n\nAs Interior Minister in Pierre Mendès-France's cabinet (1954–1955), Mitterrand had to direct the response to the Algerian War of Independence. He claimed: \"Algeria is France.\" He was suspected of being the informer of the Communist Party in the cabinet. This rumor was spread by the former Paris police prefect, who had been dismissed by him. The suspicions were dismissed by subsequent investigations.\n\nThe UDSR joined the Republican Front, a center-left coalition, which won the 1956 legislative election. As Justice Minister (1956–1957), Mitterrand allowed the expansion of martial law in the Algerian conflict. Unlike other ministers (including Mendès-France), who criticized the repressive policy in Algeria, he remained in Guy Mollet's cabinet until its end. As Minister of Justice, he had a role in 45 executions of the Algerian natives, recommending President Rene Coty to reject clemency in 80% of the cases, an action he later came to regret. \n\nAs Minister of Justice he was an official representative of France during the wedding of Prince of Monaco Rainier III and actress Grace Kelly. Under the Fourth Republic, he was representative of a generation of young ambitious politicians. He appeared as a possible future Prime Minister.\n\nFifth Republic\n\nOpposition to de Gaulle, 1958–68\n\nHis \"crossing of the desert\"\n\nIn 1958, Mitterrand was one of the few to object to the nomination of Charles de Gaulle as head of government, and to de Gaulle's plan for a French Fifth Republic. He justified his opposition by the circumstances of de Gaulle's comeback: the 13 May 1958 quasi-putsch and military pressure. In September 1958, determinedly opposed to Charles de Gaulle, Mitterrand made an appeal to vote \"no\" in the referendum over the Constitution, which was nevertheless adopted on 4 October 1958. This defeated coalition of the \"No\" was composed of the PCF and some left-wing republican politicians (such as Mendès-France and Mitterrand).\n\nThis attitude may have been a factor in Mitterrand's losing his seat in the 1958 elections, beginning a long \"crossing of the desert\" (this term is usually applied to de Gaulle's decline in influence for a similar period). Indeed, in the second round of the legislative election, Mitterrand was supported by the Communists but the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) refused to withdraw its candidate. This division caused the election of the Gaullist candidate. One year later, he was elected to represent Nièvre in the Senate, where he was part of the Group of the Democratic Left. At the same time, he was not admitted to the ranks of the Unified Socialist Party (Parti socialiste unifié, PSU) which was created by Mendès-France, former internal opponents of Mollet and reform-minded former members of the Communist Party. The PSU leaders justified their decision by referring to his non-resignation from Mollet's cabinet and by his past in Vichy.\n\nAlso in that same year, on the Avenue de l'Observatoire in Paris, Mitterrand claimed to have escaped an assassin's bullet by diving behind a hedge, in what became known as the Observatory Affair. The incident brought him a great deal of publicity, initially boosting his political ambitions. Some of his critics claimed, however, that he had staged the incident himself, resulting in a backlash against Mitterrand. He later said he had earlier been warned by right-wing deputy Pesquet that he was the target of an Algérie française death squad and accused Prime Minister Michel Debré of being its instigator. Before his death, Pesquet claimed that Mitterrand had set up a fake attempt on his life. Prosecution was initiated against Mitterrand but was later dropped. Nonetheless, the Observatory Affair cast a lasting shadow over Mitterrand's reputation. Years later in 1965, when Mitterrand emerged as the challenger to de Gaulle in the second round of the presidential elections, de Gaulle was urged by an aide to use the Observatory Affair to discredit his opponent. \"No, and don't insist\" was the General's response, \"It would be wrong to demean the office of the Presidency, since one day he [Mitterrand] may have the job.\" \n\nMitterrand visited China in 1961, during the worst of the Great Chinese Famine, but denied the existence of starvation. \n\nIn the 1962 election, Mitterrand regained his seat in the National Assembly with the support of the PCF and the SFIO. Practicing left unity in Nièvre, he advocated the rallying of left-wing forces at the national level, including the PCF, in order to challenge Gaullist domination. Two years later, he became the president (chairman) of the General Council of Nièvre. While the opposition to De Gaulle organized in clubs, he founded his own group, the Convention of Republican Institutions (Convention des institutions républicaines or CIR). He reinforced his position as a left-wing opponent to Charles de Gaulle in publishing Le Coup d'État permanent (The permanent coup, 1964), which criticized de Gaulle's personal power, the weaknesses of Parliament and of the government, the President's exclusive control of foreign affairs, and defence, etc.\n\n1965 presidential election and aftermath\n\nIn 1965, Mitterrand was the first left-wing politician who saw the presidential election by universal suffrage as a way to defeat the opposition leadership. Not a member of any specific political party, his candidacy for presidency was accepted by all left-wing parties (the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), French Communist Party (PCF), Radical-Socialist Party (PR) and Unified Socialist Party (PSU)). He ended the cordon sanitaire of the PCF which the party had been subject to since 1947. For the SFIO leader Guy Mollet, Mitterrand's candidacy prevented Gaston Defferre, his rival in the SFIO, from running for the presidency. Furthermore, Mitterrand was a lone figure, so he did not appear as a danger to the left-wing parties' staff members.\n\nDe Gaulle was expected to win in the first round, but Mitterrand received 31.7% of the vote, denying De Gaulle a first-round victory. Mitterrand was supported in the second round by the left and other anti-Gaullists: centrist Jean Monnet, moderate conservative Paul Reynaud and Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour, an extreme right-winger and the lawyer who had defended Raoul Salan, one of the four generals who had organized the 1961 Algiers putsch during the Algerian War.\n\nMitterrand received 44.8% of votes in the second round and de Gaulle, with the majority, was thus elected for another term, but this defeat was regarded as honourable, for no one was really expected to defeat de Gaulle. Mitterrand took the lead of a centre-left alliance: the Federation of the Democratic and Socialist Left (Fédération de la gauche démocrate et socialiste or FGDS). It was composed of the SFIO, the Radicals and several left-wing republican clubs (such the CIR of Mitterrand).\n\nIn the legislative election of March 1967, the system where all candidates who failed to pass a 10% threshold in the first round were eliminated from the second round favoured the pro-Gaullist majority, which faced a split opposition (PCF, FGDS and centrists of Jacques Duhamel). Nevertheless, the parties of the left managed to gain 63 seats more than previously for a total of 194. The Communists remained the largest left-wing group with 22.5% of votes. The governing coalition won with its majority reduced by only one seat (247 seats out of 487).\n\nIn Paris, the Left (FGDS, PSU, PCF) managed to win more votes in the first round than the two governing parties (46% against 42.6%) while the Democratic Centre of Duhamel got 7% of votes. But with 38% of votes, de Gaulle's Union for the Fifth Republic remained the leading French party. \n\nDuring the May 1968 governmental crisis, Mitterrand held a press conference to announce his candidacy if a new presidential election was held. But after the Gaullist demonstration on the Champs-Elysées, de Gaulle dissolved the Assembly and called for a legislative election instead. In this election, the right wing won its largest majority since the Bloc National in 1919.\n\nMitterrand was accused of being responsible for this huge legislative defeat and the FGDS split. In 1969, Mitterrand could not run for the Presidency: Guy Mollet refused to give him the support of the SFIO. The left wing was eliminated in the first round, with the Socialist candidate Gaston Defferre winning a humiliating 5.1 percent of the total vote. Georges Pompidou faced the centrist Alain Poher in the second round.\n\nSocialist Party leader, 1971–81\n\nAfter the FGDS's implosion, Mitterrand turned to the Socialist Party (Parti socialiste or \"PS\"). In June 1971, at the time of the Epinay Congress, the CIR joined the \"PS\", which had replaced the SFIO in 1969. The executive of the \"PS\" was then dominated by Guy Mollet's supporters. They proposed an \"ideological dialogue\" with the Communists. For Mitterrand, an electoral alliance was necessary to rise to power. With this project, Mitterrand obtained the support of all the internal opponents to Mollet's faction and he was elected as the first secretary of the \"PS\".\n\nIn June 1972, Mitterrand signed the Common Programme of Government with the Communist Georges Marchais and the Left Radical Robert Fabre. With this programme, he led the 1973 legislative campaign of the \"Union of the Left\".\n\nAt the 1974 presidential election, Mitterrand received 43.2% of the vote in the first round, as the common candidate of the left wing. He next faced Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in the second round. During the national TV debate, Giscard d'Estaing criticized him as being \"a man of the past\", due to his long political career. Mitterrand was defeated in a near tie by Giscard d'Estaing, Mitterrand receiving 49.19% and Giscard 50.81%.\n\nIn 1977, the Communist and Socialist parties failed to update the Common Programme, then lost the 1978 legislative election. While the Socialists took the leading position on the left, by obtaining more votes than the Communists for the first time since 1936, the leadership of Mitterrand was challenged by an internal opposition led by Michel Rocard who criticized the programme of the PS as being \"archaic\" and \"unrealistic\". The polls indicated Rocard was more popular than Mitterrand. Nevertheless, Mitterrand won the vote at the Party's Metz Congress (1979) and Rocard renounced his candidacy for the 1981 presidential election.\n\nFor his third candidacy for presidency, Mitterrand was not supported by the PCF but only by the PS. He projected a reassuring image with the slogan \"the quiet force\". He campaigned for \"another politics\", based on the 110 Propositions for France Socialist program, and denounced the performance of the incumbent president. Furthermore, he benefited from the conflict in the right-wing majority. He obtained 25.85% of votes in the first round (against 15% for the PCF candidate Georges Marchais), then defeated President Giscard d'Estaing in the second round, with 51.76%. He became the first left-wing politician elected President of France by universal suffrage.\n\nPresidency (1981–95)\n\nFirst term, 1981–88\n\nIn the presidential election of 10 May 1981, Mitterrand became the first socialist President of the Fifth Republic, and his government became the first left-wing government in 23 years. He named Pierre Mauroy as Prime Minister and organised a new legislative election. The Socialists obtained an absolute parliamentary majority, and four Communists joined the cabinet.\n\nEconomic policy\n\nThe beginning of his first term was marked by a left-wing economic policy based on the 110 Propositions for France and the 1972 Common Programme between the Socialist Party, the Communist Party and the Left Radical Party. This included several nationalizations, a 10% increase of the SMIC (minimum wage), a 39-hour work week, 5 weeks holiday per year, the creation of the solidarity tax on wealth, an increase in social benefits, and the extension of workers' rights to consultation and information about their employers (through the Auroux Act). The objective was to boost economic demand and thus economic activity (Keynesianism), but the stimulative fiscal policy implemented by the Mauroy government was in contradiction with the constrained monetary policy implemented by the Bank of France. However, unemployment continued to grow, and the franc was devalued three times. \n\nOld age pensions were raised by 300 francs per month to 1,700 francs for a single person and to 3,700 francs for a couple, while health insurance benefits were made more widely available to unemployed persons and part-time employees. Housing allocations for the low-paid were raised by 25% in 1981, and in the two years following May 1981 family allowances were increased by 44% for families with 3 children and by 81% for families with 2 children. In 1981, the purchasing power of social transfers went up by 4.5% and by 7.6% in 1982. In addition, the minimum wage (which affected 1.7 million employees) was increased by 15% in real terms between May 1981 and December 1982. \n\nMajor efforts were made to improve access to housing and health care, while the government also attempted to tackle working-class under-achievement in schools by reinforcing the comprehensive system, modernizing the curriculum and reducing streaming. As a means of increasing political participation, the government increased the financial allowances of local politicians, who also became entitled to paid leave from their jobs to attend courses in public administration. Allowances for the handicapped were improved, while improvements were also made in the pay and conditions for those serving in the army. A decree of January 1982 provided for “solidarity contracts” whereby firms would be subsidized for introducing part-time work or early retirement if they also allowed the creation of new jobs, while a decree of March 1982 provided employees with the right to retire at the age of 60 on 50% of average earnings during their 10 best years of employment. In 1983, legislation was passed to encourage greater equality in the private sector. Firms now had to make an annual report on the training opportunities and employment conditions for women and present a statistical analysis of their position in the firm, whilst the works committee had to ensure that equality promoting measures are taken. In addition, a new benefit was introduced for unemployed workers who had exhausted their eligibility for unemployment insurance. In December 1982, a law was passed that restored to workers the right to elect administrators to the social security funds, a practice that Charles De Gaulle had broken back in 1967. \n\nIn what concerns new French Technologies initiated by his predecessor Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Mitterrand continued to push them: the TGV high speed train and the Minitel, a pre-World Wide Web interactive network similar to the web. The Minitel and the TGV connection Paris-Lyon were inaugurated only a few weeks after the election. In addition, Government grants and loans for capital investment for modernisation were significantly increased. \n\nMitterrand passed the first decentralization laws, the Defferre Act.\n\nAfter two years in office, Mitterrand made a substantial u-turn in economic policies, with the March 1983 adoption of the so-called \"tournant de la rigueur\" (austerity turn). Priority was given to the struggle against inflation in order to remain competitive in the European Monetary System. Although there were two periods of mild economic reflation (first from 1984 to 1986 and again from 1988 to 1990), monetary and fiscal restraint was the essential policy orientation of Mitterrand's presidency from 1983 onwards. Nevertheless, compared to the OECD average, fiscal policy in France remained relatively expansionary during the course of the two Mitterrand presidencies. \n\nSocial policy\n\nIn 1983, all members of the general pension scheme obtained the right to a full pension at the age of 60 payable at a rate of half the reference wage in return for 37.5 years contribution. The government agreed at the same time to improve the pension position of some public sector employees and to increase the real value of the minimum pension. In addition, later negotiations brought retirement at 60 years into the occupational schemes although the financial terms for doing so could only be agreed for a 7-year period. A comparison between 1981 and 1986 showed that the minimum state pension had increased by 64% for a couple and by 81% for one person. During that same period, family allowances had increased by 71% for three children and by 112% for two children. In addition, the single-parent allowance for mothers or fathers with one child had been increased by 103% and for two or more children by 52% for each child\n\nIn order to mark the importance of the problems of the elderly, the government appointed a Secretary of State (attached to the Ministry of Social Affairs and National Solidarity) to carry special responsibility for them, and in an effort to try to relate policy to the felt needs of the elderly, it set up a central advisory committee to examine social policy from their point of view and carry out special studies and enquiries. This body became especially concerned with monitoring the attempts at coordination and encouraging policies which were aimed at helping he elderly stay at home instead of entering residential care.\n\nIn the field of health care, some prescription charges were abolished, hospital administration was decentralised, workers’ rights in the health service were reaffirmed, and equipment was provided for researchers. From 1983 onwards, wage-earners who had contributed to a pension fund for 37.5 years became eligible to retire on a full pension. This right was extended to the self-employed in 1984 and to farmers in 1986. People who had retired at the age of 60 were, however, not initially eligible for reductions on public transport until they reached the age of 65. The qualifying age for these reductions was, however, reduced to 62 in 1985. A number of illegal immigrants had their position regularized under the Socialists and the conditions pertaining to residence and work permits were eased. Educational programmes were implemented to help immigrant communities, while immigrants were allowed the right to free association. The Socialist government also opened up talks with the authorities in some of the main countries of origin, easing nationality rules in the public sector, associating representatives of migrant groups with public authority work, and established an Immigrants Council in 1984.\n\nAlthough the income limit for allowances varied according to the position of the child in the family and the number of dependent children, these ceilings were made more favourable in cases where both parents were working or where a single parent was in charge and were linked to changes in wage levels. Those taking parental leave to care for three or more children (provided that they fulfilled the rules for eligibility) also received certain benefits in kind, such as a non-taxable, non-means-tested benefit and priority on vocational training courses. A new boost was also given to research into family problems including an interest in the effects of changing family structures, of women’s employment and the impact of local social policies on family life. In addition, while a law on equal opportunities in employment was passed in July 1983 which prohibited all forms of unequal treatment regardless of the circumstances, together with providing for positive action plans to be established in major companies. In January 1984, a decree was made granting state aid to companies which implemented equality plans for staff. That same year, a law was passed that gave the regional Caissess des Allocations Familiales the task of collecting unpaid alimony, initially for lone parents and subsequently for remarried or cohabiting mothers. \n\nIn the field of education, more resources were devoted to the educational system, with the education budgets of 1982, 1983, and 1984 increased by approximately 4% to 6% per year above the rate of inflation. From 1981 to 1983, the corps of teachers was increased by 30,000. Authorization was restored for a number of advanced undergraduate and graduate programmes which the previous centre-right minister Saunier-Seite had rejected on grounds of economy and \"rationalization\" of resources. Numerous initiatives were carried out such as the teaching of civics, the reintroduction of the teaching of French history and geography at the primary level, the introduction of new professional degrees, a partnership between schools and enterprises, and the introduction of computers in classrooms. Priority areas were set up in 1981 as part of a systematic effort to combat underachievement in schools, while technical education was encouraged. In addition, nursery education was expanded, while efforts by the Socialists to promote joint research between industry and the research agencies increased the number of such contracts by a half each year between 1982 and 1985, with a 29% increase in joint patents. The baccalauréat professionnel, introduced in 1985, enabled holders of a Brevet d'études professionnelles (or in some cases of a Certificat d’aptitude professionnelle) to continue for another two years and study for the baccalauréat. \n\nMitterrand abrogated the death penalty as soon as he took office (via the Badinter Act), as well as the \"anti-casseurs Act\" which instituted collective responsibility for acts of violence during demonstrations. He also dissolved the Cour de sûreté, a special high court, and enacted a massive regularization of illegal immigrants. Tighter regulations on the powers of police to stop, search and arrest were introduced, and the \"loi securite et liberte\" (a controversial public order act) was repealed. In addition, the legal aid system was improved. \n\nIn 1984, a law was passed to ensure that divorced women who were not in receipt of maintenance would be provided with assistance in recovering the shortfall in their income from their former husband. By 1986, particular attention was being focused on assisting women in single-parent families to get back into employment, in recognition of the growing problems associated with extra-marital births and marital breakdown. Parental leave was extended to firms with 100 employees in 1981 (previously, parental leave provision had been made in 1977 for firms employing at least 200 employees) and subsequently to all employees in 1984. From 1984 onwards, married women were obliged to sign tax returns, men and women were provided with equal rights in managing their common property and that of their children, and in 1985 they became responsible for each other’s debts.\n\nChildcare facilities were also expanded, with the number of places in crèches rising steadily between 1981 and 1986. In addition, the minimum wage was significantly increased. From 1981 to 1984, the SMIC rose by 125%, while prices went up by only 75% during that same period. Various maesures were also introduced to mitigate the effects of rising unemployment. Between 1981 and 1986, there had been just over 800,000 young people placed on special work schemes, 800,000 early retirements, 200,000 enterprise allowance successes, and 30,000 retrained workers from declining industrial sectors.\n\nCultural policy\n\nWith respect to cultural policies, grants were allocated to non-profit associations and community cultural initiatives, Mitterrand liberalized the media, created the CSA media regulation agency, and authorized pirate radio and the first private TV (Canal+), giving rise to the private broadcasting sector.\n\nIn terms of the theatre, some transfer of resources was made from the subsidy of the national theatres to the support for theatre companies which did not necessarily have an institutional home. A significant investment was made in music education with the creation of 5 new music schools in the departements and the revamping of the Conservatoire National de la Musique at Lyon, while the range and capacity of performance facilities in Paris was considerably increased, with the Cite Musicale de la Villette and the Opera de la Bastille allowing for specialist performance in a way that was lacking in Paris previously, and a 2,000 seat concert hall called le Zenith, which was designed primarily for rock music concerts but adapted for all uses.\n\nThe Socialists continued the policies of their predecessors with the Grand Louvre project and the opening of the Picasso Museum at the Hotel Sale, while the museum budget was quadrupled and particular sums were set aside for the first time for large regional projects including the establishment of a number of new museums in the provinces such as the Ecomuseum at Chartres and the Museum of Prehistory at Carnac. A fonds regional des Acquisitions was established to assist provincial museums in the purchase of works of art, while the state actively continued an existing policy of encouraging bequests in lieu of death duties.\n\nLibraries and publishing benefited from new thinking and an injection of funds, while aid to authors and publishers was restructured and book prices were fixed once again, with the objective being to assist smaller publishing houses and specialist bookshops. The network of regional lending libraries was significantly reinforced, while financial assistance was provided for the export of French books. In addition, archaeology, ethnography and historical buildings and monuments all benefited from the general increase in resources.\n\nForeign policy\n\nIn terms of foreign policy, Mitterrand did not significantly deviate from his predecessors and he continued nuclear weapons testing in the South Pacific in spite of protests from various peace and environmentalist organizations. In 1985, French agents sunk the Greenpeace-owned ex-trawler Rainbow Warrior which the group had used in demonstrations against nuclear tests, whaling, and seal hunting. One Greenpeace member was killed, and when news broke of the event, a major scandal erupted that led to the resignation of Defense Minister Charles Hernu. France subsequently paid reparations of 1.8 million USD to Greenpeace.\n\nFrance also retained her independent stance under Mitterrand by staying outside of NATO and continued an active involvement in African affairs, the French military and Foreign Legion frequently intervening on behalf of various African governments and training local forces.\n\nThe Left lost the 1983 municipal elections and the 1984 European Parliament election. At the same time, the Savary Bill, to limit the financing of private schools by local communities, caused a political crisis. It was abandoned and Mauroy resigned in July 1984. Laurent Fabius succeeded him, and the Communists left the cabinet.\n\nFirst Cohabitation (1986–88)\n\nBefore the 1986 legislative campaign, proportional representation was instituted in accordance with the 110 Propositions. It did not prevent, however, the victory of the Rally for the Republic/Union for French Democracy (RPR/UDF) coalition. Mitterrand thus named the RPR leader Jacques Chirac as Prime Minister. This period of government, with a President and a Prime Minister who came from two opposite coalitions, was the first time that such a combination had occurred under the Fifth Republic, and came to be known as \"Cohabitation\". \n\nChirac mostly handled domestic policy while Mitterrand concentrated on his \"reserved domain\" of foreign affairs and defence. However, several conflicts erupted between the two. In one example, Mitterrand refused to sign executive decrees of liberalization, obliging Chirac to pass the measures through parliament instead. Mitterrand also reportedly gave covert support to some social movements, notably the student revolt against the university reform (Devaquet Bill). Benefiting from the difficulties of Chirac's cabinet, the President's popularity increased.\n\nWith the polls running in his favor, Mitterrand announced his candidacy in the 1988 presidential election. He proposed a moderate programme (promising \"neither nationalisations nor liberalisation\") and advocated a \"united France,\" and laid out his policy priorities in his \"Letter to the French People.\" He obtained 34% of the votes in the first round, then faced Chirac in the second, and was re-elected with 54% of the votes. Mitterrand thus became the first President to be elected twice by universal suffrage.\n\nSecond term, 1988–95\n\nAfter his re-election, he named Michel Rocard as Prime Minister, in spite of their poor relations. Rocard led the moderate wing of the PS and he was the most popular of the Socialist politicians. Mitterrand decided to organize a new legislative election. The PS obtained a relative parliamentary majority. Four centre-right politicians joined the cabinet.\n\nThe second term was marked by the creation of the Insertion Minimum Revenue (RMI), which ensured a minimum level of income to those deprived of any other form of income; the restoring of the solidarity tax on wealth, which had been abolished by Chirac's cabinet; the institution of the Generalized social tax; the extension of parental leave up to the child's third birthday; the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy; the 1990 Gayssot Act on hate speech and Holocaust denial; the Besson law of 1990; the Mermaz Law of 1989;, the introduction of a private childcare allowance; the Urban Orientation Law of 1991; the Arpaillange Act on the financing of political parties; the reform of the penal code; the Matignon Agreements concerning New Caledonia; the Evin Act on smoking in public places; the extension of the age limit for family allowances to 18 years in 1990; and the 1989 Education Act which, amongst other measures, obliged local authorities to educate all children with disabilities. Several large architectural works were pursued, in what would become known as the Grands Projets of François Mitterrand with the building of the Louvre Pyramid, the Channel Tunnel, the Grande Arche at La Défense, the Bastille Opera, the Finance Ministry in Bercy, and the National Library of France. On 16 February 1993, President Mitterrand inaugurated in Fréjus a memorial to the wars in Indochina.\n\nBut the second term was also marked by rivalries within the PS and the split of the Mitterrandist group (at the Rennes Congress, where supporters of Laurent Fabius and Lionel Jospin clashed bitterly for control of the party), the scandals about the financing of the party, the contaminated blood scandal which implicated Laurent Fabius and former ministers Georgina Dufoix and Emond Hervé, and the Elysée wiretaps affairs.\n\nSecond Cohabitation (1993–95)\n\nDisappointed with Rocard's apparent failure to enact the Socialists' programme, Mitterrand dismissed Rocard in 1991 and appointed Édith Cresson to replace him. She was the first woman to become Prime Minister in France, but proved a costly mistake due to her tendency for making acerbic and racist public remarks. After the Socialists experienced heavy losses in the 1992 regional elections, Cresson resigned from office. Her successor Pierre Bérégovoy promised to fight unemployment and corruption but he could not prevent the catastrophic defeat of the left in the 1993 legislative election. The Socialist Party suffered a crushing defeat with the right-wing parties winning 485 seats to the left's 92. He killed himself on 1 May 1993.\n\nMitterrand named the former RPR Finance Minister Edouard Balladur as Prime Minister. The second \"cohabitation\" was less contentious than the first, because the two men knew they were not rivals for the next presidential election. By this point, Mitterrand was nearly 80 years old and suffering from cancer in addition to the shock of his friend François de Grossouvre's suicide. His second and last term ended after the 1995 presidential election in May 1995 with the election of Jacques Chirac. Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin lost the presidential election.\n\nOverall, as President, Mitterrand maintained the \"basic characteristic of a strong welfare base underpinned by a strong state.\" A United Nations Human Development report concluded that, from 1979 to 1989, France was the only country in the OECD (apart from Portugal) in which income inequalities did not get worse. During his second term as president, however, the gap between rich and poor widened in France, with both unemployment and poverty rising in the awake of the economic recession of 1991–1993. According to other studies, though, the percentage of the French population living in poverty (based on various criteria) fell between the mid-Eighties and the mid-Nineties. \n\nDeath\n\nMitterrand died in Paris on 8 January 1996 at the age of 79 from prostate cancer, a condition he and his doctors had concealed for most of his presidency (see section on Medical Secrecy below). A few days before his death, he was joined by family members and close friends for a \"last meal\" that attracted controversy because, in addition to other gourmet dishes, it included the serving of roast ortolan bunting, a small wild songbird that is a protected species whose sale is (and was at the time) illegal in France. \n\nForeign policy\n\nEast/West relations\n\nMitterrand supported closer European collaboration and the preservation of France's special relationship with its former colonies, which he feared were falling under \"Anglo-Saxon influence.\" His drive to preserve French power in Africa led to controversies concerning Paris' role during the Rwandan Genocide. Despite Mitterrand's left-wing affiliations, the 1980s saw France becoming more distant from the USSR, especially following events such as the expulsion of 47 Soviet diplomats and their families from the country in 1982 after they were accused of large-scale industrial and military espionage. Mitterrand also sharply criticized the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan as well as the country's nuclear weapons buildup. When Mitterrand visited the USSR in November 1988, the Soviet media claimed to be 'leaving aside the virtually wasted decade and the loss of the Soviet-French 'special relationship' of the Gaullist era'.\n\nNevertheless, Mitterrand was worried by the rapidity of the Eastern bloc's collapse. He was opposed to German reunification but came to see it as unavoidable. He was opposed to the swift recognition of Croatia and Slovenia, which he thought would lead to the violent implosion of Yugoslavia.\n\nFrance participated in the Gulf War (1990–1991) with the U.N. coalition.\n\nEuropean policy\n\nHis major achievements came internationally, especially in the European Economic Community.\nHe initially opposed further membership fearing the Community was not ready and it would water it down to a free trade area. \n\nHe supported the enlargement of the Community to include Spain and Portugal (which both joined in January 1986). In February 1986 he helped the Single European Act come into effect. He worked well with Helmut Kohl and improved Franco-German relations significantly. Together they fathered the Maastricht Treaty, which was signed on 7 February 1992. It was ratified by referendum, approved by just over 51% of the voters.\n\nBritish Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was against a German reunification and also against the then discussed Maastricht Treaty.\nWhen Helmut Kohl, then German Chancellor, asked Mitterrand to agree to reunification (France was one of the four Allies who had to agree to the Two Plus Four-treaty), Mitterrand told Kohl he accepted it only in the event Germany would abandon the Deutsche Mark and adopt the Euro. Kohl accepted this package deal (even without talking to Karl Otto Pöhl, then President of the Bundesbank). \n\n1990 speech at La Baule\n\nResponding to a democratic movement in Africa after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, he made his La Baule speech in June 1990 which tied development aid to democratic efforts from former French colonies, and during which he opposed the devaluation of the CFA Franc. Seeing an \"East wind\" blowing in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, he stated that a \"Southern wind\" was also blowing in Africa, and that state leaders had to respond to the populations' wishes and aspirations by a \"democratic opening\", which included a representative system, free elections, multipartyism, freedom of the press, an independent judiciary, and abolition of censorship. Claiming that France was the country making the most important effort concerning development aid, he announced that the least developed countries (LDCs) would henceforth receive only grants from France, as opposed to loans (in order to combat the massive increase of Third World debt during the 1980s). He likewise limited the interest rate to 5% on French loans to intermediate-income countries (that is, Ivory Coast, Congo, Cameroon and Gabon).\n\nHe also criticized interventionism in sovereign matters, which was according to him only another form of \"colonialism\". However, according to Mitterrand, this did not imply lessened concern on the part of Paris for its former colonies. Mitterrand thus continued with the African policy of de Gaulle inaugurated in 1960, which followed the relative failure of the 1958 creation of the French Community. All in all, Mitterrand's La Baule speech, which marked a relative turning point in France's policy concerning its former colonies, has been compared with the 1956 loi-cadre Defferre which was responding to anti-colonialist feelings. \n\nAfrican heads of state themselves reacted to Mitterrand's speech at most with indifference. Omar Bongo, President of Gabon, declared that he would rather have \"events counsel him;\" Abdou Diouf, President of Senegal, said that, according to him, the best solution was a \"strong government\" and a \"good faith opposition;\" the President of Chad, Hissène Habré (nicknamed the \"African Pinochet\") claimed that it was contradictory to demand that African states should simultaneously carry on a \"democratic policy\" and \"social and economic policies which limited their sovereignty\", in a clear allusion to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank's \"structural adjustment programs\". Hassan II, the king of Morocco, said for his part that \"Africa was too open to the world to remain indifferent to what was happening around it\", but that Western countries should \"help young democracies open out, without putting a knife under their throat, without a brutal transition to multipartyism.\" \n\nAll in all, the La Baule speech has been said to be on one hand \"one of the foundations of political renewal in Africa French speaking area\", and on the other hand \"cooperation with France\", this despite \"incoherence and inconsistency, like any public policy\". \n\nDiscovery of HIV\n\nControversy surrounding the discovery of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) was intense after American researcher Robert Gallo and French scientist Luc Montagnier both claimed to have discovered it. The two scientists had given the new virus different names. The controversy was eventually settled by an agreement (helped along by the mediation of Dr Jonas Salk) between President Ronald Reagan and Mitterrand which gave equal credit to both men and their teams.\n\nApology to the Huguenots\n\nIn October 1985, to commemorate the tricentenary of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Mitterrand gave a formal apology to the descendents of Huguenots around the world. At the same time, a special postage stamp was released in their honour. The stamp states that France is the home of the Huguenots (\"Accueil des Huguenots\"). Hence their rights were finally recognised.\n\nCo-Prince of Andorra\n\nOn 2 February 1993, in his capacity as co-prince of Andorra, Mitterrand and Joan Martí Alanis, who was Bishop of Urgell and therefore Andorra's other co-prince, signed Andorra's new constitution, which was later approved by referendum in the principality.\n\nPrime Ministers during presidency\n\nAs of , Mitterrand has had the most prime ministers during the regime of the 5th Republic.\n\nControversies\n\nMedical secrecy\n\nFollowing his death, a controversy erupted when his former physician, Dr Claude Gubler, wrote a book called Le Grand Secret (\"The Great Secret\") explaining that Mitterrand had had false health reports published since November 1981, hiding his cancer. Mitterrand's family then prosecuted Gubler and his publisher for violating medical confidentiality.\n\nPétain\n\nMitterrand came under fire in 1992 when it was revealed that he had arranged for the laying of a wreath of flowers on the grave of Philippe Pétain each Armistice Day since 1987. Pétain had been the leader of French forces at the dramatic Battle of Verdun in World War I, for which he was revered by his contemporaries. Later, however, he became leader of Vichy France after the French defeat by Germany (June 1940) in World War II, collaborating with Nazi Germany and putting anti-semitic measures into place.\n\nThe placing of such a wreath was not without precedent. Presidents Charles de Gaulle and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing had wreaths placed on Pétain's grave to commemorate the 50th and 60th anniversaries of the end of World War I. Similarly, President Georges Pompidou had a wreath placed in 1973 when Pétain's remains were returned to the Ile d'Yeu after being stolen. Nonetheless, Mitterrand's regular annual tributes went beyond the marking by his predecessors of exceptional occasions, and offended sensibilities at a time when France was re-examining its role in the Holocaust.\n\nUrba\n\nThe Urba consultancy was established in 1971 by the Socialist Party to advise Socialist-led communes on infrastructure projects and public works. The Urba affair became public in 1989 when two police officers investigating the Marseille regional office of Urba discovered detailed minutes of the organisation's contracts and division of proceeds between the party and elected officials. Although the minutes proved a direct link between Urba and graft activity, an edict from the office of Mitterrand, himself listed as a recipient, prevented further investigation. The Mitterrand election campaign of 1988 was directed by Henri Nallet, who then became Justice Minister and therefore in charge of the investigation at national level. In 1990 Mitterrand declared an amnesty for those under investigation, thus ending the affair. Socialist Party treasurer Henri Emmanuelli was tried in 1997 for corruption offences, for which he received a two-year suspended sentence.\n\nWiretaps\n\nFrom 1982 to 1986, Mitterrand established an \"anti-terror cell\" installed as a service of the President of the Republic. This was an unusual set-up, since such law enforcement missions against terrorism are normally left to the National Police and Gendarmerie, run under the cabinet and the Prime Minister, and under the supervision of the judiciary. The cell was largely staffed by members of these services, but it bypassed the normal line of command and safeguards. 3000 conversations concerning 150 people (7 for reasons judged to be contestable by the ensuing court process) were recorded between January 1983 and March 1986 by this anti terrorist cell at the Elysée Palace. In one of its first actions, the cell was involved in the \"Irish of Vincennes\" affair, in which it appeared that members of the cell had planted weapons and explosives in the Vincennes apartment of three Irish nationals who were arrested on terrorism charges. Most markedly, it appears that the cell, under illegal presidential orders, obtained wiretaps on journalists, politicians and other personalities who may have been an impediment for Mitterrand's personal life. The illegal wiretapping was revealed in 1993 by Libération; the case against members of the cell went to trial in November 2004. \n\nIt took 20 years for the 'affaire' to come before the courts because the instructing judge Jean-Paul Vallat was at first thwarted by the 'affaire' being classed a defence secret, but in December 1999 la Commission consultative du secret de la défense nationale declassified part of the files concerned. The Judge finished his investigation in 2000, but it still took another four years before coming on 15 November 2004 before the 16th chamber of the Tribunal correctionnel de Paris. 12 people were charged with \"atteinte à la vie privée\" (breach of privacy) and one with selling computer files. 7 were given suspended sentences and fines and 4 were found not guilty.\n\nThe 'affaire' finally ended before the Tribunal correctionnel de Paris with the court's judgement on 9 November 2005. 7 members of the President's anti-terrorist unit were condemned and Mitterrand was designated as the \"inspirator and essentially the controller of the operation.\" \n\nThe court's judgement revealed that Mitterrand was motivated by keeping elements of his private life secret from the general public, such as the existence of his illegitimate daughter Mazarine Pingeot (which the writer Jean-Edern Hallier, was threatening to reveal), his cancer which had been diagnosed in 1981, and the elements of his past in the Vichy Régime which were not already public knowledge. The court judged that certain people were tapped for \"obscure\" reasons, such as Carole Bouquet's companion, a lawyer with family in the Middle East, Edwy Plenel, a journalist for le Monde who covered the Rainbow Warrior story and the Vincennes Three affair, and the lawyer Antoine Comte. The court declared \"Les faits avaient été commis sur ordre soit du président de la République, soit des ministres de la Défense successifs qui ont mis à la disposition de (Christian Prouteau) tous les moyens de l'État afin de les exécuter\" (translation: these actions were committed following orders from the French President or his various Defence Ministers who gave Christian Prouteau full access to the state machinery so he could execute the orders) The court stated that Mitterrand was the principal instigator of the wire taps (l'inspirateur et le décideur de l'essentiel) and that he had ordered some of the taps and turned a blind eye to others and that none of the 3000 wiretaps carried out by the cell were legally obtained. \n\nOn 13 March 2007 the Court of Appeal in Paris awarded €1 damages to the actress Carole Bouquet and €5000 to Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Michel Beau for breach of privacy. \n\nThe case was taken to the European Court of Human Rights, which gave judgement on 7 June 2007 that the rights of free expression of the journalists involved in the case were not respected.\n\nIn 2008 the French state was ordered by the courts to give Jean-Edern Hallier's family compensation. \n\nRwanda\n\nParis assisted Rwanda's president Juvénal Habyarimana, who was assassinated on 6 April 1994 while travelling in a Dassault Falcon 50 given to him as a personal gift of Mitterrand. Through the offices of the 'Cellule Africaine', a Presidential office headed by Mitterrand's son, Jean-Christophe, he provided the Hutu regime with financial and military support in the early 1990s. With French assistance, the Rwandan army grew from a force of 9,000 men in October 1990 to 28,000 in 1991. France also provided training staff, experts and massive quantities of weaponry and facilitated arms contracts with Egypt and South Africa. It also financed, armed and trained Habyrimana's Presidential Guard. French troops were deployed under Opération Turquoise, a military operation carried out under a United Nations (UN) mandate. The operation is currently the object of political and historical debate.\n\nBombing of the Rainbow Warrior\n\nKilling of Fernando Pereira\n\nOn 10 July 1985, the Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace vessel, was in New Zealand preparing to protest against French nuclear testing in the South Pacific when two explosions sank the ship. Photographer Fernando Pereira tried, following the first explosion, to retrieve his equipment, and was caught by the second explosion and drowned. The New Zealand government called the bombing the first terrorist attack in the country. In mid-1985, French Defence Minister Charles Hernu was forced to resign after the discovery of French involvement in the attack against the Rainbow Warrior.\n\nOn the twentieth anniversary of the sinking it was revealed that Mitterrand had personally authorised the bombing which resulted in Pereira's death. Admiral Pierre Lacoste, the former head of the DGSE, made a statement saying Pereira's death weighed heavily on his conscience. Also on that anniversary, Television New Zealand (TVNZ) sought to access a video recording made at the preliminary hearing where two French agents pleaded guilty, a battle they won in 2006.\n\nPolitical career\n\nPresident of the French Republic: 1981–1995. Reelected in 1988.\n\nGovernmental functions\n\nMinister of State, minister of Justice: 1956–1957.\n\nMinister of Interior: 1954–1955.\n\nMinister for Council of Europe: June–September 1953\n\nMinister of State: January–March 1952.\n\nMinister of Overseas and Colonies: 1950–1951.\n\nSecretary of State for Presidency of Council: 1948–1949.\n\nSecretary of State for Information: July–September 1948.\n\nMinister of Veterans and War Victims: 1947–1948.\n\nElectoral mandates\n\nNational Assembly of France\n\nMember of the National Assembly of France for Nièvre: 1946–1958 / 1962–1981 (resignation, became President of the French Republic in 1981). Elected in 1946, reelected in 1951, 1956, 1962, 1967, 1968, 1973, 1978.\n\nSenate of France\n\nSenator of Nièvre: 1959–1962 (resignation, reelected member of the National Assembly of France in 1962). Elected in 1959.\n\nGeneral Council\n\nPresident of the General Council of Nièvre: 1964–1981 (resignation, became President of the French Republic in 1981). Reelected in 1967, 1970, 1973, 1976, 1979.\n\nGeneral councillor of Nièvre: 1949–1981 (resignation). Reelected in 1955, 1961, 1967, 1973, 1979.\n\nMunicipal Council\n\nMayor of Château-Chinon (Ville): 1959–1981 (resignation, became President of the French Republic in 1981). Reelected in 1965, 1971, 1977.\n\nMunicipal councillor of Château-Chinon (Ville): 1959–1981 (resignation). Reelected in 1965, 1971, 1977.\n\nPolitical function\n\nFirst Secretary (leader) of the Socialist Party: 1971–1981 (resignation, became President of the French Republic in 1981). Reelected in 1973, 1975, 1977, 1979.\n\nHonours\n\n* Grand Master of the Legion of Honour\n* Grand Master of the Ordre national du Mérite\n\nForeign honours\n\n* : Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of the Falcon (12 April 1983) \n* : Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (July 1982) \n* : Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion (1991) \n* : Grand Collar of the Order of Prince Henry (29 September 1983) \n* : Grand Collar of the Order of Liberty (28 October 1987)\n* : Grand Cross of the Order of Good Hope in 1994 \n* : Knight of the Royal Order of the Seraphim (11 May 1984) \n* : Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (See List) \n* : Raja of the Order of Sikatuna (11 July 1989)\n\nVexillology and heraldry\n\nPresident Mitterrand had chosen a tree half oak half olive-tree as symbol for his presidential flag. \nPresident Mitterrand received from King Carl XVI Gustav of Sweden a coat of arms linked to the reception of the Order of the Seraphim, which reproduces this symbol." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Baroness Margaret Thatcher", "Lady Thatcher", "Margret thatcher", "The Baroness Thatcher", "Margret Thatcher", "The Lady Thatcher", "Margaret Tatcher", "Margaret Thatcher", "Mrs T", "Mrs Thatcher", "Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher", "Mrs. T", "Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven", "Margaret Thatcer", "Margaret Thatcher's", "Mrs Finchley", "Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher", "Thatcherian", "Margaret Thacher", "Margaret Thatcher bibliography", "Margaret Thatcher Day", "M thatcher", "Lady T", "Maggie Thatcher", "Margaret Hilda Thatcher", "Milk snatcher", "Baroness The Margaret Thatcher", "Margaret Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher", "Margaret Hilda Roberts Thatcher", "Margeret Thatcher", "Margareth Thatcher", "Mrs Denis Thatcher", "Margaret Hilda Roberts", "Mrs. Thatcher", "Milk Snatcher", "Margaret Thatcher Library", "Margaret thatcher", "Baroness Thatcher", "Margeret thatcher" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "margaret hilda thatcher", "margaret hilda thatcher baroness thatcher", "baroness thatcher", "margaret thatcher", "margaret thatcher s", "margaret tatcher", "prime minister margaret thatcher", "margaret thatcher day", "maggie thatcher", "mrs thatcher", "m thatcher", "thatcherian", "lady thatcher", "mrs finchley", "baroness margaret thatcher", "margaret thatcher library", "margareth thatcher", "margret thatcher", "mrs t", "baroness thatcher of kesteven", "milk snatcher", "margaret hilda roberts", "margaret thatcer", "margaret thacher", "margeret thatcher", "margaret thatcher baroness thatcher", "margaret hilda roberts thatcher", "mrs denis thatcher", "margaret thatcher bibliography", "lady t" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "margaret thatcher", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Margaret Thatcher" }
Nigel Short was the youngest champion in which game in 1984?	tc_1240	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Nigel_Short.txt" ], "title": [ "Nigel Short" ], "wiki_context": [ "Nigel David Short (born 1 June 1965) is an English chess grandmaster, chess columnist, chess coach and chess commentator. Short earned the Grandmaster title at the age of 19, and was ranked third in the world by FIDE from January 1988 to July 1989. In 1993 he became the first English player to play a World Chess Championship match, when he qualified to play Garry Kasparov in the World Chess Championship 1993 in London, but lost.\n\nEarly life\n\nShort was born 1 June 1965 in Leigh, Lancashire. He grew up in Atherton, going to the St Philip's Primary School on Bolton Old Road. He studied at the independent Bolton School and Leigh College. He was a member both of Atherton Chess Club, which was founded by his father, David, and later of Bolton Chess Club, which had initially rejected him, aged seven, for being too young.\n\nCareer\n\nProdigy to grandmaster \n\nA chess prodigy, Short first attracted significant media attention, as a 10-year-old, by defeating Viktor Korchnoi in a simultaneous exhibition. In 1977 he became the youngest ever participant in the British Chess Championship by qualifying three days before his twelfth birthday. Two years later, at the British Championship in Chester 1979, the 14-year-old tied for first place with John Nunn and Robert Bellin, earning his first IM norm. He became (at the time) the youngest International Master in chess history, by scoring 8/15 in the Hastings Premier in 1979/80 and thus breaking Bobby Fischer's record of 1958. Participating in four World Junior Championships (1980–1983), Short achieved his best result during his first attempt in which he placed second to Garry Kasparov in 1980 at Dortmund. He was awarded the grandmaster title in 1984, aged nineteen—becoming the youngest grandmaster in the world at that time.\n\nWorld Championship candidate \n\nShort's assaults on the World Chess Championship title began in earnest in 1985 when he narrowly qualified from the Biel Interzonal to become Britain's first-ever candidate. He needed a playoff to advance past John van der Wiel and Eugenio Torre for the last berth, after the three had tied in regulation play. The Montpellier Candidates Tournament brought Short little success, however, as he scored 7/15 to finish in tenth place. In the next cycle, he again qualified by winning the 1987 Subotica Interzonal with Jon Speelman. The Candidates stage had by this time reverted to its traditional match format: Short defeated Gyula Sax (+23) in Saint John, Canada, in 1988, but then unexpectedly lost (−2\n3) to his countryman, Jon Speelman, in London.\n\nHis next attempt was to prove his most successful. A last round victory over Mikhail Gurevich enabled Short to finish equal third with Viswanathan Anand, behind Vassily Ivanchuk and Boris Gelfand, at the Manila Interzonal, thus qualifying as a Candidate for the third successive time. Defeating Gelfand (+4−22) in the 8/Final, he progressed to meet his former nemesis, Jon Speelman, in the quarters. This struggle went into extra-time in which the younger man eventually prevailed. In the semi-final, in 1992, the Englishman overcame the former World Champion Anatoly Karpov (+4−2\n4) in a match that was described as \"the end of an era\". In the final, in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Short defeated Dutchman Jan Timman (+5−3=5) to earn the right to meet defending World Champion Garry Kasparov.\n\nAccording to Short and Kasparov, the head of the chess world's governing body FIDE, Florencio Campomanes, decided on the location of the match (Manchester) and the prize fund without consulting them, in breach of FIDE rules. The British WIM and author Cathy Forbes, in her book Nigel Short: Quest for the Crown (Cadogan 1993), wrote that at no time in the 1993 bidding process was a conforming World Championship match bid actually received by FIDE. In response, Short and Kasparov promptly formed a rival organisation, the Professional Chess Association. The resulting match—sponsored by The Times newspaper—was held under the auspices of the new body in London, from September to October 1993. Kasparov won convincingly (+6−1=13) – the largest margin of victory in a world title contest since Botvinnik defeated Tal in 1961. Short's play came in for heavy criticism from BBC commentators Bill Hartston and Tony Miles.\n\nTournament and match results \n\nShort won the British Chess Championship in 1984, 1987, and 1998, and the English Championship in 1991. He was the Commonwealth Champion in 2004, 2006 (both Mumbai) and 2008 (Nagpur). He won the 2006 EU Individual Open Chess Championship in Liverpool and took a share of second place in the 2008 edition, when it was held there again. He has finished outright first, or tied for first, in dozens of other international tournaments including Geneva (1979), Belfort, World Under 16 (1979), the BBC Master Game (1981), Amsterdam OHRA (1982), Baku (1983), Esbjerg (1984), British Rapidplay Chess Championship (1986), Wijk aan Zee (1986, 1987), Reykjavík (1987), Amsterdam VSB (1988, 1991, 1992, 1993), Hastings (1987/88, 1988/89), Pärnu (1996), Groningen (1996), Tallinn/Pärnu (1998), Isle of Man Monarch Assurance 1998, Dhaka United Insurance (1999), Shymkent (1999), Pamplona (1999/2000), Linares Open (2000), Tan Chin Nam Cup, Beijing (2000), Sigeman and Co. Malmö (2002, 2009, 2013 joint first shared with Richárd Rapport and Nils Grandelius), Gibraltar (2003, 2004, 2012), Budapest Hunguest Hotels (2003), Samba Cup, Skanderborg (2003), Taiyuan (2004), the Politiken Cup (2006), Bazna (2008), the Staunton Memorial (2009), Thailand Open (2011, 2012, 2015), Luanda (2011), 7th Edmonton International (2012), Bunratty (2012), RA Club Ottawa (2012), Pühajärve Rapid Chess Tournament (2012), Spicenet Tanzania Open (2013), PokerStars Isle of Man (2014), Zaw Win Lay Memorial Yangon (2014) and the South African Open (2015).\n\nShort won the 50th edition of the Canadian Open Chess Championship in Ottawa in 2013, edging Canadian Grandmaster Eric Hansen on tiebreak, after both finished with unbeaten 7½/9 scores. \n\nArguably Short's finest tournament performance came at the Amsterdam VSB tournament in 1991, where he tied for first place with Valery Salov ahead of both Kasparov and Karpov.\n\nShort has enjoyed considerable success as a matchplayer, beating US Champion Lev Alburt in Foxborough, Massachusetts in 1985 by the score of 7–1 (+62). He has also defeated Utut Adianto (+3\n3) in Jakarta 1995, Étienne Bacrot in Albert 2000 (+3−12), Hannes Stefansson in Reykjavík 2002 (+4−1\n1), Ehsan Ghaem Maghami in Tehran 2003 (+24) and Zahar Efimenko in Mukachevo 2009 (+2−1\n3). Short lost to Joel Benjamin by 2½–1½ at London 1983, drew with Eugenio Torre (+1−1=4) in Manila 1988, drew with Timman (3–3) in an exhibition match at Hilversum in 1989, defeated Boris Gulko in extra games in the PCA Candidates' quarter-finals at New York 1994, and lost to Gata Kamsky by (5½–1½) in the PCA semi-finals at Linares 1995.\n\nIn a return to Tehran in March 2013, Short played a second match against the Iranian player Ehsan Ghaem Maghami. Billed as Talking Chess, the contest comprised four games with a classic time control, four games of rapid chess and eight games of blitz. As the classic games progressed, the players gave an intermittent live commentary, aimed at increasing the understanding of the live and television audiences, who could contrast and compare the player's own thoughts and assessments. Short won the classic games (+22), the rapid games (+3−1) and the blitz games (+3−2\n3). \n\nInternational team record \n\nA perennial fixture on the English national team, Short made his international team debut in the European Team Chess Championship at age seventeen at Plovdiv 1983, and has represented England continuously ever since. Short's main highlights are: team silver medals in the chess Olympiads of Thessaloniki 1984, Dubai 1986 (where he also took gold medal for the best individual performance on board three) and Thessaloniki 1988. He took a team bronze in the Novi Sad Olympiad of 1990, and led England to fourth-place finishes in both 1994 and 1996. He led the English team to victory in the 1997 Euroteams at Pula, and was a member of the bronze winning team in 1992, and of fourth place teams in 1983 and 2001. He was a member of three English teams in the World Team Chess Championships of 1985 (team bronze), 1989 (team bronze), and 1997 (team fourth). His complete log when representing England in major team events follows.\n\nOlympiads:\n* Thessaloniki 1984 2nd reserve, 3/6 (+1−1=4)\n* Dubai 1986 board 3, 10/13 (+8−1=4), gold medal on board 3\n* Thessaloniki 1988 board 1, 7/12 (+3−1=8)\n* Novi Sad 1990 board 1, 6/12 (+2−2=8)\n* Manila 1992, board 1, 6/11 (+3−2=6)\n* Moscow 1994, board 1, 8½/13 (+6−2=5)\n* Yerevan 1996, board 1, 7/12 (+3−1=8)\n* Elista 1998, board 2, 6½/11 (+2−0=9)\n* Istanbul 2000, board 2, 7/12 (+3−1=8)\n* Bled 2002, board 2, 8½/13 (+5−1=7)\n* Calvià 2004, board 2, 1½/4 (+1−2=1)\n* Turin 2006, board 2, 8/11 (+5−0=6)\n* Dresden 2008, board 2, 7/10 (+6−2=2)\n* Khanty-Mansiysk 2010, board 2, 4/8 (+2−2=4)\n* Istanbul 2012, board 3, 7½/10 (+6−1=3)\nEuroteams:\n* Plovdiv 1983 board 7, 4½/7 (+3−1=3)\n* Debrecen 1992 board 1, 5½/8 (+4−1=3), bronze medal on board 1\n* Pula 1997, board 1, 4/7 (+2−1=4)\n* Batumi 1999 board 1, 5/8 (+3−1=4)\n* León 2001 board 2, 6/9 (+3−0=6)\nWorld Team Championships:\n* Lucerne 1985 board 4, 4/8 (+1−1=6)\n* Lucerne 1989, board 1, 4½/8 (+3−2=3), silver medal on board 1\n* Lucerne 1997, board 1, 4/8 (+0−0=8)\n\nOther activities \n\nShort has written chess columns and book reviews for the British newspapers The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and The Spectator. He wrote for The Sunday Telegraph for a decade and for The Guardian between 2005 and 19 October 2006. He reported on the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005 in San Luis, Argentina, for the ChessBase website. He began a new column \"Short Stories\" for New in Chess magazine in January 2011. During the World Chess Championship 2013 he wrote a series of articles for The Indian Express. In 2014, he began writing a column for the Financial Times, interviewing Sol Campbell in the first article. \n\nHe has individually coached young prodigies Pendyala Harikrishna, Sergey Karjakin, David Howell and Parimarjan Negi. He worked as national coach of the Islamic Republic of Iran from 2006 to 2007. His first assignment led to them unexpectedly capturing a team bronze medal at the Asian Games in Doha, Qatar, in 2006. In the nine chess events at the Asian Indoor Games in Macau 2007, Iran took a silver and two bronze medals.\n\nShort was made an honorary Fellow of the then Bolton Institute of Higher Education in 1993 and was admitted to the honorary degree of Doctor of Science by the University of Bolton in 2010. In 1999 he was appointed MBE, in recognition of his chess accomplishments. In August 2005, he was unanimously elected secretary general of the Commonwealth Chess Association. In June 2006 he became its president, until stepping down in January 2008. He is the current FIDE delegate to the ECF, a post held since 2009.\n\nDuring important chess events in recent years, Short is often engaged for commentary as part of live broadcasts on the Internet. Chess historian Edward Winter has named him one of the top five Internet broadcasters. \n\nControversies\n\nIn 2001, Short told The Sunday Telegraph chess column that he believed he had been secretly playing the reclusive former chess champion Bobby Fischer on the online chess platform Internet Chess Club in speed chess matches. Fischer denied ownership of the account. \n\nIn January 2007, Short gave an interview to the Indian newspaper DNA, in which he called for an inquiry to examine allegations that Veselin Topalov cheated during the World Championship in San Luis. \n\nIn the same DNA interview, Short was critical of the role of members of the Appeals Committee at the 2005 and 2006 World Championships, in particular FIDE Vice-President Zurab Azmaiparashvili whom he described as \"singularly inappropriate for such work having, by his own admission, cheated in winning the 2003 European Championship.\" Azmaiparashvili filed a formal complaint to the FIDE Ethics Commission, which convened in July 2007. While dismissing the main complaints against Short, the Commission sanctioned him for a minor violation of the FIDE Code of Ethics for his use of the word \"dunderhead\". This decision was met with derision from the British Chess Magazine.\n\nIn 2015 Nigel Short was criticised for saying that women had a different skill set than men, and that men were \"hardwired\" to be better at chess, although he also stated that women are better in other areas. \n\nPersonal life\n\nShort resides in Athens and is married to drama therapist Rhea Argyro Karageorgiou. The couple have two children. He is an atheist. \n\nWorks\n\n*" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Chess match", "Šachmatai", "Sjakk", "Ajedrez", "Ahedres", "Ficheall", "Rank and file (chess)", "Chess Revers", "Chess", "Xadrez", "Chess publications", "Satranç", "Western chess", "Šachy", "Шахи", "Chess game", "European chess", "Chess psychology", "ChesS", "Ŝako", "ਸ਼ਤਰੰਜ", "Chess games", "शतरंज", "Play chess", "Skaak", "Western Chess", "Orthochess", "Chesss", "Game of chess", "Šach", "Echedoù", "Échecs", "שחמט", "Chesse", "Scacci", "Шахмат", "Escacs", "Cög", "Şah", "Cờ vua", "International Chess", "Chess board game", "Chess Board Game", "Шахматы", "Game of Chess", "Skak", "شطرنج", "Шатар", "Chess career", "Σκάκι", "Šahs", "Cheess", "Chess srategy and tactics", "Chess (game)", "Skák", "International chess" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "échecs", "chess revers", "chess psychology", "orthochess", "cheess", "chess career", "cờ vua", "international chess", "western chess", "skaak", "šahs", "skák", "cög", "game of chess", "scacci", "escacs", "chess match", "шахмат", "european chess", "šach", "šachy", "rank and file chess", "ficheall", "chesss", "شطرنج", "शतरंज", "şah", "chess publications", "שחמט", "ŝako", "skak", "echedoù", "шахматы", "chess game", "sjakk", "satranç", "ajedrez", "play chess", "chess board game", "xadrez", "шахи", "шатар", "ਸ਼ਤਰੰਜ", "chesse", "chess games", "šachmatai", "σκάκι", "chess", "ahedres", "chess srategy and tactics" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "chess", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Chess" }
What did Woody Allen call his son as a tribute to Louis 'Satchmo' Armstrong?	tc_1242	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Woody_Allen.txt", "Louis_Armstrong.txt" ], "title": [ "Woody Allen", "Louis Armstrong" ], "wiki_context": [ "Heywood \"Woody\" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg, December 1, 1935) is an American actor, comedian, filmmaker, playwright and musician, whose career spans more than six decades.\n\nHe worked as a comedy writer in the 1950s, writing jokes and scripts for television and publishing several books of short humor pieces. In the early 1960s, Allen began performing as a stand-up comedian, emphasizing monologues rather than traditional jokes. As a comedian, he developed the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish, which he maintains is quite different from his real-life personality. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Allen in fourth place on a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians, while a UK survey ranked Allen as the third greatest comedian. \n\nBy the mid-1960s Allen was writing and directing films, first specializing in slapstick comedies before moving into dramatic material influenced by European art cinema during the 1970s, and alternating between comedies and dramas to the present. He is often identified as part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmakers of the mid-1960s to late 1970s. Allen often stars in his films, typically in the persona he developed as a standup. Some best-known of his over 40 films are Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979), and Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), although he considers Stardust Memories (1980), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), and Match Point (2005) to be his best films. Critic Roger Ebert described Allen as \"a treasure of the cinema.\" \n\nAllen has won four Academy Awards: three for Best Original Screenplay and one for Best Director (Annie Hall). He has also won nine British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards. His screenplay for Annie Hall was named the funniest screenplay by the Writers Guild of America in its list of the \"101 Funniest Screenplays.\" In 2011, PBS televised the film biography, Woody Allen: A Documentary, on the American Masters TV series.\n\nEarly life\n\nAllen was born Allan Stewart Konigsberg in the Bronx, and was raised in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Nettie (née Cherry; November 8, 1906 – January 27, 2002), a bookkeeper at her family's delicatessen, and Martin Konigsberg (December 25, 1900 – January 8, 2001), a jewelry engraver and waiter. His family was Jewish; his grandparents immigrated from Russia and Austria, and spoke Yiddish, Hebrew, and German. His parents were both born and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Allen has a sister, Letty, who was born in 1943; they were raised in Midwood, Brooklyn. \n\nHis childhood was not particularly happy; his parents did not get along, and he had a rocky relationship with his stern, temperamental mother. Allen spoke German quite a bit in his early years. He would later joke that when he was young he was often sent to inter-faith summer camps, where he \"was savagely beaten by children of all races and creeds.\" While attending Hebrew school for eight years, he went to Public School 99 (now the Isaac Asimov School for Science and Literature) and to Midwood High School, where he graduated in 1953. At that time, he lived in an apartment at 968 East 14th Street. Unlike his comic persona, he was more interested in baseball than school and his strong arms ensured he was first to be picked for a team. \nHe impressed students with his extraordinary talent at card and magic tricks. \n\nTo raise money he wrote jokes (or \"gags\") for agent David O. Alber, who sold them to newspaper columnists. At the age of 17, he legally changed his name to Heywood Allen and later began to call himself Woody Allen. According to Allen, his first published joke read: \"Woody Allen says he ate at a restaurant that had O.P.S. prices – over people's salaries.\" He was then earning more than both parents combined. After high school, he attended New York University, studying communication and film in 1953, before dropping after failing the course \"Motion Picture Production\". He later briefly studied film at City College of New York in 1954, but did not finish the semester. Later, he learned via self-study rather than in the classroom. He eventually taught at The New School. He also studied with writing teacher Lajos Egri. His status before the Selective Service System was \"4-F\", a medical deferment, although he later claimed his actual status was \"4-P\", hostage. \n\nCareer\n\nComedy writer\n\nAllen began writing short jokes when he was 15, and the following year began sending them to various Broadway writers to see if they'd be interested in buying any. He also began going by the name \"Woody Allen.\" One of those writers was Abe Burrows, coauthor of Guys and Dolls, who wrote, \"Wow! His stuff was dazzling.\" Burrows then wrote Allen letters of introduction to Sid Caesar, Phil Silvers, and Peter Lind Hayes, who immediately sent Allen a check for just the jokes Burrows included as samples.\n\nAs a result of the jokes Allen mailed to various writers, he was invited, then age 19, to join the NBC Writer's Development Program in 1955, followed by a job on The NBC Comedy Hour in Los Angeles. He was later hired as a full-time writer for humorist Herb Shriner, initially earning $25 a week. He began writing scripts for The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show, specials for Sid Caesar post-Caesar's Hour (1954–1957), and other television shows. By the time he was working for Caesar, he was earning $1,500 a week; with Caesar, he worked alongside Danny Simon, whom Allen credits for helping form his writing style. In 1962 alone he estimated that he wrote twenty thousand jokes for various comics.\n\nAllen also wrote for the Candid Camera television show, and appeared in some episodes. Along with that show, he wrote jokes for the Buddy Hackett sitcom Stanley and The Pat Boone Show. And in 1958 he cowrote a few Sid Caesar specials with Larry Gelbart. After writing for many of television's leading comedians and comedy shows, Allen was gaining the reputation for being a \"genius\", says composer Mary Rodgers. When given an assignment for a show he would leave and come back the next day with \"reams of paper\", according to producer Max Liebman. Similarly, after writing for Bob Hope, Hope called him \"half a genius\".\n\nHis daily writing routine could go as long as fifteen hours, and he could focus and write anywhere necessary. Dick Cavett was amazed at Allen's capacity to write: \"He can go to a typewriter after breakfast and sit there until the sun sets and his head is pounding, interrupting work only for coffee and a brief walk, and then spend the whole evening working.\" When Allen wrote for other comedians, they would use eight out of ten of his jokes. When he began performing as a stand-up, he was much more selective, typically using only one out of ten jokes. He estimated that to prepare for a 30-minute show, he spent six months of intensive writing. He enjoyed writing, however, despite the work: \"Nothing makes me happier than to tear open a ream of paper. And I can't wait to fill it! I love to do it.\"\n\nAllen started writing short stories and cartoon captions for magazines such as The New Yorker; he was inspired by the tradition of New Yorker humorists S. J. Perelman, George S. Kaufman, Robert Benchley and Max Shulman, whose material he modernized. \nAllen has published four collections of his short pieces and plays. These are Getting Even, Without Feathers, Side Effects, and Mere Anarchy. His early comic fiction was heavily influenced by the zany, pun-ridden humour of S.J. Perelman. In 2010, Allen released digital spoken word versions of his four books, in which he reads 73 short story selections from his work and for which he was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album. \n\nStand-up comedian\n\nFrom 1960 to 1969, Allen performed as a stand-up comedian to supplement his comedy writing. His contemporaries during those years included Lenny Bruce, Shelley Berman, the team of Mike Nichols and Elaine May, and Mort Sahl, his personal favorite. Comedy historian Gerald Nachman notes that Allen, while not the first to do stand-up, would eventually have greater impact than all the others in the 1960s, and would redefine the meaning of stand-up comedy: \"He helped turn it into biting, brutally honest satirical commentary on the cultural and psychological tenor of the times.\"\n\nAfter Allen was taken under the wing of his new manager, Jack Rollins, who had recently discovered Nichols and May, Rollins suggested he perform his written jokes as a stand-up. Allen was resistant at first, but after seeing Mort Sahl on stage, he felt safer to give it a try: \"I'd never had the nerve to talk about it before. Then Mort Sahl came along with a whole new style of humor, opening up vistas for people like me.\" Allen made his professional stage debut at the Blue Angel nightclub in Manhattan in October 1960, where comedian Shelley Berman introduced him as a young television writer who would perform his own material.\n\nHis early stand-up shows with his different style of humor were not always well received or understood by his audiences. Unlike other comedians, Allen spoke to his audiences in a low-key conversational style, often appearing to be searching for words, although his style was well rehearsed. He acted \"normal\", dressed casually, and made no attempt to project a stage \"personality\". And he did not improvise: \"I put very little premium on improvisation,\" he told Studs Terkel. His jokes were created from life experiences, and typically presented with a dead serious demeanor which made them funnier: \"I don't think my family liked me. They put a live teddy bear in my crib.\"\n\nThe subjects of his jokes were rarely topical, political or even socially relevant. Unlike Bruce and Sahl, he did not discuss current events such as civil rights, women's rights, the Cold War, or Vietnam. And although he was described as a \"classic nebbish\", he did not tell Jewish jokes. Comedy screenwriter Larry Gelbart compared Allen's style to Elaine May: \"He just styled himself completely after her,\" he said. Like Nichols and May, he often made fun of intellectuals.\n\nTelevision talk show host Dick Cavett, who was among the minority who quickly appreciated Allen's unique style, recalls seeing the audience at the Blue Angel mostly ignore Allen's monologue: \"I recognized immediately that there was no young comedian in the country in the same class with him for sheer brilliance of jokes, and I resented the fact that the audience was too dumb to realize what they were getting.\" It was his subdued stage presence, while initially unappreciated, that eventually became one of Allen's strongest traits, explains Nachman: \"The utter absence of showbiz veneer and shtick was the best shtick any comedian had ever devised. This uneasy onstage naturalness became a trademark.\" When he was finally noticed by the media, writers like New York Times Arthur Gelb would describe Allen's nebbish quality as being \"Chaplinesque\" and \"refreshing\".\n\nAllen developed a neurotic, nervous, and intellectual persona for his stand-up routine, a successful move that secured regular gigs for him in nightclubs and on television. Allen brought innovation to the comedy monologue genre and his stand-up comedy would be considered influential. Allen first appeared on the Tonight Show in November 1963. He subsequently released three LP albums of live nightclub recordings: the self-titled Woody Allen (1964), Volume 2 (1965), and The Third Woody Allen Album (1968) recorded at a fund-raiser for Eugene McCarthy's presidential run. The material from these albums was edited and abridged into the 2-LP compilation albums Standup Comic and Nightclub Years 1964–1968 (also on CD), including his \"The Moose\" routine, co-written with Mickey Rose. \n\nAllen had his own TV show beginning in 1965, called The Woody Allen Show, where he would intersperse humor with interviews of famous people, including Rev. Billy Graham and William F. Buckley. \n\nPlaywright\n\nIn 1966, Allen wrote the play Don't Drink the Water. The play starred Lou Jacobi, Kay Medford, Anita Gillette and Allen's future movie co-star Tony Roberts. A film adaptation of the play, directed by Howard Morris, was released in 1969, starring Jackie Gleason. Because he was not particularly happy with the 1969 film version of his play, in 1994, Allen directed and starred in a second version for television, with Michael J. Fox and Mayim Bialik. \n\nThe next play Allen wrote for Broadway was Play It Again, Sam, in which he also starred. The play opened on February 12, 1969, and ran for 453 performances. It featured Diane Keaton and Roberts. The play was significant to Keaton's budding career, and she has stated she was in \"awe\" of Allen even before auditioning for her role, which was the first time she met him. During an interview in 2013, Keaton stated that she \"fell in love with him right away,\" adding, \"I wanted to be his girlfriend so I did something about it.\"[http://www.netquake.net/2013/06/actress-diane-keaton-talks-about-woody-allen-her-career-and-personal-life/ \"Actress Diane Keaton Talks About Woody Allen, Her Career and Personal Life\"], Netquake, June 2, 2013 After co-starring alongside Allen in the subsequent film version of Play It Again, Sam, she would later co-star in Sleeper, Love and Death, Interiors, Manhattan and Annie Hall. \"He showed me the ropes and I followed his lead. He is the most disciplined person I know. He works very hard,\" Keaton has stated. \"I find the same thing sexy in a man now as I always have: humor. I love it when they are funny. It's to die for.\"\n\nFor its March 21, 1969, issue, Life featured Allen on its cover. In 1981, his play The Floating Light Bulb premiered on Broadway and ran for 65 performances. While receiving mixed reviews, it gave an autobiographical insight into Allen's childhood, specifically his fascination with magic tricks. He has written several one-act plays, including Riverside Drive and Old Saybrook exploring well-known Allen themes. \n\nOn October 20, 2011, Allen's one-act play Honeymoon Motel opened as part of a larger piece entitled Relatively Speaking on Broadway, with two other one-act plays, one by Ethan Coen and one by Elaine May. \n\nEarly films\n\nHis first movie was the Charles K. Feldman production What's New Pussycat? in 1965, for which he wrote the screenplay. He was disappointed with the final product, which inspired him to direct every film that he would later write. Allen's first directorial effort was What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966, co-written with Mickey Rose), in which an existing Japanese spy movie—Kokusai himitsu keisatsu: Kagi no kagi (1965), \"International Secret Police: Key of Keys\"—was redubbed in English by Allen and friends with fresh new, comic dialogue. In 1967, Allen played Jimmy Bond in the 007 spoof Casino Royale.\n\nAllen directed, starred in, and co-wrote (with Mickey Rose) Take the Money and Run in 1969, which received positive reviews. He later signed a deal with United Artists to produce several films. Those films eventually became Bananas (1971, co-written with Rose), Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (1972), Sleeper (1973), and Love and Death (1975). Sleeper was the first of four films where the screenplay was co-written by Allen and Marshall Brickman.\n\nIn 1972, Allen wrote and starred in the film version of Play It Again, Sam, directed by Herbert Ross and co-starring Diane Keaton. In 1976, he starred as cashier Howard Prince, in The Front, directed by Martin Ritt. The Front was a humorous and poignant account of Hollywood blacklisting during the 1950s; Ritt, screenwriter Walter Bernstein, and three of Allen's cast-mates, Samuel \"Zero\" Mostel, Herschel Bernardi, and Lloyd Gough, had all themselves been actual blacklisting victims.\n\nThen came two of Allen's most popular films. Annie Hall won four Academy Awards in 1977, including Best Picture, Best Actress in a Leading Role for Diane Keaton, Best Original Screenplay and Best Director for Woody Allen. Annie Hall set the standard for modern romantic comedy and ignited a fashion trend with the clothes worn by Diane Keaton in the film. In an interview with journalist Katie Couric, Keaton does not deny that Allen wrote the part for her and about her., video interview, 2 min. She also explains that Allen wrote the part based on aspects of her personality at the time:\n\nThe film is ranked at No. 35 on the American Film Institute \"100 Best Movies\" and at No. 4 on the AFI list of \"100 Best Comedies.\"\n\nManhattan (1979), is a black-and-white film often viewed as an homage to New York City. As in many Allen films, the main protagonists are upper-middle class writers and academics. The lovehate opinion of cerebral persons found in Manhattan is characteristic of many of Allen's movies, including Crimes and Misdemeanors and Annie Hall. Manhattan focuses on the complicated relationship between middle-aged Isaac Davis (Allen) with 17-year-old Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), and co-stars Diane Keaton.\n\nKeaton, who made eight movies with Allen during her career, tries to explain why his films are unique:\n\nBetween Annie Hall and Manhattan, Allen wrote and directed the dark drama Interiors (1978), in the style of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, one of Allen's chief influences. Interiors represented a departure from Allen's \"early, funny\" comedies (a line from 1980's Stardust Memories).\n\n1980s\n\nAllen's 1980s films, even the comedies, have somber and philosophical undertones, with their influences being the works of European directors, specifically Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini. Stardust Memories was based on 8½, which it parodies, and Wild Strawberries. A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy was adapted from Smiles of a Summer Night. In Hannah and Her Sisters, part of the film's structure and background is borrowed from Fanny and Alexander. Amarcord inspired Radio Days. September resembles Autumn Sonata. Allen uses many elements from Wild Strawberries. In Crimes and Misdemeanors, Allen references a scene from Wild Strawberries. \n\nStardust Memories (1980) features Sandy Bates, a successful filmmaker played by Allen, who expresses resentment and scorn for his fans. Overcome by the recent death of a friend from illness, the character states, \"I don't want to make funny movies any more\" and a running gag has various people (including visiting space aliens) telling Bates that they appreciate his films, \"especially the early, funny ones.\" Allen believes this to be one of his best films. \n\nA Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982) was the first of 13 movies Allen made starring Mia Farrow, who stepped into Diane Keaton's role when Keaton was shooting Reds. He next produced a vividly idiosyncratic tragi-comical parody of documentary, Zelig, in which he starred as a Leonard Zelig, man who has the ability to transform his appearance to that of the people who surround him.\n\nAllen combined tragic and comic elements in such films as Hannah and Her Sisters (1985) and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), in which he tells two stories that connect at the end. He also made three films about show business: Broadway Danny Rose, in which he plays a New York show business agent, The Purple Rose of Cairo, a movie that shows the importance of the cinema during the Depression through the character of the naive Cecilia, and Radio Days, a film about his childhood in Brooklyn and the importance of the radio. The film co-starred Farrow in a part Allen wrote specifically for her.\n\nThe Purple Rose of Cairo was named by Time as one of the 100 best films of all time and Allen described it as one of his three best films, along with Stardust Memories and Match Point (Allen defines them as \"best\" not in terms of quality but because they came closest to his vision). In 1989, Allen teamed with directors Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese to make New York Stories, an anthology film about New Yorkers. Allen's short, Oedipus Wrecks, is about a neurotic lawyer and his critical mother. His short pleased critics, but New York Stories bombed at the box office. \n\n1990s\n\nHis 1991 film Shadows and Fog is a black-and-white homage to the German expressionists and features the music of Kurt Weill. Allen then made his critically acclaimed comedy-drama drama Husbands and Wives (1992), which received two Oscar nominations: Best Supporting Actress for Judy Davis and Best Original Screenplay for Allen. His film Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) combined suspense with dark comedy and marked the return of Diane Keaton, Alan Alda and Anjelica Huston.\n\nHe returned to lighter movies like Bullets over Broadway (1994), which earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, followed by a musical, Everyone Says I Love You (1996). The singing and dancing scenes in Everyone Says I Love You are similar to musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The comedy Mighty Aphrodite (1995), in which Greek drama plays a large role, won an Academy Award for Mira Sorvino. Allen's 1999 jazz-based comedy-drama Sweet and Lowdown was nominated for two Academy Awards for Sean Penn (Best Actor) and Samantha Morton (Best Supporting Actress). In contrast to these lighter movies, Allen veered into darker satire toward the end of the decade with Deconstructing Harry (1997) and Celebrity (1998).\n\nDuring this decade, Allen also starred in the television film The Sunshine Boys (1995), based on the Neil Simon play of the same name. \n\nAllen made one sitcom \"appearance\" via telephone on the show Just Shoot Me! in a 1997 episode, \"My Dinner with Woody\" which paid tribute to several of his films. Allen provided the lead voice in the 1998 animated film Antz, which featured many actors he had worked with and Allen's character was similar to his earlier neurotic roles. \n\n2000s\n\nSmall Time Crooks (2000) was Allen's first film with the DreamWorks studio and represented a change in direction: Allen began giving more interviews and made an attempt to return to his slapstick roots. The film is similar to the 1942 film Larceny, Inc. (from a play by S.J. Perelman).Robert Osborne of Turner Classic Movies on June 15, 2006 Allen never commented on whether this was deliberate or if his film was in any way inspired by it. Small Time Crooks was a relative financial success, grossing over $17 million domestically but Allen's next four films foundered at the box office, including Allen's most costly film, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (with a budget of $26 million). Hollywood Ending, Anything Else, and Melinda and Melinda were given \"rotten\" ratings from film-review website Rotten Tomatoes and each earned less than $4 million domestically. Some critics claimed that Allen's early 2000s films were subpar and expressed concern that Allen's best years were behind him. Others were less harsh; reviewing the little-liked Melinda and Melinda, Roger Ebert wrote, \"I cannot escape the suspicion that if Woody had never made a previous film, if each new one was Woody's Sundance debut, it would get a better reception. His reputation is not a dead shark but an albatross, which with admirable economy Allen has arranged for the critics to carry around their own necks.\" Woody gave his godson Quincy Rose a small part in Melinda and Melinda.\n\nAllen was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001.\n\nMatch Point (2005) was one of Allen's most successful films of the decade, garnering positive reviews. Set in London, it starred Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Scarlett Johansson. It is markedly darker than Allen's first four films with DreamWorks SKG. In Match Point, Allen shifted focus from the intellectual upper class of New York to the moneyed upper class of London. The film earned more than $23 million domestically (more than any of his films in nearly 20 years) and over $62 million in international box office sales. Match Point earned Allen his first Academy Award nomination since 1998, for Best Writing – Original Screenplay, with directing and writing nominations at the Golden Globes, his first Globe nominations since 1987. In a 2006 interview with Premiere Magazine, Allen stated this was the best film he has ever made. \n\nAllen returned to London to film Scoop, which also starred Johansson, Hugh Jackman, Ian McShane, Kevin McNally and Allen himself. The film was released on July 28, 2006, and received mixed reviews. He filmed Cassandra's Dream in London. Cassandra's Dream was released in November 2007, and stars Colin Farrell, Ewan McGregor and Tom Wilkinson.\n\nAfter finishing his third London film, Allen headed to Spain. He reached an agreement to film Vicky Cristina Barcelona in Avilés, Barcelona and Oviedo, where shooting started on July 9, 2007. The movie stars Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Hall and Penélope Cruz. Speaking of his experience there, Allen said: \"I'm delighted at being able to work with Mediapro and make a film in Spain, a country which has become so special to me.\" Vicky Cristina Barcelona was well received, winning Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globe awards. Penélope Cruz received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film.\n\nAllen has said that he \"survives\" on the European market. Audiences there tend to be more receptive to his films, particularly in Spain, France and Italy—countries where he has a large audience (joked about in Hollywood Ending). \"In the United States things have changed a lot, and it's hard to make good small films now,\" Allen said in a 2004 interview. \"The avaricious studios couldn't care less about good films—if they get a good film they're twice as happy but money-making films are their goal. They only want these $100 million pictures that make $500 million.\" \n\nIn April 2008, he began filming a story focused more toward older audiences starring Larry David, Patricia Clarkson and Evan Rachel Wood. Released in 2009, Whatever Works, \ndescribed as a dark comedy, follows the story of a botched suicide attempt turned messy love triangle. Whatever Works was written by Allen in the 1970s and the character played by Larry David was written for Zero Mostel, who died the year Annie Hall came out.\n\n2010s\n\nYou Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, filmed in London, stars Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Anupam Kher, Freida Pinto and Naomi Watts. Filming started in July 2009. It was released theatrically in the US on September 23, 2010, following a Cannes debut in May 2010, and a screening at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2010. Allen announced that his next film would be titled Midnight in Paris, starring Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson, Marion Cotillard, Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates, Michael Sheen, Gad Elmaleh and Carla Bruni, the First Lady of France at the time of production. The film follows a young engaged couple in Paris who see their lives transformed. It debuted at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival on May 12, 2011. Allen said he wanted to \"show the city emotionally,\" during the press conference. \"I just wanted it to be the way I saw Paris – Paris through my eyes,\" he added. Critically acclaimed, the film was considered by some a mark for his return to form. Midnight in Paris won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. His next film, To Rome with Love, was a Rome-set comedy released in 2012. The film was structured in four vignettes featuring dialogue in both Italian and English. It marked Allen's return to acting since his last role in Scoop. \n\nBlue Jasmine debuted in July 2013. The film is set in San Francisco and New York, and stars Alec Baldwin, Cate Blanchett, Louis C.K., Andrew Dice Clay, Sally Hawkins, and Peter Sarsgaard. Opened to critical acclaim, the film earned Allen another Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and Blanchett went to receive the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 2013, in Nice, France, Allen shot the romantic comedy Magic in the Moonlight, set in the 1920s on the French Riviera and starring Colin Firth and Emma Stone. Allen co-stars with John Turturro in Fading Gigolo, written and directed by Turturro, which premiered in September 2013. \n\nFrom July through August 2014, Allen filmed the mystery drama Irrational Man in Newport, Rhode Island, with Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Parker Posey and Jamie Blackley. Allen has said that this film, as well as the next three he has planned, have the financing and full support of Sony Pictures Classics. Allen has filmed his next film, Café Society, starring an ensemble cast that includes Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart and Blake Lively. Bruce Willis was set to co-star, but was replaced by Steve Carell during filming. It will be distributed by Amazon Studios and opened the 2016 Cannes Film Festival on May 11, 2016, marking the third time Allen has opened the festival. \n\nFuture projects\n\nFor many years, Allen wanted to make a film about the origins of jazz in New Orleans. The film, tentatively titled American Blues, would follow the vastly different careers of Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet. Allen stated that the film would cost between $80 and $100 million and is therefore unlikely to be made. \n\nOn January 14, 2015, it was announced Allen will write and direct an for half-hour episodes for Amazon Studios, marking the first time he has developed a television show. It will be available exclusively on Amazon Prime Instant Video, and Amazon Studios has already ordered a full season. Allen said of the series, \"I don't know how I got into this. I have no ideas and I'm not sure where to begin. My guess is that Roy Price [the head of Amazon Studios] will regret this.\" At the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, Allen said, in reference to his upcoming Amazon show, \"It was a catastrophic mistake. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm floundering. I expect this to be a cosmic embarrassment.\" On January 25, 2016, Allen was confirmed to be starring in the series alongside Elaine May and Miley Cyrus. \n\nTheatre\n\nWhile best known for his films, Allen has enjoyed a successful career in theatre, starting as early as 1960, when he wrote sketches for the revue From A to Z. His first great success was Don't Drink the Water, which opened in 1968, and ran for 598 performances for almost two years on Broadway. His success continued with Play It Again, Sam, which opened in 1969, starring Allen and Diane Keaton. The show played for 453 performances and was nominated for three Tony Awards, although none of the nominations were for Allen's writing or acting. \n\nIn the 1970s, Allen wrote a number of one-act plays, most notably God and Death, which were published in his 1975 collection Without Feathers.\n\nIn 1981, Allen's play The Floating Light Bulb opened on Broadway. The play was a critical success and a commercial flop. Despite two Tony Award nominations, a Tony win for the acting of Brian Backer (who won the 1981 Theater World Award and a Drama Desk Award for his work), the play only ran for 62 performances. \n\nAfter a long hiatus from the stage, Allen returned to the theatre in 1995, with the one-act Central Park West, an installment in an evening of theatre known as Death Defying Acts that was also made up of new work by David Mamet and Elaine May. \n\nFor the next few years, Allen had no direct involvement with the stage, yet notable productions of his work were staged. A production of God was staged at The Bank of Brazil Cultural Center in Rio de Janeiro, and theatrical adaptations of Allen's films Bullets Over Broadway and September were produced in Italy and France, respectively, without Allen's involvement. In 1997, rumors of Allen returning to the theatre to write a starring role for his wife Soon-Yi Previn turned out to be false. \n\nIn 2003, Allen finally returned to the stage with Writer's Block, an evening of two one-acts—Old Saybrook and Riverside Drive—that played Off-Broadway. The production marked the stage-directing debut for Allen. The production sold out the entire run. \n\nAlso in 2003, reports of Allen writing the book for a musical based on Bullets Over Broadway surfaced, and it opened in New York in 2014. The musical closed on August 24, 2014, after 156 performances and 33 previews. In 2004, Allen's first full-length play since 1981, A Second Hand Memory, was directed by Allen and enjoyed an extended run Off-Broadway.\n\nIn June 2007, it was announced that Allen would make two more creative debuts in the theatre, directing a work that he did not write and directing an opera — a reinterpretation of Puccini's Gianni Schicchi for the Los Angeles Opera —which debuted at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on September 6, 2008. Commenting on his direction of the opera, Allen said, \"I have no idea what I'm doing.\" His production of the opera opened the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, in June 2009. \n\nIn October 2011, Woody Allen's one-act play called Honeymoon Motel premiered as one in a series of one act plays on Broadway titled Relatively Speaking. Also contributing to the plays are Elaine May and Ethan Coen with John Turturro directing. \n\nIt was announced in February 2012 that Allen would adapt Bullets over Broadway into a Broadway musical. It opened on April 10, 2014 and closed on August 24, 2014. \n\nMusic\n\n Allen is a passionate fan of jazz, featured prominently in the soundtracks to his films. He began playing the clarinet as a child and took his stage name from clarinetist Woody Herman. He has performed publicly at least since the late 1960s, notably with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band on the soundtrack of Sleeper. One of his earliest televised performances was on The Dick Cavett Show on October 20, 1971. \n\nWoody Allen and his New Orleans Jazz Band have been playing each Monday evening at Manhattan's Carlyle Hotel for many years (as of 2011, specializing in classic New Orleans jazz from the early twentieth century). He plays songs by Sidney Bechet, George Lewis, Johnny Dodds, Jimmie Noone and Louis Armstrong. The documentary film Wild Man Blues (directed by Barbara Kopple) documents a 1996 European tour by Allen and his band, as well as his relationship with Previn. The band has released two CDs: The Bunk Project (1993) and the soundtrack of Wild Man Blues (1997). In a 2011 review of a concert by Allen's jazz band, critic Kirk Silsbee of the L.A. Times suggested that Allen should be regarded as a competent musical hobbyist with a sincere appreciation for early jazz: \"Allen's clarinet won't make anyone forget Sidney Bechet, Barney Bigard or Evan Christopher. His piping tone and strings of staccato notes can't approximate melodic or lyrical phrasing. Still his earnestness and the obvious regard he has for traditional jazz counts for something.\" \n\nAllen and his band played the Montreal International Jazz Festival on two consecutive nights in June 2008. \n\nWorks about Allen\n\nApart from Wild Man Blues, directed by Barbara Kopple, there are other documentaries featuring Woody Allen, including the 2002 cable-television documentary Woody Allen: a Life in Film, directed by Time film critic Richard Schickel, which interlaces interviews of Allen with clips of his films, and Meetin' WA, a short interview of Allen by French director Jean-Luc Godard. In 2011 the PBS series American Masters co-produced a comprehensive documentary about him, Woody Allen: a Documentary directed by Robert B. Weide.\n\nEric Lax authored the book Woody Allen: A Biography. From 1976 to 1984, Stuart Hample wrote and drew Inside Woody Allen, a comic strip based on Allen's film persona. \n\nPersonal life\n\nMarriages and romantic relationships\n\nAllen has had three wives: Harlene Rosen (1956–1959), Louise Lasser (1966–1970) and Soon-Yi Previn (1997–present). Though he had a 12-year romantic relationship with actress Mia Farrow, the two never married. Allen also had long-term romantic relationships with Stacey Nelkin and Diane Keaton.\n\nHarlene Rosen\n\nAt age 20, Allen married 17-year-old Harlene Rosen. The marriage lasted from 1956 to 1959. Time stated that the years were \"nettling\" and \"unsettling.\"\n\nRosen, whom Allen referred to in his standup act as \"the Dread Mrs. Allen\", sued him for defamation due to comments at a TV appearance shortly after their divorce. Allen tells a different story on his mid-1960s standup album Standup Comic. In his act, Allen said that Rosen sued him because of a joke he made in an interview. Rosen had been sexually assaulted outside her apartment and according to Allen, the newspapers reported that she \"had been violated\". In the interview, Allen said, \"Knowing my ex-wife, it probably wasn't a moving violation.\" In an interview on The Dick Cavett Show, Allen brought up the incident again where he repeated his comments and stated that the sum for which he was sued was \"$1 million.\"\n\nLouise Lasser\n\nAllen married Louise Lasser in 1966. They divorced in 1970, and Allen did not marry again until 1997. Lasser appeared in three Allen films shortly after the divorce—Take the Money and Run, Bananas, and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (But Were Afraid to Ask)—and later briefly appeared in Stardust Memories.\n\nDiane Keaton\n\nIn 1969, Allen cast Diane Keaton in his Broadway show, Play It Again, Sam. During the run she and Allen became romantically involved and although they broke up after a year, she continued to star in a number of his films, including Sleeper as a futuristic poet and Love and Death as a composite character based on the novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Annie Hall was very important in Allen and Keaton's careers. It is said that the role was written for her, as Diane Keaton's birth name was Diane Hall. She then starred in Interiors as a poet, followed by Manhattan. In 1987, she had a cameo as a nightclub singer in Radio Days, and was chosen to replace Mia Farrow in the co-starring role for Manhattan Murder Mystery after Allen and Farrow began having troubles with their personal and working relationship while making this film. Keaton has not worked with Allen since Manhattan Murder Mystery. Since the end of their romantic relationship, Keaton and Allen remain close friends. \n\nStacey Nelkin\n\nThe film Manhattan is said by the Los Angeles Times to be widely known to have been based on his romantic relationship with actress Stacey Nelkin. Her bit part in Annie Hall ended up on the cutting room floor, and their relationship, though never publicly acknowledged by Allen, reportedly began when she was 17, and a student at New York's Stuyvesant High School. \nNelkin played the role of Rita in Woody Allen's 1994 film, Bullets over Broadway.\n\nMia Farrow\n\nAround 1980, Allen began a twelve-year relationship with actress Mia Farrow, who starred in 13 of his films from 1982 to 1992. They never married or lived together, but lived near one another on opposite sides of Central Park in Manhattan. \n\nIn December 1991, after ten years together, Allen formally adopted two of Farrow's own previously adopted children, Dylan, 7, and Moses, 13. Farrow told the court that Allen was an “excellent father,” although the children lived with her. The New York Times wrote that Allen and Farrow \"are constantly in touch with each other, and not many fathers spend as much time with their children as Allen does.\" He tried to be with them every day.\n\nThe following month, January 1992, Farrow was at Allen's home and came across nude photos of her other adopted daughter, 21-year-old Soon-Yi Previn, which were taken by Allen. As a result, Farrow realized that Allen was having an affair with Soon-Yi. This caused a bitter breakup of the long-term relationship between Allen and Farrow, with Soon-Yi then moving in with Allen.[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3179555/She-responded-paternal-Woody-Allen-reveals-secret-23-year-relationship-Mia-Farrow-s-adopted-daughter-thought-just-fling.html “Woody Allen reveals secret to his 23-year relationship with Mia Farrow's adopted daughter”], Daily Mail, July 30, 2015 In her autobiography, What Falls Away, Farrow says that Allen admitted to the relationship with Soon-Yi. \n\nSoon-Yi Previn\n\nSoon-Yi Previn was the adopted daughter of Farrow and her former husband, composer André Previn. Soon-Yi, who was born in Korea, was a child when her mother abandoned her by leaving her on a street in the slums of Seoul. Farrow and Previn adopted her in 1978, at which time a bone scan determined she was between 5 and 7 years old.\n\nBecause Allen and Farrow had never married, Allen was not Soon-Yi's legal stepfather. After his relationship with Mia Farrow ended acrimoniously in 1992, Allen and Soon-Yi continued their relationship and she moved in with Allen. They married on December 23, 1997, and have adopted two daughters.[http://www.ibtimes.com/woody-allen-soon-yi-previn-still-going-strong-20-years-after-mia-farrow-scandal-photo-754205 Woody Allen, Soon-Yi Previn Still Going Strong 20 Years After Mia Farrow Scandal] Carey Vanderborg, International Business Times, August 23, 2012\n\nChildren\n\nAllen and Mia Farrow, though unmarried, jointly adopted two children: Dylan Farrow (who changed her name to Eliza and later to Malone) and Moshe Farrow (known as Moses); they also had one biological child, Satchel Farrow (known as Ronan). Ronan's paternity came into question, however, after Farrow claimed in 2013 that he might in fact be the biological child of Frank Sinatra, her first husband, with whom she \"never really split up,\" she said. Allen did not adopt any of Farrow's other children, including Soon-Yi.\n\nFollowing Allen's separation from Farrow, and after a bitter custody battle, she won custody of their children. Allen was denied visitation rights with Malone and could see Ronan only under supervision. Moses, who was then 15, chose not to see Allen but by age 36 he had become estranged from his mother and reestablished his relationship with Allen and his sister. Farrow tried to have Allen's two adoptions with her nullified, but the court decided in Allen's favor and he continues to be their legal father. \n\nAllen and his wife, Soon-Yi, have two adopted daughters.\n\nSex abuse allegations\n\nAllen and Farrow engaged in a heated and emotionally damaging custody battle after they broke up in January 1992, during which time Farrow alleged that he once sexually abused their daughter, which he has denied. In August 1992, Allen visited his children at Farrow's home by mutual arrangement while she went shopping.[http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/feb/05/woody-allen-dylan-farrow-moses \"Moses Farrow defends Woody Allen over child abuse accusations\"], The Guardian, Feb. 5, 2015 Dylan, his seven-year-old daughter, later told Mia Farrow that he molested her during that visit. Farrow filed charges with the police. Dylan said that the abuse took place in the attic. In 2014, Dylan's older brother, Moses, denied that abuse in the attic was possible, saying that there were several people present in the house during Allen's entire visit and \"no one, not my father or sister, was off in any private spaces\".[http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/dylan-farrows-brother-moses-mia-farrow-woody-allen/story?id\n22377303 \"Dylan Farrow's Brother Moses Says Mia Farrow, Not Woody Allen Was Abusive\"], ABC News, Feb. 5, 2014\n\nThe case was dropped in 1993 after a seven-month probe by a police-appointed medical team concluded that Dylan had not been molested. Among the reasons cited for the team's conclusion were the contradictory statements made by Dylan and that her statements had a \"rehearsed quality\". The judge eventually found that the sex abuse charges were inconclusive.Brozan, Nadine (May 13, 1994). [http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/13/style/chronicle-078638.html \"Chronicle\"]. The New York Times. Retrieved June 18, 2015. In addition, investigators with the New York Department of Social Services closed their own 14-month investigation after their similar conclusion, namely that: \"No credible evidence was found that the child named in this report has been abused or maltreated.\" Allen was interviewed by 60 Minutes a few months following the allegation, when he described the custody battle, heated exchanges, and the allegations.[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/woody-allen-defends-himself-on-60-minutes-in-92/ “Woody Allen defends himself on 60 Minutes in '92”], CBS, November 22, 1992\n\nIn February 2014, Dylan Farrow repeated the allegation in an open letter published by Nicholas Kristof, one of Farrow's friends, in his New York Times blog. She alleged that Allen had treated her in a way that made her physically uncomfortable \"for as long as [she] could remember\", citing occasions when he got in bed with her in his underwear. Allen again repeated his denial of the allegation, calling them \"untrue and disgraceful\", and followed with his own response in The New York Times. Dylan's brother, Moses, currently a family therapist, told People magazine, \"Of course Woody did not molest my sister... She loved him and looked forward to seeing him when he would visit.\" He claimed that their mother had manipulated her children into hating Allen as \"a vengeful way to pay him back for falling in love with Soon-Yi.\"Dennis, Alicia. [http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20783306,00.html \"Dylan Farrow's Brother Moses Defends Woody Allen\"], People magazine, Feb. 5, 2014. Retrieved June 18, 2015. Dylan denies she was ever coached by her mother and has stood by her allegations.\n\nPsychoanalysis\n\nAllen spent over 37 years undergoing psychoanalysis. Some of his films, such as Annie Hall, jokingly include references to psychoanalysis. Moment Magazine says, \"It drove his self-absorbed work.\" Allen's biographer, John Baxter, wrote, \"Allen obviously found analysis stimulating, even exciting.\" Allen says his psychoanalysis ended around the time he began his relationship with Previn, although he is still claustrophobic and agoraphobic.\n\nAllen has described himself as being a \"militant Freudian atheist\". \n\nTheatrical works\n\nIn addition to directing, writing, and acting in films, Allen has written and performed in a number of Broadway theatre productions.\n\nFilmography", "Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American trumpeter, composer, singer and occasional actor who was one of the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades, from the 1920s to the 1960s, and different eras in jazz. \n\nComing to prominence in the 1920s as an \"inventive\" trumpet and cornet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly recognizable gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also skilled at scat singing.\n\nRenowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to \"cross over\", whose skin color was secondary to his music in an America that was extremely racially divided. He rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation in the Little Rock Crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society which were highly restricted for black men of his era.\n\nEarly life \n\nArmstrong often stated that he was born on July 4, 1900, a date that has been noted in many biographies. Although he died in 1971, it was not until the mid-1980s that his true birth date of August 4, 1901 was discovered by researcher Tad Jones through the examination of baptismal records. \n\nArmstrong was born into a poor family in New Orleans, Louisiana, and was the grandson of slaves. He spent his youth in poverty, in a rough neighborhood known as \"the Battlefield\", which was part of the Storyville legal prostitution district. His father, William Armstrong (1881–1922), abandoned the family when Louis was an infant and took up with another woman. His mother, Mary \"Mayann\" Albert (1886–1927), then left Louis and his younger sister, Beatrice Armstrong Collins (1903–1987), in the care of his grandmother, Josephine Armstrong, and at times, his Uncle Isaac. At five, he moved back to live with his mother and her relatives, and only saw his father in parades.\n\nHe attended the Fisk School for Boys, where he most likely had early exposure to music. He brought in some money as a paperboy and also by finding discarded food and selling it to restaurants, but it was not enough to keep his mother from prostitution. He hung out in dance halls close to home, where he observed everything from licentious dancing to the quadrille. For extra money he also hauled coal to Storyville, and listened to the bands playing in the brothels and dance halls, especially Pete Lala's, where Joe \"King\" Oliver performed as well as other famous musicians who would drop in to jam.\n\nAfter dropping out of the Fisk School at age eleven, Armstrong joined a quartet of boys who sang in the streets for money. He also started to get into trouble. Cornet player Bunk Johnson said he taught Armstrong (then 11) to play by ear at Dago Tony's Tonk in New Orleans, although in his later years Armstrong gave the credit to Oliver. Armstrong hardly looked back at his youth as the worst of times but drew inspiration from it instead: \"Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine—I look right in the heart of good old New Orleans... It has given me something to live for.\" \n\nHe also worked for a Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant family, the Karnofskys, who had a junk hauling business and gave him odd jobs. They took him in and treated him like family; knowing he lived without a father, they fed and nurtured him. He later wrote a memoir of his relationship with the Karnofskys titled, Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La., the Year of 1907. In it he describes his discovery that this family was also subject to discrimination by \"other white folks\" nationalities who felt that they were better than the Jewish race... \"I was only seven years old but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the White Folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for.\" \nArmstrong wore a Star of David pendant for the rest of his life and wrote about what he learned from them: \"how to live—real life and determination.\"Teachout, Terry. [https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/satchmo-and-the-jews/ \"Satchmo and the Jews\"] Commentary magazine, 1 November 2009. The influence of Karnofsky is remembered in New Orleans by the Karnofsky Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to accepting donated musical instruments to \"put them into the hands of an eager child who could not otherwise take part in a wonderful learning experience.\" \n\nArmstrong developed his cornet playing skills by playing in the band of the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs, where he had been sent multiple times for general delinquency, most notably for firing his stepfather's pistol into the air at a New Year's Eve celebration, but it was only an empty shot, as police records confirm. Professor Peter Davis (who frequently appeared at the home at the request of its administrator, Captain Joseph Jones) instilled discipline in and provided musical training to the otherwise self-taught Armstrong. Eventually, Davis made Armstrong the band leader. The home band played around New Orleans and the thirteen-year-old Louis began to draw attention by his cornet playing, starting him on a musical career. At fourteen he was released from the home, living again with his father and new step-mother, Gertrude, and then back with his mother and thus back to the streets and their temptations. Armstrong got his first dance hall job at Henry Ponce's where Black Benny became his protector and guide. He hauled coal by day and played his cornet at night.\n\nHe played in the city's frequent brass band parades and listened to older musicians every chance he got, learning from Bunk Johnson, Buddy Petit, Kid Ory, and above all, Joe \"King\" Oliver, who acted as a mentor and father figure to the young musician. Later, he played in brass bands and riverboats of New Orleans, and began traveling with the well-regarded band of Fate Marable, which toured on a steamboat up and down the Mississippi River. He described his time with Marable as \"going to the University,\" since it gave him a much wider experience working with written arrangements.\n\nIn 1919, Joe Oliver decided to go north and resigned his position in Kid Ory's band; Armstrong replaced him. He also became second trumpet for the Tuxedo Brass Band, a society band. \n\nCareer \n\n \n\n1920s\n\nThroughout his riverboat experience, Armstrong's musicianship began to mature and expand. At twenty, he could read music and started to be featured in extended trumpet solos, one of the first jazz men to do this, injecting his own personality and style into his solo turns. He had learned how to create a unique sound and also started using singing and patter in his performances. In 1922, Armstrong joined the exodus to Chicago, where he had been invited by his mentor, Joe \"King\" Oliver, to join his Creole Jazz Band and where he could make a sufficient income so that he no longer needed to supplement his music with day labor jobs. It was a boom time in Chicago and though race relations were poor, the city was teeming with jobs available for black people, who were making good wages in factories and had plenty to spend on entertainment.\n\nOliver's band was among the most influential jazz bands in Chicago in the early 1920s, at a time when Chicago was the center of the jazz universe. Armstrong lived luxuriously in Chicago, in his own apartment with his own private bath (his first). Excited as he was to be in Chicago, he began his career-long pastime of writing nostalgic letters to friends in New Orleans. As Armstrong's reputation grew, he was challenged to \"cutting contests\" by hornmen trying to displace the new phenomenon, who could blow two hundred high Cs in a row. Armstrong made his first recordings on the Gennett and Okeh labels (jazz records were starting to boom across the country), including taking some solos and breaks, while playing second cornet in Oliver's band in 1923. At this time, he met Hoagy Carmichael (with whom he would collaborate later) who was introduced by friend Bix Beiderbecke, who now had his own Chicago band.\n\nArmstrong enjoyed working with Oliver, but Louis' second wife, pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong, urged him to seek more prominent billing and develop his newer style away from the influence of Oliver. Lil had her husband play classical music in church concerts to broaden his skill and improve his solo play and she prodded him into wearing more stylish attire to make him look sharp and to better offset his growing girth. Lil's influence eventually undermined Armstrong's relationship with his mentor, especially concerning his salary and additional moneys that Oliver held back from Armstrong and other band members. Armstrong and Oliver parted amicably in 1924. Shortly afterward, Armstrong received an invitation to go to New York City to play with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, the top African-American band of the time. Armstrong switched to the trumpet to blend in better with the other musicians in his section. His influence upon Henderson's tenor sax soloist, Coleman Hawkins, can be judged by listening to the records made by the band during this period.\n\nArmstrong quickly adapted to the more tightly controlled style of Henderson, playing trumpet and even experimenting with the trombone. The other members quickly took up Armstrong's emotional, expressive pulse. Soon his act included singing and telling tales of New Orleans characters, especially preachers. The Henderson Orchestra was playing in prominent venues for white-only patrons, including the famed Roseland Ballroom, featuring the arrangements of Don Redman. Duke Ellington's orchestra would go to Roseland to catch Armstrong's performances and young horn men around town tried in vain to outplay him, splitting their lips in their attempts.\n\nDuring this time, Armstrong made many recordings on the side, arranged by an old friend from New Orleans, pianist Clarence Williams; these included small jazz band sides with the Williams Blue Five (some of the most memorable pairing Armstrong with one of Armstrong's few rivals in fiery technique and ideas, Sidney Bechet) and a series of accompaniments with blues singers, including Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Alberta Hunter.\n\nArmstrong returned to Chicago in 1925 due mostly to the urging of his wife, who wanted to pump up Armstrong's career and income. He was content in New York but later would concede that she was right and that the Henderson Orchestra was limiting his artistic growth. In publicity, much to his chagrin, she billed him as \"the World's Greatest Trumpet Player\". At first, he was actually a member of the Lil Hardin Armstrong Band and working for his wife. He began recording under his own name for Okeh with his famous Hot Five and Hot Seven groups, producing hits such as \"Potato Head Blues\", \"Muggles\", (a reference to marijuana, for which Armstrong had a lifelong fondness), and \"West End Blues\", the music of which set the standard and the agenda for jazz for many years to come.\n\nThe group included Kid Ory (trombone), Johnny Dodds (clarinet), Johnny St. Cyr (banjo), wife Lil on piano, and usually no drummer. Armstrong's band leading style was easygoing, as St. Cyr noted, \"One felt so relaxed working with him, and he was very broad-minded ... always did his best to feature each individual.\" Among the most notable of the Hot Five and Seven records were \"Cornet Chop Suey,\" \"Struttin' With Some Barbecue,\" \"Hotter Than that\" and \"Potato Head Blues,\", all featuring highly creative solos by Armstrong. His recordings soon after with pianist Earl \"Fatha\" Hines (most famously their 1928 \"Weatherbird\" duet) and Armstrong's trumpet introduction to and solo in \"West End Blues\" remain some of the most famous and influential improvisations in jazz history. Armstrong was now free to develop his personal style as he wished, which included a heavy dose of effervescent jive, such as \"whip that thing, Miss Lil\" and \"Mr. Johnny Dodds, Aw, do that clarinet, boy!\" \n\nArmstrong also played with Erskine Tate's Little Symphony, which played mostly at the Vendome Theatre. They furnished music for silent movies and live shows, including jazz versions of classical music, such as \"Madame Butterfly\", which gave Armstrong experience with longer forms of music and with hosting before a large audience. He began to scat sing (improvised vocal jazz using nonsensical words) and was among the first to record it, on the Hot Five recording \"Heebie Jeebies\" in 1926. The recording was so popular that the group became the most famous jazz band in the United States, even though they had not performed live to any great extent. Young musicians across the country, black or white, were turned on by Armstrong's new type of jazz. \n\nAfter separating from Lil, Armstrong started to play at the Sunset Café for Al Capone's associate Joe Glaser in the Carroll Dickerson Orchestra, with Earl Hines on piano, which was soon renamed Louis Armstrong and his Stompers, though Hines was the music director and Glaser managed the orchestra. Hines and Armstrong became fast friends and successful collaborators. \n\nArmstrong returned to New York, in 1929, where he played in the pit orchestra of the successful musical Hot Chocolate, an all-black revue written by Andy Razaf and pianist/composer Fats Waller. He also made a cameo appearance as a vocalist, regularly stealing the show with his rendition of \"Ain't Misbehavin'\", his version of the song becoming his biggest selling record to date. \n\n1930s\n\nArmstrong started to work at Connie's Inn in Harlem, chief rival to the Cotton Club, a venue for elaborately staged floor shows, and a front for gangster Dutch Schultz. Armstrong also had considerable success with vocal recordings, including versions of famous songs composed by his old friend Hoagy Carmichael. His 1930s recordings took full advantage of the new RCA ribbon microphone, introduced in 1931, which imparted a characteristic warmth to vocals and immediately became an intrinsic part of the 'crooning' sound of artists like Bing Crosby. Armstrong's famous interpretation of Carmichael's \"Stardust\" became one of the most successful versions of this song ever recorded, showcasing Armstrong's unique vocal sound and style and his innovative approach to singing songs that had already become standards.\n\nArmstrong's radical re-working of Sidney Arodin and Carmichael's \"Lazy River\" (recorded in 1931) encapsulated many features of his groundbreaking approach to melody and phrasing. The song begins with a brief trumpet solo, then the main melody is introduced by sobbing horns, memorably punctuated by Armstrong's growling interjections at the end of each bar: \"Yeah! ...\"Uh-huh\" ...\"Sure\" ... \"Way down, way down.\" In the first verse, he ignores the notated melody entirely and sings as if playing a trumpet solo, pitching most of the first line on a single note and using strongly syncopated phrasing. In the second stanza he breaks into an almost fully improvised melody, which then evolves into a classic passage of Armstrong \"scat singing\".\n\nAs with his trumpet playing, Armstrong's vocal innovations served as a foundation stone for the art of jazz vocal interpretation. The uniquely gritty coloration of his voice became a musical archetype that was much imitated and endlessly impersonated. His scat singing style was enriched by his matchless experience as a trumpet soloist. His resonant, velvety lower-register tone and bubbling cadences on sides such as \"Lazy River\" exerted a huge influence on younger white singers such as Bing Crosby.\n\nThe Great Depression of the early 1930s was especially hard on the jazz scene. The Cotton Club closed in 1936 after a long downward spiral, and many musicians stopped playing altogether as club dates evaporated. Bix Beiderbecke died and Fletcher Henderson’s band broke up. King Oliver made a few records but otherwise struggled. Sidney Bechet became a tailor and Kid Ory returned to New Orleans and raised chickens. \n\nArmstrong moved to Los Angeles in 1930 to seek new opportunities. He played at the New Cotton Club in Los Angeles with Lionel Hampton on drums. The band drew the Hollywood crowd, which could still afford a lavish night life, while radio broadcasts from the club connected with younger audiences at home. Bing Crosby and many other celebrities were regulars at the club. In 1931, Armstrong appeared in his first movie, Ex-Flame and was also convicted of marijuana possession but received a suspended sentence. He returned to Chicago in late 1931 and played in bands more in the Guy Lombardo vein and he recorded more standards. When the mob insisted that he get out of town,[http://riverwalkjazz.stanford.edu/program/louis-armstrong-30s-tribute-life-and-music-armstrong-30s Louis Armstrong in the 30s: A Tribute to the Life and Music of Armstrong in the 30s]. Retrieved May 5, 2015. Armstrong visited New Orleans, had a hero's welcome and saw old friends. He sponsored a local baseball team known as \"Armstrong's Secret Nine\" and had a cigar named after him. But soon he was on the road again and after a tour across the country shadowed by the mob, Armstrong decided to go to Europe to escape.\n\nAfter returning to the United States, he undertook several exhausting tours. His agent Johnny Collins' erratic behavior and his own spending ways left Armstrong short of cash. Breach of contract violations plagued him. Finally, he hired Joe Glaser as his new manager, a tough mob-connected wheeler-dealer, who began to straighten out his legal mess, his mob troubles, and his debts. Armstrong also began to experience problems with his fingers and lips, which were aggravated by his unorthodox playing style. As a result, he branched out, developing his vocal style and making his first theatrical appearances. He appeared in movies again, including Crosby's 1936 hit Pennies from Heaven. In 1937, Armstrong substituted for Rudy Vallee on the CBS radio network and became the first African American to host a sponsored, national broadcast. \n\n1940s\n\nAfter spending many years on the road, Armstrong settled permanently in Queens, New York in 1943 in contentment with his fourth wife, Lucille. Although subject to the vicissitudes of Tin Pan Alley and the gangster-ridden music business, as well as anti-black prejudice, he continued to develop his playing. He recorded Hoagy Carmichael's Rockin' Chair for Okeh Records.\n\nDuring the subsequent thirty years, Armstrong played more than three hundred gigs a year. Bookings for big bands tapered off during the 1940s due to changes in public tastes: ballrooms closed, and there was competition from television and from other types of music becoming more popular than big band music. It became impossible under such circumstances to support and finance a 16-piece touring band.\n\nThe All Stars\n\nDuring the 1940s, a widespread revival of interest in the traditional jazz of the 1920s made it possible for Armstrong to consider a return to the small-group musical style of his youth. Following a highly successful small-group jazz concert at New York Town Hall on May 17, 1947, featuring Armstrong with trombonist/singer Jack Teagarden, Armstrong's manager, Joe Glaser dissolved the Armstrong big band on August 13, 1947 and established a six-piece traditional jazz small group featuring Armstrong with (initially) Teagarden, Earl Hines and other top swing and Dixieland musicians, most of them ex-big band leaders. The new group was announced at the opening of Billy Berg's Supper Club.\n\nThis group was called Louis Armstrong and his All Stars and included at various times Earl \"Fatha\" Hines, Barney Bigard, Edmond Hall, Jack Teagarden, Trummy Young, Arvell Shaw, Billy Kyle, Marty Napoleon, Big Sid Catlett, Cozy Cole, Tyree Glenn, Barrett Deems, Joe Darensbourg, Eddie Shu and percussionist Danny Barcelona. During this period, Armstrong made many recordings and appeared in over thirty films. He was the first jazz musician to appear on the cover of Time magazine, on February 21, 1949. In 1948, he participated in the Nice Jazz Festival, where Suzy Delair sang \"C'est si bon\", by Henri Betti and André Hornez, for the first time in public.\n\n1950s–1970s\n\nWith the publishers' permission, Armstrong recorded the first American version of \"C'est si bon\" on June 26, 1950, in New York, with English lyrics by Jerry Seelen. When it was released, the disc garnered worldwide sales. In the 1960s, he toured Ghana and Nigeria, performing with Victor Olaiya during the Nigerian Civil war. \nIn 1964, he recorded his biggest-selling record, \"Hello, Dolly!\", a song by Jerry Herman, originally sung by Carol Channing. Armstrong's version remained on the Hot 100 for 22 weeks, longer than any other record produced that year, and went to No. 1 making him, at 62 years, 9 months and 5 days, the oldest person ever to accomplish that feat. In the process, he dislodged the Beatles from the No. 1 position they had occupied for 14 consecutive weeks with three different songs.[http://www.jazzhouse.org/gone/lastpost2.php3?edit\n1176392524 Hale, James (editor of Jazzhouse.org), Danny Barcelona (1929–2007), Drums, Armstrong All-Star, The Last Post, 2007]. Retrieved July 4, 2007.\nArmstrong made his last recorded trumpet performances on his 1968 album Disney Songs the Satchmo Way. \nArmstrong kept up his busy tour schedule until a few years before his death in 1971. He also toured Africa, Europe, and Asia under the sponsorship of the US State Department with great success, earning the nickname \"Ambassador Satch\" and inspiring Dave Brubeck to compose his jazz musical The Real Ambassadors. \n\nPersonal life \n\nPronunciation of name\n\nThe Louis Armstrong House Museum website states:\n\n In a memoir written for Robert Goffin between 1943 and 1944, Armstrong states, \"All white folks call me Louie,\" suggesting that he himself did not. That said, Armstrong was registered as \"Lewie\" for the 1920 U.S. Census. On various live records he's called \"Louie\" on stage, such as on the 1952 \"Can Anyone Explain?\" from the live album In Scandinavia vol.1. It should also be noted that \"Lewie\" is the French pronunciation of \"Louis\" and is commonly used in Louisiana.\n\nFamily\n\nOn March 19, 1918, at the age of 16, Louis married Daisy Parker, a prostitute from Gretna, Louisiana. They adopted a 3-year-old boy, Clarence Armstrong, whose mother, Louis' cousin Flora, died soon after giving birth. Clarence Armstrong was mentally disabled (the result of a head injury at an early age) and Louis would spend the rest of his life taking care of him. Louis' marriage to Parker failed quickly and they separated in 1923.\n\nOn February 4, 1924, Louis married Lil Hardin Armstrong, who was Oliver's pianist and had also divorced her first spouse only a few years earlier. His second wife was instrumental in developing his career, but in the late 1920s Hardin and Louis grew apart. They separated in 1931 and divorced in 1938, after which Louis married longtime girlfriend Alpha Smith. His marriage to his third wife lasted four years, and they divorced in 1942. Louis then married Lucille Wilson, a singer at the Cotton Club, to whom he was married until his death in 1971. \n\nArmstrong's marriages never produced any offspring, though he loved children. However, in December 2012, 57-year-old Sharon Preston-Folta claimed to be his daughter from a 1950s affair between Armstrong and Lucille \"Sweets\" Preston, a dancer at the Cotton Club. In a 1955 letter to his manager, Joe Glaser, Armstrong affirmed his belief that Preston's newborn baby was his daughter, and ordered Glaser to pay a monthly allowance of $400 to mother and child. \n\nPersonality \n\nArmstrong was noted for his colorful and charismatic personality. His autobiography vexed some biographers and historians, as he had a habit of telling tales, particularly of his early childhood when he was less scrutinized, and his embellishments of his history often lack consistency. \n\nIn addition to an entertainer, Armstrong was a leading personality of the day. He was beloved by an American public that gave even the greatest African American performers little access beyond their public celebrity, and he was able to live a private life of access and privilege afforded to few other African Americans during that era.\n\nHe generally remained politically neutral, which at times alienated him from members of the black community who looked to him to use his prominence with white America to become more of an outspoken figure during the Civil Rights Movement of U.S. history.\n\nNicknames \n\nThe nicknames Satchmo and Satch are short for Satchelmouth. Like many things in Armstrong's life, which was filled with colorful stories both real and imagined, many of his own telling, the nickname has many possible origins.\n\nThe most common tale that biographers tell is the story of Armstrong as a young boy dancing for pennies in the streets of New Orleans, who would scoop up the coins off of the streets and stick them into his mouth to avoid having the bigger children steal them from him. Someone dubbed him \"satchel mouth\" for his mouth acting as a satchel. Another tale is that because of his large mouth, he was nicknamed \"satchel mouth\" which became shortened to Satchmo.\n\nEarly on he was also known as Dipper, short for Dippermouth, a reference to the piece Dippermouth Blues. and something of a riff on his unusual embouchure.\n\nThe nickname Pops came from Armstrong's own tendency to forget people's names and simply call them \"pops\" instead. The nickname was soon turned on Armstrong himself. It was used as the title of a 2010 biography of Armstrong by Terry Teachout. \n\nRace \n\nArmstrong was largely accepted into white society, both on stage and off, a privilege reserved for very few African-American public figures, and usually those of either exceptional talent or fair skin tone. As his fame grew, so did his access to the finer things in life usually denied to African-Americans, even famous ones. His renown was such that he dined in reputable restaurants and stayed in hotels usually exclusively for whites. It was a power and privilege that he enjoyed, although he was very careful not to flaunt it with fellow performers of color, and privately, he shared what access that he could with friends and fellow musicians.\n\nThat still did not prevent members of the African-American community, particularly in the late 1950s to the early 1970s, from calling him an Uncle Tom, a black-on-black racial epithet for someone who kowtowed to white society at the expense of their own racial identity. Billie Holiday countered, however, \"Of course Pops toms, but he toms from the heart.\" He was criticized for accepting the title of \"King of The Zulus\" for Mardi Gras in 1949. In the New Orleans African-American community it is an honored role as the head of leading black Carnival Krewe, but bewildering or offensive to outsiders with their traditional costume of grass-skirts and blackface makeup satirizing southern white attitudes.\n\nSome musicians criticized Armstrong for playing in front of segregated audiences, and for not taking a strong enough stand in the American Civil Rights Movement. The few exceptions made it more effective when he did speak out. Armstrong's criticism of President Eisenhower, calling him \"two-faced\" and \"gutless\" because of his inaction during the conflict over school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957 made national news. As a protest, Armstrong canceled a planned tour of the Soviet Union on behalf of the State Department saying: \"The way they're treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell\" and that he could not represent his government abroad when it was in conflict with its own people. \n\nThe FBI kept a file on Armstrong for his outspokenness about integration. \n\nReligion \n\nWhen asked about his religion, Armstrong would answer that he was raised a Baptist, always wore a Star of David, and was friends with the Pope. Armstrong wore the Star of David in honor of the Karnofsky family, who took him in as a child and lent him the money to buy his first cornet. Louis Armstrong was, in fact, baptized as a Catholic at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in New Orleans, and he met popes Pius XII and Paul VI, though there is no evidence that he considered himself Catholic. Armstrong seems to have been tolerant towards various religions, but also found humor in them.\n\nPersonal habits \n\nArmstrong was concerned with his health. He used laxatives to control his weight, a practice he advocated both to acquaintances and in the diet plans he published under the title Lose Weight the Satchmo Way. Armstrong's laxative of preference in his younger days was Pluto Water, but he then became an enthusiastic convert when he discovered the herbal remedy Swiss Kriss. He would extol its virtues to anyone who would listen and pass out packets to everyone he encountered, including members of the British Royal Family. (Armstrong also appeared in humorous, albeit risqué, cards that he had printed to send out to friends; the cards bore a picture of him sitting on a toilet—as viewed through a keyhole—with the slogan \"Satch says, 'Leave it all behind ya!'\") The cards have sometimes been incorrectly described as ads for Swiss Kriss. In a live recording of \"Baby, It's Cold Outside\" with Velma Middleton, he changes the lyric from \"Put another record on while I pour\" to \"Take some Swiss Kriss while I pour.\" \n\nThe concern with his health and weight was balanced by his love of food, reflected in such songs as \"Cheesecake\", \"Cornet Chop Suey,\" though \"Struttin’ with Some Barbecue\" was written about a fine-looking companion, not about food. He kept a strong connection throughout his life to the cooking of New Orleans, always signing his letters, \"Red beans and ricely yours...\" \n\nWritings \n\nArmstrong’s gregariousness extended to writing. On the road, he wrote constantly, sharing favorite themes of his life with correspondents around the world. He avidly typed or wrote on whatever stationery was at hand, recording instant takes on music, sex, food, childhood memories, his heavy \"medicinal\" marijuana use—and even his bowel movements, which he gleefully described. He had a fondness for lewd jokes and dirty limericks as well.\n\nSocial organizations \n\nLouis Armstrong was not, as is often claimed, a Freemason. Although he is usually listed as being a member of Montgomery Lodge No. 18 (Prince Hall) in New York, no such lodge has ever existed. However, Armstrong stated in his autobiography that he was a member of the Knights of Pythias which is not a Masonic group. \n\nMusic \n\nHorn playing and early jazz \n\nIn his early years, Armstrong was best known for his virtuosity with the cornet and trumpet. The most lauded recordings on which Armstrong plays trumpet include the Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions, as well as those of the Red Onion Jazz Babies. Armstrong's improvisations, while unconventionally sophisticated for that era, were also subtle and highly melodic. The solo that Armstrong plays during the song Potato Head Blues has long been considered his best solo of that series. \n\nPrior to Armstrong, most collective ensemble playing in jazz, along with its occasional solos, simply varied the melodies of the songs. Armstrong was virtually the first to create significant variations based on the chord harmonies of the songs instead of merely on the melodies. This opened a rich field for creation and improvisation, and significantly changed the music into a soloist's art form.\n\nOften, Armstrong re-composed pop-tunes he played, simply with variations that made them more compelling to jazz listeners of the era. At the same time, however, his oeuvre includes many original melodies, creative leaps, and relaxed or driving rhythms. Armstrong's playing technique, honed by constant practice, extended the range, tone and capabilities of the trumpet. In his records, Armstrong almost single-handedly created the role of the jazz soloist, taking what had been essentially a collective folk music and turning it into an art form with tremendous possibilities for individual expression.\n\nArmstrong was one of the first artists to use recordings of his performances to improve himself. Armstrong was an avid audiophile. He had a large collection of recordings, including reel-to-reel tapes, which he took on the road with him in a trunk during his later career. He enjoyed listening to his own recordings, and comparing his performances musically. In the den of his home, he had the latest audio equipment and would sometimes rehearse and record along with his older recordings or the radio. \n\nVocal popularity \n\nAs his music progressed and popularity grew, his singing also became very important. Armstrong was not the first to record scat singing, but he was masterful at it and helped popularize it with the first recording on which he scatted, \"Heebie Jeebies\". At a recording session for Okeh Records, when the sheet music supposedly fell on the floor and the music began before he could pick up the pages, Armstrong simply started singing nonsense syllables while Okeh president E.A. Fearn, who was at the session, kept telling him to continue. Armstrong did, thinking the track would be discarded, but that was the version that was pressed to disc, sold, and became an unexpected hit. Although the story was thought to be apocryphal, Armstrong himself confirmed it in at least one interview as well as in his memoirs. On a later recording, Armstrong also sang out \"I done forgot the words\" in the middle of recording \"I'm A Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas.\"\n\nSuch records were hits and scat singing became a major part of his performances. Long before this, however, Armstrong was playing around with his vocals, shortening and lengthening phrases, interjecting improvisations, using his voice as creatively as his trumpet.\n\nComposing\n\nArmstrong was a gifted composer who wrote more than fifty songs, which in a number of cases have become jazz standards (e.g., “Gully Low Blues,” “Potato Head Blues,” and “Swing That Music”).\n\nColleagues and followers \n\nDuring his long career he played and sang with some of the most important instrumentalists and vocalists of the time; among them were Bing Crosby, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Earl Hines, Jimmie Rodgers, Bessie Smith and perhaps most famously Ella Fitzgerald. His influence upon Crosby is particularly important with regard to the subsequent development of popular music: Crosby admired and copied Armstrong, as is evident on many of his early recordings, notably \"Just One More Chance\" (1931). The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz describes Crosby's debt to Armstrong in precise detail, although it does not acknowledge Armstrong by name:\n\nArmstrong recorded two albums with Ella Fitzgerald: Ella and Louis, and Ella and Louis Again for Verve Records, with the sessions featuring the backing musicianship of the Oscar Peterson Trio and drummers Buddy Rich (on the first album), and Louie Bellson (on the second). Norman Granz then had the vision for Ella and Louis to record Porgy and Bess which is the most famous and critically acclaimed version of the Gershwin brothers' work.\n\nHis recordings for Columbia Records, Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy (1954) and Satch Plays Fats (all Fats Waller tunes) (1955) were both being considered masterpieces, as well as moderately well selling. In 1961 the All Stars participated in two albums - \"The Great Summit\" and \"The Great Reunion\" (now together as a single disc) with Duke Ellington. The albums feature many of Ellington's most famous compositions (as well as two exclusive cuts) with Duke sitting in on piano. His participation in Dave Brubeck's high-concept jazz musical The Real Ambassadors (1963) was critically acclaimed, and features \"Summer Song,\" one of Armstrong's most popular vocal efforts.\n\nIn 1964 his recording of the song \"Hello Dolly\" went to number one. An album of the same title was quickly created around the song, and also shot to number one (knocking The Beatles off the top of the chart). The album sold very well for the rest of the year, quickly going \"Gold\" (500,000). His performance of \"Hello Dolly\" won for best male pop vocal performance at the 1964 Grammy Awards.\n\nHits and later career \n\nArmstrong had nineteen \"Top Ten\" records including \"Stardust\", \"What a Wonderful World\", \"When The Saints Go Marching In\", \"Dream a Little Dream of Me\", \"Ain't Misbehavin'\", \"You Rascal You\", and \"Stompin' at the Savoy\". \"We Have All the Time in the World\" was featured on the soundtrack of the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and enjoyed renewed popularity in the UK in 1994 when it featured on a Guinness advert. It reached number 3 in the charts on being re-released.\n\nIn 1964, Armstrong knocked The Beatles off the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart with \"Hello, Dolly!\", which gave the 63-year-old performer a U.S. record as the oldest artist to have a number one song. His 1964 song \"Bout Time\" was later featured in the film Bewitched.\n\nArmstrong performed in Italy at the 1968 Sanremo Music Festival where he sang \"Mi Va di Cantare\" alongside his friend, the Eritrean-born Italian singer Lara Saint Paul. In February 1968, he also appeared with Lara Saint Paul on the Italian RAI television channel where he performed \"Grassa e Bella,\" a track he sang in Italian for the Italian market and C.D.I. label. \n\nIn 1968, Armstrong scored one last popular hit in the United Kingdom with \"What a Wonderful World\", which topped the British charts for a month; however, the single did not chart at all in America. The song gained greater currency in the popular consciousness when it was used in the 1987 movie Good Morning, Vietnam, its subsequent re-release topping many charts around the world. Armstrong even appeared on the October 28, 1970, Johnny Cash Show, where he sang Nat King Cole's hit \"Rambling Rose\" and joined Cash to re-create his performance backing Jimmie Rodgers on \"Blue Yodel No. 9\".\n\nStylistic range \n\nArmstrong enjoyed many types of music, from blues to the arrangements of Guy Lombardo, to Latin American folksongs, to classical symphonies and opera. Armstrong incorporated influences from all these sources into his performances, sometimes to the bewilderment of fans who wanted him to stay in convenient narrow categories. Armstrong was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence. Some of his solos from the 1950s, such as the hard rocking version of \"St. Louis Blues\" from the WC Handy album, show that the influence went in both directions.\n\nLiterature, radio, films and TV \n\nArmstrong appeared in more than a dozen Hollywood films, usually playing a band leader or musician. His most familiar role was as the bandleader cum narrator in the 1956 musical, High Society, in which he sang the title song and performed a duet with Bing Crosby on \"Now You Has Jazz\". In 1947, he played himself in the movie New Orleans opposite Billie Holiday, which chronicled the demise of the Storyville district and the ensuing exodus of musicians from New Orleans to Chicago. In the 1959 film, The Five Pennies (the story of the cornetist Red Nichols), Armstrong played himself as well as singing and playing several classic numbers. With Danny Kaye Armstrong performed a duet of \"When the Saints Go Marching In\" during which Kaye impersonated Armstrong. Armstrong also had a part in the film alongside James Stewart in The Glenn Miller Story in which Glenn (played by Stewart) jammed with Armstrong and a few other noted musicians of the time.\n\nHe was the first African American to host a nationally broadcast radio show in the 1930s. In 1969, Armstrong had a cameo role in the film version of Hello, Dolly! as the bandleader, Louis, to which he sang the title song with actress Barbra Streisand. His solo recording of \"Hello, Dolly!\" is one of his most recognizable performances.\n\nHe was heard on such radio programs as The Story of Swing (1937) and This Is Jazz (1947), and he also made countless television appearances, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, including appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.\n\nArgentine writer Julio Cortázar, a self-described Armstrong admirer, asserted that a 1952 Louis Armstrong concert at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris played a significant role in inspiring him to create the fictional creatures called Cronopios that are the subject of a number of Cortázar's short stories. Cortázar once called Armstrong himself \"Grandísimo Cronopio\" (The Great Cronopio).\n\nArmstrong appears as a minor fictionalized character in Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory Series. When he and his band escape from a Nazi-like Confederacy, they enhance the insipid mainstream music of the North. A young Armstrong also appears as a minor fictionalized character in Patrick Neate's 2001 novel Twelve Bar Blues, part of which is set in New Orleans, and which was a winner at that year's Whitbread Book Awards.\n\nThere is a pivotal scene in Stardust Memories (1980) in which Woody Allen is overwhelmed by a recording of Armstrong's \"Stardust\" and experiences a nostalgic epiphany. The combination of the music and the perfect moment is the catalyst for much of the film's action, prompting the protagonist to fall in love with an ill-advised woman. \n\nTerry Teachout wrote a one-man play about Armstrong called Satchmo at the Waldorf that was premiered in 2011 in Orlando, Fla., and has since been produced by Shakespeare & Company, Long Wharf Theater, and the Wilma Theater. The production ran off Broadway in 2014.\n\nA fledgling musician named \"Louis,\" who is obsessed with Buddy Bolden, appears in two of David Fulmer's Storyville novels: Chasing the Devil's Tail and Jass.\n\nDeath \n\nAgainst his doctor's advice, Armstrong played a two-week engagement in March 1971 at the Waldorf-Astoria's Empire Room. At the end of it he was hospitalized for a heart attack. He was released from the hospital in May, and died of a heart attack in his sleep on July 6, 1971, a month before his 70th birthday. He was residing in Corona, Queens, New York City, at the time of his death. He was interred in Flushing Cemetery, Flushing, in Queens, New York City. \nHis honorary pallbearers included Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Pearl Bailey, Count Basie, Harry James, Frank Sinatra, Ed Sullivan, Earl Wilson, Alan King, Johnny Carson and David Frost. Peggy Lee sang The Lord's Prayer at the services while Al Hibbler sang \"Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen\" and Fred Robbins, a long-time friend, gave the eulogy. \n\nAwards and honors \n\nGrammy Awards \n\nArmstrong was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1972 by the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. This Special Merit Award is presented by vote of the Recording Academy's National Trustees to performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording. \n\nGrammy Hall of Fame\n\nRecordings of Armstrong were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least 25 years old, and that have \"qualitative or historical significance.\" \n\nRock and Roll Hall of Fame \n\nThe Rock and Roll Hall of Fame listed Armstrong's West End Blues on the list of 500 songs that shaped Rock and Roll. \n\nInductions and honors \n\nIn 1995, the U.S. Post Office issued a Louis Armstrong 32 cents commemorative postage stamp.\n\nFilm honors \n\nIn 1999 Armstrong was nominated for inclusion in the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Stars. \n\nLegacy \n\nThe influence of Armstrong on the development of jazz is virtually immeasurable. Yet, his irrepressible personality both as a performer, and as a public figure later in his career, was so strong that to some it sometimes overshadowed his contributions as a musician and singer.\n\nAs a virtuoso trumpet player, Armstrong had a unique tone and an extraordinary talent for melodic improvisation. Through his playing, the trumpet emerged as a solo instrument in jazz and is used widely today. Additionally, jazz itself was transformed from a collectively improvised folk music to a soloist's serious art form largely through his influence. He was a masterful accompanist and ensemble player in addition to his extraordinary skills as a soloist. With his innovations, he raised the bar musically for all who came after him.\n\nThough Armstrong is widely recognized as a pioneer of scat singing, Ethel Waters precedes his scatting on record in the 1930s according to Gary Giddins and others. Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra are just two singers who were greatly indebted to him. Holiday said that she always wanted Bessie Smith's 'big' sound and Armstrong's feeling in her singing. Even special musicians like Duke Ellington have praised Armstrong through strong testimonials. Duke Ellington said, \"If anybody was a master, it was Louis Armstrong.\" In 1950, Bing Crosby, the most successful vocalist of the first half of the 20th century, said, \"He is the beginning and the end of music in America.\"\n\nIn the summer of 2001, in commemoration of the centennial of Armstrong's birth, New Orleans's main airport was renamed Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.\n\nIn 2002, the Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings (1925–1928) were preserved in the United States National Recording Registry, a registry of recordings selected yearly by the National Recording Preservation Board for preservation in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. \n\nThe US Open tennis tournament's former main stadium was named Louis Armstrong Stadium in honor of Armstrong who had lived a few blocks from the site. \n\nToday, there are many bands worldwide dedicated to preserving and honoring the music and style of Satchmo, including the Louis Armstrong Society located in New Orleans, Louisiana.\n\nHome turned into National Historic Landmark \n\nThe house where Armstrong lived for almost 28 years was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1977 and is now a museum. The Louis Armstrong House Museum, at 34-56 107th Street (between 34th and 37th Avenues) in Corona, Queens, presents concerts and educational programs, operates as a historic house museum and makes materials in its archives of writings, books, recordings and memorabilia available to the public for research. The museum is operated by the City University of New York's Queens College, following the dictates of Lucille Armstrong's will. The museum opened to the public on October 15, 2003. A new visitors center is planned. \n\nDiscography \n\nSingles \n\nOriginal albums \n\nThese LPs and EPs were released during Armstrong's lifetime and contained original studio and/or live recordings. The year and label information is for the first vinyl release, unless otherwise noted. Additional information such as number of tracks is given only when necessary to distinguish between different releases under the same title. In most cases, the number of CD releases listed is limited, with preference given to the label that originally released the album.\n\nPosthumous releases \n\nThese LPs and CDs were released after Armstrong's 1971 death.\n\n Louis Armstrong Hot Five and Hot Seven Sessions\n Hot Fives & Sevens (JSP, 1998)\n The Complete Hot Five & Hot Seven Recordings (Columbia/Legacy)\n* Struttin' (Drive Archive, 1996) — 8 February 1947 concert with Edmond Hall's All-Stars\n* The Complete Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong on Verve (1997) — repackaging of Ella and Louis, Ella and Louis Again, and Porgy and Bess\n* rereleases of Together For The First Time and The Great Reunion\n The Great Summit: The Master Takes (2001)\n Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington: The Great Summit/Complete Sessions (2000) — includes additional CD of alternate takes\n* The Legendary Berlin Concert (Jazzpoint Records, 2000) — 22 March 1965 concert with Billy Kyle, Tyree Glenn, Eddie Shu, Arvell Shaw and Danny Barcelona\n\nList of songs recorded \n\nChronology of the recordings of Armstrong's songs:" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "School satchel", "🎒", "Satchel (bag)", "Satchel" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "school satchel", "satchel bag", "🎒", "satchel" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "satchel", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Satchel" }
In 1984 how was the baby who received the heart of a baboon known?	tc_1252	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "Search" ], "filename": [ "Baby_Fae.txt" ], "title": [ "Baby Fae" ], "wiki_context": [ "Stephanie Fae Beauclair (October 14, 1984 – November 15, 1984), better known as Baby Fae, was an American infant born in 1984 with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. She became the first infant subject of a xenotransplant procedure and first successful infant heart transplant, receiving the heart of a baboon. Though she died within a month of the procedure, she had lived weeks longer than any previous recipient of a non-human heart.\n\nProcedure\n\nThe procedure, performed by Leonard L. Bailey at Loma Linda University Medical Center, was successful, but Fae died 21 days later of heart failure due to rejection of the transplant. The rejection is thought to have been caused largely by a humoral response against the graft, due to Fae's type O blood creating antibodies against the type AB xenograft. The blood type incompatibility was seen as unavoidable: fewer than 1% of baboons are type O, and Loma Linda only had seven young female baboons – all of which were type AB – available as potential donors.\n\nIt was hoped that the transplant could be replaced by an allograft at a later date, before Fae's body began generating isohaemagglutinins, but a suitable donor could not be found in time. Prior to the procedure, no infant heart transplant – even with human hearts – had been successfully performed due to a lack of infant human hearts. To address this issue, Bailey had become a pioneer in the research of cross-species heart transplants, which had included \"more than 150 transplants in sheep, goats, and baboons\".\n\nA baboon heart was used as there was no time for a suitable human heart to be found. Multiple surgeons had previously experimented with baboon heart implants, leading some to speculate even that baboons could be farmed in the future for such purposes. When asked why he had picked a baboon over a primate more closely related to humans in evolution, he replied, \"I don't believe in evolution.\" Though she died within a month, Baby Fae, at the time of her death, had lived two weeks longer than any previous recipient of a non-human heart. \n\nEthics\n\nThe procedure was subject to a wide ethical and legal debate, but the attention that it generated is thought to have paved the way for Bailey to perform the first successful infant allograft heart transplant a year later. The Baby Fae case, and Bailey's role in it, has been a popular case study in the realm of medical ethics. Bailey did not look for a human heart for Fae. There were questions as to whether parents should be allowed to volunteer children for experimental medical procedures, and whether the parents themselves were properly informed by Bailey. However, because Fae's mother had no medical insurance, she could not afford to pay for the heart transplant procedure. The xenograft, on the other hand, was offered for free.\n\nThe case further brought up debates regarding the risk/benefit ratio that should be considered ethical when dealing with experimental procedures on human subjects. Charles Krauthammer, writing in Time, said the Baby Fae case was totally within the realm of experimentation and was \"an adventure in medical ethics\". Ultimately, the American Medical Association and top medical journals criticized Bailey, concluding that xenografts should be undertaken only as part of a systematic research program with controls in randomized clinical trials. The validity of the consent obtained in the case of Baby Fae has also been largely criticized. Bailey originally alleged that he obtained consent following a long discussion with the mother and father. It was later revealed, however, that the father was not present at the time of consent. The information in the consent form was also changed after the mother originally saw it. The original phrasing stated that the procedure could potentially extend Baby Fae's life 'long term'. Although Fae's full name was not made public at the time of the procedure, her mother chose to reveal herself in 1997. \n\nPopular Culture\n\nThe Paul Simon song \"The Boy in the Bubble\" from the 1986 Graceland album, most likely references her in the lyrics. \"Medicine is magical and magical is art / Thinking of the Boy in the Bubble / And the baby with the baboon heart\"." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Baby Fae", "Baby Faye", "Stephanie Fae Beauclair", "Baby Fay", "Baboon heart" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "baby fay", "baby faye", "baby fae", "stephanie fae beauclair", "baboon heart" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "baby fae", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Baby Fae" }
Which daughter of the last Tsar of Russia was said to have escaped to America?	tc_1256	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "Search" ], "filename": [ "Grand_Duchess_Anastasia_Nikolaevna_of_Russia.txt" ], "title": [ "Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia" ], "wiki_context": [ "Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (, Velikaya Knyazhna Anastasiya Nikolayevna Romanova) ( – July 17, 1918) was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna.\n\nAnastasia was a younger sister of Grand Duchess Olga, Grand Duchess Tatiana, and Grand Duchess Maria, and was an elder sister of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia. She was executed with her family in an extrajudicial killing by members of the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police, on July 17, 1918.\n\nPersistent rumors of her possible escape circulated after her death, fueled by the fact that the location of her burial was unknown during the decades of Communist rule. The mass grave near Yekaterinburg which held the remains of the Tsar, his wife, and three of their daughters was revealed in 1991, and the bodies of Alexei Nikolaevich and the remaining daughter—either Anastasia or her older sister Maria—were discovered in 2007.\n\nHer possible survival has been conclusively disproven. Forensic analysis and DNA testing confirmed that the remains are those of the imperial family, showing that all four grand duchesses were killed in 1918. Several women have falsely claimed to have been Anastasia; the best known impostor is Anna Anderson. Anderson's body was cremated upon her death in 1984, but DNA testing in 1994 on available pieces of Anderson's tissue and hair showed no relation to the DNA of the Romanov family. \n\nBiography\n\nLife and childhood\n\nWhen Anastasia was born, her parents and extended family were disappointed that she was a girl. They hoped for a son who would be heir apparent to the throne. Tsar Nicholas II went for a long walk to compose himself before going to visit Tsarina Alexandra and the newborn Anastasia for the first time. One meaning of her name is \"the breaker of chains\" or \"the prison opener.\" The fourth grand duchess received her name because, in honor of her birth, her father pardoned and reinstated students who had been imprisoned for participating in riots in St. Petersburg and Moscow the previous winter. Another meaning of the name is \"of the resurrection,\" a fact often alluded to later in stories about her rumored survival. Anastasia's title is most precisely translated as \"Grand Princess\". \"Grand Duchess\" became the most widely used translation of the title into English from Russian. \n\nThe Tsar's children were raised as simply as possible. They slept on hard camp cots without pillows, except when they were ill, took cold baths in the morning, and were expected to tidy their rooms and do needlework to be sold at various charity events when they were not otherwise occupied. Most in the household, including the servants, generally called the Grand Duchess by her first name and patronym, Anastasia Nikolaevna, and did not use her title or style. She was occasionally called by the French version of her name, \"Anastasie\", or by the Russian nicknames \"Nastya\", \"Nastas\", or \"Nastenka\". Other family nicknames for Anastasia were \"Malenkaya,\" meaning \"little (one)\", or \"shvibzik,\" the Russian word for \"imp\".\n\nLiving up to her nicknames, young Anastasia grew into a vivacious and energetic child, described as short and inclined to be chubby, with blue eyes and strawberry-blonde hair. Margaretta Eagar, a governess to the four grand duchesses, said one person commented that the toddler Anastasia had the greatest personal charm of any child she had ever seen.\n\nWhile often described as gifted and bright, she was never interested in the restrictions of the school room, according to her tutors Pierre Gilliard and Sydney Gibbes. Gibbes, Gilliard, and ladies-in-waiting Lili Dehn and Anna Vyrubova described Anastasia as lively, mischievous, and a gifted actress. Her sharp, witty remarks sometimes hit sensitive spots. \n\nAnastasia's daring occasionally exceeded the limits of acceptable behavior. \"She undoubtedly held the record for punishable deeds in her family, for in naughtiness she was a true genius\", said Gleb Botkin, son of the court physician Yevgeny Botkin, who later died with the family at Yekaterinburg. Anastasia sometimes tripped the servants and played pranks on her tutors. As a child, she would climb trees and refuse to come down. Once, during a snowball fight at the family's Polish estate, Anastasia rolled a rock into a snowball and threw it at her older sister Tatiana, knocking her to the ground. A distant cousin, Princess Nina Georgievna, recalled that \"Anastasia was nasty to the point of being evil\", and would cheat, kick and scratch her playmates during games; she was affronted because the younger Nina was taller than she was. She was also less concerned about her appearance than her sisters. Hallie Erminie Rives, a best-selling American author and wife of an American diplomat, described how 10-year-old Anastasia ate chocolates without bothering to remove her long, white opera gloves at the St. Petersburg opera house. \n\nAnastasia and her older sister Maria were known within the family as \"The Little Pair\". The two girls shared a room, often wore variations of the same dress, and spent much of their time together. Their older sisters Olga and Tatiana also shared a room and were known as \"The Big Pair\". The four girls sometimes signed letters using the nickname, OTMA, which was derived from the first letters of their first names. \n\nDespite her energy, Anastasia's physical health was sometimes poor. The Grand Duchess suffered from painful bunions, which affected both of her big toes. Anastasia had a weak muscle in her back and was prescribed twice-weekly massage. She hid under the bed or in a cupboard to put off the massage. Anastasia's older sister, Maria, reportedly hemorrhaged in December 1914 during an operation to remove her tonsils, according to her paternal aunt Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, who was interviewed later in her life. The doctor performing the operation was so unnerved that he had to be ordered to continue by Maria's mother, Tsarina Alexandra. Olga Alexandrovna said she believed all four of her nieces bled more than was normal and believed they were carriers of the hemophilia gene, like their mother. Symptomatic carriers of the gene, while not hemophiliacs themselves, can have symptoms of hemophilia including a lower than normal blood clotting factor that can lead to heavy bleeding. DNA testing on the remains of the royal family proved conclusively in 2009 that Alexei suffered from Hemophilia B, a rarer form of the disease. His mother and one sister, identified alternatively as Maria or Anastasia, were carriers. Therefore, had Anastasia lived to have children of her own, they may have been afflicted by the disease as well. Alexei's hemophilia was chronic and incurable; his frequent attacks caused permanent disability. \n\nAssociation with Grigori Rasputin\n\nHer mother relied on the counsel of Grigori Rasputin, a Russian peasant and wandering starets or \"holy man,\" and credited his prayers with saving the ailing Tsarevich on numerous occasions. Anastasia and her siblings were taught to view Rasputin as \"Our Friend\" and to share confidences with him. In the autumn of 1907, Anastasia's aunt Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia was escorted to the nursery by the Tsar to meet Rasputin. Anastasia, her sisters and brother Alexei were all wearing their long white nightgowns. \"All the children seemed to like him,\" Olga Alexandrovna recalled. \"They were completely at ease with him.\" Rasputin's friendship with the imperial children was evident in some of the messages he sent to them. In February 1909, Rasputin sent the imperial children a telegram, advising them to \"Love the whole of God's nature, the whole of His creation in particular this earth. The Mother of God was always occupied with flowers and needlework.\" \n\nHowever, one of the girls' governesses, Sofia Ivanovna Tyutcheva, was horrified in 1910 that Rasputin was permitted access to the nursery when the four girls were in their nightgowns and wanted him barred. Nicholas asked Rasputin to avoid going to the nurseries in the future. The children were aware of the tension and feared that their mother would be angered by Tyutcheva's actions. \"I am so afr(aid) that S.I. (governess Sofia Ivanovna Tyutcheva) can speak ... about our friend something bad,\" Anastasia's twelve-year-old sister Tatiana wrote to their mother on March 8, 1910. \"I hope our nurse will be nice to our friend now.\" \n\nTyutcheva was eventually fired. She took her story to other members of the family. While Rasputin's visits to the children were, by all accounts, completely innocent in nature, the family was scandalized. Tyutcheva told Nicholas's sister, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia, that Rasputin visited the girls, talked with them while they were getting ready for bed, and hugged and patted them. Tyutcheva said the children had been taught not to discuss Rasputin with her and were careful to hide his visits from the nursery staff. Xenia wrote on March 15, 1910 that she couldn't understand \"...the attitude of Alix and the children to that sinister Grigory (whom they consider to be almost a saint, when in fact he's only a khlyst!)\"\n\nIn the spring of 1910, Maria Ivanovna Vishnyakova, a royal governess, claimed that Rasputin had raped her. Vishnyakova said the empress refused to believe her account of the assault, and insisted that \"everything Rasputin does is holy.\" Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was told that Vishnyakova's claim had been immediately investigated, but instead \"they caught the young woman in bed with a Cossack of the Imperial Guard.\" Vishnyakova was kept from seeing Rasputin after she made her accusation and was eventually dismissed from her post in 1913. \n\nHowever, rumors persisted and it was later whispered in society that Rasputin had seduced not only the Tsarina but also the four grand duchesses. The gossip was fueled by ardent, yet by all accounts innocent, letters written to Rasputin by the Tsarina and the four grand duchesses which were released by Rasputin and which circulated throughout society. \"My dear, precious, only friend,\" wrote Anastasia. \"How much I should like to see you again. You appeared to me today in a dream. I am always asking Mama when you will come ... I think of you always, my dear, because you are so good to me ...\" \n\nThis was followed by circulation of pornographic cartoons, which depicted Rasputin having relations with the Empress, her four daughters and Anna Vyrubova. After the scandal, Nicholas ordered Rasputin to leave St. Petersburg for a time, much to Alexandra's displeasure, and Rasputin went on a pilgrimage to Palestine. Despite the rumors, the imperial family's association with Rasputin continued until his murder on December 17, 1916. \"Our Friend is so contented with our girlies, says they have gone through heavy 'courses' for their age and their souls have much developed\", Alexandra wrote to Nicholas on December 6, 1916. \n\nIn his memoirs, A. A. Mordvinov reported that the four grand duchesses appeared \"cold and visibly terribly upset\" by Rasputin's death, and sat \"huddled up closely together\" on a sofa in one of their bedrooms on the night they received the news. Mordvinov recalled that the young women were in a gloomy mood and seemed to sense the political upheaval that was about to be unleashed. Rasputin was buried with an icon signed on its reverse by Anastasia, her mother and her sisters. She attended his funeral on December 21, 1916, and her family planned to build a church over the site of Rasputin's grave. After they were killed by the Bolsheviks, it was discovered Anastasia and her sisters were all wearing amulets bearing Rasputin's picture and a prayer. \n\nWorld War I and revolution\n\nDuring World War I, Anastasia, along with her sister Maria, visited wounded soldiers at a private hospital in the grounds at Tsarskoye Selo. The two teenagers, too young to become Red Cross nurses like their mother and elder sisters, played games of checkers and billiards with the soldiers and tried to lift their spirits. Felix Dassel, who was treated at the hospital and knew Anastasia, recalled that the grand duchess had a \"laugh like a squirrel,\" and walked rapidly \"as though she tripped along.\" \n\nIn February 1917, Anastasia and her family were placed under house arrest at the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo during the Russian Revolution. Nicholas II abdicated on March 2/15, 1917. As the Bolsheviks approached, Alexander Kerensky of the Provisional Government had them moved to Tobolsk, Siberia. After the Bolsheviks seized majority control of Russia, Anastasia and her family were moved to the Ipatiev House, or House of Special Purpose, at Yekaterinburg. \n\nThe stress and uncertainty of captivity took their toll on Anastasia as well as her family. \"Goodby,\" she wrote to a friend in the winter of 1917. \"Don't forget us.\" At Tobolsk, she wrote a melancholy theme for her English tutor, filled with spelling mistakes, about \"Evelyn Hope\", a poem by Robert Browning about a young girl: \"When she died she was only sixteen years old,\" Anastasia wrote. \"Ther(e) was a man who loved her without having seen her but (k)new her very well. And she he(a)rd of him also. He never could tell her that he loved her, and now she was dead. But still he thought that when he and she will live [their] next life whenever it will be that ...\"\n\nAt Tobolsk, she and her sisters sewed jewels into their clothing in hopes of hiding them from their captors, since Alexandra had written to warn them that she, Nicholas and Maria had been searched upon arriving in Yekaterinburg, and had items confiscated. Their mother used predetermined code words \"medicines\" and \"Sednev's belongings\" for the jewels. Letters from Demidova to Tegleva gave the instructions. Pierre Gilliard recalled his last sight of the children at Yekaterinburg: \"The sailor Nagorny, who attended to Alexei Nikolaevitch, passed my window carrying the sick boy in his arms, behind him came the Grand Duchesses loaded with valises and small personal belongings. I tried to get out, but was roughly pushed back into the carriage by the sentry. I came back to the window. Tatiana Nikolayevna came last carrying her little dog and struggling to drag a heavy brown valise. It was raining and I saw her feet sink into the mud at every step. Nagorny tried to come to her assistance; he was roughly pushed back by one of the commisars ...\" Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden told of her sad last glimpse of Anastasia: \"Once, standing on some steps at the door of a house close by, I saw a hand and a pink-sleeved arm opening the topmost pane. According to the blouse the hand must have belonged either to the Grand Duchess Marie or Anastasia. They could not see me through their windows, and this was to be the last glimpse that I was to have of any of them!\" \n\nHowever, even in the last months of her life, she found ways to enjoy herself. She and other members of the household performed plays for the enjoyment of their parents and others in the spring of 1918. Anastasia's performance made everyone howl with laughter, according to her tutor Sydney Gibbes. In a May 7, 1918 letter from Tobolsk to her sister Maria in Yekaterinburg, Anastasia described a moment of joy despite her sadness and loneliness and worry for the sick Alexei: \"We played on the swing, that was when I roared with laughter, the fall was so wonderful! Indeed! I told the sisters about it so many times yesterday that they got quite fed up, but I could go on telling it masses of times ... What weather we've had! One could simply shout with joy.\" In his memoirs, one of the guards at the Ipatiev House, Alexander Strekotin, remembered Anastasia as \"very friendly and full of fun\", while another guard said Anastasia was \"a very charming devil! She was mischievous and, I think, rarely tired. She was lively, and was fond of performing comic mimes with the dogs, as though they were performing in a circus.\" Yet another of the guards, however, called the youngest grand duchess \"offensive and a terrorist\" and complained that her occasionally provocative comments sometimes caused tension in the ranks. Anastasia and her sisters helped their maid darn stockings and assisted the cook in making bread and other kitchen chores while they were in captivity at the Ipatiev House. \n\nIn the summer, the privations of the captivity, including their closer confinement at the Ipatiev House negatively affected the family. According to some accounts, at one point Anastasia became so upset about the locked, painted windows that she opened one to look outside and get fresh air. A sentry reportedly saw her and fired, narrowly missing her. She did not try again. On July 14, 1918, local priests at Yekaterinburg conducted a private church service for the family. They reported that Anastasia and her family, contrary to custom, fell on their knees during the prayer for the dead, and that the girls had become despondent and hopeless, and no longer sang the replies in the service. Noticing this dramatic change in their demeanor since his last visit, one priest told the other, \"Something has happened to them in there.\" But the next day, on July 15, 1918, Anastasia and her sisters appeared in good spirits as they joked and helped move the beds in their shared bedroom so that cleaning women could clean the floors. They helped the women scrub the floors and whispered to them when the guards weren't watching. Anastasia stuck her tongue out at Yakov Yurovsky, the head of the detachment, when he momentarily turned his back and left the room. \n\nCaptivity and death\n\nAfter the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917, Russia quickly disintegrated into civil war. Negotiations for the release of the Romanovs between their Bolshevik (commonly referred to as 'Reds') captors and their extended family, many of whom were prominent members of the royal houses of Europe, stalled. As the Whites (Anti-Bolshevik forces, though not necessarily supportive of the Tsar) advanced toward Yekaterinburg the Reds were in a precarious situation. The Reds knew Yekaterinburg would fall to the better manned and equipped White Army. When the Whites reached Yekaterinburg, the imperial family had simply disappeared. The most widely accepted account was that the family had been murdered. This was due to an investigation by White Army investigator Nicholas Sokolov, who came to the conclusion based on items that had belonged to the family being found thrown down a mine shaft at Ganina Yama. \n\nThe \"Yurovsky Note,\" an account of the event filed by Yurovsky to his Bolshevik superiors following the killings, was found in 1989 and detailed in Edvard Radzinsky's 1992 book The Last Tsar. According to the note, on the night of the deaths the family was awakened and told to dress. They were told they were being moved to a new location to ensure their safety in anticipation of the violence that might ensue when the White Army reached Yekaterinburg. Once dressed, the family and the small circle of servants who had remained with them were herded into a small room in the house's sub-basement and told to wait. Alexandra and Alexei sat in chairs provided by guards at the Empress's request. After several minutes, the guards entered the room, led by Yurovsky. Yurovsky quickly informed the Tsar and his family that they were to be executed. The Tsar had time to say only \"What?\" and turn to his family before he was killed by several bullets to the chest (not, as is commonly stated, to the head; his skull, recovered in 1991, bears no bullet wounds). The Tsaritsa and her daughter Olga tried to make the sign of the cross, but were killed in the initial volley of bullets fired by the executioners. The rest of the Imperial retinue were shot in short order, with the exception of Anna Demidova, Alexandra's maid. Demidova survived the initial onslaught, but was quickly murdered against the back wall of the basement, stabbed to death while trying to defend herself with a small pillow she had carried into the sub-basement that was filled with precious gems and jewels. \n\nThe \"Yurovsky Note\" further reported that once the thick smoke that had filled the room from so many weapons being fired in such close proximity cleared, it was discovered that the executioners' bullets had ricocheted off the corsets of two or three of the Grand Duchesses. The executioners later came to find out that this was because the family's crown jewels and diamonds had been sewn inside the linings of the corsets to hide them from their captors. The corsets thus served as a form of \"armor\" against the bullets. Anastasia and Maria were said to have crouched up against a wall, covering their heads in terror, until they were shot down by bullets, recalled Yurovsky. However, another guard, Peter Ermakov, told his wife that Anastasia had been finished off with bayonets. As the bodies were carried out, one or more of the girls cried out, and were clubbed on the back of the head, wrote Yurovsky.\n\nFalse reports of survival\n\nAnastasia's supposed escape and possible survival was one of the most popular historical mysteries of the 20th century, provoking many books and films. At least ten women claimed to be her, offering varying stories as to how she had survived. Anna Anderson, the best known Anastasia impostor, first surfaced publicly between 1920 and 1922. She contended that she had feigned death among the bodies of her family and servants, and was able to make her escape with the help of a compassionate guard who noticed she was still breathing and took sympathy upon her. Her legal battle for recognition from 1938 to 1970 continued a lifelong controversy and was the longest running case ever heard by the German courts, where it was officially filed. The final decision of the court was that Anderson had not provided sufficient proof to claim the identity of the grand duchess.\n\nAnderson died in 1984 and her body was cremated. DNA tests were conducted in 1994 on a tissue sample from Anderson located in a hospital and the blood of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, a great-nephew of Empress Alexandra. According to Dr Gill who conducted the tests, \"If you accept that these samples came from Anna Anderson, then Anna Anderson could not be related to Tsar Nicholas or Tsarina Alexandra.\" Anderson's mitochondrial DNA was a match with a great-nephew of Franziska Schanzkowska, a missing Polish factory worker. Some supporters of Anderson's claim acknowledged that the DNA tests proving she could not have been the Grand Duchess had \"won the day.\" \n\nOther lesser known claimants were Nadezhda Ivanovna Vasilyeva and Eugenia Smith. Two young women claiming to be Anastasia and her sister Maria were taken in by a priest in the Ural Mountains in 1919 where they lived as nuns until their deaths in 1964. They were buried under the names Anastasia and Maria Nikolaevna. \n\nRumors of Anastasia's survival were embellished with various contemporary reports of trains and houses being searched for \"Anastasia Romanov\" by Bolshevik soldiers and secret police. When she was briefly imprisoned at Perm in 1918, Princess Helena Petrovna, the wife of Anastasia's distant cousin, Prince John Constantinovich of Russia, reported that a guard brought a girl who called herself Anastasia Romanova to her cell and asked if the girl was the daughter of the Tsar. Helena Petrovna said she did not recognize the girl and the guard took her away. Although other witnesses in Perm later reported that they saw Anastasia, her mother and sisters in Perm after the murders, this story is now widely discredited as nothing more than a rumor. Rumors that they were alive were fueled by deliberate misinformation designed to hide the fact that the family was dead. A few days after they had been murdered, the German government sent several telegrams to Russia demanding \"the safety of the princesses of German blood\". Russia had recently signed a peace treaty with the Germans, and did not want to upset them by letting them know the women were dead, so they told them they had been moved to a safer location. \n\nIn another incident, eight witnesses reported the recapture of a young woman after an apparent escape attempt in September 1918 at a railway station at Siding 37, northwest of Perm. These witnesses were Maxim Grigoyev, Tatiana Sitnikova and her son Fyodor Sitnikov, Ivan Kuklin and Matrina Kuklina, Vassily Ryabov, Ustinya Varankina, and Dr Pavel Utkin, a physician who treated the girl after the incident. Some of the witnesses identified the girl as Anastasia when they were shown photographs of the grand duchess by White Russian Army investigators. Utkin also told the White Russian Army investigators that the injured girl, whom he treated at Cheka headquarters in Perm, told him, \"I am the daughter of the ruler, Anastasia.\" Utkin obtained a prescription from a pharmacy for a patient named \"N\" at the orders of the secret police. White Army investigators later independently located records for the prescription. During the same time period in mid-1918, there were several reports of young people in Russia passing themselves off as Romanov escapees. Boris Soloviev, the husband of Rasputin's daughter Maria, defrauded prominent Russian families by asking for money for a Romanov impostor to escape to China. Soloviev also found young women willing to masquerade as one of the grand duchesses to assist in deceiving the families he had defrauded.\n\nSome biographers' accounts speculated that the opportunity for one or more of the guards to rescue a survivor existed. Yakov Yurovsky demanded that the guards come to his office and turn over items they had stolen following the murder. There was reportedly a span of time when the bodies of the victims were left largely unattended in the truck, in the basement and in the corridor of the house. Some guards who had not participated in the murders and had been sympathetic to the grand duchesses were reportedly left in the basement with the bodies. \n\nRomanov graves\n\nIn 1991, the presumed burial site of the imperial family and their servants was excavated in the woods outside Yekaterinburg. The grave had been found nearly a decade earlier, but was kept hidden by its discoverers from the Communists who were still ruling Russia at the time. The grave only held nine of the expected eleven sets of remains. DNA and skeletal analysis matched these remains to Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, and three of the four grand duchesses (Olga, Tatiana and presumably Maria). The other remains, with unrelated DNA, correspond to the family's doctor (Yevgeny Botkin), their valet (Alexei Trupp), their cook (Ivan Kharitonov), and Alexandra's maid (Anna Demidova). Forensic expert William R. Maples decided that the Tsarevitch Alexei and Anastasia's bodies were missing from the family's grave. Russian scientists contested this conclusion, however, claiming that it was the body of Maria that was missing. The Russians identified the body as that of Anastasia by using a computer program to compare photos of the youngest grand duchess with the skulls of the victims from the mass grave. They estimated the height and width of the skulls where pieces of bone were missing. American scientists found this method inexact. \n\nAmerican scientists thought the missing body to be Anastasia because none of the female skeletons showed the evidence of immaturity, such as an immature collarbone, undescended wisdom teeth, or immature vertebrae in the back, that they would have expected to find in a seventeen-year-old. In 1998, when the remains of the imperial family were finally interred, a body measuring approximately 5'7\" was buried under the name of Anastasia. Photographs taken of her standing beside her three sisters up until six months before the murders demonstrate that Anastasia was several inches shorter than all of them.\n\nThe account of the \"Yurovsky Note\" indicated that two of the bodies were removed from the main grave and cremated at an undisclosed area in order to further disguise the burials of the Tsar and his retinue, if the remains were discovered by the Whites, since the body count would not be correct. Searches of the area in subsequent years failed to turn up a cremation site or the remains of the two missing Romanov children. However, on August 23, 2007, a Russian archaeologist announced the discovery of two burned, partial skeletons at a bonfire site near Yekaterinburg that appeared to match the site described in Yurovsky's memoirs. The archaeologists said the bones were from a boy who was roughly between the ages of ten and thirteen years at the time of his death and of a young woman who was roughly between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three years old. Anastasia was seventeen years and one month old at the time of the assassination, while her sister Maria was nineteen years, one month old and her brother Alexei was two weeks shy of his fourteenth birthday. Anastasia's elder sisters Olga and Tatiana were twenty-two and twenty-one years old respectively at the time of the assassination. Along with the remains of the two bodies, archaeologists found \"shards of a container of sulfuric acid, nails, metal strips from a wooden box, and bullets of various caliber.\" The site was initially found with metal detectors and by using metal rods as probes. \n\nDNA testing by multiple international laboratories such as the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory and Innsbruck Medical University confirmed that the remains belong to the Tsarevich Alexei and to one of his sisters, proving conclusively that all family members, including Anastasia, died in 1918. The parents and all five children are now accounted for, and each has his or her own unique DNA profile. However, as reported in one of the studies:\nIt should be mentioned that a well publicized debate over which daughter, Maria (according to Russian experts) or Anastasia (according to US experts), has been recovered from the second grave cannot be settled based upon the DNA results reported here. In the absence of a DNA reference from each sister, we can only conclusively identify Alexei – the only son of Nicholas and Alexandra.\n\nSainthood\n\nIn 2000, Anastasia and her family were canonized as passion bearers by the Russian Orthodox Church. The family had previously been canonized in 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad as holy martyrs. The bodies of Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, and three of their daughters were finally interred in the St. Catherine Chapel at St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg on July 17, 1998, eighty years after they were murdered. \n\nInfluence on culture\n\nThe purported survival of Anastasia has been the subject of both cinema and made-for-television films. The earliest, made in 1928, was called Clothes Make the Woman. The story followed a woman who turns up to play the part of a rescued Anastasia for a Hollywood film, and ends up being recognized by the Russian soldier who originally rescued her from her would-be assassins. \n\nOne notable film is the highly fictionalized Anastasia (1956) starring Ingrid Bergman as Anna Anderson, Yul Brynner as General Bounine (a fictional character based on several actual men), and Helen Hayes as the Dowager Empress Marie, Anastasia's paternal grandmother. The film tells the story of a refugee who appears in Paris in 1928 and is captured by several Russian émigrés who feed her information so that they can fool Anastasia's grandmother into thinking she is her granddaughter in an attempt to obtain a Tsarist fortune. As time goes by they begin to suspect that \"Madame A. Anderson\" really is the missing grand duchess. The story served as the basis for the short-lived 1965 musical Anya, and the 1997 animated musical film Anastasia, with Meg Ryan voicing Anastasia.\n\nIn 1986, NBC broadcast a mini-series loosely based on a book published in 1983 by Peter Kurth called Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson. The movie, Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna was a two-part series which began with the young Anastasia Nicholaevna and her family being sent to Yekaterinburg, where they are executed by Bolshevik soldiers. The story then moves to 1923, and while taking great liberties, fictitiously follows the claims of the woman known as Anna Anderson. Amy Irving portrays the adult Anna Anderson.\n\nAncestry" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Anastazja", "Anastasia", "Anastatia", "Anastasya" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "anastatia", "anastasia", "anastazja", "anastasya" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "anastasia", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Anastasia" }
Which soul singer is Whitney Houston's god mother?	tc_1257	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Soul_music.txt", "Whitney_Houston.txt" ], "title": [ "Soul music", "Whitney Houston" ], "wiki_context": [ "Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It combines elements of African-American gospel music, rhythm and blues and jazz. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening in the United States; where record labels such as Motown, Atlantic and Stax were influential in the civil rights era. Soul also became popular around the world, directly influencing rock music and the music of Africa. \n\nAccording to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is \"music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of funky, secular testifying\".[http://rockhall.com/inductees/otis-redding/ Otis Redding] Catchy rhythms, stressed by handclaps and extemporaneous body moves, are an important feature of soul music. Other characteristics are a call and response between the lead vocalist and the chorus and an especially tense vocal sound. The style also occasionally uses improvisational additions, twirls and auxiliary sounds. Soul music reflected the African-American identity and it stressed the importance of an African-American culture. The new-found African-American consciousness led to new styles of music, which boasted pride in being black. \n\nSoul music dominated the U.S. R&B chart in the 1960s, and many recordings crossed over into the pop charts in the U.S., Britain and elsewhere. By 1968, the soul music genre had begun to splinter. Some soul artists developed funk music, while other singers and groups developed slicker, more sophisticated, and in some cases more politically conscious varieties. By the early 1970s, soul music had been influenced by psychedelic rock and other genres, leading to psychedelic soul. The United States saw the development of neo soul around 1994. There are also several other subgenres and offshoots of soul music.\n\nThe key subgenres of soul include the Detroit (Motown) style, a rhythmic music influenced by gospel; deep soul and southern soul, driving, energetic soul styles combining R&B with southern gospel music sounds; Memphis soul, a shimmering, sultry style; New Orleans soul, which came out of the rhythm and blues style; Chicago soul, a lighter gospel-influenced sound; Philadelphia soul, a lush orchestral sound with doo-wop-inspired vocals; Psychedelic soul, a blend of psychedelic rock and soul music; as well as categories such as Blue-eyed soul, which is soul music performed by white artists; British soul; and Northern soul, rare soul music played by DJs at nightclubs in Northern England.\n\nOrigins \n\n \nSoul music has its roots in traditional African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues, and the hybridization of their respective religious and secular styles, in both lyrical content and instrumentation, that began to occur in the 1950s. The term soul had been used among African-American musicians to emphasize the feeling of being an African-American in the U.S. According to musicologist Barry Hansen,Barry Hansen, Rhythm and Gospel, in Jim Miller (ed.), The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, 1976, pp. 15–18.Though this hybrid produced a clutch of hits in the R&B market in the early 1950s, only the most adventurous white fans felt its impact at the time; the rest had to wait for the coming of soul music in the 1960s to feel the rush of rock and roll sung gospel-style.\n\nAccording to another source, \"Soul music was the result of the urbanization and commercialization of rhythm and blues in the '60s.\"[http://www.allmusic.com/subgenre/soul-ma0000002865 About Soul, Allmusic.com]. Retrieved 11 July 2013 The phrase \"soul music\" itself, referring to gospel-style music with secular lyrics, is first attested in 1961. The term 'soul' in African-American parlance has connotations of African-American pride and culture. Gospel groups in the 1940s and 1950s occasionally used the term as part of their name. The jazz style that derived from gospel came to be called soul jazz. As singers and arrangers began using techniques from gospel and soul jazz in African-American popular music during the 1960s, soul music gradually functioned as an umbrella term for the African-American popular music at the time. \n\nImportant innovators whose recordings in the 1950s contributed to the emergence of soul music included Clyde McPhatter, Hank Ballard, and Etta James. Ray Charles is often cited as popularizing the soul genre with his string of hits starting with 1954's \"I Got a Woman\". Singer Bobby Womack said: \"Ray was the genius. He turned the world onto soul music.\" Charles was open in acknowledging the influence of Pilgrim Travelers vocalist Jesse Whitaker on his singing style.\n\nLittle Richard (who inspired Otis Redding ) and James Brown were equally influential. Brown was known as the \"Godfather of Soul\" and Richard proclaimed himself the \"king of rockin' and rollin', rhythm and blues soulin'\", because his music embodied elements of all three, and because he inspired artists in all three genres. \n\nSam Cooke and Jackie Wilson are also often acknowledged as soul forefathers. Cooke became popular as the lead singer of gospel group The Soul Stirrers, before controversially moving into secular music. His recording of \"You Send Me\" in 1957 launched a successful pop career, and his 1962 recording of \"Bring It On Home To Me\" has been described as \"perhaps the first record to define the soul experience\". Jackie Wilson, a contemporary of both Cooke and James Brown, also achieved crossover success in 1957 with \"Reet Petite\", and was particularly influential for his dramatic delivery and performances. \n\n1960s \n\nWriter Peter Guralnick is among those to identify Solomon Burke as a key figure in the emergence of soul music, and Atlantic Records as the key record label. Burke's early 1960s songs, including \"Cry to Me\", \"Just Out of Reach\" and \"Down in the Valley\" are considered classics of the genre. Guralnick wrote: \"Soul started, in a sense, with the 1961 success of Solomon Burke's \"Just Out Of Reach\". Ray Charles, of course, had already enjoyed enormous success (also on Atlantic), as had James Brown and Sam Cooke — primarily in a pop vein. Each of these singers, though, could be looked upon as an isolated phenomenon; it was only with the coming together of Burke and Atlantic Records that you could begin to see anything even resembling a movement.\"\n\nBen E. King also achieved success in 1961 with \"Stand By Me\", a song directly based on a gospel hymn. By the mid-1960s, the initial successes of Burke, King and others had been surpassed by new soul singers, including Stax artists such as Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett, who mainly recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, and Muscle Shoals, Alabama. According to Jon Landau: \"Between 1962 and 1964 Redding recorded a series of soul ballads characterized by unabashedly sentimental lyrics usually begging forgiveness or asking a girlfriend to come home.... He soon became known as \"Mr. Pitiful\" and earned a reputation as the leading performer of soul ballads.\"\n\nThe most important female soul singer to emerge was Aretha Franklin, originally a gospel singer who began to make secular recordings in 1960 but whose career was later revitalised by her recordings for Atlantic. Her 1967 recordings, such as \"I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)\", \"Respect\" (originally sung by Otis Redding), and \"Do Right Woman, Do Right Man\" (written by Chips Moman and Dan Penn), were significant and commercially successful productions.\n\nSoul music dominated the U.S. African-American music charts in the 1960s, and many recordings crossed over into the pop charts in the U.S. Otis Redding was a huge success at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. The genre also became highly popular in the UK, where many leading acts toured in the late 1960s. \"Soul\" became an umbrella term, used to describe an increasingly wide variety of R&B-based music styles — from the dance and pop-oriented acts at Motown Records in Detroit, such as The Temptations, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, to \"deep soul\" performers such as Percy Sledge and James Carr. Different regions and cities within the U.S., including New York City, Detroit, Chicago, Memphis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Muscle Shoals, Alabama (the home of FAME Studios and Muscle Shoals Sound Studios) became noted for different subgenres of the music and recording styles.\n\nBy 1968, the soul music movement had begun to splinter. Artists such as James Brown and Sly & the Family Stone developed funk music, while other singers such as Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield and Al Green developed slicker, more sophisticated and in some cases more politically conscious varieties of the genre. However, \"although soul music evolved, it never went away — not only did the music inform all of the R&B of the '70s, '80s, and '90s, there were always pockets of musicians around the world that kept performing traditional soul.\"\n\n1970s and later \n\nLater examples of soul music include recordings by The Staple Singers (such as I'll Take You There), and Al Green's 1970s recordings, done at Willie Mitchell's' Royal Recording in Memphis. Mitchell's Hi Records continued the Stax tradition in that decade, releasing many hits by Green, Ann Peebles, Otis Clay, O.V. Wright and Syl Johnson. Bobby Womack, who recorded with Chips Moman in the late 1960s, continued to produce soul recordings in the 1970s and 1980s.\n\nIn Detroit, producer Don Davis worked with Stax artists such as Johnnie Taylor and The Dramatics. Early 1970s recordings by The Detroit Emeralds, such as Do Me Right, are a link between soul and the later disco style. Motown Records artists such as Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson contributed to the evolution of soul music, although their recordings were considered more in a pop music vein than those of Redding, Franklin and Carr. Although stylistically different from classic soul music, recordings by Chicago-based artists are often considered part of the genre.\n\nBy the early 1970s, soul music had been influenced by psychedelic rock and other genres. The social and political ferment of the times inspired artists like Gaye and Curtis Mayfield to release album-length statements with hard-hitting social commentary. Artists like James Brown led soul towards funk music, which became typified by 1970s bands like Parliament-Funkadelic and The Meters. More versatile groups like War, the Commodores and Earth, Wind and Fire became popular around this time. During the 1970s, some slick and commercial blue-eyed soul acts like Philadelphia's Hall & Oates and Oakland's Tower of Power achieved mainstream success, as did a new generation of street-corner harmony or \"city-soul\" groups such as The Delfonics and the historically black Howard University's Unifics.\n\nThe syndicated music/dance variety television series Soul Train, hosted by Chicago native Don Cornelius, debuted in 1971. The show provided an outlet for soul music for several decades, also spawning a franchise that saw the creation of a record label (Soul Train Records) that distributed music by The Whispers, Carrie Lucas, and an up-and-coming group known as Shalamar. Numerous disputes led to Cornelius spinning off the record label to his talent booker, Dick Griffey, who transformed the label into Solar Records, itself a prominent soul music label throughout the 1980s. The TV series continued to air until 2006, although other predominantly African-American music genres such as hip-hop began overshadowing soul on the show beginning in the 1980s.\n\nAs disco and funk were dominating the charts in the late 1970s and early 1980s, soul went in the direction of quiet storm. With its relaxed tempos and soft melodies, quiet storm soul took influences from soft rock and adult contemporary. Many funk bands, such as Con Funk Shun, Cameo, and Lakeside would have a few quiet storm tracks on their albums. Among the most successful acts in this era include Smokey Robinson, Teddy Pendergrass, Peabo Bryson, Atlantic Starr, and Larry Graham.\n\nAfter the decline of disco and funk in the early 1980s, soul music became influenced by electro music. It became less raw and more slickly produced, resulting in a style known as contemporary R&B, which sounded very different from the original rhythm and blues style. The United States saw the development of neo-soul around 1994. Mainstream record label marketing support for soul genres cooled in the 2000s due to the industry's re-focus on hip-hop.\n\nNotable record labels and producers \n\nMotown Records \n\nBerry Gordy's successful Tamla/Motown group of labels was notable for being African-American owned, unlike most of the earlier independent R&B labels. Notable artists under this label were The Supremes, The Temptations, The Miracles, the Four Tops, The Marvelettes, Mary Wells, Jr. Walker & The All-Stars, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Tammi Terrell, Martha and the Vandellas, and The Jackson Five.\n\nHits were made using a quasi-industrial \"production-line\" approach. Some considered the sound to be mechanistic, but the producers and songwriters brought artistic sensitivity to the three-minute tunes. Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland were rarely out of the charts for their work as songwriters and record producers for The Supremes, the Four Tops and Martha and the Vandellas. They allowed important elements to shine through the dense musical texture. Rhythm was emphasized by handclaps or tambourine. Smokey Robinson was another writer and record producer who added lyrics to \"The Tracks Of My Tears\" by his group The Miracles, which was one of the most important songs of the decade.\n\nStax Records and Atlantic Records \n\nStax Records and Atlantic Records were independent labels that produced high-quality dance records featuring many well known singers of the day. They tended to have smaller ensembles marked by expressive gospel-tinged vocals. Brass and saxophones were also used extensively. Stax Records, founded by siblings Estelle and James Stewart, was the second most successful record label behind Motown Records. They were responsible for releasing hits by Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, The Staple Singers and many more. Ahmet Ertegun, who had anticipated being a diplomat until 1944 when his father died, founded Atlantic Records in 1947 with his friend Herb Abramson. Ertegun wrote many songs for Ray Charles and The Clovers. He even sang backup vocals for his artist Big Joe Turner on the song, \"Shake Rattle and Roll.\" \n\nSubgenres \n\nDetroit (Motown) soul \n\nDominated by Berry Gordy's Motown Records empire, Detroit soul is strongly rhythmic and influenced by gospel music. The Motown sound often includes hand clapping, a powerful bassline, violins and bells. Motown Records' house band was The Funk Brothers. AllMusic cites Motown as the pioneering label of pop-soul, a style of soul music with raw vocals, but polished production and toned-down subject matter intended for pop radio and crossover success. Artists of this style included Diana Ross, the Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, and Billy Preston. Popular during the 1960s, the style became glossier during the 1970s and led to disco.\n\nDeep soul and southern soul \n\nThe terms deep soul and southern soul generally refer to a driving, energetic soul style combining R&B's energy with pulsating southern United States gospel music sounds. Memphis, Tennessee label Stax Records nurtured a distinctive sound, which included putting vocals further back in the mix than most contemporary R&B records, using vibrant horn parts in place of background vocals, and a focus on the low end of the frequency spectrum. The vast majority of Stax releases were backed by house bands Booker T and the MGs (with Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, and Al Jackson) and the Memphis Horns (the splinter horn section of the Mar-Keys, trumpeter Wayne Jackson and saxophonist Andrew Love).\n\nMemphis soul \n\nMemphis soul is a shimmering, sultry style of soul music produced in the 1960s and 1970s at Stax Records and Hi Records in Memphis, Tennessee. It featured melancholic and melodic horns, Hammond organ, bass, and drums, as heard in recordings by Hi's Al Green and Stax's Booker T. & the M.G.'s. The latter group also sometimes played in the harder-edged Southern soul style. The Hi Records house band (Hi Rhythm Section) and producer Willie Mitchell developed a surging soul style heard in the label's 1970s hit recordings. Some Stax recordings fit into this style, but had their own unique sound.\n\nNew Orleans soul \n\nThe New Orleans soul scene directly came out of the rhythm and blues era, when such artists as Little Richard, Fats Domino, and Huey Piano Smith made a huge impact on the pop and R&B charts and a huge direct influence on the birth of Funk music. The principal architect of Crescent City’s soul was songwriter, arranger, and producer Allen Toussaint. He worked with such artists as Irma Thomas (“the Soul Queen of New Orleans”), Jessie Hill, Kris Kenner, Benny Spellman, and Ernie K. Doe on the Minit/Instant label complex to produce a distinctive New Orleans soul sound that generated a passel of national hits. Other notable New Orleans hits came from Robert Parker, Betty Harris, and Aaron Neville. While record labels in New Orleans largely disappeared by the mid-1960s, producers in the city continued to record New Orleans soul artists for other mainly New York City- and Los Angeles-based record labels—notably Lee Dorsey for New York–based Amy Records and the Meters for New York–based Josie and then LA-based Reprise.\n\nChicago soul \n\nChicago soul generally had a light gospel-influenced sound, but the large number of record labels based in the city tended to produce a more diverse sound than other cities. Vee Jay Records, which lasted until 1966, produced recordings by Jerry Butler, Betty Everett, Dee Clark, and Gene Chandler. Chess Records, mainly a blues and rock and roll label, produced a number of major soul artists, including The Dells and Billy Stewart. Curtis Mayfield not only scored many hits with his group, The Impressions, but wrote many hit songs for Chicago artists and produced hits on his own labels for The Fascinations, Major Lance, and the Five Stairsteps.\n\nPhiladelphia soul \n\nBased primarily in the Philadelphia International record label, Philadelphia soul (or Philly Soul) had a lush orchestral sound and doo-wop-inspired vocals. Thom Bell, and Kenneth Gamble & Leon Huff are considered the founders of Philadelphia soul, which produced hits for The O'Jays, The Intruders, The Delfonics, The Stylistics, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, and The Spinners.\n\nPsychedelic soul \n\nPsychedelic soul, sometimes known as \"black rock\", was a blend of psychedelic rock and soul music in the late 1960s, which paved the way for the mainstream emergence of funk music a few years later.J. S. Harrington, Sonic Cool: the Life & Death of Rock 'n' Roll (Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Corporation, 2002), ISBN 0-634-02861-8, pp. 249–50. Early pioneers of this subgenre of soul music include Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, and Stevie Wonder. While psychedelic rock began its decline, the influence of psychedelic soul continued on and remained prevalent through the 1970s.\n\nBlue-eyed soul \n\nBlue-eyed soul is R&B or soul music performed by white artists. The meaning of blue-eyed soul has evolved over decades. Originally the term was associated with mid-1960s white artists who performed soul and R&B that was similar to the music released by Motown Records and Stax Records. The term continued to be used in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly by the British media to refer to a new generation of singers who adopted elements of the Stax and Motown sounds. To a lesser extent, the term has been applied to singers in other music genres that are influenced by soul music. Artists like Hall and Oates, David Bowie, Christina Aguilera, Amy Winehouse and Adele are known as Blue-eyed soul singers.\n\nBritish soul \n\nSoul has been a major influence on British popular music since the 1960s including bands of the British Invasion, most significantly The Beatles. There were a handful of significant British Blue-eyed soul acts, including Dusty Springfield and Tom Jones. American soul was extremely popular among some youth sub-cultures like the Northern soul and Modern soul movements, but a clear genre of British soul did not emerge until the 1980s when a number of artists including George Michael, Sade, Simply Red, Lisa Stansfield and Soul II Soul enjoyed commercial success.G. Wald, \"Soul's Revival: White Soul, Nostalgia and the Culturally Constructed Past\", M. Guillory and R. C. Green, Soul: Black power, politics, and pleasure (New York University Press, 1997), pp. 139–58. The popularity of British soul artists in the U.S., most notably Amy Winehouse, Adele, Estelle, Duffy, Joss Stone and Leona Lewis, led to talk of a \"third British Invasion\" or soul invasion in the 2000s and 2010s. \n\nNeo soul \n\nThe term neo soul is a marketing phrase coined in the early 1990s by producer and record label executive Kedar Massenburg to describe a blend of 1970s soul-style vocals and instrumentation with contemporary R&B sounds, hip-hop beats and poetic interludes. The style was developed in the early to mid-1990s. A key element in neo soul is a heavy dose of Fender Rhodes or Wurlitzer electric piano \"pads\" over a mellow, grooving interplay between the drums (usually with a rim shot snare sound) and a muted, deep funky bass. The Fender Rhodes piano sound gives the music a warm, organic character.\n\nNorthern soul and modern soul \n\nThe phrase northern soul was coined by journalist Dave Godin and popularised in 1970 through his column in Blues and Soul magazine. The term refers to rare soul music that was played by DJs at nightclubs in northern England. The playlists originally consisted of obscure 1960s and early 1970s American soul recordings with an uptempo beat, such as those on Motown Records and more obscure labels such as Okeh Records. Modern soul developed when northern soul DJs began looking in record shops in the United States and United Kingdom for music that was more complex and contemporary. What emerged was a richer sound that was more advanced in terms of Hi-Fi and FM radio technology.\n\nNu-jazz and soul-influenced electronica \n\nMany artists in various genres of electronic music (such as house, drum n bass, UK garage, and downtempo) are heavily influenced by soul, and have produced many soul-inspired compositions.", "Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer, actress, producer, and model. In 2009, Guinness World Records cited her as the most awarded female act of all time. Houston is one of pop music's best-selling music artists of all-time, with an estimated 170–200 million records sold worldwide. She released seven studio albums and two soundtrack albums, all of which have diamond, multi-platinum, platinum or gold certification. Houston's crossover appeal on the popular music charts, as well as her prominence on MTV, starting with her video for \"How Will I Know\", influenced several African American women artists who follow in her footsteps.\n\nHouston is the only artist to chart seven consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits. She is the second artist behind Elton John and the only woman to have two number-one Billboard 200 Album awards (formerly \"Top Pop Albums\") on the Billboard magazine year-end charts. Houston's debut album, Whitney Houston (1985), became the best-selling debut album by a woman in history. Rolling Stone named it the best album of 1986, and ranked it at number 254 on the magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Her second studio album, Whitney (1987), became the first album by a woman to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart.\n\nHouston's first acting role was as the star of the feature film The Bodyguard (1992). The film's original soundtrack won the 1994 Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Its lead single, \"I Will Always Love You\", won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and became the best-selling single by a woman in music history. With the album, Houston became the first act (solo or group, male or female) to sell more than a million copies of an album within a single week period under Nielsen SoundScan system. The album makes her the top female act in the top 10 list of the best-selling albums of all time, at number four. Houston continued to star in movies and contribute to their soundtracks, including the films Waiting to Exhale (1995) and The Preacher's Wife (1996). The Preacher's Wife soundtrack became the best-selling gospel album in history.\n\nOn February 11, 2012, Houston was found dead in her guest room at the Beverly Hilton, in Beverly Hills, California. The official coroner's report showed that she had accidentally drowned in the bathtub, with heart disease and cocaine use listed as contributing factors. News of her death coincided with the 2012 Grammy Awards and featured prominently in American and international media. \n\nLife and career\n\n1963–84: Early life and career beginnings\n\nWhitney Houston was born on August 9, 1963 in what was then a middle-income neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. She was the daughter of Army serviceman and entertainment executive John Russell Houston, Jr. (September 13, 1920 – February 2, 2003), and gospel singer Emily \"Cissy\" (Drinkard) Houston. Her elder brother Michael is a singer, and her elder half-brother is former basketball player Gary Garland. Her parents were both African American, and she was also said to have Native American and Dutch ancestry. Through her mother, Houston was a first cousin of singers Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick. Her godmother was Darlene Love and her honorary aunt was Aretha Franklin, whom she met at age 8 or 9 when her mother took her to a recording studio. Houston was raised a Baptist, but was also exposed to the Pentecostal church. After the 1967 Newark riots, the family moved to a middle-class area in East Orange, New Jersey, when she was four. \n\nAt the age of 11, Houston started performing as a soloist in the junior gospel choir at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, where she also learned to play the piano. Her first solo performance in the church was \"Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah\". When Houston was a teenager, she attended Mount Saint Dominic Academy, a Catholic girls' high school in Caldwell, New Jersey, where she met her best friend Robyn Crawford, whom she described as the \"sister she never had\". While Houston was still in school, her mother continued to teach her how to sing. Houston was also exposed to the music of Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight, and Roberta Flack, most of whom would have an influence on her as a singer and performer.\n\nHouston spent some of her teenage years touring nightclubs where her mother Cissy was performing, and she would occasionally get on stage and perform with her. In 1977, at age 14, she became a backup singer on the Michael Zager Band's single \"Life's a Party\". In 1978, at age 15, Houston sang background vocals for Chaka Khan and Lou Rawls. \n\nIn the early 1980s, Houston started working as a fashion model after a photographer saw her at Carnegie Hall singing with her mother. She appeared in Seventeen and became one of the first women of color to grace the cover of the magazine. She was also featured in layouts in the pages of Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Young Miss, and appeared in a Canada Dry soft drink TV commercial. Her looks and girl-next-door charm made her one of the most sought after teen models of that time. While modeling, she continued her burgeoning recording career by working with producers Michael Beinhorn, Bill Laswell and Martin Bisi on an album they were spearheading called One Down, which was credited to the group Material. For that project, Houston contributed the ballad \"Memories\", a cover of a song by Hugh Hopper of Soft Machine. Robert Christgau of The Village Voice called her contribution \"one of the most gorgeous ballads you've ever heard\". She also appeared as a lead vocalist on one track on a Paul Jabara album, entitled Paul Jabara and Friends, released by Columbia Records in 1983. \n\nHouston had previously been offered several recording agencies (Michael Zager in 1980, and Elektra Records in 1981), but her mother declined the offers stating her daughter must first complete high school. In 1983, Gerry Griffith, an A&R representative from Arista Records, saw her performing with her mother in a New York City nightclub and was impressed. He convinced Arista's head Clive Davis to make time to see Houston perform. Davis too was impressed and offered a worldwide recording contract which Houston signed. Later that year, she made her national televised debut alongside Davis on The Merv Griffin Show. \n\nHouston signed with Arista in 1983, but did not begin work on her album immediately. The label wanted to make sure no other label signed the singer away. Davis wanted to ensure he had the right material and producers for Houston's debut album. Some producers had to pass on the project because of prior commitments. Houston first recorded a duet with Teddy Pendergrass entitled \"Hold Me\" which appeared on his album, Love Language. The single was released in 1984 and gave Houston her first taste of success, becoming a Top 5 R&B hit. It would also appear on her debut album in 1985.\n\n1985–86: Rise to international prominence\n\nWith production from Michael Masser, Kashif, Jermaine Jackson, and Narada Michael Walden, Houston's debut album Whitney Houston was released in February 1985. Rolling Stone magazine praised Houston, calling her \"one of the most exciting new voices in years\" while The New York Times called the album \"an impressive, musically conservative showcase for an exceptional vocal talent\". Arista Records promoted Houston's album with three different singles from the album in the US, UK and other European countries. In the UK, the dance-funk \"Someone for Me\", which failed to chart in the country, was the first single while \"All at Once\" was in such European countries as the Netherlands and Belgium, where the song reached the top 5 on the singles charts, respectively. \n\nIn the US, the soulful ballad \"You Give Good Love\" was chosen as the lead single from Houston's debut to establish her in the black marketplace first. Outside the US, the song failed to get enough attention to become a hit, but in the US, it gave the album its first major hit as it peaked at No. 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and No. 1 on the Hot R&B chart. As a result, the album began to sell strongly, and Houston continued promotion by touring nightclubs in the US. She also began performing on late-night television talk shows, which were not usually accessible to unestablished black acts. The jazzy ballad \"Saving All My Love for You\" was released next and it would become Houston's first No. 1 single in both the US and the UK. She was then an opening act for singer Jeffrey Osborne on his nationwide tour. \"Thinking About You\" was released as the promo single only to R&B-oriented radio stations, which peaked at number ten on the US R&B Chart. At the time, MTV had received harsh criticism for not playing enough videos by black, Latino, and other racial minorities while favoring white acts. The third US single, \"How Will I Know\", peaked at No. 1 and introduced Houston to the MTV audience thanks to its video. Houston's subsequent singles from this, and future albums, would make her the first African-American woman to receive consistent heavy rotation on MTV.\n\nBy 1986, a year after its initial release, Whitney Houston topped the Billboard 200 albums chart and stayed there for 14 non-consecutive weeks. The final single, \"Greatest Love of All\", a cover of \"The Greatest Love of All\", originally recorded by George Benson in 1977, became Houston's biggest hit at the time after peaking No. 1 and remaining there for three weeks on the Hot 100 chart, which made her debut the first album by a woman to yield three No. 1 hits. Houston was No. 1 artist of the year and Whitney Houston was the No. 1 album of the year on the 1986 Billboard year-end charts, making her the first woman to earn that distinction. At the time, Houston released the best-selling debut album by a solo artist. Houston then embarked on her world tour, Greatest Love Tour. The album had become an international success, and was certified 13× platinum (diamond) in the United States alone, and has sold 25 million copies worldwide. \n\nAt the 1986 Grammy Awards, Houston was nominated for three awards including Album of the Year. She was not eligible for the Best New Artist category because of her previous hit R&B duet recording with Teddy Pendergrass in 1984. She won her first Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female for \"Saving All My Love for You\". Houston's performance of the song during the Grammy telecast later earned her an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program. \n\nHouston won seven American Music Awards in total in 1986 and 1987, and an MTV Video Music Award. The album's popularity would also carry over to the 1987 Grammy Awards when \"Greatest Love of All\" would receive a Record of the Year nomination, ten years after the original recording of \"The Greatest Love of All\" by George Benson, which was the main theme of the boxer Muhammad Ali biopic \"The Greatest\" in 1977. Houston's debut album is listed as one of Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and on The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's Definitive 200 list. Houston's grand entrance into the music industry is considered one of the 25 musical milestones of the last 25 years, according to USA Today. Following Houston's breakthrough, doors were opened for other African-American women such as Janet Jackson and Anita Baker to find notable success in popular music and on MTV. \n\n1987–91: Whitney, I'm Your Baby Tonight and \"The Star Spangled Banner\"\n\nWith many expectations, Houston's second album, Whitney, was released in June 1987. The album again featured production from Masser, Kashif and Walden as well as Jellybean Benitez. Many critics complained that the material was too similar to her previous album. Rolling Stone said, \"the narrow channel through which this talent has been directed is frustrating\". Still, the album enjoyed commercial success. Houston became the first woman in music history to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart, and the first artist to enter the albums chart at number one in both the US and UK, while also hitting number one or top ten in dozens of other countries around the world. The album's first single, \"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)\", was also a massive hit worldwide, peaking at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and topping the singles chart in many countries such as Australia, Germany and the UK. The next three singles, \"Didn't We Almost Have It All\", \"So Emotional\", and \"Where Do Broken Hearts Go\" all peaked at number one on the US Hot 100 chart, which gave her a total of seven consecutive number one hits, breaking the record of six previously shared by The Beatles and the Bee Gees. Houston became the first woman to generate four number-one singles from one album. Whitney has been certified 9× Platinum in the US for shipments of over 9 million copies, and has sold a total of 20 million copies worldwide. \n\nAt the 30th Grammy Awards in 1988, Houston was nominated for three awards, including Album of the Year, winning her second Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for \"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)\". Houston also won two American Music Awards in 1988 and 1989, respectively, and a Soul Train Music Award. Following the release of the album, Houston embarked on the Moment of Truth World Tour, which was one of the ten highest grossing concert tours of 1987. The success of the tours during 1986–87 and her two studio albums ranked Houston No. 8 for the highest earning entertainers list according to Forbes magazine. She was the highest earning African-American woman overall and the third highest entertainer after Bill Cosby and Eddie Murphy.\n\nHouston was a supporter of Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid movement. During her modeling days, the singer refused to work with any agencies who did business with the then-apartheid South Africa. On June 11, 1988, during the European leg of her tour, Houston joined other musicians to perform a set at Wembley Stadium in London to celebrate a then-imprisoned Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday. Over 72,000 people attended Wembley Stadium, and over a billion people tuned in worldwide as the rock concert raised over $1 million for charities while bringing awareness to apartheid. Houston then flew back to the US for a concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City in August. The show was a benefit concert that raised a quarter of a million dollars for the United Negro College Fund. In the same year, she recorded a song for NBC's coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympics, \"One Moment in Time\", which became a Top 5 hit in the US, while reaching number one in the UK and Germany. With her world tour continuing overseas, Houston was still one of the top 20 highest earning entertainers for 1987–88 according to Forbes magazine. \n\nIn 1989, Houston formed The Whitney Houston Foundation For Children, a non-profit organization that has raised funds for the needs of children around the world. The organization cares for homelessness, children with cancer or AIDS, and other issues of self-empowerment. With the success of her first two albums, Houston was undoubtedly an international crossover superstar, the most prominent since Michael Jackson, appealing to all demographics. However, some black critics believed she was \"selling out\". They felt her singing on record lacked the soul that was present during her live concerts.\n\nAt the 1989 Soul Train Music Awards, when Houston's name was called out for a nomination, a few in the audience jeered. Houston defended herself against the criticism, stating, \"If you're gonna have a long career, there's a certain way to do it, and I did it that way. I'm not ashamed of it.\" Houston took a more urban direction with her third studio album, I'm Your Baby Tonight, released in November 1990. She produced and chose producers for this album and as a result, it featured production and collaborations with L.A. Reid and Babyface, Luther Vandross, and Stevie Wonder. The album showed Houston's versatility on a new batch of tough rhythmic grooves, soulful ballads and up-tempo dance tracks. Reviews were mixed. Rolling Stone felt it was her \"best and most integrated album\". while Entertainment Weekly, at the time thought Houston's shift towards an urban direction was \"superficial\". \n\nThe album contained several hits: the first two singles, \"I'm Your Baby Tonight\" and \"All the Man That I Need\" peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart; \"Miracle\" peaked at number nine; \"My Name Is Not Susan\" peaked in the top twenty; \"I Belong to You\" reached the top ten of the US R&B chart and garnered Houston a Grammy nomination; and the sixth single, the Stevie Wonder duet \"We Didn't Know\", reached the R&B top twenty. The album peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 and went on to be certified 4× platinum in the US while selling twelve million total worldwide.\n\nIn 1990, Houston was the spokesperson for a youth leadership conference hosted in Washington, D.C. She had a private audience with President George H. W. Bush in the Oval Office to discuss the associated challenges.\n\nDuring the Persian Gulf War, Houston performed \"The Star Spangled Banner\" at Super Bowl XXV at Tampa Stadium on January 27, 1991. This performance was later reported by those involved in the performance to have been lip synced or to have been sung into a dead microphone while a studio recording previously made by Houston was played. Dan Klores, a spokesman for Houston, explained: \"This is not a Milli Vanilli thing. She sang live, but the microphone was turned off. It was a technical decision, partially based on the noise factor. This is standard procedure at these events.\" (See also Star Spangled Banner lip sync controversy.) A commercial single and video of her performance were released, and reached the Top 20 on the US Hot 100, making her the only act to turn the US national anthem into a pop hit of that magnitude (José Feliciano's version reached No. 50 in November 1968). Houston donated all her share of the proceeds to the American Red Cross Gulf Crisis Fund. As a result, the singer was named to the Red Cross Board of Governors. \n\nHer rendition was critically acclaimed and is considered the benchmark for singers. Rolling Stone commented that \"her singing stirs such strong patriotism. Unforgettable\", and the performance ranked No. 1 on the 25 most memorable music moments in NFL history list. VH1 listed the performance as one of the greatest moments that rocked TV. Following the attacks on 9/11, it was released again by Arista Records, all profits going towards the firefighters and victims of the attacks. This time it peaked at No. 6 in the Hot 100 and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. \n\nLater in 1991, Houston put together her Welcome Home Heroes concert with HBO for the soldiers fighting in the Persian Gulf War and their families. The free concert took place at Naval Station Norfolk in Norfolk, Virginia in front of 3,500 servicemen and women. HBO descrambled the concert so that it was free for everyone to watch. Houston's concert gave HBO its highest ratings ever. She then embarked on the I'm Your Baby Tonight World Tour.\n\n1992–94: Marriage, motherhood, and The Bodyguard\n\nThroughout the 1980s, Houston was romantically linked to American football star Randall Cunningham and actor Eddie Murphy, whom she dated. She then met R&B singer Bobby Brown at the 1989 Soul Train Music Awards. After a three-year courtship, the two were married on July 18, 1992. On March 4, 1993, Houston gave birth to their daughter Bobbi Kristina, the couple's only child. Brown would go on to have several run-ins with the law, including some jail time. \n\nWith the commercial success of her albums, movie offers poured in, including offers to work with Robert De Niro, Quincy Jones, and Spike Lee; but Houston felt the time wasn't right. Houston's first film role was in The Bodyguard, released in 1992 and co-starring Kevin Costner. Houston played Rachel Marron, a star who is stalked by a crazed fan and hires a bodyguard to protect her. USA Today listed it as one of the 25 most memorable movie moments of the last 25 years in 2007. Houston's mainstream appeal allowed people to look at the movie color-blind. \n\nStill, controversy arose as some felt the film's advertising intentionally hid Houston's face to hide the film's interracial relationship. In an interview with Rolling Stone in 1993, the singer commented that \"people know who Whitney Houston is – I'm black. You can't hide that fact.\" Houston received a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress. The Washington Post said Houston is \"doing nothing more than playing Houston, comes out largely unscathed if that is possible in so cockamamie an undertaking\", and The New York Times commented that she lacked passion with her co-star. Despite the film's mixed reviews, it was hugely successful at the box office, grossing more than $121 million in the U.S. and $410 million worldwide, making it one of the top 100 grossing films in film history at its time of release, though it is no longer in the top 100 because of rising ticket prices since the time the film was released. \n\nThe film's soundtrack also enjoyed big success. Houston executive produced and contributed six songs for the motion picture's adjoining soundtrack album. Rolling Stone said it is \"nothing more than pleasant, tasteful and urbane\". The soundtrack's lead single was \"I Will Always Love You\", written and originally recorded by Dolly Parton in 1974. Houston's version of the song was acclaimed by many critics, regarding it as her \"signature song\" or \"iconic performance\". Rolling Stone and USA Today called her rendition \"the tour-de-force\". The single peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for a then-record-breaking 14 weeks, number one on the R&B chart for a then-record-breaking 11 weeks, and number one on the Adult Contemporary charts for five weeks. \n\nThe single was certified 4× platinum by the RIAA, making Houston the first woman with a single to reach that level in the RIAA history and becoming the best-selling single by a woman in the US. \nThe song also became a global success, hitting number-one in almost all countries, and the best-selling single of all time by a female solo artist with 20 million copies sold. The soundtrack topped the Billboard 200 chart and remained there for 20 non-consecutive weeks, the longest tenure by any Arista album on the chart in the Nielsen SoundScan era (tied for 10th overall by any label), and became one of the fastest selling albums ever. During Christmas week of 1992, the soundtrack sold over a million copies within a week, becoming the first album to achieve that feat under Nielsen SoundScan system. With the follow-up singles \"I'm Every Woman\", a Chaka Khan cover, and \"I Have Nothing\" both reaching the top five, Houston became the first woman to ever have three singles in the Top 11 simultaneously. The album was certified 17× platinum in the US alone, with worldwide sales of 44 million, making The Bodyguard the biggest-selling album by a female act on the list of the world's Top 10 best-selling albums, topping Shania Twain's 40 million sold for Come On Over. \n\nHouston won three Grammys for the album in 1994, including two of the Academy's highest honors, Album of the Year and Record of the Year. In addition, she won a record 8 American Music Awards at that year's ceremony including the Award of Merit, 11 Billboard Music Awards, 3 Soul Train Music Awards in 1993–94 including Sammy Davis, Jr. Award as Entertainer of the Year, 5 NAACP Image Awards including Entertainer of the Year, a record 5 World Music Awards, and a BRIT award. Following the success of the project, Houston embarked on another expansive global tour, The Bodyguard World Tour, in 1993–94. Her concerts, movie, and recording grosses made her the third highest earning female entertainer of 1993–94, just behind Oprah Winfrey and Barbra Streisand according to Forbes magazine. Houston placed in the top five of Entertainment Weeklys annual \"Entertainer of the Year\" ranking and was labeled by Premiere magazine as one of the 100 most powerful people in Hollywood. \n\nIn October 1994, Houston attended and performed at a state dinner in the White House honoring newly elected South African president Nelson Mandela. At the end of her world tour, Houston performed three concerts in South Africa to honor President Mandela, playing to over 200,000 people. This would make the singer the first major musician to visit the newly unified and apartheid free nation following Mandela's winning election. The concert was broadcast live on HBO with funds of the concerts being donated to various charities in South Africa. The event was considered the nation's \"biggest media event since the inauguration of Nelson Mandela\". \n\n1995–97: Waiting to Exhale, The Preacher's Wife, and Cinderella\n\nIn 1995, Houston starred alongside Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine, and Lela Rochon in her second film, Waiting to Exhale, a motion picture about four African-American women struggling with relationships. Houston played the lead character Savannah Jackson, a TV producer in love with a married man. She chose the role because she saw the film as \"a breakthrough for the image of black women because it presents them both as professionals and as caring mothers\". After opening at number one and grossing $67 million in the US at the box office and $81 million worldwide, it proved that a movie primarily targeting a black audience can cross over to success, while paving the way for other all-black movies such as How Stella Got Her Groove Back and the Tyler Perry movies that became popular in the 2000s. The film is also notable for its portrayal of black women as strong middle class citizens rather than as stereotypes. The reviews were mainly positive for the ensemble cast. The New York Times said: \"Ms. Houston has shed the defensive hauteur that made her portrayal of a pop star in 'The Bodyguard' seem so distant.\" Houston was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for \"Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture\", but lost to her co-star Bassett. \n\nThe film's accompanying soundtrack, Waiting to Exhale: Original Soundtrack Album, was written and produced by Babyface. Though he originally wanted Houston to record the entire album, she declined. Instead, she \"wanted it to be an album of women with vocal distinction\", and thus gathered several African-American female artists for the soundtrack, to go along with the film's message about strong women. Consequently, the album featured a range of contemporary R&B female recording artists along with Houston, such as Mary J. Blige, Brandy, Toni Braxton, Aretha Franklin, and Patti LaBelle. Houston's \"Exhale (Shoop Shoop)\" peaked at No. 1, and then spent a record eleven weeks at the No. 2 spot and eight weeks on top of the R&B Charts. \"Count On Me\", a duet with CeCe Winans, hit the U.S. Top 10; and Houston's third contribution, \"Why Does It Hurt So Bad\", made the Top 30. The album debuted at No. 1, and was certified 7× Platinum in the United States, denoting shipments of seven million copies. The soundtrack received strong reviews; as Entertainment Weekly stated: \"the album goes down easy, just as you'd expect from a package framed by Whitney Houston tracks... the soundtrack waits to exhale, hovering in sensuous suspense\" and has since ranked it as one of the 100 Best Movie Soundtracks. Later that year, Houston's children's charity organization was awarded a VH1 Honor for all the charitable work. \n\nIn 1996, Houston starred in the holiday comedy The Preacher's Wife, with Denzel Washington. She plays a gospel-singing wife of a pastor (Courtney B. Vance). It was largely an updated remake of the film The Bishop's Wife (1948), which starred Loretta Young, David Niven and Cary Grant. Houston earned $10 million for the role, making her one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood at the time and the highest earning African-American actress in Hollywood. The movie, with its all African-American cast, was a moderate success, earning approximately $50 million at the U.S. box offices. The movie gave Houston her strongest reviews so far. The San Francisco Chronicle said Houston \"is rather angelic herself, displaying a divine talent for being virtuous and flirtatious at the same time\", and she \"exudes gentle yet spirited warmth, especially when praising the Lord in her gorgeous singing voice\". Houston was again nominated for an NAACP Image Award and won for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture. \n\nHouston recorded and co-produced, with Mervyn Warren, the film's accompanying gospel soundtrack. The Preacher's Wife: Original Soundtrack Album included six gospel songs with Georgia Mass Choir that were recorded at the Great Star Rising Baptist Church in Atlanta. Houston also duetted with gospel legend Shirley Caesar. The album sold six million copies worldwide and scored hit singles with \"I Believe in You and Me\" and \"Step by Step\", becoming the largest selling gospel album of all time. The album received mainly positive reviews. Some critics, such as that of USA Today, noted the presence of her emotional depth, while The Times said, \"To hear Houston going at full throttle with the 35 piece Georgia Mass Choir struggling to keep up is to realise what her phenomenal voice was made for\". She won Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist for the Preacher's Wife at the 1997 American Music Awards for the Preacher's Wife Soundtrack.\n\nIn 1997, Houston's production company changed its name to BrownHouse Productions and was joined by Debra Martin Chase. Their goal was \"to show aspects of the lives of African-Americans that have not been brought to the screen before\" while improving how African-Americans are portrayed in film and television. Their first project was a made-for-television remake of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella. In addition to co-producing, Houston starred in the movie as the Fairy Godmother along with Brandy, Jason Alexander, Whoopi Goldberg, and Bernadette Peters. Houston was initially offered the role of Cinderella in 1993, but other projects intervened. The film is notable for its multi-racial cast and nonstereotypical message. An estimated 60 million viewers tuned into the special giving ABC its highest TV ratings in 16 years. The movie received seven Emmy nominations including Outstanding Variety, Musical or Comedy, while winning Outstanding Art Direction in a Variety, Musical or Comedy Special. \n\nHouston and Chase then obtained the rights to the story of Dorothy Dandridge. Houston was to play Dandridge, the first African American actress to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Houston wanted the story told with dignity and honor. However, Halle Berry also had rights to the project and got her version going first. Later that year, Houston paid tribute to her idols, such as Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, and Dionne Warwick, by performing their hits during the three-night HBO Concert Classic Whitney: Live from Washington, D.C.. The special raised over $300,000 for the Children's Defense Fund. Houston received the Quincy Jones Award for outstanding career achievements in the field of entertainment at the 12th Soul Train Music Awards. \n\n1998–2000: My Love Is Your Love and Whitney: The Greatest Hits\n\nAfter spending much of the early and mid-1990s working on motion pictures and their soundtrack albums, Houston's first studio album in eight years, the critically acclaimed My Love Is Your Love, was released in November 1998. Though originally slated to be a greatest hits album with a handful of new songs, recording sessions were so fruitful that a new full-length studio album was released. Recorded and mixed in only six weeks, it featured production from Rodney Jerkins, Wyclef Jean and Missy Elliott. The album debuted at number thirteen, its peak position, on the Billboard 200 chart. It had a funkier and edgier sound than past releases and saw Houston handling urban dance, hip hop, mid-tempo R&B, reggae, torch songs, and ballads all with great dexterity. \n\nFrom late 1998 to early 2000, the album spawned several hit singles: \"When You Believe\" (US No. 15, UK No. 4), a duet with Mariah Carey for 1998's The Prince of Egypt soundtrack, which also became an international hit as it peaked in the Top 10 in several countries and won an Academy Award for Best Original Song; \"Heartbreak Hotel\" (US No. 2, UK No. 25) featured Faith Evans and Kelly Price, received a 1999 MTV VMA nomination for Best R&B Video, and number one on the US R&B chart for seven weeks; \"It's Not Right but It's Okay\" (US No. 4, UK No. 3) won Houston her sixth Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance; \"My Love Is Your Love\" (US No. 4, UK No. 2) with 3 million copies sold worldwide; and \"I Learned from the Best\" (US No. 27, UK No. 19). These singles became international hits as well, and all the singles, except \"When You Believe\", became number one hits on the Billboard Hot Dance/Club Play chart. The album sold four million copies in America, making it certified 4× platinum, and a total of eleven million copies worldwide.\n\nThe album gave Houston some of her strongest reviews ever. Rolling Stone said Houston was singing \"with a bite in her voice\" and The Village Voice called it \"Whitney's sharpest and most satisfying so far\". In 1999, Houston participated in VH-1's Divas Live '99, alongside Brandy, Mary J. Blige, Tina Turner, and Cher. The same year, Houston hit the road with her 70 date My Love Is Your Love World Tour. The European leg of the tour was Europe's highest grossing arena tour of the year. In November 1999, Houston was named Top-selling R&B Female Artist of the Century with certified US sales of 51 million copies at the time and The Bodyguard Soundtrack was named the Top-selling Soundtrack Album of the Century by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). She also won The Artist of the Decade, Female award for extraordinary artistic contributions during the 1990s at the 14th Soul Train Music Awards, and an MTV Europe Music Award for Best R&B. \n\nIn May 2000, Whitney: The Greatest Hits was released worldwide. The double disc set peaked at number five in the United States, reaching number one in the United Kingdom. In addition, the album reached the Top 10 in many other countries. While ballad songs were left unchanged, the album features house/club remixes of many of Houston's up-tempo hits. Included on the album were four new songs: \"Could I Have This Kiss Forever\" (a duet with Enrique Iglesias), \"Same Script, Different Cast\" (a duet with Deborah Cox), \"If I Told You That\" (a duet with George Michael), and \"Fine\", and three hits that had never appeared on a Houston album: \"One Moment in Time\", \"The Star Spangled Banner\", and \"If You Say My Eyes Are Beautiful\", a duet with Jermaine Jackson from his 1986 Precious Moments album. Along with the album, an accompanying VHS and DVD was released featuring the music videos to Houston's greatest hits, as well as several hard-to-find live performances including her 1983 debut on The Merv Griffin Show, and interviews. The greatest hits album was certified 3× platinum in the US, with worldwide sales of 10 million. \n\n2000–05: Just Whitney and personal struggles\n\nThough Houston was seen as a \"good girl\" with a perfect image in the 1980s and early 1990s, by the late 1990s, her behavior changed. She was often hours late for interviews, photo shoots and rehearsals, and canceling concerts and talk-show appearances. With the missed performances and weight loss, rumors about Houston using drugs with her husband circulated. On January 11, 2000, airport security guards discovered marijuana in both Houston's and husband Bobby Brown's luggage at a Hawaii airport, but the two boarded the plane and departed before authorities could arrive. Charges were later dropped against them, but rumors of drug usage between the couple would continue to surface. Two months later, Clive Davis was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Houston had been scheduled to perform at the event, but failed to show up. \n\nShortly thereafter, Houston was scheduled to perform at the Academy Awards but was fired from the event by musical director and longtime friend Burt Bacharach. Her publicist cited throat problems as the reason for the cancellation. In his book The Big Show: High Times and Dirty Dealings Backstage at the Academy Awards, author Steve Pond revealed that \"Houston's voice was shaky, she seemed distracted and jittery, and her attitude was casual, almost defiant\", and that while Houston was to sing \"Over the Rainbow\", she would start singing a different song. Houston later admitted to having been fired. Later that year, Houston's long-time executive assistant and friend, Robyn Crawford, resigned from Houston's management company.\n\nIn August 2001, Houston signed one of the biggest record deals in music history, with Arista/BMG. She renewed her contract for $100 million to deliver six new albums, on which she would also earn royalties. She later made an appearance on Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Special. Her extremely thin frame further spurred rumors of drug use. Houston's publicist said, \"Whitney has been under stress due to family matters, and when she is under stress she doesn't eat.\" The singer was scheduled for a second performance the following night but canceled. Within weeks, Houston's rendition of \"The Star Spangled Banner\" would be re-released after the September 11 attacks, with the proceeds donated to the New York Firefighters 9/11 Disaster Relief Fund and the New York Fraternal Order of Police. The song peaked at No. 6 this time on the US Hot 100, topping its previous position.\n\nIn 2002, Houston became involved in a legal dispute with John Houston Enterprise. Although the company was started by her father to manage her career, it was actually run by company president Kevin Skinner. Skinner filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit and sued for $100 million (but lost), stating that Houston owed the company previously unpaid compensation for helping to negotiate her $100 million contract with Arista Records and for sorting out legal matters. Houston stated that her 81-year-old father had nothing to do with the lawsuit. Although Skinner tried to claim otherwise, John Houston never appeared in court. Houston's father later died in February 2003. The lawsuit was dismissed on April 5, 2004, and Skinner was awarded nothing. \n\nAlso in 2002, Houston did an interview with Diane Sawyer to promote her then-upcoming album. During the prime-time special, Houston spoke on topics including rumored drug use and marriage. She was asked about the ongoing drug rumors and replied, \"First of all, let's get one thing straight. Crack is cheap. I make too much money to ever smoke crack. Let's get that straight. Okay? We don't do crack. We don't do that. Crack is whack.\" The line was from Keith Haring's mural which was painted in 1986 on the handball court at 128th Street and 2nd Avenue. Houston did, however, admit to using other substances at times, including cocaine.\n\nIn December 2002, Houston released her fifth studio album, Just Whitney.... The album included productions from then-husband Bobby Brown, as well as Missy Elliott and Babyface, and marked the first time that Houston did not produce with Clive Davis as Davis had been released by top management at BMG. Upon its release, Just Whitney... received mixed reviews. The album debuted at number 9 on the Billboard 200 chart and it had the highest first week sales of any album Houston had ever released. The four singles released from the album did not fare well on the Billboard Hot 100, but became dance chart hits. Just Whitney... was certified platinum in the United States, and sold approximately three million worldwide. \n\nOn a June 2003 trip to Israel, Houston said of her visit, \"I've never felt like this in any other country. I feel at home, I feel wonderful.\" \n\nIn late 2003, Houston released her first Christmas album One Wish: The Holiday Album, with a collection of traditional holiday songs. Houston produced the album with Mervyn Warren and Gordon Chambers. A single titled \"One Wish (for Christmas)\" reached the Top 20 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and the album was certified gold in the US. Having always been a touring artist, Houston spent most of 2004 touring and performing in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Russia. In September 2004, she gave a surprise performance at the World Music Awards in a tribute to long-time friend Clive Davis. After the show, Davis and Houston announced plans to go into the studio to work on her new album. \n\nIn early 2004, husband Bobby Brown starred in his own reality TV program, Being Bobby Brown on the Bravo network, which provided a view into the domestic goings-on in the Brown household. Though it was Brown's vehicle, Houston was a prominent figure throughout the show, receiving as much screen time as Brown. The series aired in 2005 and featured Houston in, what some would say, not her most flattering moments. The Hollywood Reporter said it was \"undoubtedly the most disgusting and execrable series ever to ooze its way onto television\". Despite the perceived train-wreck nature of the show, the series gave Bravo its highest ratings in its time slot and continued Houston's successful forays into film and television. The show was not renewed for a second season after Houston stated that she would no longer appear in it, and Brown and Bravo could not come to an agreement for another season. \n\n2006–12: Return to music, I Look to You, tour and film comeback\n\nAfter years of controversy and turmoil, Houston separated from Bobby Brown in September 2006, filing for divorce the following month. On February 1, 2007, Houston asked the court to fast track their divorce. The divorce was finalized on April 24, 2007, with Houston granted custody of the couple's daughter. On May 4, Houston sold the suburban Atlanta home featured in Being Bobby Brown for $1.19 million. A few days later, Brown sued Houston in Orange County, California court in an attempt to change the terms of their custody agreement. Brown also sought child and spousal support from Houston. In the lawsuit, Brown claimed that financial and emotional problems prevented him from properly responding to Houston's divorce petition. Brown lost at his court hearing as the judge dismissed his appeal to overrule the custody terms, leaving Houston with full custody and Brown with no spousal support. In March 2007, Clive Davis of Arista Records announced that Houston would begin recording a new album. In October 2007, Arista released another compilation The Ultimate Collection outside the United States. \n\nHouston gave her first interview in seven years in September 2009, appearing on Oprah Winfrey's season premiere. The interview was billed as \"the most anticipated music interview of the decade\". Whitney admitted on the show to using drugs with former husband Bobby Brown, who \"laced marijuana with rock cocaine\". She told Oprah that before The Bodyguard her drug use was light, but after the film's success and the birth of her daughter it got heavier, and by 1996 \"[doing drugs] was an everyday thing... I wasn't happy by that point in time. I was losing myself.\" \n\nHouston released her new album, I Look to You, in August 2009. The album's first two singles were the title track \"I Look to You\" and \"Million Dollar Bill\". The album entered the Billboard 200 at No. 1, with Houston's best opening week sales of 305,000 copies, marking Houston's first number one album since The Bodyguard, and Houston's first studio album to reach number one since 1987's Whitney. Houston also appeared on European television programs to promote the album. She performed the song \"I Look to You\" on the German television show Wetten, dass..?. Three days later, she performed the worldwide first single from I Look to You, \"Million Dollar Bill\", on the French television show Le Grand Journal. Houston appeared as guest mentor on The X Factor in the United Kingdom. She performed \"Million Dollar Bill\" on the following day's results show, completing the song even as a strap in the back of her dress popped open two seconds into the performance. She later commented that she \"sang [herself] out of [her] clothes\".\n\nThe performance was poorly received by the British media, and was variously described as \"weird\" and \"ungracious\", \"shambolic\" and a \"flop\". Despite this reception, \"Million Dollar Bill\" jumped to its peak from 14 to number 5 (her first UK top 5 for over a decade), and three weeks after release I Look to You went gold. Houston appeared on the Italian version of The X Factor, also performing \"Million Dollar Bill\", this time to excellent reviews. Houston was later awarded a Gold certificate for achieving over 50,000 CD sales of I Look to You in Italy. In November, Houston performed \"I Didn't Know My Own Strength\" at the 2009 American Music Awards in Los Angeles, California. Two days later, Houston performed \"Million Dollar Bill\" and \"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)\" on the Dancing with the Stars season 9 finale. As of December 2009, I Look to You has been certified platinum by the RIAA for sales of more than one million copies in the United States. On January 26, 2010, her debut album was re-released in a special edition entitled Whitney Houston – The Deluxe Anniversary Edition. \n\nHouston later embarked on a world tour, entitled the Nothing but Love World Tour. It was her first world tour in over ten years and was announced as a triumphant comeback. However, some poor reviews and rescheduled concerts brought some negative media attention. Houston canceled some concerts because of illness and received widespread negative reviews from fans who were disappointed in the quality of her voice and performance. Some fans reportedly walked out of her concerts. \n\nIn January 2010, Houston was nominated for two NAACP Image Awards, one for Best Female Artist and one for Best Music Video. She won the award for Best Music Video for her single \"I Look to You\". On January 16, she received The BET Honors Award for Entertainer citing her lifetime achievements spanning over 25 years in the industry. The 2010 BET Honors award was held at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C. and aired on February 1, 2010. Jennifer Hudson and Kim Burrell performed in honor of her, garnering positive reviews. Houston also received a nomination from the Echo Awards, Germany's version of the Grammys, for Best International Artist. In April 2010, the UK newspaper The Mirror reported that Houston was thinking about recording her eighth studio album and wanted to collaborate with will.i.am (of The Black Eyed Peas), her first choice for a collaboration. \n\nHouston also performed the song \"I Look to You\" on the 2011 BET Celebration of Gospel, with gospel–jazz singer Kim Burrell, held at the Staples Center, Los Angeles. The performance aired on January 30, 2011. Early in 2011, she gave an uneven performance in tribute to cousin Dionne Warwick at music mogul Clive Davis' annual pre-Grammy gala. In May 2011, Houston enrolled in a rehabilitation center again, as an out-patient, citing drug and alcohol problems. A representative for Houston said that it was a part of Houston's \"longstanding recovery process\". \n\nIn September 2011, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Houston would produce and star alongside Jordin Sparks and Mike Epps in the remake of the 1976 film Sparkle. In the film, Houston portrays Sparks' \"not-so encouraging\" mother. Houston is also credited as an executive producer of the film. Debra Martin Chase, producer of Sparkle, stated that Houston deserved the title considering she had been there from the beginning in 2001, when Houston obtained Sparkle production rights. R&B singer Aaliyah – originally tapped to star as Sparkle – died in a 2001 plane crash. Her death derailed production, which would have begun in 2002. Houston's remake of Sparkle was filmed in the fall of 2011 over a two-month period, and was released by TriStar Pictures. On May 21, 2012, \"Celebrate\", the last song Houston recorded with Sparks, premiered at RyanSeacrest.com. It was made available for digital download on iTunes on June 5. The song was featured on the Sparkle: Music from the Motion Picture soundtrack as the first official single. The movie was released on August 17, 2012 in the United States. The accompanying music video for \"Celebrate\" was filmed on May 30, 2012. The video was shot over 2 days, and a sneak peek of the video premiered on Entertainment Tonight on June 4, 2012. \n\nDeath and funeral\n\nOn February 9, 2012, Houston visited singers Brandy and Monica, together with Clive Davis, at their rehearsals for Davis' pre-Grammy Awards party at The Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills. That same day, she made her last public performance, when she joined Kelly Price on stage in Hollywood, California, and sang \"Jesus Loves Me\". \n\nTwo days later, on February 11, Houston was found unconscious in Suite 434 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, submerged in the bathtub. Beverly Hills paramedics arrived at approximately 3:30 p.m. and found the singer unresponsive and performed CPR. Houston was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m. PST. The cause of death was not immediately known. Local police said there were \"no obvious signs of criminal intent.\" On March 22, 2012, the Los Angeles County coroner's office reported the cause of Houston's death was drowning and the \"effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use.\" The office stated the amount of cocaine found in Houston's body indicated that she used the substance shortly before her death. Toxicology results revealed additional drugs in her system: diphenhydramine, alprazolam, cannabis and cyclobenzaprine. The manner of death was listed as an \"accident.\" \n\nHouston had an invitation-only memorial on Saturday, February 18, 2012, at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey. The service was scheduled for two hours, but lasted four. Among those who performed at the funeral were Stevie Wonder (rewritten version of \"Ribbon in the Sky\", and \"Love's in Need of Love Today\"), CeCe Winans (\"Don't Cry\", and \"Jesus Loves Me\"), Alicia Keys (\"Send Me an Angel\"), Kim Burrell (rewritten version of \"A Change Is Gonna Come\"), and R. Kelly (\"I Look to You\"). The performances were interspersed with hymns by the church choir and remarks by Clive Davis, Houston's record producer; Kevin Costner; Rickey Minor, her music director; her cousin, Dionne Warwick; and Ray Watson, her security guard for the past 11 years. Aretha Franklin was listed on the program and was expected to sing, but was unable to attend the service. Bobby Brown, Houston's ex-husband, was also invited to the funeral but he left before the service began. Houston was buried on February 19, 2012, in Fairview Cemetery, in Westfield, New Jersey, next to her father, John Russell Houston, who died in 2003. In June 2012, the McDonald's Gospelfest in Newark became a tribute to Houston. \n\nReaction\n\nPre-Grammy party\n\nThe Clive Davis's pre-Grammy party that Houston was expected to attend, which featured many of the biggest names in music and movies, went on as scheduled although it was quickly turned into a tribute to Houston. Davis spoke about Houston's death at the evening's start: \"By now you have all learned of the unspeakably tragic news of our beloved Whitney's passing. I don't have to mask my emotion in front of a room full of so many dear friends. I am personally devastated by the loss of someone who has meant so much to me for so many years. Whitney was so full of life. She was so looking forward to tonight even though she wasn't scheduled to perform. Whitney was a beautiful person and a talent beyond compare. She graced this stage with her regal presence and gave so many memorable performances here over the years. Simply put, Whitney would have wanted the music to go on and her family asked that we carry on.\" \n\nTony Bennett spoke of Houston's death before performing at Davis's party. He said, \"First, it was Michael Jackson, then Amy Winehouse, now, the magnificent Whitney Houston.\" Bennett sang \"How Do You Keep the Music Playing?\" and said of Houston, \"When I first heard her, I called Clive Davis and said, 'You finally found the greatest singer I've ever heard in my life.'\" \n\nSome celebrities opposed Davis' decision to continue on the party while a police investigation was being conducted in Houston's hotel room and her body was still in the building. Chaka Khan, in an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan on February 13, 2012, shared that she felt the party should have been canceled, saying: \"I thought that was complete insanity. And knowing Whitney I don't believe that she would have said 'the show must go on.' She's the kind of woman that would've said 'Stop everything! Un-unh. I'm not going to be there.' [...] I don't know what could motivate a person to have a party in a building where the person whose life he had influenced so enormously and whose life had been affected by hers. They were like... I don't understand how that party went on.\" Sharon Osbourne condemned the Davis party, declaring: \"I think it was disgraceful that the party went on. I don't want to be in a hotel room when there's someone you admire who's tragically lost their life four floors up. I'm not interested in being in that environment and I think when you grieve someone, you do it privately, you do it with people who understand you. I thought it was so wrong.\" \n\nFurther reaction and tributes\n\nMany other celebrities released statements responding to Houston's death. Darlene Love, Houston's godmother, hearing the news of her death, said, \"It felt like I had been struck by a lightning bolt in my gut.\" Dolly Parton, whose song \"I Will Always Love You\" was covered by Houston, said, \"I will always be grateful and in awe of the wonderful performance she did on my song, and I can truly say from the bottom of my heart, 'Whitney, I will always love you. You will be missed.'\" Aretha Franklin said, \"It's so stunning and unbelievable. I couldn't believe what I was reading coming across the TV screen.\" Others paying tribute included Mariah Carey, Quincy Jones and Oprah Winfrey. \n\nMoments after news of her death emerged, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News all broke from their regularly scheduled programming to dedicate time to non-stop coverage of Houston's death. All three featured live interviews with people who had known Houston including those that had worked with her, interviewed her along with some of her peers in the music industry. Saturday Night Live displayed a photo of a smiling Houston, alongside Molly Shannon, from her 1996 appearance. MTV and VH-1 interrupted their regularly scheduled programming on Sunday February 12 to air many of Houston's classic videos with MTV often airing news segments in between and featuring various reactions from fans and celebrities.\n\nHouston's former husband, Bobby Brown, was reported to be \"in and out of crying fits\" since receiving the news. He did not cancel a scheduled performance and within hours of his ex-wife's sudden death, an audience in Mississippi observed as Brown blew kisses skyward, tearfully saying: \"I love you, Whitney.\" \n\nKen Ehrlich, executive producer of the 54th Grammy Awards, announced that Jennifer Hudson would perform a tribute to Houston at the February 12, 2012 ceremony. He said \"event organizers believed Hudson – an Academy Award-winning actress and Grammy Award-winning artist – could perform a respectful musical tribute to Houston.\" Ehrlich went on to say: \"It's too fresh in everyone's memory to do more at this time, but we would be remiss if we didn't recognize Whitney's remarkable contribution to music fans in general, and in particular her close ties with the Grammy telecast and her Grammy wins and nominations over the years.\" At the start of the awards ceremony, footage of Houston performing \"I Will Always Love You\" from the 1994 Grammys was shown following a prayer read by host LL Cool J. Later in the program, following a montage of photos of musicians who died in 2011 with Houston singing \"Saving All My Love for You\" at the 1986 Grammys, Hudson paid tribute to Houston and the other artists by performing \"I Will Always Love You\". The tribute was partially credited for the Grammys telecast getting its second highest ratings in history. \n\nHouston was honored in the form of various tributes at the 43rd NAACP Image Awards, held on February 17. An image montage of Houston and important black figures who died in 2011 was followed by video footage from the 1994 ceremony, which depicted her accepting two Image Awards for outstanding female artist and entertainer of the year. Following the video tribute, Yolanda Adams delivered a rendition of \"I Love the Lord\" from The Preacher's Wife Soundtrack. In the finale of the ceremony, Kirk Franklin and the Family started their performance with \"The Greatest Love of All\". The 2012 BRIT Awards, which took place at London's O2 Arena on February 21, also paid tribute to Houston by playing a 30-second video montage of her music videos with a snippet of \"One Moment in Time\" as the background music in the ceremony's first segment. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said that all New Jersey state flags would be flown at half-staff on Tuesday, February 21 to honor Houston. Houston was also featured, alongside other recently deceased figures from the movie industry, in the In Memoriam montage at the 84th Academy Awards on February 26, 2012. \n\nArtistry and legacy\n\nVoice\n\nHouston was a mezzo-soprano, and was commonly referred to as \"The Voice\" in reference to her exceptional vocal talent. She was third in MTV's list of 22 Greatest Voices, and sixth on Online Magazine COVEs list of the 100 Best Pop Vocalists with a score of 48.5/50. Jon Pareles of The New York Times stated she \"always had a great big voice, a technical marvel from its velvety depths to its ballistic middle register to its ringing and airy heights\". In 2008, Rolling Stone listed Houston as the thirty-fourth of the 100 greatest singers of all time, stating, \"Her voice is a mammoth, coruscating cry: Few vocalists could get away with opening a song with 45 unaccompanied seconds of singing, but Houston's powerhouse version of Dolly Parton's 'I Will Always Love You' is a tour de force.\" Matthew Perpetua from Rolling Stone also eulogized Houston's vocal, enumerating ten performances, including \"How Will I Know\" from the 1986 MTV VMAs and \"The Star Spangled Banner\" at the 1991 Super Bowl. \"Whitney Houston was blessed with an astonishing vocal range and extraordinary technical skill, but what truly made her a great singer was her ability to connect with a song and drive home its drama and emotion with incredible precision\", he stated. \"She was a brilliant performer, and her live shows often eclipsed her studio recordings.\" \n\nJon Caramanica of The New York Times commented, \"Her voice was clean and strong, with barely any grit, well suited to the songs of love and aspiration. [...] Hers was a voice of triumph and achievement, and it made for any number of stunning, time-stopping vocal performances.\" Mariah Carey stated, \"She [Whitney] has a really rich, strong mid-belt that very few people have. She sounds really good, really strong.\" While in her review of I Look to You, music critic Ann Powers of the Los Angeles Times writes, \"[Houston's voice] stands like monuments upon the landscape of 20th century pop, defining the architecture of their times, sheltering the dreams of millions and inspiring the climbing careers of countless imitators\", adding \"When she was at her best, nothing could match her huge, clean, cool mezzo-soprano.\"\n\nLauren Everitt from BBC News Magazine commented on melisma used in Houston's recording and its influence. \"An early 'I' in Whitney Houston's 'I Will Always Love You' takes nearly six seconds to sing. In those seconds the former gospel singer-turned-pop star packs a series of different notes into the single syllable\", stated Everitt. \"The technique is repeated throughout the song, most pronouncedly on every 'I' and 'you'. The vocal technique is called melisma, and it has inspired a host of imitators. Other artists may have used it before Houston, but it was her rendition of Dolly Parton's love song that pushed the technique into the mainstream in the 90s. [...] But perhaps what Houston nailed best was moderation.\" Everitt said that \"[i]n a climate of reality shows ripe with 'oversinging,' it's easy to appreciate Houston's ability to save melisma for just the right moment.\" \n\nHouston's vocal stylings have had a significant impact on the music industry. According to Linda Lister in Divafication: The Deification of Modern Female Pop Stars, she has been called the \"Queen of Pop\" for her influence during the 1990s, commercially rivaling Mariah Carey and Celine Dion.\"If Ella Fitzgerald is the queen of jazz, Billie Holiday first lady of the blues, and Aretha Franklin the queen of soul, then who is the queen of pop? In the 1990s, it would seem to be a three-way tie between Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and Celine Dion. Certainly all three have their devotees and detractors, but their presence has been inescapable.\" in Stephen Holden from The New York Times, in his review of Houston's Radio City Music Hall concert on July 20, 1993, praised her attitude as a singer, writing, \"Whitney Houston is one of the few contemporary pop stars of whom it might be said: the voice suffices. While almost every performer whose albums sell in the millions calls upon an entertainer's bag of tricks, from telling jokes to dancing to circus pyrotechnics, Ms. Houston would rather just stand there and sing.\" With regard to her singing style, he added: \"Her [Houston's] stylistic trademarks – shivery melismas that ripple up in the middle of a song, twirling embellishments at the ends of phrases that suggest an almost breathless exhilaration – infuse her interpretations with flashes of musical and emotional lightning.\" \n\nElysa Gardner of the Los Angeles Times in her review for The Preacher's Wife Soundtrack praised Houston's vocal ability highly, commenting, \"She is first and foremost a pop diva – at that, the best one we have. No other female pop star – not Mariah Carey, not Celine Dion, not Barbra Streisand – quite rivals Houston in her exquisite vocal fluidity and purity of tone, and her ability to infuse a lyric with mesmerizing melodrama.\" \n\nInfluence\n\nDuring the 1980s, MTV was coming into its own and received criticism for not playing enough videos by black artists. With Michael Jackson breaking down the color barrier for black men, Houston did the same for black women. She became the first black woman to receive heavy rotation on the network following the success of the \"How Will I Know\" video. Following Houston's breakthrough, other African-American women, such as Janet Jackson and Anita Baker, were successful in popular music. Baker commented that \"Because of what Whitney and Sade did, there was an opening for me... For radio stations, black women singers aren't taboo anymore.\" \n\nAllMusic noted her contribution to the success of black artists on the pop scene, commenting, \"Houston was able to handle big adult contemporary ballads, effervescent, stylish dance-pop, and slick urban contemporary soul with equal dexterity\" and that \"the result was an across-the-board appeal that was matched by scant few artists of her era, and helped her become one of the first black artists to find success on MTV in Michael Jackson's wake\". The New York Times stated that \"Houston was a major catalyst for a movement within black music that recognized the continuity of soul, pop, jazz and gospel vocal traditions\". Richard Corliss of Time magazine commented on her initial success breaking various barriers:Of her first album's ten cuts, six were ballads. This chanteuse [Houston] had to fight for air play with hard rockers. The young lady had to stand uncowed in the locker room of macho rock. The soul strutter had to seduce a music audience that anointed few black artists with superstardom. [...] She was a phenomenon waiting to happen, a canny tapping of the listener's yen for a return to the musical middle. And because every new star creates her own genre, her success has helped other blacks, other women, other smooth singers find an avid reception in the pop marketplace. \n\nStephen Holden of The New York Times said that Houston \"revitalized the tradition of strong gospel-oriented pop-soul singing\". Ann Powers of the Los Angeles Times referred to the singer as a \"national treasure\". Jon Caramanica, other music critic of The New York Times, called Houston \"R&B's great modernizer\", adding \"slowly but surely reconciling the ambition and praise of the church with the movements and needs of the body and the glow of the mainstream\". He also drew comparisons between Houston's influence and other big names' on 1980s pop:She was, alongside Michael Jackson and Madonna, one of the crucial figures to hybridize pop in the 1980s, though her strategy was far less radical than that of her peers. Jackson and Madonna were by turns lascivious and brutish and, crucially, willing to let their production speak more loudly than their voices, an option Ms. Houston never went for. Also, she was less prolific than either of them, achieving most of her renown on the strength of her first three solo albums and one soundtrack, released from 1985 to 1992. If she was less influential than they were in the years since, it was only because her gift was so rare, so impossible to mimic. Jackson and Madonna built worldviews around their voices; Ms. Houston’s voice was the worldview. She was someone more to be admired, like a museum piece, than to be emulated.\n\nThe Independents music critic Andy Gill also wrote about Houston's influence on modern R&B and singing competitions, comparing it to Michael Jackson's. \"Because Whitney, more than any other single artist ― Michael Jackson included ― effectively mapped out the course of modern R&B, setting the bar for standards of soul vocalese, and creating the original template for what we now routinely refer to as the 'soul diva' \", stated Gill. \"Jackson was a hugely talented icon, certainly, but he will be as well remembered (probably more so) for his presentational skills, his dazzling dance moves, as for his musical innovations. Whitney, on the other hand, just sang, and the ripples from her voice continue to dominate the pop landscape.\" Gill said that there \"are few, if any, Jackson imitators on today's TV talent shows, but every other contestant is a Whitney wannabe, desperately attempting to emulate that wondrous combination of vocal effects – the flowing melisma, the soaring mezzo-soprano confidence, the tremulous fluttering that carried the ends of lines into realms of higher yearning\". \n\nHouston was considered by many to be a \"singer's singer\", who had an influence on countless other vocalists, both female and male. Similarly, Steve Huey from Allmusic wrote that the shadow of Houston's prodigious technique still looms large over nearly every pop diva and smooth urban soul singer – male or female – in her wake, and spawned a legion of imitators. Rolling Stone, on her biography, stated that Houston \"redefined the image of a female soul icon and inspired singers ranging from Mariah Carey to Rihanna\". Essence ranked Houston sixth on their list of 50 Most Influential R&B Stars of all time, calling her \"the diva to end all divas\". \n\nA number of artists have acknowledged Houston as an influence, including Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Toni Braxton, Christina Aguilera, LeAnn Rimes, Jessica Simpson, Nelly Furtado, Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears,\"Everybody Talk About Pop Music!\". MTV. August 2001. Ciara, P!nk, Aneeka, Ashanti, Robin Thicke, Jennifer Hudson, Stacie Orrico, Amerie, Destiny's Child, and Ariana Grande. Mariah Carey, who was often compared to Houston, said, \"She [Houston] has been a big influence on me.\" She later told USA Today that \"none of us would sound the same if Aretha Franklin hadn't ever put out a record, or Whitney Houston hadn't.\" Celine Dion who was the third member of the troika that dominated female pop singing in the 1990s, did a telephone interview with Good Morning America on February 13, 2012, telling \"Whitney's been an amazing inspiration for me. I've been singing with her my whole career, actually. I wanted to have a career like hers, sing like her, look beautiful like her.\" Beyoncé told the Globe and Mail that Houston \"inspired [her] to get up there and do what [she] did\". She also wrote on her website on the day after Houston's death, \"I, like every singer, always wanted to be just like [Houston]. Her voice was perfect. Strong but soothing. Soulful and classic. Her vibrato, her cadence, her control. So many of my life's memories are attached to a Whitney Houston song. She is our queen and she opened doors and provided a blueprint for all of us.\" \n\nMary J. Blige said that Houston inviting her onstage during VH1's Divas Live show in 1999 \"opened doors for [her] all over the world\". Brandy stated, \"The first Whitney Houston CD was genius. That CD introduced the world to her angelic yet powerful voice. Without Whitney, half of this generation of singers wouldn't be singing.\" Kelly Rowland, in an Ebony feature article celebrating black music in June 2006, recalled that \"[I] wanted to be a singer after I saw Whitney Houston on TV singing 'Greatest Love of All'. I wanted to sing like Whitney Houston in that red dress.\" She added that \"And I have never, ever forgotten that song [Greatest Love of All]. I learned it backward, forward, sideways. The video still brings chills to me. When you wish and pray for something as a kid, you never know what blessings God will give you.\" \n\nAlicia Keys said \"Whitney is an artist who inspired me from [the time I was] a little girl.\" Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson cites Houston as her biggest musical influence. She told Newsday that she learned from Houston the \"difference between being able to sing and knowing how to sing\". Leona Lewis, who has been called \"the new Whitney Houston\", also cites her as an influence. Lewis stated that she idolized her as a little girl. \n\nAwards and achievements\n\nHouston was the most awarded female artist of all time, according to Guinness World Records, with two Emmy Awards, six Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, 22 American Music Awards, among a total of 415 career awards as of 2010. She held the all-time record for the most American Music Awards of any female solo artist and shared the record with Michael Jackson for the most AMAs ever won in a single year with eight wins in 1994. Houston won a record 11 Billboard Music Awards at its fourth ceremony in 1993. She also had the record for the most WMAs won in a single year, winning five awards at the 6th World Music Awards in 1994. \n\nIn May 2003, Houston placed at number three on VH1's list of \"50 Greatest Women of the Video Era\", behind Madonna and Janet Jackson. She was also ranked at number 116 on their list of the \"200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons of All Time\". In 2008, Billboard magazine released a list of the Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists to celebrate the US singles chart's 50th anniversary, ranking Houston at number nine. Similarly, she was ranked as one of the \"Top 100 Greatest Artists of All Time\" by VH1 in September 2010. In November 2010, Billboard released its \"Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years\" list and ranked Houston at number three who not only went on to earn eight number-one singles on the R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but also landed five number ones on R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. \n\nHouston's debut album is listed as one of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time by Rolling Stone magazine and is on Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's Definitive 200 list. In 2004, Billboard picked the success of her first release on the charts as one of 110 Musical Milestones in its history. Houston's entrance into the music industry is considered one of the 25 musical milestones of the last 25 years, according to USA Today in 2007. It stated that she paved the way for Mariah Carey's chart-topping vocal gymnastics. In 1997, the Franklin School in East Orange, New Jersey was renamed to The Whitney E. Houston Academy School of Creative and Performing Arts. In 2001, Houston was the first artist to be given a BET Lifetime Achievement Award. Houston is one of pop music's best-selling music artists of all-time, with an estimated 170–200 million records sold worldwide. She was ranked as the fourth best-selling female artist in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America, with 55 million certified albums sold in the US, and held an Honorary Doctorate in Humanities from Grambling State University, Louisiana. Houston was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2013. In August 2014, Houston was inducted to the official Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in its second class. \n\nFilm\n\nOn April 27 2016, it was announced that the British Academy Award winning film director Kevin Macdonald, who created Marley (2012) and the production team, Altitude, behind the controversial award-winning film about Amy Winehouse, Amy (2015), that a documentary film on Whitney Houston's life and death, entitled simply as Whitney is in progress and is scheduled to be released in 2017. This is the first documentary to be officially authorized by the estate that will tell the unvarnished and authentic story of the singer’s life in a film, including access to never-before-seen footage of Houston, exclusive demo recordings, rare performances and audio archive. Macdonald also will interview those who knew her best, including Clive Davis, founder and president of Arista Records. Macdonald stated; \"The story that is never told about Whitney is just how brilliant she was as an artist; by many measures she had the greatest voice of the last 50 years. She changed the way pop music was sung - bringing it back full circle to its blues and gospel roots. She was also completely unique in being a black pop star who transcended her race globally with her work sold in countries where black artists don’t sell.\" \n\nDiscography\n\nWhitney Houston (1985)\nWhitney (1987)\nI'm Your Baby Tonight (1990)\nMy Love Is Your Love (1998)\nJust Whitney... (2002)\nOne Wish: The Holiday Album (2003)\nI Look to You (2009)\n\nFilmography\n\nTours and concerts\n\n;World tours\n The Greatest Love World Tour (1986)\n* Moment of Truth World Tour (1987–88)\n* I'm Your Baby Tonight World Tour (1991)\n* The Bodyguard World Tour (1993–94)\n* My Love Is Your Love World Tour (1999)\n* Nothing but Love World Tour (2010)\n\n;Regional tours\n* Feels So Right Tour (1990)\n* Pacific Rim Tour (1997)\n* The European Tour (1998)\n* Soul Divas Tour (2004)\n\n;Televised concerts\n* Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute (1988)\n* Welcome Home Heroes with Whitney Houston (1991)\n* The Concert for a New South Africa (1994)\n* Classic Whitney: Live from Washington, D.C. (1997)\n* Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Special (2001)" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Ted White Jr", "Aretha Louise Franklin", "Arethra Franklin", "Queen of Soul", "Queen of soul", "Aretha Franklin", "The Queen In Waiting (Aretha Franklin album)", "The Queen of Soul", "The Collection (Aretha Franklin album)", "Eddie Franklin" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "aretha louise franklin", "aretha franklin", "queen of soul", "arethra franklin", "queen in waiting aretha franklin album", "ted white jr", "eddie franklin", "collection aretha franklin album" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "aretha franklin", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Aretha Franklin" }
Which Russian-born American wrote I, Robot?	tc_1258	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "I,_Robot_(short_story).txt" ], "title": [ "I, Robot (short story)" ], "wiki_context": [ "\"I, Robot\" is a science fiction short story by Eando Binder (nom de plume for Earl and Otto Binder), part of a series about a robot named Adam Link. It was published in the January 1939 issue of Amazing Stories, well before the related and better-known book I, Robot (1950), a collection of short stories, by Isaac Asimov. Asimov was heavily influenced by the Binder short story.\n\nPlot\n\nThe story is about a robot's confession. Some weeks earlier, its builder, Dr. Charles Link, built it in the basement. Link teaches his robot to walk, talk and behave civilly. Link's housekeeper sees the robot just enough to be horrified by it, but his dog is totally loyal to it. The robot is fully educated in a few weeks, Link then names it Adam Link, and it professes a desire to serve any human master who will have it. Soon afterwards, a heavy object falls on Dr. Link by accident and kills him. His housekeeper instantly assumes that the robot has murdered Dr. Link, and calls in armed men to hunt it down and destroy it. They don't succeed; in fact, they provoke the robot to retaliate, both by refusing to listen to it and by accidentally killing Dr. Link's dog. Back at the house, the robot finds a copy of Frankenstein, which Dr. Link had carefully hidden from the robot, and finally somewhat understands the prejudice against it. But in the end the robot decides that it simply isn't worth killing several people just to get a hearing, writes its confession, and prepares to turn itself off.\n\nAdaptations\n\nBinder's story was very innovative for its time, one of the first robot stories to break away from the Frankenstein clichés.\n\nThree of the Adam Link stories were adapted by Al Feldstein and illustrated by Joe Orlando in 1955 issues of the EC (Entertaining Comics) publication Weird Science-Fantasy. Published were \"I, Robot,\" in issue #27 (January-February); \"The Trial of Adam Link,\" in #28 (March-April); and \"Adam Link in Business,\" in #29 (May-June).\n\nA decade later, Binder adapted eight of the stories for Creepy magazine over 1965-1967, and Orlando provided new artwork. The stories were \"I, Robot\" (issue #2); \"The Trial of Adam Link\" (#4); \"Adam Link in Business\" (#6); \"Adam Link's Mate\" (#8); \"Adam Link's Vengeance\" (#9); \"Adam Link, Robot Detective\" (#12); \"Adam Link, Gangbuster\" (#13); and \"Adam Link, Champion Athlete\" (#15).\n\n“I, Robot” plus “The Trial of Adam Link, Robot” were adapted for an episode of the 1960s science fiction anthology series The Outer Limits in 1964, starring Leonard Nimoy as a journalist and Howard Da Silva as the robot's lawyer, with Read Morgan as Adam Link. In this version, Adam is caught and put on trial. While the death of Dr. Link is shown in flashback as an accident, in the end Adam is found guilty. On the way to be transported to his execution, a girl runs out into traffic and Adam rushes to save her from the oncoming vehicle. He is broken into pieces, \"cheating the executioner\".\n\nFor the 1990s revival of the Outer Limits series, the story was again reprised with Leonard Nimoy as the robot's lawyer and John Novak as the voice of the robot. In this version, the robot kills his creator when Dr. Link attempts to convert him into a military killing machine by destroying his more human qualities. Similar to the 1964 episode, Adam is put on trial and in the end he is destroyed by a speeding vehicle while saving a human life (this time, the District Attorney).\n\nInfluence on Isaac Asimov\n\nIsaac Asimov was heavily influenced by the Binder short story. In his introduction to the story in Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories (1979), Asimov wrote: \"It certainly caught my attention. Two months after I read it, I began 'Robbie', about a sympathetic robot, and that was the start of my positronic robot series. Eleven years later, when nine of my robot stories were collected into a book, the publisher named the collection I, Robot over my objections. My book is now the more famous, but Otto's story was there first.\"" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Isaac Asimov complete bibliography", "Issac asimov", "Dr A", "Complete bibliography of books by Isaac Asimov", "World Season Calendar", "IsaacAsimov", "Dr. A", "Eyzek Asimov", "Isaac Asimov bibliography", "Issac assimov", "Asimov's work", "Isaac azimov", "List of books by Isaac Asimov", "Asimov’s work", "Isaac asimov", "Isaak Yudovich Ozimov", "Asimov, Isaac", "Asimovian", "George E. 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In which state were Bonnie & Clyde killed?	tc_1259	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "Search" ], "filename": [ "Bonnie_and_Clyde.txt" ], "title": [ "Bonnie and Clyde" ], "wiki_context": [ "Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (October 1, 1910 – May 23, 1934) and Clyde Chestnut Barrow a.k.a. Clyde Champion Barrow (March 24, 1909 – May 23, 1934) were American criminals who traveled the central United States with their gang during the Great Depression, robbing and killing people. At times, the gang included Clyde's older brother Buck Barrow and his wife Blanche, Raymond Hamilton, W. D. Jones, Joe Palmer, Ralph Fults, and Henry Methvin. Their exploits captured the attention of the American public during the \"Public Enemy Era,\" between 1931 and 1935. Though known today for their dozen-or-so bank robberies, the two preferred to rob small stores or rural gas stations. The gang is believed to have killed at least nine police officers and several civilians. The couple were eventually ambushed and killed by law officers near the town of Sailes, in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. Their reputation was revived and cemented in American pop folklore by Arthur Penn's 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, in which they were played by Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.\n\nEven during their lifetimes, their depiction in the press was at considerable odds with the hardscrabble reality of their life on the road, especially for Bonnie Parker. She was present at a hundred or more felonies during the two years she was Barrow's companion, but she was not a machine gun-wielding killer as depicted in the newspapers, newsreels, and pulp detective magazines of that time. Gang member W. D. Jones later testified he could not recall ever having seen her shoot at a law officer. Jones, W.D. [http://www.cinetropic.com/janeloisemorris/commentary/bonn%26clyde/wdjones.html \"Riding with Bonnie and Clyde\"], Playboy, November 1968. Reprinted at Cinetropic.com. Bonnie's reputation as a cigar-smoking gun moll grew out of a playful snapshot police found at an abandoned hideout. It was released to the press and published nationwide. Parker did chain smoke Camel cigarettes, but she never smoked cigars. \n\nHistorian Jeff Guinn writes that the hideout photos led to Parker's glamorization and the creation of legends about the gang:John Dillinger had matinee-idol good looks and Pretty Boy Floyd had the best possible nickname, but the Joplin photos introduced new criminal superstars with the most titillating trademark of all—illicit sex. Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were wild and young, and undoubtedly slept together. \n\nBonnie Parker\n \n\nBonnie Elizabeth Parker (October 1, 1910 – May 23, 1934) was born in Rowena, Texas, the second of three children. Her father, Charles Parker, was a bricklayer who died when Bonnie was four. Her mother, Emma (Krause) Parker moved her family to her parents' home in Cement City, an industrial suburb now known as West Dallas. She worked as a seamstress. Her maternal grandfather, Frank Krause, came from Germany. As an adult, her fondness for writing found expression in poems such as \"The Story of Suicide Sal\" and \"The Trail's End\" (known since as \"The Story of Bonnie and Clyde\" ).\n\nIn her second year in high school, Parker met Roy Thornton. They dropped out of school and were married on September 25, 1926, six days before her 16th birthday. Their marriage, marked by his frequent absences and brushes with the law, was short-lived. After January 1929, their paths never crossed again. However, they never divorced, and Bonnie was wearing Thornton's wedding ring when she died. Thornton was still in prison when he heard of her death. He commented, \"I'm glad they went out like they did. It's much better than being caught.\"\n\nIn 1929, after the breakdown of her marriage, Parker lived with her mother and worked as a waitress in Dallas. One of her regular customers in the café was postal worker Ted Hinton, who would join the Dallas Sheriff's Department in 1932. As a posse member in 1934, he participated in her ambush. In the diary she kept briefly early in 1929, Parker wrote of her loneliness, her impatience with life in provincial Dallas, and her love of talking pictures. \n\nClyde Barrow\n\nClyde Chestnut Barrow (March 24, 1909 – May 23, 1934) was born into a poor farming family in Ellis County, Texas, near Telico, a town just southeast of Dallas. He was the fifth of seven children of Henry Basil Barrow (1874–1957) and Cumie T. Walker (1874–1943). They migrated, piecemeal, to Dallas in the early 1920s as part of a wave of resettlement from the impoverished nearby farms to the urban slum known as West Dallas. The Barrows spent their first months in West Dallas living under their wagon. When father Henry had earned enough money to buy a tent, it was a significant improvement for the family. During his lifetime, it was rumored that Clyde was a psychic. \n\nClyde was first arrested in late 1926, after running when police confronted him over a rental car he had failed to return on time. His second arrest, with brother Marvin \"Buck\" Barrow, came soon after, this time for possession of stolen goods (turkeys). Despite having legitimate jobs during the period 1927 through 1929, he also cracked safes, robbed stores, and stole cars. After sequential arrests in 1928 and 1929, he was sent to Eastham Prison Farm in April 1930. While in prison, Barrow used a lead pipe to crush the skull of another inmate, Ed Crowder, who had repeatedly sexually assaulted him. This was Clyde Barrow's first killing. Another inmate took the blame, however. Barrow convinced another inmate to use an axe to chop off two of Barrow's toes in order to excuse him from working hard labor in the fields; Barrow would walk with a limp for the rest of his life as a result. Unbeknownst to Barrow, his mother successfully petitioned a release for him, six days after his intentional injury.\n\nParoled in February 2, 1932, Barrow emerged from Eastham a hardened and bitter criminal. His sister Marie said, \"Something awful sure must have happened to him in prison, because he wasn't the same person when he got out.\" A fellow inmate, Ralph Fults, said he watched him \"change from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake.\" \n\nIn his post-Eastham career, Barrow chose smaller jobs, robbing grocery stores and gas stations, at a rate far outpacing the ten to fifteen bank robberies attributed to him and the Barrow Gang. His favored weapon was the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (called a BAR). According to John Neal Phillips, Barrow's goal in life was not to gain fame or fortune from robbing banks, but to seek revenge against the Texas prison system for the abuses he suffered while serving time. \n\nFirst meeting\n\nSeveral accounts describe Bonnie and Clyde's first meeting, but the most credible version tells that Bonnie Parker met Clyde Barrow on January 5, 1930 at Clarence Clay's (a friend of Clyde) house at 105 Herbert Street. Parker was out of work and was staying in West Dallas to assist a female friend with a broken arm. Barrow dropped by the girl's house while Parker was in the kitchen making hot chocolate. \n\nWhen they met, both were smitten immediately; most historians believe Parker joined Barrow because she was in love. She remained a loyal companion to him as they carried out their crime spree and awaited the violent deaths they viewed as inevitable. \n\nThe Spree\n\n1932: Early jobs, early murders\n\nAfter Barrow was released from prison in February 1932, he and Ralph Fults assembled a rotating core group of associates. They began a series of small robberies, primarily of stores and gas stations; their goal was to collect enough money and firepower to launch a raid of liberation against Eastham prison. On April 19, Bonnie Parker and Fults were captured in a failed hardware store burglary, where they intended to steal firearms, in Kaufman, Texas, and subsequently convicted and jailed. While Parker was released in a few months after the grand jury failed to indict her, Fults was prosecuted and tried; he served time and never rejoined the gang.\n\nOn April 30, Barrow was the driver in a robbery in Hillsboro, Texas, during which the store's owner, J.N. Bucher, was shot and killed. When shown mugshots, the victim's wife identified Barrow as one of the shooters, although he had stayed outside in the car. It was the first time in the crime spree that Barrow was accused of murder.\n\nParker was held in jail until June 17, where she wrote poetry to pass the time. When the Kaufman County grand jury convened, it declined to indict her, and she was released. Within a few weeks, she reunited with Barrow.\n\nOn August 5, while Parker was visiting her mother in Dallas, Barrow, Raymond Hamilton and Ross Dyer were drinking alcohol at a country dance in Stringtown, Oklahoma, when Sheriff C.G. Maxwell and his deputy, Eugene C. Moore, approached them in the parking lot. Barrow and Hamilton opened fire, killing the deputy and gravely wounding the sheriff. This was the first time Barrow and his gang killed a lawman; eventually, they reached a total of nine. On October 11, they allegedly killed Howard Hall at his store during a robbery in Sherman, Texas, though historians have considered this unlikely since 1997. \n\nW. D. Jones had been a friend of the Barrow family since childhood. Only 16 years old on Christmas Eve 1932, he persuaded Barrow to let him join the pair and leave Dallas with them that night. The next day, Jones was initiated when he and Barrow killed Doyle Johnson, a young family man, while stealing his car in Temple, Texas. Less than two weeks later, on January 6, 1933, Barrow killed Tarrant County Deputy Sheriff Malcolm Davis when he, Parker and Jones wandered into a police trap set for another criminal. The total murdered by the gang since April was five.\n\n1933: Buck joins the gang\n\nOn March 22, 1933, Buck Barrow was granted a full pardon and released from prison. Within days, he and his wife Blanche had set up housekeeping with Clyde, Parker and Jones in a temporary hideout at 3347 1/2 Oakridge Drive in Joplin, Missouri. According to family sources, Buck and Blanche were there to visit; they tried to persuade Clyde to surrender to law enforcement.\n\nBonnie and Clyde's next brush with the law arose from their generally suspicious—and conspicuous—behavior, not because they had been identified. The group ran loud, alcohol-fueled card games late into the night in the quiet neighborhood. \"We bought a case of beer a day\", Blanche would later recall. The men came and went noisily at all hours, and Clyde discharged a BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) in the apartment while cleaning it. No neighbors went to the house, but one reported suspicions to the Joplin Police Department.\n\nThe lawmen assembled a five-man force in two cars on April 13 to confront what they suspected were bootleggers living in the garage apartment. Though taken by surprise, Clyde was noted for remaining cool under fire. He, Jones, and Buck quickly killed Detective McGinnis and fatally wounded Constable Harryman. During the escape from the apartment, Parker laid down covering fire with her own BAR, forcing Highway Patrol sergeant G. B. Kahler to duck behind a large oak tree while .30 caliber bullets struck the other side, forcing wood splinters into the sergeant's face. Parker got into the car with the others. They slowed enough to pull in Blanche Barrow from the street, where she was pursuing her dog Snow Ball. The surviving officers later testified that their side had fired only fourteen rounds in the conflict, but one hit Jones in the side, one struck Clyde and was deflected by his suitcoat button, and one grazed Buck after ricocheting off a wall.\n\nThe group escaped the police at Joplin, but left behind most of their possessions at the apartment: items included Buck and Blanche's marriage license, Buck's parole papers (three weeks old), a large arsenal of weapons, a handwritten poem by Bonnie, and a camera with several rolls of undeveloped film. The film was developed at The Joplin Globe and yielded many now-famous photos of Barrow, Parker and Jones clowning and pointing weapons at one another. When the poem and the photos, including one of Parker clenching a cigar in her teeth and a pistol in her hand, went out on the newly installed newswire, the obscure five criminals from Dallas became front-page news across America as the Barrow Gang. The poem \"Story of 'Suicide Sal was an apparent backstory.\n\nFor the next three months, the group ranged from Texas as far north as Minnesota. In May, they tried to rob the bank in Lucerne, Indiana and robbed the bank in Okabena, Minnesota. Previously they had kidnapped Dillard Darby and Sophia Stone at Ruston, Louisiana, in the course of stealing Darby's car; this was one of several incidents between 1932 and 1934 in which they kidnapped lawmen or robbery victims. They usually released their hostages far from home, sometimes with money to help them return home. \n\nStories of such encounters made headlines, as did the more violent episodes. The Barrow Gang did not hesitate to shoot anyone, lawman or civilian, who got in their way. Other members of the Barrow Gang known or thought to have committed murders included Raymond Hamilton, W.D. Jones, Buck Barrow and Henry Methvin. Eventually, the cold-bloodedness of their killings soured the public perception of the outlaws, and led to their ends. \n\nThe photos entertained the public, but the gang was desperate and discontented, as described by Blanche Barrow in her account written while imprisoned in the late 1930s. With their new notoriety, their daily lives became more difficult, as they tried to evade discovery. Restaurants and motels became less secure; they resorted to campfire cooking and bathing in cold streams. The unrelieved, round-the-clock proximity among two couples, plus a fifth-wheel, in one car gave rise to vicious bickering. So unpleasant did it become that W.D. Jones, who was the driver when he and Barrow stole Dillard Darby's car in late April, used that car to leave the others. He stayed away throughout May and up until June 8. \n\nOn June 10, while driving with Jones and Parker near Wellington, Texas, Barrow missed warning signs at a bridge under construction and flipped their car into a ravine. Sources disagree on whether there was a gasoline fire or if Parker was doused with acid from the car's battery under the floorboards. Parker sustained third-degree burns to her right leg so severe the muscles contracted and caused the leg to \"draw up\". \n\nNear the end of her life, Parker could hardly walk; she either hopped on her good leg or was carried by Clyde. After getting help from a nearby farm family and kidnapping two local lawmen, the three outlaws rendezvoused with Blanche and Buck Barrow. They hid in a tourist court near Fort Smith, Arkansas, nursing Parker's burns. Buck and Jones bungled a local robbery and killed Town Marshal Henry D. Humphrey in Alma, Arkansas. With the renewed pursuit by the law, they had to flee despite Parker's grave condition. \n\n1933: Platte City and Dexfield Park\n\nIn 1933, the gang checked into the Red Crown Tourist Court south of Platte City, Missouri (now within the city limits of Kansas City, Missouri). It consisted of two brick cabins joined by garages, and the gang rented both. To the south stood the Red Crown Tavern, a popular restaurant among Missouri Highway Patrolmen. The gang seemed to go out of their way to draw attention: Blanche Barrow registered the party as three guests, but owner Neal Houser could see five people getting out of the car. He noted the driver backed into the garage \"gangster style\", for a quick getaway. Blanche paid for their cabins with coins rather than bills, and repeated that later when buying five dinners and five beers. The next day, Houser noticed that his guests had taped newspapers over the windows of their cabin; Blanche again paid for five meals with coins. Blanche's outfit— jodhpur riding breeches —attracted attention; they were not typical attire for women in the area, and eyewitnesses reminiscing 40 years later mentioned them first. Houser told Captain William Baxter of the Highway Patrol, a patron of his restaurant, about the group.\n\nClyde and Jones went into town to purchase bandages, crackers, cheese, and atropine sulfate to treat Bonnie's leg. The druggist contacted Sheriff Holt Coffey, who put the cabins under surveillance. Coffey had been alerted by Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas law enforcement to watch for strangers seeking such supplies. The sheriff contacted Captain Baxter, who called for reinforcements from Kansas City, including an armored car. At 11 p.m. that night, Sheriff Coffey led a group of officers armed with Thompson submachine guns toward the cabins. \n\nBut in the pitched gunfight at considerable distances, the submachine guns proved no match for Clyde Barrow's preferred Browning Automatic Rifles (BAR), stolen July 7 from the National Guard armory at Enid, Oklahoma. The Barrows laid down fire and escaped when a bullet short-circuited the horn on the armored car and the lawmen mistook it for a cease-fire signal. They did not pursue the retreating Barrow vehicle.\n\nAlthough the gang had evaded the law again, Buck Barrow had sustained a gruesome and ultimately mortal bullet wound to his head that blasted a large hole in his forehead skull bone and exposed his injured brain, and Blanche was nearly blinded by glass fragments in both her eyes. Their prospects for evading a manhunt dwindled.\n\nFive days later, on July 24, the Barrow Gang was camped at Dexfield Park, an abandoned amusement park near Dexter, Iowa. Although he was sometimes semiconscious, and even talked and ate, Buck's massive head wound and loss of blood was so severe that Clyde and Jones dug a grave for him. After their bloody bandages were noticed by local residents, officers determined the campers were the Barrow gang. Local lawmen and approximately one hundred spectators surrounded the group, and the Barrows soon came under fire. Clyde Barrow, Parker, and W.D. Jones escaped on foot. Buck was shot in the back, and he and his wife were captured by the officers. Buck died five days later at Kings Daughters Hospital in Perry, Iowa, of his head wound and pneumonia after surgery.\n\nFor the next six weeks, the remaining trio ranged far afield from their usual area of operations—west to Colorado, north to Minnesota, southeast to Mississippi—keeping a low profile and pulling only small robberies for subsistence. They restocked their arsenal when Barrow and Jones burgled an armory at Plattville, Illinois on August 20, acquiring three BARs, handguns, and a large quantity of ammunition. \n\nBy early September, they risked a run to Dallas to see their families for the first time in four months. Jones parted company with them, continuing to Houston, where his mother had moved. He was arrested there without incident on November 16 and returned to Dallas. Through the autumn, Clyde Barrow executed a series of small-time robberies with a series of small-time local accomplices while his family and Parker's attended to her considerable medical needs.\n\nOn November 22, 1933, they narrowly evaded arrest while trying to hook up with family members near Sowers, Texas. Their hometown sheriff, Dallas' Smoot Schmid, and his squad, Deputies Bob Alcorn and Ted Hinton, lay in wait nearby. As Barrow drove up, he sensed a trap and drove past his family's car, at which point Schmid and his deputies stood up and opened fire with machine guns and a BAR. The family members in the crossfire were not hit, but a BAR bullet passed through the car, striking the legs of both Barrow and Parker. They escaped that night.\n\nThe following week on November 28, a Dallas grand jury delivered a murder indictment against Parker and Barrow for the January 1933 killing of Tarrant County Deputy Malcolm Davis; it was Parker's first warrant for murder.\n\n1934: Final run\n\nOn January 16, 1934, Barrow orchestrated the escape of Raymond Hamilton, Henry Methvin and several others in the infamous \"Eastham Breakout\" of 1934. The brazen raid generated negative publicity for Texas, and Barrow seemed to have achieved what historian Phillips described as his overriding goal: revenge on the Texas Department of Corrections. \n\nDuring the jailbreak, escapee Joe Palmer shot prison officer Major Joe Crowson. This attack attracted the full power of the Texas and federal government to the manhunt for Barrow and Parker. As Crowson struggled for life, prison chief Lee Simmons reportedly promised him that all persons involved in the breakout would be hunted down and killed. All were, except for Henry Methvin, whose life was traded for turning Barrow and Parker over to authorities.\n\nThe Texas Department of Corrections contacted former Texas Ranger Captain Frank A. Hamer, and persuaded him to hunt down the Barrow Gang. Though retired, Hamer had retained his commission, which had not yet expired. He accepted the assignment as a Texas Highway Patrol officer, secondarily assigned to the prison system as a special investigator, and given the specific task of taking Bonnie, Clyde and the Barrow Gang.\n\nTall, burly, taciturn, Hamer was described as unimpressed by authority and driven by an \"inflexible adherence to right, or what he thinks is right.\" For 20 years he had been feared and admired throughout Texas as \"the walking embodiment of the 'One Riot, One Ranger' ethos.\" He \"had acquired a formidable reputation as a result of several spectacular captures and the shooting of a number of Texas criminals.\" He was officially credited with 53 kills (and suffered 17 wounds). Although prison boss Simmons always said publicly that Hamer had been his first choice, there is evidence he approached two other Rangers first, both of whom were reluctant to shoot a woman and declined. Starting February 10, Hamer became the constant shadow of Barrow and Parker, living out of his car, just a town or two behind the bandits. Three of Hamer's brothers were also Texas Rangers, and while brother Harrison was the best shot of the four, Frank was considered the most tenacious. \n\nOn April 1, 1934, Easter Sunday, Barrow and Henry Methvin killed two young highway patrolmen, H. D. Murphy and Edward Bryant Wheeler, at the intersection of Route 114 and Dove Road near Grapevine, Texas (now Southlake). An eyewitness account stated that Barrow and Parker fired the fatal shots, and this story got widespread coverage before it was discredited. Methvin later admitted he fired the first shot, after assuming Barrow wanted the officers killed; he also said that Parker approached the dying officers intending to help them, not to administer the coup de grâce described by the discredited eyewitness. Barrow joined in, firing at Patrolman Murphy. Most likely, Parker was asleep in the back seat when Methvin started shooting and took no part in the assault.\n\nIn the spring of 1934, the Grapevine killings were recounted in exaggerated detail, affecting public perception: all four Dallas daily papers seized on the story told by the eyewitness, a farmer, who claimed to have seen Parker laugh at the way Patrolman Murphy's head \"bounced like a rubber ball\" on the ground as she shot him. The stories claimed that police found a cigar butt \"with tiny teeth marks\" supposedly Parker's. Several days later Murphy's fiancee wore her intended wedding dress to his funeral, sparking photos and newspaper coverage. The eyewitness's ever-changing story was soon discredited, but the massive negative publicity, against Parker in particular, increased the public clamor for extermination of the survivors of the Barrow Gang.\n\nThe outcry also galvanized the authorities into action: Highway Patrol boss L.G. Phares immediately offered a $1,000 reward for \"the dead bodies of the Grapevine slayers\"—not their capture, just the bodies. Texas governor Ma Ferguson added another $500 reward for each of the two alleged killers, which \"meant for the first time there was a specific price on Bonnie's head, since she was so widely believed to have shot H.D. Murphy.\" \n\nPublic hostility increased five days later, when Barrow and Methvin killed 60-year-old Constable William \"Cal\" Campbell, a widower single father, near Commerce, Oklahoma. They kidnapped Commerce police chief Percy Boyd, drove around with him, crossing the state line into Kansas, and let him go, giving him a clean shirt, a few dollars, and a request from Parker to tell the world she did not smoke cigars. Boyd identified both Barrow and Parker to authorities but he never learned Methvin's name. The resultant arrest warrant for the Campbell murder specified \"Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker and John Doe.\" Historian Knight writes: \"For the first time, Bonnie was seen as a killer, actually pulling the trigger—just like Clyde. Whatever chance she had for clemency had just been reduced.\"\n\nThe Dallas Journal ran a cartoon on its editorial page showing the Texas electric chair, empty, but with a sign on it saying '\"Reserved\" and \"Clyde and Bonnie\". \n\nDeaths\n\nBarrow and Parker were ambushed and killed on May 23, 1934, on a rural road in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. The couple appeared in daylight in an automobile and were shot by a posse of four Texas officers (Frank Hamer, B.M. \"Manny\" Gault, Bob Alcorn, and Ted Hinton) and two Louisiana officers (Henderson Jordan and Prentiss Morel Oakley). \n\nThe posse was led by Hamer who had begun tracking the pair on February 12, 1934. He studied the gang's movements and found they swung in a circle skirting the edges of five midwestern states, exploiting the \"state line\" rule that prevented officers from one jurisdiction from pursuing a fugitive into another. Barrow was a master of that pre-FBI rule, but consistent in his movements, so the experienced Hamer charted his path and predicted where he would go. The gang's itinerary centered on family visits, and they were due to see Methvin's family in Louisiana.\n\nOn May 21, 1934, the four posse members from Texas were in Shreveport when they learned that Barrow and Parker were to go to Bienville Parish that evening with Methvin. Barrow had designated the residence of Methvin's parents as a rendezvous in case they were separated, and Methvin did get separated from the pair in Shreveport. The full posse, consisting of Captain Hamer, Dallas County Sheriff's Deputies Alcorn and Ted Hinton (both of whom knew Barrow and Parker by sight), former Texas Ranger B.M. \"Manny\" Gault, Bienville Parish Sheriff Henderson Jordan and his deputy Prentiss Oakley, set up an ambush at the rendezvous point along Louisiana State Highway 154 south of Gibsland toward Sailes. Hinton recounted that their group was in place by 9:00 pm on the 21st and waited through the whole next day (May 22) with no sign of the outlaw couple.Hinton, Ted and Larry Grove (1979). [https://books.google.com/books?id\nNcsLAAAACAAJ Ambush: The Real Story of Bonnie and Clyde]. Austin, TX: Shoal Creek Publishers. ISBN 0-88319-041-9. Other accounts said the officers set up on the evening of the 22nd. \t\n\nAt approximately 9:15 a.m. on May 23, the posse, concealed in the bushes and almost ready to concede defeat, heard Barrow's stolen Ford V8 approaching at a high speed. The posse's official report had Barrow stopping to speak with Methvin's father, who had been planted there with his truck that morning to distract Barrow and force him into the lane closer to the posse. The lawmen opened fire, killing Barrow and Parker while shooting a combined total of about 130 rounds. Oakley fired first, probably before any order to do so. Barrow was killed instantly by Oakley's initial head shot, but Hinton reported hearing Parker scream as she realized Barrow was dead, before the shooting at her fully began. The officers emptied all their arms at the car. Any one of the many wounds suffered by Bonnie and Clyde would have been fatal. \n\nAccording to statements made by Ted Hinton and Bob Alcorn:\n\nResearchers have said Bonnie and Clyde were shot more than fifty times each; others claim closer to twenty-five wounds per corpse, or fifty total. Officially, parish coroner Dr. J. L. Wade's 1934 report listed 17 separate entrance wounds on Barrow's body and 26 on Parker's, including several headshots on each, and one that had snapped Barrow's spinal column. Undertaker C. F. \"Boots\" Bailey had difficulty embalming the bodies because of all the bullet holes. \n\nThe temporarily deafened officers inspected the vehicle and discovered an arsenal of weapons, including stolen automatic rifles, sawed-off semi-automatic shotguns, assorted handguns, and several thousand rounds of ammunition, along with 15 sets of license plates from various states.\n \nWord of the ambush quickly got around when Hamer, Jordan, Oakley, and Hinton drove into town to telephone their respective bosses. A crowd soon gathered at the ambush spot. Gault and Alcorn, left to guard the bodies, lost control of the jostling curious; one woman cut off bloody locks of Parker's hair and pieces from her dress, which were subsequently sold as souvenirs. Hinton returned to find a man trying to cut off Barrow's trigger finger, and was sickened by what was occurring. Arriving at the scene, the coroner said he saw the following: \"... nearly everyone had begun collecting souvenirs such as shell casings, slivers of glass from the shattered car windows, and bloody pieces of clothing from the garments of Bonnie and Clyde. One eager man had opened his pocket knife, and was reaching into the car to cut off Clyde's left ear.\"Milner, E.R. [https://books.google.com/books?idbfLXGwAACAAJ The Lives and Times of Bonnie and Clyde.] Southern Illinois University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8093-2552-7. Published 1996.The coroner enlisted Hamer for help in controlling the \"circus-like atmosphere\", and got people away from the car.\n\nThe Ford, with the bodies, was towed to the Conger Furniture Store & funeral parlor in downtown Arcadia. Preliminary embalming was done by Bailey in a small preparation room in back of the furniture store (it was common for furniture and undertakers to be together). The northwest Louisiana town was estimated to swell in population from 2,000 to 12,000 within hours, with the curious throngs arriving by train, horseback, buggy, and plane. Beer, which normally sold for 15 cents a bottle, jumped to 25 cents; ham sandwiches quickly sold out. After identifying his son's body, Henry Barrow sat in a rocking chair in the furniture section and wept.\n\nH.D. Darby, a young undertaker who worked for the McClure Funeral Parlor in nearby Ruston, and Sophia Stone, a home demonstration agent also from Ruston, came to Arcadia to identify the bodies. They had been kidnapped by the Barrow gang the previous year in Ruston, on April 27, 1933, and released near Waldo, Arkansas. Parker reportedly had laughed when she asked Darby his profession and discovered he was an undertaker. She remarked that maybe someday he would be working on her. Darby assisted Bailey in embalming the outlaws.\n\nFuneral and burial\n\nBonnie and Clyde wished to be buried side by side, but the Parker family would not allow it. Mrs. Parker wanted to grant her daughter's final wish, to be brought home, but the mobs surrounding the Parker house made that impossible. More than 20,000 attended Bonnie Parker's funeral, and her family had difficulty reaching her gravesite.\n\nParker's family used the now defunct McKamy-Campbell Funeral Home, then located on Forest Avenue (now Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard) in Dallas, to conduct her funeral. Hubert \"Buster\" Parker accompanied his sister's body to Dallas from Arcadia in the McKamy-Campbell ambulance. Her services were held on Saturday, May 26, 1934, at 2 pm, in the funeral home, directed by Allen D. Campbell. His son, Dr. Allen Campbell, later recalled that flowers came from everywhere, including some with cards allegedly from Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger. The largest floral tribute was sent by a group of Dallas city newsboys; the sudden end of Bonnie and Clyde sold 500,000 newspapers in Dallas alone. Although initially buried in the Fishtrap Cemetery, Parker was moved in 1945 to the new Crown Hill Cemetery in Dallas.\n\nBarrow's family used the Sparkman-Holtz-Brand Morticians, located in downtown Dallas. Thousands of people gathered outside both Dallas funeral homes hoping for a chance to view the bodies. Barrow's private funeral was held at sunset on Friday, May 25, in the funeral home chapel. He was buried in Western Heights Cemetery in Dallas, next to his brother, Marvin. The Barrow brothers share a single granite marker with their names on it and a four-word epitaph previously selected by Clyde: \"Gone but not forgotten.\" \n\nThe life insurance policies for both Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were paid in full by American National of Galveston. Since then, the policy of payouts has changed to exclude payouts in cases of deaths caused by any criminal act by the insured. \n\nThe six men of the posse were each to receive a one-sixth share of the reward money. Dallas Sheriff Schmid had promised Ted Hinton this would total some $26,000, but most of the state, county, and other organizations that had pledged reward funds reneged on their pledges. In the end, each lawman earned $200.23 for his efforts. They collected memorabilia. \n\nThe ambush of Barrow and Parker proved to be the beginning of the end of the \"public enemy era\" of the 1930s. By the summer of 1934, new federal statutes made bank robbery and kidnapping federal offenses; and the growing coordination of local jurisdictions by the FBI, plus two-way radios in police cars, combined to make the outlaw bandit sprees much more difficult to carry out than just months before. Two months after Gibsland, Dillinger was ambushed and killed on the street in Chicago; three months after that, Charles Arthur \"Pretty Boy Floyd\" was killed by 14 FBI bullets in the back in Ohio; and one month after that, Lester \"Baby Face Nelson\" Gillis shot it out, and lost, in Illinois. \n\nControversies\n\nFollowing the ambush, numerous questions arose, based on the differing accounts: Hamer and Gault were both former Texas Rangers then working for the Texas Department of Corrections, Hinton and Alcorn were employees of the Dallas Sheriff's office, and Jordan and Oakley were Sheriff and Deputy of Bienville Parish. The three duos distrusted each other, kept to themselves, and did not much like each other. They each carried differing agendas into the operation and brought differing narratives out of it. Historian Guinn puts it this way:\n\n\"[Hamer's, Simmons's, Jordan's and Hinton's] various testimonies combine into one of the most dazzling displays of deliberate obfuscation in modern history. Such widely varied accounts can't be dismissed as different people honestly recalling the same events different ways. Motive becomes an issue, and they all had reason to lie. Hamer was fanatical about protecting sources. Simmons was interested in resurrecting his own public image ... Jordan wanted to present himself as the critical dealmaker. Nobody can account for Ted Hinton's improbable reminiscences ...\" \n\nBecause their self-serving accounts vary so widely, and because all six men are long deceased, the exact details of the ambush are unknown and unknowable. Lingering questions include whether fair warning was given the fugitives before the firing began, whether Parker should have been classified as a \"shoot-on-sight\" candidate, and the 1970s-era accusations of Deputy Hinton.\n\nCalling a \"Halt!\"\n\nDallas Sheriff Schmid had previously warned Clyde Barrow before an ambush at Sowers, Texas in November 1933. When he called \"Halt!\", gunfire erupted from the outlaw car, it made a quick U-turn, and he saw rapidly vanishing taillights. Hinton later said it was \"the most futile gesture of the week.\" When the two Louisiana posse officers discussed calling \"Halt!\", the four Texans \"vetoed the idea,\" telling them that Clyde's history had always been to shoot his way out, as had occurred in Platte City, Dexfield Park, and Sowers. It is unlikely that Hamer planned to give warning, but Oakley stood up and opened fire; after a beat, the other officers joined him in firing. Later, Jordan was reported as saying he called out to Barrow, Alcorn said Hamer called out, and Hinton claimed Alcorn did. In another report, they each said they both did. These conflicting claims most likely were collegial attempts to divert the focus from their gun-jumping associate Oakley, who later admitted firing too early.Guinn, p. 357.\n\nWarrants on Parker\n\nDifferent sources have noted five occasions when Bonnie Parker may or may not have fired shots during crises faced by the gang. The number of shots is unimportant as she never hit anyone, let alone murdered. But, she was an accomplice to 100 or more felony criminal acts during her two-year career in crime, including eight murders, seven kidnappings, half-a-dozen bank robberies, scores of felony armed robberies, countless automobile thefts, one major jailbreak and an episode of assault and battery, at a time when being a \"habitual criminal\" was a capital offense in Texas. Because her gang kept on the run, Parker stayed a step ahead of legal entanglements.\n\nAfter Joplin, she became identified among the wanted; the Joplin Police Department issued a Wanted for Murder poster in April 1933 that featured her name and photo first, before Barrow's. In June, another Wanted for Murder poster was distributed by Crawford County, Arkansas, with Parker's name and photo getting first billing. A $250 cash bounty was offered for either of the \"Barrow Brothers\" (Clyde and \"Melvin\"), with an alert to their need for medical care for a woman. \n\nBy November 1933, W.D. Jones was in custody and supplying details of the gang's 1933 activities; a grand jury was empaneled in Dallas to hear material and decide on indictments. On November 28, the grand jury indicted Parker, Barrow, and Jones for the murder of Deputy Malcolm Davis in January; Judge Nolan G. Williams of Criminal District Court No. 2 issued arrest warrants for Parker and Barrow for murder. Parker's assistance in the raid on Eastham prison in January 1934 earned her the enmity of a wide group of influential Texans. After being linked to the Grapevine murders, she was marked by a bounty set by the head of the Highway Patrol, and the Governor. Five days later, Barrow and Henry Methvin killed Constable Campbell in Commerce, Oklahoma; the Oklahoma murder warrant named \"Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker and John Doe\" as his killers. \n\nHinton's accusations\n\nA travelling showman called Stanley toured with a lecture that supported some aspects of what Hinton later said. According to Stanley, Hamer had arranged the ambush through Methvin's family, which carried the implication that Hamer had secretly made an agreement that Methvin would escape justice. Methvin, who unlike WD Jones was not a juvenile, served a total of 8 years for being convicted of murdering Constable Campbell in Oklahoma. He was never tried for murdering two highway patrolmen near Grapevine, Texas, which Clyde accused him of in a letter to the Barrows. When Stanley came to Austin, Hamer slapped his face, took his slides and told him to stop putting on his show. Stanley returned to Texas in 1939 for a performance at the State Fair, with Bob Alcorn and Ted Hinton as guards; Hamer did not show up. \n\nIn 1979, Ted Hinton's as-told-to account of the ambush was published posthumously as Ambush. His version of the Methvin family's involvement in the planning and execution of the ambush was that the posse had tied Henry Methvin's father Ivy to a tree the previous night, to keep him from warning the outlaws off. Hinton claimed that Hamer made a deal with Ivy Methvin: keep quiet about being tied up, and his son would escape prosecution for the Grapevine murders. Hinton alleged that Hamer made every member of the posse swear they would never divulge this secret. Other accounts, however, place Methvin Senior at the center of the action, not tied up but on the road, waving for Clyde Barrow to stop Hinton's memoir suggests that the stogie in the famous \"cigar photo\" of Bonnie had been a rose, and it was retouched as a cigar by darkroom staff at the Joplin Globe while preparing the photo for publication. Guinn says that \"some people who knew [Hinton] suspect he became delusional late in life.\" \n\nAftermath\n\nThe smoke from the fusillade had not even cleared before the posse began sifting through the items in the Barrow death car. Hamer appropriated the \"considerable\" arsenal of stolen guns and ammunition, plus a box of fishing tackle, under the terms of his compensation package with the Texas DOC. In July, Clyde's mother Cumie wrote to Hamer asking for the return of the guns: \"You don't never [sic] want to forget my boy was never tried in no court for murder, and no one is guilty until proven guilty by some court so I hope you will answer this letter and also return the guns I am asking for.\"Treherne, p 224 No record exists of any response.\n\nAlcorn claimed Barrow's saxophone from the car, but feeling guilty, later returned it to the Barrow family. Other personal items such as Parker's clothing were also taken, and when the Parker family asked for them back, they were refused. These items were later sold as souvenirs. A rumored suitcase full of cash was said by the Barrow family to have been kept by Sheriff Jordan, \"who soon after the ambush purchased an auction barn and land in Arcadia.\" Jordan also attempted to keep the death car for his own but found himself the target of a lawsuit by Ruth Warren of Topeka, the owner of the car from whom Barrow had stolen the vehicle on April 29; after considerable legal sparring and a court order, Jordan relented and the car was returned to Mrs. Warren in August 1934. It was still covered with blood and tissue. She had to pay an $85 towing and storage bill. \n\nIn February 1935, Dallas and federal authorities conducted a \"harboring trial\" in which 20 family members and friends of the outlaw couple were arrested and jailed for the aid and abetment of Barrow and Parker. All twenty either pleaded or were found guilty. The two mothers were jailed for 30 days; other sentences ranged from two years' imprisonment for Raymond Hamilton's brother Floyd to one hour in custody for teenager Marie Barrow, Clyde's sister. Other defendants included Blanche Barrow, W. D. Jones, Henry Methvin and Bonnie's sister Billie.\n\nBlanche Barrow's injuries left her permanently blinded in her left eye. After the 1933 shootout at Dexfield Park, she was taken into custody on the charge of \"Assault With Intent to Kill.\" She was sentenced to ten years in prison but was paroled in 1939 for good behavior. She returned to Dallas, leaving her life of crime in the past, and lived with her invalid father as his caregiver. She married Eddie Frasure in 1940, worked as a taxi cab dispatcher and a beautician, and completed the terms of her parole one year later. She lived in peace with her husband until he died of cancer in 1969. Warren Beatty approached her to purchase the rights to her name for use in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde. While she agreed to the original script, she objected to her characterization in the final film, describing Estelle Parsons's Academy Award-winning portrayal of her as \"a screaming horse's ass.\" Despite this, she maintained a firm friendship with Beatty. She died from cancer at the age of 77 on December 24, 1988, and was buried in Dallas's Grove Hill Memorial Park under the name \"Blanche B. Frasure\". \n\nBarrow cohorts Raymond Hamilton and Joe Palmer, both Eastham escapees in January 1934, both recaptured, and both subsequently convicted of murder, shared one more thing in common: They were both executed in the electric chair, \"Old Sparky\", at Huntsville, Texas, and both on the same day, May 10, 1935. Barrow protégé W. D. Jones had split from his mentors six weeks after the three slipped the noose at Dexfield Park in July 1933. He found his way to Houston and got a job picking cotton, where he was soon discovered and captured. He was returned to Dallas, where he dictated a \"confession\" in which he claimed to have been kept a prisoner by Barrow and Parker. Some of the more lurid embellishments he made concerned the gang's sex lives, and it was this testimony that gave rise to many of the stories about Barrow's ambiguous sexuality. Jones was convicted of the murder of Doyle Johnson and served a lenient sentence of fifteen years. He struggled for years with substance abuse problems, gave an interview to Playboy during the heyday of excitement surrounding the 1967 movie, and was killed on August 4, 1974 in a misunderstanding by the jealous boyfriend of a woman he was trying to help out. \n\nSubstitute protégé Henry Methvin's ambush-earned Texas pardon didn't help him in Oklahoma, where he was convicted of the 1934 murder of Constable Campbell at Commerce. He was paroled in 1942 and killed by a train in 1948; it was said that he fell asleep, drunk, on the tracks, but there were rumors that he had been pushed by parties seeking revenge for his betrayal of Clyde Barrow. His father Ivy had been killed in 1946 by a hit-and-run driver, and here too there was talk of foul play. Bonnie Parker's husband Roy Thornton was sentenced to five years in prison for burglary in March 1933. He was killed by guards on October 3, 1937, during an escape attempt from Eastham Farm prison. \n\nIn the years after the ambush, Prentiss Oakley, who all six possemen agree fired the first shots, was reported to have been troubled by his actions. He often admitted to his friends that he had fired prematurely and he was the only posse member to express regret publicly. He would go on to succeed Henderson Jordan as sheriff of Bienville Parish in 1940.\n\nFrank Hamer returned to a quieter life as a freelance security consultant — a strikebreaker — for oil companies, although, according to Guinn, \"his reputation suffered somewhat after Gibsland\" because many people felt he had not given Barrow and Parker a fair chance to surrender. He made headlines again in 1948 when he and Governor Coke Stevenson unsuccessfully challenged Lyndon Johnson's vote totals during the election for the U.S. Senate. He died in 1955 at age 71 after several years of poor health. His possemate Bob Alcorn died on May 23, 1964, exactly thirty years to the day after the Gibsland ambush.\n\nThe bullet-riddled Ford which Bonnie and Clyde had driven when they were killed became a popular traveling attraction that was initially displayed at fairs, amusement parks and flea markets for three decades, and became a fixture at a Nevada race track where it could be sat in for a dollar. The car eventually changed hands between casinos after settling momentarily in a Las Vegas car museum in the 1980s, moving between Iowa, Missouri and Nevada. The car is currently on display at Whiskey Pete's in Primm, Nevada. \n\nOn April 1, 2011, the 77th anniversary of the Grapevine murders, Texas Rangers, troopers and DPS staff presented the Yellow Rose of Texas commendation to Ella Wheeler-McLeod, 95, the last surviving sibling of highway patrolman Edward Bryan Wheeler, killed that Easter Sunday by the Barrow Gang. They presented McLeod, of San Antonio, with a plaque and framed portrait of her brother. \n\nIn media\n\nFilm\n\nHollywood has treated the story of Bonnie and Clyde several times, most notably:\n* Dorothy Provine starred in the film The Bonnie Parker Story (1958), directed by William Witney.Walker, John, ed. (1994). Halliwell's Film Guide. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 0-06-273241-2. p. 150\n* Arthur Penn directed the best-known version of the tale, Bonnie and Clyde (1967), which starred Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.\n\nMusic\n\n* In December 1967 Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot recorded the song \"Bonnie and Clyde\", which conveys a highly romanticized account of the pair. The song, one of Gainsbourg's most famous and popular ones, was released in January 1968 on the LP Brigitte Bardot et Serge Gainsbourg, Bonnie and Clyde (Fontana 885529). The recording, with its hypnotic, repetitive string motif and eerie vocals and sound effects, has been sampled widely. The English-language version of the track is sung by Gainsbourg alone and the lyrics are from a poem written by Bonnie Parker.\n* In 1967 Georgie Fame released a single called \"The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde\" (UK #1), whose lyrics tell of Bonnie's and Clyde's exploits. This song was inspired by the movie about them.\n* In 1968 Mel Torme wrote and performed the song \"A Day in the Life of Bonnie and Clyde\", featured on his album of the same name.\n* In 1968 Merle Haggard recorded \"The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde\".\n* In 1996 the German punk band Die Toten Hosen released the song \"Bonnie & Clyde\" on their seventh album Opium fürs Volk.\n* In 2015 the American shoegaze band The Stargazer Lilies released the song \"Bonnie and Clyde\" as a single.\n* In 2016 independent rock band The Cooch Experiment released the song \"Bonnie and Clyde\" on their debut album Starry Robe Sessions.\n\nMusical theater\n\n* On November 20, 2009, La Jolla Playhouse presented the world premiere of the musical Bonnie & Clyde. The production was adapted from the book by Ivan Menchell with music written by Frank Wildhorn and lyrics by Don Black. The cast was led by Laura Osnes as Bonnie and Stark Sands as Clyde. The musical won the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle's Award for Outstanding New Musical and director Jeff Calhoun was honored for Best Direction of a Musical.\n* The next production ran at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida from November 12, 2010 through December 19, 2010, directed again by Jeff Calhoun. In this production Laura Osnes starred once more as Bonnie (for which she has received a nomination for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for the 2011–2012 year) and Jeremy Jordan starred in the role of Clyde, Melissa van der Schyff as Blanche Barrow, and Claybourne Elder as Buck Barrow. Bonnie & Clyde began previews on Broadway on November 4, 2011, with an official opening on December 1, 2011. The show closed on December 30, 2011 after 69 performances. \n\nTelevision\n\n* In the TV film, Bonnie & Clyde: The True Story (1992), Tracey Needham played Bonnie while Clyde was portrayed by Dana Ashbrook. \n* Bruce Beresford directed a television miniseries, Bonnie & Clyde, which aired on Lifetime, History Channel, and A&E on December 8 and 9, 2013. \n* In March 2009 the pair were the subject a program in the BBC series Timewatch, based in part on gang members' private papers and previously unavailable police documents. \n*The Barrow gang's criminal career was featured in Season 28 of American Experience episode 'Bonnie & Clyde'. \n\nThe Bonnie and Clyde Festival\n\nEvery year near the anniversary of the ambush, a \"Bonnie and Clyde Festival\" is hosted in the town of Gibsland, off Interstate 20 in Bienville Parish. The ambush location, still comparatively isolated on Louisiana Highway 154, south of Gibsland, is commemorated by a stone marker that has been defaced to near illegibility by souvenir hunters and gunshot. A small metal version was added to accompany the stone monument. It was stolen, as was its replacement.\n\nHistorical perspective\n\nThrough the decades, many cultural historians have analyzed Bonnie's and Clyde's enduring appeal to the public imagination. E.R. Milner, an historian, writer, and expert on Bonnie and Clyde and their era, put the duo's enduring appeal to the public, both during the Depression and continuing on through the decades, into historical and cultural perspective. To those people who, as Milner says, \"consider themselves outsiders, or oppose the existing system,\" Bonnie and Clyde represent the ultimate outsiders, revolting against an uncaring system. \n\"The country's money simply declined by 38 percent\", explains Milner, author of The Lives and Times of Bonnie and Clyde. \"Gaunt, dazed men roamed the city streets seeking jobs ... Breadlines and soup kitchens became jammed. (In rural areas) foreclosures forced more than 38 percent of farmers from their lands (while simultaneously) a catastrophic drought struck the Great Plains ... By the time Bonnie and Clyde became well known, many had felt that the capitalistic system had been abused by big business and government officials ... Now here were Bonnie and Clyde striking back.\"" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Eighteenth State", "Loisianna", "Arkansas Bay", "Louisianian", "Louisiana (state)", "Transportation in Louisiana", "Religion in Louisiana", "The Bayou State", "Geography of Louisiana", "The Sportsman's Paradise", "Transport in Louisiana", "Louisiane", "Pelican State", "Economy of Louisiana", "Louisiana", "The Child of the Mississippi", "US-LA", "Louisianna", "The Creole State", "Louisiana, United States", "Etat de Louisiane", "Louisianais", "18th State", "État de Louisiane", "Loisiana", "Creole State", "Louisana", "Education in Louisiana", "Lousiana", "Louisiana, USA", "The Pelican State", "Lwizyana", "Climate of Louisiana", "Louisiana (State)", "The Sugar State", "Louisiana (U.S. state)", "Luisianna", "Government of Louisiana", "State of Louisiana" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "religion in louisiana", "louisiana", "transport in louisiana", "luisianna", "louisiana usa", "sugar state", "pelican state", "climate of louisiana", "louisiana u s state", "economy of louisiana", "lousiana", "education in louisiana", "transportation in louisiana", "louisana", "état de louisiane", "louisiane", "creole state", "geography of louisiana", "loisiana", "child of mississippi", "louisiana united states", "bayou state", "louisianna", "arkansas bay", "eighteenth state", "etat de louisiane", "louisianais", "loisianna", "state of louisiana", "sportsman s paradise", "louisianian", "lwizyana", "18th state", "louisiana state", "government of louisiana", "us la" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "louisiana", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Louisiana" }
Which Biblical name does Boris Becker's older son have?	tc_1261	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Bible.txt", "Boris_Becker.txt" ], "title": [ "Bible", "Boris Becker" ], "wiki_context": [ "The Bible (from Koine Greek τὰ βιβλία, tà biblía, \"the books\" ) is a collection of texts sacred in Judaism and Christianity. It is a collection of scriptures written at different times by different authors in different locations. Jews and Christians consider the books of the Bible to be a product of divine inspiration or an authoritative record of the relationship between God and humans.\n\nThe canonical Bible varies depending on traditions or groups; a number of Bible canons have evolved, with overlapping and diverging contents. The Christian Old Testament overlaps with the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint; the Hebrew Bible is known in Judaism as the Tanakh. The New Testament is a collection of writings by early Christians, believed to be mostly Jewish disciples of Christ, written in first-century Koine Greek. These early Christian Greek writings consist of narratives, letters, and apocalyptic writings. Among Christian denominations there is some disagreement about the contents of the canon, primarily in the Apocrypha, a list of works that are regarded with varying levels of respect.\n\nAttitudes towards the Bible also vary amongst Christian groups. Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Eastern Orthodox Christians stress the harmony and importance of the Bible and sacred tradition, while Protestant churches focus on the idea of sola scriptura, or scripture alone. This concept arose during the Protestant Reformation, and many denominations today continue to support the use of the Bible as the only source of Christian teaching.\n\nWith estimated total sales of over 5 billion copies, the Bible is widely considered to be the best-selling book of all time. It has estimated annual sales of 100 million copies, and has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West where the Gutenberg Bible was the first mass-printed book. It was the first book ever printed using movable type.\n\nEtymology\n\nThe English word Bible is from the Latin biblia, from the same word in Medieval Latin and Late Latin and ultimately from Koine Greek ta biblia \"the books\" (singular biblion). \n\nMedieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra \"holy book\", while biblia in Greek and Late Latin is neuter plural (gen. bibliorum). It gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun (biblia, gen. bibliae) in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as a singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe. \nLatin biblia sacra \"holy books\" translates Greek ta biblia ta hagia, \"the holy books\". \n\nThe word itself had the literal meaning of \"paper\" or \"scroll\" and came to be used as the ordinary word for \"book\".\nIt is the diminutive of byblos, \"Egyptian papyrus\", possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos (also known as Gebal) from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece.\nThe Greek ta biblia (lit. \"little papyrus books\") was \"an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books (the Septuagint). Christian use of the term can be traced to c. 223 CE. The biblical scholar F.F. Bruce notes that Chrysostom appears to be the first writer (in his Homilies on Matthew, delivered between 386 and 388) to use the Greek phrase ta biblia (\"the books\") to describe both the Old and New Testaments together. \n\nTextual history\n\n\t\nBy the 2nd century BCE, Jewish groups had called the Bible books the \"scriptures\" and referred to them as \"holy,\" or in Hebrew כִּתְבֵי הַקֹּדֶשׁ (Kitvei hakkodesh), and Christians now commonly call the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible \"The Holy Bible\" (in Greek , tà biblía tà ágia) or \"the Holy Scriptures\" (, e Agía Graphḗ). The Bible was divided into chapters in the 13th century by Stephen Langton and into verses in the 16th century by French printer Robert Estienne and is now usually cited by book, chapter, and verse. \n\nThe oldest extant copy of a complete Bible is an early 4th-century parchment book preserved in the Vatican Library, and known as the Codex Vaticanus. The oldest copy of the Tanakh in Hebrew and Aramaic dates to the 10th century CE. The oldest copy of a complete Latin (Vulgate) Bible is the Codex Amiatinus, dating from the 8th century. \n\nDevelopment\n\n \n\nProfessor John K. Riches, Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at the University of Glasgow, in an Oxford University Press introduction to the Bible, says that \"the biblical texts themselves are the result of a creative dialogue between ancient traditions and different communities through the ages\", and \"the biblical texts were produced over a period in which the living conditions of the writers – political, cultural, economic, and ecological – varied enormously\". Timothy H. Lim, a professor of Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism at the University of Edinburgh, says that the Old Testament is \"a collection of authoritative texts of apparently divine origin that went through a human process of writing and editing.\" He states that it is not a magical book, nor was it literally written by God and passed to mankind.\nParallel to the solidification of the Hebrew canon (c. 3rd century BCE), only the Torah first and then the Tanakh began to be translated into Greek and expanded, now referred to as the Septuagint or the Greek Old Testament. \n\nIn Christian Bibles, the New Testament Gospels were derived from oral traditions in the second half of the first century CE. Riches says that:\n\nScholars have attempted to reconstruct something of the history of the oral traditions behind the Gospels, but the results have not been too encouraging. The period of transmission is short: less than 40 years passed between the death of Jesus and the writing of Mark's Gospel. This means that there was little time for oral traditions to assume fixed form. \n\nThe Bible was later translated into Latin and other languages. John Riches states that:\n\nThe translation of the Bible into Latin marks the beginning of a parting of the ways between Western Latin-speaking Christianity and Eastern Christianity, which spoke Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, and other languages. The Bibles of the Eastern Churches vary considerably: the Ethiopic Orthodox canon includes 81 books and contains many apocalyptic texts, such as were found at Qumran and subsequently excluded from the Jewish canon. As a general rule, one can say that the Orthodox Churches generally follow the Septuagint in including more books in their Old Testaments than are in the Jewish canon.\n\nHebrew Bible\n\nThe Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh. It defines the books of the Jewish canon, and also the precise letter-text of these biblical books, with their vocalization and accentuation.\n\nThe oldest extant manuscripts of the Masoretic Text date from approximately the 9th century CE, and the Aleppo Codex (once the oldest complete copy of the Masoretic Text, but now missing its Torah section) dates from the 10th century.\n\nThe name Tanakh (Hebrew: ) reflects the threefold division of the Hebrew Scriptures, Torah (\"Teaching\"), Nevi'im (\"Prophets\") and Ketuvim (\"Writings\").\n\nTorah\n\nThe Torah (תּוֹרָה) is also known as the \"Five Books of Moses\" or the Pentateuch, meaning \"five scroll-cases\". \n\nThe Hebrew names of the books are derived from the first words in the respective texts. The Torah consists of the following five books:\n* Genesis, Beresheeth (בראשית)\n* Exodus, Shemot (שמות)\n* Leviticus, Vayikra (ויקרא)\n* Numbers, Bamidbar (במדבר)\n* Deuteronomy, Devarim (דברים)\n\nThe first eleven chapters of Genesis provide accounts of the creation (or ordering) of the world and the history of God's early relationship with humanity. The remaining thirty-nine chapters of Genesis provide an account of God's covenant with the Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (also called Israel) and Jacob's children, the \"Children of Israel\", especially Joseph. It tells of how God commanded Abraham to leave his family and home in the city of Ur, eventually to settle in the land of Canaan, and how the Children of Israel later moved to Egypt. The remaining four books of the Torah tell the story of Moses, who lived hundreds of years after the patriarchs. He leads the Children of Israel from slavery in Ancient Egypt to the renewal of their covenant with God at Mount Sinai and their wanderings in the desert until a new generation was ready to enter the land of Canaan. The Torah ends with the death of Moses. \n\nThe Torah contains the commandments of God, revealed at Mount Sinai (although there is some debate among traditional scholars as to whether these were all written down at one time, or over a period of time during the 40 years of the wanderings in the desert, while several modern Jewish movements reject the idea of a literal revelation, and critical scholars believe that many of these laws developed later in Jewish history). These commandments provide the basis for Jewish religious law. Tradition states that there are 613 commandments (taryag mitzvot).\n\nNevi'im\n\nNevi'im (, \"Prophets\") is the second main division of the Tanakh, between the Torah and Ketuvim. It contains two sub-groups, the Former Prophets (, the narrative books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings) and the Latter Prophets (, the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets).\n\nThe Nevi'im tell the story of the rise of the Hebrew monarchy and its division into two kingdoms, ancient Israel and Judah, focusing on conflicts between the Israelites and other nations, and conflicts among Israelites, specifically, struggles between believers in \"the God\" and believers in foreign gods, and the criticism of unethical and unjust behavior of Israelite elites and rulers; in which prophets played a crucial and leading role. It ends with the conquest of the Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians followed by the conquest of the Kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.\n\nFormer Prophets\n\nThe Former Prophets are the books Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. They contain narratives that begin immediately after the death of Moses with the divine appointment of Joshua as his successor, who then leads the people of Israel into the Promised Land, and end with the release from imprisonment of the last king of Judah. Treating Samuel and Kings as single books, they cover:\n* Joshua's conquest of the land of Canaan (in the Book of Joshua),\n* the struggle of the people to possess the land (in the Book of Judges),\n* the people's request to God to give them a king so that they can occupy the land in the face of their enemies (in the Books of Samuel)\n* the possession of the land under the divinely appointed kings of the House of David, ending in conquest and foreign exile (Books of Kings)\n\nLatter Prophets\n\nThe Latter Prophets are divided into two groups, the \"major\" prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and the Twelve Minor Prophets, collected into a single book. The collection is broken up to form twelve individual books in the Christian Old Testament, one for each of the prophets:\n\n* Hosea, Hoshea (הושע)\n* Joel, Yoel (יואל)\n* Amos, Amos (עמוס)\n* Obadiah, Ovadyah (עבדיה)\n* Jonah, Yonah (יונה)\n* Micah, Mikhah (מיכה)\n* Nahum, Nahum (נחום)\n* Habakkuk, Havakuk (חבקוק)\n* Zephaniah, Tsefanya (צפניה)\n* Haggai, Khagay (חגי)\n* Zechariah, Zekharyah (זכריה)\n* Malachi, Malakhi (מלאכי)\n\nKetuvim\n\nKetuvim or Kəṯûḇîm (in \"writings\") is the third and final section of the Tanakh. The Ketuvim are believed to have been written under the Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) but with one level less authority than that of prophecy. \n\nThe poetic books\n\nIn Masoretic manuscripts (and some printed editions), Psalms, Proverbs and Job are presented in a special two-column form emphasizing the parallel stichs in the verses, which are a function of their poetry. Collectively, these three books are known as Sifrei Emet (an acronym of the titles in Hebrew, איוב, משלי, תהלים yields Emet אמ\"ת, which is also the Hebrew for \"truth\").\n\nThese three books are also the only ones in Tanakh with a special system of cantillation notes that are designed to emphasize parallel stichs within verses. However, the beginning and end of the book of Job are in the normal prose system.\n\nThe five scrolls (Hamesh Megillot)\n\nThe five relatively short books of Song of Songs, Book of Ruth, the Book of Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Book of Esther are collectively known as the Hamesh Megillot (Five Megillot). These are the latest books collected and designated as \"authoritative\" in the Jewish canon even though they were not complete until the 2nd century CE. \n\nOther books\n\nBesides the three poetic books and the five scrolls, the remaining books in Ketuvim are Daniel, Ezra–Nehemiah and Chronicles. Although there is no formal grouping for these books in the Jewish tradition, they nevertheless share a number of distinguishing characteristics:\n* Their narratives all openly describe relatively late events (i.e., the Babylonian captivity and the subsequent restoration of Zion).\n* The Talmudic tradition ascribes late authorship to all of them.\n* Two of them (Daniel and Ezra) are the only books in the Tanakh with significant portions in Aramaic.\n\nOrder of the books\n\nThe following list presents the books of Ketuvim in the order they appear in most printed editions. It also divides them into three subgroups based on the distinctiveness of Sifrei Emet and Hamesh Megillot.\n\nThe Three Poetic Books (Sifrei Emet)\n* Tehillim (Psalms) תְהִלִּים\n* Mishlei (Book of Proverbs) מִשְלֵי\n* Iyyôbh (Book of Job) אִיּוֹב\nThe Five Megillot (Hamesh Megillot)\n* Shīr Hashshīrīm (Song of Songs) or (Song of Solomon) שִׁיר הַשׁשִׁירִים (Passover)\n* Rūth (Book of Ruth) רוּת (Shābhû‘ôth)\n* Eikhah (Lamentations) איכה (Ninth of Av) [Also called Kinnot in Hebrew.]\n* Qōheleth (Ecclesiastes) קהלת (Sukkôth)\n* Estēr (Book of Esther) אֶסְתֵר (Pûrîm)\nOther books\n* Dānî’ēl (Book of Daniel) דָּנִיֵּאל\n* ‘Ezrā (Book of Ezra-Book of Nehemiah) עזרא\n* Divrei ha-Yamim (Chronicles) דברי הימים\n\nThe Jewish textual tradition never finalized the order of the books in Ketuvim. The Babylonian Talmud (Bava Batra 14b-15a) gives their order as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Daniel, Scroll of Esther, Ezra, Chronicles. \n\nIn Tiberian Masoretic codices, including the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex, and often in old Spanish manuscripts as well, the order is Chronicles, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Esther, Daniel, Ezra. \n\nCanonization\n\nThe Ketuvim is the last of the three portions of the Tanakh to have been accepted as biblical canon. While the Torah may have been considered canon by Israel as early as the 5th century BCE and the Former and Latter Prophets were canonized by the 2nd century BCE, the Ketuvim was not a fixed canon until the 2nd century of the Common Era. \n\nEvidence suggests, however, that the people of Israel were adding what would become the Ketuvim to their holy literature shortly after the canonization of the prophets. As early as 132 BCE references suggest that the Ketuvim was starting to take shape, although it lacked a formal title. References in the four Gospels as well as other books of the New Testament indicate that many of these texts were both commonly known and counted as having some degree of religious authority early in the 1st century CE.\n\nMany scholars believe that the limits of the Ketuvim as canonized scripture were determined by the Council of Jamnia c. 90 CE. Against Apion, the writing of Josephus in 95 CE, treated the text of the Hebrew Bible as a closed canon to which \"... no one has ventured either to add, or to remove, or to alter a syllable...\" For a long time following this date the divine inspiration of Esther, the Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes was often under scrutiny. \n\nOriginal languages\n\nThe Tanakh was mainly written in biblical Hebrew, with some small portions ( and , , ) in biblical Aramaic, a sister language which became the lingua franca for much of the Semitic world. \n\nSeptuagint \n\nThe Septuagint, or LXX, is a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures and some related texts into Koine Greek, begun in the late 3rd century BCE and completed by 132 BCE, initially in Alexandria, but in time elsewhere as well. It is not altogether clear which was translated when, or where; some may even have been translated twice, into different versions, and then revised. \n\nAs the work of translation progressed, the canon of the Greek Bible expanded. The Torah always maintained its pre-eminence as the basis of the canon but the collection of prophetic writings, based on the Nevi'im, had various hagiographical works incorporated into it. In addition, some newer books were included in the Septuagint, among these are the Maccabees and the Wisdom of Sirach. However, the book of Sirach, is now known to have existed in a Hebrew version, since ancient Hebrew manuscripts of it were rediscovered in modern times. The Septuagint version of some Biblical books, like Daniel and Esther, are longer than those in the Jewish canon. Some of these deuterocanonical books (e.g. the Wisdom of Solomon, and the second book of Maccabees) were not translated, but composed directly in Greek.\n\nSince Late Antiquity, once attributed to a hypothetical late 1st-century Council of Jamnia, mainstream Rabbinic Judaism rejected the Septuagint as valid Jewish scriptural texts. Several reasons have been given for this. First, some mistranslations were claimed. Second, the Hebrew source texts used for the Septuagint differed from the Masoretic tradition of Hebrew texts, which was chosen as canonical by the Jewish rabbis. Third, the rabbis wanted to distinguish their tradition from the newly emerging tradition of Christianity. \nFinally, the rabbis claimed a divine authority for the Hebrew language, in contrast to Aramaic or Greek – even though these languages were the lingua franca of Jews during this period (and Aramaic would eventually be given a holy language status comparable to Hebrew). \n\nThe Septuagint is the basis for the Old Latin, Slavonic, Syriac, Old Armenian, Old Georgian and Coptic versions of the Christian Old Testament. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches use most of the books of the Septuagint, while Protestant churches usually do not. After the Protestant Reformation, many Protestant Bibles began to follow the Jewish canon and exclude the additional texts, which came to be called Biblical apocrypha. The Apocrypha are included under a separate heading in the King James Version of the Bible, the basis for the Revised Standard Version. \n\nIncorporations from Theodotion\n\nIn most ancient copies of the Bible which contain the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, the Book of Daniel is not the original Septuagint version, but instead is a copy of Theodotion's translation from the Hebrew, which more closely resembles the Masoretic Text. The Septuagint version was discarded in favour of Theodotion's version in the 2nd to 3rd centuries CE. In Greek-speaking areas, this happened near the end of the 2nd century, and in Latin-speaking areas (at least in North Africa), it occurred in the middle of the 3rd century. History does not record the reason for this, and St. Jerome reports, in the preface to the Vulgate version of Daniel, \"This thing 'just' happened.\" One of two Old Greek texts of the Book of Daniel has been recently rediscovered and work is ongoing in reconstructing the original form of the book. \n\nThe canonical Ezra–Nehemiah is known in the Septuagint as \"Esdras B\", and 1 Esdras is \"Esdras A\". 1 Esdras is a very similar text to the books of Ezra–Nehemiah, and the two are widely thought by scholars to be derived from the same original text. It has been proposed, and is thought highly likely by scholars, that \"Esdras B\" – the canonical Ezra–Nehemiah – is Theodotion's version of this material, and \"Esdras A\" is the version which was previously in the Septuagint on its own.\n\nFinal form\n\nSome texts are found in the Septuagint but are not present in the Hebrew. These additional books are Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah (which later became chapter 6 of Baruch in the Vulgate), additions to Daniel (The Prayer of Azarias, the Song of the Three Children, Susanna and Bel and the Dragon), additions to Esther, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Odes, including the Prayer of Manasseh, the Psalms of Solomon, and Psalm 151.\n\nSome books that are set apart in the Masoretic Text are grouped together. For example, the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings are in the LXX one book in four parts called Βασιλειῶν (\"Of Reigns\"). In LXX, the Books of Chronicles supplement Reigns and it is called Paralipomenon (Παραλειπομένων—things left out). The Septuagint organizes the minor prophets as twelve parts of one Book of Twelve.\n\nChristian Bibles\n\nA Christian Bible is a set of books that a Christian denomination regards as divinely inspired and thus constituting scripture. Although the Early Church primarily used the Septuagint or the Targums among Aramaic speakers, the apostles did not leave a defined set of new scriptures; instead the canon of the New Testament developed over time. Groups within Christianity include differing books as part of their sacred writings, most prominent among which are the biblical apocrypha or deuterocanonical books.\n\nSignificant versions of the English Christian Bible include the Douay-Rheims Bible, the Authorized King James Version, the English Revised Version, the American Standard Version, the Revised Standard Version, the New American Standard Version, the New King James Version, the New International Version, and the English Standard Version.\n\nOld Testament\n\nThe books which make up the Christian Old Testament differ between the Catholic (see Catholic Bible), Orthodox, and Protestant (see Protestant Bible) churches, with the Protestant movement accepting only those books contained in the Hebrew Bible, while Catholics and Orthodox have wider canons. A few groups consider particular translations to be divinely inspired, notably the Greek Septuagint and the Aramaic Peshitta.\n\nApocryphal or deuterocanonical books\n\nIn Eastern Christianity, translations based on the Septuagint still prevail. The Septuagint was generally abandoned in favour of the 10th-century Masoretic Text as the basis for translations of the Old Testament into Western languages. Some modern Western translations since the 14th century make use of the Septuagint to clarify passages in the Masoretic Text, where the Septuagint may preserve a variant reading of the Hebrew text. They also sometimes adopt variants that appear in other texts, e.g., those discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls. \n\nA number of books which are part of the Peshitta or Greek Septuagint but are not found in the Hebrew (Rabbinic) Bible (i.e., among the protocanonical books) are often referred to as deuterocanonical books by Roman Catholics referring to a later secondary (i.e., deutero) canon, that canon as fixed definitively by the Council of Trent 1545–1563. It includes 46 books for the Old Testament (45 if Jeremiah and Lamentations are counted as one) and 27 for the New.\n\nMost Protestants term these books as apocrypha. Modern Protestant traditions do not accept the deuterocanonical books as canonical, although Protestant Bibles included them in Apocrypha sections until the 1820s. However, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches include these books as part of their Old Testament.\n\nThe Roman Catholic Church recognizes: \n* Tobit\n* Judith\n* 1 Maccabees\n* 2 Maccabees\n* Wisdom\n* Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus)\n* Baruch\n* The Letter of Jeremiah (Baruch Chapter 6)\n* Greek Additions to Esther (Book of Esther, chapters 10:4 – 12:6)\n* The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children verses 1–68 (Book of Daniel, chapter 3, verses 24–90)\n* Susanna (Book of Daniel, chapter 13)\n* Bel and the Dragon (Book of Daniel, chapter 14)\n\nIn addition to those, the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches recognize the following: \n* 3 Maccabees\n* 1 Esdras\n* Prayer of Manasseh\n* Psalm 151\n\nRussian and Georgian Orthodox Churches include:\n* 2 Esdras i.e., Latin Esdras in the Russian and Georgian Bibles\n\nThere is also 4 Maccabees which is only accepted as canonical in the Georgian Church, but was included by St. Jerome in an appendix to the Vulgate, and is an appendix to the Greek Orthodox Bible, and it is therefore sometimes included in collections of the Apocrypha.\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox tradition includes:\n* Psalms 151–155\n* The Apocalypse of Baruch\n* The Letter of Baruch\n\nThe Ethiopian Biblical canon includes:\n* Jubilees\n* Enoch\n* 1–3 Meqabyan\nand some other books.\n\nThe Anglican Church uses some of the Apocryphal books liturgically. Therefore, editions of the Bible intended for use in the Anglican Church include the Deuterocanonical books accepted by the Catholic Church, plus 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, which were in the Vulgate appendix. \n\nPseudepigraphal books \n\nThe term Pseudepigrapha commonly describes numerous works of Jewish religious literature written from about 300 BCE to 300 CE. Not all of these works are actually pseudepigraphical. It also refers to books of the New Testament canon whose authorship is misrepresented. The \"Old Testament\" Pseudepigraphal works include the following:Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985.\n\n* 3 Maccabees\n* 4 Maccabees\n* Assumption of Moses\n* Ethiopic Book of Enoch (1 Enoch)\n* Slavonic Book of Enoch (2 Enoch)\n* Hebrew Book of Enoch (3 Enoch) (also known as \"The Revelation of Metatron\" or \"The Book of Rabbi Ishmael the High Priest\")\n* Book of Jubilees\n* Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch)\n* Letter of Aristeas (Letter to Philocrates regarding the translating of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek)\n* Life of Adam and Eve\n* Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah\n* Psalms of Solomon\n* Sibylline Oracles\n* Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch)\n* Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs\n\nBook of Enoch \n\nNotable pseudepigraphal works include the Books of Enoch (such as 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, surviving only in Old Slavonic, and 3 Enoch, surviving in Hebrew, c. 5th to 6th century CE). These are ancient Jewish religious works, traditionally ascribed to the prophet Enoch, the great-grandfather of the patriarch Noah. They are not part of the biblical canon used by Jews, apart from Beta Israel. Most Christian denominations and traditions may accept the Books of Enoch as having some historical or theological interest or significance. It has been observed that part of the Book of Enoch is quoted in the Epistle of Jude (part of the New Testament) but Christian denominations generally regard the Books of Enoch as non-canonical or non-inspired. However, the Enoch books are treated as canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.\n\nThe older sections (mainly in the Book of the Watchers) are estimated to date from about 300 BC, and the latest part (Book of Parables) probably was composed at the end of the 1st century BCE. \n\nDenominational views of Pseudepigrapha \n\nThere arose in some Protestant biblical scholarship an extended use of the term pseudepigrapha for works that appeared as though they ought to be part of the biblical canon, because of the authorship ascribed to them, but which stood outside both the biblical canons recognized by Protestants and Catholics. These works were also outside the particular set of books that Roman Catholics called deuterocanonical and to which Protestants had generally applied the term Apocryphal. Accordingly, the term pseudepigraphical, as now used often among both Protestants and Roman Catholics (allegedly for the clarity it brings to the discussion), may make it difficult to discuss questions of pseudepigraphical authorship of canonical books dispassionately with a lay audience. To confuse the matter even more, Eastern Orthodox Christians accept books as canonical that Roman Catholics and most Protestant denominations consider pseudepigraphical or at best of much less authority. There exist also churches that reject some of the books that Roman Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants accept. The same is true of some Jewish sects. Many works that are \"apocryphal\" are otherwise considered genuine.\n\nRole of Old Testament in Christian theology\n\nThe Old Testament has always been central to the life of the Christian church. Bible scholar N.T. Wright says \"Jesus himself was profoundly shaped by the scriptures.\" He adds that the earliest Christians also searched those same Hebrew scriptures in their effort to understand the earthly life of Jesus. They regarded the \"holy writings\" of the Israelites as necessary and instructive for the Christian, as seen from Paul's words to Timothy (2 Timothy 3:15), and as pointing to the Messiah, and as having reached a climactic fulfillment in Jesus himself, generating the \"new covenant\" prophesied by Jeremiah. \n\nNew Testament\n\nThe New Testament is a collection of 27 books of 4 different genres of Christian literature (Gospels, one account of the Acts of the Apostles, Epistles and an Apocalypse). Jesus is its central figure. The New Testament presupposes the inspiration of the Old Testament. (2 Timothy 3:16) Nearly all Christians recognize the New Testament as canonical scripture. These books can be grouped into:\n\nThe Gospels\n* Synoptic Gospels\n Gospel According to Matthew\n Gospel According to Mark\n** Gospel According to Luke\n* Gospel According to John\n\nNarrative literature, account and history of the Apostolic age\n* Acts of the Apostles\n\nPauline Epistles\n* Epistle to the Romans\n* First Epistle to the Corinthians\n* Second Epistle to the Corinthians\n* Epistle to the Galatians\n* Epistle to the Ephesians\n* Epistle to the Philippians\n* Epistle to the Colossians\n* First Epistle to the Thessalonians\n* Second Epistle to the Thessalonians\n\nPastoral epistles\n* First Epistle to Timothy\n* Second Epistle to Timothy\n* Epistle to Titus\n* Epistle to Philemon\n* Epistle to the Hebrews\n\nGeneral epistles, also called catholic epistles\n* Epistle of James\n* First Epistle of Peter\n* Second Epistle of Peter\n* First Epistle of John\n* Second Epistle of John\n* Third Epistle of John\n* Epistle of Jude\n\nApocalyptic literature, also called Prophetical\n* Revelation, or the Apocalypse\n\nThe New Testament books are ordered differently in the Catholic/Orthodox/Protestant tradition, the Slavonic tradition, the Syriac tradition and the Ethiopian tradition.\n\nOriginal language\n\nThe mainstream consensus is that the New Testament was written in a form of Koine Greek, which was the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean from the Conquests of Alexander the Great (335–323 BCE) until the evolution of Byzantine Greek (c. 600).\n\nHistoric editions\n\nThe original autographs, that is, the original Greek writings and manuscripts written by the original authors of the New Testament, have not survived. But historically copies exist of those original autographs, transmitted and preserved in a number of manuscript traditions. There have been some minor variations, additions or omissions, in some of the texts. When ancient scribes copied earlier books, they sometimes wrote notes on the margins of the page (marginal glosses) to correct their text—especially if a scribe accidentally omitted a word or line—and to comment about the text. When later scribes were copying the copy, they were sometimes uncertain if a note was intended to be included as part of the text. Over time, different regions evolved different versions, each with its own assemblage of omissions and additions. \n\nThe three main textual traditions of the Greek New Testament are sometimes called the Alexandrian text-type (generally minimalist), the Byzantine text-type (generally maximalist), and the Western text-type (occasionally wild). Together they comprise most of the ancient manuscripts.\n\nDevelopment of the Christian canons\n\nThe Old Testament canon entered into Christian use in the Greek Septuagint translations and original books, and their differing lists of texts. In addition to the Septuagint, Christianity subsequently added various writings that would become the New Testament. Somewhat different lists of accepted works continued to develop in antiquity. In the 4th century a series of synods produced a list of texts equal to the 39, 46(51),54, or 57 book canon of the Old Testament and to the 27-book canon of the New Testament that would be subsequently used to today, most notably the Synod of Hippo in 393 CE. Also c. 400, Jerome produced a definitive Latin edition of the Bible (see Vulgate), the canon of which, at the insistence of the Pope, was in accord with the earlier Synods. With the benefit of hindsight it can be said that this process effectively set the New Testament canon, although there are examples of other canonical lists in use after this time.\n\nThe Protestant Old Testament of today has a 39-book canon—the number of books (though not the content) varies from the Jewish Tanakh only because of a different method of division—while the Roman Catholic Church recognizes 46 books (51 books with some books combined into 46 books) as the canonical Old Testament. The Eastern Orthodox Churches recognise 3 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151 in addition to the Catholic canon. Some include 2 Esdras. The Anglican Church also recognises a longer canon. The term \"Hebrew Scriptures\" is often used as being synonymous with the Protestant Old Testament, since the surviving scriptures in Hebrew include only those books, while Catholics and Orthodox include additional texts that have not survived in Hebrew. Both Catholics and Protestants (as well as Greek Orthodox) have the same 27-book New Testament Canon. \n\nThe New Testament writers assumed the inspiration of the Old Testament, probably earliest stated in , \"All scripture is given by inspiration of God\".\n\nEthiopian Orthodox canon\n\nThe Canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is wider than the canons used by most other Christian churches. There are 81 books in the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible. The Ethiopian Old Testament Canon includes the books found in the Septuagint accepted by other Orthodox Christians, in addition to Enoch and Jubilees which are ancient Jewish books that only survived in Ge'ez but are quoted in the New Testament, also Greek Ezra First and the Apocalypse of Ezra, 3 books of Meqabyan, and Psalm 151 at the end of the Psalter. The three books of Meqabyan are not to be confused with the books of Maccabees. The order of the other books is somewhat different from other groups', as well. The Old Testament follows the Septuagint order for the Minor Prophets rather than the Jewish order.\n\nDivine inspiration\n\nThe Second Epistle to Timothy says that \"all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness\". () Various related but distinguisahle views on divine inspiration include:\n\n* the view of the Bible as the inspired word of God: the belief that God, through the Holy Spirit, intervened and influenced the words, message, and collation of the Bible \n* the view that the Bible is also infallible, and incapable of error in matters of faith and practice, but not necessarily in historic or scientific matters\n* the view that the Bible represents the inerrant word of God, without error in any aspect, spoken by God and written down in its perfect form by humans\n\nWithin these broad beliefs many schools of hermeneutics operate. \"Bible scholars claim that discussions about the Bible must be put into its context within church history and then into the context of contemporary culture.\" Fundamentalist Christians are associated with the doctrine of biblical literalism, where the Bible is not only inerrant, but the meaning of the text is clear to the average reader. \n\nJewish antiquity attests to belief in sacred texts, and a similar belief emerges in the earliest of Christian writings. Various texts of the Bible mention divine agency in relation to its writings. In their book A General Introduction to the Bible, Norman Geisler and William Nix write: \"The process of inspiration is a mystery of the providence of God, but the result of this process is a verbal, plenary, inerrant, and authoritative record.\" Most evangelical biblical scholars associate inspiration with only the original text; for example some American Protestants adhere to the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy which asserted that inspiration applied only to the autographic text of Scripture. Among adherents of Biblical literalism, a minority, such as followers of the King-James-Only Movement, extend the claim of inerrancy only to a particular translation. \n\nVersions and translations\n\nThe original texts of the Tanakh were mainly in Hebrew, with some portions in Aramaic. In addition to the authoritative Masoretic Text, Jews still refer to the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, and the Targum Onkelos, an Aramaic version of the Bible. There are several different ancient versions of the Tanakh in Hebrew, mostly differing by spelling, and the traditional Jewish version is based on the version known as Aleppo Codex. Even in this version there are words which are traditionally read differently from written, because the oral tradition is considered more fundamental than the written one, and presumably mistakes had been made in copying the text over the generations.\n\nThe primary biblical text for early Christians was the Septuagint. In addition, they translated the Hebrew Bible into several other languages. Translations were made into Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Latin, among other languages. The Latin translations were historically the most important for the Church in the West, while the Greek-speaking East continued to use the Septuagint translations of the Old Testament and had no need to translate the New Testament.\n\nThe earliest Latin translation was the Old Latin text, or Vetus Latina, which, from internal evidence, seems to have been made by several authors over a period of time. It was based on the Septuagint, and thus included books not in the Hebrew Bible.\n\nPope Damasus I assembled the first list of books of the Bible at the Council of Rome in 382 CE. He commissioned Saint Jerome to produce a reliable and consistent text by translating the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin. This translation became known as the Latin Vulgate Bible, in the fourth century CE. And in 1546, at the Council of Trent, Jerome's Vulgate translation was declared by the Roman Catholic Church to be the only authentic and official Bible in the Latin Church.\n\nSince the Protestant Reformation, Bible translations for many languages have been made. The Bible continues to be translated to new languages, largely by Christian organisations such as Wycliffe Bible Translators, New Tribes Mission and Bible societies.\n\nViews\n\nJohn Riches, professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at the University of Glasgow, provides the following view of the diverse historical influences of the Bible:\n\nIt has inspired some of the great monuments of human thought, literature, and art; it has equally fuelled some of the worst excesses of human savagery, self-interest, and narrow-mindedness. It has inspired men and women to acts of great service and courage, to fight for liberation and human development; and it has provided the ideological fuel for societies which have enslaved their fellow human beings and reduced them to abject poverty. ... It has, perhaps above all, provided a source of religious and moral norms which have enabled communities to hold together, to care for, and to protect one another; yet precisely this strong sense of belonging has in turn fuelled ethnic, racial, and international tension and conflict. \n\nOther religions\n\nIn Islam, the Bible is held to reflect true unfolding revelation from God; but revelation which had been corrupted or distorted (in Arabic: tahrif); which necessitated the giving of the Qur'an to the Islamic prophet, Muhammad, to correct this deviation.\n\nMembers of other religions may also seek inspiration from the Bible. For example, Rastafaris view the Bible as essential to their religion and Unitarian Universalists view it as \"one of many important religious texts\". \n\nBiblical studies\n\nBiblical criticism refers to the investigation of the Bible as a text, and addresses questions such as authorship, dates of composition, and authorial intention. It is not the same as criticism of the Bible, which is an assertion against the Bible being a source of information or ethical guidance, or observations that the Bible may have translation errors. \n\nHigher criticism\n\nIn the 17th century Thomas Hobbes collected the current evidence to conclude outright that Moses could not have written the bulk of the Torah. Shortly afterwards the philosopher Baruch Spinoza published a unified critical analysis, arguing that the problematic passages were not isolated cases that could be explained away one by one, but pervasive throughout the five books, concluding that it was \"clearer than the sun at noon that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses . . .\" \n\nArchaeological and historical research\n\nBiblical archaeology is the archaeology that relates to and sheds light upon the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Greek Scriptures (or \"New Testament\"). It is used to help determine the lifestyle and practices of people living in biblical times. There are a wide range of interpretations in the field of biblical archaeology. One broad division includes biblical maximalism which generally takes the view that most of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible is based on history although it is presented through the religious viewpoint of its time. It is considered the opposite of biblical minimalism which considers the Bible a purely post-exilic (5th century BCE and later) composition. Even among those scholars who adhere to biblical minimalism, the Bible is a historical document containing first-hand information on the Hellenistic and Roman eras, and there is universal scholarly consensus that the events of the 6th century BCE Babylonian captivity have a basis in history.\n\nThe historicity of the biblical account of the history of ancient Israel and Judah of the 10th to 7th centuries BCE is disputed in scholarship. The biblical account of the 8th to 7th centuries BCE is widely, but not universally, accepted as historical, while the verdict on the earliest period of the United Monarchy (10th century BCE) and the historicity of David is unclear. Archaeological evidence providing information on this period, such as the Tel Dan Stele, can potentially be decisive. The biblical account of events of the Exodus from Egypt in the Torah, and the migration to the Promised Land and the period of Judges are not considered historical in scholarship. \n\nBibles Gallery\n\nFile:Bibel Kloster Paleokastritsa.jpg\|Old Bible from a Greek monastery\nFile:Imperial Bible.jpg\| Imperial Bible, or Vienna Coronation Gospels from Wien (Austria), c 1500.\nFile:Kennicott Bible.jpg \|The Kennicott Bible, 1476\nFile:A religious Baroque Bible - 7558.jpg\|A Baroque Bible\nFile:Lincoln inaugural bible.jpg \|The bible used by Abraham Lincoln for his oath of office during his first inauguration in 1861\nFile:Bible and Key Divination.jpg\|A miniature Bible\nFile:19th century Victorian living room, Auckland - 0843.jpg\|19th century Victorian Bible\nFile:Bizzell Bible Collection.jpg \|Shelves of the Bizzell Bible Collection at Bizzell Memorial Library \n\nIllustrations\n\nMost old Bibles were illuminated, they were manuscripts in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders (marginalia) and miniature illustrations. \nUp to the twelfth century, most manuscripts were produced in monasteries in order to add to the library or after receiving a commission from a wealthy patron. Larger monasteries often contained separate areas for the monks who specialized in the production of manuscripts called a scriptorium, where “separate little rooms were assigned to book copying; they were situated in such a way that each scribe had to himself a window open to the cloister walk.” \nBy the fourteenth century, the cloisters of monks writing in the scriptorium started to employ laybrothers from the urban scriptoria, especially in Paris, Rome and the Netherlands. \nDemand for manuscripts grew to an extent that the Monastic libraries were unable to meet with the demand, and began employing secular scribes and illuminators. These individuals often lived close to the monastery and, in certain instances, dressed as monks whenever they entered the monastery, but were allowed to leave at the end of the day. \n\nThe manuscript was “sent to the rubricator, who added (in red or other colors) the titles, headlines, the initials of chapters and sections, the notes and so on; and then – if the book was to be illustrated – it was sent to the illuminator.” In the case of manuscripts that were sold commercially, the writing would “undoubtedly have been discussed initially between the patron and the scribe (or the scribe’s agent,) but by the time that the written gathering were sent off to the illuminator there was no longer any scope for innovation.” \n\nFile:Bible chartraine - BNF Lat116 f193.jpg\|Bible from 1150, from Scriptorium de Chartres, Christ with angels\nFile:Bible of St Louis detail.jpg \|Blanche of Castile and Louis IX of France Bible, 13th century\nFile:Bible moralisée - Vienne Cod.1179 -frontispice.jpg\| Bible moralisée : Christ the architect of the Universe. \nFile:Maciejowski Bible Leaf 37 3.jpg\| Maciejowski Bible, Leaf 37, the 3rd image, Abner (in the center in green) sends Michal back to David.\n\nFile:Jephthah's daughter laments - Maciejowski Bible.JPG\|Jephthah's daughter laments - Maciejowski Bible (France, ca. 1250)\nFile:Whore-babylon-luther-bible-1534.jpg\|Colored version of the Whore of Babylon illustration from Martin Luther's 1534 translation of the Bible. \nFile:Malnazar - Bible - Google Art Project.jpg \|An Armenian Bible, illuminated by Malnazar, Armenian) illuminator.\n\nFile:Foster Bible Pictures 0031-1.jpg\|Fleeing Sodom and Gomorrah, Foster Bible", "Boris Franz Becker (; born 22 November 1967) is a German former world No. 1 professional tennis player. He is a six-time major singles champion; including, having been the youngest Wimbledon men's champion when he was 17. He also won 13 Masters Series titles, five elite indoor titles (three ATP Tour Finals, a WCT Finals, and a Grand Slam Cup). He is the only player to have won all 3 Open era season end finals ATP Tour Finals (ATP), WCT Finals (WCT) and Grand Slam Cup (ITF). Becker also won Olympic gold medal in doubles. Tennis magazine ranked Becker the 18th best male player of the period 1965–2005. He is currently coaching Novak Djokovic.\n\nEarly life\n\nBoris Becker was born in Leimen, Germany, the only son of Elvira and Karl-Heinz Becker. His mother was Catholic, and they raised him as a Catholic. His father Karl-Heinz, an architect, founded a tennis centre in Leimen, where Becker learned the game.\n\nTennis career\n\nBecker turned professional in 1984, under the guidance of Romanian-born coach Günther Bosch and Romanian manager Ion Ţiriac, and won his first professional doubles title that year in Munich. As a German teenager, Becker won the Tennis World Young Masters at the NEC in Birmingham in 1985, before taking his first top-level singles title in June that year at Queen's Club. Two weeks later, on 7 July, he became the first unseeded player and the first German to win the Wimbledon singles title, defeating Kevin Curren in four sets. Unseeded, Becker was at that time ranked 20th in ATP ranking, but Wimbledon did not then seed players beyond the top 16. He was the youngest ever male Grand Slam singles champion at (a record later broken by Michael Chang in 1989, who won the French Open when he was ). Two months after his triumph, Becker became the youngest winner of the Cincinnati Open. Becker has since said that \"The plan from my parents for me was to finish school, go to university, get a proper degree and learn something respectful. The last thing on everyone's mind was me becoming a tennis professional.\" \n\nIn 1986, Becker successfully defended his Wimbledon title, defeating world no. 1 Ivan Lendl in straight sets in the final. In 1987 Becker, then ranked world no. 2, was upset in the second round of Wimbledon by the world no. 70 player, Peter Doohan. In the Davis Cup that year, Becker and John McEnroe played one of the longest matches in tennis history. Becker won 4–6, 15–13, 8–10, 6–2, 6–2 (at that time, there were no tiebreaks in the Davis Cup). The match lasted 6 hours and 22 minutes.\n\nBecker was back in the Wimbledon final in 1988, where he lost in four sets to Stefan Edberg in a match that marked the start of one of Wimbledon's great rivalries. Becker also helped West Germany win its first Davis Cup in 1988. He won the year-end Masters title in New York City, defeating five-time champion Lendl in the final. The same year he also won season ending WCT Finals for the rival World Championship Tennis tour, defeating Edberg in four sets.\n\nIn 1989, Becker won two Grand Slam singles titles, the only year he won more than one. After losing to Edberg in the French Open semifinals, he defeated Edberg in the Wimbledon final, and then beat Lendl in the US Open final. He also helped West Germany retain the Davis Cup, defeating Andre Agassi in the semifinal round. As a result, Becker was named Player of The Year by the ATP Tour. The world no. 1 ranking, however, still eluded him.\n\nIn 1990, Becker met Edberg for the third consecutive year in the Wimbledon final, but this time was on the losing end of a long five-set match. He also failed to defend his US Open title, losing to Agassi in the semifinals. Becker reached the final of the Australian Open for the first time in his career in 1991, where he defeated Lendl to claim the world no. 1 ranking. Another loss to Agassi in the French Open semifinals kept him from winning the first two Grand Slam tournaments of the year. He was ranked world no. 1 for twelve weeks during 1991, though he never managed to finish a year with that ranking.\n\nIn 1992, Becker won seven tour titles including his second ATP Tour World Championships defeating Jim Courier in four sets.\n\nBy 1993, issues back home over his courtship of and marriage to Barbara Feltus, whose mother was German and father was African-American, and tax problems with the German Government, had caused Becker to slide into a severe mid-career decline. Becker was ranked world no. 2 during Wimbledon in 1991 and reached his fourth consecutive final there. However, he lost in straight sets to fellow German compatriot and world no. 7 Michael Stich. Becker and Stich developed a fierce rivalry, with the media often comparing a passionate Becker to a more stoic Stich. However, Becker and Stich teamed in 1992 to win the men's doubles gold medal at the Olympic Games in Barcelona. Becker defeated Jim Courier in straight sets to win the 1992 year-end ATP Tour World Championships in Frankfurt.\n\nIn 1995, Becker reached the Wimbledon final for the seventh time, by defeating Agassi in the semifinals. In the final however, Becker, further fatigued after grueling baseline contests with Cédric Pioline and then with Agassi, lost in four sets to Pete Sampras. He won the year-end ATP Tour World Championships for the third and last time in Frankfurt with a straight-set win over Michael Chang in the final. Becker's sixth and final Grand Slam title came in 1996 when he defeated Chang in the final of the Australian Open. After winning the Queen's Club Championships for the fourth time, Becker was widely expected to mount a serious challenge for the Wimbledon title in 1996, but his bid ended abruptly when he damaged his right wrist during a third-round match against Neville Godwin and was forced to withdraw.\n\nBecker defeated Sampras in October 1996 in a five-set final in Stuttgart. \"Becker is the best indoor player I've ever played\", said Sampras after the match. Becker lost to Sampras in the final of the 1996 ATP Tour World Championships in Hanover. Becker saved two match points in the fourth set and held serve 27 consecutive times until he was broken in the penultimate game. Later that year he won the Grand Slam Cup defeating Goran Ivanisevic in the final. In 1997, Becker lost to Sampras in the quarterfinals at Wimbledon. After that match, he vowed that he would never play at Wimbledon again. However, Becker played Wimbledon one more time in 1999, this time losing in the fourth round to Patrick Rafter.\n\nBecker was most comfortable playing on fast-playing surfaces, particularly grass courts and indoor carpet (on which he won 26 titles). He reached a few finals playing on clay courts, but never won a clay-court tournament in his professional career. His best performances at the French Open were when he reached the semifinals in 1987, 1989, and 1991.\n\nOver the course of his career, Becker won 49 singles titles and 15 doubles titles. Besides his six Grand Slam titles, he was also a singles winner in the year-end Masters / ATP Tour World Championships in 1988, 1992, and 1995, the WCT Finals in 1988 and at the Grand Slam Cup in 1996. He won a record-equalling four singles titles at London's Queen's Club. In Davis Cup, his career win-loss record was 54–12, including 38–3 in singles. He also won the other two major international team titles playing for Germany, the Hopman Cup (in 1995) and the World Team Cup (in 1989 and '98).\n\nBecker won singles titles in 14 different countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Qatar, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States. In 2003, Becker was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. He occasionally plays on the senior tour and in World Team Tennis. He is also sometimes a commentator at Wimbledon for the BBC.\n\nPlaying style\n\nBecker's game was based on a fast and well-placed serve, that earned him the nicknames \"Boom Boom\", \"Der Bomber\" and \"Baron von Slam\", and great volleying skills at the net. He could supplement his pure serve-and-volley game with brilliant athleticism at the net, which included the diving volley that was considered a trademark of the young German, and which endeared him to his fans. His heavy forehand and return of serve were also very significant factors in his game.\n\nBecker occasionally deviated from his serve-and-volley style to try to out-hit, from the baseline, opponents who normally were at their best while remaining near the baseline. Even though Becker possessed powerful shots from both wings, this strategy was often criticized by commentators.\n\nBecker had frequent emotional outbursts on court. Whenever he considered himself to be playing badly, he often swore at himself and occasionally smashed his rackets. In contrast to John McEnroe, Becker rarely showed aggression toward his opponents or officials. Also in contrast to McEnroe, his level of play and focus tended to be diminished rather than enhanced following these outbursts. Becker's highly dramatic play spawned new expressions such as the Becker Blocker (his trademark early return shot), the Becker Hecht (a flying lunge), the Becker Faust (\"Becker Fist\"), the Becker Shuffle (the dance he sometimes performed after making important points), and Becker Säge (\"Becker Saw\" – referring to the way in which he pumped his fists in a sawing motion).\n\nBecker, one of the most effective players in his era on grass courts and carpet courts, had less success on clay. He never won a top-level singles title on clay, coming closest when holding two match points against Thomas Muster in the final of the 1995 Monte Carlo Open. Becker did, however, team up with Michael Stich to win the 1992 men's doubles Olympic gold medal on clay.\n\nEquipment\n\nBecker played most of his career with racquets from the German company Puma. After production of this racquet was discontinued, he bought the moulds and had them produced by the American company Estusa. He now has his own personal line of racquets and apparel. \n\nCareer statistics\n\nRecords\n\n* These records were attained in Open Era of tennis.\n* Records in bold indicate peer-less achievements.\n* ^ Denotes consecutive streak.\n\nProfessional awards\n\nITF World Champion: 1989.\nATP Player of the Year: 1989.\n* ATP Most Improved Player: 1985.\n\nPost-retirement career\n\nIn 2012, Becker described his approach to retirement. \"I had won so much by 22, a number of Wimbledon titles, US Open, Davis Cup, World number one. You look for the next big thing and that isn't in tennis.\" Since 2000, Becker has been the principal owner of the tennis division of Völkl Inc., a tennis racquet and clothing manufacturer. Becker published his autobiography, Augenblick, verweile doch... (en: The Player) in 2003. From October 2005 to June 2006, Becker was a team captain on the British TV sports quiz show They Think It's All Over.\n\nBecker is a noted poker player and has appeared in the European Poker Tour and the World Poker Tour; by 2013 Becker had won more €90,000 in career earnings from poker.\n\nIn October 2006, Becker signed a two-year deal with Vodafone to answer selected text messages from fans. The terms were his answering around 300 messages per year. These were predominantly questions about his career and trivia about the men's ATP tour. Becker has visited several places in Europe promoting the service, including Moscow and Airdrie.\n\nIn May 2009, Becker announced the launch of online media platform Boris Becker TV. The website, in English and German, features clips from his career and footage of his daily life. \n\nSince 2003, Becker has been a commentator for the BBC at Wimbledon. Becker appeared on the second episode of series 16 of the BBC's car show Top Gear as the \"Star in a Reasonably Priced Car\". \n\nBecker is a patron of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. \n\nIn December 2013, Novak Djokovic announced on his website that Boris Becker will become his Head Coach for the 2014 season. As a result, Becker gave up his commentating job with the BBC. Since working together, Becker has contributed to 6 of Novak's 12 grand slam titles & 13 of his 29 masters 1000 titles.\n\nPersonal life\n\nBecker lives in Wimbledon, London, UK. He is a fan of German football club Bayern Munich and serves on its advisory board alongside former Bavarian Premier Edmund Stoiber.\n\nIn addition to Munich, Monaco, and Schwyz, Becker has an apartment in London, in or near Wimbledon, and possibly still maintains a residence in Miami, to be near his children. \n\nBecker is not related to fellow German professional tennis players Benjamin Becker nor Richard Becker.\n\nRelationships\n\n On 17 December 1993, Becker married actress and designer Barbara Feltus. On 18 January 1994, their son Noah Gabriel, named after Becker's friends Yannick Noah and Peter Gabriel, was born. Their second child, Elias Balthasar, was born on 4 September 1999. Before the marriage, they shocked some in Germany by posing nude for the cover of Stern in a picture taken by her father.\n\nAfter Becker asked Barbara for a separation in December 2000, she flew to Miami, Florida, with Noah and Elias and filed a divorce petition in Miami-Dade County Court, sidestepping their prenuptial agreement which had entitled her to a single $2.5 million payoff. Barbara left for Florida after being contacted by a woman claiming to be pregnant with Becker's child. In his autobiography, Becker stated that he admitted to his wife that he had the one night stand with another woman while Barbara was pregnant with their second child. He wrote that Barbara struck him during an argument that occurred after he flew to Florida to meet with her and discuss the break up of their marriage. The pretrial hearing in January 2001 was broadcast live to Germany. Becker was granted a divorce on 15 January 2001. She received a $14.4 million settlement, their condominium on the exclusive Fisher Island, and custody of Noah and Elias.\n\nIn February 2001, Becker acknowledged paternity of a daughter, Anna (born 22 March 2000), with Russian model Angela Ermakova. In October 2009, he confirmed media reports that the child was the result of a sexual encounter in 1999 at a London restaurant. He had been out drinking following losing a main draw singles match at the Wimbledon Championships, in what had been a come-back to the venue of his greatest success. Becker initially denied paternity, but admitted he was the child's father after a DNA test. In November 2007, he obtained joint custody of Anna after expressing concerns over how her mother was raising her. \n\nBecker was briefly engaged to in 2008. Her father, Axel Meyer-Wölden, was Becker's advisor and manager in the 1990s. The couple broke up in November 2008. She later married TV-personality Oliver Pocher. \n\nIn February 2009, on the German ZDF TV show Wetten, dass..?, Becker announced that he and German model Sharlely \"Lilly\" Kerssenberg were to be married on 12 June 2009 in St Moritz, Switzerland. In August 2009 they announced that they were expecting a child. In February 2010 their son, Amadeus Benedict Edley Luis Becker, was born in London. The baby is named after Becker's wife's uncle Edley, and his friend, Mexican-Cuban millionaire Luis Garcia Fanjul who is also the child's godfather." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Noah (Hebrew Bible)", "Noah", "No'ah", "Nuach", "Nooh", "Noahian", "No'a", "Noah and the Ark", "Noahtic", "Flood (Bible)", "נוֹחַ" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "nooh", "nuach", "flood bible", "נוֹחַ", "noah hebrew bible", "no", "noahtic", "noahian", "no ah", "noah and ark", "noah" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "noah", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Noah" }
President Kennedy was shot on 22nd November; what day was Lee Harvey Oswald shot?	tc_1262	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "John_F._Kennedy.txt", "Lee_Harvey_Oswald.txt" ], "title": [ "John F. Kennedy", "Lee Harvey Oswald" ], "wiki_context": [ "John Fitzgerald \"Jack\" Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), commonly referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. The Cuban Missile Crisis, The Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the establishment of the Peace Corps, developments in the Space Race, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Trade Expansion Act to lower tariffs, and the Civil Rights Movement all took place during his presidency. His New Frontier domestic program was largely enacted as a memorial to him after his death. Kennedy increased the number of American military advisors in South Vietnam by a factor of 18 over Eisenhower, and tolerated a military coup against the country's president.\n\nKennedy's time in office was marked by high tensions with Communist states, particularly Cuba. An attempt at the Bay of Pigs to overthrow the country's dictator Fidel Castro in April 1961 was thwarted by Cuban armed forces within three days. Kennedy's administration subsequently rejected plans by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to orchestrate false-flag attacks on American soil in order to gain public approval for a war against Cuba. In October 1962, it was discovered Soviet ballistic missiles had been deployed in Cuba; the resulting period of unease, often termed the Cuban Missile Crisis, is seen by many historians as the closest the human race has ever come to war featuring the use of nuclear weapons by more than one side.\n\nAfter military service in the United States Naval Reserve in World War II, Kennedy represented Massachusetts's 11th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953 as a Democrat. He was elected subsequently to the U.S. Senate and served as the junior Senator from Massachusetts from 1953 until 1960. Kennedy defeated Vice President, and Republican candidate, Richard Nixon in the 1960 U.S. Presidential Election. At age 43, he became the youngest man elected president and the second-youngest president (after Theodore Roosevelt, who was 42 when he became president after the assassination of William McKinley). Kennedy was also the first person born in the 20th century to serve as president. , Kennedy has been the only Roman Catholic president and the only president to have won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography Profiles in Courage. \n\nKennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested that afternoon and determined to have fired shots that hit the President from a sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby mortally wounded Oswald two days later in a jail corridor. The FBI and the Warren Commission officially concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin, but its report was sharply criticized. The United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) agreed that Oswald fired the shots that killed the president, but also concluded that Kennedy was likely assassinated as the result of a conspiracy. The majority of Americans alive at the time of the assassination: 52% to 29%, and continuing through 2013 (61% to 30%), believed that there was a conspiracy and that Oswald was not the only shooter. \n\nSince the 1960s, information concerning Kennedy's private life has come to light, including his health problems and allegations of infidelity. Kennedy continues to rank highly in historians' polls of U.S. presidents and with the general public. His average approval rating of 70% is the highest of any president in Gallup's history of systematically measuring job approval. \n\nEarly life and education\n\nJohn Fitzgerald Kennedy was born at 83 Beals Street in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1917, to businessman/politician Joseph Patrick \"Joe\" Kennedy, Sr. (1888–1969) and philanthropist/socialite Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald-Kennedy (1890–1995). His father was the oldest son of businessman/politician Patrick Joseph \"P. J.\" Kennedy (1858–1929) and Mary Augusta Hickey-Kennedy (1857–1923). His mother was the daughter of Boston Mayor John Francis \"Honey Fitz\" Fitzgerald (1863–1950) and Mary Josephine \"Josie\" Hannon-Fitzgerald (1865–1964). All of his grandparents were the children of Irish immigrants.\n\nHis brothers were Joseph Patrick \"Joe\" Kennedy, Jr. (1915–1944), Robert Francis \"Bobby\" Kennedy (1925–1968), and Edward Moore \"Ted\" Kennedy (1932–2009). Joseph Jr. was killed in action during World War II. Robert was JFK's attorney general and then a senator who was assassinated in 1968; Ted was a long-serving U.S. senator from 1962 until his death from brain cancer in 2009. His sisters were Rose Marie \"Rosemary\" Kennedy (1918–2005), Kathleen Agnes \"Kick\" Kennedy (1920–1948), Eunice Mary Kennedy (1921–2009), Patricia Helen \"Pat\" Kennedy (1924–2006), and Jean Ann Kennedy (born 1928).\n\nKennedy lived in Brookline for ten years and attended the Edward Devotion School, the Noble and Greenough Lower School, and the Dexter School through 4th grade. In 1927, the Kennedy family moved to a stately twenty-room, Georgian-style mansion at 5040 Independence Avenue (across the street from Wave Hill) in the Hudson Hill neighborhood of Riverdale, Bronx, New York City. He attended the lower campus of Riverdale Country School, a private school for boys, from 5th to 7th grade. Two years later, the family moved to 294 Pondfield Road in the New York City suburb of Bronxville, New York, where Kennedy was a member of Scout Troop 2. The Kennedy family spent summers at their home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and Christmas and Easter holidays at their winter home in Palm Beach, Florida. In September 1930, Kennedy—then 13 years old—attended the Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. In late April 1931, he required an appendectomy, after which he withdrew from Canterbury and recuperated at home.\n\nIn September 1931, Kennedy was sent to the The Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut for 9th through 12th grade. His older brother had already been at Choate for two years as a football player and leading student. He spent his first years at Choate in his older brother's shadow, and compensated for this with rebellious behavior which attracted a coterie. Their most notorious stunt was to explode a toilet seat with a powerful firecracker. In the ensuing chapel assembly, the strict headmaster, George St. John, brandished the toilet seat and spoke of certain \"muckers\" who would \"spit in our sea.\" The defiant Kennedy took the cue and named his group \"The Muckers Club\", which included roommate and friend Kirk LeMoyne \"Lem\" Billings.\n\nDuring his Choate years, Kennedy was beset by health problems that culminated in 1934 with his emergency hospitalization at New Haven Hospital, where doctors thought he might have leukemia. In June 1934, he was admitted to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, the ultimate diagnosis there was colitis. Kennedy graduated from Choate in June of the following year. For the school yearbook, of which he had been business manager, Kennedy was voted the \"most likely to succeed\".\n\nIn September 1935, he made his first trip abroad with his parents and his sister Kathleen to London intending to study under Harold Laski at the London School of Economics (LSE) as his older brother had done. Ill-health forced his return to America in October of that year, when he enrolled late and spent six weeks at Princeton University. He was then hospitalized for observation at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. He convalesced further at the Kennedy winter home in Palm Beach, then spent the spring of 1936 working as a ranch hand on the 40000 acre Jay Six cattle ranch outside Benson, Arizona. It is reported that ranchman Jack Speiden worked both brothers \"very hard\".\n\nIn September 1936, Kennedy enrolled at Harvard College, where he produced that year's annual \"Freshman Smoker\", called by a reviewer \"an elaborate entertainment, which included in its cast outstanding personalities of the radio, screen and sports world\". He tried out for the football, golf, and swimming teams and earned a spot on the varsity swimming team. Kennedy also sailed in the Star class and won the 1936 Nantucket Sound Star Championship. In July 1937, Kennedy sailed to France—taking his convertible—and spent ten weeks driving through Europe with Billings. In June 1938, Kennedy sailed overseas with his father and older brother to work at the American embassy in London, where his father was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's.\n\nIn 1939, Kennedy toured Europe, the Soviet Union, the Balkans, and the Middle East in preparation for his Harvard senior honors thesis. He then went to Czechoslovakia and Germany before returning to London on September 1, 1939, the day that Germany invaded Poland. Two days later, the family was in the House of Commons for speeches endorsing the United Kingdom's declaration of war on Germany. Kennedy was sent as his father's representative to help with arrangements for American survivors of the SS Athenia before flying back to the U.S. from Foynes, Ireland to Port Washington, New York on his first transatlantic flight.\n\nAs an upperclassman at Harvard, Kennedy became a more serious student and developed an interest in political philosophy. In his junior year, he made the Dean's List. In 1940, Kennedy completed his thesis, \"Appeasement in Munich\", about British participation in the Munich Agreement. The thesis became a bestseller under the title Why England Slept. He graduated from Harvard College cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in government, concentrating on international affairs, that year. Kennedy enrolled in and audited classes at the Stanford Graduate School of Business that fall. In early 1941, Kennedy left and helped his father write a memoir of his three years as an American ambassador, and then traveled throughout South America; including Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.\n\nOn September 12, 1953, after a one-year courtship, Kennedy, then thirty-six, married 24-year-old Jacqueline Bouvier at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island. \n\nU.S. Navy Reserve (1941–1945)\n\nKennedy attempted to enter the Army's Officer Candidate School in 1940, but was medically disqualified for his chronic lower back problems. On September 24, 1941, after exercising for months to strengthen his back, and with the help of the director of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), former naval attaché to Joseph Kennedy, he joined the United States Naval Reserve (U.S. Navy Reserve since 2005). He was commissioned an ensign on October 26, 1941, and joined the staff of the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, D.C. He attended the Naval Reserve Officer Training School at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, from July 27 to September 27 and then voluntarily entered the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons Training Center in Melville, Rhode Island. On October 10, he was promoted to lieutenant junior grade. He completed his training on December 2 and was assigned to Motor Torpedo Squadron FOUR.\n\nHis first command was PT-101 from December 7, 1942, until February 23, 1943: It was a PT boat used for training while Kennedy was an instructor at Melville. He then led three Huckins PT boats—PT-98, PT-99, and PT-101, which were being relocated from MTBRON 4 in Melville, Rhode Island, back to Jacksonville, Florida and the new MTBRON 14 (formed February 17, 1943). During the trip south, he was hospitalized briefly in Jacksonville after diving into the cold water to unfoul a propeller. Thereafter, Kennedy was assigned duty in Panama and later in the Pacific theater, where he eventually commanded two more patrol torpedo (PT) boats. \n\nPT-109 and PT-59\n\nIn April 1943, he was assigned to Motor Torpedo Squadron TWO. On April 24, Kennedy took command of PT-109 which was based at Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands. On the night of August 1–2, PT-109, on its 31st mission, was performing nighttime patrols near New Georgia in the Solomon Islands with PT-162 and PT-169. Kennedy spotted a Japanese destroyer nearby and attempted to turn to attack, when PT-109 was rammed suddenly at an angle and cut in half by the destroyer Amagiri, costing two PT-109 crew members their lives. Kennedy gathered his surviving ten crew members including those injured around the wreckage, to vote on whether to \"fight or surrender\". Kennedy stated: \"There's nothing in the book about a situation like this. A lot of you men have families and some of you have children. What do you want to do? I have nothing to lose.\" Shunning surrender, the men swam towards a small island three miles away. Despite re-injuring his back in the collision, Kennedy towed a badly burned crewman through the water with a life jacket strap clenched between his teeth to the island and later to a second island, where his crew was subsequently rescued on August 8. Kennedy and Ensign Leonard Thom, his executive officer on PT-109, were both later awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism and the Purple Heart Medal for injuries. \n\nOn September 1, 1943, Kennedy returned to duty and took command of a PT boat converted into a gunboat, the PT-59. In October, Kennedy was promoted to lieutenant. On November 2, PT-59, which included three former PT-109 crew members, took part with another boat in the successful rescue of 87 marines stranded on two rescue landing craft on the Warrior River at Choiseul Island which was held by the Japanese. Kennedy was relieved of his command of PT-59 on November 18 under doctor's orders and returned to the United States in early January 1944. After receiving treatment for his back injury, he was released from active duty in late 1944. \nBeginning in January 1945, Kennedy spent three more months recovering from his back injury at Castle Hot Springs, a resort and temporary military hospital in Arizona. \n\nKennedy was in Chelsea Naval Hospital from May to December 1942. On June 12, he was presented the Navy and Marine Corps Medal (the Navy's highest noncombat decoration for heroism) for his heroic actions on August 1–2, 1943, and the Purple Heart Medal for his back injury on PT-109, on August 1, 1943 (injured on August 2). After the war, Kennedy felt that the medal he had received for heroism was not a combat award and asked that he be reconsidered for the Silver Star Medal for which had been recommended initially. (His father also requested the Silver Star, which is awarded for gallantry in action, for Kennedy). In 1950, The Department of the Navy offered Kennedy a Bronze Star Medal to recognize his meritorious service, however he would have to return his Navy and Marine Corps Medal in order to receive it. He declined the medal. In 1959, the Navy again offered him the Bronze Star. Kennedy responded, repeating his original request concerning the award. He received the same response from the Navy as he had in 1950. The Navy said his actions were a lifesaving case. Both of Kennedy's original medals are on display currently at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. \n\nOn August 12, 1944, his older brother, Joe Jr., a Navy pilot, was killed after volunteering for a special and hazardous air mission when his explosive-laden plane exploded over the English Channel. \n\nOn March 1, 1945, Kennedy was retired from the Navy Reserve on physical disability and honorably discharged with the full rank of lieutenant. When later asked later how he became a war hero, Kennedy joked: \"It was easy. They cut my PT boat in half.\"\n\nMilitary awards\n\nKennedy's military decorations and awards include the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, Purple Heart Medal, American Defense Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with three \" bronze stars, and the World War II Victory Medal.\n\nNavy and Marine Corps Medal citation\n\n\"For heroism in the rescue of three men following the ramming and sinking of his motor torpedo boat while attempting a torpedo attack on a Japanese destroyer in the Solomon Islands area on the night of August 1–2, 1943. Lieutenant Kennedy, Captain of the boat, directed the rescue of the crew and personally rescued three men, one of whom was seriously injured. During the following six days, he succeeded in getting his crew ashore, and after swimming many hours attempting to secure aid and food, finally effected the rescue of the men. His courage, endurance, and excellent leadership contributed to the saving of several lives and was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.\"\n\n W.F. Halsey, Admiral, U.S. Navy Temporary Citation\n\n\"For extremely heroic conduct as Commanding Officer of Motor Torpedo Boat 109 following the collision and sinking of that vessel in the Pacific War Theater on August 1–2, 1943. Unmindful of personal danger, Lieutenant (then Lieutenant, Junior Grade) Kennedy unhesitatingly braved the difficulties and hazards of darkness to direct rescue operations, swimming many hours to secure aid and food after he had succeeded in getting his crew ashore. His outstanding courage, endurance and leadership contributed to the saving of several lives and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.\"\n\n James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy \n\nPost-naval service\n\nIn April 1945, Kennedy's father, who was a friend of William Randolph Hearst, arranged a position for his son as a special correspondent for Hearst Newspapers; the assignment kept Kennedy's name in the public eye and \"expose[d] him to journalism as a possible career.\" He worked as a correspondent that May, covering the Potsdam Conference and other events.\n\nCongressional career\n\nBecause his eldest brother had been the family's political standard-bearer, and tapped by his father to seek the Presidency, his death in 1944 changed that course and the task now fell to the younger Kennedy.\n\nU.S. House of Representatives (1947–1953)\n\nAt the urging of Kennedy's father, U.S. Representative James Michael Curley vacated his seat in the strongly Democratic 11th Congressional district in Massachusetts to become mayor of Boston in 1946. Kennedy ran for the seat, beating his Republican opponent by a large margin in November 1946. He served as a congressman for six years.\n\nU.S. Senate (1953–1960)\n\nIn the 1952 U.S. Senate election, Kennedy defeated incumbent Republican Henry Cabot Lodge II for the Senate seat. The following year, he married Jacqueline Bouvier.\n\nKennedy underwent several spinal operations over the next two years. Often absent from the Senate, he was at times critically ill and received Catholic last rites. During his convalescence in 1956, he published Profiles in Courage, a book about U.S. senators who risked their careers for their personal beliefs, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1957. Rumors that this work was co-written by his close adviser and speechwriter, Ted Sorensen, were confirmed in Sorensen's 2008 autobiography. \n\nAt the 1956 Democratic National Convention, Presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson let the convention select the Vice Presential nominee. Kennedy finished second in the balloting, losing to Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee. Kennedy received national exposure from that episode; his father thought it just as well that Kennedy lost, due to the potential political debility of his Catholicism and the strength of the Eisenhower ticket.\n\nOne of the matters demanding Kennedy's attention in the Senate was President Eisenhower's bill for the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Kennedy cast a procedural vote on this, which was considered by some as an appeasement of Southern Democratic opponents of the bill. Kennedy did vote for Title III of the act, which would have given the Attorney General powers to enjoin, but Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson agreed to let the provision die as a compromise measure. Kennedy also voted for Title IV, termed the \"Jury Trial Amendment\". Many civil rights advocates at the time criticized that vote as one which would weaken the act. A final compromise bill, which Kennedy supported, was passed in September 1957.\n\nIn 1958, Kennedy was re-elected to a second term in the Senate, defeating his Republican opponent, Boston lawyer Vincent J. Celeste, by a wide margin. It was during his re-election campaign that Kennedy's press secretary at this time, Robert E. Thompson, put together a film entitled The U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy Story, which exhibited a day in the life of the Senator and showcased his family life as well as the inner workings of his office. It was the most comprehensive film produced about Kennedy up to that time. \n\nWhile Kennedy's father was a strong supporter of Senator Joseph McCarthy, McCarthy was also a friend of the Kennedy family. As well, Bobby Kennedy worked for McCarthy's subcommittee, and McCarthy dated Kennedy sister Patricia. In 1954, the Senate voted to censure McCarthy and Kennedy drafted a speech supporting the censure. The speech, however, was not delivered, because of Kennedy's hospitalization at the time. The speech had the potential of putting Kennedy in the position of participating procedurally by \"pairing\" his vote against that of another senator. Although Kennedy never indicated how he would have voted, the episode damaged Kennedy's support among members of the liberal community, including Eleanor Roosevelt, in the 1956 and 1960 elections.\n\n1960 presidential election\n\nOn January 2, 1960, Kennedy initiated his campaign for president in the Democratic primary election, where he faced challenges from Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon. Kennedy defeated Humphrey in Wisconsin and West Virginia, Morse in Maryland and Oregon, as well as token opposition (often write-in candidates) in New Hampshire, Indiana, and Nebraska.\n\nKennedy visited a coal mine in West Virginia. Most miners and others in that predominantly conservative, Protestant state were quite wary of Kennedy's Roman Catholicism. His victory in West Virginia confirmed his broad popular appeal.\n\nAt the Democratic Convention, he gave his well-known \"New Frontier\" speech, saying: \"For the problems are not all solved and the battles are not all won—and we stand today on the edge of a New Frontier.... But the New Frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises—it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them.\" \n\nWith Humphrey and Morse eliminated, Kennedy's main opponent at the Los Angeles convention was Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas. Kennedy overcame this formal challenge as well as informal ones from Adlai Stevenson (the Democratic nominee in 1952 and 1956), Stuart Symington, and several favorite sons, and on July 13, the Democratic convention nominated Kennedy as its candidate. Kennedy asked Johnson to be his vice presidential candidate, despite opposition from many liberal delegates and Kennedy's own staff, including his brother Bobby. \n\nKennedy needed Johnson's strength in the South to win what was considered likely to be the closest election since 1916. Major issues included how to get the economy moving again, Kennedy's Roman Catholicism, Cuba, and whether the Soviet space and missile programs had surpassed those of the U.S. To address fears that his being Catholic would impact his decision-making, he famously told the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12, 1960, \"I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party candidate for president who also happens to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my Church on public matters – and the Church does not speak for me.\" Kennedy questioned rhetorically whether one-quarter of Americans were relegated to second-class citizenship just because they were Catholic, and once stated that, \"No one asked me my religion [serving the Navy] in the South Pacific.\"\n\nIn September and October, Kennedy appeared with vice president and Republican candidate Richard Nixon in the first televised U.S. presidential debates in U.S. history. During these programs, Nixon, with a sore, injured leg and his \"five o'clock shadow\", was perspiring and looked tense and uncomfortable, while Kennedy, choosing to avail himself of makeup services, appeared relaxed, leading the huge television audience to favor Kennedy as the winner. Radio listeners either thought Nixon had won or that the debates were a draw. The debates are now considered a milestone in American political history—the point at which the medium of television began to play a dominant role in politics. \n\nKennedy's campaign gained momentum after the first debate, and he pulled slightly ahead of Nixon in most polls. On November 8, Kennedy defeated Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections of the 20th century. In the national popular vote, Kennedy led Nixon by just two-tenths of one percent (49.7% to 49.5%), while in the Electoral College, he won 303 votes to Nixon's 219 (269 were needed to win).\n\nFourteen electors from Mississippi and Alabama refused to support Kennedy because of his support for the civil rights movement; they voted for Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, as did an elector from Oklahoma. Kennedy was the youngest man elected president, succeeding Eisenhower, who was then the oldest (Ronald Reagan surpassed Eisenhower as the oldest president in 1981).\n\nPresidency (1961–1963)\n\nJohn F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th president at noon on January 20, 1961. In his inaugural address he spoke of the need for all Americans to be active citizens, famously saying, \"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.\" He asked the nations of the world to join together to fight what he called the \"common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself\". \n\nHe added: \"All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.\" In closing, he expanded on his desire for greater internationalism: \"Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you.\"\n\nThe address reflected Kennedy's confidence that his administration would chart an historically significant course in both domestic policy and foreign affairs. The contrast between this optimistic vision and the pressures of managing daily political realities at home and abroad would be one of the main tensions running through the early years of his administration.\n\nKennedy brought to the White House a contrast in organization compared to the decision-making structure of former-general Eisenhower; and he wasted no time in dismantling Eisenhower's methods. Kennedy preferred the organizational structure of a wheel, with all the spokes leading to the president. He was ready and willing to make the increased number of quick decisions required in such an environment. He selected a mixture of experienced and inexperienced people to serve in his cabinet. \"We can learn our jobs together\", he stated.\n\nMuch to the chagrin of his economic advisors who wanted him to reduce taxes, Kennedy quickly agreed to a balanced budget pledge. This was needed in exchange for votes to expand the membership of the House Rules Committee in order to give the Democrats a majority in setting the legislative agenda. The president focused on immediate and specific issues facing the administration, and quickly voiced his impatience with pondering of deeper meanings. Deputy national security advisor Walt Whitman Rostow once began a diatribe about the growth of communism, and Kennedy abruptly cut him off, asking, \"What do you want me to do about that today?\"\n\nKennedy approved Defense secretary Robert McNamara's controversial decision to award the contract for the F-111 TFX (Tactical Fighter Experimental) fighter-bomber to General Dynamics (the choice of the civilian Defense department) over Boeing (the choice of the military). At the request of Senator Henry Jackson, Senator John McClellan held 46 days of mostly closed-door hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations investigating the TFX contract from February to November 1963. \n\nForeign policy\n\nPresident Kennedy's foreign policy was dominated by American confrontations with the Soviet Union, manifested by proxy contests in the early stage of the Cold War. In 1961, Kennedy anxiously anticipated a summit with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. The president started off on the wrong foot by reacting aggressively to a routine Khrushchev speech on Cold War confrontation in early 1961. The speech was intended for domestic audiences in the Soviet Union, but Kennedy interpreted it as a personal challenge. His mistake helped raise tensions going into the Vienna Summit of June 1961.\n\nOn the way to the summit, Kennedy stopped in Paris to meet Charles de Gaulle, who advised Kennedy to ignore Khrushchev's abrasive style. The French president feared the United States' presumed influence in Europe. Nevertheless, de Gaulle was quite impressed with the young president and his family. Kennedy picked up on this in his speech in Paris, saying that he would be remembered as \"the man who accompanied Jackie Kennedy to Paris.\"\n\nOn June 4, 1961, the president met with Khrushchev in Vienna and left the meetings angry and disappointed that he had allowed the Premier to bully him, despite the warnings he had received. Khrushchev, for his part, was impressed with the president's intelligence, but thought him weak. Kennedy did succeed in conveying the bottom line to Khrushchev on the most sensitive issue before them, a proposed treaty between Moscow and East Berlin. He made it clear that any such treaty which interfered with U.S access rights in West Berlin would be regarded as an act of war.\n\nShortly after the president returned home, the U.S.S.R. announced its intention to sign a treaty with East Berlin, abrogating any third-party occupation rights in either sector of the city. Kennedy, depressed and angry, assumed that his only option was to prepare the country for nuclear war, which he personally thought had a one-in-five chance of occurring.\n\nIn the weeks immediately after the Vienna summit, more than 20,000 people fled from East Berlin to the western sector in reaction to statements from the USSR. Kennedy began intensive meetings on the Berlin issue, where Dean Acheson took the lead in recommending a military buildup alongside NATO allies. In a July 1961 speech, Kennedy announced his decision to add $3.25 billion to the defense budget, along with over 200,000 additional troops, stating that an attack on West Berlin would be taken as an attack on the U.S. The speech received an 85% approval rating.\n\nThe following month, the Soviet Union and East Berlin began blocking any further passage of East Berliners into West Berlin and erected barbed wire fences across the city, which were quickly upgraded to the Berlin Wall. Kennedy's initial reaction was to ignore this, as long as free access from West to East Berlin continued. This course was altered when it was learned that the West Berliners had lost confidence in the defense of their position by the United States. Kennedy sent Vice President Johnson, along with a host of military personnel, in convoy through West Germany, including Soviet-armed checkpoints, to demonstrate the continued commitment of the U.S. to West Berlin.\n\nKennedy gave a speech at Saint Anselm College on May 5, 1960, regarding America's conduct in the emerging Cold War. The address detailed how American foreign policy should be conducted towards African nations, noting a hint of support for modern African nationalism by saying that \"For we, too, founded a new nation on revolt from colonial rule\". \n\nCuba and the Bay of Pigs Invasion\n\nThe prior Eisenhower administration had created a plan to overthrow the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba. The plan, led by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with help from the U.S. military, was for an invasion of Cuba by a counter-revolutionary insurgency composed of U.S.-trained anti-Castro Cuban exiles led by CIA paramilitary officers. The intention was to invade Cuba and instigate an uprising among the Cuban people in hopes of removing Castro from power.\n\nOn April 17, 1961, Kennedy ordered what became known as the \"Bay of Pigs Invasion\": 1,500 U.S.-trained Cubans, called \"Brigade 2506\", landed on the island. No U.S. air support was provided. Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, later stated that they thought the president would authorize any action required for success once the troops were on the ground.\n\nBy April 19, 1961, the Cuban government had captured or killed the invading exiles, and Kennedy was forced to negotiate for the release of the 1,189 survivors. After twenty months, Cuba released the captured exiles in exchange for $53 million worth of food and medicine. The incident made Castro wary of the U.S. and led him to believe another invasion would occur. \n\nAccording to biographer Richard Reeves, Kennedy primarily focused on the political repercussions of the plan rather than military considerations. When it failed, he was convinced that the plan was a setup to make him look bad. He took responsibility for the failure, saying, \"We got a big kick in the leg and we deserved it. But maybe we'll learn something from it.\"\n\nIn late 1961, the White House formed the \"Special Group (Augmented)\", headed by Robert Kennedy and including Edward Lansdale, Secretary Robert McNamara, and others. The group's objective—to overthrow Castro via espionage, sabotage, and other covert tactics—was never pursued.\n\nCuban Missile Crisis\n\nOn October 14, 1962, CIA U-2 spy planes took photographs of intermediate-range ballistic missile sites being built in Cuba by the Soviets. The photos were shown to Kennedy on October 16; a consensus was reached that the missiles were offensive in nature and thus posed an immediate nuclear threat.\n\nKennedy faced a dilemma: if the U.S. attacked the sites, it might lead to nuclear war with the U.S.S.R., but if the U.S. did nothing, it would be faced with the increased threat from close-range nuclear weapons. The U.S. would also appear to the world as less committed to the defense of the hemisphere. On a personal level, Kennedy needed to show resolve in reaction to Khrushchev, especially after the Vienna summit.\n\nMore than a third of the members of the National Security Council (NSC) favored an unannounced air assault on the missile sites, but for some of them this conjured up an image of \"Pearl Harbor in reverse\". There was also some reaction from the international community (asked in confidence), that the assault plan was an overreaction in light of U.S. missiles that had been placed in Turkey by Eisenhower. There could also be no assurance that the assault would be 100% effective. In concurrence with a majority-vote of the NSC, Kennedy decided on a naval quarantine. On October 22 he dispatched a message to Khrushchev and announced the decision on TV.\n\nThe U.S. Navy would stop and inspect all Soviet ships arriving off Cuba, beginning October 24. The Organization of American States gave unanimous support to the removal of the missiles. The president exchanged two sets of letters with Khrushchev, to no avail. United Nations (UN) Secretary General U Thant requested that both parties reverse their decisions and enter a cooling-off period. Khrushchev said yes, but Kennedy said no.\n\nOne Soviet-flagged ship was stopped and boarded. On October 28 Khrushchev agreed to dismantle the missile sites, subject to UN inspections. The U.S. publicly promised never to invade Cuba and privately agreed to remove its missiles in Turkey, which were by then obsolete and had been supplanted by submarines equipped with UGM-27 Polaris missiles.\n\nThis crisis brought the world closer to nuclear war than at any point before or since. In the end, \"the humanity\" of the two men prevailed. The crisis improved the image of American willpower and the president's credibility. Kennedy's approval rating increased from 66% to 77% immediately thereafter.\n\nLatin America and communism\n\nArguing that \"those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable,\" Kennedy sought to contain the perceived threat of communism in Latin America by establishing the Alliance for Progress, which sent aid to some countries and sought greater human rights standards in the region. He worked closely with Governor of Puerto Rico Luis Muñoz Marín for the development of the Alliance of Progress, and began working towards the autonomy of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.\n\nWhen the president took office, the Eisenhower administration, through the CIA, had begun formulating plans for the assassination of Castro in Cuba and Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. Kennedy privately instructed the CIA that any such planning must include plausible deniability by the U.S. His public position was in opposition. In June 1961 the Dominican Republic's leader was assassinated; in the days following the event, Undersecretary of State Chester Bowles led a cautious reaction by the nation. Robert Kennedy, who saw an opportunity for the U.S., called Bowles \"a gutless bastard\" to his face.\n\nPeace Corps\n\nAs one of his first presidential acts, Kennedy asked Congress to create the Peace Corps. His brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, was the first director. Through this program, Americans volunteer to help underdeveloped nations in areas such as education, farming, health care, and construction. The organization grew to 5,000 members by March 1963 and 10,000 the following year. Since 1961, over 200,000 Americans have joined the Peace Corps, serving in 139 countries. \n\nSoutheast Asia\n\nWhen briefing Kennedy, Eisenhower emphasized that the communist threat in Southeast Asia required priority; Eisenhower considered Laos to be \"the cork in the bottle\" in regards to the regional threat. In March 1961, Kennedy voiced a change in policy from supporting a \"free\" Laos to a \"neutral\" Laos, indicating privately that Vietnam, and not Laos, should be deemed America's tripwire for communism's spread in the area.\n\nIn May 1961 he dispatched Lyndon Johnson to meet with South Vietnam's President Ngo Dinh Diem. Johnson assured Diem more aid in molding a fighting force that could resist the communists. Kennedy announced a change of policy from support to partnership with Diem in defeat of communism in South Vietnam.\n\nDuring his administration, Kennedy continued policies that provided political and economic support and military advice and support to the South Vietnamese government. Late in 1961, the Viet Cong began assuming a predominant presence, initially seizing the provincial capital of Phuoc Vinh. Kennedy increased the number of military advisors and special forces U.S. Special Forces in the area, from 11,000 in 1962 to 16,000 by late 1963, but he was reluctant to order a full-scale deployment of troops. Before his assassination, Kennedy used almost exclusively military advisors and special forces in Vietnam. A year and one-half later, his successor, President Lyndon Johnson, committed the first combat troops to Vietnam and greatly escalated U.S. involvement, with forces reaching 184,000 that year and 536,000 in 1968.\n\nIn late 1961, President Kennedy sent Roger Hilsman, then director of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, to assess the situation in Vietnam. There, Hilsman met Sir Robert Thompson, head of the British Advisory Mission to South Vietnam and the concept of the Strategic Hamlet Program was formed. It was approved by Kennedy and South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem. It was implemented in early 1962 and involved some forced relocation, village internment, and segregation of rural South Vietnamese into new communities where the peasantry would be isolated from Communist insurgents. It was hoped these new communities would provide security for the peasants and strengthen the tie between them and the central government. By November 1963 the program waned and officially ended in 1964.\n\nIn early 1962, Kennedy formally authorized escalated involvement when he signed the \"National Security Action Memorandum – Subversive Insurgency (War of Liberation)\". Secretary of State Dean Rusk voiced strong support for U.S. involvement. \"Operation Ranch Hand\", a large-scale aerial defoliation effort, began on the roadsides of South Vietnam.\n\nIn April 1963, Kennedy assessed the situation in Vietnam: \"We don't have a prayer of staying in Vietnam. Those people hate us. They are going to throw our asses out of there at any point. But I can't give up that territory to the communists and get the American people to re-elect me\". Kennedy faced a crisis in Vietnam by July; despite increased U.S. support, the South Vietnamese military was only marginally effective against pro-communist Viet Cong forces.\n\nOn August 21, just as the new U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. arrived, Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu ordered South Vietnam forces, funded and trained by the CIA, to quell Buddhist demonstrations. The crackdowns heightened expectations of a coup d'état to remove Diem with (or perhaps by) his brother, Nhu. Lodge was instructed to try to get Diem and Nhu to step down and leave the country. Diem would not listen to Lodge.\n\nCable 243 (DEPTEL 243), dated August 24, followed, declaring Washington would no longer tolerate Nhu's actions, and Lodge was ordered to pressure Diem to remove Nhu. If Diem refused, the Americans would explore alternative leadership. Lodge stated that the only workable option was to get the South Vietnamese generals to overthrow Diem and Nhu, as originally planned.\n\nAt week's end, Kennedy learned from Lodge that the Diem government might, due to France's assistance to Nhu, be dealing secretly with the communists—and might ask the Americans to leave; orders were sent to Saigon and throughout Washington to \"destroy all coup cables\". At the same time, the first formal anti-Vietnam war sentiment was expressed by U.S. clergy from the Ministers' Vietnam Committee.\n\nA White House meeting in September was indicative of the very different ongoing appraisals; the president was given updated assessments after personal inspections on the ground by the Department of Defense (General Victor Krulak) and the State Department (Joseph Mendenhall). Krulak said that the military fight against the communists was progressing and being won, while Mendenhall stated that the country was civilly being lost to any U.S. influence. Kennedy reacted, saying, \"Did you two gentlemen visit the same country?\" The president was unaware that the two men were at such odds that they had not spoken to each other on the return flight.\n\nIn October 1963, the president appointed Defense Secretary McNamara and General Maxwell D. Taylor to a Vietnam mission in another effort to synchronize the information and formulation of policy. The objective of the McNamara Taylor mission \"emphasized the importance of getting to the bottom of the differences in reporting from U.S. representatives in Vietnam\". In meetings with McNamara, Taylor, and Lodge, Diem again refused to agree to governing measures insisted upon by the U.S., helping to dispel McNamara's previous optimism about Diem.\n\nTaylor and McNamara were also enlightened by Vietnam's vice president, Nguyen Ngoc Tho (choice of many to succeed Diem should a coup occur), who in detailed terms obliterated Taylor's information that the military was succeeding in the countryside. At Kennedy's insistence, the mission report contained a recommended schedule for troop withdrawals: 1,000 by year's end and complete withdrawal in 1965, something the NSC considered a strategic fantasy. The final report declared that the military was making progress, that the increasingly unpopular Diem-led government was not vulnerable to a coup, and that an assassination of Diem or Nhu was a possibility.\n\nIn late October, intelligence wires again reported that a coup against the Diem government was afoot. The source, Vietnamese General Duong Van Minh (also known as \"Big Minh\"), wanted to know the U.S. position. Kennedy instructed Lodge to offer covert assistance to the coup, excluding assassination, and to ensure deniability by the U.S. Later that month, as the coup became imminent, Kennedy ordered all cables to be routed through him. A policy of \"control and cut out\" was initiated to insure presidential control of U.S. responses, while cutting him out of the paper trail.\n\nOn November 1, 1963, South Vietnamese generals, led by \"Big Minh\", overthrew the Diem government, arresting and then killing Diem and Nhu. Kennedy was shocked by the deaths. He found out afterwards that Minh had asked the CIA field office to secure safe-passage out of the country for Diem and Nhu, but was told that 24 hours were needed to procure a plane. Minh responded that he could not hold them that long.\n\nNews of the coup initially led to renewed confidence—both in America and in South Vietnam—that the war might be won. McGeorge Bundy drafted a National Security Action Memo to present to Kennedy upon his return from Dallas. It reiterated the resolve to fight communism in Vietnam, with increasing military and economic aid and expansion of operations into Laos and Cambodia. Before leaving for Dallas, Kennedy told Michael Forrestal that \"after the first of the year ... [he wanted] an in depth study of every possible option, including how to get out of there ... to review this whole thing from the bottom to the top\". When asked what he thought the president meant, Forrestal said, \"it was devil's advocate stuff.\"\n\nHistorians disagree on whether Vietnam would have escalated had Kennedy survived and been re-elected in 1964. Fueling the debate are statements made by Secretary of Defense McNamara in the film \"The Fog of War\" that Kennedy was strongly considering pulling out of Vietnam after the 1964 election. The film also contains a tape recording of Lyndon Johnson stating that Kennedy was planning to withdraw, a position that Johnson disagreed with. Kennedy had signed National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 263, dated October 11, which ordered the withdrawal of 1,000 military personnel by the end of the year. Such an action would have been a policy reversal, but Kennedy was moving in a less hawkish direction since his acclaimed speech about world peace at American University on June 10, 1963. \n\nWhen Robert Kennedy was asked in 1964 what his brother would have done if the South Vietnamese had been on the brink of defeat, he replied, \"We'd face that when we came to it.\" At the time of Kennedy's death, no final policy decision had been made as to Vietnam. In 2008, Theodore Sorensen wrote \"I would like to believe that Kennedy would have found a way to withdraw all American instructors and advisors [from Vietnam]. But even someone who knew JFK as well as I did can't be certain, because I do not believe he knew in his last weeks what he was going to do.\" Sorensen added that, in his opinion, Vietnam \"was the only foreign policy problem handed off by JFK to his successor in no better, and possibly worse, shape than it was when he inherited it.\" U.S. involvement in the region escalated until Lyndon Johnson, his successor, directly deployed regular U.S. military forces for fighting the Vietnam War. After Kennedy's assassination, President Johnson passed NSAM 273 on November 26, 1963. It reversed Kennedy's decision to withdraw 1,000 troops, and reaffirmed the policy of assistance to the South Vietnamese. \n\nAmerican University speech\n\nOn June 10, 1963, Kennedy delivered at the high point of his rhetorical powers the commencement address at American University in Washington, D.C. Also known as \"Strategy of Peace\", Kennedy not only outlined a plan to curb nuclear arms, but also \"laid out a hopeful, yet realistic route for world peace at a time when the U.S. and Soviet Union faced the potential for an escalating nuclear arms race.\" The President wished \"to discuss a topic on which too often ignorance abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived—yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace ... I speak of peace because of the new face of war...in an age when a singular nuclear weapon contains ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied forces in the Second World War ... an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and air and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn ... I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men ... world peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor—it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance ... our problems are man-made—therefore they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants.\" The president also made two announcements—that the Soviets had expressed a desire to negotiate a nuclear test ban treaty and that the U.S had postponed planned atmospheric tests.\n\nWest Berlin speech\n\nIn 1963, Germany was enduring a time of particular vulnerability due to Soviet aggression to the east and the impending retirement of West German Chancellor Adenauer. At the same time, French President Charles de Gaulle was trying to build a Franco-West German counterweight to the American and Soviet spheres of influence. To Kennedy's eyes, this Franco-German cooperation seemed directed against NATO's influence in Europe. \n\nOn June 26, President Kennedy gave a public speech in West Berlin reiterating the American commitment to Germany and criticizing communism. He was met with an ecstatic response from a massive audience.\n\nKennedy used the construction of the Berlin Wall as an example of the failures of communism: \"Freedom has many difficulties, and democracy is not perfect. But we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us.\" The speech is known for its famous phrase \"Ich bin ein Berliner\" (\"I am a citizen of Berlin\"). A million people were on the street for the speech. He remarked to Ted Sorensen afterwards: \"We'll never have another day like this one, as long as we live.\"\n\nIsrael\n\nIn 1960, Kennedy stated: \"Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom\". \n\nSubsequently as president, Kennedy initiated the creation of security ties with Israel, and he is credited as the founder of the US-Israeli military alliance (which would be continued under subsequent presidents). Kennedy ended the arms embargo that the Eisenhower and Truman administrations had enforced on Israel. Describing the protection of Israel as a moral and national commitment, he was the first to introduce the concept of a 'special relationship' (as he described it to Golda Meir) between the US and Israel. \n\nKennedy extended the first informal security guarantees to Israel in 1962 and, beginning in 1963, was the first US president to allow the sale to Israel of advanced US weaponry (the MIM-23 Hawk), as well as to provide diplomatic support for Israeli policies which were opposed by Arab neighbours; such as its water project on the Jordan River. \n\nAs result of this newly created security alliance, Kennedy also encountered tensions with the Israeli government regarding the production of nuclear materials in Dimona, which he believed could instigate a nuclear arms-race in the Middle East. After the existence of a nuclear plant was initially denied by the Israeli government, David Ben-Gurion stated in a speech to the Israeli Knesset on December 21, 1960, that the purpose of the nuclear plant at Beersheba was for \"research in problems of arid zones and desert flora and fauna\". When Ben-Gurion met with Kennedy in New York, he claimed that Dimona was being developed to provide nuclear power for desalinization and other peaceful purposes \"for the time being\".\n\nWhen Kennedy wrote that he was skeptical, and stated in a May 1963 letter to Ben-Gurion that American support to Israel could be in jeopardy if reliable information on the Israeli nuclear program was not forthcoming, Ben-Gurion repeated previous reassurances that Dimona was being developed for peaceful purposes. The Israeli government resisted American pressure to open its nuclear facilities to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections. In 1962, the US and Israeli governments had agreed to an annual inspection regime. A science attaché at the embassy in Tel Aviv concluded that parts of the Dimona facility had been shut down temporarily to mislead American scientists when they visited.\n\nAccording to Seymour Hersh, the Israelis set up false control rooms to show the Americans. Israeli lobbyist Abe Feinberg stated, \"It was part of my job to tip them off that Kennedy was insisting on [an inspection].\" Hersh contends the inspections were conducted in such a way that it \"guaranteed that the whole procedure would be little more than a whitewash, as the president and his senior advisors had to understand: the American inspection team would have to schedule its visits well in advance, and with the full acquiescence of Israel.\". Marc Trachtenberg argued: \"Although well aware of what the Israelis were doing, Kennedy chose to take this as satisfactory evidence of Israeli compliance with America's non-proliferation policy.\" The American who led the inspection team stated that the essential goal of the inspections was to find \"ways to not reach the point of taking action against Israel's nuclear weapons program\". \n\nRodger Davies, the director of the State Department's Office of Near Eastern Affairs, concluded in March 1965 that Israel was developing nuclear weapons. He reported that Israel's target date for achieving nuclear capability was 1968–1969. On May 1, 1968, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach told President Johnson that Dimona was producing enough plutonium to produce two bombs a year. The State Department argued that if Israel wanted arms, it should accept international supervision of its nuclear program. Dimona was never placed under IAEA safeguards. Attempts to write Israeli adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) into contracts for the supply of U.S. weapons continued throughout 1968.\n\nIraq\n\nRelations between the United States and Iraq became strained following the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy on July 14, 1958, which resulted in the declaration of a republican government led by Brigadier Abd al-Karim Qasim. On June 25, 1961 Qasim mobilized troops along the border between Iraq and Kuwait, declaring the latter nation \"an indivisible part of Iraq\" and causing a short-lived \"Kuwait Crisis\". The United Kingdom—which had just granted Kuwait independence on June 19 and whose economy was heavily dependent on Kuwaiti oil—responded on July 1 by dispatching 5,000 troops to the country to deter an Iraqi invasion. At the same time, Kennedy dispatched a U.S. Navy task force to Bahrain, and the U.K. (at the urging of the Kennedy administration) brought the dispute to United Nations Security Council, where the proposed resolution was vetoed by the Soviet Union. The situation was resolved in October, when the British troops were withdrawn and replaced by a 4,000-strong Arab League force.\n\nIn December 1961, Qasim's government passed Public Law 80, which restricted the British- and American-owned Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC)'s concessionary holding to those areas in which oil was actually being produced, effectively expropriating 99.5% of the IPC concession. U.S. officials were alarmed by the expropriation as well as the recent Soviet veto of an Egyptian-sponsored UN resolution requesting the admittance of Kuwait as UN member state, which they believed to be connected. Senior National Security Council adviser Robert Komer worried that if the IPC ceased production in response, Qasim might \"grab Kuwait\" (thus achieving a \"stranglehold\" on Middle Eastern oil production) or \"throw himself into Russian arms\". Komer also made note of widespread rumors that a nationalist coup against Qasim could be imminent, and had the potential to \"get Iraq back on [a] more neutral keel\".\n\nIn April 1962, the State Department issued new guidelines on Iraq that were intended to increase American influence there. Meanwhile, Kennedy instructed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)—under the direction of Archie Roosevelt, Jr.—to begin making preparations for a military coup against Qasim.\n\nThe anti-imperialist and anti-communist Iraqi Ba'ath Party overthrew and executed Qasim in a violent coup on February 8, 1963. While there have been persistent rumors that the CIA orchestrated the coup, declassified documents and the testimony of former CIA officers indicate there was no direct American involvement, although the CIA was actively seeking to find a suitable replacement for Qasim within the Iraqi military and had been informed of an earlier Ba'athist coup plot. The Kennedy administration was pleased with the outcome and ultimately approved a $55 million arms deal for Iraq.\n\nIreland\n\nDuring his four-day visit to his ancestral home of Ireland in June 1963, Kennedy accepted a grant of armorial bearings from the Chief Herald of Ireland and received honorary degrees from the National University of Ireland and Trinity College, Dublin. He visited the cottage at Dunganstown, near New Ross, County Wexford where his ancestors had lived before emigrating to America. \n\nHe also became the first foreign leader to address the Houses of the Oireachtas (the Irish parliament). On December 22, 2006, the Irish Department of Justice released declassified police documents indicating that security was heightened as Kennedy was the subject of three death threats during this visit. \n\nNuclear Test Ban Treaty\n\nTroubled by the long-term dangers of radioactive contamination and nuclear weapons proliferation, Kennedy and Khrushchev agreed to negotiate a nuclear test ban treaty, originally conceived in Adlai Stevenson's 1956 presidential campaign. In their Vienna summit meeting in June 1961, Khrushchev and Kennedy reached an informal understanding against nuclear testing, but the Soviet Union began testing nuclear weapons that September. The United States responded by conducting tests five days later. Shortly thereafter, new U.S. satellites began delivering images which made it clear that the Soviets were substantially behind the U.S. in the arms race. Nevertheless, the greater nuclear strength of the U.S. was of little value as long as the U.S.S.R. perceived themselves to be at parity.\n\nIn July 1963, Kennedy sent W. Averell Harriman to Moscow to negotiate a treaty with the Soviets. The introductory sessions included Khrushchev, who later delegated Soviet representation to Andrei Gromyko. It quickly became clear that a comprehensive test ban would not be implemented, due largely to the reluctance of the Soviets to allow inspections that would verify compliance.\n\nUltimately, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union were the initial signatories to a limited treaty, which prohibited atomic testing on the ground, in the atmosphere, or underwater, but not underground. The U.S. Senate ratified this and Kennedy signed it into law in October 1963. France was quick to declare that it was free to continue developing and testing its nuclear defenses.\n\nDomestic policy\n\nKennedy called his domestic program the \"New Frontier\". It ambitiously promised federal funding for education, medical care for the elderly, economic aid to rural regions, and government intervention to halt the recession. Kennedy also promised an end to racial discrimination. \n\nIn his 1963 State of the Union address, he proposed substantial tax reform and a reduction in income tax rates from the current range of 20–90% to a range of 14–65%; he proposed a reduction in the corporate tax rates from 52 to 47%. Kennedy added that the top rate should be set at 70% if certain deductions were not eliminated for high income earners. Congress did not act until 1964, after his death, when the top individual rate was lowered to 70%, and the top corporate rate was set at 48% (see Revenue Act of 1964). \n\nTo the Economic Club of New York, he spoke in 1963 of \"... the paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and revenues too low; and the soundest way to raise revenue in the long term is to lower rates now.\" Congress passed few of Kennedy's major programs during his lifetime, but did vote them through in 1964 and 1965 under his successor Johnson.\n\nEconomy\n\nKennedy ended a period of tight fiscal policies, loosening monetary policy to keep interest rates down and encourage growth of the economy. He presided over the first government budget to top the $100 billion mark, in 1962, and his first budget in 1961 led to the country's first non-war, non-recession deficit. The economy, which had been through two recessions in three years and was in one when Kennedy took office, accelerated notably during his presidency. Despite low inflation and interest rates, GDP had grown by an average of only 2.2% per annum during the Eisenhower presidency (scarcely more than population growth at the time), and had declined by 1% during Eisenhower's last twelve months in office. \n\nThe economy turned around and prospered during the Kennedy administration. GDP expanded by an average of 5.5% from early 1961 to late 1963, while inflation remained steady at around 1% and unemployment eased. Industrial production rose by 15% and motor vehicle sales rose by 40%. This rate of growth in GDP and industry continued until around 1969, and has yet to be repeated for such a sustained period of time.\n\nBobby Kennedy stated, \"We're going for broke..... their expense accounts, where they've been and what they've been doing..... the FBI is to interview them all..... we can't lose this.\"\n\nRobert took the position that the steel executives had illegally colluded to fix prices. The administration's actions influenced U.S. Steel to rescind the price increase. The Wall Street Journal wrote that the administration had acted \"by naked power, by threats, by agents of the state security police.\" Yale law professor Charles Reich opined in The New Republic that the administration had violated civil liberties by calling a grand jury to indict U.S. Steel for collusion so quickly.\n\nA New York Times editorial praised Kennedy's actions and said that the steel industry's price increase \"imperils the economic welfare of the country by inviting a tidal wave of inflation.\" Nevertheless, the administration's Bureau of Budget reported the price increase would have resulted in a net gain for GDP as well as a net budget surplus. The stock market, which had steadily declined since Kennedy's election, dropped 10% shortly after the administration's action on the steel industry.\n\nFederal and military death penalty\n\nAs president, Kennedy oversaw the last federal execution prior to Furman v. Georgia, a 1972 case that led to a moratorium on federal executions. Victor Feguer was sentenced to death by a federal court in Iowa and was executed on March 15, 1963. Kennedy commuted a death sentence imposed by a military court on seaman Jimmie Henderson on February 12, 1962, changing the penalty to life in prison. \n\nOn March 22, 1962, Kennedy signed into law HR5143 (PL87-423), abolishing the mandatory death penalty for first degree murder in the District of Columbia, the only remaining jurisdiction in the United States with such a penalty. The death penalty has not been applied in the District of Columbia since 1957, and has now been abolished. \n\nCivil rights\n\nKennedy in May 1961 appointed Thurgood Marshall to the federal bench.\nThe turbulent end of state-sanctioned racial discrimination was one of the most pressing domestic issues of the 1960s. Jim Crow segregation was the established law in the Deep South.Grantham (1988), The Life and Death of the Solid South: A Political History, p. 156 The Supreme Court of the United States had ruled in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Many schools, especially in southern states, did not obey the Supreme Court's decision. The Court also prohibited segregation at other public facilities (such as buses, restaurants, theaters, courtrooms, bathrooms, and beaches) but it continued nonetheless.\n\nKennedy verbally supported racial integration and civil rights; during the 1960 campaign he telephoned Coretta Scott King, wife of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., who had been jailed while trying to integrate a department store lunch counter. Robert Kennedy called Georgia governor Ernest Vandiver and obtained King's release from prison, which drew additional black support to his brother's candidacy. Upon taking office in 1961 Kennedy postponed promised civil rights legislation he made while campaigning in 1960 recognizing that conservative Southern Democrats controlled congressional legislation. Historian Carl M. Brauer concluded that passing any civil rights legislation in 1961 would have been futile. During his first year in office Kennedy appointed many blacks to office including his May appointment of civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall to the federal bench. \n\nIn his first State of the Union Address in January 1961, President Kennedy said \"The denial of constitutional rights to some of our fellow Americans on account of race - at the ballot box and elsewhere - disturbs the national conscience, and subjects us to the charge of world opinion that our democracy is not equal to the high promise of our heritage.\" Kennedy believed the grassroots movement for civil rights would anger many Southern whites and make it more difficult to pass civil rights laws in Congress, including anti-poverty legislation, and he distanced himself from it.\n\nKennedy additionally was concerned by other issues early in his presidency, such as the Cold War, Bay of Pigs fiasco and the situation in Southeast Asia. As articulated by brother Robert, the administration's early priority was to \"keep the president out of this civil rights mess\". Civil rights movement participants, mainly those on the front line in the South, viewed Kennedy as lukewarm, especially concerning the Freedom Riders, who organized an integrated public transportation effort in the south, and who were repeatedly met with white mob violence, including law enforcement officers, both federal and state. Kennedy assigned federal marshals to protect the Freedom Riders rather than using federal troops or uncooperative FBI agents. Robert Kennedy, speaking for the president, urged the Freedom Riders to \"get off the buses and leave the matter to peaceful settlement in the courts.\" Kennedy feared sending federal troops would stir up \"hated memories of Reconstrucion\" after the Civil War among conservative Southern whites.\n\nOn March 6, 1961, Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925 which required government contractors to \"take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.\" It established the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. Displeased with the pace of Kennedy's addressing the issue of segregation, Martin Luther King, Jr. and his associates produced a document in 1962 calling on the president to follow in the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln and use an Executive Order to deliver a blow for Civil Rights as a kind of Second Emancipation Proclamation - Kennedy did not execute the order. \n\nIn September 1962, James Meredith enrolled at the University of Mississippi, but was prevented from entering. Attorney General Robert Kennedy responded by sending 400 federal marshals, while President Kennedy reluctantly sent 3,000 troops after the situation on campus turned violent. The Ole Miss riot of 1962 left two dead and dozens injured, but Meredith did finally enroll in his first class. Kennedy regretted not sending in troops earlier and he began to doubt whether the \"evils of Reconstruction\" of the 1860s and 1870s he had been taught or believed in were true. The instigating subculture at the Old Miss riot and at many other racially ignited events, was the Ku Klux Klan.Gitlin (2009), The Ku Klux Klan: A Guide to an American Subculture, p. 29 On November 20, 1962, Kennedy signed Executive Order 11063, prohibiting racial discrimination in federally supported housing or \"related facilities\".\n\nIn early 1963, Kennedy related to Martin Luther King, Jr., about the prospects for civil rights legislation: \"If we get into a long fight over this in Congress, it will bottleneck everything else, and we will still get no bill.\" Civil rights clashes were on the rise that year. Brother Robert and Ted Sorenson pressed Kennedy to take more initiative on the legislative front.\n\nOn June 11, 1963, President Kennedy intervened when Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked the doorway to the University of Alabama to stop two African American students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending. Wallace moved aside only after being confronted by Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach and the Alabama National Guard, which had just been federalized by order of the president. That evening Kennedy gave his famous civil rights address on national television and radio, launching his initiative for civil rights legislation—to provide equal access to public schools and other facilities, and greater protection of voting rights. \n\nHis proposals became part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The day ended with the murder of a NAACP leader, Medgar Evers, in front of his home in Mississippi. As the president had predicted, the day after his TV speech, and in reaction to it, House Majority leader Carl Albert called to advise him that his two-year signature effort in Congress to combat poverty in Appalachia (Area Redevelopment Administration) had been defeated, primarily by the votes of Southern Democrats and Republicans.\n\nEarlier, Kennedy had signed the executive order creating the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women on December 14, 1961. Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt led the commission. The Commission statistics revealed that women were also experiencing discrimination; their final report documenting legal and cultural barriers was issued in October 1963. Further, on June 10, 1963, Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963, a federal law amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex. \n\nOver a hundred thousand, predominantly African Americans, gathered in Washington for the civil rights March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. Kennedy feared the March would have a negative effect on the prospects for the civil rights bills in Congress, and declined an invitation to speak. He turned over some of the details of the government's involvement to the Dept. of Justice, which channelled hundreds of thousands of dollars to the six sponsors of the March, including the N.A.A.C.P. and Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).\n\nTo ensure a peaceful demonstration, the organizers and the president personally edited speeches which were inflammatory and agreed the March would be held on a Wednesday and would be over at 4:00 pm. Thousands of troops were placed on standby. Kennedy watched King's speech on TV and was very impressed. The March was considered a \"triumph of managed protest\", and not one arrest relating to the demonstration occurred. Afterwards, the March leaders accepted an invitation to the White House to meet with Kennedy and photos were taken. Kennedy felt the March was a victory for him as well and bolstered the chances for his civil rights bill.\n\nNevertheless, the struggle was far from over. Three weeks later, a bomb exploded on Sunday, September 15 at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham; by the end of the day, four African American children had died in the explosion and two other children shot to death in the aftermath. Due to this resurgent violence, the civil rights legislation underwent some drastic amendments that critically endangered any prospects for passage of the bill, to the outrage of the president. Kennedy called the congressional leaders to the White House and by the following day the original bill, without the additions, had enough votes to get it out of the House committee. Gaining Republican support, Senator Everett Dirksen promised the legislation would be brought to a vote preventing a Senate filibuster. The legislation was enacted by Kennedy's successor President Lyndon B. Johnson, prompted by Kennedy's memory after his assassination in November, enforcing voting rights, public accommodations, employment, education, and the administration of justice.\n\nCivil liberties\n\nIn 1963, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who hated civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and viewed him as an upstart troublemaker, presented the Kennedy Administration with allegations that some of King's close confidants and advisers were communists. Concerned that the allegations, if made public, would derail the Administration's civil rights initiatives, Robert Kennedy and the president both warned King to discontinue the suspect associations. After the associations continued, Robert Kennedy issued a written directive authorizing the FBI to wiretap King and other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King's civil rights organization.\n\nAlthough Kennedy only gave written approval for limited wiretapping of King's phones \"on a trial basis, for a month or so\", Hoover extended the clearance so his men were \"unshackled\" to look for evidence in any areas of King's life they deemed worthy. The wiretapping continued through June 1966 and was revealed in 1968. \n\nImmigration\n\nJohn F. Kennedy initially proposed an overhaul of American immigration policy that later was to become the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, sponsored by Kennedy's brother Senator Edward Kennedy. It dramatically shifted the source of immigration from Northern and Western European countries towards immigration from Latin America and Asia. The policy change also shifted the emphasis in the selection of immigrants in favor of family reunification. Kennedy wanted to dismantle the selection of immigrants based on country of origin and saw this as an extension of his civil rights policies. \n\nNative American relations\n\nConstruction of the Kinzua Dam flooded 10000 acres of Seneca nation land that they had occupied under the Treaty of 1794, and forced 600 Seneca to relocate to Salamanca, New York. Kennedy was asked by the American Civil Liberties Union to intervene and halt the project, but he declined, citing a critical need for flood control. He expressed concern about the plight of the Seneca, and directed government agencies to assist in obtaining more land, damages, and assistance to help mitigate their displacement. \n\nSpace policy\n\nThe Apollo program was conceived early in 1960, during the Eisenhower administration, as a follow-up to Project Mercury, to be used as a shuttle to an Earth-orbital space station, flights around the Moon, or landing on it. While NASA went ahead with planning for Apollo, funding for the program was far from certain, given Eisenhower's ambivalent attitude to manned spaceflight. As Senator, Kennedy had been opposed to the space program and wanted to terminate it.\n\nIn constructing his Presidential administration, Kennedy elected to retain Eisenhower's last science advisor Jerome Wiesner as head of the President's Science Advisory Committee. Wiesner was strongly opposed to manned space exploration, having issued a report highly critical of Project Mercury. Kennedy was turned down by seventeen candidates for NASA administrator before the post was accepted by James E. Webb, an experienced Washington insider who served President Harry S. Truman as budget director and undersecretary of State. Webb proved to be adept at obtaining the support of Congress, the President, and the American people. Kennedy also persuaded Congress to amend the National Aeronautics and Space Act to allow him to delegate his chairmanship of the National Aeronautics and Space Council to the Vice President,\n both because of the knowledge of the space program Johnson gained in the Senate working for the creation of NASA, and to help keep the politically savvy Johnson occupied.\n\nIn Kennedy's January 1961 State of the Union address, he had suggested international cooperation in space. Khrushchev declined, as the Soviets did not wish to reveal the status of their rocketry and space capabilities. Early in his presidency, Kennedy was poised to dismantle the manned space program, but postponed any decision out of deference to Johnson, who had been a strong supporter of the space program in the Senate. Kennedy's advisors speculated that a Moon flight would be prohibitively expensive, and he was considering plans to dismantle the Apollo program due to its cost. \n\nHowever, this quickly changed on April 12, 1961, when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly in space, reinforcing American fears about being left behind in a technological competition with the Soviet Union. Kennedy now became eager for the U.S. to take the lead in the Space Race, for reasons of strategy and prestige. On April 20, he sent a memo to Johnson, asking him to look into the status of America's space program, and into programs that could offer NASA the opportunity to catch up. After consulting with Wernher von Braun, Johnson responded approximately one week later, concluding that \"we are neither making maximum effort nor achieving results necessary if this country is to reach a position of leadership.\" His memo concluded that a manned Moon landing was far enough in the future that it was likely the United States would achieve it first. Kennedy's advisor Ted Sorensen advised him to support the Moon landing, and on May 25, Kennedy announced the goal in a speech titled Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs: \"... I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.\" \n\nAfter Congress authorized the funding, Webb began reorganizing NASA, increasing its staffing level, and building two new centers: a Launch Operations Center for the large Moon rocket northwest of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and a Manned Spacecraft Center on land donated through Rice University in Houston, Texas. Kennedy took the latter occasion as an opportunity to deliver another speech at Rice to promote the space effort on September 12, 1962, in which he said:\n \"No nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space. ... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.\" \nOn November 21, 1962, in a cabinet meeting with NASA administrator Webb and other officials, Kennedy explained that the Moon shot was important for reasons of international prestige, and that the expense was justified. Johnson assured him that lessons learned from the space program had military value as well. Costs for the Apollo program were expected to reach $40 billion.\n\nIn a September 1963 speech before the United Nations, Kennedy urged cooperation between the Soviets and Americans in space, specifically recommending that Apollo be switched to \"a joint expedition to the Moon\". Khrushchev again declined, and the Soviets did not commit to a manned Moon mission until 1964. On July 20, 1969, almost six years after Kennedy's death, Apollo 11 landed the first manned spacecraft on the Moon.\n\nAssassination\n\nPresident Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 pm Central Standard Time on Friday November 22, 1963, while on a political trip to Texas to smooth over frictions in the Democratic Party between liberals Ralph Yarborough and Don Yarborough (no relation) and conservative John Connally. Traveling in a presidential motorcade through downtown Dallas, he was shot once in the back, the bullet exiting via his throat, and once in the head.\n\nKennedy was taken to Parkland Hospital for emergency medical treatment, but pronounced dead at 1:00 pm. Only 46, President Kennedy died younger than any other U.S. president to date. Lee Harvey Oswald, an order filler at the Texas School Book Depository from which the shots were suspected to have been fired, was arrested for the murder of police officer J. D. Tippit, and was subsequently charged with the assassination of Kennedy. He denied shooting anyone, claiming he was a patsy, but was killed by Jack Ruby on November 24, before he could be prosecuted. Ruby was then arrested and convicted for the murder of Oswald. Ruby successfully appealed his conviction and death sentence but became ill and died of cancer on January 3, 1967, while the date for his new trial was being set.\n\nPresident Johnson created the Warren Commission—chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren—to investigate the assassination, which concluded that Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy, and that Oswald was not part of any conspiracy. The results of this investigation are disputed by many. The assassination proved to be an important moment in U.S. history because of its impact on the nation and the ensuing political repercussions. A 2004 Fox News poll found that 66% of Americans thought there had been a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy, while 74% thought there had been a cover-up. A Gallup Poll in mid-November 2013, showed 61% believed in a conspiracy, and only 30% thought Oswald did it alone. In 1979, the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that it believed \"that Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee was unable to identify the other gunmen or the extent of the conspiracy.\" In 2002, historian Carl M. Brauer concluded that the public's \"fascination with the assassination may indicate a psychological denial of Kennedy's death, a mass wish...to undo it.\"\n\nFuneral\n\nA Requiem Mass was held for Kennedy at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle on November 25, 1963. Afterwards, Kennedy was interred in a small plot, (20 by 30 ft.), in Arlington National Cemetery. Over a period of three years (1964–1966), an estimated 16 million people had visited his grave. On March 14, 1967, Kennedy's remains were moved to a permanent burial plot and memorial at the cemetery. The funeral was officiated by Father John J. Cavanaugh. It was from this memorial that the graves of both Bobby and Ted were modeled.\n\nThe honor guard at Kennedy's graveside was the 37th Cadet Class of the Irish Army. Kennedy was greatly impressed by the Irish Cadets on his last official visit to Ireland, so much so that Jackie Kennedy requested the Irish Army to be the honor guard at her husband's funeral.\n\nKennedy's wife, Jacqueline and their two deceased minor children were buried with him later. His brother, Senator Robert Kennedy, was buried nearby in June 1968. In August 2009, his brother, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, was also buried near his two brothers. John F. Kennedy's grave is lit with an \"Eternal Flame\". Kennedy and William Howard Taft are the only two U.S. presidents buried at Arlington. According to the JFK Library, \"I Have a Rendezvous with Death\", by Alan Seeger \"was one of John F. Kennedy's favorite poems and he often asked his wife to recite it\". \n\nAdministration, Cabinet, and judicial appointments 1961–1963\n\nJudicial appointments\n\nSupreme Court\n\nKennedy appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:\n* Byron White – 1962\n* Arthur Goldberg – 1962\n\nOther courts\n\nIn addition to his two Supreme Court appointments, Kennedy appointed 21 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, and 102 judges to the United States district courts.\n\nPersonal life, family, and reputation\n\nKennedy met his future wife, Jacqueline Lee \"Jackie\" Bouvier (1929–1994), when he was a congressman. Charles L. Bartlett, a journalist, introduced the pair at a dinner party. They were married a year after he was elected senator, on September 12, 1953. The Kennedy family is one of the most established political families in the United States, having produced a president, three senators, and multiple other Representatives, both on the federal and state level. Family patriarch, Joe Kennedy, was a prominent American businessman and political figure, serving in multiple roles, including Ambassador to the United Kingdom, from 1938 to 1940.\n\nIn October 1951, during his third term as Massachusetts's 11th district congressman, the then 34-year-old Kennedy embarked on a seven-week trip to India, Japan, Vietnam, and Israel with his then 25-year-old brother Bobby (who had just graduated from law school four months earlier) and his then 27-year-old sister Pat. Because they were several years apart in age, the brothers had previously seen little of each other. This 25000 mi trip was the first extended time they had spent together and resulted in their becoming best friends.\n\nBobby was campaign manager for Kennedy's successful 1952 Senate campaign and later, his successful 1960 presidential campaign. The two brothers worked closely together from 1957 to 1959 on the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor and Management Field, when Robert was its chief counsel. During Kennedy's presidency, Robert served in his cabinet as Attorney General and was his closest advisor.\n\nKennedy was a life member of the National Rifle Association. Kennedy came in third (behind Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Teresa) in Gallup's List of Widely Admired People of the 20th century. \n\nChildren\n\nCaroline Bouvier Kennedy was born in 1957 and is the only surviving member of JFK's immediate family. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr., nicknamed \"John-John\" by the press as a child, was born in late November 1960, 17 days after his father was elected. John Jr., died in 1999 when the small plane he was piloting crashed en route to Martha's Vineyard. \n\nPopular image\n\nKennedy and his wife were younger in comparison to the presidents and first ladies who preceded them, and both were popular in the media culture in ways more common to pop singers and movie stars than politicians, influencing fashion trends and becoming the subjects of numerous photo spreads in popular magazines. Although Eisenhower had allowed presidential press conferences to be filmed for television, Kennedy was the first president to ask for them to be broadcast live and made good use of the medium. In 1961 the Radio-Television News Directors Association presented Kennedy with its highest honor, the Paul White Award, in recognition of his open relationship with the media. \n\nMrs. Kennedy brought new art and furniture to the White House, and directed its restoration. They invited a range of artists, writers and intellectuals to rounds of White House dinners, raising the profile of the arts in America. On the White House lawn, the Kennedys established a swimming pool and tree house, while Caroline attended a preschool along with 10 other children inside the home.\n\nThe president was closely tied to popular culture, emphasized by songs such as \"Twisting at the White House\". Vaughn Meader's First Family comedy album, which parodied the president, the first lady, their family, and the administration, sold about four million copies. On May 19, 1962, Marilyn Monroe sang \"Happy Birthday, Mr. President\" at a large party in Madison Square Garden, celebrating Kennedy's upcoming forty-fifth birthday.\n\n\"Camelot Era\"\n\nThe term \"Camelot\" came to be used retrospectively as iconic of the Kennedy administration, and the charisma of him and his family. The term was first publicly used by his wife in a post-assassination Life magazine interview with Theodore H. White, in which she revealed his affection for the contemporary Broadway musical of the same name, particularly the closing lines of the title song: \n\nHealth\n\nIn 2002 Robert Dallek wrote an extensive history of Kennedy's health. Dallek was able to consult a collection of Kennedy-associated papers from the years 1955-1963 including x-rays and prescription records from the files of White House physician Dr. Janet Travell. According to Travell's records, during his Presidential years Kennedy suffered from: high fevers, stomach, colon, and prostate issues, abscesses, high cholesterol, and adrenal problems. Travell kept a \"Medicine Administration Record,\" cataloguing Kennedy's medications: \"injected and ingested corticosteroids for his adrenal insufficiency; procaine shots and ultrasound treatments and hot packs for his back; Lomotil, Metamucil, paregoric, phenobarbital, testosterone, and trasentine to control his diarrhea, abdominal discomfort, and weight loss; penicillin and other antibiotics for his urinary-tract infections and an abscess; and Tuinal to help him sleep.\"\n\nYears after Kennedy's death, it was revealed that in September 1947, while Kennedy was 30 and in his first term in Congress, he was diagnosed by Sir Daniel Davis at The London Clinic with Addison's disease, a rare endocrine disorder. In 1966 Dr. Travell revealed that Kennedy also had hypothyroidism. The presence of two endocrine diseases raises the possibility that Kennedy had autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome type 2 (APS 2). \n\nKennedy also suffered from chronic and severe back pain, for which he had surgery and was written up in the American Medical Association's Archives of Surgery. Kennedy's condition may have had diplomatic repercussions, as he appears to have been taking a combination of drugs to treat severe back pain during the 1961 Vienna Summit with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. The combination included hormones, animal organ cells, steroids, vitamins, enzymes, and amphetamines, and possible potential side effects included hyperactivity, hypertension, impaired judgment, nervousness, and mood swings. Kennedy at one time was regularly seen by no fewer than three doctors, one of whom, Max Jacobson, was unknown to the other two, as his mode of treatment was controversial and used for the most severe bouts of back pain.\n\nThere were disagreements among his doctors, into late 1961, over the proper balance of medication and exercise, with the president preferring the former as he was short on time and desired immediate relief. During that timeframe the president's physician, George Burkley, did set up some gym equipment in the White House basement where Kennedy did stretching exercises for his back three times a week. Details of these and other medical problems were not publicly disclosed during Kennedy's lifetime. \n\nPersonal tragedies\n\nKennedy experienced many personal, family tragedies. His oldest sibling, Joe Jr., was killed in action in 1944 at age 29 over the English Channel during a first attack execution of Operation Aphrodite during World War II. Kennedy's younger sister Rose Marie \"Rosemary\" Kennedy was born in 1918 with intellectual disabilities and underwent a pre-frontal lobotomy at age 23, leaving her permanently incapacitated. His next youngest sister, Kathleen \"Kick\" Kennedy Cavendish, died in France as the result of a plane crash in 1948. His wife Jacqueline Kennedy suffered a miscarriage in 1955 and a stillbirth in 1956: a daughter informally named Arabella. A son, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, died two days after birth in August 1963.\n\nAffairs and extramarital relationships\n\nAs a young single man in the 1940s, Kennedy had affairs with Danish journalist Inga Arvad, and actress Gene Tierney. Later in life, Kennedy reportedly had extramarital affairs with a number of women, including Marilyn Monroe, Gunilla von Post, Judith Campbell, Mary Pinchot Meyer, Marlene Dietrich, Mimi Alford, and his wife's press secretary, Pamela Turnure.\n\nThe extent of a relationship with Monroe will never be known, although it has been reported they spent a weekend together in March 1962 while Kennedy was staying at Bing Crosby's house. Furthermore, the White House switchboard noted calls from her during 1962. J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director, received reports as to Kennedy's indiscretions.\n\nKennedy inspired affection and loyalty from the members of his team and his supporters. According to Reeves, this included \"the logistics of Kennedy's liaisons.....[which] required secrecy and devotion rare in the annals of the energetic service demanded by successful politicians\". Kennedy believed that his friendly relationship with members of the press would help protect him from revelations about his sex life.\n\nAncestry\n\nThe Kennedy family originally came from Dunganstown, County Wexford, Ireland. In 1848 Kennedy's patrilineal great-grandfather, Patrick Kennedy (1823–1858), left his farm and boarded a ship in New Ross bound for Liverpool on his way to Boston. Kennedy left Ireland at the height of the Great Famine. In Boston he met the woman he was to marry, Bridget Murphy (c. 1824–1888). Their son Patrick Joseph \"P. J.\" Kennedy was Kennedy's paternal grandfather and father of Joseph Kennedy.\n\nHistorical evaluations and legacy\n\nTelevision became the primary source by which people were kept informed of events surrounding John F. Kennedy's assassination. In fact, television started to come of age before the assassination. On September 2, 1963, Kennedy helped inaugurate network television's first half-hour nightly evening newscast according to an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite. \n\nNewspapers were kept as souvenirs rather than sources of updated information. In this sense it was the first major \"TV news event\" of its kind, the TV coverage uniting the nation, interpreting what went on and creating memories of this space in time. All three major U.S. television networks suspended their regular schedules and switched to all-news coverage from November 22 through November 25, 1963, being on the air for 70 hours, making it the longest uninterrupted news event on American TV until 9/11. \n\nKennedy's state funeral procession and the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald were all broadcast live in America and in other places around the world. The state funeral was the first of three in a span of 12 months. The other two were for General Douglas MacArthur and President Herbert Clark Hoover. All three have two things in common: the commanding general of the Military District of Washington during those funerals was Army Major General Philip C. Wehle and the riderless horse was Black Jack, who also served in that role during Lyndon B. Johnson's funeral.\n\nThe assassination had an effect on many people, not only in the U.S. but around the world. Many vividly remember where they were when first learning of the news that Kennedy was assassinated, as with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, before it and the September 11 attacks after it. UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson said of the assassination: \"all of us..... will bear the grief of his death until the day of ours.\" Many people have also spoken of the shocking news, compounded by the pall of uncertainty about the identity of the assassin(s), the possible instigators and the causes of the killing as an end to innocence, and in retrospect it has been coalesced with other changes of the tumultuous decade of the 1960s, especially the Vietnam War.\n\nThe US Special Forces had a special bond with Kennedy. \"It was President Kennedy who was responsible for the rebuilding of the Special Forces and giving us back our Green Beret,\" said Forrest Lindley, a writer for the US military newspaper Stars and Stripes who served with Special Forces in Vietnam. This bond was shown at Kennedy's funeral. At the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of Kennedy's death, General Michael D. Healy, the last commander of Special Forces in Vietnam, spoke at Arlington Cemetery. Later, a wreath in the form of the Green Beret would be placed on the grave, continuing a tradition that began the day of his funeral when a sergeant in charge of a detail of Special Forces men guarding the grave placed his beret on the coffin.\n\nKennedy was the first of six presidents to have served in the U.S. Navy, and one of the enduring legacies of his administration was the creation in 1961 of another special forces command, the Navy SEALs, which Kennedy enthusiastically supported. \n\nUltimately, the death of President Kennedy and the ensuing confusion surrounding the facts of his assassination are of political and historical importance insofar as they marked a turning point and decline in the faith of the American people in the political establishment—a point made by commentators from Gore Vidal to Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. and implied by Oliver Stone in several of his films, such as his landmark 1991 JFK.\n\nAlthough President Kennedy opposed segregation and had shown support for the civil rights of African Americans, he originally believed in a more measured approach to legislation given the political realities he faced in Congress, especially with the Southern Conservatives. However, impelled by the civil rights demonstrations of Martin Luther King, Kennedy in 1963 proposed legislative action. In a radio and TV address to the nation in June 1963—a century after President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation—Kennedy became the first president to call on all Americans to denounce racism as morally wrong. Kennedy's civil rights proposals led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.\n\nPresident Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy's successor, took up the mantle and pushed the landmark Civil Rights Act through a bitterly divided Congress by invoking the slain president's memory. President Johnson then signed the Act into law on July 2, 1964. This civil rights law ended what was known as the \"Solid South\" and certain provisions were modeled after the Civil Rights Act of 1875, signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant.\n\nKennedy's continuation of Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower's policies of giving economic and military aid to South Vietnam left the door open for President Johnson's escalation of the conflict. At the time of Kennedy's death, no final policy decision had been made as to Vietnam, leading historians, cabinet members and writers to continue to disagree on whether the Vietnam conflict would have escalated to the point it did had he survived. His agreement to the NSAM 263 action of withdrawing 1,000 troops by the end of 1963, and his earlier 1963 speech at American University, suggested he was ready to end the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War contributed greatly to a decade of national difficulties, amid violent disappointment on the political landscape.\n\nMany of Kennedy's speeches (especially his inaugural address) are considered iconic; and despite his relatively short term in office and lack of major legislative changes coming to fruition during his term, Americans regularly vote him as one of the best presidents, in the same league as Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Some excerpts of Kennedy's inaugural address are engraved on a plaque at his grave at Arlington.\n\nHe was posthumously awarded the Pacem in Terris Award. It was named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII that calls upon all people of goodwill to secure peace among all nations. Pacem in terris is Latin for 'Peace on Earth'.\n\nPresident Kennedy is the only president to have predeceased both his mother and father. He is also the only president to have predeceased a grandparent. His maternal grandmother, Mary Josephine \"Josie\" Hannon, died in August 1964, nine months after his assassination.\n\nThroughout the English-speaking world, the given name Kennedy has sometimes been used in honor of President Kennedy, as well his brother Robert. \n\nEponyms\n\n* John F. Kennedy International Airport, American airport (renamed from Idlewild in December 1963) in New York City; nation's busiest international gateway\n* John F. Kennedy Memorial Airport American airport in Ashland County, Wisconsin, near the city of Ashland \n* John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge American seven-lane transportation hub across Ohio River; completed in late 1963, the bridge links Kentucky and Indiana\n* John F. Kennedy School of Government, American institution (renamed from Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration in 1966)\n* John F. Kennedy Space Center, U.S. government installation that manages and operates America's astronaut launch facilities in Titusville, near Cocoa Beach, FL\n* John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School—trains United States Army personnel for the United States Army Special Operations Command and Army Special Operation Forces at Fort Bragg outside Fayetteville, NC\n* John F. Kennedy University, American private educational institution founded in California in 1964; locations in Pleasant Hill, Campbell, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz\n* , U.S. Navy aircraft carrier ordered in April 1964, launched May 1967, decommissioned August 2007; nicknamed \"Big John\"\n* John F. Kennedy High School is the name of many secondary schools\n* , U.S. Navy aircraft carrier that began construction in 2011, and is scheduled to be placed in commission in 2020\n* John F Kennedy (horse), Irish-trained thoroughbred racehorse foaled in 2012\nJohn F. Kennedy Eternal Flame memorial\n\nMemorials\n\nCoat of arms\n\nIn 1961, Kennedy was presented with a grant of arms for all the descendants of Patrick Kennedy from the Chief Herald of Ireland. The design of the arms strongly alludes to symbols in the coats of arms of the O'Kennedys of Ormonde and the FitzGeralds of Desmond, from whom the family is believed to be descended. The crest is an armored hand holding four arrows between two olive branches, elements taken from the coat of arms of the United States of America and also symbolic of Kennedy and his brothers.\n\nKennedy received a signet ring engraved with his arms for his 44th birthday as a gift from his wife, and the arms were incorporated into the seal of the USS John F. Kennedy. Following his assassination, Kennedy was honored by the Canadian government by having a mountain, Mount Kennedy, named for him, which his brother, Robert Kennedy, climbed in 1965 to plant a banner of the arms at the summit. \n\nMedia", "Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 – November 24, 1963) was an American sniper who assassinated President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. According to five U.S. government investigations,These were investigations by: the Federal Bureau of Investigation (1963), the Warren Commission (1964), the House Select Committee on Assassinations (1979), the Secret Service, and the Dallas Police Department. Oswald shot and killed Kennedy as Kennedy traveled by motorcade through Dealey Plaza in the city of Dallas, Texas.\n\nOswald was a former U.S. Marine who defected to the Soviet Union in October 1959. He lived in the Belarusian city of Minsk until June 1962, at which time he returned to the United States with his Russian wife, eventually settling in Dallas.\n\nFollowing Kennedy's assassination, Oswald was initially arrested for the murder of police officer J. D. Tippit, who was killed on a Dallas street approximately 45 minutes after President Kennedy was shot. Oswald was later charged with the murder of Kennedy; he denied shooting anybody, saying that he was a patsy. Two days later, while being transferred from police headquarters to the county jail, Oswald was shot and mortally wounded by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby in full view of television cameras broadcasting live.\n\nIn 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy, firing three shots. This conclusion was supported by previous investigations carried out by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, and Dallas Police Department. Despite forensic, ballistic, and eyewitness evidence supporting the lone gunman theory, public opinion polls taken over the years have shown that most Americans believe that Oswald did not act alone, but conspired with others to kill the president, and the assassination has spawned numerous conspiracy theories. In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that Oswald fired the shots that killed Kennedy, but differed from previous investigations in concluding that \"scientific acoustical evidence establishes a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy\". The House Select Committee's acoustical evidence has since been discredited. \n\nEarly life\n\nChildhood\n\nLee Harvey Oswald was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 18, 1939, to World War I veteran Robert Edward Lee Oswald, Sr. (March 4, 1896 – August 19, 1939) and Marguerite Frances Claverie (July 19, 1907 – January 17, 1981). Robert had died of a heart attack at age 43 two months prior to Lee's birth. Lee's elder brother Robert Jr. (born April 7, 1934) is also a former Marine. Through Marguerite's first marriage to Edward John Pic, Jr., Lee and Robert Jr. are the half-brothers of Air Force veteran John Edward Pic (January 17, 1932 – April 25, 2000). \n\nIn 1944, Marguerite moved the family from New Orleans to Dallas, Texas. Oswald entered the 1st grade in 1945 and over the next half-dozen years attended several different schools in the Dallas and Fort Worth areas through the 6th grade. Oswald took an IQ test in the 4th grade and scored 103; \"on achievement tests in [grades 4 to 6], he twice did best in reading and twice did worst in spelling.\"\n\nAs a child, Oswald was described by several people who knew him as withdrawn and temperamental. In August 1952, when Oswald was 12, his mother took him to New York City where they lived for a short time with Oswald's half-brother, John. Oswald and his mother were later asked to leave after an argument in which Oswald allegedly struck his mother and threatened John's wife with a pocket knife. \n\nOswald attended the 7th grade in The Bronx, New York, but was often truant, which led to a psychiatric assessment at a juvenile reformatory. The reformatory psychiatrist, Dr. Renatus Hartogs, described Oswald as immersed in a \"vivid fantasy life, turning around the topics of omnipotence and power, through which [Oswald] tries to compensate for his present shortcomings and frustrations.\" Dr. Hartogs detected a \"personality pattern disturbance with schizoid features and passive-aggressive tendencies\" and recommended continued treatment. \n\nIn January 1954, Oswald's mother returned to New Orleans, taking Oswald with her. At the time, there was a question pending before a New York judge as to whether Oswald should be removed from the care of his mother to finish his schooling, \nalthough Oswald's behavior appeared to improve during his last months in New York. \n\nIn New Orleans, Oswald completed the 8th and 9th grades. He entered the 10th grade in 1955 but quit school after one month. After leaving school, Oswald worked for several months as an office clerk and messenger in New Orleans. In July 1956, Oswald's mother moved the family to Fort Worth, Texas, and Oswald re-enrolled in the 10th grade for the September session at Arlington Heights High School in Fort Worth. A few weeks later in October, Oswald quit school at age 17 to join the Marines (see below); he never received a high school diploma.\n\nBy the age of 17, he had resided at 22 different locations and attended 12 different schools.\nThe schools were: \n* 1st grade: Benbrook Common School (Fort Worth, Texas), October 31, 1945\n* 1st grade (again): Covington Elementary School (Covington, Louisiana), Sep. 1946–Jan. 1947\n* 1st grade (end): Clayton Public School (Ft Worth, TX), Jan.–May 1947\n* 2nd grade: Clayton Public School (Ft Worth, TX), Sept. 1947\n* 2nd grade (end): Clark Elementary School (Ft Worth, TX), March 1948\n* 3rd grade: Arlington Heights Elementary School (Ft Worth, TX), Sept. 1948\n* 4th grade: Ridglea West Elementary School (since renamed Luella Merrett, Ft Worth), Sep. 1949\n* 5th grade: Ridglea West Elementary School (Ft Worth), Sep. 1950\n* 6th grade: Ridglea West Elementary School (Ft Worth), Sep. 1951\n* 7th grade: Trinity Evangelical Lutheran School (Bronx, NYC, NY), Aug. 1952\n* 7th grade: Public School 117 (Bronx, NY), Sep. 1952 (attended 17 of 64 days)\n* 7th grade (end): Public School 44 (Bronx, NY), March 23, 1953\n: Reformatory: Youth House (NYC, NY), April/May 1953.\n* 8th grade: Public School 44 (Bronx, NY), Sep 14, 1953\n* 8th grade (end): Beauregard Junior High School (New Orleans), Jan 13, 1954\n* 9th grade: Beauregard Junior High School (New Orleans), Sep. 1954–June 1955\n* 10th grade: Warren Easton High School (New Orleans), Sep.–Oct. 1955 (Warren appendix 13)\n: (tried to enlist in U.S. Marines using affidavit claiming age 17)\n: (worked as clerk/messenger in New Orleans, rather than school)\n* 10th grade (again): Arlington Heights High School (Ft Worth, TX), Sep.–Oct. 1956. Final withdrawal from high school, 10th grade. (Warren appendix 13)\n\nThough the young Oswald had trouble spelling and may have had a \"reading-spelling disability\", he read voraciously. By age 15, he claimed to be a Marxist, writing in his diary, \"I was looking for a key to my environment, and then I discovered socialist literature. I had to dig for my books in the back dusty shelves of libraries.\" At 16 he wrote to the Socialist Party of America for information on their Young People's Socialist League, saying he had been studying socialist principles for \"well over fifteen months.\" \nHowever, Edward Voebel, \"whom the Warren Commission had established was Oswald's closest friend during his teenage years in New Orleans..... said that reports that Oswald was already 'studying Communism' were a 'lot of baloney.' \" Voebel said that \"Oswald commonly read 'paperback trash.'\" \n\nAs a teenager, in 1955, Oswald attended Civil Air Patrol meetings in New Orleans. Oswald's fellow cadets recalled him attending C.A.P. meetings \"three or four\" times, or \"10 or 12 times\" over a one- or two-month period. \n\nMarine Corps\n\nOswald enlisted in the United States Marine Corps on October 24, 1956, just after his seventeenth birthday. Because he was underage, his brother Robert Jr. signed the forms as his guardian. Oswald also named his mother and his half-brother John as beneficiaries. Oswald idolized his older brother Robert Jr.; a photograph taken after Lee Harvey's arrest by Dallas police shows him wearing his brother's Marine Corps ring. \nJohn Pic (Oswald's half-brother) testified to the Warren Commission that Oswald's enlistment was motivated by wanting \"to get from out and under ... the yoke of oppression from my mother.\"\n\nOswald's enlistment papers record his vital statistics as 5 ft in height, 135 lb in weight, with hazel eyes and brown hair. His primary training was radar operation, a position requiring a security clearance. A May 1957 document states that he was \"granted final clearance to handle classified matter up to and including CONFIDENTIAL after careful check of local records had disclosed no derogatory data.\" \n\nAt Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, Oswald finished seventh in a class of thirty in the Aircraft Control and Warning Operator Course which \"included instruction in aircraft surveillance and the use of radar.\" He was given the military occupational specialty of Aviation Electronics Operator. On July 9, he reported to the Marine Corps Air Station El Toro then departed for Japan the following month, where he was assigned to Marine Air Control Squadron 1 near Tokyo.\n\nLike all Marines, Oswald was trained and tested in shooting and he scored 212 in December 1956, slightly above the requirements for the designation of sharpshooter. In May 1959 he scored 191, which reduced his rating to marksman. \n\nOswald was court-martialed after accidentally shooting himself in the elbow with an unauthorized .22 handgun, then court-martialed again for fighting with a sergeant who he thought was responsible for his punishment in the shooting matter. He was demoted from private first class to private and briefly imprisoned in the brig. He was later punished for a third incident: while on night-time sentry duty in the Philippines, he inexplicably fired his rifle into the jungle. \n\nSlightly built, Oswald was nicknamed Ozzie Rabbit after the cartoon character; he was also called Oswaldskovich because he espoused pro-Soviet sentiments. In November 1958, Oswald transferred back to El Toro where his unit's function \"was to serveil for aircraft, but basically to train both enlisted men and officers for later assignment overseas.\" An officer there said that Oswald was a \"very competent\" crew chief and was \"brighter than most people.\" \n\nWhile in the Marines, Oswald made an effort to teach himself rudimentary Russian. Although this was an unusual endeavor, in February 1959, he was invited to take a Marine proficiency exam in written and spoken Russian. His level at the time was rated \"poor.\" On September 11, 1959, he received a hardship discharge from active service, claiming his mother needed care, and was put on reserve. \n\nAdult life and early crimes\n\nDefection to the Soviet Union\n\nIn October 1959, just before turning 20, Oswald traveled to the Soviet Union, a trip he planned well in advance. Along with his self-taught Russian, he had saved $1,500 of his Marine Corps salary.Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 22, p. 705, CE 1385, [http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh22/html/WH_Vol22_0366a.htm Notes of interview of Lee Harvey Oswald conducted by Aline Mosby in Moscow in November 1959]. Oswald: \"When I was working in the middle of the night on guard duty, I would think how long it would be and how much money I would have to save. It would be like being out of prison. I saved about $1500.\" During Oswald's 2 years and 10 months of service in the Marine Corps he received $3,452.20, after all taxes, allotments and other deductions as well as his GED. Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 26, p. 709, CE 3099, [http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/contents/wc/contents_wh26.htm Certified military pay records for Lee Harvey Oswald for the period October 24, 1956, to September 11, 1959].\n\nOswald spent two days with his mother in Fort Worth, then embarked by ship from New Orleans on September 20 to Le Havre, France, and immediately proceeded to the United Kingdom. Arriving in Southampton on October 9, he told officials he had $700 and planned to remain in the United Kingdom for one week before proceeding to a school in Switzerland. However, on the same day, he flew to Helsinki, where he was issued a Soviet visa on October 14. Oswald left Helsinki by train on the following day, crossed the Soviet border at Vainikkala, and arrived in Moscow on October 16. His visa, valid only for a week, was due to expire on October 21.\n\nAlmost immediately after arriving, Oswald told his Intourist guide of his desire to become a Soviet citizen. When asked why by the various Soviet officials he encountered—all of whom, by Oswald's account, found his wish incomprehensible—he said that he was a communist, and gave what he described in his diary as \"vauge [sic] answers about 'Great Soviet Union'\".Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 16, p. 94, CE 24, [http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh16/html/WH_Vol16_0059b.htm Lee Harvey Oswald's \"Historic Diary\"], entries of October 16, 1959 to October 21, 1959. On October 21, the day his visa was due to expire, he was told that his citizenship application had been refused, and that he had to leave the Soviet Union that evening. Distraught, Oswald inflicted a minor but bloody wound to his left wrist in his hotel room bathtub soon before his Intourist guide was due to arrive to escort him from the country, according to his diary because he wished to kill himself in a way that would shock her. Delaying Oswald's departure because of his self-inflicted injury, the Soviets kept him in a Moscow hospital under psychiatric observation until October 28, 1959.Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 16, p. 95, CE 24, [http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh16/html/WH_Vol16_0060a.htm Lee Harvey Oswald's \"Historic Diary\"], entries of October 21, 1959 to October 28, 1959.\n\nAccording to Oswald, he met with four more Soviet officials that same day, who asked if he wanted to return to the United States; he insisted to them that he wanted to live in the Soviet Union as a Soviet national. When pressed for identification papers, he provided his Marine Corps discharge papers.Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 16, p. 96, CE 24, [http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh16/html/WH_Vol16_0060b.htm Lee Harvey Oswald's \"Historic Diary\"], entries of October 28, 1959 to October 31, 1959.\n\nOn October 31, Oswald appeared at the United States embassy in Moscow, declaring a desire to renounce his U.S. citizenship. \"I have made up my mind,\" he said; \"I'm through.\" He told the U.S. embassy interviewing officer, Richard Edward Snyder, that \"he had been a radar operator in the Marine Corps and that he had voluntarily stated to unnamed Soviet officials that as a Soviet citizen he would make known to them such information concerning the Marine Corps and his specialty as he possessed. He intimated that he might know something of special interest.\" \n(Such statements led to Oswald's hardship/honorable military reserve discharge being changed to undesirable.) \nThe Associated Press story of the defection of a former U.S. Marine to the Soviet Union was reported on the front pages of some newspapers in 1959.[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id\nIrwyAAAAIBAJ&sjid4eoFAAAAIBAJ&pg\n3310,5481990&dqlee+oswald+russia&hl\nen \"Texas Marine Gives Up U.S. For Russia\"], The Miami News, October 31, 1959, p1\n\nThough Oswald had wanted to attend Moscow State University, he was sent to Minsk to work as a lathe operator at the Gorizont Electronics Factory, which produced radios, televisions, and military and space electronics. Stanislau Shushkevich, who later became independent Belarus's first head of state, was also engaged by Gorizont at the time, and was assigned to teach Oswald Russian. Oswald received a government-subsidized, fully furnished studio apartment in a prestigious building and an additional supplement to his factory pay—all in all, an idyllic existence by working-class Soviet standards, though he was kept under constant surveillance. \n\nFrom approximately June 1960 to February 1961, Oswald had a relationship with Ella German, a co-worker at the factory. He proposed marriage to her at the beginning of 1961 but she refused with the explanation that she did not love him and was afraid to marry an American. Some researchers believe that German's rejection of Oswald's marriage proposal may have had much to do with his disillusionment with life in the Soviet Union and his decision to return to the United States. \n\nOswald wrote in his diary in January 1961: \"I am starting to reconsider my desire about staying. The work is drab, the money I get has nowhere to be spent. No nightclubs or bowling alleys, no places of recreation except the trade union dances. I have had enough.\" Shortly afterwards, Oswald (who had never formally renounced his U.S. citizenship) wrote to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow requesting return of his American passport, and proposing to return to the U.S. if any charges against him would be dropped. \n\nIn March 1961, Oswald met Marina Nikolayevna Prusakova, a 19-year-old pharmacology student; they married less than six weeks later in April.Though later reports described her uncle, with whom she was living, as a colonel in the KGB, he was a lumber industry expert in the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) with a bureaucratic rank of Polkovnik. Priscilla Johnson McMillan, Marina and Lee, Harper & Row, 1977, pp. 64–65. ISBN 978-0-06-012953-8. \nThe Oswalds' first child, June, was born on February 15, 1962. On May 24, 1962, Oswald and Marina applied at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow for documents enabling her to immigrate to the U.S. and, on June 1, the U.S. Embassy gave Oswald a repatriation loan of $435.71.\nOswald, Marina, and their infant daughter left for the United States, where they received no attention from the press, much to Oswald's disappointment. \n\nDallas–Fort Worth\n\nThe Oswalds soon settled in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, where Lee's mother and brother lived. Lee began a manuscript on Soviet life, though he eventually gave up the project. The Oswalds also became acquainted with a number of anti-Communist Russian and East European émigrés in the area. In testimony to the Warren Commission, Alexander Kleinlerer said that the Russian émigrés sympathized with Marina, while merely tolerating Oswald, whom they regarded as rude and arrogant.Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 11, p. 123, [http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh11/html/WC_Vol11_0067a.htm Affidavit of Alexander Kleinlerer]: \"Anna Meller, Mrs. Hall, George Bouhe, and the deMohrenschildts, and all that group had pity for Marina and her child. None of us cared for Oswald because of his political philosophy, his criticism of the United States, his apparent lack of interest in anyone but himself, and because of his treatment of Marina.\"\n\nAlthough the Russian émigrés eventually abandoned Marina when she made no sign of leaving Lee, Oswald found an unlikely friend in 51-year-old Russian émigré George de Mohrenschildt, a well-educated petroleum geologist with international business connections. A native of Russia, Mohrenschildt later was to tell the Warren Commission that Oswald had a \"remarkable fluency in Russian.\" Marina, meanwhile, befriended Ruth Paine, a Quaker who was trying to learn Russian, and her husband Michael Paine, who worked for Bell Helicopter. \n\nIn July 1962, Oswald was hired by the Leslie Welding Company in Dallas; he disliked the work and quit after three months. In October, he was hired by the graphic-arts firm of Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall as a photoprint trainee. A fellow employee at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall testified that Oswald's rudeness at his new job was such that fights threatened to break out, and that he once saw Oswald reading a Russian-language publication. Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Dennis Hyman Ofstein: 'I would say he didn't get along with people and that several people had words with him at times about the way he barged around the plant, and one of the fellows back in the photosetter department almost got in a fight with him one day, and I believe it was Mr. Graef that stepped in and broke it up before it got started...' Oswald was fired during the first week of April 1963. \nSome have suggested that Oswald might have used equipment at the firm to forge identification documents. \n\nEdwin Walker assassination attempt\n\nIn March 1963, Oswald purchased a 6.5 mm caliber Carcano rifle by mail-order, using the alias \"A. Hidell\", as well as a .38 Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver by the same method. On April 10, 1963, Oswald attempted to kill retired U.S. Major General Edwin Walker, firing that rifle at Walker through a window, from less than 100 ft away, as Walker sat at a desk in his Dallas home; the bullet struck the window-frame and Walker's only injuries were bullet fragments to the forearm. (The United States House Select Committee on Assassinations stated that the \"evidence strongly suggested\" that Oswald carried out the shooting.) \n\nGeneral Walker was an outspoken anti-communist, segregationist, and member of the John Birch Society. In 1961, Walker had been relieved of his command of the 24th Division of the U.S. Army in West Germany for distributing right-wing literature to his troops. Walker's later actions in opposition to racial integration at the University of Mississippi led to his arrest on insurrection, seditious conspiracy, and other charges. He was temporarily held in a mental institution on orders from President Kennedy's brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, but a grand jury refused to indict him. \n\nMarina Oswald testified that her husband told her that he traveled by bus to General Walker's house and shot at Walker with his rifle. She said that Oswald considered Walker to be the leader of a \"fascist organization.\" A note Oswald left for Marina on the night of the attempt, telling her what to do if he did not return, was not found until ten days after the Kennedy assassination. \n\nBefore the Kennedy assassination, Dallas police had no suspects in the Walker shooting, \nbut Oswald's involvement was suspected within hours of his arrest following the assassination. The Walker bullet was too damaged to run conclusive ballistics studies on it, but neutron activation analysis later showed that it was \"extremely likely\" that it was made by the same manufacturer and for the same rifle make as the two bullets which later struck Kennedy.United States House Select Committee on Assassinations,\n\n[http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/m_j_russ/hscaguin.htm Testimony of Dr. Vincent P. Guinn]:\nMr. WOLF. In your professional opinion, Dr. Guinn, is the fragment removed from General Walker's house a fragment from a WCC (Western Cartridge Company) Mannlicher–Carcano bullet?\nDr. GUINN. I would say that it is extremely likely that it is, because there are very few, very few other ammunitions that would be in this range. I don't know of any that are specifically this close as these numbers indicate, but somewhere near them there are a few others, but essentially this is in the range that is rather characteristic of WCC Mannlicher–Carcano bullet lead.\n\nGeorge de Mohrenschildt testified that he \"knew that Oswald disliked General Walker.\" Regarding this, de Mohrenschildt and his wife Jeanne recalled an incident that occurred the weekend following the Walker assassination attempt. The de Mohrenschildts testified that on April 14, 1963, just before Easter Sunday, they were visiting the Oswalds at their new apartment and had brought them a toy Easter bunny to give to their child. As Oswald's wife Marina was showing Jeanne around the apartment, they discovered Oswald's rifle standing upright, leaning against the wall inside a closet. Jeanne told George that Oswald had a rifle, and George joked to Oswald, \"Were you the one who took a pot-shot at General Walker?\" When asked about Oswald's reaction to this question, George de Mohrenschildt told the Warren Commission that Oswald \"smiled at that.\" When George's wife Jeanne was asked about Oswald's reaction, she said, \"I didn't notice anything\"; she continued, \"we started laughing our heads off, big joke, big George's joke.\" Jeanne de Mohrenschildt testified that this was the last time she or her husband ever saw the Oswalds. \n\nNew Orleans\n\nOswald returned to New Orleans on April 24, 1963. Marina's friend, Ruth Paine, drove her by car from Dallas to join Oswald in New Orleans the next month in May. On May 10, Oswald was hired by the Reily Coffee Company as a machinery greaser. He was fired in July \"because his work was not satisfactory and because he spent too much time loitering in Adrian Alba's garage next door, where he read rifle and hunting magazines.\" \n\nOn May 26, Oswald wrote to the New York City headquarters of the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee, proposing to rent \"a small office at my own expense for the purpose of forming a FPCC branch here in New Orleans.\" Three days later, the FPCC responded to Oswald's letter advising against opening a New Orleans office \"at least not ... at the very beginning.\" In a follow-up letter, Oswald replied, \"Against your advice, I have decided to take an office from the very beginning.\" \n\nOn May 29, Oswald ordered the following items from a local printer: 500 application forms, 300 membership cards, and 1,000 leaflets with the heading, \"Hands Off Cuba.\" According to Lee Oswald's wife Marina, Lee told her to sign the name \"A.J. Hidell\" as chapter president on his membership card.\n\nOn August 5 and 6, according to anti-Castro militant Carlos Bringuier, Oswald visited him at a store he owned in New Orleans. Bringuier was the New Orleans delegate for the anti-Castro organization Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil (DRE). Bringuier would later tell the Warren Commission that he believed Oswald's visits were an attempt by Oswald to infiltrate his group. On August 9, Oswald turned up in downtown New Orleans handing out pro-Castro leaflets. Bringuier confronted Oswald, claiming he was tipped off about Oswald's leafleting by a friend. A scuffle ensued and Oswald, Bringuier, and two of Bringuier's friends were arrested for disturbing the peace. Prior to leaving the police station, Oswald requested to speak with an FBI agent. Oswald stated that he was a member of the New Orleans branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee which he claimed had 35 members and was led by A. J. Hidell. In fact, Oswald was the branch's only member and it had never been chartered by the national organization.\n\nA week later, on August 16, Oswald again passed out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets with two hired helpers, this time in front of the International Trade Mart. The incident was filmed by WDSU, a local TV station. The next day, Oswald was interviewed by WDSU radio commentator William Stuckey, who probed Oswald's background. A few days later, Oswald accepted Stuckey's invitation to take part in a radio debate with Carlos Bringuier and Bringuier's associate Edward Scannell Butler, head of the right-wing Information Council of the Americas (INCA). \n\nMexico\n\nMarina's friend Ruth Paine transported Marina and her child by car from New Orleans to the Paine home in Irving, Texas, near Dallas, on September 23, 1963. Oswald stayed in New Orleans at least two more days to collect a $33 unemployment check. It is uncertain when he left New Orleans; he is next known to have boarded a bus in Houston on September 26—bound for the Mexican border, rather than Dallas—and to have told other bus passengers that he planned to travel to Cuba via Mexico. He arrived in Mexico City on September 27, where he applied for a transit visa at the Cuban Embassy, claiming he wanted to visit Cuba on his way to the Soviet Union. The Cuban embassy officials insisted Oswald would need Soviet approval, but he was unable to get prompt co-operation from the Soviet embassy.\n\nAfter five days of shuttling between consulates—that included a heated argument with an official at the Cuban consulate, impassioned pleas to KGB agents, and at least some CIA scrutiny —Oswald was told by a Cuban consular officer that he was disinclined to approve the visa, saying \"a person like [Oswald] in place of aiding the Cuban Revolution, was doing it harm.\" Later, on October 18, the Cuban embassy approved the visa, but by this time Oswald was back in the United States and had given up on his plans to visit Cuba and the Soviet Union. Still later, eleven days before the assassination of President Kennedy, Oswald wrote to the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C., saying, \"Had I been able to reach the Soviet Embassy in Havana, as planned, the embassy there would have had time to complete our business.\" \n\nWhile the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald had visited Mexico City and the Cuban and Soviet consulates, questions regarding whether someone posing as Oswald had appeared at the embassies were serious enough to be investigated by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Later, the Committee agreed with the Warren Commission that Oswald had visited Mexico City and concluded that \"the majority of evidence tends to indicate\" that Oswald in fact visited the consulates, but the Committee could not rule out the possibility that someone else had used his name in visiting the consulates. \n\nReturn to Dallas\n\nOn October 2, 1963, Oswald left Mexico City by bus and arrived in Dallas the next day. Ruth Paine said that her neighbor told her, on October 14, that there was a job opening at the Texas School Book Depository, where her neighbor's brother, Wesley Frazier, worked. Mrs. Paine informed Oswald, who was interviewed at the Depository and was hired there on October 16 as a $1.25 an hour order filler. Oswald's supervisor, Roy S. Truly (1907-1985), said that Oswald \"did a good day's work\" and was an above-average employee. During the week, Oswald stayed in a Dallas rooming house (under the name \"O.H. Lee\"), but he spent his weekends with Marina at the Paine home in Irving. Oswald did not drive, but commuted to and from Dallas on Mondays and Fridays with his co-worker Wesley Frazier. On October 20, the Oswalds' second daughter, Audrey, was born.\n\nFBI agents twice visited the Paine home in early November, when Oswald was not present, and spoke to Mrs. Paine. Oswald visited the Dallas FBI office about 2 to 3 weeks before the assassination, asking to see Special Agent James P. Hosty. When he was told that Hosty was unavailable, Oswald left a note that, according to the receptionist, read: \"Let this be a warning. I will blow up the FBI and the Dallas Police Department if you don't stop bothering my wife\" [signed] \"Lee Harvey Oswald.\" The note allegedly contained some sort of threat, but accounts vary as to whether Oswald threatened to \"blow up the FBI\" or merely \"report this to higher authorities\". According to Hosty, the note said, \"If you have anything you want to learn about me, come talk to me directly. If you don't cease bothering my wife, I will take the appropriate action and report this to the proper authorities.\" Agent Hosty said that he destroyed Oswald's note on orders from his superior, Gordon Shanklin, after Oswald was named the suspect in the Kennedy assassination. \n\nJohn F. Kennedy and J. D. Tippit shootings\n\nIn the days before Kennedy's arrival, several newspapers described the route of the presidential motorcade as passing the Book Depository. On November 21 (a Thursday) Oswald asked Frazier for an unusual mid-week lift back to Irving, saying he had to pick up some curtain rods. The next morning (Friday) he returned to Dallas with Frazier; he left behind $170 and his wedding ring, but took with him a paper bag. Frazier reported that Oswald told him the bag contained curtain rods, The evidence demonstrated that the package actually contained the rifle used by Oswald in the assassination. \n\nOswald's co-worker, Charles Givens, testified to the Commission that he last saw Oswald on the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) at approximately 11:55 a.m.—35 minutes before the assassination.Warren Commission Hearings, [http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/givens1.htm Testimony of Charles Givens]. The Commission report stated that Oswald was not seen again \"until after the shooting.\" However, in an FBI report taken the day after the assassination, Givens said that the encounter took place at 11:30 a.m. and that he later saw Oswald reading a newspaper in the first floor domino room at 11:50 a.m. William Shelley, a foreman at the Depository, also testified that he saw Oswald on the first floor talking on the telephone between 11:45 and 11:50 a.m. Janitor Eddie Piper also testified that he spoke to Oswald on the first floor at 12:00 p.m. Another co-worker, Bonnie Ray Williams, was on the sixth floor of the Depository eating his lunch and was there until at least 12:10 p.m. He said that during that time he did not see Oswald, or anyone else, on the sixth floor and felt he was the only one up there. However, he also said that some boxes in the southeast corner may have prevented him from seeing deep into the \"sniper's nest.\" Carolyn Arnold, the secretary to the Vice President of the TSBD, informed the FBI that as she left the building to watch the motorcade, she caught a glimpse of a man whom she believed to be Oswald standing in the first floor hallway of the building just prior to the assassination. In 1978, Arnold told author Anthony Summers that the FBI report misquoted her, and that she \"clearly\" saw Oswald sitting in the second floor lunchroom at 12:15 p.m or slightly after. However, no other depository employee reported seeing Oswald on the second floor between 12 noon and 12:30 pm (e.g., [http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh22/html/WH_Vol22_0351b.htm Mrs. Pauline Sanders], who left the second floor lunchroom at \"approximately 12:20 pm,\" did not see Oswald at all that day).\n\nAs Kennedy's motorcade passed through Dallas's Dealey Plaza at about 12:30 p.m. on November 22, Oswald fired three rifle shots from the sixth-floor, southeast corner window of the Book Depository, killing the President and seriously wounding Texas Governor John Connally. One shot apparently missed the presidential limousine entirely, another struck Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally, and another struck Kennedy in the head. Bystander James Tague received a minor facial injury from a small piece of curbstone that fragmented when struck by one of the bullets.\n\nHoward Brennan, a steamfitter who was sitting across the street from the Texas School Book Depository, notified police that as he watched the motorcade go by, he heard a shot come from above, and looked up to see a man with a rifle make another shot from a corner window on the sixth floor. He said he had seen the same man minutes earlier looking out the window. Brennan gave a description of the shooter, and Dallas police subsequently broadcast descriptions at 12:45 p.m., 12:48 p.m., and 12:55 p.m. After the second shot was fired, Brennan recalled, \"This man I saw previous was aiming for his last shot ... and maybe paused for another second as though to assure himself that he had hit his mark.\" \n\nAccording to the investigations, after the attack, Oswald hid and covered the rifle with boxes and descended using the rear stairwell. About ninety seconds after the shooting, in the second-floor lunchroom, Oswald encountered police officer Marrion Baker accompanied by Oswald's supervisor Roy Truly; Baker let Oswald pass after Truly identified him as an employee. According to Baker, Oswald did not appear to be nervous or out of breath. Truly said that Oswald appeared \"startled\" when Baker aimed his gun at him. Mrs. Robert Reid—clerical supervisor at the Depository, returning to her office within two minutes of the assassination—said that she saw Oswald who \"was very calm\" on the second floor with a Coke in his hands. As they walked past each other, Mrs. Reid said to Oswald, \"The President has been shot\" to which he mumbled something in response, but Reid did not understand him. Oswald is believed to have left the Depository through the front entrance just before police sealed it off. Oswald's supervisor, Roy Truly, later pointed out to officers that Oswald was the only employee that he was certain was missing. \n\nAt about 12:40 p.m., Oswald boarded a city bus but (probably due to heavy traffic) he requested a transfer from the bus driver and got off two blocks later. Oswald took a taxicab to his rooming house, at 1026 North Beckley Avenue, arriving at about 1:00 p.m. He entered through the front door and, according to his housekeeper Earlene Roberts, immediately went to his room, \"walking pretty fast\". Roberts said that Oswald left \"a very few minutes\" later, zipping up a jacket he was not wearing when he had entered earlier. As Oswald left, Roberts looked out of the window of her house and last saw him standing at the northbound Beckley Avenue bus stop in front of her house. \n\nThe Warren Commission concluded that at approximately 1:15 p.m., Dallas Patrolman J. D. Tippit drove up in his patrol car alongside Oswald—presumably because Oswald resembled the police broadcast description of the man seen by witness Howard Brennan firing shots at the presidential motorcade. Patrolman Tippit's encounter with Oswald occurred near the corner of East 10th Street and North Patton Avenue. This location is about nine-tenths of a mile (1.4 km) southeast of Oswald's rooming house—a distance that the Warren Commission concluded \"Oswald could have easily walked.\" Tippit pulled alongside Oswald and \"apparently exchanged words with [him] through the right front or vent window.\" \"Shortly after 1:15 p.m.\",The [http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/dpdtapes/tapes2.htm first report of Tippit's shooting] was transmitted over Police Channel 1 some time between 1:16 and 1:19 p.m., as indicated by verbal time stamps made periodically by the dispatcher. Specifically, the first report began 1 minute 41 seconds after the 1:16 time stamp. Before that, witness Domingo Benavides could be heard unsuccessfully trying to use Tippit's police radio microphone, beginning at 1:16. Dale K. Myers, With Malice: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Murder of Officer J.D. Tippit, 1998, p. 384. ISBN 0-9662709-7-5. Tippit exited his car and was immediately struck and killed by four shots. \nNumerous witnesses heard the shots and saw Oswald flee the scene holding a revolver; nine positively identified him as the man who shot Tippit and fled.By the evening of November 22, five of them (Helen Markham, Barbara Jeanette Davis, Virginia Davis, Ted Callaway, Sam Guinyard) had identified Lee Harvey Oswald in police lineups as the man they saw. A sixth (William Scoggins) did so the next day. Three others (Harold Russell, Pat Patterson, Warren Reynolds) subsequently identified Oswald from a photograph. Two witnesses (Domingo Benavides, William Arthur Smith) testified that Oswald resembled the man they had seen. One witness (L.J. Lewis) felt he was too distant from the gunman to make a positive identification. Warren Commission Hearings, CE 1968, [http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh23/html/WH_Vol23_0425a.htm Location of Eyewitnesses to the Movements of Lee Harvey Oswald in the Vicinity of the Tippit Killing]. Four cartridge cases found at the scene were identified by expert witnesses before the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee as having been fired from the revolver later found in Oswald's possession, to the exclusion of all other weapons. However, the bullets taken from Tippit's body could not be positively identified as having been fired from Oswald's revolver as the bullets were too extensively damaged to make conclusive assessments.Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 3, pp. 466–473, [http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh3/html/WC_Vol3_0237b.htm Testimony of Cortlandt Cunningham]. Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 3, p. 511, [http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh3/html/WC_Vol3_0260a.htm Testimony of Joseph D. Nicol]. \n\nCapture\n\nShoe store manager Johnny Brewer testified that he saw Oswald \"ducking into\" the entrance alcove of his store. Suspicious of this activity, Brewer watched Oswald continue up the street and slip into the nearby Texas Theatre without paying. He alerted the theater's ticket clerk, who telephoned police at about 1:40 p.m.\n\nAs police arrived, the house lights were brought up and Brewer pointed out Oswald sitting near the rear of the theater. Police Officer Nick McDonald testified that he was the first to reach Oswald and that Oswald seemed ready to surrender saying, \"Well, it is all over now.\" However, Officer McDonald said that Oswald pulled out a pistol tucked into the front of his pants, then pointed the pistol at him, and pulled the trigger. McDonald stated that the pistol did not fire because the pistol's hammer came down on the webbing between the thumb and index finger of his hand as he grabbed for the pistol. McDonald also said that Oswald struck him, but that he struck back and Oswald was disarmed. As he was led from the theater, Oswald shouted he was a victim of police brutality.[http://www.jfk-online.com/mcdonald.html \"Oswald and Officer McDonald:The Arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald\"]. Retrieved June 21, 2011.\n\nAt about 2 p.m., Oswald arrived at the Police Department building, where he was questioned by Detective Jim Leavelle about the shooting of Officer Tippit. When Captain J. W. Fritz heard Oswald's name, he recognized it as that of the Book Depository employee who was reported missing and was already a suspect in the assassination. Oswald was formally arraigned for the murder of Officer Tippit at 7:10 p.m., and by the end of the night (shortly after 1:30 a.m.) he had been arraigned for the murder of President Kennedy as well. \n\nSoon after his capture Oswald encountered reporters in a hallway. Oswald declared, \"I didn't shoot anybody\" and, \"They've taken me in because of the fact that I lived in the Soviet Union. I'm just a patsy!\" Later, at an arranged press meeting, a reporter asked, \"Did you kill the President?\" and Oswald—who by that time had been advised of the charge of murdering Tippit, but had not yet been arraigned in Kennedy's death—answered, \"No, I have not been charged with that. In fact, nobody has said that to me yet. The first thing I heard about it was when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that question.\" As he was led from the room the question was called out, \"What did you do in Russia?\" and, \"How did you hurt your eye?\"; Oswald answered, \"A policeman hit me.\" \n\nPolice interrogation\n\nOswald was interrogated several times during his two days at Dallas Police Headquarters. He admitted that he went to his rooming house after leaving the book depository. He also admitted that he changed his clothes and armed himself with a .38 revolver before leaving his house to go to the theater. However, Oswald denied killing Kennedy and Tippit; denied owning a rifle; said two photographs of him holding a rifle and a pistol were fakes; denied telling his co-worker he wanted a ride to Irving to get curtain rods for his apartment (he said that the package contained his lunch); and denied carrying a long, bulky package to work the morning of the assassination. Oswald also denied knowing an \"A. J. Hidell\". Oswald was then shown a forged Selective Service System card bearing his photograph and the alias, \"Alek James Hidell\" that he had in his possession at the time of his arrest. Oswald refused to answer any questions concerning the card, saying \"...you have the card yourself and you know as much about it as I do.\" \n\nThe first interrogation of Oswald was conducted by FBI Special Agent James P. Hosty and Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz (chief of homicide) on Friday, November 22. Asked to account for himself at the time of the assassination, Oswald replied that he was eating his lunch in the first floor lounge (known as the \"domino room\"). He said that he then went to the second-floor lunchroom to buy a Coca-Cola from the soda machine there and was drinking it when he was encountered by Dallas motorcycle policeman (Marrion L. Baker). Oswald said that while he was in the domino room, he saw two \"Negro employees\" walking by, one he recognized as \"Junior\" and a shorter man whose name he could not recall. Junior Jarman and Harold Norman confirmed to the Warren Commission that they had \"walked through\" the domino room around noon during their lunch break. When asked if anyone else was in the domino room, Norman testified that somebody else was there, but he could not remember who it was. Jarman testified that Oswald was not in the domino room when he was there. \n\nDuring one of the interrogation sessions, Deputy-sheriff Roger D. Craig entered the room and noticed that the suspect had openly confessed before his interrogators that he had left the Texas School Book Depository building around the time of the shooting, and when Capt. Will Fritz tried to imply wrongdoing at Oswald’s sudden departure from the building, saying to him: “This man (i.e. deputy Craig) saw you leave,” Oswald quickly retorted with no sense of guilt, “I told you people I did.” Meaning, there was nothing to conceal, in Oswald’s view, at his departure from the building. When Oswald was asked about the car he had gotten into, he replied: “That station wagon belongs to Mrs. Paine. Don't try to drag her into this.” At one point in the investigation, according to Craig, Oswald said in utter dismay, “Everybody will know who I am now.” The Warren Commission report, however, made it appear as though it was said in a dramatic tone, writing instead: “NOW everybody will know who I am,” transposing the now. According to Craig, the real intonation was that of someone who had heretofore tried to conceal his identity as Deputy and that now it would be known to all; his reaction was that of dismay and disappointment at being exposed. \n\nDuring his last interrogation on November 24, according to postal inspector Harry Holmes, Oswald was again asked where he was at the time of the shooting. Holmes (who attended the interrogation at the invitation of Captain Will Fritz) said that Oswald replied that he was working on an upper floor when the shooting occurred, then went downstairs where he encountered Dallas motorcycle policeman (Marrion L. Baker). \n\nOswald asked for legal representation several times while being interrogated, as well as in encounters with reporters. But when H. Louis Nichols, President of the Dallas Bar Association met with him in his cell on Saturday, he declined their services, saying he wanted to be represented by John Abt, chief counsel to the Communist Party USA, or by lawyers associated with the American Civil Liberties Union. Both Oswald and Ruth Paine tried to reach Abt by telephone several times Saturday and Sunday, but Abt was away for the weekend. Oswald also declined his brother Robert's offer on Saturday to obtain a local attorney. \n\nDuring an interrogation with Captain Fritz, when asked, \"Are you a communist?\", he replied, \"No, I am not a communist. I am a Marxist.\" \n\nDeath\n\nOn Sunday, November 24, Oswald was being led through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters toward an armored car that was to take him to the nearby county jail. At 11:21 a.m. CST, Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby stepped from the crowd and shot Oswald in the abdomen. Oswald was taken unconscious by ambulance to Parkland Memorial Hospital—the same hospital where doctors tried to save President Kennedy's life two days earlier. Oswald died at 1:07 p.m. Oswald's death was announced on a TV news broadcast by Dallas police chief Jesse Curry.\n\nAn autopsy on Oswald was performed in the Office of the County Medical Examiner at 2:45 p.m. the same day. Announcing the results of the gross autopsy, Dallas County medical examiner Earl Rose said: \"The two things that we could determine were, first, that he died from a hemorrhage from a gunshot wound, and that otherwise he was a physically healthy male.\" Rose's examination found that Ruby's bullet entered Oswald's left side in the front part of the abdomen and caused damage to his spleen, stomach, aorta, vena cava, kidney, liver, diaphragm, and eleventh rib before coming to rest on his right side.\n\nA network television pool camera, there to cover the transfer, was broadcasting live; millions watching on NBC witnessed the shooting as it happened and on other networks within minutes afterward. In 1964, Robert H. Jackson of the Dallas Times Herald was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Photography for his photograph of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby. \n\nRuby's motive\n\nRuby later said he had been distraught over Kennedy's death and that his motive for killing Oswald was \"saving Mrs. Kennedy the discomfiture of coming back to trial.\" Others have hypothesized that Ruby was part of a conspiracy. G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel \nfor the House Select Committee on Assassinations from 1977 to 1979, said: \"The most plausible explanation for the murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby was that Ruby had stalked him on behalf of organized crime, trying to reach him on at least three occasions in the forty-eight hours before he silenced him forever.\" \n\nBurial\n\nOswald was buried on November 25 in Shannon Rose Hill Memorial Burial Park in Fort Worth. Reporters present to report on the burial were asked by officials to act as pallbearers. A marker inscribed simply Oswald replaces the stolen original tombstone, which gave Oswald's full name, and birth and death dates. His mother was buried beside him in 1981. \n\nA claim that a look-alike Russian agent was buried in place of Oswald led to his exhumation on October 4, 1981. Dental records confirmed that it was Oswald's body in the grave and he was reburied in a new coffin due to water damage to the original.\n\nIn 2010, the Fort Worth funeral home that held Oswald's original coffin employed a Los Angeles auction house to sell it to an undisclosed bidder for $87,468. The sale was halted after Oswald's brother, Robert, learned of the transaction in a Texas newspaper and sued to reclaim the coffin. In January 2015, a district judge in Tarrant County, Texas ruled that the funeral home intentionally concealed the existence of the pine coffin from Robert Oswald who had originally purchased it and believed that it been discarded after the exhumation. The court ordered it returned to Oswald's brother, plus damages equal to the sale price. Robert Oswald's attorney stated that the coffin would likely be destroyed \"as soon as possible\".\n\nOfficial investigations\n\nWarren Commission\n\nThe Warren Commission, created by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination, concluded that Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy (this view is known as the lone gunman theory). The Commission could not ascribe any one motive or group of motives to Oswald's actions:\n\nThe proceedings of the commission were closed, though not secret, and about 3% of its files have yet to be released to the public, which has continued to provoke speculation among researchers.\"Two misconceptions about the Warren Commission hearing need to be clarified...hearings were closed to the public unless the witness appearing before the Commission requested an open hearing. No witness except one...requested an open hearing...Second, although the hearings (except one) were conducted in private, they were not secret. In a secret hearing, the witness is instructed not to disclose his testimony to any third party, and the hearing testimony is not published for public consumption. The witnesses who appeared before the Commission were free to repeat what they said to anyone they pleased, and all of their testimony was subsequently published in the first fifteen volumes put out by the Warren Commission.\" (Bugliosi, p. 332)\n\nRamsey Clark Panel\n\nIn 1968, the Ramsey Clark Panel examined various photographs, X-ray films, documents, and other evidence, concluding that Kennedy was struck by two bullets fired from above and behind him, one of which traversed the base of the neck on the right side without striking bone, and the other of which entered the skull from behind and destroyed its right side. \n\nHouse Select Committee\n\nIn 1979, after a review of the evidence and of prior investigations, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) largely concurred with the Warren Commission and was preparing to issue a finding that Oswald had acted alone in killing Kennedy. However, late in the Committee's proceedings a dictabelt recording was introduced, purportedly recording sounds heard in Dealey Plaza before, during and after the shots were fired. After an analysis by the firm Bolt, Beranek and Newman appeared to indicate more than three gunshots, the HSCA revised its findings to assert a \"high probability that two gunmen fired\" at Kennedy and that Kennedy \"was probably assassinated as the result of a conspiracy.\" Although the Committee was \"unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy,\" it made a number of further findings regarding the likelihood or unlikelihood that particular groups, named in the findings, were involved. Four of the twelve members of the HSCA dissented from this conclusion.\n\nThe acoustical evidence has since been discredited. Officer H.B. McLain, from whose motorcycle radio the HSCA acoustic experts said the Dictabelt evidence came, has repeatedly stated that he was not yet in Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination. McLain asked the Committee, \"‘If it was my radio on my motorcycle, why did it not record the revving up at high speed plus my siren when we immediately took off for Parkland Hospital?’” \n\nIn 1982, a panel of twelve scientists appointed by the National Academy of Sciences, including Nobel laureates Norman Ramsey and Luis Alvarez, unanimously concluded that the acoustic evidence submitted to the HSCA was \"seriously flawed\", was recorded after the President had been shot, and did not indicate additional gunshots. Their conclusions were later published in the journal Science. \n\nIn a 2001 article in the journal Science & Justice, D.B. Thomas wrote that the NAS investigation was itself flawed. He concluded with a 96.3 percent certainty that there were at least two gunmen firing at President Kennedy and that at least one shot came from the grassy knoll. In 2005, Thomas's conclusions were rebutted in the same journal. Ralph Linsker and several members of the original NAS team reanalyzed the timings of the recordings and reaffirmed the earlier conclusion of the NAS report that the alleged shot sounds were recorded approximately one minute after the assassination. In 2010, D.B. Thomas challenged in a book the 2005 Science & Justice article and restated his conclusion that there were at least two gunmen. \n\nOther investigations and dissenting theories\n\n \n\nSome critics have not accepted the conclusions of the Warren Commission and have proposed several other theories, such as that Oswald conspired with others, or was not involved at all and was framed.\n\nIn October 1981, with Marina's support, Oswald's grave was opened to test a theory propounded by writer Michael Eddowes: that during Oswald's stay in the Soviet Union he was replaced with a Soviet double; that it was this double, not Oswald, who killed Kennedy and who is buried in Oswald's grave; and that the exhumed remains would therefore not exhibit a surgical scar Oswald was known to carry. Dental records positively identified the exhumed corpse as Oswald's, and the scar was present.W. Tracy Parnell, [http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/parnell/xindex.htm The Exhumation of Lee Harvey Oswald]. Contrary to reports, the skull of Oswald had been autopsied and this was also confirmed at the exhumation. W. Tracy Parnell, [http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/parnell/dimaio.htm My Interview With Dr. Vincent J.M. Di Maio].\n\nPublic opinion\n\nA 2003 Gallup poll reported that 75% of Americans do not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President Kennedy. That same year an ABC News poll found that 70% of respondents suspected that the assassination involved more than one person. A 2004 Fox News poll found that 66% of Americans thought there had been a conspiracy while 74% thought there had been a cover-up. A Gallup Poll taken in mid-November 2013, showed 61% believed in a conspiracy, and only 30% thought Oswald acted alone. \n\nFictional trials\n\nSeveral films have fictionalized a trial of Oswald, depicting what may have happened had Ruby not killed Oswald. The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald (1964); The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald (1977); and On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald (1986) have fictionalized a trial of Oswald. In 1988, a 21-hour unscripted mock trial was held on television, argued by lawyers before a judge, with unscripted testimony from surviving witnesses to the events surrounding the assassination; the jury returned a verdict of guilty. In 1992 the American Bar Association conducted two mock Oswald trials. The first trial ended in a hung jury. In the second trial the jury acquitted Oswald.\n\nBackyard photos\n\nThe \"backyard photos\", taken by Marina Oswald probably around March 31, 1963 using a camera belonging to Oswald, show Oswald holding two Marxist newspapers—The Militant and The Worker—and a rifle, and wearing a pistol in a holster. Shown the pictures after his arrest, Oswald insisted they were forgeries, but Marina testified in 1964 that she had taken the photographs at Oswald's request— testimony she reaffirmed repeatedly over the decades.\n[http://www.jfk-online.com/marinashaw2.html Testimony of Marina Oswald Porter], Trial of Clay Shaw, Criminal District Court, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, February 21, 1969.\nUnited States House Select Committee on Assassinations, [http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/jfkinfo4/jfk12/marinade.htm#maraug Deposition of Marina Oswald Porter] (1977):\nQ. I want to mark these two photographs. On the back of the first one, which I would ask be marked JFK committee exhibit No. 1, it says in the bottom right-hand corner copy from the National Archives, records group No. 272, under that it says CE-133B. I will ask that be marked JFK exhibit No. 1. (The above referred to photograph was marked JFK committee exhibit No. 1 for identification.)\nQ. New, this second picture that I will ask to be marked says copy from the National Archives, record group No. 272, CE-133. I would ask that this be marked JFK committee exhibit No. 2. (The above referred to photograph was marked JFK committee exhibit No. 2 for identification.)\nBy Mr. KLEIN:\nQ. I will show you those two photographs which are marked JFK exhibit No. 1 and exhibit No. 2, do you recognize those two photographs?\nA. I sure do. I have seen them many times.\nQ. What are they?\nA. That is the pictures that I took.\nUnited States House Select Committee on Assassinations, Hearings, vol. 2 p. 239, [http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol2/html/HSCA_Vol2_0122a.htm Testimony of Marina Oswald Porter] (1978):\nMr. McDONALD. Mrs. Porter, I have got two exhibits to show you, if the clerk would procure them from the representatives of the National Archives. We have two photographs to show you. They are [http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol6/html/HSCA_Vol6_0094a.htm Warren Commission Exhibits C-133-A and B], which have been given JFK Nos. F-378 and F-379. If the clerk would please hand them to you, and also if we could now have for display purposes JFK Exhibit F-179, which is a blowup of the two photographs placed in front of you. Mrs. Porter, do you recognize the photographs placed in front of you?\nMrs. PORTER. Yes, I do.\nMr. McDONALD. And how do you recognize them?\nMrs. PORTER. That is the photograph that I made of Lee on his persistent request of taking a picture of him dressed like that with rifle.\nMarina Oswald Porter, interview with author Vincent Bugliosi and lawyer Jack Duffy, Dallas, Texas, November 30, 2000, reported in Bugliosi, Reclaiming History, p. 794.\nThese photos were labelled CE 133-A and CE 133-B. CE 133-A shows the rifle in Oswald's left hand and newspapers in front of his chest in the other, while the rifle is held with the right hand in CE 133-B. Oswald's mother testified that on the day after the assassination she and Marina destroyed another photograph with Oswald holding the rifle with both hands over his head, with \"To my daughter June\" written on it. \n\nThe HSCA obtained another first-generation print (from CE 133-A) on April 1, 1977, from the widow of George de Mohrenschildt. The words \"Hunter of fascists—ha ha ha!\" written in block Russian were on the back. Also in English were added in script: \"To my friend George, Lee Oswald, 5/IV/63 [April 5, 1963].\" Handwriting experts for the HSCA concluded the English inscription and signature were by Oswald. After two original photos, one negative and one first-generation copy had been found, the Senate Intelligence Committee located (in 1976) a third backyard photo (CE 133-C) showing Oswald with newspapers held away from his body in his right hand.\n\nThese photos, widely recognized as some of the most significant evidence against Oswald, have been subjected to rigorous analysis. Photographic experts consulted by the HSCA concluded they were genuine, answering twenty-one points raised by critics. Marina Oswald has always maintained she took the photos herself, and the 1963 de Mohrenschildt print bearing Oswald's signature clearly indicate they existed before the assassination. Nonetheless, some continue to contest their authenticity. In 2009, after digitally analyzing the photograph of Oswald holding the rifle and paper, computer scientist Hany Farid concluded that the photo \"almost certainly was not altered.\"" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "November 24", "Nov 24", "November 24th", "24th November", "24 November" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "november 24", "november 24th", "24th november", "24 november", "nov 24" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "24th november", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "24th November" }
Who founded General Motors in 1908?	tc_1263	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "Search" ], "filename": [ "General_Motors.txt", "History_of_General_Motors.txt" ], "title": [ "General Motors", "History of General Motors" ], "wiki_context": [ "General Motors Company, commonly known as GM, is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, that designs, manufactures, markets, and distributes vehicles and vehicle parts, and sells financial services. The current company, General Motors Company LLC (\"new GM\"), was formed in 2009 as a part of its 2009 bankruptcy restructuring, after the bankruptcy of General Motors Corporation (\"old GM\"). The new company purchased the majority of the assets of \"old GM\", including the name \"General Motors\".\n\nBusiness units\n\nGeneral Motors produces vehicles in 37 countries under twelve brands: Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Holden, HSV, Opel, Vauxhall, Wuling, Baojun, Jie Fang, and Ravon. General Motors holds a 20% stake in IMM, and a 77% stake in GM Korea. It also has a number of joint-ventures, including Shanghai GM, SAIC-GM-Wuling and FAW-GM in China, GM-AvtoVAZ in Russia, Ghandhara Industries in Pakistan, GM Uzbekistan, General Motors India, General Motors Egypt, and Isuzu Truck South Africa. General Motors employs 212,000 people and does business in more than 140 countries. General Motors is divided into five business segments: GM North America (GMNA), Opel Group, GM International Operations (GMIO), GM South America (GMSA), and GM Financial.\n\nGeneral Motors led global vehicle sales for 77 consecutive years from 1931 through 2007, longer than any other automaker, and is currently among the world's largest automakers by vehicle unit sales. \n\nGeneral Motors acts in most countries outside the U.S. via wholly owned subsidiaries, but operates in China through 10 joint ventures. GM's OnStar subsidiary provides vehicle safety, security and information services.\n\nIn 2009, General Motors shed several brands, closing Saturn, Pontiac, and Hummer, and emerged from a government-backed Chapter 11 reorganization. In 2010, the reorganized GM made an initial public offering that was one of the world's top five largest IPOs to date, and returned to profitability later that year. \n\nIn March 2016, General Motors bought Cruise Automation, a San Francisco self-driving vehicle start-up, to develop self-driving cars that could be used in ride-sharing fleets. \n\nHistory \n\nThe company was formed on September 16, 1908, in Flint, Michigan, as a holding company for McLaughlin Car Company of Canada Limited and Buick, then controlled by William C. Durant. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were fewer than 8,000 automobiles in America, and Durant had become a leading manufacturer of horse-drawn vehicles in Flint before making his foray into the automotive industry. GM's co-founder was Charles Stewart Mott, whose carriage company was merged into Buick prior to GM's creation. Over the years, Mott became the largest single stockholder in GM, and spent his life with his Mott Foundation, which has benefited the city of Flint, his adopted home. GM acquired Oldsmobile later that year. In 1909, Durant brought in Cadillac, Elmore, Oakland, and several others. Also in 1909, GM acquired the Reliance Motor Truck Company of Owosso, Michigan, and the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company of Pontiac, Michigan, the predecessors of GMC Truck. Durant, along with R. S. McLaughlin, lost control of GM in 1910 to a bankers' trust, because of the large amount of debt taken on in its acquisitions, coupled with a collapse in new vehicle sales. \n\nThe next year, Durant started the Chevrolet Motor Car Company in the U.S., and in Canada in 1915, and through this, he secretly purchased a controlling interest in GM. Durant took back control of the company after one of the most dramatic proxy wars in American business history. Durant then reorganized General Motors Company into General Motors Corporation in 1916, merging Chevrolet with GM and merging General Motors of Canada Limited as an ally in 1918. Shortly thereafter, he again lost control, this time for good, after the new vehicle market collapsed. Alfred P. Sloan was picked to take charge of the corporation, and led it to its post-war global dominance when the seven manufacturing facilities operated by Chevrolet before GM acquired the company began to contribute to GM operations. These facilities were added to the individual factories that were exclusive to Cadillac, Buick, Oldsmobile, Oakland, and other companies acquired by GM. This unprecedented growth of GM would last into the early 1980s, when it employed 349,000 workers and operated 150 assembly plants.\n\nChapter 11 bankruptcy\n\nOn July 10, 2009, General Motors emerged from government backed Chapter 11 reorganization after an initial filing on June 8, 2009. Through the Troubled Asset Relief Program the US Treasury invested $49.5 billion in General Motors and recovered $39 billion when it sold its shares on December 9, 2013 resulting in a loss of $10.3 billion. The Treasury invested an additional $17.2 billion into GM's former financing company, GMAC (now Ally). The shares in Ally were sold on December 18, 2014 for $19.6 billion netting $2.4 billion. A study by the Center for Automotive Research found that the GM bailout saved 1.2 million jobs and preserved $34.9 billion in tax revenue. \n\nAlso in 2009 as part General Motors Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, the company shed several brands, closing Saturn, Pontiac, and Hummer, while selling Saab Automobile to Dutch automaker Spyker, and emerged from a government-backed Chapter 11 reorganization. In 2010, the reorganized GM made an initial public offering that was one of the world's top five largest IPOs to date and returned to profitability later that year. \n\nCorporate governance\n\nBased on global sales, General Motors is routinely among the world's largest automakers. Headquartered at the Renaissance Center in Detroit, GM employs approximately 202,000 people around the world. In 2009, General Motors sold 6.5 million cars and trucks globally; in 2010, it sold 8.4 million.\n\n, Mary Barra is the chief executive officer (CEO) and chairman of the board and Daniel Ammann is the president. The head of design, Edward T. Welburn, was the first African American to lead a global automotive design organization, and the highest ranking African American in the US motor industry. \n\nAs part of the company's advertising, Ed Whitacre announced the company's 60-day money-back guarantee and repayment of $6.7 billion loan from government ahead of schedule. On December 12, 2013, GM announced that Mary Barra, 51, executive vice president, Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain, was elected by the board of directors to become the next CEO of the company succeeding Dan Akerson on January 15, 2014. Barra also joined the GM board. From June 2009 to March 2011, the company had three chief executive officers and three chief financial officers. \n\nFinancial results\n\nThe company has reported annual profits since 2010. It can carry forward previous losses to reduce tax liability on future earnings. It earned $4.7 billion in 2010. The Wall Street Journal estimated the tax break, including credits for costs related to pensions and other expenses can be worth as much as $45 billion over the next 20 years. \n\nIn 2010, General Motors ranked second on the list with 8.5 million units produced globally. In 2011, GM returned to the first place with 9.025 million units sold worldwide, corresponding to 11.9% market share of the global motor vehicle industry. The top two markets in 2011 were China, with 2,547,203 units, and the United States, with 2,503,820 vehicles sold. The Chevrolet brand was the main contributor to GM performance, with 4.76 million vehicles sold around the world in 2011, a global sales record.\n\nIn May 2013 during a commencement speech, CEO Dan Akerson suggested that GM was on the cusp of rejoining the S&P 500 index. GM was removed from the index as it approached bankruptcy in 2009. \n\nOn April 24, 2014, CNNMoney reported that GM profits fell to $108 million for the first three months of 2014. GM now estimates the cost of their 2014 recall due to faulty ignition switches, which have been linked to at least 13 deaths, at $1.3 billion. Shares of GM were down 16% for the year before the new announcement of GM's lower profits. \n\nOn January 4, 2016, Fortune reported that GM led a $1bn equity financing in the transportation network company (TNC) Lyft.com. This was GM's first investment in the ride-sharing ecosystem and its reported participation ($500,000,000) in the round is considered to be indicative of its efforts towards the future of driving, which it believes will be \"connected, seamless and autonomous\". \n\nWorld presence\n\nNorth America\n\nGeneral Motors Canada is reported to be in the Superior Court of Ontario, Canada, as a privately owned Canadian company with the corporation as indirect parent. The employees are not all Canadian, as salary personnel are from the U.S. and work for the corporation.\nGM products focus primarily on its four core divisions – Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, and GMC. The GM restructuring has resulted in a lower break even point for annual sales and renewed profits. \n\nIn the mid-2005, GM announced that its corporate chrome power emblem \"Mark of Excellence\" would begin appearing on all recently introduced and all-new 2006 model vehicles produced and sold in North America. However, in 2009 the \"New GM\" reversed this, saying that emphasis on its four core divisions would downplay the GM logo. \n\nGM typically reports as among the largest auto makers in the United States. In May 2012, GM recorded an 18.4% market share in the U.S. \n\nSouth America\n\nIn 2008 the third largest individual country by sales was Brazil with some 550 thousand GM vehicles sold. In that year the other South American countries Argentina, Colombia, and Venezuela sold another 300 thousand GM vehicles, suggesting that the total GM sales in South America (including sales in other South American countries such as Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, etc.) in that year were at a similar level to sales in China.\n\nEurope\n\nOpel is the main GM brand name in Europe except in the United Kingdom, where Opel's British subsidiary, Vauxhall, still uses its own \"Vauxhall\" brand name. The Chevrolet brand was reintroduced in Europe in 2005, selling mostly South-Korean made small cars. In 2012, PSA Peugeot Citroen and General Motors formed an alliance, which involved General Motors acquiring seven percent of PSA Group.\n\nOn December 13, 2013, GM announced it had divested itself from the seven percent, generating \"gross proceeds of €0.25 billion.\" Also in December 2013, GM announced it would drop the Chevrolet brand in Europe by Q4 2015, to focus on Opel/Vauxhall. Chevrolets will continue to be sold in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. GM lost approximately $18B over the past 12 years in Europe. \n\nAsia\n\nThe company manufactures most of its China market vehicles locally. Shanghai GM, a joint venture with the Chinese company SAIC Motor, was created on March 25, 1997. The Shanghai GM plant was officially opened on December 15, 1998, when the first Chinese-built Buick came off the assembly line. The SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile joint-venture is also successfully selling microvans under the Wuling brand (34 percent owned by GM). Much of General Motors' recent growth has been in the People's Republic of China, where its sales rose 66.9 percent in 2009, selling 1,830,000 vehicles and accounting for 13.4 percent of the market. \n\nBuick is strong in China, being led by the Buick Excelle subcompact. The last emperor of China owned a Buick. The Cadillac brand was introduced in China in 2004, starting with exports to China. GM pushed the marketing of the Chevrolet brand in China in 2005 as well, transferring Buick Sail to that brand.\n\nIn August 2009 the joint venture of FAW GM Light Duty Commercial Vehicle Co Ltd was formed that mainly produces Jiefang light-duty trucks. \n\nGeneral Motors vehicle sales in China rose 28.8 percent to a record 2,351,610 units in 2010. GM\nset up an auto research center as part of a USD250 million corporate campus in Shanghai to develop 'gasoline-hybrid cars, electric vehicles and alternative fuels, engines and new technologies'. The company plans to double its sales from 2010 to about 5 million units in China by 2015. \n\nSAIC-GM-Wuling established the low-cost Baojun brand to better compete with domestic rivals, Chery, Geely and BYD for first-time buyers of cars priced around USD10,000. It is estimated that such market in China is about 5 million vehicles a year, larger than the auto market in France and Britain combined. However, some are worried that 'local brands like Baojun could eventually become threats to their parent brands if they compete more against established models over time'. Shanghai-GM-Wuling sold 1.23 million vehicles in 2010, mainly commercial vans and trucks, of which about 700,000 units were a van called Sunshine. \n\nGM maintains a dealership presence in Japan, called GM Chevrolet Shop, previously known as GM Auto World Shop. Current GM Japan dealerships were either former Saturn dealerships or Isuzu dealership locations. GM products are also currently sold by the company Yanase Co., Ltd. since 1915.\n\nIn August 2011, GM announced plans to reactivate its plant that previously produced rebadged Chevrolet Blazer as Opel as well as Brazilian Blazer, and also build a new plant in Bekasi, West Java, Indonesia, which would produce 40,000 passenger cars per year for the Southeast Asian market. It is the third plant in Southeast Asia, after the Rayong plant, Thailand, and the Hanoi plant, Vietnam. \n\nIn October 2011, the South Korea Free Trade Agreement opened up the South Korean auto market to American made cars. GM owns (per December 31, 2011) 77.0% of its joint venture in South Korea, GM Korea.\n\nOn March 11, 2013, GM opened a new 190,300 square-foot manufacturing plant in Bekasi, Indonesia. In February 2015, GM announced they will close the Bekasi plant by the end of June and stop production of the Sonic in Thailand by mid-year. \n\nAfrica\n\nGM has a long history in Egypt which began in the 1920s with the assembly of cars and light pickup trucks for the local market. In the mid of the 1950s, GM withdrew from the Egyptian market. Some year later, the Ghabbour Brothers began to assemble Cadillac, Chevrolet and Buick models up to the 1990s.\n\nSince 1983 GM and Al-Monsour Automotive Company have owned General Motors Egypt, which is currently the only manufacturer of traditional GM branded vehicles in Egypt.\n\nFollowing the passage of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act in 1986, GM was forced to divest from South Africa, and GMSA became the independent Delta Motor Corporation. GM purchased a 49% stake in Delta in 1997 following the end of apartheid, and acquired the remaining 51% in 2004, reverting the company to its original name. The company began operating in South Africa in 1913 through its wholly owned subsidiary, General Motors South Africa. By 2014 it was targeting the production of 50,000 cars a year but was being hampered by national labour unrest, strikes and protests. \n\nAnother manufacturing base of the GM for the African markets is the Industries Mécaniques Maghrébines headquartered in Kairouan, Tunisia, which assembles Isuzu and Mazda models for the Maghreb region.\nGeneral Motors East Africa (GMEA) located in Nairobi, Kenya assembles a wide range of Isuzu trucks and buses including the popular Isuzu N-Series versatile light commercial vehicle, TF Series pick-ups and Isuzu bus chassis. Formed in 1975, GMEA's facility is the largest assembler of commercial vehicles in the region exporting to East and Central African countries including Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Rwanda and Burundi. In addition to assembly, GMEA also markets the Chevrolet products Spark and Optra.\n\nIn the 1920s Miller Brothers Nigeria was founded as an importer of commercial vehicles of the Bedford brand into the country. In 1949, the company opened its own assembly plant and operated under the name Niger/Nigeria Motors. In 1965 the plant and its distribution network was split into different companies and renamed as Federated Motors Industries. In 1991 the company was taken in by a joint venture between General Motors and UACN of Nigeria.\n\nOceania\n\nIn Australia and New Zealand GM has been represented by the Holden brand since 1948, GM having acquired the company in 1931. In 2012, GM Opel cars began to be imported into Australia as a niche marque under their own brand name. However, as of August 2013, GM has made the decision to remove the Opel brand from Australia noting poor adoption and sales. In the 1980s and 1990s, General Motors New Zealand sold Opel-badged cars, which were later rebadged as Holdens in 1994.\n\nOn December 10, 2013, GM announced that Holden would cease engine and vehicle manufacturing operations in Australia by the end of 2017.\nBeyond 2017 Holden's Australian presence will consist of: a national sales company, a parts distribution centre and, a global design studio.\n\nMotorsports\n\nGM has participated over the years in the World Touring Car Championship (WTCC), 24 Hours of Le Mans, NASCAR, SCCA, Supercars Championship, and many other world venues.\n\nGM's engines were highly successful in the Indy Racing League (IRL) throughout the 1990s, winning many races in the small V-8 class. GM has also done much work in the development of electronics for GM auto racing. An unmodified Aurora V-8 in the Aerotech, captured 47 world records, including the record for speed endurance in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America. Recently, the Cadillac V-Series has entered motorsports racing.\n\nGM has also used many cars in the American racing series NASCAR. Currently the Chevrolet SS is the only entry in the series, but in the past the Pontiac Grand Prix, Buick Regal, Oldsmobile Cutlass, Chevrolet Lumina, Chevrolet Malibu and the Chevrolet Monte Carlo were also used. GM has won a total of 40 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series manufacturer's championships, including 34 with Chevrolet, the most of any make in NASCAR history, 3 with Oldsmobile, 2 with Buick, and 1 with Pontiac. GM leads all other automobile manufacturers in races won in NASCAR's premier series at 1,011. Chevrolet leads individual makes with 677 wins.\n\nIn Australia, there is the V8 Supercar Championship which is battled out by the two main rivals of (GM) Holden and Ford. The current Holden Racing Team cars are based on the Holden Commodore and run a 5.0-litre V8-cylinder engine producing 635 bhp. These cars have a top speed of 298 km/h and run 0–100 km/h in 3.8 seconds. The Holden Racing Team is Australia's most successful team in Australian touring car history. In 2006 and 2007, the Drivers championship was won by the very closely linked (now defunct) HSV Dealer Team.\n\nResearch and development\n\nResearch and development (R&D) at General Motors began organically as the continuation of such R&D as the various divisions (e.g., Cadillac, Buick, Olds, Oakland) were already doing for themselves before the merger. Its character was entirely empirical; it was whatever key people in each company had been competent enough to organize and pursue.\nR. S. McLaughlin's Carriage Company in 1876 was designing and inventing Carriage Gear. The McLaughlin Companies became General Motors of Canada Limited.\nCharles F. Kettering's Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (Delco), at Dayton, Ohio, was still an independent firm at this time. Its work was well known to GM central management through its relationship as a supplier and consultancy to Cadillac and Buick.\n\nIn 1916, Durant organized the United Motors Corporation as an amalgamation of parts suppliers, supplying GM and other OEMs but independent of GM. Alfred P. Sloan, head of the newly acquired Hyatt Roller Bearing Corporation, became United Motors' CEO. United Motors acquired Delco, and Kettering began his association with Sloan. United Motors also acquired at this time the original Remy corporation (called the Remy Electric Company), a competitor of Delco. In 1918 General Motors bought United Motors. Various entities grew out of the original Delco and Remy, including the Dayton Metal Products Corporation, the General Motors Research Corporation, the Delco Division and Remy Electric Division of GM, Delco Remy (now Remy International, Inc.), ACDelco, Delco Electronics, and others. Today's main successor corporation is Delphi Automotive, which nowadays is an independent parent corporation.\n\nThe General Motors Research Corporation, at Dayton under Kettering, became a true automotive research center. During the next few decades it led the development of:\n* many electrical-appliance features for cars and trucks\n* In 1911, Charles F. Kettering, with Henry M. Leland, of Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (DELCO) invented and filed U.S. Patent 1,150,523 for the first electric starter in America.\n* In 1914 Cadillac produced the first mass-produced production V-8 in the world. \n* In 1921, General Motors patented the use of Tetraethyllead as an antiknock agent leading to the development of higher compression engines resulting in more power and efficiency. \n* In 1937, Jominy & Boegehold of GM invented the Jominy end-quench test for hardenability of carbon steel, a breakthrough in heat treating still in use today as ASTM A255. \n* In 1939, GM introduced the world's first automatic transmission the Hydra-matic for the 1940 Oldsmobile and would be adopted by the auto industry later. \n* In 1962, GM introduced the first turbo charged engine in the world for a car in the Oldsmobile Cutlass Turbo-Jetfire. \n* In 1972, GM produced the first rear wheel Anti-lock brake system in the world for two of their cars: the Toronado and Eldorado. \n* In 1984, Robert Lee of GM invented the Fe14Nd2B permanent magnet, fabricated by rapid solidification.\n* dichlorodifluoromethane refrigerant for HVAC and refrigeration applications (Freon, R-12; recognized today as a bad idea environmentally [being a chlorofluorocarbon (CFC)], but a technological wonder of its day)\n* commercially practical two-stroke diesel engines\n* better transmissions for track-laying vehicles\n* many other advancements\n\nAlthough GM R&D (as it is known in colloquial shorthand) began as an organization largely built around one man (Kettering), it eventually evolved into a more modern organization whose path is shaped by individuals but not dominated entirely by any of them. World War II was a turning point wherein military affairs, after mingling with the technologies of applied science for some 80 years, first started to become fundamentally reinvented by them. Civilian life, too, changed in this direction. By the 1950s, corporations such as GM and many others were facing a new era of R&D, different from earlier ones. Less about genius inventors and individual inventions, and more about organizational progress and integrated systems, it raised new questions about where the capital for R&D would come from in an era of limitless demand for R&D (although not necessarily for production). Alfred Sloan, longtime CEO of GM (1920s to 1960s), discussed in his memoir (also considered a seminal management treatise) the relationships between government, academia, and private industry in the areas of basic science and applied science, in light of this new era. The views he laid out reflected (and influenced) wide consensus on these relationships that persists largely to today.\n\nToday, GM R&D, headquartered in Warren, Michigan, is a network of six laboratories, six science offices, and collaborative relationships in over twelve countries including working relationships with universities, government groups, suppliers, and other partners from across the globe.\n\nOn September 7, 2014, at the Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress in Detroit GM disclosed it would be introducing auto-pilot features into certain 2017 models of its cars, which would go on sale in 2016. The \"super cruise\" or vehicle-to-vehicle V2V technology is likely to be first introduced to the Cadillac range, enabling drivers to switch in and out of semi-automated mode. \n\nSmall car sales\n\nFrom the 1920s onward, General Motors always maintained an internal dialog about what its economy-car and small-car policies should be. The economy and size considerations often naturally overlapped, although a strong distinction was always drawn in the 20th century between policies for the U.S. market and policies for other markets. Economy (in some form) always had good demand anywhere, but its definition in the U.S. was long considered different from that in other markets. In this view, \"economy\" in the U.S. did not mean \"small\" in the sense of what qualified as \"small\" outside the U.S. The policy discussion often focused on topics like the higher demand for truly small cars in non-U.S. markets than in the U.S., and whether it made more sense to import a car into a certain country or to build it domestically within that country, either as some variant of knockdown or with truly extensive domestic sourcing. GM's acquisitions of Vauxhall Motors Ltd (UK, 1925) and Adam Opel AG (Germany, 1929), rather than starting new domestic companies to compete against them, were based on analyses that convinced GM managers that acquiring an existing domestic manufacturer was a better business decision.\n\nAlthough GM since the 1920s has always offered economy models in the U.S. market (relative to that market's definition in any given decade), and had done research and development in the 1940s and 1950s in preparation for any potential rise of strong demand for truly small cars in the U.S. market, it has also been criticized over the decades for not doing enough to promote fuel efficiency in the U.S. market in the 1970s through 1990s. GM's response has been that it has always responded to market demands, and that most Americans, despite anything they said to the contrary, did not actually demand (at purchasing-decision time) small size or fuel efficiency in their vehicles to any great or lasting extent. Although some U.S. consumers flocked temporarily to the ideal of fuel economy whenever fuel supply crises arose (such as 1973 and 1979), they flocked equally enthusiastically to SUVs when cheap fuel of the 1980s and 1990s temporarily shielded them from any downside to these choices.\n\nSince the return of high fuel prices in the 2000s and 2010s, GM's interest in truly small-car programs for the U.S. market has been renewed. As part of General Motors Company development, GM revived one of its idled U.S. factories for the production of a small car in Orion, Michigan, with the creation of 1,200 American jobs. This will be the first time ever that a large manufacturer produces a supermini vehicle in the United States. This retooled plant will be capable of building 160,000 cars annually, including both small and compact vehicles. Production started in late 2011 with the Chevrolet Sonic. \n\nEnvironmental initiatives\n\nGeneral Motors has published principles regarding the environment and maintains an extensive website to inform the public. In 2008, General Motors committed to engineering half of its manufacturing plants to be landfill-free. In order to achieve its landfill-free status, production waste is recycled or reused in the manufacturing process.\n\nThe world's largest rooftop solar power installation was installed at General Motors Spanish Zaragoza Manufacturing Plant in fall 2008. The Zaragoza solar installation has about 2000000 sqft of roof at the plant and contains about 85,000 solar panels. The installation was created, owned and operated by Veolia Environment and Clairvoyant Energy, who lease the rooftop area from General Motors. In 2011, General Motors also invested $7.5 million in solar-panel provider Sunlogics, which will install solar panels on GM facilities. \n\nGM has long worked on alternative-technology vehicles, and has led the industry with ethanol-burning flexible-fuel vehicles that can run on either E85 (ethanol) or gasoline. The company was the first to use turbochargers and was an early proponent of V6 engines in the 1960s, but quickly lost interest as muscle car popularity increased. They demonstrated gas turbine vehicles powered by kerosene, an area of interest throughout the industry, but abandoned the alternative engine configuration in view of the 1973 oil crisis. In the 1970s and 1980s, GM pushed the benefits of diesel engines and cylinder deactivation technologies with disastrous results due to poor durability in the Oldsmobile diesels and drivability issues in the Cadillac V8-6-4 variable-cylinder engines. In 1987, GM, in conjunction with AeroVironment, built the Sunraycer, which won the inaugural World Solar Challenge and was a showcase of advanced technology. Much of the technology from Sunraycer found its way into the Impact prototype electric vehicle (also built by Aerovironment) and was the predecessor to the General Motors EV1.\n\nGM supported a compromise version of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard increase from 27 to, the first such increase in over 20 years. GM announced they will introduce more Volt-based plug-in hybrids.\n\nHybrid electric vehicles\n\nIn May 2004, GM delivered the world's first full-sized hybrid pickups, the 1/2-ton Silverado/Sierra. These mild hybrids did not use electrical energy for propulsion, like GM's later designs. In 2005, the Opel Astra diesel Hybrid concept vehicle was introduced. The 2006 Saturn Vue Green Line was the first hybrid passenger vehicle from GM and is also a mild design. GM has hinted at new hybrid technologies to be employed that will be optimized for higher speeds in freeway driving.\n\nGM currently offers the 2-mode hybrid system used by the Chevrolet Tahoe/GMC Yukon/Cadillac Escalade, and GM 1/2 half-ton pickups and will later be used on other vehicles. \n\nWithin the framework of its vehicle electrification strategy, GM introduced the Chevrolet Volt in 2010, an electric vehicle with back-up generators powered by gasoline. The production Chevrolet Volt was available in late 2010 as a 2011 model with limited availability. GM delivered the first Volt during December 2010.\n\nThe GM Magic Bus is a hybrid-powered bus. \n\nAll-electric vehicles\n\nGeneral Motors was the first company (in the modern era) to release an all-electric automobile. In 1990, GM debuted the \"Impact\" concept car at the Los Angeles Auto Show. It was the first car with zero-emissions marketed in the US in over three decades. The Impact was eventually produced as the EV1 for the 1996 model year. It was available through dealers located in only a few regions (e.g., California, Arizona, Georgia). Vehicles were leased, rather than sold, to individuals. In 1999 GM decided to cease production of the vehicles. When the individual leases had expired, they declined to renew the leases or allow the lessors to purchase them. All of the EV1s were eventually returned to General Motors and, with the exception of a few which were donated to museums, all were destroyed. The documentary film Who Killed the Electric Car? covered the EV1 story.\n\nThe EV1's cancellation had disappointed supporters of electric vehicles. In 2010, GM debuted the Chevrolet Volt, an electric vehicle with back-up generators powered by gasoline. General Motors has announced that it is building a prototype two-seat electric vehicle with Segway. An early prototype of the Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility vehicle—dubbed Project P.U.M.A. – was presented in New York at the 2009 New York International Auto Show. \nIn October 2011, General Motors announced the production of the Chevrolet Spark EV, an all-electric version of the third generation Chevrolet Spark, with availability limited to select U.S. and global markets. In October 2012, GM Korea announced it will start making and selling the Spark EV domestically in 2013. The production version was unveiled at the 2012 Los Angeles Auto Show. Within the framework of GM's vehicle electrification strategy, the Spark EV is the first all-electric passenger car marketed by General Motors in the U.S. since the EV1 was discontinued in 1999. The Spark EV was released in the U.S. in selected markets in California and Oregon in June 2013. Retail sales began in South Korea in October 2013. GM also plans to sell the Spark EV in limited quantities in Canada and select European markets. \n\nIn late 2016 General Motors will be launching the 2017 model year Chevrolet Bolt as a production car. With a targeted price of before a $7500 tax credit, the Bolt is the first all-electric car to have a range of over 200 mi while remaining within the budget of most Americans. The vehicle will be launched in all 50 US states and analysts expect it to sell around 30,000 units per year, though GM itself has not confirmed these estimates. The battery pack and most drivetrain components will be built by LG and assembled in GM's Lake Orion plant. \n\nBattery packs for electric vehicles\n\nGM builds battery packs in southern Michigan. GM also established an automotive battery laboratory in Michigan. GM will be responsible for battery management systems and power electronics, thermal management, as well as the pack assembly. An existing GM facility at Brownstown Township was chosen to be upgraded as battery pack plant. LG Chem's U.S. subsidiary, Compact Power of Troy, Michigan, has been building the prototype packs for the development vehicles and will continue to provide integration support and act as a liaison for the program.\n\nHydrogen initiative\n\nThe 1966 GM Electrovan is credited with being the first hydrogen fuel cell car ever produced. Though fuel cells have been around since the early 1800s, General Motors was the first to use a fuel cell to power the wheels of a vehicle. The economic feasibility of the technically challenging hydrogen car, and the low-cost production of hydrogen to fuel it, has also been discussed by other automobile manufacturers such as Ford and Chrysler. In June 2007, Larry Burns, vice president of research and development, said he's not yet willing to say exactly when hydrogen vehicles will be mass-produced, but he said it should happen before 2020, the year many experts have predicted. He said \"I sure would be disappointed if we weren't there\" before 2020. \n\nOn July 2, 2013, GM and Honda announced a partnership to develop fuel cell systems and hydrogen storage technologies for the 2020 time frame. GM and Honda are leaders in fuel cell technology, ranking No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in total fuel cell patents filed between 2002 and 2012, with more than 1,200 between them according to the Clean Energy Patent Growth Index.\n\nFlexible-fuel vehicles\n\nGM produces several flexible-fuel vehicles that can operate on E85 ethanol fuel or gasoline, or any blend of both. Since 2006 GM started featuring a bright yellow gas cap to remind drivers of the E85 capabilities, and also using badging with the text \"Flexfuel/E85 Ethanol\" to clearly mark the car as an E85 FFV. \n\nGM is the leader in E85 flex fuel vehicles, with over 6 million FlexFuel vehicles on the road in the U.S. In 2010, GM pledged to have more than half of their annual vehicle production be E85 or biodiesel capable by 2012. As of 2012, GM offers 20 ethanol-enabled FlexFuel cars and trucks in the US, and offers more FlexFuel vehicles models than any other automaker. \n\nPhilanthropy\n\nSince 1994, General Motors has donated over $23 million in cash and vehicles to the Nature Conservancy, and funding from GM supports many conservation projects. \n\nIn 1996, GMC partnered with the fashion industry as a part of the GM/CFDA Concept: Cure, a collaboration between General Motors and the Fashion industry bringing awareness to and raising funds for breast cancer. The program involved 5 designers, each lending their artistic talents to customize 5 different vehicles. Nicole Miller, Richard Tyler, Anna Sui, Todd Oldham and Mark Eisen were tasked with transforming a Cadillac STS, Buick Riviera, GMC Yukon, Oldsmobile Bravada and Chevrolet Camaro Z28, respectively. The cars were then auctioned with the proceeds presented to the Nina Hyde Center at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show in 1997. \n\nFurthermore, since 1996, the GM Foundation has been the exclusive source of funding for Safe Kids USA's \"Safe Kids Buckle Up\" program, a national initiative to ensure child automobile safety through education and inspection. \n\nThrough 2002, the PACE Awards program, led by GM, EDS, and SUN Microsystems, has given over $1.2 billion of in-kind contributions which includes computers to over 18 universities to support engineering education. In 2009, the GM led group has helped the Pace Awards program worldwide.[http://www.pacepartners.org/partners.php Pace Partners]. Retrieved September 9, 2012.\n\nIn 2004, GM gave $51,200,000 in cash contributions and $17,200,000 in-kind donations to charitable causes.[http://www.businessweek.com/investing/philanthropy/2005/companies/GM.htm Corporate Giving – Details:General Motors].Business Week 2005. Retrieved July 9, 2009.\n\nThe General Motors Foundation (GM Foundation) receives philanthropic bequests from General Motors. It is a 501(c)(3) foundation incorporated in 1976.\n\nBrand reorganization\n\nAs it emerged from bankruptcy and company reorganization in 2010, GM reorganized the content and structure of its brand portfolio (its brand architecture). Some nameplates like Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer, and service brands like Goodwrench were discontinued. Others, like Saab, were sold. The practice of putting the \"GM Mark of Excellence\" on every car, no matter what the brand, was discontinued in August 2009. The company has moved from a corporate-endorsed hybrid brand architecture structure, where GM underpinned every brand to a multiple brand corporate invisible brand architecture structure. The company's familiar square blue \"badge\" has been removed from the Web site and advertising, in favor of a new, subtle all-text logo treatment on its U.S. site; the Canadian site still retains the blue \"badge\". In 2011, GM discontinued the Daewoo brand in South Korea and replaced it with the Chevrolet brand. \n\nGM describes their brand politics as having \"two brands\" which \"will drive our global growth. They are Chevrolet, which embodies the qualities of value, reliability, performance and expressive design; and Cadillac, which creates luxury vehicles that are provocative and powerful. At the same time, the Holden, Buick, GMC, Baojun, Opel and Vauxhall brands are being carefully cultivated to satisfy as many customers as possible in select regions.\"\n\nDiscontinued brands\n\n(Note on dates: the dates below are the years each brand existed, which are not always the same as the dates they were part of GM.)\n\nFormer subsidiaries\n\n* Frigidaire (1919–1979), sold to Ohio-based White Consolidated Industries\n* Euclid Trucks (1953–1968), sold to White Consolidated Industries\n* Terex (1968–1980) (1983–1986), sold to IBH Holdings of Germany, bought back after IBH failed; sold to Northwest Engineering Co.\n* General Motors Diesel Division (1938–1987) sold to Motor Coach Industries\n* Lotus (1986–1993), sold to Luxembourg-based A.C.B.N. Holdings S.A.\n* American Axle (–1994) - former axle division sold off\n* Allison Engine Company (1929–1995) sold to Rolls-Royce North America\n* Hughes Aircraft (1985–1999) - 1997 Hughes Defense sold to Raytheon, 1999 Hughes Satellite sold to Boeing\n* Delphi Interior & Lighting (–1998) lighting plants sold to Palladium Equity Partners and renamed Guide Corporation\n* Delphi Interior & Lighting (–1998) seating plants sold to Lear Corporation \n* Delphi Chassis — commercial truck and motor-home chassis (–1998) sold to United City Body (Union City Body) of Indiana \n* Delphi Energy (filter factory) (–1998) - sold to Dana \n* Allison Transmission (1929–2007) sold to The Carlyle Group and Onex Corporation\n* New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) (1984-2009) joint venture with Toyota, factory sold to Tesla Motors\n* Saab (1990–2010), sold to Dutch sports car manufacturer Spyker Cars N.V., sold to National Electric Vehicle Sweden AB on August 31, 2012.\n\nCurrent affiliates\n\n* GM Korea (2011–present), GM currently owns 96% of the company. The company mainly designs and produces Chevrolet and Holden branded vehicles.\n\nFormer affiliates\n\n* Fiat (2000–2005), GM owned 20 percent at one time with put option. The two companies continue to work together on sharing automotive platforms.\n* Fuji Heavy Industries, manufacturer of Subaru (1999–2006), GM owned 20 percent at one time \n* Isuzu (1971–2006), GM owned 49 percent at one time. The two companies continue to work together on various projects.\n* PSA Peugeot Citroen (2012–2013), GM owned 7 percent of the company at one time. Following heavy losses from PSA Peugeot Citroen along with restructuring at Opel, GM sold its entire stake in 2013 with PSA Peugeot Citroen intending to partner with Dongfeng Motor. The two companies will continue to work together on sharing automotive platforms.\n* Suzuki (1981–2008), GM owned over 20 percent at one time. General Motors continues to sell some Suzuki models under the Chevrolet brand.\n\nSpin-offs\n\n* GM Defense 1950–2003 was once part of General Motors Diesel Division and as General Dynamics Land Systems division of General Dynamics\n* Electro Motive Division of General Motors was also once part of General Motors Diesel Division and now known as Electro-Motive Diesel\n* Detroit Diesel sold to Penske Corporation; broken up and portion sold to the former DaimlerChrysler AG (now Daimler AG); now part of Daimler AG\n* Diesel Division of General Motors of Canada Limited spun off and later acquired by General Motors Canada as Diesel Division of General Motors of Canada Limited\n* EDS – Electronic Data Systems\n* Delco Remy (1918–1994) – spun off\n* Magnaquench (–1994) – spun off\n* Hughes Electronics sold to News Corporation in 2003\n* 1999 GM spun off its parts making operations as Delphi\n\nControversies\n\nRalph Nader and the Corvair\n\nUnsafe at Any Speed by Ralph Nader, published in 1965, is a pioneering book accusing car manufacturers of being slow to introduce safety features, and reluctant to spend money on improving safety. The subject for which the book is probably most widely known, the rear-engined GM Chevrolet Corvair, is covered in the first chapter. It relates to the first (1960–1964) models that had a swing-axle suspension design which was prone to \"tuck under\" in certain circumstances. In substitution for the cost-cutting lack of a front stabilizer bar (anti-roll bar), Corvairs required tire pressures which were outside of the tire manufacturer's recommended tolerances. The Corvair relied on an unusually high front to rear pressure differential (15psi front, 26psi rear, when cold; 18 psi and 30psi hot), and if one inflated the tires equally, as was standard practice for all other cars at the time, the result was a dangerous oversteer. \n\nIn early March 1966, several media outlets, including The New Republic and The New York Times, reported that GM had tried to discredit Ralph Nader, hiring private detectives to tap his phones and investigate his past, and hiring prostitutes to trap him in compromising situations. Nader sued the company for invasion of privacy and settled the case for $425,000. Nader's lawsuit against GM was ultimately decided by the New York Court of Appeals, whose opinion in the case expanded tort law to cover \"overzealous surveillance\". Nader used the proceeds from the lawsuit to start the pro-consumer Center for Study of Responsive Law.\n\nA 1972 safety commission report conducted by Texas A&M University concluded that the 1960–1963 Corvair possessed no greater potential for loss of control than its contemporary competitors in extreme situations. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) issued a press release in 1972 describing the findings of NHTSA testing from the previous year. NHTSA had conducted a series of comparative tests in 1971 studying the handling of the 1963 Corvair and four contemporary cars—a Ford Falcon, Plymouth Valiant, Volkswagen Beetle, and Renault Dauphine—along with a second-generation Corvair (with its completely redesigned, independent rear suspension). The 143-page report reviewed NHTSA's extreme-condition handling tests, national crash-involvement data for the cars in the test as well as General Motors' internal documentation regarding the Corvair's handling. NHTSA went on to contract an independent advisory panel of engineers to review the tests. This review panel concluded that \"the 1960–63 Corvair compares favorably with contemporary vehicles used in the tests [...] the handling and stability performance of the 1960–63 Corvair does not result in an abnormal potential for loss of control or rollover, and it is at least as good as the performance of some contemporary vehicles both foreign and domestic.\" \n\nFormer GM executive John DeLorean asserted in his book On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors that Nader's criticisms were valid. \n\nJournalist David E. Davis, in a 2009 article in Automobile Magazine, noted that despite Nader's claim that swing-axle rear suspension were dangerous, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen all used similar swing-axle concepts during that era. \n\nDefective ignition system investigation\n\nIn May 2014 the NHTSA fined the company $35 million for failing to recall cars with faulty ignition switches for a decade, despite knowing there was a problem with the switches. Thirteen deaths were attributed to the faulty switches during the time the company failed to recall the cars. The $35 million fine was the maximum the regulator could impose. Congress is considering increasing the maximum fines the regulator can impose from $35 million to $300 million. General Motors has announced that they are also facing 79 customer lawsuits asking for as much as $10 billion for economic losses attributed to the recall. As well as the Cobalts, the switches of concern had been installed in many other cars, such as the Pontiac G5, the Saturn Ion, the Chevrolet HHR, the Saturn Sky, and Pontiac Solstice. Eventually the recall involved about 2.6 million GM cars worldwide.", "The history of General Motors (GM), one of the world's largest car and truck manufacturers, reaches back more than a century and involves a vast scope of industrial activity around the world, mostly focused on motorized transportation and the engineering and manufacturing that make it possible. Founded in 1908 as a Holding Company for McLaughlin and Buick Stocks and allied in 1919, in Flint, Michigan, as of 2012 it employs approximately 202,000 people around the world. With global headquarters at the Renaissance Center in Detroit, Michigan, United States, GM manufactures its cars and trucks in 35 countries. In 2008, 8.35 million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under various brands. The GM automotive brands today are Vauxhall, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Holden, Opel, and Wuling. Former GM automotive brands include McLaughlin, Oakland, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Hummer, Saab, and Saturn.\n\nIn addition to these brands selling assembled vehicles, GM also has had various automotive-component and non-automotive brands, many of which it divested in the 1980s through 2000s. These have included Euclid and Terex (earthmoving/construction/mining equipment & vehicles); Electro-Motive Diesel (locomotive, marine, and industrial diesel engines); Detroit Diesel (automotive and industrial diesel engines); Allison (Aircraft engines,transmissions, gas turbine engines); Frigidaire (Appliances including refrigeration and air conditioning); New Departure (bearings); Delco Electronics and ACDelco (electrical and electronic components); GMAC (finance); General Aviation and North American Aviation (airplanes); GM Defense (military vehicles) and Electronic Data Systems (information technology). In short, there are few, if any, industrial sectors or categories in which GM did not play a major role in the twentieth century, worldwide.\n\n1908–1929\n\nGeneral Motors was founded by William C. Durant on September 16, 1908 as a holding company after a 15-year contract with the McLaughlin's of Canada. Initially, GM held only the Buick Motor Company, but it rapidly acquired more than twenty companies including Oldsmobile, Cadillac, and Oakland, now known as Pontiac. Durant signed a 15-year contract in Canada with the exchange of 500,000 shares of Buick stock for 500,000 shares of McLaughlin Stock. Dr. Campbell, Durant's son-in-law, put 1,000,000 shares on the stock market in Chicago Buick (then controlled by Durant).\n\nDurant's company, the Durant-Dort Carriage Company, had been in business in Flint since 1886, and by 1900, was producing over 100,000 carriages a year in factories located in Michigan and Canada. Prior to his acquisition of Buick, Durant had several Ford dealerships. With springs, axles and other key components being provided to the early automotive industry by Durant-Dort, it can be reasoned that GM actually began with the founding of Durant-Dort. \n\nDurant acquired Oldsmobile later in 1908. The next year, he brought in Cadillac, Cartercar, Elmore, Ewing, and Oakland (later known as Pontiac). In 1909, General Motors also acquired the Reliance Motor Truck Company of Owosso, Michigan, and the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company of Pontiac, Michigan, the predecessors of GMC Truck. A Rapid became the first truck to conquer Pikes Peak in 1909. In 1910, Welch and Rainier were added to the ever-growing list of companies controlled by GM. Durant lost control of GM in 1910 to a bankers trust as the deal to buy Ford for $8,000,000.00 fell through, due to the large amount of debt (around $1 million) taken on in its acquisitions R S McLaughlin Director and friend left at the same time.\n\nDurant left the firm and co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Company in 1911 with Louis Chevrolet. R S McLaughlin in 1915 built Chevrolet in Canada and after a stock buy back campaign with the McLaughlin and DuPont corporations, and other Chevrolet stock holders, he returned to head GM in 1916,as Chevrolet owned 54.5% with the backing of Pierre S. du Pont. On October 13 of the same year, GM Company incorporated as General Motors Corporation after McLaughlin merged his companies and sold his Chevrolet stock to allow the incorporation, which in turn followed the incorporation of General Motors of Canada (reverting to General Motors Company upon emergence from bankruptcy in 2009 that left General Motors of Canada Limited as a privately owned Canadian Company). Chevrolet entered the General Motors fold in 1918 as it became part of the Corporation with R S McLaughlin as Director and Vice-President of the Corporation ; its first GM car was 1918's Chevrolet 490. Du Pont removed Durant from management in 1920, and various Du Pont interests held large or controlling share holdings until about 1950.\n\nIn 1918 GM acquired the Chevrolet stock from McLaughlin Motor Car Company of Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, manufacturer of the McLaughlin automobile since 1907 (later to be renamed McLaughlin-Buick) as well as Canadian versions of Chevrolet cars since 1915. The company was renamed General Motors of Canada Ltd., with R.S. \"Colonel Sam\" McLaughlin as its first president and his brother George as vice-president allied with the Corporation 1919. Superior Court of Ontario Canada documents show the Corporation as indirect parent of General Motors of Canada Limited. General Motors of Canada is a 100% owned Canadian Company.\n\n1918 also brought change to the size of General Motors in regards to personnel. The number of employees increased from about 49,000 workers to 85,000 workers. These people came from the South of the United States, as well as from Europe, to work at GM Michigan facilities. To accommodate this increase in the workforce, GM began to build employee housing with the nearly $2.5 million set aside for the project. This would become one of General Motors top 5 expenditures for the year 1919. 1919 also brought changes to employee investment opportunities. Similar to modern day 401(k) plans, all employees could invest a percentage of their wages or salary. GM proceeded to match every penny that their employees invested. \n\nGM's headquarters were located in Flint until the mid-1920s when it was moved to Detroit. Its building, originally to be called the Durant Building, was designed and began construction in 1919 when Durant was president, was completed in 1923. Alfred P. Sloan became president that year, and the building was officially dedicated as the General Motors Building in 1929. GM maintained this headquarters location, now called Cadillac Place, until it purchased the Renaissance Center in 1996. The Buick Division headquarters remained in Flint until 1998 when it was relocated to the Renaissance Center. \n\nIn 1925, GM bought Vauxhall of England, and then in 1929 went on to acquire an 80% stake in German automobile manufacturer Opel. Two years later this was increased to 100%. In 1931, GM acquired Holden of Australia.\n\nIn 1926, GM created the Pontiac as a \"companion\" to the Oakland brand, an arrangement that lasted five years. The companion outsold its parent during that period, by so much that the Oakland brand was terminated and the division was renamed Pontiac.\n\nGeneral Motors acquired control of the 'Hertz Drive-Ur-Self System' (now better known as The Hertz Corporation), the Yellow Cab Manufacturing Company together with its subsidiaries, Yellow Coach Manufacturing Company in 1926 from John D. Hertz who joined the main board (John Hertz purchased the car rental business back from GM in 1953 and took it public the following year). GM also acquired the Yellow Coach bus company, and helped create Greyhound bus lines.\n\nDuring this period (and into the 30s), Sloan and his team established the practice of targeting each of GM's automotive divisions to a specific demographically and socio-economically identifiable market segment. Despite some shared components, each marque distinguished itself from its stablemates with unique styling and technology. The shared components and common corporate management created substantial economies of scale, while the distinctions between the divisions created (in the words of GM President Sloan) a \"ladder of success\", with an entry-level buyer starting out at the bottom with the \"basic transportation\" Chevrolet, then rising through Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, and ultimately to Cadillac.\n\nWhile Ford continued to refine the manufacturing process to reduce cost, Sloan was inventing new ways of managing a complex worldwide organization, while paying special attention to consumer demands. Car buyers no longer wanted the cheapest and most basic model; they wanted style, power, and prestige, which GM offered them. Sloan did not neglect cost, by any means; when it was proposed Chevrolet should introduce safety glass, he opposed it because it threatened profits. Thanks to consumer financing via GMAC (founded 1919), easy monthly payments allowed far more people to buy GM cars than Ford, as Henry Ford was opposed to credit on moral principles. (Nevertheless, Ford did offer similar credit arrangements with the introduction of the Model A in the late 1920s but Ford Credit did not exist until 1959.)\n\nGM surpassed Ford Motor Company in sales in the late 1920s.\n\nThe 1930s\n\nIn 1930, GM also began its foray into aircraft design and manufacturing by buying Fokker Aircraft Corp of America (U.S. subsidiary of Fokker) and Berliner-Joyce Aircraft, merging them into General Aviation Manufacturing Corporation. Through a stock exchange GM took controlling interest in North American Aviation and merged it with its General Aviation division in 1933, but retaining the name North American Aviation. In 1948, GM divested NAA as a public company, never to have a major interest in the aircraft manufacturing industry again.\n\nGeneral Motors bought the internal combustion engined railcar builder Electro-Motive Corporation and its engine supplier Winton Engine in 1930, renaming both as the General Motors Electro-Motive Division. Over the next twenty years, diesel-powered locomotives — the majority built by GM — largely replaced other forms of traction on American railroads. (During World War II, these engines were also important in American submarines and destroyer escorts.) Electro-Motive was sold in early 2005.\n\nIn 1932, GM formed a new subsidiary — United Cities Motor Transport (UCMT) — to finance the conversion of streetcar systems to buses in small cities. From 1936 the company was involved in an unpublicized project, with others, in what became known as the General Motors streetcar conspiracy to buy out streetcar and intercity train transport operators using subsidiary companies, and convert their operations to use buses. \n\nIn 1935, the United Auto Workers labor union was formed, and in 1936 the UAW organized the Flint Sit-Down Strike, which initially idled two key plants in Flint, but later spread to half-a-dozen other plants including Janesville, Wisconsin and Fort Wayne, Indiana. In Flint, police attempted to enter the plant to arrest strikers, leading to violence; in other cities the plants were shuttered peacefully. The strike was resolved February 11, 1937, when GM recognized the UAW as the exclusive bargaining representative for its workers.\n\nWorld War II\n\nSee also Criticism > 1930s Germany (below)\n\nGeneral Motors produced vast quantities of armaments, vehicles, and aircraft for the Allied war effort during World War II. Its multinational interests were split up by the combating powers during the war such that the American, Canadian and British parts of the corporation served the Allied war effort and Adam Opel AG served the Axis war effort. By the spring of 1939, the German Government had assumed day-to-day control of American owned factories in Germany, but decided against nationalizing them completely (seizing the assets and capital). Soon after the war broke out, the nationalization came. \n\nGeneral Motors ranked first among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. GM's William S. Knudsen served as head of U.S. wartime production for President Franklin Roosevelt. The General Motors UK division, Vauxhall Motors, manufactured the Churchill tank series for the Allies. The Vauxhall Churchill tanks were instrumental in the UK campaigns in North Africa. Bedford Vehicles and GM of Canada, CMP manufactured logistics 500,000 vehicles for the UK military, all important in the UK's land campaigns. In addition, GM was the top manufacturer of U.S. Army 1½ ton 4x4 vehicles. \n\nBy mainstream accounts, General Motors' German subsidiary (Adam Opel AG) was outside the control of the American parent corporation during World War II. Some conspiracy theorists posit that this was a hoax, with the American GM as a secret war profiteer on both sides, but Alfred Sloan's memoir, for example, presents a description of lost control that is much more Occam-compliant than the fringe alternatives. However, even without any such conspiracy, GM found criticism for its tax avoidance around the Opel topic. During the war, GM declared it had abandoned its German subsidiary, and took a complete tax write-off worth \"approximately $22.7 million\", yet after the war, GM collected some $33 million in \"war reparations\" because the Allies had bombed its German facilities. \n\nPost-war growth\n\nAt one point GM had become the largest corporation registered in the United States, in terms of its revenues as a percent of GDP. In 1953, Charles Erwin Wilson, then GM president, was named by Eisenhower as Secretary of Defense. When he was asked during the hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee if as secretary of defense he could make a decision adverse to the interests of General Motors, Wilson answered affirmatively but added that he could not conceive of such a situation \"because for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa\". Later this statement was often misquoted, suggesting that Wilson had said simply, \"What's good for General Motors is good for the country.\"\n\nAt the time, GM was one of the largest employers in the world – only Soviet state industries employed more people. In 1955, General Motors became the first American corporation to pay taxes of over $1 billion. \n\n1958–1980\n\nBy 1958, the divisional distinctions within GM began to blur with the availability of high-performance engines in Chevrolets and Pontiacs. The introduction of higher trim models such as the Chevrolet Impala and Pontiac Bonneville priced in line with some Oldsmobile and Buick offerings was also confusing to consumers. By the time Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick introduced similarly styled and priced compact models in 1961, the old \"step-up\" structure between the divisions was nearly over.\n\nThe decade of the 1960s saw the creation of compact and intermediate classes. The Chevrolet Corvair was a flat 6-cylinder (air cooled) answer to the Volkswagen Beetle, the Chevy II was created to match Ford's conventional Falcon, after sales of the Corvair failed to match its Ford rival, and the Chevrolet Camaro/Pontiac Firebird was GM's countermeasure to the Ford Mustang. Among intermediates, the Oldsmobile Cutlass nameplate became so popular during the 1970s that Oldsmobile applied the Cutlass name to most of its products in the 1980s. By the mid-1960s, most of GM's vehicles were built on a few common platforms and in the 1970s GM began to further unify body panel stampings.\n\nThe 1971 Chevrolet Vega was GM's launch into the new subcompact class to compete against the import's increasing market share. Problems associated with its innovative aluminum engine led to the model's discontinuation after seven model years in 1977. During the late 1970s, GM would initiate a wave of downsizing starting with the Chevrolet Caprice which was reborn into what was the size of the Chevrolet Chevelle, the Malibu would be the size of the Nova, and the Nova was replaced by the troubled front-wheel drive Chevrolet Citation. In 1976, Chevrolet came out with the rear-wheel drive sub compact Chevette.\n\nWhile GM maintained its world leadership in revenue and market share throughout the 1960s to 1980s, it was product controversy that plagued the company in this period. It seemed that, in every decade, a major mass-production product line was launched with defects of one type or another showing up early in their life cycle. And, in each case, improvements were eventually made to mitigate the problems, but the resulting improved product ended up failing in the marketplace as its negative reputation overshadowed its ultimate excellence.\n\nThe first of these fiascos was the Chevrolet Corvair in the 1960s. Introduced in 1959 as a 1960 model, it was initially very popular. But before long its quirky handling earned it a reputation for being unsafe, inspiring consumer advocate Ralph Nader to lambaste it in his book, Unsafe at Any Speed, published in 1965. Ironically, by the same (1965) model year, suspension revisions and other improvements had already transformed the car into a perfectly acceptable vehicle, but its reputation had been sufficiently sullied in the public's perception that its sales sagged for the next few years, and it was discontinued after the 1969 model year. During this period, it was also somewhat overwhelmed by the success of the Ford Mustang.\n\nThe 1970s was the decade of the Vega. Launched as a 1971 model, it also began life as a very popular car in the marketplace. But within a few years, quality problems, exacerbated by labor unrest at its main production source in Lordstown, Ohio, gave the car a bad name. By 1977 its decline resulted in termination of the model name, while its siblings along with a Monza version and a move of production to Ste-Thérèse, Quebec, resulted in a thoroughly desirable vehicle and extended its life to the 1980 model year.\n\nOldsmobile sales soared in the 1970s and 1980s (for an all-time high of 1,066,122 in 1985) based on popular designs, positive reviews from critics and the perceived quality and reliability of the Rocket V8 engine, with the Cutlass series becoming North America's top selling car by 1976. By this time, Olds had displaced Pontiac and Plymouth as the #3 best-selling brand in the U.S. behind Chevrolet and Ford. In the early 1980s, model-year production topped one million units on several occasions, something only Chevrolet and Ford had achieved. The soaring popularity of Oldsmobile vehicles resulted in a major issue in 1977, as demand exceeded production capacity for the Oldsmobile V8, and as a result Oldsmobile quietly began equipping some full size Delta 88 models and the very popular Cutlass/Cutlass Supreme with the Chevrolet 350 engine instead (each division of GM produced its own 350 V8 engine). Many customers were loyal Oldsmobile buyers who specifically wanted the Rocket V8, and did not discover that their vehicle had the Chevrolet engine until they performed maintenance and discovered that purchased parts did not fit. This led to a class-action lawsuit which became a public relations nightmare for GM. Following this debacle, disclaimers stating that \"Oldsmobiles are equipped with engines produced by various GM divisions\" were tacked onto advertisements and sales literature; all other GM divisions followed suit. In addition, GM quickly stopped associating engines with particular divisions, and to this day all GM engines are produced by \"GM Powertrain\" (GMPT) and are called GM \"Corporate\" engines instead of GM \"Division\" engines. Although it was the popularity of the Oldsmobile division vehicles that prompted this change, declining sales of V8 engines would have made this change inevitable as all but the Chevrolet (and, later, Cadillac's Northstar) versions were eventually dropped.\n\nIn the 1980 model year, a full line of automobiles on the X-body platform, anchored by the Chevrolet Citation, was launched. Again, these cars were all quite popular in their respective segments for the first couple of years, but brake problems, and other defects, ended up giving them, known to the public as \"X-Cars\", such a bad reputation that the 1985 model year was their last. The J-body cars, namely the Chevrolet Cavalier and Pontiac Sunbird, took their place, starting with the 1982 model year. Quality was better, but still not exemplary, although good enough to survive through three generations to the 2005 model year. They were produced in a much-improved Lordstown Assembly plant, as were their replacements, the Chevrolet Cobalt and Pontiac Pursuit/G5.\n\n1981–present\n\nRoger B. Smith served as CEO throughout the 1980s. GM profits struggled from 1981 to 1983 following the late 1970s and early 1980s recession. In 1981, the UAW negotiated some concessions with the company in order to bridge the recession. GM profits rebounded during the 1980s. During the 1980s, GM had downsized its product line and invested heavily in automated manufacturing. It also created the Saturn brand to produce small cars. GM's customers still wanted larger vehicles and began to purchase greater numbers of SUVs. Roger Smith's reorganization of the company had been criticized for its consolidation of company divisions and its effect on the uniqueness of GM's brands and models. His attempts to streamline costs were not always popular with GM's customer base. In addition to forming Saturn, Smith also negotiated joint ventures with two Japanese companies (NUMMI in California with Toyota, and CAMI with Suzuki in Canada). Each of these agreements provided opportunities for the respective companies to experience different approaches.\n\nThe 1980s also marked the dismantling of General Motors' medium and heavy trucks, with imported Isuzu trucks taking over at the lighter end and with the heavy-duty business being gradually sold off to Volvo through a joint venture.\n\nThe decade of the 1990s began with an economic recession, taking its inevitable toll on the automotive industry, and throwing GM into some of its worst losses. As a result, \"Jack\" Smith (not related to Roger) became burdened with the task of overseeing a radical restructuring of General Motors. Sharing Roger's understanding of the need for serious change, Jack undertook many major revisions. Reorganizing the management structure to dismantle the legacy of Alfred P. Sloan, instituting deep cost-cutting and introducing significantly improved vehicles were the key approaches. These moves were met with much less resistance within GM than had Roger's similar initiatives as GM management ranks were stinging from their recent near-bankruptcy experience and were much more willing to accept the prospect of radical change.\n\nFollowing the first Persian Gulf War and a recession GM's profits again suffered from 1991 to 1993. For the remainder of the decade the company's profits rebounded and it made market share gains with the popularity of its SUVs and pick-up truck lines. Rick Wagoner had served as the company's Chief Financial Officer during this period in the early 1990s. GM's foreign rivals gained market share especially following U.S. recessionary periods while the company recovered. U.S. trade policy and foreign trade barriers became a point of contention for GM and other U.S. automakers who had complained that they were not given equal access to foreign markets. Trade issues had prompted the Reagan administration to seek import quotas on some foreign carmakers. Later, the Clinton administration engaged in trade negotiations to open foreign markets to U.S. automakers with the Clinton administration threatening trade sanctions in efforts to level the playing field for U.S. automakers.Fingleton, Eamon (May 30, 2009).[http://www.unsustainable.org/index.asp?type\narticle&contentID=48 How the Press Stabbed Detroit in the Back]. Unsustainable.org. Retrieved on July 15, 2009.\n\nJosé Ignacio (\"Inaki\") López de Arriortúa, who worked under Jack Smith in both Europe (particularly the successful turnaround of Opel) and the United States, was poached by Volkswagen in 1993, just hours before Smith announced that López would be promoted to head of GM's North American operations. He was nicknamed Super López for his prowess in cutting costs and streamlining production at GM, although critics said that his tactics angered longtime suppliers. GM accused López of poaching staff and misappropriating trade secrets, in particular taking documents of future Opel vehicles, when he accepted a position with VW. German investigators began a probe of López and VW after prosecutors linked López to a cache of secret GM documents discovered by investigators in the apartment of two of López's VW associates.\nG.M. then filed suit in a United States District Court in Detroit, using part of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which left VW open to triple damages (billions of dollars) if the charges were proved in court. VW, faced with a plummeting stock price, eventually forced López to resign. GM and Volkswagen since reached a civil settlement, in which Volkswagen agreed to pay GM $100 million and to buy $1 billion worth of parts from GM.\n \n\nAfter GM's lay-offs in Flint, Michigan, a strike began at the General Motors parts factory in Flint on June 5, 1998, which quickly spread to five other assembly plants and lasted seven weeks. Because of the significant role GM plays in the United States, the strikes and temporary idling of many plants noticeably showed in national economic indicators.\n\nIn the early 1990s, following the first Gulf War and a recession, GM had taken on more debt. By the late 1990s, GM had regained market share; its stock had soared to over $80 a share by 2000. However, in 2001, the stock market drop following the September 11, 2001 attacks, combined with historic pension underfunding, caused a severe pension and benefit fund crisis at GM and many other American companies and the value of their pension funds plummeted.\n\nProduction of SUVs and trucks vs. cars\n\nIn the late 1990s, the U.S. economy was on the rise and GM and Ford gained market share producing enormous profits primarily from the sale of light trucks and sport-utility vehicles.\n\nFollowing the September 11 attacks, a severe stock market decline caused a pension and benefit fund underfunding crisis.\nGM began its Keep America Rolling campaign, which boosted sales, and other auto makers were forced to follow suit. The U.S. automakers saw sales increase to leverage costs as gross margins deteriorated.\n\nIn 2004, GM redirected resources from the development of new sedans to an accelerated refurbishment of their light trucks and SUVs for introduction as 2007 models in early 2006. Shortly after this decision, fuel prices increased by over 50% and this in turn affected both the trade-in value of used vehicles and the perceived desirability of new offerings in these market segments. The current marketing plan is to tout these revised vehicles extensively as offering the best fuel economy in their class (of vehicle). GM claims its hybrid trucks will have fuel economy improvements of 25%.\n\nCorporate restructuring\n\nAfter gaining market share in the late 1990s and making enormous profits, General Motors stock soared to over $80 a share. From June 1999 to September 2000, the Federal Reserve, in a move to quell potential inflationary pressures created by, among other things, the stock market, made successive interest rate increases, credited in part for \"plunging the country into a recession.\"Ruddy, Christopher (January 31, 2006)[http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/1/31/90119.shtml Alan Greenspan's Real Legacy]. Newsmax. Retrieved on July 8, 2009.[http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/data/Monthly/H15_FF_O.txt Fed funds rate]. Retrieved on July 9, 2009. The recession and the volatile stock market created a pension and benefit fund crisis at General Motors and many other American companies. General Motors' rising retiree health care costs and Other Post Employment Benefit (OPEB) fund deficit prompted the company to enact a broad restructuring plan. Although GM had already taken action to fully fund its pension plan, its OPEB fund became an issue for its corporate bond ratings. GM had expressed its disagreement with the bond ratings; moreover, GM's benefit funds were performing at higher than expected rates of return. Then, following a $10.6 billion loss in 2005, GM acted quickly to implement its restructuring plan. For the first quarter of 2006 GM earned $400 million, signaling that a turnaround had already begun even though many aspects of the restructuring plan had not yet taken effect.\n\nIn 2003, GM responded to the crisis by fully funding its pension fund with a $15 B payment; however, its Other Post Employment Benefits Fund (OPEB) became a serious issue resulting in downgrades to its bond rating in 2005. The company expressed its disagreement with these bond rating downgrades. In the late 1990s, the U.S. economy was on the rise and GM and Ford gained market share producing enormous profits primarily from the sale of light trucks and sport-utility vehicles. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, a severe stock market decline caused a pension and benefit fund underfunding crisis. GM began its Keep America Rolling campaign, which boosted sales, and other auto makers were forced to follow suit. The U.S. automakers saw sales increase to leverage costs as gross margins deteriorated. Although retiree health care costs remain a significant issue, General Motors' investment strategy has generated a $17.1 billion surplus in 2007 in its $101 billion U.S. pension fund portfolio, a $35 billion reversal from its $17.8 billion of underfunding.Sloan, Allan (April 10, 2007).[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/09/AR2007040901262.html GM's High-Performance Pension Machine] Washington Post, D02.\n\nIn February 2005, GM successfully bought itself out of a put option with Fiat for $2 billion USD (€1.55 billion). In 2000, GM had sold a 6% stake to Fiat in return for a 20% share in the Italian automaker. As part of the deal, GM granted Fiat a put option, which, if the option had been exercised between January 2004 and July 2009, could have forced GM to buy Fiat. GM had agreed to the put option at the time, perhaps to keep it from being acquired by another automaker, such as Daimler AG, competing with GM's German subsidiary Opel. The relationship suffered and Fiat had failed to improve. In 2003, Fiat recapitalized, reducing GM's stake to 10%.\n\nIn February 2006, GM slashed its annual dividend from $2.00 to $1.00 per share. The reduction saved $565 million a year. In March 2006, GM divested 92.36 million shares (reducing its stake from 20% to 3%) of Japanese manufacturer Suzuki, in order to raise $2.3 billion. GM originally invested in Suzuki in the early 1980s.\n\nOn March 23, 2006, a private equity consortium including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Goldman Sachs Capital, and Five Mile Capital purchased $8.8 billion, or 78% of GMAC's commercial mortgage arm. The name of the new entity, in which GMAC owns a 21% stake, is Capmark Financial Group.\n\nOn April 3, 2006, GM announced that it would sell 51% of GMAC as a whole to a consortium led by Cerberus Capital Management, raising $14 billion over three years. Investors also included Citigroup's private equity arm and Aozora Bank of Japan. The group will pay GM $7.4 billion in cash at closing. GM will retain approximately $20 billion in automobile financing worth an estimated $4 billion over three years.\n\nGM sold its remaining 8% stake in Isuzu, which had peaked at 49% just a few years earlier, on April 11, 2006, to raise an additional $300 million. 12,600 workers from Delphi, a key supplier to GM, agreed to buyouts and an early retirement plan offered by GM in order to avoid a strike, after a judge agreed to cancel Delphi's union contracts. 5,000 Delphi workers were allowed to flow to GM.\n\nIn 2006, GM offered buyouts to hourly workers to reduce future liability; over 35,000 workers responded to the offer, well exceeding the company's goal. GM gained higher rates of return on its benefit funds as a part of the solution. Stock value began to rebound - as of October 30, 2006, GM's market capitalization was about $19.19 billion. GM stock began the year 2006 at $19 a share, near its lowest level since 1982, as many on Wall Street figured the ailing automaker was bound for bankruptcy court. But GM remained afloat and the company's stock in the Dow Jones industrial average posted the biggest percentage gain in 2006. \n\nIn June 2007, GM sold its military and commercial subsidiary, Allison Transmission, for $5.6 billion. Having sold off the majority, it will, however, keep its heavy-duty transmissions for its trucks marketed as the Allison 1000 series.\n\nDuring negotiations for the renewal of its industry labor contracts in 2007, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union selected General Motors as the \"lead company\" or \"strike target\" for pattern bargaining. Late in September, sensing an impending impasse in the talks, the union called a strike, the first nationwide walkout since 1970 (individual plants had experienced local labor disruptions in the interim). Within two days, however, a tentative agreement was achieved and the strike ended.\n\nOn June 28, 2007, GM agreed to sell its Allison Transmission division to private equity firms Carlyle Group and Onex for $5.1 billion. The deal will increase GM's liquidity and echoes previous moves to shift its focus towards its core automotive business. The two firms will control seven factories around Indianapolis but GM will retain management of a factory in Baltimore. Former Allison Transmission president Lawrence E. Dewey will be the new CEO of the standalone company. \n\nKirk Kerkorian once owned 9.9 percent of GM. According to press accounts from June 30, 2006, Kerkorian suggested that Renault acquire a 20 percent stake in GM to rescue GM from itself. A letter from Tracinda (Kerkorian's investment vehicle) to Rick Wagoner was released to the public to pressure GM's executive hierarchy, but talks failed. On November 22, 2006, Kerkorian sold 14 million shares of his GM stake (it is speculated that this action was due to GM's rejection of Renault and Nissan's bids for stakes in the company as both of these bids were strongly supported by Kerkorian); the sale resulted in GM's share price falling 4.1% from its 20 November price, although it remained above $30/share. The sale lowered Kerkorian's holding to around 7% of GM. On November 30, 2006, Tracinda said it had agreed to sell another 14 million shares of GM, cutting Kerkorian's stake to half of what it had been earlier that year. By the end of November 2006, he had sold substantially all of his remaining GM shares. After Kerkorian sold, GM lost more than 90% of its value, falling as low as $1/share by May 2009. \n\nOn February 12, 2008, GM announced its operating loss was $2 billion (with a GAAP loss of $39 billion including a one time accounting charge). GM offered buyouts to all its UAW members.\n\nOn March 24, 2008, GM reported a cash position of $24 billion, or $6 billion less than what was on hand September 31, 2007, which is a loss of $1 billion a month. A further quarterly loss of $15.5 billion, the third-biggest in the company's history, was announced on August 1, 2008. \n\nOn November 17, 2008, GM announced it would sell its stake in Suzuki Motor Corp. (3.02%) for 22.37 billion yen ($230 million) in order to raise much needed cash to get through the 2008 economic crisis.\n\nIn 2008, 8.35 million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under the brands Vauxhall, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, GM Daewoo, Holden, Pontiac, Hummer, Saab, Saturn, Wuling and Opel of Germany.\n\nGreat recession and chapter 11 reorganization\n\nIn late 2008 GM, along with Chrysler, received loans from the American, Canadian, and Ontarian governments to bridge the late-2000s recession, record oil prices, and a severe global automotive sales decline (see also automotive industry crisis of 2008–2009) due to the global financial crisis of 2008–2009. On February 20, 2009, GM's Saab division filed for reorganization in a Swedish court after being denied loans from the Swedish government. \n\nOn April 27, 2009, GM announced that it would phase out the Pontiac brand by the end of 2010 and focus on four core brands in North America: Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, and GMC. It announced that the resolution (sale) of its Hummer, Saab, and Saturn brands would take place by the end of 2009. (By November, however, proposed deals to sell Saturn to Penske and Saab to Koenigsegg had failed to materialize.) The company had previously cancelled Oldsmobile.\n\nIn 2009, a new corporate entity, General Motors Company LLC, replaced the old General Motors Corporation, being separate and independent.\n\nOn May 30, 2009, it was announced that a deal had been reached to transfer GM's Opel assets to a separate company, majority-owned by a consortium led by Sberbank of Russia (35%), Magna International (20%), and Opel employees (10%). GM was expected to keep a 35% minority stake in the new company. However, GM delayed acceptance of the deal pending other bids, notably a proposed 51% stake by Beijing Automotive. By early July, a decision had not been made, but Magna remained confident and scheduled a meeting for July 14 to announce its acceptance. After months of deliberation, however, GM decided on November 3, 2009, to retain full ownership of the German carmaker Opel, thus voiding the tentative deal with the Magna consortium. \n\nIn June 2010, the company established General Motors Ventures, a subsidiary designed to help the company identify and develop new technologies in the automotive and transportation sectors. \n\nHistory of General Motors in various countries\n\nGeneral Motors in South Africa\n\nGeneral Motors was criticized for its presence in apartheid South Africa. The company withdrew after pressure from consumers, stockholders and Leon H. Sullivan. \nIt retained a commercial presence, however, in the form of its Opel subsidiary. Right Hand Drive Opel & Vauxhall production took place in GM's Uitenhage plants outside Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape Province, and does so to this day.\n\nGeneral Motors in Argentina\n\nIn 1925 General Motors settled down in Argentina and started producing the Double Phaeton standard and the Double Phaeton called \"Especial Argentino\". The production was completed with a sedan model, a roadster and a truck chassis also adaptable to transporting of passengers.\nSales increased and soon the Oldsmobile, Oakland and Pontiac brands were incorporated into the assembly line; the capacity of the facility was not enough to supply the increasing demand and the building of a new plant was required. A new 48,000 m2 plant with a covered area was opened in 1929, and since then the Buick, Marquette, La Salle, Cadillac, Vauxhaul and Opel marques also started to be produced.\n\nWhen the Second World War broke out the operations were complicated. In 1941, 250.000 Chevrolets were made, but shortage of parts made car production impossible. The last Chevrolet left the plant in August, 1942. though in order to avoid total stoppage, the company made electrical and portable refrigerators and car accessories in addition to other items. After the war, GM started producing the Oldsmobile and Pontiac lines and later Chevrolet was added.\n\nProduction resumed in 1960 with Chevrolet pickups and shortly thereafter in 1962 it started assembling the first/second generation Chevy II until 1974 as Chevrolet 400, and the early third-generation (1968 model) Nova as the Chevrolet Chevy from late 1969 through 1978, both models overlapping for several years, the Chevy II marketed as a family sedan while the Nova as a sporty alternative. Thenceforth several Opel models and Chevrolet pickups are being manufactured.\n\nCorporate spin-offs\n\nElectronic Data Systems Corporation\n\nIn 1984, GM acquired Electronic Data Systems Corporation (EDS), a leading data processing and telecommunications company, to be the sole provider of information technology (IT) services for the company. EDS became independent again in 1996, signing a 10-year agreement to continue providing IT services to General Motors. \n\nDelco Electronics Corporation\n\nDelco Electronics Corporation was the automotive electronics design and manufacturing subsidiary of General Motors.\n\nThe name Delco came from the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Co., founded in Dayton, Ohio by Charles Kettering and Edward A. Deeds.\n\nDelco was responsible for several innovations in automobile electric systems, including the first reliable battery ignition system and the first practical automobile self starter.\n\nIn 1936 Delco began producing the first dashboard-installed car radios. By the early 1970s Delco had become a major supplier of automotive electronics equipment. Based in Kokomo, Indiana, Delco Electronics employed more than 30,000 at its peak.\n\nIn 1962 GM created the General Motors Research Laboratories, based in Santa Barbara, California, to conduct research and development activities on defense systems. This organization was eventually merged into Delco Electronics and renamed Delco Systems Operations.\n\nIn 1985 General Motors purchased Hughes Aircraft and merged it with Delco Electronics to form Hughes Electronics Corporation, an independent subsidiary. In 1997 all of the defense businesses of Hughes Electronics (including Delco Systems Operations) were merged with Raytheon, and the commercial portion of Delco Electronics was transferred to GM's Delphi Automotive Systems business. Delphi became a separate publicly traded company in May 1999, and continued to use the Delco Electronics name for several of its subsidiaries through approximately 2004.\n\nAlthough Delco Electronics no longer exists as an operating company, GM still retains rights to the Delco name and uses it for some of its subsidiaries including the AC Delco parts division.\n\nHughes Electronics Corporation\n\nHughes Electronics Corporation was formed on December 31, 1985, when Hughes Aircraft Company was sold by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to General Motors for $5.2 billion. General Motors merged Hughes Aircraft with its Delco Electronics unit to form Hughes Electronics Corporation, an independent subsidiary. This division was a major aerospace and defense contractor, civilian space systems manufacturer and communications company. The aerospace and defense business was sold to Raytheon in 1997 and the Space and Communications division was sold to Boeing in 2000. Hughes Research Laboratories became jointly owned by GM, Raytheon, and Boeing. In 2003, the remaining parts of Hughes Electronics were sold to News Corporation and renamed The DirecTV Group.\n\nDelphi Corporation\n\nDelphi was spun off from General Motors on May 28, 1999. Delphi is one of the largest automotive parts manufacturers and has approximately 185,000 employees (50,000 in the United States). With offices worldwide, the company operates 167 wholly owned manufacturing sites, 41 joint ventures, 53 customer centers and sales offices, and 33 technical centers in 38 countries. Delphi makes the Monsoon premium audio systems found in some GM and other manufacturer automobiles.\n\nOn October 8, 2005, Delphi filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. On March 31, 2006, Delphi announced it would sell off or close 21 of its 29 plants in the United States.\n\nDiesel engines\n\nDetroit Diesel was originally the GM Diesel Division then Detroit Diesel Allison Division until 1988. It made diesel engines for truck, generating set and marine use.\n\nElectro-Motive Diesel (EMD) was originally the Electro-Motive Division of GM, until 2005. It made diesel engines and locomotives.\n\nSee also General Motors Diesel Division and GM Defense.\n\nGeneral Motors Acceptance Corporation\n\nBy the end of 2006, GM had completed the divestiture of 51% of its financing unit, GMAC. Currently GM is a 10% owner in GMAC.\n\nGeneral Motors leadership\n\nChairmen of the Board of General Motors\n\nChairmen of the Board of General Motors \n\n* Thomas Neal—November 19, 1912 - November 16, 1915\nPierre S. du Pont—November 16, 1915 - February 7, 1929\nLammot du Pont II—February 7, 1929 - May 3, 1937\nAlfred P. Sloan, Jr.—May 3, 1937 - April 2, 1956\nAlbert Bradley—April 2, 1956 - August 31, 1958\nFrederic G. Donner—September 1, 1958 - October 31, 1967\nJames M. Roche—November 1, 1967 - December 31, 1971\nRichard C. Gerstenberg—January 1, 1972 - November 30, 1974\nThomas A. Murphy—December 1, 1974 - December 31, 1980\nRoger B. Smith—January 1, 1981 - July 31, 1990\nRobert C. Stempel—August 1, 1990 - November 1, 1992\nJohn G. Smale—November 2, 1992 - December 31, 1995\nJohn F. \"Jack\" Smith, Jr.—January 1, 1996 - April 30, 2003\nG. Richard Wagoner, Jr.—May 1, 2003 - March 30, 2009\nKent Kresa—March 30, 2009 - July 10, 2009\nEdward (\"Ed\") Whitacre, Jr.—July 10, 2009 – December 31, 2010 \nDan Akerson—December 31, 2010 – January 15, 2014 \nTheodore M. Solso – January 15, 2014–present \n\nChief Executive Officers of General Motors\n\nChief Executive Officers of General Motors \nAlfred P. Sloan, Jr.—May 10, 1923 - June 3, 1946\nCharles Erwin Wilson—June 3, 1946 - January 26, 1953\nHarlow H. Curtice—February 2, 1953 - August 31, 1958\nJames M. Roche—November 1, 1967 - December 31, 1971\nRichard C. Gerstenberg—January 1, 1972 - November 30, 1974\nThomas A. Murphy—December 1, 1974 - December 31, 1980\nRoger B. Smith—January 1, 1981 - July 31, 1990\nRobert C. Stempel—August 1, 1990 - November 1, 1992\nJohn F. \"Jack\" Smith, Jr.—November 2, 1992 - May 31, 2000\nG. Richard Wagoner, Jr.—June 1, 2000 - March 30, 2009\nFrederick A. \"Fritz\" Henderson—March 30, 2009 - December 1, 2009 \nEdward (\"Ed\") Whitacre, Jr.—December 1, 2009 – September 1, 2010 \nDan Akerson—September 1, 2010 – January 15, 2014 \nMary Barra—January 15, 2014 – Present \n\nVice Chairmen of General Motors\n\nVice Chairmen of General Motors\n\nDonaldson Brown—May 3, 1937 - June 3, 1946\nGeorge Russell—November 1, 1967 - March 31, 1970\nRichard C. Gerstenberg—April 6, 1970 - December 31, 1971\nThomas A. Murphy—January 1, 1972 - November 30, 1974\nRichard L. Terrell—October 1, 1974 - January 1, 1979\nOscar A. Lundin—December 1, 1974 - November 30, 1975\nHoward H. Kerhl—February 1, 1981 - December 31, 1986\nDonald J. Atwood—June 1, 1987 - April 19, 1989\nJohn F. \"Jack\" Smith, Jr.—August 1, 1990 - April 6, 1992\nRobert J. Schultz—August 1, 1990 - November 1, 1992\nHarry J. Pearce—January 1, 1996 - May 25, 2001\nJohn M. Devine—January 1, 2001 - June 1, 2006\nRobert A. Lutz—September 1, 2001–present\nFrederick A. \"Fritz\" Henderson—January 1, 2006 - March 3, 2008\n\nPresidents of General Motors\n\nPresidents of General Motors \n\nGeorge E. Daniels—September 22, 1908 - October 20, 1908\nWilliam M. Eaton—October 20, 1908 - November 23, 1910\nJames J. Storrow—November 23, 1910 - January 26, 1911\n* Thomas Neal—January 26, 1911 - November 19, 1912\nCharles W. Nash—November 19, 1912 - June 1, 1916\nWilliam C. Durant—June 1, 1916 - November 30, 1920\nPierre S. du Pont—November 30, 1920 - May 10, 1923\nAlfred P. Sloan, Jr.—May 10, 1923 - May 3, 1937\nWilliam S. Knudsen—May 3, 1937 - September 3, 1940\nCharles E. Wilson—January 6, 1941 - January 26, 1953\nHarlow H. Curtice—February 2, 1953 - August 31, 1958\nJohn F. Gordon—September 1, 1958 - May 31, 1965\nJames M. Roche—June 1, 1965 - October 31, 1967\nEdward N. Cole—November 1, 1967 - September 30, 1974\nElliott M. Estes—October 1, 1974 - January 31, 1981\nF. James McDonald—February 1, 1981 - August 31, 1987\nRobert C. Stempel—September 1, 1987 - July 31, 1990\nLloyd E. Reuss—August 1, 1990 - April 6, 1992\nJohn F. \"Jack\" Smith, Jr.—April 6, 1992 - October 5, 1998\nG. Richard Wagoner, Jr.—October 5, 1998 - April 30, 2003\nFrederick A. \"Fritz\" Henderson—March 3, 2008 - December 1, 2009 \nDan Ammann – January 2014 – present \n\nCriticism\n\nNazi collaboration\n\nIn August 1938, a senior executive for General Motors, James D. Mooney, received the Grand Cross of the German Eagle for his distinguished service to the Reich. \"Nazi armaments chief Albert Speer told a congressional investigator that Germany could not have attempted its September 1939 Blitzkrieg of Poland without the performance-boosting additive technology provided by Alfred P. Sloan and General Motors\". During the war, GM's Opel Brandenburg plant produced trucks, parts for JU-88 aircraft, land mines and torpedo detonators for Nazi Germany. \n\nCharles Levinson, formerly deputy director of the European office of the CIO, alleged in his book, Vodka-Cola: \n\n\"Alfred P. Sloan, James D. Mooney, John T. Smith and Graeme K. Howard remained on the Opel board . . . in flagrant violation of existing legislation, information, contacts, transfers and trade continued [throughout the war] to flow between the firm's Detroit headquarters and its subsidiaries both in Allied countries and in territories controlled by the Axis powers. The financial records of Opel Rüsselsheim revealed that between 1942 and 1945 production and sales strategy were planned in close coordination with General Motors factories throughout the world.... In 1943, while its American manufacturers were equipping the United States Air Force, GM's German counterpart were developing, manufacturing and assembling motors for the Messerschmitt 262, the first jet fighter in the world. This innovation gave the Nazis a basic technological advantage. With speeds up to 540 miles per hour, this aircraft could fly 100 miles per hour faster than its American rival, the piston-powered Mustang P51.\"\n\nDavid Farber, author of Sloan Rules: Alfred P. Sloan and the Triumph of General Motors (2002), stated that: \n\n\"GM destroyed Sloan's files to protect itself from lawsuits regarding antitrust issues, the neglect of automobile safety and its investments in Nazi Germany.\"\n\nSloan's memoir presents a different picture of Opel's wartime existence. According to Sloan, Opel was nationalized (along with most other industrial activity owned or co-owned by foreign interests) by the German state soon after the outbreak of war. Sloan presents Opel at the end of the war as a black box to GM's American management—an organization that the Americans had had no contact with for 5 years. According to Sloan, GM in Detroit debated whether to even try to run Opel in the postwar era, or to leave to the interim West German government the question of who would pick up the pieces.\n\nDefending the German investment strategy as \"highly profitable\", Alfred P. Sloan told shareholders in 1939 GM's continued industrial production for the Nazi government was merely sound business practice. In a letter to a concerned shareholder, Sloan said that the manner in which the Nazi government ran Germany \"should not be considered the business of the management of General Motors...We must conduct ourselves as a German organization. . . We have no right to shut down the plant.\" \n\nAfter 20 years of researching General Motors, Bradford Snell stated, \"General Motors was far more important to the Nazi war machine than Switzerland ... Switzerland was just a repository of looted funds. GM's Opel division was an integral part of the German war effort. The Nazis could have invaded Poland and Russia without Switzerland. They could not have done so without GM.\"\n\nGreat American streetcar scandal theory\n\nThe Great American Streetcar Scandal is an unproven theory developed by Robert Eldridge Hicks in 1970 and published by Grossman Publishers in 1973 in the book \"Politics of Land, Ralph Nader's Study Group Report on Land Use in California\" at pp. 410–12, compiled by Robert C. Fellmeth, Center for Study of Responsive Law, and put forth by Bradford Snell again in 1974, in which GM, along with road-builders, is alleged to have engaged in a policy that triggered the shift from the mass transportation of the previous century to the 'one-person-one-car' trip of today. The theory states that in order to expand auto sales and maximize profits GM bought local mass transit systems and privately owned railways, following which it would proceed to eliminate them and replace them all with GM-built buses. Alternative versions of the events have been put forth by scholars in the field. Slater, Cosgrove and Span all put forth evidence that counters Snell's theory.\n\nCorvair\n\nConsumer advocate, Ralph Nader, issued a series of attacks on vehicle safety issues from GM – particularly the Chevrolet Corvair – in his book Unsafe at Any Speed, written in 1965. Being the first major action taken by Nader, he soon established his reputation as a crusader for safety. GM was then accused of sending spies after him. \"A woman at the supermarket confronted me and said, 'How would you like to have a talk on foreign affairs?' This wasn't a classroom, this was a supermarket, I was buying cookies - I don't think she wanted to talk about foreign affairs, I think she wanted to talk about domestic affairs\", Nader said in the 2006 documentary An Unreasonable Man. Agents were supposedly trying to fix his mind and get him to engage in sexual activity. \"Mother would get calls saying, 'We've got a package for Mr. Ralph Nader at 9 AM.' There would also be threats like, 'You better back off, buddy boy'\", said Claire, Nader's sister. GM was put on trial for attempting manipulation with Nader, Robert Kennedy and numerous other notable figures present at the trial. In the end, the CEO apologized to Nader; however, Nader continued to work against General Motors.\n\nTop-level management\n\nIn 1980, J. Patrick Wright wrote a book named On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors. This book, which critics acclaimed \"blows the lid off the king of carmakers\" was about the allegations of corruption, \"mismanagement and total irresponsibility\" at the top level of the company, as seen by John Z. DeLorean, the Vice-President, who, in 1973, resigned from his position in spite of a brilliant and meteoric rise. He was earning $650,000 per year and was expected to be the next President of GM.\n\nEV1" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "William C Durant", "William Crapo Durant", "William C. Durant", "Billy Durant", "W.C. Durant" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "billy durant", "william crapo durant", "william c durant", "w c durant" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "william c durant", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "William C. Durant" }
What was Clive Sinclair's personal transport vehicle called?	tc_1265	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "Search" ], "filename": [ "Clive_Sinclair.txt", "Sinclair_C5.txt" ], "title": [ "Clive Sinclair", "Sinclair C5" ], "wiki_context": [ "Sir Clive Marles Sinclair (born 30 July 1940) is an English entrepreneur and inventor, most commonly known for his work in consumer electronics in the late 1970s and early 1980s.\n\nAfter spending several years as assistant editor of Instrument Practice, Sinclair founded Sinclair Radionics in 1961, where he produced the first slim-line electronic pocket calculator in 1972 (the Sinclair Executive). Sinclair later moved into the production of home computers and produced the Sinclair ZX80, the UK's first mass-market home computer for less than , and later, with Sinclair Research, the ZX81 and ZX Spectrum; the latter is widely recognised for its importance in the early days of the British home computer industry.\n\nKnighted in 1983, Sinclair formed Sinclair Vehicles and released the Sinclair C5, a battery electric vehicle that was a commercial failure. Since then Sinclair has concentrated on personal transport, including the A-bike, a folding bicycle for commuters that weighs and folds down small enough to be carried on public transport.\n\nEarly life, family and education\n\nSinclair's father and grandfather were engineers; both had been apprentices at Vickers the shipbuilders. His grandfather George Sinclair was an innovative naval architect who got the paravane, a mine sweeping device, to work. George Sinclair's son, George William \"Bill\" Sinclair, wanted to take religious orders or become a journalist. His father suggested he train as an engineer first; Bill became a mechanical engineer and remained in the field. At the outbreak of World War II in 1939 he was running his own machine tools business in London, and later worked for the Ministry of Supply. \n\nClive Sinclair was born to George William Sinclair and Thora Edith Ella Marles in 1940 near Richmond, then in Surrey. He and his mother left London to stay with an aunt for safety in Devon, where they eventually travelled to Teignmouth. A telegram arrived shortly afterwards, bringing the news that their home in Richmond had been bombed. Sinclair's father found a house in Bracknell in Berkshire. His brother Iain was born in 1943 and his sister Fiona in 1947.\n\nAt an early age Sinclair designed a submarine. During holidays he could pursue his ideas and teach himself what he wanted to know. Sinclair had little interest in sports and found himself out of place at school. He preferred the company of adults, which he got only from his family. \n\nSinclair attended Boxgrove Preparatory School, excelling in mathematics. By the time he was ten, his father had financial problems. He had branched out from machine tools and planned to import miniature tractors from the U.S.; he had to give up the business. Because of his father's problems, Sinclair had to move school several times. After a time at Reading School, Sinclair took his O-levels at Highgate School in London in 1955 and A-levels in physics, pure maths, and applied maths at St. George's College, Weybridge. \n\nDuring his early years, Sinclair earned money mowing lawns and washing up, and earned 6d (old pence) more than permanent staff in a café. Later he went for holiday jobs at electronic companies. At Solatron he inquired about the possibility of electrically propelled personal vehicles. Sinclair applied for a holiday job at Mullard and took one of his circuit designs; he was rejected for precociousness. While still at school he wrote his first article for Practical Wireless.\n\nSinclair did not want to go to university when he left school at the age of 18 and instead he sold miniature electronic kits by mail order to the hobby market. \n\nCareer\n\nSinclair Radionics\n\nSinclair's Micro Kit was formalised in an exercise book dated 19 June 1958 three weeks before his A-levels. Sinclair drew a radio circuit, Model Mark I, with a components list: cost per set 9/11 (49½p), plus coloured wire and solder, nuts and bolts, plus celluloid chassis (drilled) for nine shillings (45p). Also in the book are advertisement rates for Radio Constructor (9d (3¾p)/word, minimum 6/- (30p)) and Practical Wireless (5/6 (27½p) per line or part line). \n\nSinclair estimated producing 1,000 a month, placing orders with suppliers for 10,000 of each component to be delivered.\n\nSinclair wrote a book for Bernard's Publishing, Practical transistor receivers Book 1, which appeared in January 1959. It was re-printed late that year and nine times subsequently. His practical stereo handbook was published in June 1959 and reprinted seven times over 14 years. The last book Sinclair wrote as an employee of Bernard's was Modern Transistor Circuits for Beginners, published in May 1962. At Bernard Babani he produced 13 constructors' books.\n\nIn 1961 Sinclair registered Sinclair Radionics Ltd. His original choice, Sinclair Electronics, was taken; Sinclair Radio was available but did not sound right. Sinclair Radionics was formed on 25 July 1961.\n\nSinclair made two attempts to raise startup capital to advertise his inventions and buy components. He designed PCB kits and licensed some technology. Then he took his design for a miniature transistor pocket radio and sought a backer for its production in kit form. Eventually he found someone who agreed to buy 55% of his company for £3,000 but the deal did not go through.\n\nSinclair, unable to find capital, joined United Trade Press (UTP) as technical editor of Instrument Practice. Sinclair appeared in the publication as an assistant editor in March 1962. Sinclair described making silicon planar transistors, their properties and applications and hoped they might be available by the end of 1962. Sinclair's obsession with miniaturisation became more obvious as his career progressed. Sinclair undertook a survey for Instrument Practice of semiconductor devices, which appeared in four sections between September 1962 and January 1963. \n\nHis last appearance as assistant editor was in April 1969. Through UTP, Sinclair had access to thousands of devices from 36 manufacturers. He contacted Semiconductors Ltd (who at that time sold semiconductors made by Plessey) and ordered rejects to repair. He produced a design for a miniature radio powered by a couple of hearing aid cells and made a deal with Semiconductors to buy its micro-alloy transistors at 6d (2½p) each in boxes of 10,000. He then carried out his own quality control tests, and marketed his renamed MAT 100 and 120 at 7s 9d (38¾p) and 101 and 121 at 8s 6d (42½p). \n\nScience of Cambridge\n\nSinclair formed another company, initially called Ablesdeal Ltd, in 1973. This changed name several times, eventually becoming Science of Cambridge Ltd in July 1977.\n\nIn June 1978 Science of Cambridge launched a microcomputer kit, the MK14, based on the National SC/MP chip. By July 1978, a personal computer project was under way. When Sinclair learned the NewBrain could not be sold at below £100 as he envisaged, he turned to a simpler computer. In May 1979 Jim Westwood started the ZX80 project at Science of Cambridge; it was launched in February 1980 at £79.95 in kit form and £99.95 ready-built. In November, Science of Cambridge was renamed Sinclair Computers Ltd.\n\nSinclair Research\n\nIn March 1981, Sinclair Computers was renamed again as Sinclair Research Ltd and the Sinclair ZX81 was launched at £49.95 in kit form and £69.95 ready-built, by mail order. In February 1982 Timex obtained a licence to manufacture and market Sinclair's computers in the United States under the name Timex Sinclair. In April the ZX Spectrum was launched at £125 for the 16 kB RAM version and £175 for the 48 kB version. In March 1982 the company made an £8.55 million profit on turnover of £27.17 million, including £383,000 government grants for the TV80 flat-screen portable television.\n\nIn 1982 Sinclair converted the Barker & Wadsworth mineral water bottling factory into the company's headquarters. (This was sold to Cambridgeshire County Council in December 1985 owing to Sinclair's financial troubles.) The following year, he received a knighthood and formed Sinclair Vehicles Ltd. to develop electric vehicles, which resulted in the Sinclair C5 in 1985.\n\nIn 1984, Sinclair launched the Sinclair QL computer, intended for professional users. Development of the ZX Spectrum continued with the enhanced ZX Spectrum 128 in 1985.\n\nIn April 1986, Sinclair Research sold the Sinclair trademark and computer business to Amstrad for £5 million. \nSinclair Research Ltd. was reduced to an R&D business and holding company, with shareholdings in several spin-off companies, formed to exploit technologies developed by the company. These included Anamartic Ltd. (wafer-scale integration), Shaye Communications Ltd. (CT2 mobile telephony) and Cambridge Computer Ltd. (Z88 portable computer and satellite TV receivers).\n\nBy 1990, Sinclair Research consisted of Sinclair and two other employees, and its activities have since concentrated on personal transport, the Zike electric bicycle, Zeta bicycle motor and the A-bike folding bicycle.\n\nSinclair received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1983 \n\nPersonal life\n\nSinclair married Ann Briscoe in 1962 and they had three children: Belinda, Crispin and Bartholomew. The marriage was dissolved in 1985. In 2010 Sinclair married Angie Bowness.\n\nSinclair is a poker player and appeared in the first three seasons of the Late Night Poker television series in Britain. He won the first season final of the Celebrity Poker Club spin-off. On his religious views, Sinclair called himself an atheist. Sinclair is a member of British Mensa and was Chairman for 17 years from 1980 to 1997. Sinclair was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Science) by the University of Bath in 1983. \n\nDespite his involvement in computing, Sinclair does not use the Internet, stating that he does not like to have \"technical or mechanical things around me\" as it distracts from the process of invention. In 2010 he stated that he does not use computers himself, using the telephone in preference to email. \n\nViews\n\nSinclair has stated that it is unavoidable that artificial general intelligence will someday lead to human extinction: \"Once you start to make machines that are rivalling and surpassing humans with intelligence, it's going to be very difficult for us to survive. It's just an inevitability.\"", "The Sinclair C5 is a small one-person battery electric vehicle, technically an \"electrically assisted pedal cycle\". (Although widely described as an \"electric car\", Sinclair characterised it as a \"vehicle, not a car\".) It was the culmination of Sir Clive Sinclair's long-running interest in electric vehicles. Sinclair had become one of the UK's best-known millionaires and earned a knighthood on the back of the highly successful Sinclair Research range of home computers in the early 1980s. He now hoped to repeat his success in the electric vehicle market, which he saw as ripe for a new approach. The C5 emerged from an earlier project to produce a Renault Twizy-style electric car called the C1. After a change in the law prompted by lobbying from bicycle manufacturers, Sinclair developed the C5 as an electrically powered tricycle with a polypropylene body and a chassis designed by Lotus Cars. It was intended to be the first in a series of increasingly ambitious electric vehicles, but in the event the planned development of the followup C10 and C15 electric cars never got further than the drawing board.\n\nOn 10 January 1985, the C5 was unveiled at a glitzy launch event but it received a less than enthusiastic reception from the British media. Its sales prospects were blighted by poor reviews and safety concerns expressed by consumer and motoring organisations. The vehicle's limitations – a short range, a maximum speed of only 15 mph, a battery that ran down quickly and a lack of weatherproofing – made it impractical for most people's needs. It was marketed as an alternative to cars and bicycles, but ended up appealing to neither group of owners, and it was not available in shops until several months after its launch. Within three months of the launch, production had been slashed by 90%. Sales never picked up despite Sinclair's optimistic forecasts and production ceased entirely by August 1985. Out of 14,000 C5s made, only 5,000 were sold before its manufacturer, Sinclair Vehicles, went into receivership.\n\nThe C5 became known as \"one of the great marketing bombs of postwar British industry\" and a \"notorious ... example of failure\". Despite its commercial failure, the C5 went on to become a cult item for collectors. Thousands of unsold C5s were purchased by investors and sold for hugely inflated prices – as much as £5,000, compared to the original retail value of £399. Enthusiasts have established owners' clubs and some have modified their vehicles substantially, adding monster wheels, jet engines, and high-powered electric motors to propel their C5s at speeds of up to 150 mph.\n\nDesign\n\nThe C5 is made predominately of polypropylene, measuring long, wide, and high. It weighs approximately 30 kg without a battery and 45 kg with one. The chassis consists of a single Y-shaped steel component with a cross-section of about by 4 cm The vehicle has three wheels, one of 317 mm diameter at the front and two of 406 mm at the rear.\n\nThe driver sits in a recumbent position in an open cockpit, steering via a handlebar that is located under the knees. A power switch and front and rear brake levers are positioned on the handlebar. As a supplement to or replacement for electric power, the C5 can also be propelled via bicycle-style pedals located at the front of the cockpit. The maximum speed of an unmodified C5 is 15 mph. At the rear of the vehicle is a small luggage compartment with a capacity of 28 litres (1 cu ft). As the C5 does not have a reverse gear, reversing direction is done by getting out, picking up the front end and turning it around by hand. \n\nThe C5 is powered by a 12-volt lead-acid electric battery which drives a motor with a continuous rating of 250 watts and a maximum speed of 4,100 revolutions per minute. It is coupled with a two-stage gear-drive that increases torque by a factor of 13, without which the motor would not be able to move the vehicle when a person is on board. However, the motor is vulnerable to overheating. The torque increases as the load on the vehicle increases, for instance by going up too steep a gradient. Sinclair's tests showed that it could cope under power with a maximum slope of 1 in 12 (8%) and could manage a 1 in 7 (14%) slope using the pedals. As the speed of the motor reduces, the current flow through its windings increases, drawing up to 140 amps at stall speed. This would very quickly burn the motor out if sustained, so the motor's load is constantly monitored by the C5's electronics. If it stalls under full load the electronics disable the motor after 4 seconds, while if it is under heavy load (around 80 or 90 amps) it trips after two or three minutes. A heat-sensitive resistor inside the motor warns the driver if the vehicle is beginning to overheat and disconnects the motor after a short time, and a third line of defence is provided by a metallic strip mounted on the motor. If an excessive temperature is reached the strip distorts and the power is disconnected. \n\nAlthough it was usually billed as an electric vehicle, the C5 also depends significantly on pedal power. The vehicle's battery is designed to provide 35 amps per hour when fully charged or half that for two hours, giving the C5 a claimed range of 20 mi. A display in the cockpit uses green, amber, and red LEDs to display the state of the battery charge. The segments are extinguished one after the other to indicate how much driving time is left. The last light indicates that only ten minutes of power are left, after which the motor is switched off and the driver is left to rely on the pedals. Another display indicates via green, amber, and red LEDs how much current is being used. The C5 is in its most economical running mode when a low amount of current, indicated by the green LEDs, is being used. When the lights are red, the motor is under a high load and the driver needs to use pedal power to avoid overheating and shutdown. \n\nThe C5 was initially sold at a cost of £399, but to keep the cost under the £400 mark a number of components were sold as optional accessories. These included indicator lights, mirrors, mud flaps, a horn, and a \"High-Vis Mast\" consisting of a reflective strip on a pole, designed to make the C5 more visible in traffic. Sinclair's C5 accessories brochure noted that \"the British climate isn't always ideal for wind-in-the-hair driving\" and offered a range of waterproofs to keep C5 drivers dry in the vehicle's open cockpit. Other accessories included seat cushions and spare batteries. \n\nHistory\n\nOrigins\n\nSir Clive Sinclair's interest in the possibilities of electric vehicles originated in the late 1950s during a holiday job for the electronics company Solatron. Fifteen years later, in the early 1970s, he was the head of his own successful electronics company, Sinclair Radionics, based in St Ives in Cambridgeshire. He tasked one of his employees, Chris Curry – later a co-founder of Acorn Computers – to carry out some preliminary research into electric vehicle design.\n\nSinclair took the view that an electric vehicle needed to be designed from the ground up, completely rethinking the principles of automotive design rather than simply dropping electric components into an established model. He believed that the motor was the key to the design. Sinclair and Curry developed a wafer-thin motor that was mounted on a child's scooter, with a button on the handlebars to activate it. The research got no further, however, as Sinclair's development of the first \"slimline\" pocket calculator – the Sinclair Executive and its successors – took precedence. No further work on electric vehicles took place for most of the rest of the 1970s. \n\nEarly development: the C1\n\nIt was not until late 1979 that Sinclair returned to electric vehicle development. Around Christmas that year, he approached Tony Wood Rogers, an ex-Radionics employee, to carry out consultancy work on \"a preliminary investigation into a personal electric vehicle.\" The brief was to assess the options for producing a one-person vehicle which would be a replacement for a moped and would have a maximum speed of 30 mph. Although Wood Rogers was initially reluctant, he was intrigued by the idea of an electric vehicle and agreed to help Sinclair. The vehicle was dubbed the C1 (the C standing for Clive). He built a number of prototypes to demonstrate various design principles and clarify the final specifications. \n\nA specification of the C1 emerged by the end of the year. It would address short-distance transportation needs, with a minimum range of 30 miles on a fully charged battery. This reflected official figures showing that the average daily car journey was only 13 mi, while the average moped or pedal cycle journey was just 6 mi. The users were envisaged as being housewives, urban commuters, and young people, who might otherwise use cycles or mopeds to travel. The electric vehicle would be safer, more weather-proof, and would offer space to carry items. It would be easy to drive and park and for the driver to enter or exit, and it would require minimum maintenance. The vehicle would be engineered for simplicity using injection-moulded plastic components and a polypropylene body. It would also be much cheaper than a car, costing £500 (now £) at the most. \n\nOne area of development that Sinclair purposefully avoided was battery technology. Electric vehicles powered by lead-acid batteries had once actually outnumbered internal combustion engine vehicles; in 1912 nearly 34,000 electric cars were registered in the U.S. However, the efficiency of internal combustion engines greatly improved while battery technology advanced much more slowly, leading to petrol and diesel-driven vehicles dominating the market. By 1978, out of 17.6 million registered vehicles on Britain's roads, only 45,000 were electric vehicles in day-to-day use and of those, 90% were milkfloats. Sinclair chose to rely on existing lead-acid battery technology, avoiding the great expense of developing a more efficient type. His rationale was that if the electric vehicle market took off, battery manufacturers would step up to develop better batteries. Wood Rogers recalls:\n\nThe development programme moved to the University of Exeter in 1982, where the C1 chassis was fitted with fibreglass shells and tested in a wind tunnel. It was recognised at an early stage that the vehicle would have to be aerodynamic; although it was only ever intended to be small and relatively slow, reducing wind resistance was seen as essential for the vehicle's efficiency. By March 1982 the basic design of the C1 had been established. Sinclair then turned to an established motor design company, Ogle Design of Letchworth, to provide professional styling assistance and production engineering. However, Ogle's approach was not to Sinclair's liking; they tackled the project as one of car design and focused more (and expensively) on the aerodynamics rather than the cycle technology around which the C1 was based. The weight of the vehicle increased to over 150 kg, far more than Sinclair's desired specification. By March 1983, Sinclair and Wood Rogers had decided to stop the C1 programme. Wood Rogers comments that Ogle were convinced that the C1 would be a flop, telling Sinclair that it would not be fast enough, that its drivers would get wet when it rained and that the battery was not good enough.\n\nTo meet the steadily escalating development costs of the vehicle, Sinclair decided to raise capital by selling some of his own shares in Sinclair Research to fund a separate company that would focus on electric vehicles. A £12 million deal was reached in March 1983, of which £8.3 million was used to fund the establishment of the new Sinclair Vehicles company. Sinclair recruited Barrie Wills, a veteran former employee of the DeLorean Motor Company, to lead Sinclair Vehicles as its managing director. Although Wills initially expressed scepticism about the viability of an electric vehicle – his twenty-five years in the motor industry had convinced him that an electric car was never going to happen – Sinclair managed to convince him that the project would work. In 1984, Sinclair Vehicles' new head office was established in Warwick in the West Midlands, an area with a long-established link with the motor industry. \n\nThe project's prospects were boosted by changes in the British government's approach to electric vehicles. In March 1980, it had abolished Vehicle Excise Duty for electric vehicles and by the start of 1983, the Department of Transport was working on legislation that would introduce a new category of vehicle – the \"electrically assisted pedal cycle\". This had a number of significant advantages from Sinclair's point of view. Such a vehicle would be exempt from insurance and vehicle tax, and the user would not need a driving licence or a helmet, all of which were required for mopeds. The legislation, which was passed in August 1983, was prompted by a lobbying campaign by manufacturers such as Raleigh who wanted to sell electric bicycles.\n\nSinclair realised that his electric vehicle design could easily be adapted to meet the new legislation. As the \"electrically assisted pedal cycle\" category was so new, there were no existing vehicles on the market that would meet the standards prescribed by the new legislation. However, it imposed a number of restrictions that limited the performance of any vehicle that would qualify under the new standards. The maximum legal speed of the vehicle would be limited to only 15 mph; it could not weigh any more than 60 kg, including the battery; and its motor could not be rated at any more than 250 watts. \n\nDespite these limitations, the vehicle was seen as only the first step in a series of increasingly ambitious electrical cars. Sinclair intended it to prove the viability of electric personal transport; the hope was that, just as Sinclair had found with home computers like the hugely successful ZX81 and ZX Spectrum, an affordable electric vehicle could unleash pent-up demand for a market that did not previously exist. However, Sinclair performed no market research to ascertain whether there was actually a market for his electric vehicle; as the director of the Primary Contact advertising agency commented in January 1985, the project continued all the way to the prototype stage \"purely on the convictions of Sir Clive.\"\n\nDevelopment and design of the C5\n\nWith Sinclair's new specifications in hand, Ogle worked on a three-wheeled design dubbed the C5, which bore similarities with the earlier three-wheeled Bond Bug – another Ogle design. The vehicle's handlebar steering was the brainchild of Wood Rogers, who decided at the outset that a steering wheel would not be practicable as it would make it impossible for a driver to get in and out easily – a serious safety disadvantage. He comments that \"putting the bars at the driver's sides made it easy to steer and felt very natural.\" A prototype was presented to 63 families in the A, B, C1 and C2 demographic groups in suburban and town environments to determine that the controls were correctly positioned; this was the only external research carried out on the C5. In the autumn of 1983, Wills brought in Lotus Cars to finish the vehicle's detailing, build prototypes and test rigs, carry out testing and take forward the programme to production. The development of the C5 took place over 19 months in conditions of great secrecy, with testing carried out at the Motor Industry Research Association's proving ground in Leicestershire.\n\nFurther aerodynamic refinements were carried out in Exeter with the development of new body shells which produced further reductions in the vehicle's drag. However, it was felt that something was lacking in the design and a 23-year-old industrial designer, Gus Desbarats, was brought in to refine the shell's appearance. He had won a Sinclair-sponsored electric vehicle design competition at the Royal College of Art and was hired on his graduation to set up an in-house car design studio at Sinclair's Metalab in Cambridge, of which he became the first employee. It was not only Desbarats' first project but, as he later said, \"day one of my working life\", when he turned up at Sinclair's premises. He was taken aback when he saw the C5 for the first time, as he had been expecting a \"proper\" electric car. He said later that he thought \"the concept looked futuristic but was short on practicality. There were no instruments, nowhere to put anything and no security features.\" Desbarats told Sinclair that the design would have to be redone from scratch, \"asking what we were doing about visibility, rear view mirrors, range indications ...\". It was far too late for this, however; all the key design decisions had already been made. Desbarats told Sinclair that he would need four months to revisit the design and was given eight weeks instead. He created the styling that was used for the final production model of the C5, with wheel trims and a small luggage compartment being added subsequently. Desbarats was also responsible for the creation of the High-Vis Mast accessory, as he felt uncomfortable being so close to the ground with other drivers potentially not being able to see him. He later described his contribution as \"convert[ing] an ugly pointless device into a prettier, safer, and more usable pointless device.\" \n\nThe chassis of the C5 consists of two identical metal pressings which are joined at top and bottom with a closing plate at the rear. It lacks a separate suspension system, instead relying on the chassis structure having enough torsional flex. Its motor was produced in Italy by Polymotor, a subsidiary of the Dutch company Philips. Although it was later famously said that the C5 was powered by a washing machine motor, the motor was in fact developed from a design produced to drive a truck cooling fan. Lotus provided the gearbox and a rear axle based on a design for car steering columns. The C5's electronics were produced by MetaLab, a Sinclair spin-off. The wheels were assembled from tyres made in Taiwan and wheels from Italy. Oldham Batteries provided a lead-acid battery developed for Sinclair that could manage more than the 300 charge-discharge cycles that had originally been specified.\n\nThe bodywork was made from two injection-moulded polypropylene shells supplied by three manufacturers; J.J. Harvey of Manchester made the moulds, Linpac provided the shells, and ICI supplied the raw material. According to Rodney Dale, the upper shell mould was \"one of the largest – if not the largest – injection mouldings of its type in the UK: possibly even in the world.\" The manufacturing process reflected Sinclair's ambition for the C5 production line. A single mould set was capable of producing up to 4,000 parts every week. The two parts of the shell were joined together by wrapping a tape around the joint, aligning them on a jig, pressing them together and passing an electric current through the tape to heat and melt it. The same process was used to make the front and rear bumper assemblies of the Austin Maestro and only took about 70 seconds to complete. Although Sinclair had considered producing the C5 at the DeLorean plant at Dunmurry in Northern Ireland, which had one of Europe's most advanced automated plastic body manufacturing facilities, this was not to be, as the DeLorean Motor Company failed in a controversial bankruptcy which resulted in the plant's closure.\n\nInstead, the work of assembling the C5 was given to The Hoover Company in the spring of 1983. The Welsh Development Agency (WDA) approached Hoover to ask them if they would be interested becoming the principal subcontractor for Sinclair, \"who are working on an electric car, and as a by-product of the research have designed an electrically assisted bicycle. They are looking for a subcontractor to whom they can entrust the assembly.\" The proposal suited all sides. The WDA was keen to support the Hoover washing machine factory at Merthyr Tydfil, situated in the economically depressed South Wales Valleys. Hoover was enticed by Sinclair's projections of sales of 200,000 units a year, increasing to 500,000. Sinclair saw Hoover's plant and expertise as a good match for their fabrication techniques. A contract was signed within a few months. \n\nProduction, distribution and support\n\nThe C5 was produced in great secrecy in a separate part of the Hoover factory with its own duplicate facilities. At first the work was carried out by a small team of people in a sealed room, but as production ramped up Hoover installed two production lines in building MP7, connected to the main factory by an underground tunnel. A rolling testing stand was located at the end of the production line to test each completed C5 for faults. A mechanical arm simulated the weight of a person weighing 12 stone and the vehicle's brakes were tested under load. At the end of the process the C5s which had passed testing were rolled into cardboard boxes and loaded straight onto distribution lorries in stacks. Around £100,000 was spent to set up the factory. \n\nDistribution centres were set up in Hayes in Middlesex, Preston in Lancashire and Oxford to handle the C5s. Hoover arranged for 19 of its service offices around the UK – responsible for maintaining customers' vacuum cleaners and washing machines – to also maintain C5s and provide spare parts. The C5's major consumable item, the battery, was to be supported by 300 branches of Comet and Woolworths. \n\nHoover trained its engineers to produce C5s and tested its manufacturing processes by assembling, dismantling and re-assembling 100 C5s. Full production began in November 1984 and by early January 1985 over 2,500 C5s had been manufactured. Each production line could produce 50 vehicles an hour and Hoover had the capability of producing up to 8,000 C5s per week.\n\nLaunch\n\nThe news of Sinclair's C5 project came as a surprise when it became public and attracted considerable interest, as well as scepticism. The Economist reported in June 1983 that carmakers were \"startled\" but cautious about Sinclair's prospects; as one competitor put it, \"If it were anyone but Sinclair, we'd say he was bonkers\". The Economist asked, \"Can a man who has made a fortune out of calculators and computers, and could double it on flatscreen televisions, be that crazy?\" and wondered whether he was \"making a ghastly mistake\", a prediction that industry insiders thought was likely. \n\nThe C5 was launched on 10 January 1985 at Alexandra Palace in North London. The event was staged in Sinclair's usual glitzy style, with girls handing out press packs and a variety of promotional giveaways: magazines, hats, pullovers, T-shirts, key rings, sun visors, badges, mugs, bags, and even a C5 video game. The vehicle was given a dramatic unveiling; six C5s driven by girls dressed in grey and yellow burst out of six cardboard boxes, drove around the arena, and lined up side by side. Sinclair announced the launch of a £3 million, three-month-long advertising print and television advertising campaign. The C5 would be available initially by mail order at a cost of £399 and would subsequently be sold via high street stores.\n\nSinclair issued a glossy sales brochure which characterised the vehicle as a part of an ongoing exercise in \"cutting giants down to size, turning impersonal tyrants into personal servants.\" The brochure highlighted Sinclair's achievements in producing affordable pocket calculators, home computers, and pocket televisions and declared, \"with the C5, Sinclair Vehicles puts personal, private transport back where it belongs – in the hands of the individual.\" The photographs accompanying the text showed housewives and teenagers driving the C5 to shops, railway stations, and sports fields – in the words of technology writers Ian Adamson and Richard Kennedy, \"a blue-sky suburbia exclusively populated by electric trikes and their drivers.\" \n\nThe press was given an opportunity to try out the C5 but this proved to be, as Adamson and Kennedy put it, \"an unqualified disaster\". A large number of the demonstration machines did not work, as the assembled journalists soon discovered. The Sunday Times called the C5 a \"Formula One bath-chair\"; its reporter \"had travelled five yards outdoors when everything when phut and this motorised, plastic, lozenge rolled to a halt with all the stationary decisiveness of a mule.\" The Guardians reporter had a flat battery after only seven minutes, while Your Computer found that the C5 could not cope with the slopes at Alexandra Palace: \"The 250 watt electric motor which drives one of the back wheels proved incapable of powering the C5 up even the gentlest slopes without using pedal power. The tricycle was soon making a plaintive \"peep, peep\" noise signalling that the engine had overheated.\" Even the distinguished former racing driver Stirling Moss ran into problems when he tried out the C5 on the roads around Alexandra Palace. The Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail reported that while he had started out well, \"a jaunty smile on [his] face as he braved some of the worst exhaust fumes in the world spluttering almost directly into his face from trucks he could almost drive underneath\", he ran into problems when he reached a hill: \"It was at this point that he realised the battery had gone dead. On a cold and foggy London day, the great man was visibly sweating.\"\n\nThe timing and location of the launch event – in the middle of winter, on the top of a snow- and ice-covered hill – later prompted criticism even from Sinclair executives, who admitted off the record that spring conditions might have been better for a vehicle with so little protection from the British climate. The Financial Times called it \"the worst possible timing to launch what was proclaimed to be a serious, road-going vehicle\". Sinclair's biographer Rodney Dale describes it as \"a calculated (or miscalculated) risk\", pointing out that production was already underway, details were beginning to leak out to the press and \"the launch could hardly have been held up until the possibility of a bright spring day.\" He justified the choice of January as being necessitated by a need to release the C5 \"as soon as possible lest the erroneous speculation should have done more harm than good.\" Rob Gray offers an alternative explanation, that the launch date had been brought forward because Sinclair's development funds were running low. \n\nReviews\n\nIt soon became apparent that the C5 faced more serious problems with public perception than merely a botched launch event. Media reactions to the C5 were generally negative when the first reviews appeared over the following days. As the Financial Times observed, \"the few hardy journalists who ventured out on the roads returned shivering and dubious about the C5's abilities in such harsh conditions.\"\n\nA common concern was that it was simply too vulnerable in traffic. Your Computer commented that \"a periscope would be handy if you intended driving the C5 on busy roads since your head is only at bonnet level.\" The Guardian's motoring correspondent wrote of her \"grave misgivings about its use in congested traffic ... On a sharp turn it too easily lifts a rear wheel, is hazardously silent, and low down. It disappears below a car driver's sight-line when pulling up alongside. The prospect of these vehicles merging into heavy traffic, dwarfed by heavy lorries, buses, and cars, is worrying. Their low speed risks turning them into mobile chicanes for other traffic.\" Another Guardian writer wrote that he \"would not want to drive [the] C5 in any traffic at all. My head was on a level with the top of a juggernaut's tyres, the exhaust fumes blasted into my face. Even with the minuscule front and rear lights on, I could not feel confident that a lorry driver so high above the ground would see me.\" Sinclair issued a publicity photograph showing the C5's industrial designer, Gus Desbarats, in a C5 alongside a cardboard cutout of an Austin Mini to illustrate that the C5 driver's seated position was actually higher than that of a Mini driver. \n\nAs teenagers were among the target audiences for the C5, some commentators also raised the prospect of (in Adamson and Kennedy's words) \"packs of 14-year-olds terrorising the neighbourhood in their customised C5s\". The secretary of the Cyclists Touring Club raised the prospect of \"kids us[ing] them in a pretty wild way. They may run them over paths and pavements and knock people down.\" Sinclair dismissed such concerns – \"I have qualms about seven-year-olds riding bicycles on the open road, but I have far fewer qualms about a 14-year-old driving one of these\". Teenagers interviewed by The Guardian were doubtful about whether they would want a C5, commenting that while it was fun to drive they felt insecure in it and preferred their bicycles.\n\nSinclair's claims to have revolutionised the electric vehicle were dismissed by many reviewers; Your Computer called the C5 \"more of a toy than the 'ideal solution for all types of local journey' which the brochure claims.\" The Guardian's motoring correspondent also characterised it as \"a delightful toy\" The Daily Telegraph described it as \"a cleverly-designed 'fun' machine that can hardly be regarded as serious, everyday all-weather transport\", while The Engineer viewed it as \"a smashing big boy's toy, tough enough to take teenage thrashing and possibly a serious vehicle for fit adults to nip out in for the Sunday papers.\" \n\nOn the plus side, the C5's handling characteristics were praised by reviewers. The Guardian called it \"very easy to master once you have become familiar with the under-thigh handlebar steering and the semi-recumbent driving position with feet on bicycle-type pedals.\" The Daily Mirror described the arrangement as \"surprisingly easy\" to master, although it cautioned that \"on full speed and on full lock it's very easy to tip it onto two wheels.\" The Daily Express motoring correspondent wrote that he found the C5 \"stable, comfortable and easy to handle.\" \n\nThe verdict from motoring organisations, road safety groups, and consumer watchdogs was decidedly negative and probably sealed the C5's fate. The British Safety Council (BSC) tested the C5 at Sinclair Vehicles' headquarters in Warwick and issued a highly critical report to its 32,000 members. Sinclair was furious and announced that he would sue the BSC and its chairman, James Tye, for defamation after Tye told the press: \"I am shattered that within a few days 14-year-old children will be allowed to drive on the road in this Doodle Bug without a licence ... without insurance and without any form of training.\" Several years later, Tye was happy to take responsibility for the C5's failure, describing himself as \"the man entirely to blame for the failure of the Sinclair C5.\" \n\nSales history\n\nDespite the problems of the press launch day, a more positive response was expected from the 20,000 members of the public who attended the remaining two days of the launch event to try out the C5 on the Alexandra Palace test track. Sinclair reported the day after the event that its switchboard had been overwhelmed by enquirers, and it expected that all 2,700 units from the first production run would be sold by the following Monday. Setting a pattern that would be repeated throughout the C5's short commercial life, this prediction was wildly optimistic; less than 200 were sold during the Alexandra Palace event. However, sales picked up as mail order forms – which had been sent to all of Sinclair's computer customers – were returned with fresh orders. Within four weeks of launch, 5,000 C5s had been sold.\n\nThe C5's users were an eclectic group. They included holiday camps who wanted C5s to rent to campers; the British Royal Family – Princes William and Harry each had one to drive around Kensington Palace before they were old enough to drive; Sir Elton John, who had two; the magician Paul Daniels, who bought a demonstration model he saw being driven around the BBC Television Centre car park; Sir Arthur C. Clarke, who had two shipped out to his home at Colombo in Sri Lanka; and the Mayor of Scarborough, Michael Pitts, who swapped his official Daimler for a C5. However, as The Times reported, some of the early buyers were disappointed by the vehicle's limitations, citing its slowness, its limited range and its inability to cope with steep hills, which led some people to return their C5s and ask for a refund.\n\nAlthough the C5 reached retail stores at the start of March 1985, sales had tailed off. Sinclair resorted to hiring teams of teenagers to drive around London in C5s to promote the vehicle, at a cost to the company of £20 a day. Similar teams were established in Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds. The company denied that it was a marketing campaign; a spokesman told The Times that \"we haven't done ... tests on inner city roads. That is what the team is doing. Marketing is not the prime function but will undoubtedly be a spin-off.\" Sinclair was reported to be surprised at the lack of demand and blamed the press for \"a lack of foresight and pessimistic reporting.\" Matters did not improve. The retail chain Comet acquired 1,600 C5s but nine months later most were still unsold. \n\nAdding to Sinclair's problems, production of the C5 had to be halted for three weeks after numerous customers reported that the plastic moulding attached to the gearbox was impairing the performance of their vehicles. 100 Hoover workers were shifted from the C5 production line to work on replacing the faulty mouldings on returned vehicles. Barrie Wills admitted that Sinclair was also taking the opportunity to \"adjust stocks\" in the light of the C5's poor sales. When production resumed a month later it was at only 10% of the previous level, with 90 of the workers being transferred back to the washing machine production lines. Only 100 C5s were now being produced a week, down from the original 1,000. Over 3,000 unsold C5s were piled up in storage at the Hoover factory, with additional unsold stock in 500 retail outlets nationwide. \n\nSinclair tried to put a brave face on it, admitting that \"sales have not been entirely up to expectations\" but claiming to be \"confident of a high level of demand for the vehicle.\" A spokesman told the media that \"we expect a rapid rise in sales now that the weather is improving\". Possible sales opportunities were explored in mainland Europe, Asia, and the United States, with Sinclair claiming that he had found \"very big\" levels of interest. Hoover were sufficiently persuaded to allow Sinclair to divert 10 of their employees to modify C5s for overseas export. The bid to sell the C5 abroad failed; the Dutch National Transport Service told Sinclair that the C5 was not suitable for Dutch roads without improvements to its braking system, the addition of more reflectors, and the inclusion of the High-Vis Mast as part of the basic package. Most of the other ten countries that Sinclair inquired of demanded similar changes.\n\nThe C5's reputation received a further battering when major consumer organisations published sceptical evaluations. The Automobile Association questioned many of Sinclair's claims in a report published at the start of May. It found that the range of the vehicle was typically only about 10 miles (16 km) rather than the 20 mi promised by Sinclair, and reported that the C5's battery ran flat after only on a cold day. The C5's running speed was more usually around than the claimed 15 mph, while its running costs compared unfavourably to that of a petrol-driven Honda PX50 moped. The stability, general roadworthiness, and especially the safety of the C5 were questioned, and the AA suggested that the High-Vis Mast should be included as part of the standard package. It concluded:\n\nThe Consumers' Association published a critical report on the C5 in the June issue of its magazine Which, concluding that the vehicle was of only limited use and represented poor value for money. All three of the C5s that it tested broke down with a \"major gearbox fault\" and their High-Vis Masts snapped. The longest run between battery charges was only , and a more realistic achievable range was 5–10 miles (8–16 km). It also echoed the AA's concerns about the C5's safety and the omission of the High-Vis Mast from the standard package. The magazine also called the C5 \"too easy to steal\", hardly surprising considering that while a security lock could be used to prevent it being driven away, the C5 was light enough that a would-be thief could simply pick it up and carry it off. \n\nAs the summer of 1985 continued, sales of the C5 remained far below Sinclair's predictions; only 8,000 had been sold by July. In the middle of that month, the Advertising Standards Authority ordered Sinclair to amend or withdraw its advertisements for the C5 after finding that the company's claims about the safety and speed of the C5 either could not be proved or were not justified. Retailers attempted to deal with unsold stocks of C5s by drastically cutting the vehicle's price. Comet first reduced the price to £259.90 but by the end of the year was selling C5s with a complete set of accessories for only £139.99, 65% less than the launch price. \n\nProduction was terminated in August 1985, by which time 14,000 C5s had been assembled. Cashflow problems caused by the paucity of sales caused relations to break down between Sinclair Vehicles and Hoover. In June 1985 Hoover obtained a writ against Sinclair for unpaid debts of over £1.5 million, relating to work carried out over the previous eight months. It did not actually serve the writ but entered negotiations with Sinclair. In mid-August, it publicly announced that it was ceasing production of the C5. A Sinclair spokesman told the media that the halt in production was \"due to a shortage of certain components which are unable to be re-ordered while a financial settlement is pending. Once this has been concluded production is envisaged to recommence.\"\n\nDemise of Sinclair Vehicles\n\nProduction did not recommence and the Hoover production line remained closed permanently. On 19 September, Sinclair Vehicles changed its name to TPD Limited, with a direct subsidiary named Sinclair Vehicles Sales Limited continuing to sell C5s. TPD only lasted until 15 October, when it was placed into receivership. The receivers announced that 4,500 C5s had been sold by Sinclair Vehicles, with another 4,500 remaining in the company's hands. £7.75 million was reportedly owed to creditors, of which £7 million was owed to Sir Clive Sinclair himself in reflection of his personal investment in the project. Hoover was not among the creditors, as Sinclair had managed to settle the dispute on terms that neither company would reveal. \n\nOn 5 November, TPD was formally liquidated at a creditors' meeting. It was revealed, to the anger of the creditors, that Sinclair had taken out a £5 million debenture to cover the money that he had put into the company. Ordinary creditors faced little prospect of recovering the £1 million left outstanding. Primary Contact, the marketing agency used by Sinclair to promote the C5, was left with the biggest unpaid bill, of nearly £500,000. The last of the unsold C5s were bought for £75 each by Ellar (Surplus Goods) Ltd of Liverpool, which planned to sell 1,000 of them to an Egyptian businessman for use on a university campus while another 1,500 were intended to be sold in the UK.\n\nMany reasons have been suggested for the failure of Sinclair Vehicles and what Dale calls \"the jigsaw of the C5's disappointment\". One of the receivers of Sinclair Vehicles, John Sapte, suggested that Sinclair had taken the wrong tack with its marketing of the C5: \"It was presented as a serious transport, when perhaps it should have been presented as a luxury product, an up-market plaything.\" Ellar's director Maurice Levensohn took exactly this tack when he purchased Sinclair Vehicles' remaining stock, saying that his company would market them as \"a sophisticated toy\": \"If you were a little boy, wouldn't you want your parents to get you one this Christmas?\" His strategy was notably successful; Ellar sold nearly 7,000 C5s at up to £700 each, far more (and at a higher price) than Sinclair had ever managed. \n\nSome commentators attributed the C5's failure to problems with Sinclair's marketing strategy; only a year after the demise of Sinclair Vehicles, the Globe and Mail newspaper called it \"one of the great marketing bombs of postwar British industry\". Andrew P. Marks of Paisley College of Technology criticises Sinclair's marketing strategy as confused; the C5 promotional brochure depicts it as a leisure vehicle, showing boys in C5s at a football pitch, women in C5s on a suburban road, and so on, while the text suggests that the C5 is a serious substitute for a car. He concludes that the C5 was poorly defined, appearing to be \"trying to grasp at two different markets\" but was unable to appeal to either, and so failed to take off. The fact that it was initially only available via mail order was also a mistake, in Marks' view, as it meant that no physical inspection of the product could be made before purchasing it. This was a serious deterrent to consumers as it made the C5 a much more risky purchase.\n\nThe design researcher and academic Nigel Cross calls the C5 a \"notorious ... example of failure\" and describes its basic concept as \"wrong\". He points out that the marketing research for the C5 was carried out after the vehicle's concept had already been decided; he notes that it appears to have been intended \"mainly to aid promotion\" rather than to guide development. Gus Desbarats, the C5's industrial designer, attributes the vehicle's flawed concept to Sinclair operating in a \"bubble\" and believes that Sinclair \"failed to understand the difference between a new market, computing, and a mature one, transport, where there were more benchmarks to compare against.\" He comments that the experience of working on the C5 convinced him of the need for industrial designers such as himself to get \"involved early in the innovation process, shaping basic configurations, never again [being] satisfied to simply decorate a fundamentally bad idea\".\n\nSinclair himself said in 2005 that the C5 \"was early for what it was. People reacted negatively and the press didn't help. It was too low down and people felt insecure, hence it got bad press.\" Sam Dawson of Classic and Sport Car Magazine described the C5 as \"incredibly fun to drive\", suggesting that the safety concerns could have been addressed if it wasn't for the fact that it was already doomed as a national joke.\" He noted the disconnect between the media's expectations of a serious electric car and the reality of the C5, which he called \"just a fun way of getting around.\" Professor Stuart Cole of the University of South Wales comments that the C5 suffered from the design of the roads and the attitudes of the time, which were not geared towards pedal or electric vehicles: \"In the days before unleaded petrol, your face would have been at the height of every exhaust pipe, and drivers weren't used to having to consider slower-moving cyclists. But with more cycle lanes, better education, and workplaces providing showers, etc., the world now is much more geared up for people looking for alternatives to the car, and hopefully will become even more so in the future.\" \n\nLegacy\n\nSinclair's other electric vehicles\n\nSinclair envisaged producing follow-up vehicles such as the C10, a two-seater city car, and the C15, a four-seater capable of travelling at 80 mph. As Wills put it at the launch event, \"We're developing a family of traffic-compatible, quiet, economic and pollution-free vehicles for the end of the '80s.\" The C5 was described as \"the baby of the family\". The C10 was intended to be a city car, capable of carrying two passengers at up to 40 mph in a roofed but open-sided compartment with two wheels at the front and one at the back. Wood Rogers intended it to effectively be an updated version of the Isetta, a 1960s Italian microcar. Sinclair built a full-scale mock-up of it; according to Wood Rogers, \"it looked great. I specified open sides to keep the cost down and having no doors meant it escaped a lot of regulations too.\" The design is strikingly similar to the modern Renault Twizy electric vehicle; Wood Rogers comments that \"you could put the C10 into production today and it would still look contemporary.\" \n\nSinclair described the C15 as having \"a futuristic design with an elongated 'tear-drop' shape, a lightweight body made of self-coloured polypropylene and a single, possibly 'roller' type rear wheel.\" It would have been launched at the 1988 International Motor Show in Birmingham following a development programme costed at £2 million. Unlike the relatively conventional technology used in the C5, Sinclair intended to use sodium sulphur batteries with four times the power-to-weight ratio of lead-acid batteries to give the C15 much greater speed and range – over 180 mi on a single charge. It would have had approximately the same dimensions as a conventional small car, measuring long, high, and wide. However, it could only have worked if sodium sulphur batteries had realised their promise. In the event they did not, due to thermal problems. Neither the C10 nor the C15 ever left the drawing board.\n\nAlthough Sinclair went on to produce more (but much smaller) electric vehicles, the C5 debacle did lasting damage to the reputation of subsequent EVs in the UK, which the media routinely compared to the C5. It was not until a highly regarded manufacturer, Toyota, launched a serious and well-received vehicle in the 1990s, the Prius, that the C5 \"jinx\" was finally laid to rest. \n\nFrom flop to cult\n\nDespite its lack of commercial success when it was first released, the C5 gained an unexpected degree of cult status in the later years. Collectors began purchasing them as investment items, reselling them for considerably more than their original retail price. One such investor, Adam Harper, bought 600 C5s from a film company as a speculative investment in 1987. He sold all but four within two years, selling them to customers who wanted a novel or more environmentally friendly form of transportation. He also found willing customers among drivers who had been banned from the road, as the C5 did not need a driving licence or vehicle tax. According to Harper, C5s could be resold for as much as £2,500 – more than six times the original retail price. By 1996, a Special Edition C5 in its original box was reported to be worth more than £5,000 to collectors. \n\nC5 owners began modifying their vehicles to achieve levels of performance far beyond anything envisaged by Sinclair. Adam Harper used one C5 as a stunt vehicle, driving it through a 70 ft tunnel of fire, and adapted another to run at 150 mph, aiming to break a world land speed record for a three-wheeled electric vehicle and the British record for any type of electric vehicle. He said later: \"Up to 100 mph it's like you're running on rails, it's really stable. Then at about 110 to 120 mph it starts getting tricky. At that point if a tyre blew up or something happened you would be surely dead.\" \n\nAs quoted in the 1987 Guinness Book of Records under battery powered vehicle; 'John W. Owen and Roy Harvey travelled 919 miles 1479 km from John O'Groats to Land's End in a Sinclair C5 in 103 hr 15 min on 30 Apr-4 May 1985.'(8.9 mph avg.)\n\nChris Crosskey, an engineer from Abingdon, set a record for the longest journey completed on a C5 on a trip to Glastonbury – 103 mi miles away (\"I nearly died of exhaustion\" ) – and tried three times to drive one from Land's End to John o' Groats, a distance of 874 mi. Another engineer, Adrian Bennett, fitted a jet engine to his C5, while plumber Colin Furze turned one into a 5 ft (1.5 m)-high \"monster trike\" with 2 ft wheels and a petrol engine capable of propelling it at 40 mph. \n\nJohn Otway regularly uses a C5 in his stage show and publicity." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "C.V", "C.5", "C5 (disambiguation)", "C 5", "C V", "C-5", "C05", "C5" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "c v", "c05", "c5", "c5 disambiguation", "c 5" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "c5", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "C5" }
Who is Julian Lennon's step-mother?	tc_1269	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Julian_Lennon.txt", "John_Lennon.txt" ], "title": [ "Julian Lennon", "John Lennon" ], "wiki_context": [ "John Charles Julian Lennon (born 8 April 1963) is a British musician and photographer. He is the first child of John Lennon with his first wife, Cynthia. The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, was his godfather. He has a younger half-brother, Sean Lennon, and a stepsister, Kyoko Chan Cox. Lennon was named after his paternal grandmother, Julia Lennon. \n\nLennon was the direct inspiration for three Beatles' songs: \"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds\", \"Hey Jude\" and \"Good Night\". He is devoted to philanthropic endeavors, most notably his own White Feather Foundation and the Whaledreamers Organization, both of which promote the co-existence of all species and the health and well-being of the Earth.\n\nEarly life and relationship with his father\n\nJulian Lennon was born in Liverpool. Initially, the fact that John Lennon was married and had a child was concealed from the public, in keeping with the conventional wisdom of the era that female teenage fans would not be as enamoured of married male pop stars. Lennon inspired one of his father's most famous songs, \"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds\", whose lyrics describe a picture the boy had drawn, a watercolour painting of his friend Lucy O'Donnell from nursery school surrounded by stars. Another composition of his father inspired by him was the lullaby \"Good Night\", the closing song of the White Album. In 1967, he attended the set of the Beatles' film Magical Mystery Tour.\n\nFollowing his father's infidelity with Yoko Ono, Lennon's parents divorced when he was five. Paul McCartney wrote \"Hey Jude\" to console him over the divorce; originally called \"Hey Jules\", McCartney changed the name because he thought that \"Jude\" was an easier name to sing. After his parents' divorce, Lennon had almost no contact with his father until the early 1970s when, at the request of his father's then short-term girlfriend, May Pang (Yoko Ono and Lennon had temporarily separated), he began to visit his father regularly. John Lennon bought him a Gibson Les Paul guitar and a drum machine for Christmas 1973, and encouraged his interest in music by showing him some chords. \n\nFollowing his father's murder, Lennon voiced anger and resentment toward him, saying, I've never really wanted to know the truth about how dad was with me. There was some very negative stuff talked about me ... like when he said I'd come out of a whiskey bottle on a Saturday night. Stuff like that. You think, where's the love in that? Paul and I used to hang about quite a bit ... more than Dad and I did. We had a great friendship going and there seems to be far more pictures of me and Paul playing together at that age than there are pictures of me and my dad. \n\nLennon was also irked by hearing his father's peace-loving stance perpetually celebrated. He told the London Telegraph, \"I have to say that, from my point of view, I felt he was a hypocrite\", he said, \"Dad could talk about peace and love out loud to the world but he could never show it to the people who supposedly meant the most to him: his wife and son. How can you talk about peace and love and have a family in bits and pieces—no communication, adultery, divorce? You can't do it, not if you're being true and honest with yourself.\" \n\nLennon was excluded from his father's will. However, a trust of £100,000 was created by his father to be shared between all of his children (both Julian and Sean). Julian sued his father's estate and in 1996 reached a settlement agreement reportedly worth £20 million. By 2009, Lennon's feelings toward his father had mellowed. Recalling his renewed relationship with his father in the mid-1970s, he said, Dad and I got on a great deal better then. We had a lot of fun, laughed a lot and had a great time in general when he was with May Pang. My memories of that time with Dad and May are very clear — they were the happiest time I can remember with them. \n\nIn 2007, Lennon sold a \"significant\" share of his stake in his father's catalogue of work in exchange for an undisclosed sum with an agreement that the purchasing company, Primary Wave, would market and promote his new material. The stake entitles Primary Wave to a portion of all royalties on the catalogue.\n\nEducation\n\nLennon was educated at Ruthin School, a boarding independent school near the town of Ruthin in Denbighshire in North Wales.\n\nCareer\n\nMusic career\n\nLennon made his musical debut at age 11 on his father's album Walls and Bridges playing drums on \"Ya-Ya\", later saying, \"Dad, had I known you were going to put it on the album, I would've played much better!\" In the 1980s, he “parlayed a remarkable vocal similarity to his father into a successful singing career.” \n\nLennon enjoyed immediate success with his debut 1984 album Valotte, produced by Phil Ramone, nominated for a Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1985, spawning two top ten hits, the title track \"Valotte\" and \"Too Late for Goodbyes\". Lennon promoted the album with music videos for the two hits made by movie director Sam Peckinpah and producer Martin Lewis. The song \"Valotte\" has remained a staple on adult contemporary radio stations since its release.\n\nAfter the release Paul McCartney sent him a telegram wishing him good luck. Later that year the two met backstage at the New York studios of the television show Friday Night Videos.\n\nHis second album, 1986's The Secret Value of Daydreaming, was panned by critics, but reached No. 32 on the Billboard magazine's album chart, and produced the single \"Stick Around\", which was his first No. 1 single on the U.S. Album Rock Tracks chart.\n\nHe recorded the song \"Because\", previously recorded by The Dave Clark Five, in the UK for Clark's 1986 musical, Time. Lennon never reached the same level of success in the U.S. post-Valotte, but he hit No. 5 in Australia with the 1989 single \"Now You're In Heaven\", which also gave him his second No. 1 hit on the Album Rock Tracks chart in the USA.\n\nOn 1 April 1987, Julian Lennon appeared as The Baker in Mike Batt's musical The Hunting of the Snark (based on Lewis Carroll's poem). The all-star lineup included Roger Daltrey, Justin Hayward and Billy Connolly, with John Hurt as the Narrator. The performance, a musical benefit at London's Royal Albert Hall in aid of the deaf, was attended by Prince Andrew's then wife, the Duchess of York. \n\nIn 1991, George Harrison played on Lennon's album Help Yourself but was not directly credited. A song off the album, \"Saltwater\", reached No. 6 in the UK and topped the Australian singles charts for four weeks. Also during this time he contributed a cover of the Rolling Stones' \"Ruby Tuesday\" to the soundtrack of the television series The Wonder Years.\n\nBy the end of the year, Lennon left the music business for several years. He followed his interests in cooking, sailing, and sculpting during his leave from the music industry. After he began his performing career there was occasionally unfounded media speculation that Julian would undertake performances with Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. However, in the Beatles Anthology series in 1996, the three surviving Beatles confirmed there was never an idea of having Julian sit in for his father as part of a Beatles reunion, with McCartney saying, \"Why would we want to subject him to all of this?\"\n\nIn May 1998, Lennon released the album Photograph Smile to little commercial success. Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the album as “well-crafted and melodic,” concluding it to be “the kind of music that would receive greater praise if it weren't made by the son of a Beatle.” In 2002, he recorded a version of the Beatles' classic \"When I'm Sixty-Four\", a song from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, for an Allstate Insurance commercial.\n\nIn 2006 he ventured into Internet businesses, including MyStore.com with Todd Meagher and Bebo founder Michael Birch. In 2009 Lennon created a new partnership with Todd Meagher and Michael Birch called theRevolution, LLC. Through this company, Lennon released a tribute song and EP, \"Lucy\", honoring the memory of Lucy Vodden (nee O'Donnell), the little girl who inspired the song \"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds\", with 50 percent of the proceeds going to fund Lupus research. \n\nIn October 2011, Lennon released a new album called Everything Changes.\n\nIn 2012 Lennon worked with music film director Dick Carruthers on the feature length video documentary \"Through The Picture Window\", which followed Lennon's journey in the making of his album Everything Changes and includes interviews with Steven Tyler, Bono and Paul Buchanan from The Blue Nile. \"Through The Picture Window\" was also released as an App in all formats with bespoke videos for all 14 tracks from the album. \n\nFilm\n\nLennon's first-ever tour in early 1985 was documented as part of the film Stand By Me: A Portrait Of Julian Lennon — a film profile started by Sam Peckinpah, but completed by Martin Lewis after Peckinpah's death. Lennon has appeared in several other films including The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (1996, but shot in 1968), Cannes Man (1996), Imagine: John Lennon (1988), Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll (1987) and a cameo in Leaving Las Vegas (1995) as a bartender. Julian provided the voice for the title role in the animated film David Copperfield. He was also the voice of the main character Toby the Teapot in the animated special The Real Story of I'm a Little Teapot (1990).\n\nJulian Lennon is also the producer of the documentary called WhaleDreamers about an aboriginal tribe in Australia and its special relationship to whales. It also touches on many environmental issues. This film has received many awards and was shown at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.\n\nPhotography\n\nAfter photographing his half-brother Sean's music tour in 2007, Lennon took up a serious interest in photography.\n\nOn 17 September 2010,\n Lennon opened an exhibition of 35 photographs called \"Timeless: The Photography of Julian Lennon\" with help from long-time friend and fellow photographer Timothy White. Originally scheduled to run 17 September through 10 October, the Morrison Hotel Gallery extended it a week to end 17 October. The photographs include shots of his half-brother Sean, actress Kate Hudson, and U2 frontman Bono.\n\nOn 3 October 2010, CBS Sunday Morning aired an in-depth interview with Lennon that covered much of his life, including his relationship with his parents and sibling, his career, and his experience growing up as the son of one of the world's most famous celebrities.\n\nLennon's \"Horizons\" series is featured at the Emmanuel Fremin Gallery, NYC, 12 March – 2 May 2015. \n\nBook\n\nShortly after the death of his father, Lennon began collecting Beatles memorabilia. In 2010, he published a book of his collection, Beatles Memorabilia: The Julian Lennon Collection. \n\nCharity work\n\nLennon founded The White Feather Foundation in 2009. Its mission \"embraces environmental and humanitarian issues and in conjunction with partners from around the world helps to raise funds for the betterment of all life, and to honour those who have truly made a difference.\" Its name came from a conversation Lennon once had with his father. \"Dad once said to me that should he pass away, if there was some way of letting me know he was going to be OK – that we were all going to be OK – the message would come to me in the form of a white feather. ... the white feather has always represented peace to me.\" \n\nPersonal life\n\nLennon has been quoted as having a \"cordial\" relationship with Ono while getting along very well with her son, his half-brother Sean. Lennon saw Sean perform live for the first time in Paris on 12 November 2006 at La Boule Noire and he and Sean spent time together on Sean's tour in 2007. In commemoration of John Lennon’s 70th birthday and as a statement for peace, Lennon and his mother, Cynthia, unveiled the John Lennon Peace Monument in his home town of Liverpool, England, on 9 October 2010. \n\nLennon has been engaged twice – to socialite Lucy Bayliss and actress Olivia d'Abo - but both engagements were called off. He now resides near Monaco.\n\nLennon remains friends with his father's former bandmate, McCartney, though they experienced a public falling out in 2011 when Lennon was not invited to McCartney's wedding to Nancy Shevell. \n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\n\n;Studio albums\n\n;Compilation albums\n\nSingles\n\nOther releases\n\nDave Clark's Time: Original Soundtrack (1986)\nMike Batt's The Hunting of the Snark (1986)\nThe Wonder Years: Music From the Emmy Award-Winning Show & Its Era (1989)\nMr. Holland's Opus – Soundtrack (1996)\nLennon... and Proud of It – A Conversation with Julian Lennon (1999)\nShine On! Songs Volume One (2011)\n\nFilms\n\n; Producer:\n[http://www.whaledreamers.com/ WhaleDreamers] (2008)", "John Winston Ono Lennon, (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer and songwriter who co-founded the Beatles, the most commercially successful band in the history of popular music. With fellow member Paul McCartney, he formed a lucrative songwriting partnership.\n\nBorn and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the skiffle craze as a teenager; his first band, the Quarrymen, evolved into the Beatles in 1960. When the group disbanded in 1970, Lennon embarked on a solo career that produced the albums John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, and songs such as \"Give Peace a Chance\", \"Working Class Hero\", and \"Imagine\". After his marriage to Yoko Ono in 1969, he changed his name to John Ono Lennon. Lennon disengaged himself from the music business in 1975 to raise his infant son Sean, but re-emerged with Ono in 1980 with the new album Double Fantasy. He was murdered three weeks after its release.\n\nLennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, writing, drawings, on film and in interviews. Controversial through his political and peace activism, he moved to Manhattan in 1971, where his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a lengthy attempt by Richard Nixon's administration to deport him, while some of his songs were adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement and the larger counterculture.\n\nAs of 2012, Lennon's solo album sales in the United States exceeded 14 million and, as writer, co-writer, or performer, he is responsible for 25 number-one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. In 2002, a BBC poll on the 100 Greatest Britons voted him eighth and, in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth-greatest singer of all time. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987, and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, as a member of the Beatles in 1988 and as a solo artist in 1994. \n\nBiography\n\n194057: Early years\n\nLennon was born in war-time England, on 9 October 1940 at Liverpool Maternity Hospital, to Julia (née Stanley) and Alfred Lennon, a merchant seaman of Irish descent, who was away at the time of his son's birth. His parents named him John Winston Lennon after his paternal grandfather, John \"Jack\" Lennon, and then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill. His father was often away from home but sent regular pay cheques to 9Newcastle Road, Liverpool, where Lennon lived with his mother; the cheques stopped when he went absent without leave in February 1944. When he eventually came home six months later, he offered to look after the family, but Julia—by then pregnant with another man's child—rejected the idea. After her sister, Mimi Smith, twice complained to Liverpool's Social Services, Julia handed the care of Lennon over to her. In July 1946 Lennon's father visited Smith and took his son to Blackpool, secretly intending to emigrate to New Zealand with him. Julia followed them—with her partner at the time, 'Bobby' Dykins—and after a heated argument his father forced the five-year-old to choose between them. Lennon twice chose his father, but as his mother walked away, he began to cry and followed her. It would be 20 years before he had contact with his father again.\n\nThroughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence he lived with his aunt and uncle, Mimi and George Smith, who had no children of their own, at Mendips, 251Menlove Avenue, Woolton. His aunt purchased volumes of short stories for him, and his uncle, a dairyman at his family's farm, bought him a mouth organ and engaged him in solving puzzles. Julia visited Mendips on a regular basis, and when John was 11 years old he often visited her at 1 Blomfield Road, Liverpool, where she played him Elvis Presley records, taught him the banjo, and showed him how to play \"Ain't That a Shame\" by Fats Domino. In September 1980, Lennon commented about his family and his rebellious nature:\n\nHe regularly visited his cousin, Stanley Parkes, who lived in Fleetwood. Seven years Lennon's senior, Parkes took him on trips and to local cinemas. During the school holidays, Parkes often visited Lennon with Leila Harvey, another cousin, often travelling to Blackpool two or three times a week to watch shows. They would visit the Blackpool Tower Circus and see artists such as Dickie Valentine, Arthur Askey, Max Bygraves and Joe Loss, with Parkes recalling that Lennon particularly liked George Formby. After Parkes's family moved to Scotland, the three cousins often spent their school holidays together there. Parkes recalled, \"John, cousin Leila and I were very close. From Edinburgh we would drive up to the family croft at Durness, which was from about the time John was nine years old until he was about 16.\" He was 14 years old when his uncle George died of a liver haemorrhage on 5 June 1955 (aged 52).\n\nLennon was raised as an Anglican and attended Dovedale Primary School. From September 1952 to 1957, after passing his Eleven-Plus exam, he attended Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool, and was described by Harvey at the time as, \"A happy-go-lucky, good-humoured, easy going, lively lad.\" He often drew comical cartoons which appeared in his own self-made school magazine called The Daily Howl, but despite his artistic talent, his school reports were damning: \"Certainly on the road to failure ... hopeless ... rather a clown in class ... wasting other pupils' time.\"\n\nHis mother bought him his first guitar in 1956, an inexpensive Gallotone Champion acoustic for which she \"lent\" her son five pounds and ten shillings on the condition that the guitar be delivered to her own house, and not Mimi's, knowing well that her sister was not supportive of her son's musical aspirations. As Mimi was sceptical of his claim that he would be famous one day, she hoped he would grow bored with music, often telling him, \"The guitar's all very well, John, but you'll never make a living out of it\". On 15 July 1958, when Lennon was 17 years old, his mother, walking home after visiting the Smiths' house, was struck by a car and killed.\n\nLennon failed all his GCE O-level examinations, and was accepted into the Liverpool College of Art only after his aunt and headmaster intervened. Once at the college, he started wearing Teddy Boy clothes and acquired a reputation for disrupting classes and ridiculing teachers. As a result, he was excluded from the painting class, then the graphic arts course, and was threatened with expulsion for his behaviour, which included sitting on a nude model's lap during a life drawing class. He failed an annual exam, despite help from fellow student and future wife Cynthia Powell, and was \"thrown out of the college before his final year\".\n\n195770: The Quarrymen to the Beatles\n\n195766: Formation, commercial break-out and touring years\n\nAt age 15, Lennon formed the skiffle group, the Quarrymen. Named after Quarry Bank High School, the group was established by him in September 1956. By the summer of 1957, the Quarrymen played a \"spirited set of songs\" made up of half skiffle and half rock and roll. Lennon first met Paul McCartney at the Quarrymen's second performance, held in Woolton on 6 July at the St. Peter's Church garden fête, after which he asked McCartney to join the band.\n\nMcCartney says that Aunt Mimi \"was very aware that John's friends were lower class\", and would often patronise him when he arrived to visit Lennon. According to Paul's brother Mike, McCartney's father was also disapproving, declaring Lennon would get his son \"into trouble\", although he later allowed the fledgling band to rehearse in the McCartneys' front room at 20Forthlin Road. During this time, the 18-year-old Lennon wrote his first song, \"Hello Little Girl\", a UK top 10 hit for The Fourmost nearly five years later.\n\nMcCartney suggested his friend George Harrison as the lead guitarist. Lennon thought Harrison (then 14 years old) was too young. McCartney engineered an audition on the upper deck of a Liverpool bus, where Harrison played \"Raunchy\" for Lennon and was asked to join. Stuart Sutcliffe, Lennon's friend from art school, later joined as bassist. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Sutcliffe became \"The Beatles\" in early 1960. In August that year, the Beatles engaged for a 48-night residency in Hamburg, Germany, and desperately in need of a drummer, asked Pete Best to join them. Lennon was now 19, and his aunt, horrified when he told her about the trip, pleaded with him to continue his art studies instead. After the first Hamburg residency, the band accepted another in April 1961, and a third in April 1962. Like the other band members, Lennon was introduced to Preludin while in Hamburg, and regularly took the drug, as well as amphetamines, as a stimulant during their long, overnight performances.\n\nBrian Epstein, the Beatles' manager from 1962, had no prior experience of artist management, but had a strong influence on their early dress code and attitude on stage. Lennon initially resisted his attempts to encourage the band to present a professional appearance, but eventually complied, saying, \"I'll wear a bloody balloon if somebody's going to pay me\". McCartney took over on bass after Sutcliffe decided to stay in Hamburg, and drummer Ringo Starr replaced Best, completing the four-piece line-up that would endure until the group's break-up in 1970. The band's first single, \"Love Me Do\", was released in October 1962 and reached No. 17 on the British charts. They recorded their debut album, Please Please Me, in under 10 hours on 11 February 1963, a day when Lennon was suffering the effects of a cold, which is evident in the vocal on the last song to be recorded that day, \"Twist and Shout\". The Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership yielded eight of its fourteen tracks. With few exceptions—one being the album title itself—Lennon had yet to bring his love of wordplay to bear on his song lyrics, saying: \"We were just writing songs... pop songs with no more thought of them than that—to create a sound. And the words were almost irrelevant\". In a 1987 interview, McCartney said that the other Beatles idolised John: \"He was like our own little Elvis... We all looked up to John. He was older and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the smartest.\"\n\nThe Beatles achieved mainstream success in the UK during the beginning of 1963. Lennon was on tour when his first son, Julian, was born in April. During their Royal Variety Show performance, attended by the Queen Mother and other British royalty, Lennon poked fun at his audience: \"For our next song, I'd like to ask for your help. For the people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands... and the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewellery.\" After a year of Beatlemania in the UK, the group's historic February 1964 US debut appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show marked their breakthrough to international stardom. A two-year period of constant touring, moviemaking, and songwriting followed, during which Lennon wrote two books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works. The Beatles received recognition from the British Establishment when they were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1965 Queen's Birthday Honours.\n\nLennon grew concerned that fans attending Beatles concerts were unable to hear the music above the screaming of fans, and that the band's musicianship was beginning to suffer as a result. Lennon's \"Help!\" expressed his own feelings in 1965: \"I meant it... It was me singing 'help'\". He had put on weight (he would later refer to this as his \"Fat Elvis\" period), and felt he was subconsciously seeking change. In March that year he was unknowingly introduced to LSD when a dentist, hosting a dinner party attended by Lennon, Harrison and their wives, spiked the guests' coffee with the drug. When they wanted to leave, their host revealed what they had taken, and strongly advised them not to leave the house because of the likely effects. Later, in an elevator at a nightclub, they all believed it was on fire: \"We were all screaming... hot and hysterical.\"\n In March 1966, during an interview with Evening Standard reporter Maureen Cleave, Lennon remarked, \"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink... We're more popular than Jesus now—I don't know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity.\" The comment went virtually unnoticed in England but caused great offence in the US when quoted by a magazine there five months later. The furore that followed—burning of Beatles records, Ku Klux Klan activity and threats against Lennon—contributed to the band's decision to stop touring.\n\n196770: Studio years, break-up and solo work\n\nDeprived of the routine of live performances after their final commercial concert on 29 August 1966, Lennon felt lost and considered leaving the band. Since his involuntary introduction to LSD, he had made increasing use of the drug, and was almost constantly under its influence for much of 1967. According to biographer Ian MacDonald, Lennon's continuous experience with LSD during the year brought him \"close to erasing his identity\". 1967 saw the release of \"Strawberry Fields Forever\", hailed by Time magazine for its \"astonishing inventiveness\", and the group's landmark album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which revealed Lennon's lyrics contrasting strongly with the simple love songs of the Lennon–McCartney's early years.\n\nIn August, after having been introduced to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the group attended a weekend of personal instruction at his Transcendental Meditation seminar in Bangor, Wales, and were informed of Epstein's death during the seminar. \"I knew we were in trouble then\", Lennon said later. \"I didn't have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music, and I was scared\". Led primarily by Harrison and Lennon's interest in Eastern religion, the Beatles later travelled to Maharishi's ashram in India for further guidance. While there, they composed most of the songs for The Beatles and Abbey Road.\n\nThe anti-war, black comedy How I Won the War, featuring Lennon's only appearance in a non–Beatles full-length film, was shown in cinemas in October 1967. McCartney organised the group's first post-Epstein project, the self-written, -produced and -directed television film Magical Mystery Tour, released in December that year. While the film itself proved to be their first critical flop, its soundtrack release, featuring Lennon's acclaimed, Lewis Carroll-inspired \"I Am the Walrus\", was a success. With Epstein gone, the band members became increasingly involved in business activities, and in February 1968 they formed Apple Corps, a multimedia corporation composed of Apple Records and several other subsidiary companies. Lennon described the venture as an attempt to achieve, \"artistic freedom within a business structure\", but his increased drug experimentation and growing preoccupation with Yoko Ono, and McCartney's own marriage plans, left Apple in need of professional management. Lennon asked Lord Beeching to take on the role, but he declined, advising Lennon to go back to making records. Lennon approached Allen Klein, who had managed The Rolling Stones and other bands during the British Invasion. Klein was appointed as Apple's chief executive by Lennon, Harrison and Starr, but McCartney never signed the management contract.\n\nAt the end of 1968, Lennon was featured in the film The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (not released until 1996) in the role of a Dirty Mac band member. The supergroup, composed of Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell, also backed a vocal performance by Ono in the film. Lennon and Ono were married on 20 March 1969, and soon released a series of 14 lithographs called \"Bag One\" depicting scenes from their honeymoon, eight of which were deemed indecent and most of which were banned and confiscated. Lennon's creative focus continued to move beyond the Beatles and between 1968 and 1969 he and Ono recorded three albums of experimental music together: Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins (known more for its cover than for its music), Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions and Wedding Album. In 1969, they formed the Plastic Ono Band, releasing Live Peace in Toronto 1969. Between 1969 and 1970, Lennon released the singles \"Give Peace a Chance\" (widely adopted as an anti-Vietnam-War anthem in 1969), \"Cold Turkey\" (documenting his withdrawal symptoms after he became addicted to heroin) and \"Instant Karma!\" In protest at Britain's involvement in the Nigerian Civil War, its support of America in the Vietnam war and (perhaps jokingly) against \"Cold Turkey\" slipping down the charts, Lennon returned his MBE medal to the Queen, though this had no effect on his MBE status, which could not be renounced.\n\nLennon left the Beatles in September 1969, and agreed not to inform the media while the group renegotiated their recording contract, but he was outraged that McCartney publicised his own departure on releasing his debut solo album in April 1970. Lennon's reaction was, \"Jesus Christ! He gets all the credit for it!\" He later wrote, \"I started the band. I disbanded it. It's as simple as that.\" In later interviews with Rolling Stone magazine, he revealed his bitterness towards McCartney, saying, \"I was a fool not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record.\" He spoke too of the hostility he perceived the other members had towards Ono, and of how he, Harrison, and Starr \"got fed up with being sidemen for Paul ... After Brian Epstein died we collapsed. Paul took over and supposedly led us. But what is leading us when we went round in circles?\"\n\n197080: Solo career\n\n197072: Initial solo success and activism\n\nIn 1970, Lennon and Ono went through primal therapy with Arthur Janov in Los Angeles, California. Designed to release emotional pain from early childhood, the therapy entailed two half-days a week with Janov for four months; he had wanted to treat the couple for longer, but they felt no need to continue and returned to London. Lennon's emotional debut solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970), was received with high praise. Critic Greil Marcus remarked, \"John's singing in the last verse of 'God' may be the finest in all of rock.\" The album featured the songs \"Mother\", in which Lennon confronted his feelings of childhood rejection, and the Dylanesque \"Working Class Hero\", a bitter attack against the bourgeois social system which, due to the lyric \"you're still fucking peasants\", fell foul of broadcasters. The same year, Tariq Ali's revolutionary political views, expressed when he interviewed Lennon, inspired the singer to write \"Power to the People\". Lennon also became involved with Ali during a protest against Oz magazine's prosecution for alleged obscenity. Lennon denounced the proceedings as \"disgusting fascism\", and he and Ono (as Elastic Oz Band) released the single \"God Save Us/Do the Oz\" and joined marches in support of the magazine.\n\nWith Lennon's next album, Imagine (1971), critical response was more guarded. Rolling Stone reported that \"it contains a substantial portion of good music\" but warned of the possibility that \"his posturings will soon seem not merely dull but irrelevant\". The album's title track would become an anthem for anti-war movements, while another, \"How Do You Sleep?\", was a musical attack on McCartney in response to lyrics from Ram that Lennon felt, and McCartney later confirmed, were directed at him and Ono. However, Lennon softened his stance in the mid-1970s and said he had written \"How Do You Sleep?\" about himself. He said in 1980: \"I used my resentment against Paul… to create a song… not a terrible vicious horrible vendetta[…] I used my resentment and withdrawing from Paul and the Beatles, and the relationship with Paul, to write 'How Do You Sleep'. I don't really go 'round with those thoughts in my head all the time.\"\n\nLennon and Ono moved to New York in August 1971, and in December released \"Happy Xmas (War Is Over)\". The new year saw the Nixon administration take what it called a \"strategic counter-measure\" against Lennon's anti-war and anti-Nixon propaganda, embarking on what would be a four-year attempt to deport him. In 1972, Lennon and Ono attended a post-election wake held in the New York home of activist Jerry Rubin after McGovern lost to Nixon. Embroiled in a continuing legal battle with the immigration authorities, Lennon was denied permanent residency in the US (which wouldn't be resolved until 1976). Depressed, Lennon got intoxicated and had sex with a female guest, leaving Ono embarrassed. Her song \"Death of Samantha\" was inspired by the incident. \n\nRecorded as a collaboration with Ono and with backing from the New York band Elephant's Memory, Some Time in New York City was released in 1972. Containing songs about women's rights, race relations, Britain's role in Northern Ireland and Lennon's problems obtaining a green card, the album was poorly received—unlistenable, according to one critic. \"Woman Is the Nigger of the World\", released as a US single from the album the same year, was televised on 11 May, on The Dick Cavett Show. Many radio stations refused to broadcast the song because of the word \"nigger\". Lennon and Ono gave two benefit concerts with Elephant's Memory and guests in New York in aid of patients at the Willowbrook State School mental facility. Staged at Madison Square Garden on 30 August 1972, they were his last full-length concert appearances.\n\n197375: \"Lost weekend\"\n\nWhile Lennon was recording Mind Games (1973), he and Ono decided to separate. The ensuing 18-month period apart, which he later called his \"lost weekend\", was spent in Los Angeles and New York in the company of May Pang. Mind Games, credited to the \"Plastic U.F.Ono Band\", was released in November 1973. Lennon also contributed \"I'm the Greatest\" to Starr's album Ringo (1973), released the same month (an alternate take, from the same 1973 Ringo sessions, with Lennon providing a guide vocal, appears on John Lennon Anthology).\n\nIn early 1974, Lennon was drinking heavily and his alcohol-fuelled antics with Harry Nilsson made headlines. Two widely publicised incidents occurred at The Troubadour club in March, the first when Lennon placed a menstrual pad on his forehead and scuffled with a waitress, and the second, two weeks later, when Lennon and Nilsson were ejected from the same club after heckling the Smothers Brothers. Lennon decided to produce Nilsson's album Pussy Cats and Pang rented a Los Angeles beach house for all the musicians but after a month of further debauchery, with the recording sessions in chaos, Lennon moved to New York with Pang to finish work on the album. In April, Lennon had produced the Mick Jagger song \"Too Many Cooks (Spoil the Soup)\" which was, for contractual reasons, to remain unreleased for more than 30 years. Pang supplied the recording for its eventual inclusion on The Very Best of Mick Jagger (2007). \n\nSettled back in New York, Lennon recorded the album Walls and Bridges. Released in October 1974, it included \"Whatever Gets You thru the Night\", which featured Elton John on backing vocals and piano, and became Lennon's only single as a solo artist to top the US Billboard Hot 100 chart during his lifetime. A second single from the album, \"#9 Dream\", followed before the end of the year. Starr's Goodnight Vienna (1974) again saw assistance from Lennon, who wrote the title track and played piano. On 28 November, Lennon made a surprise guest appearance at Elton John's Thanksgiving concert at Madison Square Garden, in fulfilment of his promise to join the singer in a live show if \"Whatever Gets You thru the Night\"—a song whose commercial potential Lennon had doubted—reached number one. Lennon performed the song along with \"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds\" and \"I Saw Her Standing There\", which he introduced as \"a song by an old estranged fiancée of mine called Paul\".\n\nLennon co-wrote \"Fame\", David Bowie's first US number one, and provided guitar and backing vocals for the January 1975 recording. The same month, Elton John topped the charts with his cover of \"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds\", featuring Lennon on guitar and back-up vocals (Lennon is credited on the single under the moniker of \"Dr. Winston O'Boogie\"). He and Ono were reunited shortly afterwards. Lennon released Rock 'n' Roll (1975), an album of cover songs, in February. \"Stand by Me\", taken from the album and a US and UK hit, became his last single for five years. He made what would be his final stage appearance in the ATV special A Salute to Lew Grade, recorded on 18 April and televised in June. Playing acoustic guitar and backed by an eight-piece band, Lennon performed two songs from Rock 'n' Roll (\"Stand by Me\", which was not broadcast, and \"Slippin' and Slidin'\") followed by \"Imagine\". The band, known as Etc., wore masks behind their heads, a dig by Lennon who thought Grade was two-faced. \n\n197580: Retirement and return\n\nWith the birth of his second son Sean on 9 October 1975, Lennon took on the role of househusband, beginning what would be a five-year hiatus from the music industry during which he gave all his attention to his family. Within the month, he fulfilled his contractual obligation to EMI/Capitol for one more album by releasing Shaved Fish, a compilation album of previously recorded tracks. He devoted himself to Sean, rising at 6am daily to plan and prepare his meals and to spend time with him. He wrote \"Cookin' (In the Kitchen of Love)\" for Starr's Ringo's Rotogravure (1976), performing on the track in June in what would be his last recording session until 1980. He formally announced his break from music in Tokyo in 1977, saying, \"we have basically decided, without any great decision, to be with our baby as much as we can until we feel we can take time off to indulge ourselves in creating things outside of the family.\" During his career break he created several series of drawings, and drafted a book containing a mix of autobiographical material and what he termed \"mad stuff\", all of which would be published posthumously.\n\nLennon emerged from retirement in October 1980 with the single \"(Just Like) Starting Over\", followed the next month by the album Double Fantasy, which contained songs written during a journey to Bermuda on a 43-foot sailing boat the previous June, that reflected his fulfilment in his new-found stable family life. Sufficient additional material was recorded for a planned follow-up album Milk and Honey (released posthumously in 1984). Released jointly by Lennon and Ono, Double Fantasy was not well received, drawing comments such as Melody Makers \"indulgent sterility... a godawful yawn\".\n\n8 December 1980: Death\n\nAt around 10:50p.m. (EST) on 8 December 1980, as Lennon and Ono returned to their New York apartment in the Dakota, Mark David Chapman shot Lennon in the back four times at the entrance to the building. Lennon was taken to the emergency room of nearby Roosevelt Hospital and was pronounced dead on arrival at 11:00p.m. (EST). Earlier that evening, Lennon had autographed a copy of Double Fantasy for Chapman.\n\nOno issued a statement the next day, saying \"There is no funeral for John\", ending it with the words, \"John loved and prayed for the human race. Please pray the same for him.\" His body was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Ono scattered his ashes in New York's Central Park, where the Strawberry Fields memorial was later created. Chapman pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20-years-to-life. , he remains in prison, having been denied parole eight times. \n\nPersonal relationships\n\nCynthia Lennon\n\nLennon and Cynthia Powell (19392015) met in 1957 as fellow students at the Liverpool College of Art. Although being scared of Lennon's attitude and appearance, she heard that he was obsessed with French actress Brigitte Bardot, so she dyed her hair blonde. Lennon asked her out, but when she said that she was engaged, he screamed out, \"I didn't ask you to fuckin' marry me, did I?\" She often accompanied him to Quarrymen gigs and travelled to Hamburg with McCartney's girlfriend at the time to visit him. Lennon, jealous by nature, eventually grew possessive and often terrified Powell with his anger and physical violence. Lennon later said that until he met Ono, he had never questioned his chauvinistic attitude to women. The Beatles song \"Getting Better\", he said, told his own story, \"I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically—any woman. I was a hitter. I couldn't express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace\".\n\nRecalling his reaction in July 1962 on learning that Cynthia was pregnant, Lennon said, \"There's only one thing for it Cyn. We'll have to get married.\" The couple were married on 23 August at the Mount Pleasant Register Office in Liverpool. His marriage began just as Beatlemania took hold across the UK. He performed on the evening of his wedding day, and would continue to do so almost daily from then on. Epstein, fearing that fans would be alienated by the idea of a married Beatle, asked the Lennons to keep their marriage secret. Julian was born on 8 April 1963; Lennon was on tour at the time and did not see his son until three days later.\n\nCynthia attributed the start of the marriage breakdown to LSD, and as a result, she felt that he slowly lost interest in her. When the group travelled by train to Bangor, Wales, in 1967, for the Maharishi Yogi's Transcendental Meditation seminar, a policeman did not recognise her and stopped her from boarding. She later recalled how the incident seemed to symbolise the ending of their marriage. After arriving home at Kenwood, and finding Lennon with Ono, Cynthia left the house to stay with friends. Alexis Mardas later claimed to have slept with her that night, and a few weeks later he informed her that Lennon was seeking a divorce and custody of Julian on grounds of her adultery with him. After negotiations, Lennon capitulated and agreed to her divorcing him on the same grounds. The case was settled out of court in November 1968, with Lennon giving her £100,000 ($240,000 in US dollars at the time), a small annual payment and custody of Julian.\n\nBrian Epstein\n\nThe Beatles were performing at Liverpool's Cavern Club in November 1961, when they were introduced to Epstein after a midday concert. Epstein was homosexual. According to biographer Philip Norman, one of his reasons for wanting to manage the group was that he was physically attracted to Lennon. Almost as soon as Julian was born, Lennon went on holiday to Spain with Epstein, leading to speculation about their relationship. Questioned about it later, Lennon said, \"Well, it was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was never consummated. But it was a pretty intense relationship. It was my first experience with a homosexual that I was conscious was homosexual. We used to sit in a café in Torremolinos looking at all the boys and I'd say, 'Do you like that one? Do you like this one?' I was rather enjoying the experience, thinking like a writer all the time: I am experiencing this.\" Soon after their return from Spain, at McCartney's twenty-first birthday party in June 1963, Lennon physically attacked Cavern Club MC Bob Wooler for saying \"How was your honeymoon, John?\" The MC, known for his wordplay and affectionate but cutting remarks, was making a joke, but ten months had passed since Lennon's marriage, and the honeymoon, deferred, was still two months in the future. To Lennon, who was intoxicated with alcohol at the time, the matter was simple: \"He called me a queer so I battered his bloody ribs in\".\n\nLennon delighted in mocking Epstein for his homosexuality and for the fact that he was Jewish. When Epstein invited suggestions for the title of his autobiography, Lennon offered Queer Jew; on learning of the eventual title, A Cellarful of Noise, he parodied, \"More like A Cellarful of Boys\". He demanded of a visitor to Epstein's flat, \"Have you come to blackmail him? If not, you're the only bugger in London who hasn't.\" During the recording of \"Baby, You're a Rich Man\", he sang altered choruses of \"Baby, you're a rich fag Jew\".\n\nJulian Lennon\n\nLennon's first son, Julian, was born as his commitments with the Beatles intensified at the height of Beatlemania during his marriage to Cynthia. Lennon was touring with the Beatles when Julian was born on 8 April 1963. Julian's birth, like his mother Cynthia's marriage to Lennon, was kept secret because Epstein was convinced public knowledge of such things would threaten the Beatles' commercial success. Julian recalls how some four years later, as a small child in Weybridge, \"I was trundled home from school and came walking up with one of my watercolour paintings. It was just a bunch of stars and this blonde girl I knew at school. And Dad said, 'What's this?' I said, 'It's Lucy in the sky with diamonds.'\" Lennon used it as the title of a Beatles song, and though it was later reported to have been derived from the initials LSD, Lennon insisted, \"It's not an acid song.\" McCartney corroborated Lennon's explanation that Julian innocently came up with the name. Lennon was distant from Julian, who felt closer to McCartney than to his father. During a car journey to visit Cynthia and Julian during Lennon's divorce, McCartney composed a song, \"Hey Jules\", to comfort him. It would evolve into the Beatles song \"Hey Jude\". Lennon later said, \"That's his best song. It started off as a song about my son Julian... he turned it into 'Hey Jude'. I always thought it was about me and Yoko but he said it wasn't.\"\n\nLennon's relationship with Julian was already strained, and after Lennon and Ono's 1971 move to New York, Julian would not see his father again until 1973. With Pang's encouragement, it was arranged for him (and his mother) to visit Lennon in Los Angeles, where they went to Disneyland. Julian started to see his father regularly, and Lennon gave him a drumming part on a Walls and Bridges track. He bought Julian a Gibson Les Paul guitar and other instruments, and encouraged his interest in music by demonstrating guitar chord techniques. Julian recalls that he and his father \"got on a great deal better\" during the time he spent in New York: \"We had a lot of fun, laughed a lot and had a great time in general.\"\n\nIn a Playboy interview with David Sheff shortly before his death, Lennon said, \"Sean was a planned child, and therein lies the difference. I don't love Julian any less as a child. He's still my son, whether he came from a bottle of whiskey or because they didn't have pills in those days. He's here, he belongs to me, and he always will.\" He said he was trying to re-establish a connection with the then 17-year-old, and confidently predicted, \"Julian and I will have a relationship in the future.\" After his death it was revealed that he had left Julian very little in his will.\n\nYoko Ono\n\nTwo versions exist of how Lennon met Ono. According to the first, told by the Lennons, on 9 November 1966 Lennon went to the Indica Gallery in London, where Ono was preparing her conceptual art exhibit, and they were introduced by gallery owner John Dunbar. Lennon was intrigued by Ono's \"Hammer A Nail\": patrons hammered a nail into a wooden board, creating the art piece. Although the exhibition had not yet begun, Lennon wanted to hammer a nail into the clean board, but Ono stopped him. Dunbar asked her, \"Don't you know who this is? He's a millionaire! He might buy it.\" Ono had supposedly not heard of the Beatles, but relented on condition that Lennon pay her five shillings, to which Lennon replied, \"I'll give you an imaginary five shillings and hammer an imaginary nail in.\" The second version, told by McCartney, is that in late 1965, Ono was in London compiling original musical scores for a book John Cage was working on, Notations, but McCartney declined to give her any of his own manuscripts for the book, suggesting that Lennon might oblige. When asked, Lennon gave Ono the original handwritten lyrics to \"The Word\".\n\nOno began visiting and telephoning Lennon's home and, when his wife asked for an explanation, Lennon explained that Ono was only trying to obtain money for her \"avant-garde bullshit\". In May 1968, while his wife was on holiday in Greece, Lennon invited Ono to visit. They spent the night recording what would become the Two Virgins album, after which, he said, they \"made love at dawn.\" When Lennon's wife returned home she found Ono wearing her bathrobe and drinking tea with Lennon who simply said, \"Oh, hi.\" Ono became pregnant in 1968 and miscarried a male child they named John Ono LennonII on 21 November 1968, a few weeks after Lennon's divorce from Cynthia was granted.\n\nDuring Lennon's last two years in the Beatles, he and Ono began public protests against the Vietnam War. They were married in Gibraltar on 20 March 1969, and spent their honeymoon at the Hilton Amsterdam campaigning with a week-long Bed-In for Peace. They planned another Bed-In in the United States, but were denied entry, so held one instead at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, where they recorded \"Give Peace a Chance\". They often combined advocacy with performance art, as in their \"Bagism\", first introduced during a Vienna press conference. Lennon detailed this period in the Beatles song \"The Ballad of John and Yoko\". Lennon changed his name by deed poll on 22 April 1969, adding \"Ono\" as a middle name. The brief ceremony took place on the roof of the Apple Corps building, made famous three months earlier by the Beatles' Let It Be rooftop concert. Although he used the name John Ono Lennon thereafter, official documents referred to him as John Winston Ono Lennon, since he was not permitted to revoke a name given at birth. The couple settled at Tittenhurst Park at Sunninghill in Berkshire. After Ono was injured in a car accident, Lennon arranged for a king-sized bed to be brought to the recording studio as he worked on the Beatles' last album, Abbey Road. To escape the acrimony of the band's break-up, Ono suggested they move permanently to New York, which they did on 31 August 1971.\n\nThey first lived in The St. Regis Hotel on 5th Avenue, East 55th Street, then moved to a street-level flat at 105 Bank Street, Greenwich Village, on 16 October 1971. After a robbery, they relocated to the more secure Dakota at 1West72nd Street, in 1973. \n\nMay Pang\n\nABKCO Industries, formed in 1968 by Allen Klein as an umbrella company to ABKCO Records, recruited May Pang as a receptionist in 1969. Through involvement in a project with ABKCO, Lennon and Ono met her the following year. She became their personal assistant. After she had been working with the couple for three years, Ono confided that she and Lennon were becoming estranged from one another. She went on to suggest that Pang should begin a physical relationship with Lennon, telling her, \"He likes you a lot.\" Pang, 22, astounded by Ono's proposition, eventually agreed to become Lennon's companion. The pair soon moved to California, beginning an 18-month period he later called his \"lost weekend\". In Los Angeles, Pang encouraged Lennon to develop regular contact with Julian, whom he had not seen for two years. He also rekindled friendships with Starr, McCartney, Beatles roadie Mal Evans, and Harry Nilsson. Whilst drinking with Nilsson, after misunderstanding something Pang said, Lennon attempted to strangle her, relenting only when physically restrained by Nilsson.\n\nUpon returning to New York, they prepared a spare room in their newly rented apartment for Julian to visit. Lennon, hitherto inhibited by Ono in this regard, began to reestablish contact with other relatives and friends. By December he and Pang were considering a house purchase, and he was refusing to accept Ono's telephone calls. In January 1975, he agreed to meet Ono who claimed to have found a cure for smoking. But after the meeting he failed to return home or call Pang. When Pang telephoned the next day, Ono told her Lennon was unavailable, being exhausted after a hypnotherapy session. Two days later, Lennon reappeared at a joint dental appointment, stupefied and confused to such an extent that Pang believed he had been brainwashed. He told her his separation from Ono was now over, though Ono would allow him to continue seeing her as his mistress.\n\nSean Lennon\n\nWhen Lennon and Ono were reunited, she became pregnant, but having previously suffered three miscarriages in her attempt to have a child with Lennon, she said she wanted an abortion. She agreed to allow the pregnancy to continue on condition that Lennon adopt the role of househusband; this he agreed to do. Sean was born on 9 October 1975, Lennon's 35th birthday, delivered by Caesarean section. Lennon's subsequent career break would span five years. He had a photographer take pictures of Sean every day of his first year, and created numerous drawings for him, posthumously published as Real Love: The Drawings for Sean. Lennon later proudly declared, \"He didn't come out of my belly but, by God, I made his bones, because I've attended to every meal, and to how he sleeps, and to the fact that he swims like a fish.\"\n\nFormer Beatles\n\nAlthough his friendship with Starr remained consistently friendly during the years following the Beatles' break-up in 1970, Lennon's relationships with McCartney and Harrison varied. He was close to Harrison initially, but the two drifted apart after Lennon moved to America. When Harrison was in New York for his December 1974 Dark Horse tour, Lennon agreed to join him on stage, but failed to appear after an argument over Lennon's refusal to sign an agreement that would finally dissolve the Beatles' legal partnership. (Lennon eventually signed the papers while holidaying in Florida with Pang and Julian.) Harrison offended Lennon in 1980, when he published an autobiography that made little mention of him. Lennon told Playboy, \"I was hurt by it. By glaring omission... my influence on his life is absolutely zilch... he remembers every two-bit sax player or guitarist he met in subsequent years. I'm not in the book.\"\n\nLennon's most intense feelings were reserved for McCartney. In addition to attacking him through the lyrics of \"How Do You Sleep?\", Lennon argued with him through the press for three years after the group split. The two later began to reestablish something of the close friendship they had once known, and in 1974, they even played music together again before eventually growing apart once more. Lennon said that during McCartney's final visit, in April 1976, they watched the episode of Saturday Night Live in which Lorne Michaels made a $3,000 cash offer to get the Beatles to reunite on the show. The pair considered going to the studio to make a joke appearance, attempting to claim their share of the money, but were too tired. Lennon summarised his feelings towards McCartney in an interview three days before his death: \"Throughout my career, I've selected to work with... only two people: Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono... That ain't bad picking.\"\n\nAlong with his estrangement from McCartney, Lennon always felt a musical competitiveness with him and kept an ear on his music. During his five-year career break he was content to sit back so long as McCartney was producing what Lennon saw as mediocre material. When McCartney released \"Coming Up\", in 1980, the year Lennon returned to the studio and the last year of his life, he took notice. \"It's driving me crackers!\" he jokingly complained, because he could not get the tune out of his head. Asked the same year whether the group were dreaded enemies or the best of friends, he replied that they were neither, and that he had not seen any of them in a long time. But he also said, \"I still love those guys. The Beatles are over, but John, Paul, George and Ringo go on.\"\n\nPolitical activism\n\nLennon and Ono used their honeymoon as what they termed a \"Bed-In for Peace\" at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel; the March 1969 event attracted worldwide media ridicule. At a second Bed-In three months later at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal Lennon wrote and recorded \"Give Peace a Chance\". Released as a single, it was quickly taken up as an anti-war anthem and sung by a quarter of a million demonstrators against the Vietnam War in Washington, DC, on 15 November, the second Vietnam Moratorium Day. In December, they paid for billboards in 10 cities around the world which declared, in the national language, \"War Is Over! If You Want It\". \n\nLater that year, Lennon and Ono supported efforts by the family of James Hanratty, hanged for murder in 1962, to prove his innocence. Those who had condemned Hanratty were, according to Lennon, \"the same people who are running guns to South Africa and killing blacks in the streets. ... The same bastards are in control, the same people are running everything, it's the whole bullshit bourgeois scene.\" In London, Lennon and Ono staged a \"Britain Murdered Hanratty\" banner march and a \"Silent Protest For James Hanratty\", and produced a 40-minute documentary on the case. At an appeal hearing years later, Hanratty's conviction was upheld after DNA evidence matched. His family continued to appeal in 2010. \n\nLennon and Ono showed their solidarity with the Clydeside UCS workers' work-in of 1971 by sending a bouquet of red roses and a cheque for £5,000. On moving to New York City in August that year, they befriended two of the Chicago Seven, Yippie peace activists Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. Another political activist, John Sinclair, poet and co-founder of the White Panther Party, was serving ten years in prison for selling two joints of marijuana after previous convictions for possession of the drug. In December 1971 at Ann Arbor, Michigan, 15,000 people attended the \"John Sinclair Freedom Rally\", a protest and benefit concert with contributions from Lennon, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger, Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party, and others. Lennon and Ono, backed by David Peel and Rubin, performed an acoustic set of four songs from their forthcoming Some Time in New York City album including \"John Sinclair\", whose lyrics called for his release. The day before the rally, the Michigan Senate passed a bill that significantly reduced the penalties for possession of marijuana and four days later Sinclair was released on an appeal bond. The performance was recorded and two of the tracks later appeared on John Lennon Anthology (1998).\n\nFollowing the Bloody Sunday incident in Northern Ireland in 1972, in which 14 unarmed civil rights protesters were shot dead by the British Army, Lennon said that given the choice between the army and the IRA (who were not involved in the incident) he would side with the latter. Lennon and Ono wrote two songs protesting British presence and actions in Ireland for their Some Time in New York City album: \"Luck of the Irish\" and \"Sunday Bloody Sunday\". In 2000, David Shayler, a former member of Britain's domestic security service MI5, suggested that Lennon had given money to the IRA, though this was swiftly denied by Ono. Biographer Bill Harry records that following Bloody Sunday, Lennon and Ono financially supported the production of the film The Irish Tapes, a political documentary with a Republican slant.\n\nAccording to FBI surveillance reports (and confirmed by Tariq Ali in 2006) Lennon was sympathetic to the International Marxist Group, a Trotskyist group formed in Britain in 1968. However, the FBI considered Lennon to have limited effectiveness as a revolutionary since he was \"constantly under the influence of narcotics\".\n\nIn 1973, Lennon contributed a limerick called \"Why Make It Sad To Be Gay?\" to Len Richmond's The Gay Liberation Book. \n\nLennon's last act of political activism was a statement in support of the striking minority sanitation workers in San Francisco on 5 December 1980. He and Ono planned to join the workers' protest on 14 December. By this time, however, Lennon had also quietly renounced the counterculture views which he had helped promote during the 1960s and 1970s and became more aligned with conservatism, though whether he had actually aligned to a more conservative world view is disputed. \n\nDeportation attempt\n\nFollowing the impact of \"Give Peace a Chance\" and \"Happy Xmas (War Is Over)\", both strongly associated with the anti–Vietnam War movement, the Nixon administration, hearing rumours of Lennon's involvement in a concert to be held in San Diego at the same time as the Republican National Convention, tried to have him deported. Nixon believed that Lennon's anti-war activities could cost him his re-election; Republican Senator Strom Thurmond suggested in a February 1972 memo that \"deportation would be a strategic counter-measure\" against Lennon. The next month the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) began deportation proceedings, arguing that his 1968 misdemeanor conviction for cannabis possession in London had made him ineligible for admission to the United States. Lennon spent the next three and a half years in and out of deportation hearings until 8 October 1975, when a court of appeals barred the deportation attempt, stating \"... the courts will not condone selective deportation based upon secret political grounds.\" While the legal battle continued, Lennon attended rallies and made television appearances. Lennon and Ono co-hosted The Mike Douglas Show for a week in February 1972, introducing guests such as Jerry Rubin and Bobby Seale to mid-America. In 1972, Bob Dylan wrote a letter to the INS defending Lennon, stating:\n\nJohn and Yoko add a great voice and drive to the country's so-called art institution. They inspire and transcend and stimulate and by doing so, only help others to see pure light and in doing that, put an end to this dull taste of petty commercialism which is being passed off as Artist Art by the overpowering mass media. Hurray for John and Yoko. Let them stay and live here and breathe. The country's got plenty of room and space. Let John and Yoko stay! \n\nOn 23 March 1973, Lennon was ordered to leave the US within 60 days. Ono, meanwhile, was granted permanent residence. In response, Lennon and Ono held a press conference on 1 April 1973 at the New York City Bar Association, where they announced the formation of the state of Nutopia; a place with \"no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people\". Waving the white flag of Nutopia (two handkerchiefs), they asked for political asylum in the US. The press conference was filmed, and would later appear in the 2006 documentary The US vs. John Lennon. Lennon's Mind Games (1973) included the track \"Nutopian International Anthem\", which comprised three seconds of silence. Soon after the press conference, Nixon's involvement in a political scandal came to light, and in June the Watergate hearings began in Washington, DC. They led to the president's resignation 14 months later. Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, showed little interest in continuing the battle against Lennon, and the deportation order was overturned in 1975. The following year, his US immigration status finally resolved, Lennon received his \"green card\" certifying his permanent residency, and when Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as president in January 1977, Lennon and Ono attended the Inaugural Ball.\n\nFBI surveillance and declassified documents\n\nAfter Lennon's death, historian Jon Wiener filed a Freedom of Information Act request for FBI files documenting the Bureau's role in the deportation attempt. The FBI admitted it had 281 pages of files on Lennon, but refused to release most of them on the grounds that they contained national security information. In 1983, Wiener sued the FBI with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. It took 14 years of litigation to force the FBI to release the withheld pages. The ACLU, representing Wiener, won a favourable decision in their suit against the FBI in the Ninth Circuit in 1991. The Justice Department appealed the decision to the Supreme Court in April 1992, but the court declined to review the case. In 1997, respecting President Bill Clinton's newly instigated rule that documents should be withheld only if releasing them would involve \"foreseeable harm\", the Justice Department settled most of the outstanding issues outside court by releasing all but 10 of the contested documents.\n\nWiener published the results of his 14-year campaign in January 2000. Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files contained facsimiles of the documents, including \"lengthy reports by confidential informants detailing the daily lives of anti-war activists, memos to the White House, transcripts of TV shows on which Lennon appeared, and a proposal that Lennon be arrested by local police on drug charges\". The story is told in the documentary The US vs. John Lennon. The final 10 documents in Lennon's FBI file, which reported on his ties with London anti-war activists in 1971 and had been withheld as containing \"national security information provided by a foreign government under an explicit promise of confidentiality\", were released in December 2006. They contained no indication that the British government had regarded Lennon as a serious threat; one example of the released material was a report that two prominent British leftists had hoped Lennon would finance a left-wing bookshop and reading room.\n\nWriting and art\n\nBeatles biographer Bill Harry writes that Lennon began drawing and writing creatively at an early age with the encouragement of his uncle. He collected his stories, poetry, cartoons and caricatures in a Quarry Bank High School exercise book that he called the Daily Howl. The drawings were often of crippled people, and the writings satirical, and throughout the book was an abundance of wordplay. According to classmate Bill Turner, Lennon created the Daily Howl to amuse his best friend and later Quarrymen bandmate Pete Shotton, to whom he would show his work before he let anyone else see it. Turner said that Lennon \"had an obsession for Wigan Pier. It kept cropping up\", and in Lennon's story A Carrot in a Potato Mine, \"the mine was at the end of Wigan Pier.\" Turner described how one of Lennon's cartoons depicted a bus stop sign annotated with the question, \"Why?\". Above was a flying pancake, and below, \"a blind man wearing glasses leading along a blind dog—also wearing glasses\".\n\nLennon's love of wordplay and nonsense with a twist found a wider audience when he was 24. Harry writes that In His Own Write (1964) was published after \"Some journalist who was hanging around the Beatles came to me and I ended up showing him the stuff. They said, 'Write a book' and that's how the first one came about\". Like the Daily Howl it contained a mix of formats including short stories, poetry, plays and drawings. One story, \"Good Dog Nigel\", tells the tale of \"a happy dog, urinating on a lamp post, barking, wagging his tail—until he suddenly hears a message that he will be killed at three o'clock\". The Times Literary Supplement considered the poems and stories \"remarkable ... also very funny ... the nonsense runs on, words and images prompting one another in a chain of pure fantasy\". Book Week reported, \"This is nonsense writing, but one has only to review the literature of nonsense to see how well Lennon has brought it off. While some of his homonyms are gratuitous word play, many others have not only double meaning but a double edge.\" Lennon was not only surprised by the positive reception, but that the book was reviewed at all, and suggested that readers \"took the book more seriously than I did myself. It just began as a laugh for me\".\n\nIn combination with A Spaniard in the Works (1965), In His Own Write formed the basis of the stage play The John Lennon Play: In His Own Write, co-adapted by Victor Spinetti and Adrienne Kennedy. After negotiations between Lennon, Spinetti and the artistic director of the National Theatre, Sir Laurence Olivier, the play opened at The Old Vic in 1968. Lennon and Ono attended the opening night performance, their second public appearance together. In 1969, Lennon wrote \"Four in Hand\"a skit based on his teenaged experiences of group masturbationfor Kenneth Tynan's play Oh! Calcutta!. After Lennon's death, further works were published, including Skywriting by Word of Mouth (1986); Ai: Japan Through John Lennon's Eyes: A Personal Sketchbook (1992), with Lennon's illustrations of the definitions of Japanese words; and Real Love: The Drawings for Sean (1999). The Beatles Anthology (2000) also presented examples of his writings and drawings.\n\nMusicianship\n\nInstruments played\n\nLennon's playing of a mouth organ during a bus journey to visit his cousin in Scotland caught the driver's ear. Impressed, the driver told Lennon of a harmonica he could have if he came to Edinburgh the following day, where one had been stored in the bus depot since a passenger left it on a bus. The professional instrument quickly replaced Lennon's toy. He would continue to play harmonica, often using the instrument during the Beatles' Hamburg years, and it became a signature sound in the group's early recordings. His mother taught him how to play the banjo, later buying him an acoustic guitar. At 16, he played rhythm guitar with the Quarrymen.\n\nAs his career progressed, he played a variety of electric guitars, predominantly the Rickenbacker 325, Epiphone Casino and Gibson J-160E, and, from the start of his solo career, the Gibson Les Paul Junior. Double Fantasy producer Jack Douglas claimed that since his Beatle days Lennon habitually tuned his D-string slightly flat, so his Aunt Mimi could tell which guitar was his on recordings. Occasionally he played a six-string bass guitar, the Fender Bass VI, providing bass on some Beatles numbers (\"Back in the U.S.S.R.\", \"The Long and Winding Road\", \"Helter Skelter\") that occupied McCartney with another instrument. His other instrument of choice was the piano, on which he composed many songs, including \"Imagine\", described as his best-known solo work. His jamming on a piano with McCartney in 1963 led to the creation of the Beatles' first US number one, \"I Want to Hold Your Hand\". In 1964, he became one of the first British musicians to acquire a Mellotron keyboard, though it was not heard on a Beatles recording until \"Strawberry Fields Forever\" in 1967.\n\nVocal style\n\nWhen the Beatles recorded \"Twist and Shout\", the final track during the mammoth one-day session that produced the band's 1963 debut album, Please Please Me, Lennon's voice, already compromised by a cold, came close to giving out. Lennon said, \"I couldn't sing the damn thing, I was just screaming.\" In the words of biographer Barry Miles, \"Lennon simply shredded his vocal cords in the interests of rock 'n' roll.\" The Beatles' producer, George Martin, tells how Lennon \"had an inborn dislike of his own voice which I could never understand. He was always saying to me: 'DO something with my voice!... put something on it... Make it different.'\" Martin obliged, often using double-tracking and other techniques.\n\nAs his Beatles era segued into his solo career, his singing voice found a widening range of expression. Biographer Chris Gregory writes of Lennon \"tentatively beginning to expose his insecurities in a number of acoustic-led 'confessional' ballads, so beginning the process of 'public therapy' that will eventually culminate in the primal screams of \"Cold Turkey\" and the cathartic John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.\" Music critic Robert Christgau calls this Lennon's \"greatest vocal performance... from scream to whine, is modulated electronically... echoed, filtered, and double tracked.\" David Stuart Ryan notes Lennon's vocal delivery to range from \"extreme vulnerability, sensitivity and even naivety\" to a hard \"rasping\" style. Wiener too describes contrasts, saying the singer's voice can be \"at first subdued; soon it almost cracks with despair\". Music historian Ben Urish recalls hearing the Beatles' Ed Sullivan Show performance of \"This Boy\" played on the radio a few days after Lennon's murder: \"As Lennon's vocals reached their peak... it hurt too much to hear him scream with such anguish and emotion. But it was my emotions I heard in his voice. Just like I always had.\"\n\nLegacy\n\nMusic historians Schinder and Schwartz, writing of the transformation in popular music styles that took place between the 1950s and the 1960s, say that the Beatles' influence cannot be overstated: having \"revolutionised the sound, style, and attitude of popular music and opened rock and roll's doors to a tidal wave of British rock acts\", the group then \"spent the rest of the 1960s expanding rock's stylistic frontiers\". Liam Gallagher, his group Oasis among the many who acknowledge the band's influence, identifies Lennon as a hero; in 1999 he named his first child Lennon Gallagher in tribute. On National Poetry Day in 1999, after conducting a poll to identify the UK's favourite song lyric, the BBC announced \"Imagine\" the winner.\n\nIn a 2006 Guardian article, Jon Wiener wrote: \"For young people in 1972, it was thrilling to see Lennon's courage in standing up to [US President] Nixon. That willingness to take risks with his career, and his life, is one reason why people still admire him today.\" For music historians Urish and Bielen, Lennon's most significant effort was \"the self-portraits ... in his songs [which] spoke to, for, and about, the human condition.\"\n\nIn 2013, Downtown Music Publishing signed a publishing administration agreement for the US with Lenono Music and Ono Music, home to the song catalogues of John Lennon and Yoko Ono respectively. Under the terms of the agreement, Downtown represents Lennon's solo works – including \"Imagine\", \"Instant Karma (We All Shine On)\", \"Power to the People\", \"Happy X-Mas (War Is Over)\", \"Jealous Guy\", \"(Just Like) Starting Over\" and others. \n\nLennon continues to be mourned throughout the world and has been the subject of numerous memorials and tributes. In 2002, the airport in Lennon's home town was renamed the Liverpool John Lennon Airport. In 2010, on what would have been Lennon's 70th birthday, the John Lennon Peace Monument was unveiled in Chavasse Park, Liverpool, by Cynthia and Julian Lennon. The sculpture entitled 'Peace & Harmony' exhibits peace symbols and carries the inscription \"Peace on Earth for the Conservation of Life · In Honour of John Lennon 1940–1980\". \n\nIn December 2013 the International Astronomical Union named one of the craters on Mercury after Lennon. \n\nAwards and sales\n\nThe Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership is regarded as one of the most influential and successful of the 20th century. As performer, writer or co-writer Lennon has had 25 number one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. His album sales in the US stand at 14 million units. Double Fantasy was his best-selling solo album, at three million shipments in the US; Released shortly before his death, it won the 1981 Grammy Award for Album of the Year. The following year, the BRIT Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music went to Lennon.\n\nParticipants in a 2002 BBC poll voted him eighth of \"100 Greatest Britons\". Between 2003 and 2008, Rolling Stone recognised Lennon in several reviews of artists and music, ranking him fifth of \"100 Greatest Singers of All Time\" and 38th of \"100 Greatest Artists of All Time\", and his albums John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, 22nd and 76th respectively of \"Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time\". He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) with the other Beatles in 1965 (returned in 1969 ). Lennon was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.\n\nDiscography\n\n Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins (with Yoko Ono) (1968)\n* Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions (with Yoko Ono) (1969)\n* Wedding Album (with Yoko Ono) (1969)\n* John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)\n* Imagine (1971)\n* Some Time in New York City (with Yoko Ono) (1972)\n* Mind Games (1973)\n* Walls and Bridges (1974)\n* Rock 'n' Roll (1975)\n* Double Fantasy (with Yoko Ono) (1980)\n* Milk and Honey (with Yoko Ono) (1984)\n\nFilmography \n\nFilm \n\nTelevision \n\nBibliography\n\n* In His Own Write (1964)\n* A Spaniard in the Works (1965)\n* Skywriting by Word of Mouth (1986)" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Yoko Lennon", "Yoko ono", "Yoko Ono (Singer)", "Kyoko Cox", "Second wife of John Lennon", "Kyoko Chan Cox", "ヨーコ・オノ", "Yoko Ono", "小野洋子", "Ono Yōko", "Yôko Ono", "Angel (Yoko Ono song)", "John Lennon's 2nd spouse", "2nd spouse of John Lennon", "小野洋子", "Onochord", "Cut Piece", "Yoko Ono Lennon", "Ono Yoko", "2nd wife of John Lennon", "Yohko Ono", "Angel (Yoko Ono Song)", "John Ono Lennon II", "John Lennon's second spouse", "Yes, I'm a Witch Too", "Second spouse of John Lennon", "John Lennon's second wife", "オノ・ヨーコ", "Yoko Ono: Objects, Films", "Ono Yôko", "John Lennon's 2nd wife" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "yôko ono", "cut piece", "john lennon s second spouse", "yoko ono objects films", "小野洋子", "second spouse of john lennon", "yohko ono", "小野洋子", "ヨーコ・オノ", "angel yoko ono song", "2nd wife of john lennon", "onochord", "ono yoko", "yoko lennon", "yes i m witch too", "ono yôko", "ono yōko", "john ono lennon ii", "yoko ono singer", "john lennon s 2nd spouse", "2nd spouse of john lennon", "オノ・ヨーコ", "john lennon s second wife", "second wife of john lennon", "yoko ono", "kyoko cox", "kyoko chan cox", "yoko ono lennon", "john lennon s 2nd wife" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "yoko ono", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Yoko Ono" }
Which American contralto was the first black singe to appear at the Metropolitan Opera?	tc_1270	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Metropolitan_Opera.txt" ], "title": [ "Metropolitan Opera" ], "wiki_context": [ "The Metropolitan Opera, commonly referred to as \"The Met\", is a company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager. The music director position is in transition as of 2016. The music director designate is Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the music director emeritus is James Levine. \n\nThe Met was founded in 1880 as an alternative to the previously established Academy of Music opera house, and debuted in 1883 in a new building on 39th and Broadway (now known as the \"Old Met\").\n\nThe Metropolitan Opera is the largest classical music organization in North America. It presents about 27 different operas each year in a season which lasts from late September through May. The operas are presented in a rotating repertory schedule with up to seven performances of four different works staged each week. Moving to the new Lincoln Center location in 1966, performances are given in the evening Monday through Saturday with a matinée on Saturday. Several operas are presented in new productions each season. Sometimes these are borrowed from or shared with other opera houses. The rest of the year's operas are given in revivals of productions from previous seasons. The 2015-16 season comprised 227 performances of 25 operas. \n\nThe operas in the Met's repertoire consist of a wide range of works, from 18th-century Baroque and 19th-century Bel canto to the Minimalism of the late 20th century. These operas are presented in staged productions that range in style from those with elaborate traditional decors to others that feature modern conceptual designs.\n\nThe Met's performing company consists of a large symphony-sized orchestra, a chorus, children's choir, and many supporting and leading solo singers. The company also employs numerous free-lance dancers, actors, musicians and other performers throughout the season. The Met's roster of singers includes both international and American artists, some of whose careers have been developed through the Met's young artists programs. While many singers appear periodically as guests with the company, others, such as Renée Fleming and Plácido Domingo, have long maintained a close association with the Met, appearing many times each season.\n\nHistory\n\nOrigins\n\nThe Metropolitan Opera Company was founded in 1880 to create an alternative to New York's old established Academy of Music opera house. The subscribers to the Academy's limited number of private boxes represented the highest stratum in New York society. By 1880, these \"old money\" families were loath to admit New York's newly wealthy industrialists into their long-established social circle. Frustrated with being excluded, the Metropolitan Opera's founding subscribers determined to build a new opera house that would outshine the old Academy in every way. A group of some 22 men assembled at Delmonico's restaurant on April 28, 1880. They elected officers and established subscriptions for ownership in the new company. The new theater, built at 39th and Broadway, would include three tiers of private boxes in which the scions of New York's powerful new industrial families could display their wealth and establish their social prominence. The first Met subscribers included members of the Morgan, Roosevelt, and Vanderbilt families, all of whom had been excluded from the Academy. The new Metropolitan Opera House opened on October 22, 1883, and was an immediate success, both socially and artistically. The Academy of Music's opera season folded just three years after the Met opened.\n\nInaugural season\n\nIn its early decades the Met did not produce the opera performances itself but hired prominent manager/impresarios to stage a season of opera at the new Metropolitan Opera House. Henry Abbey served as manager for the inaugural season 1883-1884 which opened with a performance of Charles Gounod's Faust starring the brilliant Swedish soprano Christina Nilsson. Abbey's company that first season featured an ensemble of artists led by sopranos Nilsson and Marcella Sembrich; mezzo-soprano Sofia Scalchi; tenors Italo Campanini and Roberto Stagno; baritone Giuseppe Del Puente; and bass Franco Novara. They gave 150 performances of 20 different operas by Gounod, Meyerbeer, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Wagner, Mozart, Thomas, Bizet, Flotow, and Ponchielli. All performances were sung in Italian and were conducted either by music director Auguste Vianesi or Cleofonte Campanini (the tenor Italo's brother).\n\nThe company performed not only in the new Manhattan opera house, but also started a long tradition of touring throughout the country. In the winter and spring of 1884 the Met presented opera in theaters in Brooklyn, Boston, Philadelphia (see below), Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Washington D.C., and Baltimore. Back in New York, the last night of the season featured a long gala performance to benefit Mr. Abbey. The special program consisted not only of various scenes from opera, but also offered Mme. Sembrich playing the violin and the piano, as well as the famed stage actors Henry Irving and Ellen Terry in a scene from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.\n\nThe Met in Philadelphia \n\nThe Metropolitan Opera began a long history of performing in Philadelphia during its first season, presenting its entire repertoire in the city during January and April 1884. The company's first Philadelphia performance was of Faust (with Christina Nilsson) on January 14, 1884, at the Chestnut Street Opera House. The Met continued to perform annually in Philadelphia for nearly eighty years, taking the entire company to the city on selected Tuesday nights throughout the opera season. Performances were usually held at Philadelphia's Academy of Music, with close to 900 performances having been given in the city by 1961 when the Met's regular visits ceased.\n\nOn April 26, 1910, the Met purchased the Philadelphia Opera House from Oscar Hammerstein I. The company renamed the house the Metropolitan Opera House and performed all of their Philadelphia performances there until 1920, when the company sold the theater and resumed performing at the Academy of Music.\n\nDuring the Met's early years, the company annually presented a dozen or more opera performances in Philadelphia throughout the season. Over the years the number of performances was gradually reduced until the final Philadelphia season in 1961 consisted of only four operas. The final performance of that last season was on March 21, 1961, with Birgit Nilsson and Franco Corelli in Turandot. After the Tuesday night visits were ended, the Met still returned to Philadelphia on its spring tours in 1967, 1968, 1978, and 1979.\n\nGerman seasons\n\nHenry Abbey's inaugural season was a brilliant artistic and popular success but it had resulted in very large financial deficits. The following year the Met's directors turned to Leopold Damrosch as General Manager for its second season. The revered conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra was engaged to lead the opera company in an all German language repertory and serve as its chief conductor. Under Damrosch, the company consisted of some the most celebrated singers from Europe's German-language opera houses. The new German Met found great popular and critical success in the works of Wagner and other German composers as well as in Italian and French operas sung in German. Sadly Damrosch died only months into his first season at the Met. Edmund Stanton replaced Damrosch the following year and served as General Manager through the 1890-91 season, the last of the all German repertory. The Met's six German seasons were especially noted for performances by the celebrated conductor Anton Seidl whose Wagner interpretations were noted for their almost mystical intensity. The conductor Walter Damrosch, Leopold's son, also initiated a long relationship with the Met during this period.\n\nAbbey and Grau\n\nItalian opera returned to the Met in 1891 in a glittering season of stars organized by the returning Henry E. Abbey along with co-manager Maurice Grau. After missing a season to rebuild the opera house following a fire in August 1892 which destroyed most of the theater, Abbey and Grau continued as co-managers along with John B. Schoeffel, initiating the so-called \"Golden Age of Opera\". Most of the greatest operatic artists in the world then graced the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House in Italian as well as German and French repertory. Notable among them were the brothers Jean and Édouard de Reszke, Lilli Lehmann, Emma Calvé, Lillian Nordica, Nellie Melba, Marcella Sembrich, Milka Ternina, Emma Eames, Sofia Scalchi, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Francesco Tamagno, Francisco Vignas, Jean Lassalle, Mario Ancona, Victor Maurel, Antonio Scotti and Pol Plançon. Maurice Grau continued as sole manager of the Met from 1898 to 1903.\n\nThe early 1900s saw the development of distinct Italian, German and later French \"wings\" within the Met's roster of artists including separate German and Italian choruses. This division of the company's forces faded after World War II when solo artists spent less time engaged at any one company.\n\nMapleson Cylinders \n\nFrom 1900 to 1904 a series of sound recordings were made at the Met by Lionel Mapleson (1865–1937). Mapleson was employed by the Met as a violinist and music librarian. He used an Edison cylinder phonograph that he set up near the stage to capture short, one- to five-minute recordings of the soloists, chorus and orchestra during performances. These unique acoustic documents, known as the Mapleson Cylinders, preserve an audio picture of the early Met, and are the only known extant recordings of some performers, including the tenor Jean de Reszke and the dramatic soprano Milka Ternina. The recordings were later issued on a series of LPs and, in 2002, were included in the National Recording Registry. While many of the cylinders became greatly worn over the years, some remain comparatively clear, particularly those of the waltz and \"Soldier's Chorus\" from Faust and the triumphal scene from Act 2 of Aida. Mapleson placed his machine in various locations, including the prompter's box, the side of the stage, and in the \"flies\", which enabled him to record the singers and musicians, as well as the audience's applause. Many of the original cylinders are preserved in the Rodgers & Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. \n\nAnnual spring tour \n\nBeginning in 1898, the Metropolitan Opera company of singers and musicians undertook a six-week tour of American cities following its season in New York. These annual spring tours brought the company and its stars to cities throughout the U.S., most of which had no opera company of their own. The Met's national tours continued until 1986.\n\nConried and Gatti-Casazza\n\nThe administration of Heinrich Conried in 1903–08 was distinguished especially by the arrival of the Neapolitan tenor Enrico Caruso, the most celebrated singer who ever appeared at the old Metropolitan. He was also instrumental in hiring conductor Arturo Vigna. Conried was followed by the 27-year tenure, from 1908 to 1935, of the magisterial Giulio Gatti-Casazza. Gatti-Casazza had been lured by the Met from a celebrated tenure as director of Milan's La Scala Opera House. His model planning, authoritative organizational skills and brilliant casts raised the Metropolitan Opera to a prolonged era of artistic innovation and musical excellence. Gatti-Casazza brought with him the fiery and brilliant conductor Arturo Toscanini, the music director from his seasons at La Scala.\n\nMany of the most noted singers of the era appeared at the Met under Gatti-Casazza's leadership, including sopranos Rosa Ponselle, Elisabeth Rethberg, Maria Jeritza, Emmy Destinn, Frances Alda, Frida Leider, Amelita Galli-Curci, and Lily Pons; tenors Jacques Urlus, Giovanni Martinelli, Beniamino Gigli, Giacomo Lauri-Volpi, and Lauritz Melchior; baritones Titta Ruffo, Giuseppe De Luca, Pasquale Amato, and Lawrence Tibbett; and basses Friedrich Schorr, Feodor Chaliapin, Jose Mardones, Tancredi Pasero and Ezio Pinza—among many others.\n\nToscanini served as the Met's principal conductor (but with no official title) from 1908 to 1915, leading the company in performances of Verdi, Wagner and others that set standards for the company for decades to come. The Viennese composer Gustav Mahler also was a Met conductor during Gatti-Casazza's first two seasons and in later years conductors Tullio Serafin and Artur Bodanzky led the company in the Italian and German repertories respectively.\n\nFollowing Toscanini's departure, Gatti-Casazza successfully guided the company through the years of World War I into another decade of premieres, new productions and popular success in the 1920s. The 1930s, however, brought new financial and organizational challenges for the company. In 1931, Otto Kahn, the noted financier, resigned as head of the Met's board of directors and president of the Metropolitan Opera Company. He had been responsible for engaging Gatti-Casazza and had held the position of president since the beginning of Gatti-Casazza's term as manager. The new chair, prominent lawyer Paul Cravath, had served as the board's legal counsel. Retaining Gatti-Casazza as manager, Cravath focused his attention on managing the business affairs of the company. It soon became apparent that the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and subsequent depression had resulted in a dangerously large deficit in the company's accounts. Between 1929 and 1931 ticket sales remained robust, but subsidies from the Met's wealthy supporters had significantly declined. \n\nSoon after his appointment, Cravath obtained new revenue through a contract with the National Broadcasting Company for weekly radio broadcasts of Met performances. The first national broadcast took place December 25, 1931, when Hänsel und Gretel was aired.See more on the national broadcasts in the Broadcast radio section below With Gatti's support, Cravath also obtained a ten percent reduction in the pay of all salaried employees beginning with the opera season of 1931-32. Cravath also engineered a reorganization of the management company by which it was transformed from a corporation, in which all participants were stockholders, to an association, whose members need not have a financial interest in operations. Apart from this change, the new Metropolitan Opera Association was virtually identical to the old Metropolitan Opera Company. It was hoped the association would be able to save money as it renegotiated contracts which the company had made. \n\nDuring this period there was no change in the organization of the Metropolitan Real Estate Opera Company which owned the opera house. It remained in the hands of the society families who owned its stock, yet the subsidies that the house and its owners had given the producing company fell off. In March 1932, Cravath found that income resulting from the broadcasts and savings from both salary cuts and reorganization were not sufficient to cover the company's deficits. A plan was floated to move the opera from the building on 39th Street to Rockefeller Center, but it was dropped when it became apparent that it would produce no savings and, instead, representatives of the opera house, the producing company, and the artists formed a committee for fundraising among the public at large. Mainly though appeals made to radio audiences during the weekly broadcasts, the committee was able to obtain enough money to assure continuation of opera for the 1933-34 season. Called the Committee to Save Metropolitan Opera, the group was headed by the well-loved leading soprano, Lucrezia Bori. Bori not only led the committee, but also personally carried out much of its work and within a few months her fundraising efforts produced the $300,000 that were needed for the coming season. \n\nEdward Johnson\n\nIn April 1935, Gatti stepped down after 27 years as general manager. His immediate successor, the former Met bass Herbert Witherspoon, died of a heart attack barely six weeks into his term of office. This opened the way for the Canadian tenor and former Met artist Edward Johnson to be appointed general manager. Johnson served the company for the next 15 years, guiding the Met through the remaining years of the depression and the World War II era.\n\nThe producing company's financial difficulties continued in the years immediately following the desperate season of 1933-34. To meet budget shortfalls, fundraising continued and the number of performances was curtailed. Still, on given nights the brilliant Wagner pairing of the Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad with the great heldentenor Lauritz Melchior proved irresistible to audiences even in such troubled times. To expand the Met's support among its national radio audience, the Met board's Eleanor Robson Belmont, the former actress and wife to industrialist August Belmont, was appointed head of a new organization—the Metropolitan Opera Guild—as successor to a women's club Belmont had set up. The Guild supported the producing company through subscriptions to its magazine, Opera News, and through Mrs. Belmont's weekly appeals on the Met's radio broadcasts. In 1940 ownership of the performing company and the opera house was transferred to the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association from the company's original partnership of New York society families.\n\nZinka Milanov, Jussi Björling, and Alexander Kipnis were first heard at the Met under Johnson's management. During World War II when many European artists were unavailable, the Met recruited American singers as never before. Eleanor Steber, Dorothy Kirsten, Helen Traubel (Flagstad's successor as Wagner's heroines), Jan Peerce, Richard Tucker, Leonard Warren and Robert Merrill were among the many home grown artists to become stars at the Met in the 1940s. Ettore Panizza, Sir Thomas Beecham, George Szell and Bruno Walter were among the leading conductors engaged during Johnson's tenure. Kurt Adler began his long tenure as Chorus Master and staff conductor.\n\nRudolf Bing\n\nSucceeding Johnson in 1950 was the Austrian-born Rudolf Bing who had most recently created and served as director of the Edinburgh Festival. Serving from 1950 to 1972, Bing became one of the Met's most influential and reformist leaders. Bing modernized the administration of the company, ended an archaic ticket sales system, and brought an end to the company's Tuesday night performances in Philadelphia. He presided over an era of fine singing and glittering new productions, while guiding the company's move to a new home in Lincoln Center. While many outstanding singers debuted at the Met under Bing's guiding hand, music critics complained of a lack of great conducting during his regime, even though such eminent conductors as Fritz Stiedry, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Erich Leinsdorf, Fritz Reiner, and Karl Böhm appeared frequently in the 1950s and '60s.\n\nAmong the most significant achievements of Bing's tenure was the opening of the Met's artistic roster to include singers of color. Marian Anderson's historic 1955 debut was followed by the introduction of a gifted generation of African American artists led by Leontyne Price (who inaugurated the new house at Lincoln Center), Reri Grist, Grace Bumbry, Shirley Verrett, Martina Arroyo, George Shirley, Robert McFerrin, and many others. Other celebrated singers who debuted at the Met during Bing's tenure include: Roberta Peters, Victoria de los Ángeles, Renata Tebaldi, Maria Callas, who had a bitter falling out with Bing over repertoire,, Birgit Nilsson, Joan Sutherland, Régine Crespin, Mirella Freni, Renata Scotto, Montserrat Caballé, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Anna Moffo, James McCracken, Carlo Bergonzi, Franco Corelli, Alfredo Kraus, Plácido Domingo, Nicolai Gedda, Luciano Pavarotti, Jon Vickers, Tito Gobbi, Sherrill Milnes, and Cesare Siepi.\n\nThe Met's 1961 production of Turandot, with Leopold Stokowski conducting, Birgit Nilsson in the title role, and Franco Corelli as Calàf, was by May called the Met's \"Biggest hit in 10 years.\" \n\nDuring Bing's tenure, the officers of the Met joined forces with the officers of the New York Philharmonic to build the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, where the new Metropolitan Opera House building opened in 1966. \n\nGentele to Southern\n\nFollowing Bing's retirement in 1972, the Met's management was overseen by a succession of executives and artists in shared authority. Bing's intended successor, the Swedish opera manager Göran Gentele, died in an auto accident before the start of his first season. Following Gentele's tragic loss came Schuyler Chapin who served as General Manager for three seasons. The greatest achievement of his tenure was the Met's first tour to Japan for three weeks in May–June 1975 which was the brainchild of impresario Kazuko Hillyer. The tour played a significant role in popularizing opera in Japan, and boasted an impressive line-up of artists in productions of La traviata, Carmen, and La bohème; including Marilyn Horne as Carmen, Joan Sutherland as Violetta, and tenors Franco Corelli and Luciano Pavarotti alternating as Rodolfo. \n\nFrom 1975 to 1981 the Met was guided by a triumvirate of directors: the General Manager (Anthony A. Bliss), Artistic Director (James Levine), and Director of Production (the English stage director John Dexter). Bliss was followed by Bruce Crawford and Hugh Southern. Through this period the constant figure was James Levine. Engaged by Bing in 1971, Levine became Principal Conductor in 1973 and emerged as the Met's principal artistic leader through the last third of the 20th century.\n\nDuring the 1983-84 season the Met celebrated its 100th anniversary with an opening night revival of Berlioz's mammoth opera Les Troyens, with soprano Jessye Norman making her Met debut in the roles of both Cassandra and Dido. An eight-hour Centennial Gala concert in two parts followed on October 22, 1983, broadcast on PBS. The gala featured all of the Met's current stars as well as appearances by 26 veteran stars of the Met's the past. Among the artists, Leonard Bernstein and Birgit Nilsson gave their last performances with the company at the concert. \n\nThe immediate post-Bing era saw a continuing addition of African-Americans to the roster of leading artists. Kathleen Battle, who in 1977 made her Met debut as the Shepherd in Wagner's Tannhäuser, became an important star in lyric soprano roles. Bass-baritone Simon Estes began a prominent Met career with his 1982 debut as Hermann, also in Tannhäuser.\n\nJoseph Volpe\n\nThe model of General Manager as the leading authority in the company returned in 1990 when Joseph Volpe was appointed. Volpe was the Met's third-longest serving manager until his retirement in 2006. He was the first head of the Met to advance from within the ranks of the company, having started his career there as a carpenter in 1964. During his tenure the Met's international touring activities were expanded and Levine focused on expanding and building the Met's orchestra into a world-class symphonic ensemble with its own Carnegie Hall concert series. Under Volpe the Met considerably expanded its repertory, offering four world premiers and 22 Met premiers, more new works than under any manager since Gatti-Casazza. Volpe named Valery Gergiev as Principal Guest Conductor in 1997 and broadened the Met's Russian repertory. Marcelo Álvarez, Gabriela Beňačková, Diana Damrau, Natalie Dessay, Renée Fleming, Juan Diego Flórez, Marcello Giordani, Angela Gheorghiu, Susan Graham, Ben Heppner, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Sergej Kopčák, Salvatore Licitra, Anna Netrebko, René Pape, Neil Rosenshein, Bryn Terfel, and Deborah Voigt were among the artists first heard at the Met under his management.\n\nPeter Gelb\n\nThe successor to Volpe was Peter Gelb. He began outlining his plans for the future in April 2006; these included more new productions each year, ideas for shaving staging costs and attracting new audiences without deterring existing opera-lovers. Gelb saw these issues as crucial for an organization which, to a far greater extent than any of the other great opera theatres of the world, is dependent on private financing.\n\nGelb began his tenure by opening the 2006-07 season with a colorful and highly stylized production of Madama Butterfly by the English director Anthony Minghella originally staged for English National Opera. Minghella's highly theatrical concept featured vividly colored banners on a spare stage allowing the focus to be on the detailed acting of the singers. The abstract concept included casting the son of Cio-Cio San as a bunraku-style puppet, operated in plain sight by three puppeteers clothed in black. \n\nGelb has focused on expanding the Met's audience through a number of fronts. Increasing the number of new productions every season to keep the Met's stagings fresh and noteworthy, Gelb has partnered with other opera companies to import productions and he has engaged directors from the realms of theater, circus and film to produce the Met's own original productions. Theater directors Bartlett Sher, Mary Zimmerman, and Jack O'Brien have joined the list of the Met's directors along with Stephen Wadsworth, Laurent Pelly, Luc Bondy and other opera directors to create innovative new stagings for the company. Robert Lepage, the Canadian director of Cirque du Soleil has been engaged by the Met to produce a new technically ground-breaking production of Wagner's four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen using hydraulic stage platforms and projected 3D imagery.\n\nTo further engage new audiences Gelb has initiated live high-definition video transmissions to cinemas worldwide and regular live satellite radio broadcasts on the Met's own SiriusXM radio channel.\n\nNew stars that have emerged during Gelb's tenure include Piotr Beczała, Lawrence Brownlee, Joseph Calleja, Elīna Garanča, Jonas Kaufmann, Mariusz Kwiecień. Debuting conductors have included Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Andris Nelsons, and Fabio Luisi. Luisi was named Principal Guest Conductor in 2010 and Principal Conductor in 2011, filling a void created by James Levine's two-year absence due to illness.\n\nIn 2013, following the severance of the dancers' contracts, Gelb announced that the resident ballet company at the Met would cease to exist.\n\nOn April 14, 2016 it was announced that James Levine would retire from the position of Music Director at the conclusion of the 2015–2016 season. Gelb announced that Levine would also become Music Director Emeritus. On June 2 it was announced that the French-Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, would assume the role of Music Director beginning in 2020–2021, conducting five productions each season. Until that time he will be the Music Director Designate, conducting two productions a year.. \n\nTechnological innovations\n\nMet Titles\n\nIn 1995, under general manager Joseph Volpe, the Met installed its own system of simultaneous translations of opera texts designed for the particular needs of the Met and its audiences. Called \"Met Titles\", the $2.7 million electronic libretto system provides the audience with a translation of the opera's text in English on individual screens mounted in front of each seat. This system was the first in the world to be placed in an opera house with \"each screen (having) a switch to turn it off, a filter to prevent the dim, yellow dot-matrix characters from disturbing nearby viewers and the option to display texts in multiple languages for newer productions (currently Spanish and German). Custom-designed, the system features rails of different heights for various sections of the house, individually designed displays for some box seats and commissioned translations costing up to $10,000 apiece.\" Owing to the height of the Met's proscenium, it was not feasible to have titles displayed above the stage, as is done in most other opera houses. The idea of above-stage titles had been vehemently opposed by music director James Levine, but the \"Met Titles\" system has since been acknowledged as an ideal solution, offering texts to only those members of the Met audience who desire them. \n\nTessitura software\n\nIn 1998, Volpe initiated the development of a new software application, now called Tessitura. Tessitura uses a single database of information to record, track and manage all contacts with the Met's constituents, conduct targeted marketing and fund raising appeals, handle all ticketing and membership transactions, and provide detailed and flexible performance reports. Beginning in 2000, Tessitura was offered to other arts organizations under license, and it is now used by a cooperative network of more than 200 opera companies, symphony orchestras, ballet companies, theater companies, performing arts centers, and museums in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland. \nAt the Opera Conference 2016 in Montreal Gelb announced that the Met had commissioned a new ticketing system that would be made availbable to other institutions. \n\nMultimedia\n\nBroadcast radio\n\nOutside of New York the Met has been known to audiences in large measure through its many years of live radio broadcasts. The Met's broadcast history goes back to January 1910 when radio pioneer Lee de Forest broadcast experimentally, with erratic signal, two live performances from the stage of the Met that were reportedly heard as far away as Newark, New Jersey. Today the annual Met broadcast season typically begins the first week of December and offers twenty live Saturday matinée performances through May.\n\nThe first network broadcast was heard on December 25, 1931, a performance of Engelbert Humperdinck's\nHänsel und Gretel. The series came about as the Met, financially endangered in the early years of the Great Depression, sought to enlarge its audience and support through national exposure on network radio. Initially, those broadcasts featured only parts of operas, being limited to selected acts. Regular broadcasts of complete operas began March 11, 1933, with the transmission of Tristan und Isolde with Frida Leider and Lauritz Melchior.\n\nThe live broadcasts were originally heard on NBC Radio's Blue Network and continued on the Blue Network's successor, ABC, into the 1960s. As network radio waned, the Met founded its own Metropolitan Opera Radio Network which is now heard on radio stations around the world. In Canada the live broadcasts have been heard since December 1933 first on the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission and, since 1934, on its successor, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation where they are currently heard on CBC Radio 2.\n\nTechnical quality of the broadcasts steadily improved over the years. FM broadcasts were added in the 1950s, transmitted to stations via telephone lines. Starting with the 1973-1974 season, all broadcasts were offered in FM stereo. Satellite technology later allowed uniformly excellent broadcast sound to be sent live worldwide.\n\nSponsorship of the Met broadcasts during the Depression years of the 1930s was sporadic. Early sponsors included the American Tobacco Company, and the Lambert Pharmaceutical Company, but frequently the broadcasts were presented by NBC itself with no commercial sponsor. Sponsorship of the Saturday afternoon broadcasts by The Texas Company (Texaco) began on December 7, 1940 with Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. Texaco's support continued for 63 years, the longest continuous sponsorship in broadcast history and included the first PBS television broadcasts. After its merger with Chevron, however, the combined company ChevronTexaco ended its sponsorship of the Met's radio network in April 2004. Emergency grants allowed the broadcasts to continue through 2005 when the home building company Toll Brothers stepped in to become primary sponsor.\n\nIn the seven decades of its Saturday broadcasts, the Met has been introduced by the voices of only three permanent announcers. The legendary Milton Cross served from the inaugural 1931 broadcast until his death in 1975. He was succeeded by Peter Allen, who presided at the microphone for 29 years, through the 2003-2004 season. Margaret Juntwait began her tenure as host the following season. From September 2006 through December 2014, Juntwait also served as host for all of the live and recorded broadcasts on the Met's Sirius XM satellite radio channel, Metropolitan Opera Radio.http://metopera.org/metopera/news/features/news-flash/remembering-margaret-juntwait Beginning in January 2015, producer Mary Jo Heath filled in for Juntwait, who was being treated for cancer and died in June 2015. In September 2015 Heath took over as the new permanent host. Opera singer and director Ira Siff has for several years been the commentator along with Juntwait or Heath.\n\nSatellite radio\n\nMetropolitan Opera Radio is a 24-hour opera channel on Sirius XM Radio, which presents three to four live opera broadcasts each week during the Met's performing season. During other hours it also offers past broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcast archives. The channel was created in September 2006, when the Met initiated a multi-year relationship with Sirius. Margaret Juntwait is the main host and announcer, with William Berger as writer and co-host. \n\nTelevision\n\nThe Met's experiments with television go back to 1948 when a complete performance of Verdi's Otello was broadcast live on ABC-TV with Ramón Vinay, Licia Albanese, and Leonard Warren. The 1949 season opening night Der Rosenkavalier was also telecast. In the early 1950s the Met tried a short-lived experiment with live closed-circuit television transmissions to movie theaters. The first of these was a performance of Carmen with Risë Stevens which was sent to 31 theaters in 27 US cities on December 11, 1952. Beyond these experiments, however, and an occasional gala or special, the Met did not become a regular presence on television until 1977.\n\nIn that year the company began a series of live television broadcasts on public television with a wildly successful live telecast of La bohème with Renata Scotto and Luciano Pavarotti. The new series of opera on PBS was called Live from the Metropolitan Opera. This series remained on the air until the early 2000s, although the live broadcasts gave way to taped performances and in 1988 the title was changed to The Metropolitan Opera Presents. Dozens of televised performances were broadcast during the life of the series including an historic complete telecast of Wagner's Ring Cycle in 1989. In 2007 another Met television series debuted on PBS, Great Performances at the Met. This series airs repeat showings of the high-definition video performances produced for the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD cinema series.\n\nIn addition to complete operas and gala concerts, television programs produced at the Met have included: an episode of Omnibus with Leonard Bernstein (NBC, 1958); Danny Kaye's Look-In at the Metropolitan Opera (CBS, 1975); Sills and Burnett at the Met (CBS, 1976); and the MTV Video Music Awards (1999 and 2001).\n\nHigh-definition video\n\nBeginning on December 30, 2006, as part of the company's effort to build revenues and attract new audiences, the Met (along with NCM Fathom) broadcast a series of six performances live via satellite into movie theaters called \"Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD\". The first broadcast was the Saturday matinee live performance of the 110-minute version of Julie Taymor's production of The Magic Flute. The series was carried in over 100 movie theaters across North America, Japan, Britain and several other European countries. During the 2006-07 season, the series included live HD transmissions of I puritani, The First Emperor, Eugene Onegin, The Barber of Seville, and Il trittico. In addition, limited repeat showings of the operas were offered in most of the presenting cities. Digital sound for the performances was provided by Sirius Satellite Radio.\n\nThese movie transmissions have received wide and generally favorable press coverage. The Met reports that 91% of available seats were sold for the HD performances. According to General Manager Peter Gelb, there were 60, 000 people in cinemas around the world watching the March 24 transmission of The Barber of Seville.Gelb, speaking during the intermission on March 24, 2007, noted that over 250 movie theatres were presenting the performance that day. The New York Times reported that 324,000 tickets were sold worldwide for the 2006/07 season, while each simulcast cost $850,000 to $1 million to produce. \n\nThe 2007/08 season began on December 15, 2007 and featured eight of the Met's productions starting with Roméo et Juliette and ending with La fille du régiment on April 26, 2008. The Met planned to broadcast to double the number of theaters in the US as the previous season, as well as to additional countries such as Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The number of participating venues in the US, which includes movie theatre chains as well as independent theatres and some college campus venues, is 343. While \"the scope of the series expands to include more than 700 locations across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia\". \n\nBy the end of the season 920,000 people—exceeding the total number of people who attended live performances at the Met over the entire season—attended the 8 screenings bringing in a gross of $13.3 million from North America and $5 million from overseas. \n\nInternet\n\nYear-round, online video and audio of hundreds of complete operas and excerpts are available to viewers via Met Player, the Met Opera's own online archive of recorded performances. Complete operas and selections are also available on the online music service Rhapsody, and for purchase on iTunes. \n\nThe Metropolitan Opera Radio channel on Sirius XM Radio (see above) is available to listeners via the internet in addition to satellite broadcast.\n\nThe Met's official site also provides complete composer and background information, detailed plot summaries, and cast and characters for all current and upcoming opera broadcasts, as well as for every opera broadcast since 2000. In addition, the Met's online archive database provides links to all Rhapsody, Sirius XM, and Met Player operas, with complete program and cast information. The online archive also provides an exhaustive searchable list of every performance and performer in the Metropolitan Opera's history. \n\nOpera houses\n\nMetropolitan Opera House, Broadway\n\nThe first Metropolitan Opera House opened on October 22, 1883, with a performance of Faust. It was located at 1411 Broadway between 39th and 40th Streets and was designed by J. Cleaveland Cady. Gutted by fire on August 27, 1892, the theater was immediately rebuilt, reopening in the fall of 1893. Another major renovation was completed in 1903. The theater's interior was extensively redesigned by the architects Carrère and Hastings. The familiar red and gold interior associated with the house dates from this time. The old Met had a seating capacity of 3,625 with an additional 224 standing room places.\n\nThe theater was noted for its elegance and excellent acoustics and it provided a glamorous home for the company. Its stage facilities, however, were found to be severely inadequate from its earliest days. Over the years many plans for a new opera house were explored and abandoned, including a proposal to make a new Metropolitan Opera House the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center. It was only with the development of Lincoln Center that the Met was able to build itself a new home. The Met said goodbye to the old house on April 16, 1966, with a lavish farewell gala performance. The theater closed after a short season of ballet later in the spring of 1966 and was demolished in 1967.\n\nMetropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center\n\nThe present Metropolitan Opera House is located in Lincoln Center at Lincoln Square in the Upper West Side and was designed by architect Wallace K. Harrison. It has a seating capacity of approximately 3800 with an additional 195 standing room places at the rear of the main floor and the top balcony. As needed, the size of the orchestra pit can be decreased and another row of 35 seats added at the front of the auditorium. The lobby is adorned with two famous murals by Marc Chagall, The Triumph of Music and The Sources of Music. Each of these gigantic paintings measures 30 by 36 feet.\n\nAfter numerous revisions to its design, the new building opened September 16, 1966, with the world premiere of Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra.\n\nThe theater, while large, is noted for its excellent acoustics. The stage facilities, state of the art when the theater was built, continue to be updated technically and are capable of handling multiple large complex opera productions simultaneously. When the opera company is on hiatus, the Opera House is home to performances of American Ballet Theatre and touring opera and ballet companies.\n\nMetropolitan Opera House, Philadelphia\n\nTo provide a home for its regular Tuesday night performances in Philadelphia, the Met purchased an opera house originally built in 1908 by Oscar Hammerstein I, the Philadelphia Opera House at North Broad and Poplar Streets. Renamed the Metropolitan Opera House, the theater was operated by the Met from 1910 until it sold the house in April 1920. The Met debuted at its new Philadelphia home on December 13, 1910, with a performance of Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser starring Leo Slezak and Olive Fremstad. \n\nThe Philadelphia Met was designed by noted theater architect William H. McElfatrick and had a seating capacity of approximately 4,000. The theater still stands and currently functions as a church and community arts center.\n\nPrincipal conductors\n\nIn the Met's inuagural season of 1883–1884, Auguste Vianesi, who conducted most of the performances that season including the opening night, was listed in the playbills as \"Musical Director and Conductor\"; thereafter, the Met did not have another officially designated \"music director\" until Rafael Kubelík in 1973. However, a number of the Met's conductors have assumed a strong leadership role at different times in the company's history. They set artistic standards and influenced the quality and performance style of the orchestra, but without any official title.\nThe Met has also had many famed guest conductors who are not listed here.\n\nAnton Seidl (1885–97)\nWalter Damrosch (1884–1902)\nAlfred Hertz (1902–15, leading conductor of German repertory)\nGustav Mahler (1908–10)\nArturo Toscanini (1908–15)\nArtur Bodanzky (1915–39, leading conductor of German repertory)\nTullio Serafin (1924–34)\nFausto Cleva (1931–71)\nEttore Panizza (1934–42, leading conductor of Italian repertory)\nErich Leinsdorf (1938–42, leading conductor of German repertory)\nGeorge Szell (1942–46)\n\nCesare Sodero (1942–47)\nFritz Busch (1945–49)\nFritz Reiner (1949–53)\nDimitri Mitropoulos (1954–60)\nErich Leinsdorf (1957–62)\nKurt Adler (1943–73, chorus master and conductor)\nRafael Kubelík (music director 1973–74)\nJames Levine (music director 1976–2016; artistic director 1986–2004; music director emeritus 2016–present)\nValery Gergiev (principal guest conductor 1997–2008)\nFabio Luisi (principal guest conductor 2010–2011; principal conductor 2011–2017)\nYannick Nézet-Séguin (music director designate 2017–2020; music director beginning 2020) \n\nDeaths at the Met\n\nOn February 10, 1897, French bass Armand Castelmary suffered a heart attack onstage in the finale of act one of Flotow's Martha. He died in the arms of his friend, tenor Jean de Reszke after the curtain was brought down. The performance resumed with Giuseppe Cernusco substituting in the role of Sir Tristram. On March 4, 1960, leading baritone Leonard Warren died of a stroke onstage after completing the aria \"Urna fatale\" in act two of Verdi's La forza del destino. On April 30, 1977, Betty Stone, a member of the Met chorus, was killed in an accident offstage during a tour performance of Il trovatore in Cleveland. On July 23, 1980, Helen Hagnes Mintiks, a Canadian-born violinist, was murdered by stagehand Craig Crimmins during a performance of the Berlin Ballet. On January 5, 1996, tenor Richard Versalle died while playing the role of Vitek during the production of Leoš Janáček's The Makropulos Case. Versalle was climbing a 20 ft ladder in the opening scene when he suffered a heart attack and fell to the stage. \n\nIn addition, several audience members have died at the Met. The most widely-known incident was the suicide of operagoer Bantcho Bantchevsky on January 23, 1988, during an intermission of Verdi's Macbeth. \n\nFinances and marketing\n\nThe company's annual operating budget for the 2011-12 season was $325 million, of which $182 million (43%) comes from private donations. The total potential audience across a season is 800,000 seats. The average audience rate for the 3800-seat theater in 2011 was 79.2%, down from a peak of 88% in 2009.[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/arts/music/metropolitan-operas-donations-hit-a-record-182-million.html?pagewanted\nall \"Met donations hit a record $182 million\"], The New York Times. Beyond performing in the opera house in New York, the Met has gradually expanded its audience over the years through technology. It has broadcast regularly on radio since 1931 and on television since 1977. In 2006, the Met began live satellite radio and internet broadcasts as well as live high-definition video transmissions presented in cinemas throughout the world. In 2011, the total HD audience reached 3 million through 1600 theaters worldwide. In 2014, according to Wheeler Winston Dixon, high ticket prices are making it difficult for average people to attend performances.Harry Bruinius, [http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2014/0819/The-Met-averts-shutdown-Does-opera-have-to-be-grand-to-survive-video \"The Met averts shutdown: Does opera have to be grand to survive?\" (+video)], Christian Science Monitor, August 19, 2014. Retrieved November 28, 2014: \"...the Met is no longer for the average person...\" citing film scholar Wheeler Winston Dixon.\n\nNotes" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "1939 Lincoln Memorial concert", "Marian Andersen", "Marian Elinda Anderson", "Marian Anderson", "Marian E. Anderson" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "1939 lincoln memorial concert", "marian elinda anderson", "marian anderson", "marian andersen", "marian e anderson" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "marian anderson", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Marian Anderson" }
Which American was the first ever person to retain an Olympic springboard diving title?	tc_1272	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Diving.txt" ], "title": [ "Diving" ], "wiki_context": [ "Diving is the sport of jumping or falling into water from a platform or springboard, usually while performing acrobatics. Diving is an internationally recognized sport that is part of the Olympic Games. In addition, unstructured and non-competitive diving is a recreational pastime.\n\nDiving is one of the most popular Olympic sports with spectators. Competitors possess many of the same characteristics as gymnasts and dancers, including strength, flexibility, kinaesthetic judgment and air awareness. Some professional divers were originally gymnasts or dancers as both the sports have similar characteristics to diving.\n\nHistory\n\nPlunging\n\nAlthough diving has been a popular pastime across the world since ancient times, the first modern diving competitions were held in England in the 1880s. The exact origins of the sport are unclear, though it likely derives from the act of diving at the start of swimming races. The 1904 book Swimming by Ralph Thomas notes English reports of plunging records dating back to at least 1865. The 1877 edition to British Rural Sports by John Henry Walsh makes note of a \"Mr. Young\" plunging 56 feet in 1870, and also states that 25 years prior, a swimmer named Drake could cover 53 feet. \n\nThe English Amateur Swimming Association (at the time called the Swimming Association of Great Britain) first started a \"plunging championship\" in 1883. The Plunging Championship was discontinued in 1937.\n\nFancy diving\n\nDiving into a body of water had also been a method used by gymnasts in Germany and Sweden since the early 19th century. The soft landing allowed for more elaborate gymnastic feats in midair as the jump could be made at a greater distance. This tradition evolved into 'fancy diving', while diving as a preliminary to swimming became known as 'Plain diving'.\n\nIn England, the practice of high diving – diving from a great height – gained popularity; the first diving stages were erected at the Highgate Ponds at a height of 15 feet in 1893 and the first world championship event, the National Graceful Diving Competition, was held there by the Royal Life Saving Society in 1895. The event consisted of standing and running dives from either 15 or 30 feet.\n\nIt was at this event that the Swedish tradition of fancy diving was introduced to the sport by the athletes Otto Hagborg and C F Mauritzi. They demonstrated their acrobatic techniques from the 10m diving board at Highgate Pond and stimulated the establishment of the Amateur Diving Association in 1901, the first organization devoted to diving in the world (later amalgamated with the Amateur Swimming Association). Fancy diving was formally introduced into the championship in 1903. \n\nOlympic era\n\nPlain diving was first introduced into the Olympics at the 1904 event. The 1908 Olympics in London added 'fancy diving' and introduced elastic boards rather than fixed platforms. Women were first allowed to participate in the diving events for the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm.\n\nIn the 1928 Olympics, 'plain' and 'fancy' diving was amalgamated into one event – 'Highboard Diving'. The diving event was first held indoors in the Empire Pool for the 1934 British Empire Games and 1948 Summer Olympics in London.\n\nCompetitive diving\n\nMost diving competitions consist of three disciplines: 1 m and 3 m springboards, and the platform. Competitive athletes are divided by gender, and often by age group. In platform events, competitors are allowed to perform their dives on either the five, seven and a half (generally just called seven), nine, or ten meter towers. In major diving meets, including the Olympic Games and the World Championships, platform diving is from the 10 meter height.\n\nDivers have to perform a set number of dives according to established requirements, including somersaults and twists. Divers are judged on whether and how well they completed all aspects of the dive, the conformance of their body to the requirements of the dive, and the amount of splash created by their entry to the water. A possible score out of ten is broken down into three points for the takeoff (meaning the hurdle), three for the flight (the actual dive), and three for the entry (how the diver hits the water), with one more available to give the judges flexibility.\n\nThe raw score is multiplied by a difficulty factor, derived from the number and combination of movements attempted. The diver with the highest total score after a sequence of dives is declared the winner.\n\nSynchronized diving\n\nSynchronized diving was adopted as an Olympic sport in 2000. Two divers form a team and perform dives simultaneously. The dives are identical. It used to be possible to dive opposites, also known as a pinwheel, but this is no longer part of competitive synchronized diving. For example, one diver would perform a forward dive and the other an inward dive in the same position, or one would do a reverse and the other a back movement. In these events, the diving would be judged both on the quality of execution and the synchronicity – in timing of take-off and entry, height and forward travel.\n\nScoring the dive\n\nThere are rules governing the scoring of a dive. Usually a score considers three elements of the dive: the approach, the flight, and the entry. The primary factors affecting the scoring are:\n\n* if a hand-stand is required, the length of time and quality of the hold\n* the height of the diver at the apex of the dive, with extra height resulting in a higher score\n* the distance of the diver from the diving apparatus throughout the dive (a diver must not be dangerously close, should not be too far away, but should ideally be within 2 ft of the platform)\n* the properly defined body position of the diver according to the dive being performed, including pointed toes and feet touching at all times\n* the proper amounts of rotation and revolution upon completion of the dive and entry into the water\n* angle of entry – a diver should enter the water straight, without any angle. Many judges award divers for the amount of splash created by the diver on entry, with less splash resulting in a higher score.\n* amount of splash\n\nTo reduce the subjectivity of scoring in major meets, panels of five or seven judges are assembled. If five judges then the highest and lowest scores are discarded and the middle three are summed and multiplied by the degree of difficulty (DD), which is determined from a combination of the moves undertaken, in which position and from what height. In major international events, there are seven judges in which case the highest and lowest scores are again discarded and the middle five are summed, then ratioed by , and multiplied by the DD, so as to provide consistent comparison with 5-judge events. Accordingly, it is extremely difficult for one judge to manipulate scores.\n\nThis seven-judge procedure has been modified as of the 2012 London Olympics: rather than eliminating one high and one low award and then reducing the total by as in previous international events, the two highest awards and the two lowest are disregarded, leaving three to be summed and multiplied by the difficulty rating.\n\nThere is a general misconception about scoring and judging. In serious meets, the absolute score is somewhat meaningless. It is the relative score, not the absolute score that wins meets. Accordingly, good judging implies consistent scoring across the dives. Specifically, if a judge consistently gives low scores for all divers, or consistently gives high scores for the same divers, the judging will yield fair relative results and will cause divers to place in the correct order. However, absolute scores have significance to the individual divers. Besides the obvious instances of setting records, absolute scores are also used for rankings and qualifications for higher level meets.\n\nIn synchronised diving events, there is a panel of seven, nine, or eleven judges; two or three to mark the execution of one diver, two or three to mark the execution of the other, and the remaining three or five to judge the synchronisation. The execution judges are positioned two on each side of the pool, and they score the diver which is nearer to them. The 2012 London Olympics saw the first use of eleven judges.\n\nThe score is computed similarly to the scores from other diving events, but has been modified starting with the 2012 London Olympics for the use of the larger judging panels. Each group of judges will have the highest and lowest scores dropped, leaving the middle score for each diver's execution and the three middle scores for synchronization. The total is then weighted by and multiplied by the DD. The result is that the emphasis is on the synchronization of the divers.\n\nThe synchronisation scores are based on:\n* time of take-off\n* height attained\n* synchronisation of rotations and twists\n* time of entry to the water\n* forward travel from the board\n\nThe judges may also disqualify the diver for certain violations during the dive, including:\n* receiving a score of 0 on all dives performed in the event\n* improper equipment usage (e.g., female divers not using hair ties)\n\nCompetitive strategy\n\nTo win dive meets, divers create a dive list in advance of the meet. To win the meet the diver must accumulate more points than other divers. Often, simple dives with low DDs will look good to spectators but will not win meets. The competitive diver will attempt the highest DD dives possible with which they can achieve consistent, high scores. If divers are scoring 8 or 9 on most dives, it may be a sign of their extreme skill, or it may be a sign that their dive list is not competitive, and they may lose the meet to a diver with higher DDs and lower scores.\n\nIn competition, divers must submit their lists beforehand, and once past a deadline (usually when the event is announced or shortly before it begins) they cannot change their dives. If they fail to perform the dive announced, even if they physically cannot execute the dive announced or if they perform a more difficult dive, they will receive a score of zero. Under exceptional circumstances, a redive may be granted, but these are exceedingly rare (usually for very young divers just learning how to compete, or if some event outside the diver's control has caused them to be unable to perform-such as a loud noise).\n\nIn the Olympics or other highly competitive meets, many divers will have nearly the same list of dives as their competitors. The importance for divers competing at this level is not so much the DD, but how they arrange their list. Once the more difficult rounds of dives begin it is important to lead off with a confident dive to build momentum. They also tend to put a very confident dive in front of a very difficult dive to ensure that they will have a good mentality for the difficult dive. Most divers have pre-dive and post-dive rituals that help them either maintain or regain focus. Coaches also play a role in this aspect of the sport. Many divers rely on their coaches to help keep their composure during the meet. In a large meet coaches are rarely allowed on the deck to talk to their athlete so it is common to see coaches using hand gestures or body movements to communicate.\n\nThere are some American meets which will allow changes of the position of the dive even after the dive has been announced immediately before execution, but these are an exception to the rules generally observed internationally.\n\nGenerally, NCAA rules allow for dives to be changed while the diver is on the board, but the diver must request the change directly after the dive is announced. This applies especially in cases where the wrong dive is announced. If the diver pauses during his or her hurdle to ask for a change of dive, it will be declared a balk (when the diver stops mid-hurdle) and the change of dive will not be permitted.\n\nUnder FINA law, no dive may be changed after the deadline for the dive-sheet to be submitted (generally a period ranging from one hour to 24 hours, depending on the rulings made by the event organiser).\n\nIt is the diver's responsibility to ensure that the dive-sheet is filled in correctly, and also to correct the referee or announcer before the dive if they describe it incorrectly. If a dive is performed which is as submitted but not as (incorrectly) announced, it is declared failed and scores zero according to a strict reading of the FINA law. But in practice, a re-dive would usually be granted in these circumstances.\n\nGovernance\n\nThe global governing body of diving is FINA, which also governs swimming, synchronized swimming, water polo and open water swimming. Almost invariably, at national level, diving shares a governing body with the other aquatic sports.\n\nThis is frequently a source of political friction as the committees are naturally dominated by swimming officials who do not necessarily share or understand the concerns of the diving community. Divers often feel, for example, that they do not get adequate support over issues like the provision of facilities. Other areas of concern are the selection of personnel for the specialised Diving committees and for coaching and officiating at events, and the team selection for international competitions.\n\nThere are sometimes attempts to separate the governing body as a means to resolve these frustrations, but they are rarely successful. For example, in the UK the Great Britain Diving Federation was formed in 1992 with the intention of taking over the governance of Diving from the ASA (Amateur Swimming Association). Although it initially received widespread support from the diving community, the FINA requirement that international competitors had to be registered with their National Governing Body was a major factor in the abandonment of this ambition a few years later.\n\nSince FINA refused to rescind recognition of the ASA as the British governing body for all aquatic sports including diving, this meant that the elite divers had to belong to ASA-affiliated clubs to be eligible for selection to international competition.\n\nIn the United States scholastic diving is almost always part of the school's swim team. Diving is a separate sport in Olympic and Club Diving. The NCAA will separate diving from swimming in special diving competitions after the swim season is completed.\n\nSafety\n\nDespite the apparent risk, the statistical incidence of injury in supervised training and competition is extremely low. \n\nThe majority of accidents that are classified as 'diving-related' are incidents caused by individuals jumping from structures such as bridges or piers into water of inadequate depth. Many accidents also occur when divers do not account for rocks and logs in the water. Because of this many beaches and pools prohibit diving in shallow waters or when a lifeguard is not on duty.\n\nAfter an incident in Washington in 1993, most US and other pool builders are reluctant to equip a residential swimming pool with a diving springboard so home diving pools are much less common these days. In the incident, 14-year-old Shawn Meneely made a \"suicide dive\" (his hands at his sides – so his head hit the bottom first) in a private swimming pool and became a tetraplegic. The lawyers for the family, Jan Eric Peterson and Fred Zeder, successfully sued the diving board manufacturer, the pool builder, and the National Spa and Pool Institute over the inappropriate depth of the pool. \nThe NSPI had specified a minimum depth of 7 ft 6 in (2.29 m) which proved to be insufficient in the above case. The pool into which Meneely dived was not constructed to the published standards. The standards had changed after the diving board was installed on the non-compliant pool by the homeowner. But the courts held that the pool \"was close enough\" to the standards to hold NSPI liable. The multimillion-dollar lawsuit was eventually resolved in 2001 for US$6.6 million ($8 million after interest was added) in favor of the plaintiff. The NSPI was held to be liable, and was financially strained by the case. It filed twice for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and was successfully reorganized into a new swimming pool industry association.\n\nIn competitive diving, FINA takes regulatory steps to ensure that athletes are protected from the inherent dangers of the sport. For example, they impose restrictions according to age on the heights of platforms which divers may compete on.\n\n* Group D (11 & under): 5 m\n* Group C (12/13 year): 5 m & 7.5 m\n* Group B (14/15 year): 5 m, 7.5 m & 10 m\n* Group A (16/18 year): 5 m, 7.5 m & 10 m\n\nGroup D divers have only recently been allowed to compete on the tower. In the past, the age group could compete only springboard, to discourage children from taking on the greater risks of tower diving. Group D tower was introduced to counteract the phenomenon of coaches pushing young divers to compete in higher age categories, thus putting them at even greater risk.\n\nHowever, some divers may safely dive in higher age categories to dive on higher platforms. Usually this occurs when advanced Group C divers wish to compete on the 10 m.\n\nPoints on pool depths in connection with safety:\n\n* most competition pools are 5m deep for 10 m platform and 4m deep for 5m platform or 3m springboard. These are currently the FINA recommended minimum depths. Some are deeper, e.g. 6m for the diving pit at Sheffield, England.\n* diving from 10 m and maintaining a downward streamlined position results in gliding to a stop at about 4.5 – 5m.\n* high standard competition divers rarely go more than about 2.5m below the surface, as they roll in the direction of the dive's rotation. This is a technique to produce a clean entry.\n* attempting to scoop the trajectory underwater against the rotation is extremely inadvisable as it can cause serious back injuries.\n* hitting the water flat from 10 m brings the diver to rest in about 1 ft. The extreme deceleration causes severe bruising both internal and external, strains to connective tissue securing the organs and possible minor hemorrhage to lungs and other tissue. This is very painful and distressing, but not life-threatening.\n\nDive groups\n\nThere are six \"groups\" into which dives are classified: Forward, Back, Inward, Reverse, Twist, and Armstand. The latter applies only to Platform competitions, whereas the other five apply to both Springboard and Platform.\n\n* in the Forward Group (Group 1), the diver takes off facing forward and rotates forward\n* in the Back Group (2), the diver takes off with their back to the water and rotates backward\n* in the Reverse Group (3), the diver takes off facing forward and rotates backward\n* in the Inward Group (4), the diver takes off with their back to the water and rotates forward\n* any dive incorporating an axial twisting movement is in the Twist group (5).\n* any dive commencing from a handstand is in the Armstand group (6). (Only on platform)\n\nDive positions\n\nDuring the flight of the dive, one of four positions is assumed:\n* straight – with no bend at the knees or hips (the hardest of the four)\n* pike – with knees straight but a tight bend at the hips (the median in difficulty of the four.) The open pike is a variant where the arms are reached to the side, and the legs are brought straight out with a bend in the hips.\n* tuck – body folded up in a tight ball, hands holding the shins and toes pointed (the easiest of the four.)\n* free – indicates a twisting dive, and a combination of other positions. In the transition between two positions the diver may for example bend their legs or curve at the waist, and points will not be deducted for doing so.\n\nThese positions are referred to by the letters A, B, C and D respectively.\n\nAdditionally, some dives can be started in a flying position. The body is kept straight with the arms extended to the side, and the regular dive position is assumed at about half the dive.\n\nDifficulty is rated according to the Degree of Difficulty of the dives. Some divers may find pike easier in a flip than tuck, and most find straight the easiest in a front/back dive, although it is still rated the most difficult because of the risk of overrotation.\n\nDive numbers\n\nIn competition, the dives are referred to by a schematic system of three- or four-digit numbers. The letter to indicate the position is appended to the end of the number.\n\nThe first digit of the number indicates the dive group as defined above.\n\nFor groups 1 to 4, the number consists of three digits and a letter of the alphabet. The third digit represents the number of half-somersaults. The second digit is either 0 or 1, with 0 representing a normal somersault, and 1 signifying a \"flying\" variation of the basic movement (i.e. the first half somersault is performed in the straight position, and then the pike or tuck shape is assumed). No flying dive has been competed at a high level competition for many years.\n\nFor example:\n* 101A – forward Dive Straight\n* 203C – back one-and-a-half somersaults, tuck\n* 305C – reverse two-and-a-half somersaults, tuck\n* 113B – flying forward one-and-a-half somersaults, pike\n\nFor Group 5, the dive number has 4 digits. The first digit indicates that it is a twisting dive. The second digit indicates the group (1–4) of the underlying movement; the third digit indicates the number of half-somersaults, and the fourth indicates the number of half-twists.\n\nFor example:\n* 5211A – back dive, half twist, straight position.\n* 5337D – reverse one and a half somersaults with three and a half twists, in the Free position.\n\nFor Group 6 – Armstand – the dive number has either three or four digits: Three digits for dives without twist and four for dives with twists.\n\nIn non-twisting armstand dives, the second digit indicates the direction of rotation (0 no rotation, 1 \n forward, 2 backward, 3 \n reverse, 4 = inward) and the third digit indicates the number of half-somersaults. Inward-rotating armstand dives have never been performed, and are generally regarded as physically impossible.\n\nFor example:\n* 600A – armstand dive straight\n* 612B – armstand forward somersault pike\n* 624C – armstand back double somersault tuck\n\nFor twisting Armstand dives, the dive number again has 4 digits, but rather than beginning with the number 5, the number 6 remains as the first digit, indicating that the \"twister\" will be performed from an Armstand. The second digit indicates the direction of rotation – as above, the third is the number of half-somersaults, and the fourth is the number of half-twists:\n\ne.g. 6243D – armstand back double-somersault with one and a half twists in the free position\n\nAll of these dives come with DD (degree of difficulty) this is an indication of how difficult/complex a dive is. The score that the dive receives is multiplied by the DD (also known as tariff) to give the dive a final score. Before a diver competes they must decide on a \"list\" this is a number of optional dives and compulsory dives. The optionals come with a DD limit. this means that a diver must select X number of dives and the combined DD limit must be no more than the limit set by the competition/organisation etc.\n\nUntil the mid-1990s the tariff was decided by the FINA diving committee, and divers could only select from the range of dives in the published tariff table. Since then, the tariff is calculated by a formula based on various factors such as the number of twist and somersaults, the height, the group etc., and divers are free to submit new combinations. This change was implemented because new dives were being invented too frequently for an annual meeting to accommodate the progress of the sport.\n\nMechanics of diving\n\nAt the moment of take-off, two critical aspects of the dive are determined, and cannot subsequently be altered during the execution. One is the trajectory of the dive, and the other is the magnitude of the angular momentum.\n\nThe speed of rotation – and therefore the total amount of rotation – may be varied from moment to moment by changing the shape of the body, in accordance with the law of conservation of angular momentum.\n\nThe center of mass of the diver follows a parabolic path in free-fall under the influence of gravity (ignoring the effects of air resistance, which are negligible at the speeds involved). \n\nTrajectory\n\nSince the parabola is symmetrical, the travel away from the board as the diver passes it is twice the amount of the forward travel at the peak of the flight. Excessive forward distance to the entry point is penalized when scoring a dive, but obviously an adequate clearance from the diving board is essential on safety grounds.\n\nThe greatest possible height that can be achieved is desirable for several reasons:\n\n* the height attained is itself one of the factors that the judges will reward.\n* a greater height gives a longer flight time and therefore more time to execute maneuvers.\n* for any given clearance when passing the board, the forward travel distance to the entry point will be less for a higher trajectory.\n\nControl of rotation\n\nThe magnitude of angular momentum remains constant throughout the dive, but since\n\n:angular momentum = rotational velocity × moment of inertia,\n\nand the moment of inertia is larger when the body has an increased radius, the speed of rotation may be increased by moving the body into a compact shape, and reduced by opening out into a straight position.\n\nSince the tucked shape is the most compact, it gives the most control over rotational speed, and dives in this position are easier to perform. Dives in the straight position are hardest, since there is almost no scope for altering the speed, so the angular momentum must be created at take-off with a very high degree of accuracy. (A small amount of control is available by moving the position of the arms and by a slight hollowing of the back).\n\nThe opening of the body for the entry does not stop the rotation, but merely slows it down. The vertical entry achieved by expert divers is largely an illusion created by starting the entry slightly short of vertical, so that the legs are vertical as they disappear beneath the surface. A small amount of additional tuning is available by 'entry save' techniques, whereby underwater movements of the upper body and arms against the viscosity of the water affect the position of the legs. \n\nTwisting\n\nDives with multiple twists and somersaults are some of the most spectacular movements, as well as the most challenging to perform.\n\nThe rules state that twisting 'must not be generated manifestly on take-off'. Consequently, divers must use some of the somersaulting angular momentum to generate twisting movements. The physics of twisting can be explained by looking at the components of the angular momentum vector.\n\nAs the diver leaves the board, the total angular momentum vector is horizontal, pointing directly to the left for a forward dive for example. For twisting rotation to exist, it is necessary to tilt the body sideways after takeoff, so that there is now a small component of this horizontal angular momentum vector along the body's long axis. The tilt can be seen in the photo.\n\nThe tilting is done by the arms, which are outstretched to the sides just before the twist. When one arm is moved up and the other is moved down (like turning a big steering wheel), the body reacts by tilting to the side, which then begins the twisting rotation. At the completion of the required number of twist rotations, the arm motion is reversed (the steering wheel is turned back), which removes the body's tilt and stops the twisting rotation.\n\nAn alternative explanation is that the moving arms have precession torque on them which set the body into twisting rotation. Moving the arms back produces opposite torque which stops the twisting rotation.\n\nEntry\n\nThe rules state that the body should be vertical, or nearly so, for entry. Strictly speaking, it is physically impossible to achieve a literally vertical position throughout the entry as there will inevitably still be some rotational momentum while the body is entering the water. Divers therefore attempt to create the illusion of being vertical, especially when performing rapidly rotating multiple somersault movements. For back entries, one technique is to allow the upper body to enter slightly short of vertical so that the continuing rotation leaves the final impression of the legs entering vertically. This is called \"Pike save\". Another is to use \"knee save\" movements of scooping the upper body underwater in the direction of rotation so as to counteract the rotation of the legs.\n\nThe arms must be beside the body for feet-first dives, which are typically competed only on the 1m springboard and only at fairly low levels of 3m springboard, and extended forwards in line for \"head-first\" dives, which are much more common competitively. It used to be common for the hands to be interlocked with the fingers extended towards the water, but a different technique has become favoured during the last few decades. Now the usual practice is for one hand to grasp the other with palms down to strike the water with a flat surface. This creates a vacuum between the hands, arms and head which, with a vertical entry, will pull down and under any splash until deep enough to have minimal effect on the surface of the water (the so-called \"rip entry\").\n\nOnce a diver is completely under the water they may choose to roll or scoop in the same direction their dive was rotating to pull their legs into a more vertical position. Apart from aesthetic considerations, it is important from a safety point of view that divers reinforce the habit of rolling in the direction of rotation, especially for forward and inward entries. Especially when diving from the higher levels, attempting to re-surface in the opposite direction can cause hyperextention back injuries.\n\nBy country\n\nCanada\n\nIn Canada, elite competitive diving is regulated by DPC (Diving Plongeon Canada), although the individual provinces also have organizational bodies. The main competitive season runs from February to July, although some competitions may be held in January or December, and many divers (particularly international level athletes) will train and compete year round.\n\nMost provincial level competitions consist of events for 6 age groups (Groups A, B, C, D, E, and Open) for both genders on each of the three board levels. These age groups roughly correspond to those standardized by FINA, with the addition of a youngest age group for divers 9 and younger, Group E, which does not compete nationally and does not have a tower event (although divers of this age may choose to compete in Group D). The age group Open is so called because divers of any age, including those over 18, may compete in these events, so long as their dives meet a minimum standard of difficulty.\n\nAlthough Canada is internationally a fairly strong country in diving, the vast majority of Canadian high schools and universities do not have diving teams, and many Canadian divers accept athletic scholarships from American colleges.\n\nAdult divers who are not competitive at an elite level may compete in masters diving. Typically, masters are either adults who never practiced the sport as children or teenagers, or former elite athletes who have retired but still seek a way to be involved in the sport. Many diving clubs have masters teams in addition to their primary competitive ones, and while some masters dive only for fun and fitness, there are also masters competitions, which range from the local to world championship level.\n\nNational championships\n\nDivers can qualify to compete at the age group national championships, or junior national championships, in their age groups as assigned by FINA up to the age of 18. This competition is held annually in July. Qualification is based on achieving minimum scores at earlier competitions in the season, although athletes who place very highly at a national championship will be automatically qualified to compete at the next. Divers must qualify at two different competitions, at least one of which must be a level 1 competition, i.e. a competition with fairly strict judging patterns. Such competitions include the Polar Bear Invitational in Winnipeg, the Sting in Victoria, and the Alberta Provincial Championships in Edmonton or Calgary. The qualifying scores are determined by DPC according to the results of the preceding year's national competition, and typically do not have much variation from year to year.\n\nDivers older than 18, or advanced divers of younger ages, can qualify for the senior national championships, which are held twice each year, once roughly in March and once in June or July. Once again, qualification is based on achieving minimum scores at earlier competitions (in this case, within the 12 months preceding the national championships, and in an Open age group event), or high placements in previous national championships or international competitions. It is no longer the case that divers may use results from age group events to qualify for senior nationals, or results from Open events to qualify for age group nationals.\n\nRepublic of Ireland\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland facilities are limited to one pool at the National Aquatic Centre in Dublin.\n\nNational championships\n\nNational championships take place late in the year, usually during November. The competition is held at the National Aquatic Centre in Dublin and consists of four events:\n* Irish Open Age Group Championships\n* Irish Open Senior Diving Championships\n* Novice Competition (8–16 yrs)\n* Novice Masters Competition (>25 yrs)\n\nUnited Kingdom\n\nIn the United Kingdom, diving competitions on all boards run throughout the year. National Masters' Championships are held two or three times per year.\n\nUnited States\n\nSummer diving\n\nIn the United States, summer diving is usually limited to one meter diving at community or country club pools. Some pools organize to form intra-pool competitions. These competitions are usually designed to accommodate all school-age children. One of the largest and oldest summer leagues in the United States is found in the Northern Virginia area where teams from 47 pools compete against each other every summer. NVSL-Dive annually holds the Wally Martin 3-Meter Championship and concludes the season with its Individual All Stars Championship. In addition, NVSL-Dive annually hosts the largest one-day dive meet in the world, with over 350 developmental divers in NVSL's \"Cracker Jack\" Invitational! Champions from each of these events have gone on to compete at the collegiate and Olympic levels.\n\nHigh school diving\n\nIn the United States scholastic diving at the high school level is usually limited to one meter diving (but some schools use three meter springboards.). Scores from those one meter dives contribute to the swim team's overall score. High school diving and swimming concludes their season with a state competition. Depending on the state and the number of athletes competing in the state, certain qualifications must be achieved to compete in the state's championship meet. There are often regional championships and district championships which are necessary to compete in before reaching the state meet to narrow the field to only the most competitive athletes. Most state championship meets consist of eleven dives. The eleven dives are usually split up between two categories: five required (voluntary) dives and six optional dives.\n\nClub diving\n\nIn the United States, pre-college divers interested in learning one and three meter or platform diving should consider a club sanctioned by either USA Diving or AAU Diving. In USA Diving, Future Champions is the entry level or novice diver category with 8 levels of competition. From Future Champions, divers graduate to \"Junior Olympic\", or JO. JO divers compete in age groups at inter-club competitions, at invitationals, and if qualified, at regional, zone and national competitions. Divers over the age of 19 years of age cannot compete in these events as a JO diver.\n\nUSA Diving sanctions the Winter Nationals championship with one, three meter, and platform events. In the summer USA Diving sanctions the Summer Nationals including all three events with both Junior and Senior divers. USA Diving is sanctioned by the United States Olympic Committee to select team representatives for international diving competitions including the World Championships and Olympic Games.\n\nAAU Diving sanctions one national event per year in the summer. AAU competes on the one, three, and tower to determine the All-American team.\n\nCollege diving\n\nIn the United States scholastic diving at the college level requires one and three meter diving. Scores from the one and three meter competition contribute to the swim team's overall meet score. College divers interested in tower diving may compete in the NCAA separate from swim team events. NCAA Divisions II and III do not usually compete platform; if a diver wishes to compete platform in college, he or she must attend a Division I school.\n\nEach division also has rules on the number of dives in each competition. Division II schools compete with 10 dives in competition whereas Division III schools compete with 11. Division I schools only compete with 6 dives in competition. These 6 dives consist of either 5 optionals and 1 voluntary, or 6 optionals. If the meet is a 5 optional meet, then the divers will perform 1 optional from each category (Front, Back, Inward, Reverse, and Twister) and then 1 voluntary from the category of their choice. The voluntary in this type of meet is always worth a DD (Degree of Difficulty) of 2.0 even if the real DD is worth more or less on a DD sheet. In a 6 optional meet, the divers will yet again perform one dive from each category, but this time they will perform a 6th optional from the category of their choosing, which is worth its actual DD from the DD sheet.\n\nThe highest level of collegiate competition is the NCAA Division 1 Swimming and Diving Championship. Events at the championship include 1 meter springboard, 3 meter springboard, and platform, as well as various swimming individual and relay events. The points scored by swimmers and divers are combined to determine a team swimming & diving champion. To qualify for a diving event at the NCAA championships, a competitor must first finish in the top three at one of five zone championships, which are held after the various conference championship meets. A diver who scores at least 310 points on the 3 meter springboard and 300 points on the 1 meter springboard in a 6 optional meet can participate in the particular zone championship corresponding to the geographic region in which his or her school lies.\n\nA number of colleges and universities offer scholarships to men and women who have competitive diving skills. These scholarships are usually offered to divers with age-group or club diving experience.\n\nThe NCAA limits the number of years a college student can represent any school in competitions. The limit is four years, but could be less under certain circumstances.\n\nMasters' Diving\n\nDivers who continue diving past their college years can compete in Masters' Diving programs. Masters' diving programs are frequently offered by college or club programs.\n\nMasters' Diving events are normally conducted in age-groups separated by five or ten years, and attract competitors of a wide range of ages and experience (many, indeed, are newcomers to the sport); the oldest competitor in a Masters' Diving Championship was Viola Krahn, who at the age of 101 was the first person in any sport, male or female, anywhere in the world, to compete in an age-group of 100+ years in a nationally organized competition.\n\nFamous divers\n\nAustralia: Matthew Mitcham, Mathew Helm, Chantelle Newbery, Robert Newbery, Dean Pullar, Melissa Wu, Rebecca Gilmore, Loudy Tourky, Brittany Broben and Jenny Donnet\nCanada: Myriam Boileau, Alexandre Despatie, Arturo Miranda, Blythe Hartley, Émilie Heymans, Anne Montminy, Beverly Boys, Irene MacDonald and Vincent Riendeau\nChina: Qiu Bo, Fu Mingxia, Gao Min, Guo Jingjing, Hu Jia, Lao Lishi, Li Na, Li Ting, Wu Minxia, Peng Bo, Sang Xue, Tian Liang, Xiao Hailiang, Xiong Ni, He Chong, Chen Ruolin, Huo Liang, Wang Xin, Yang Jinghui, and Liang Boxi\nColombia: Orlando Duque\nGermany: Jan Hempel, Patrick Hausding, Sascha Klein\nItaly: Klaus Dibiasi, Giorgio Cagnotto, Tania Cagnotto\nMalaysia: Pandelela Rinong, Ooi Tze Liang\nMexico: Joaquín Capilla, Carlos Girón, Rommel Pacheco, Fernando Platas, Paola Espinosa, Yahel Castillo, Iván García, Germán Sánchez, Alejandra Orozco, Jonathan Paredes, Laura Sánchez and Jahir Ocampo\nNew Zealand: Liam Stone, Elizabeth Cui\nThe Netherlands: Edwin Jongejans\nRussia: Alexander Dobroskok, Gleb Galperin, Vera Ilina, Igor Lukashin, Ioulia Pakhalina, Dmitri Sautin and Ilya Zakharov\n Sweden: Greta Johansson, Anna Lindberg, Ulrika Knape\n* Ukraine: Illya Kvasha, Oleksiy Pryhorov\nUnited Kingdom: Chris Snode, Leon Taylor, Peter Waterfield, Jason Statham, Tom Daley, Chris Mears, Grace Reid, Brian Phelps, Tonia Couch, Sarah Barrow, Jack Laugher, Alicia Blagg, Hannah Starling, Monique Gladding, Rebecca Gallantree\nUnited States: Hobie Billingsley, Phil Boggs, David Boudia, Lesley Bush, Jennifer Chandler, Mary Ellen Clark, Scott Donie, Troy Dumais, Michael Galitzen, Barbara Gilders, Fletcher Gilders, Kristian Ipsen, Bruce Kimball, Micki King, Dana Kunze, Beatrice Kyle, Sammy Lee, Mark Lenzi, Greg Louganis, Pat McCormick, Cynthia Potter, Aileen Riggin, Jeanne Stunyo, Laura Wilkinson, Wendy Wyland\n\nNon-competitive diving\n\nDiving is also popular as a non-competitive activity. Such diving usually emphasizes the airborne experience, and the height of the dive, but does not emphasize what goes on once the diver enters the water. The ability to dive underwater can be a useful emergency skill, and is an important part of watersport and navy safety training. Entering water from a height is an enjoyable leisure activity, as is underwater swimming.\n\nSuch non-competitive diving can occur indoors and outdoors. Outdoor diving typically takes place from cliffs or other rock formations either into fresh or salt water. However, man-made diving platforms are sometimes constructed in popular swimming destinations. Outdoor diving requires knowledge of the water depth and currents as conditions can be dangerous.\n\nHigh diving\n\nA recently developing section of the sport is High Diving (e.g. see 2013 World Aquatics Championships), conducted in open air locations, usually from improvised platforms up to 27 m high (as compared with 10 m as used in Olympic and World Championship events). Entry to the water is invariably feet-first to avoid the risk of injury that would be involved in head-first entry from that height. The final half-somersault is almost always performed backwards, enabling the diver to spot the entry point and control their rotation." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Louganis", "Greg Louganis", "Greg E. 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Which university did Tony Blair and Bill Clinton both attend in their younger days?	tc_1273	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Tony_Blair.txt", "Bill_Clinton.txt" ], "title": [ "Tony Blair", "Bill Clinton" ], "wiki_context": [ "Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and the Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. Together with then-US President George W. Bush, he initiated the Iraq War with the invasion of Iraq, an act which remains highly controversial. \n\nFrom 1983 to 2007, Blair was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield and 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, equal worth of each citizen, and equal opportunity. Critics of Blair denounced him for having the Labour Party abandon genuine socialism and accepting capitalism. \n\nIn May 1997, the Labour Party won a landslide general election victory, the largest in its history, allowing Blair, at 43 years old, to become the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in 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 elections under his leadership: in 2001, in which it won another landslide victory, and in 2005, with a reduced majority. In the first years of the New Labour government, Blair's government introduced the National Minimum Wage Act, Human Rights Act, and Freedom of Information Act. Blair's government also carried out the devolution, the establishing of the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and the Northern Ireland Assembly, thus fulfilling four of the promises in its 1997 manifesto. In Northern Ireland, Blair was involved in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.\n\nBlair strongly supported the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration, and ensured that British Armed Forces participated in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and, more controversially, the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Blair has faced strong 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 strongly criticised his actions and described the invasion of Iraq as unjustified and unnecessary.\n\nBlair was succeeded as the leader of the Labour Party on 24 June 2007, and as Prime Minister on 27 June 2007 by Gordon Brown. On the day that Blair resigned as Prime Minister, he was appointed the official Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East, which he held until 27 May 2015. He now runs a consultancy business and has set up various foundations in his own name, including the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. \n\nEarly life\n\nBlair was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 6 May 1953, the second son of Leo and Hazel ( Corscadden) Blair. Leo Blair, the illegitimate son of two English actors, had been adopted as a baby by Glasgow shipyard worker James Blair and his wife, Mary. Hazel Corscadden was the daughter of George Corscadden, a butcher and Orangeman who moved to Glasgow in 1916 but returned to (and later died in) Ballyshannon, County Donegal in 1923, where his wife, Sarah Margaret (née Lipsett), gave birth to Blair's mother, Hazel, above the family's grocery shop. \n\nBlair has one elder brother, Sir William Blair, a High Court judge, and a younger sister, Sarah. Blair spent the first 19 months of his life at the family home in Paisley Terrace in the Willowbrae area of Edinburgh. During this period, his father worked as a junior tax inspector whilst also studying for a law degree from the University of Edinburgh.\n\nIn the 1950s, his family spent three and a half years in Adelaide, South Australia, where his father was a lecturer in law at the University of Adelaide. The Blairs lived close to the university, in the suburb of Dulwich. The family returned to the UK in the late 1950s, living for a time with Hazel's mother and stepfather (William McClay) at their home in Stepps, near Glasgow. He spent the remainder of his childhood in Durham, England, where his father Leo lectured at Durham University. \n\nEducation\n\nAfter attending the Chorister School in Durham from 1961 to 1966, Blair boarded at Fettes College, a prestigious independent school in Edinburgh, during which time he met Charlie Falconer (a pupil at the rival Edinburgh Academy), whom he later appointed Lord Chancellor. Blair reportedly modelled himself on Mick Jagger. His teachers were unimpressed with him; his biographer, John Rentoul, reported that \"All the teachers I spoke to when researching the book said he was a complete pain in the backside and they were very glad to see the back of him.\" \n\nAfter Fettes, Blair spent a year in London, where he attempted to find fame as a rock music promoter before reading Jurisprudence at St John's College, at the University of Oxford. As a student, he played guitar and sang in a rock band called Ugly Rumours. \n\nHe was influenced by fellow student and Anglican priest Peter Thomson, who awakened his religious faith and left-wing politics. While Blair was at Oxford, his mother Hazel died of cancer, which greatly affected him. After graduating from Oxford in 1975 with a Second-Class Honours B.A. in Jurisprudence, Blair became a member of Lincoln's Inn, enrolled as a pupil barrister, and met his future wife, Cherie Booth (daughter of the actor Tony Booth) at the law chambers founded by Derry Irvine (who was to be Blair's first Lord Chancellor), 11 King's Bench Walk Chambers.\n\nEarly political career\n\nBlair joined the Labour Party shortly after graduating from Oxford in 1975. In the early 1980s, he was involved in Labour politics in Hackney South and Shoreditch, where he aligned himself with the \"soft left\" of the party. He put himself forward as a candidate for the Hackney council elections of 1982 in Queensbridge ward, a safe Labour area, but was not selected.John Rentoul, Tony Blair, Warner Books, 1996, p. 101.\n\nIn 1982, Blair was selected as the Labour candidate in the safe Conservative seat of Beaconsfield, where there was a forthcoming by-election. Although Blair lost the Beaconsfield by-election and 10% of the vote, he acquired a profile within the party. In contrast to his later centrism, Blair made it clear in a letter he wrote to Labour leader Michael Foot in July 1982 (published in 2006) that he had \"come to Socialism through Marxism\" and considered himself on the left. Like Tony Benn, Blair believed that \"Labour right\" was bankrupt: \"Socialism ultimately must appeal to the better minds of the people. You cannot do that if you are tainted overmuch with a pragmatic period in power.\" Yet, he saw the hard left as no better, saying:\n\nWith a general election due, Blair had not been selected as a candidate anywhere. He was invited to stand again in Beaconsfield, and was initially inclined to agree but was advised by his head of chambers Derry Irvine to find somewhere else which might be winnable. The situation was complicated by the fact that Labour was fighting a legal action against planned boundary changes, and had selected candidates on the basis of previous boundaries. When the legal challenge failed, the party had to rerun all selections on the new boundaries; most were based on existing seats, but unusually in County Durham a new Sedgefield constituency had been created out of Labour-voting areas which had no obvious predecessor seat.John Rentoul, Tony Blair, Warner Books, 1996, p. 115.\n\nThe selection for Sedgefield did not begin until after the 1983 election was called. Blair's initial inquiries discovered that the left was trying to arrange the selection for Les Huckfield, sitting MP for Nuneaton who was trying elsewhere; several sitting MPs displaced by boundary changes were also interested in it. When he discovered the Trimdon branch had not yet made a nomination, Blair visited them and won the support of the branch secretary John Burton, and with Burton's help was nominated by the branch. At the last minute, he was added to the shortlist and won the selection over Huckfield. It was the last candidate selection made by Labour before the election, and was made after the Labour Party had issued biographies of all its candidates (\"Labour's Election Who's Who\"). \n\nJohn Burton became Blair's election agent and one of his most trusted and longest-standing allies. Blair's election literature in the 1983 UK general election endorsed left-wing policies that Labour advocated in the early 1980s. He called for Britain to leave the EEC as early as the 1970s, though he had told his selection conference that he personally favoured continuing membership and voted \"Yes\" in the 1975 referendum on the subject. He opposed the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) in 1986 but supported the ERM by 1989. He was a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, despite never strongly being in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament. Blair was helped on the campaign trail by soap opera actress Pat Phoenix, his father-in-law's girlfriend. Blair was elected as MP for Sedgefield despite the party's landslide defeat in the general election.\n\nIn his maiden speech in the House of Commons on 6 July 1983, Blair stated, \"I am a socialist not through reading a textbook that has caught my intellectual fancy, nor through unthinking tradition, but because I believe that, at its best, socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral. It stands for cooperation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality.\" \n\nOnce elected, Blair's political ascent was rapid. He received his first front-bench appointment in 1984 as assistant Treasury spokesman. In May 1985, he appeared on BBC's Question Time, arguing that the Conservative Government's Public Order White Paper was a threat to civil liberties. \n\nBlair demanded an inquiry into the Bank of England's decision to rescue the collapsed Johnson Matthey Bank in October 1985. By this time, Blair was aligned with the reforming tendencies in the party (headed by leader Neil Kinnock) and was promoted after the 1987 election to the shadow Trade and Industry team as spokesman on the City of London.\n\nLeadership roles\n\nIn 1987, he stood for election to the Shadow Cabinet, receiving 71 votes. When Kinnock resigned after a further Conservative victory in the 1992 election, Blair became Shadow Home Secretary under John Smith. The old guard argued that trends showed they were regaining strength under Smith's strong leadership. Meanwhile, the breakaway SDP faction had merged with the Liberal Party; the resulting Liberal Democrats seemed to pose a major threat to the Labour base. Tony Blair had an entirely different vision. Blair, the leader of the modernising faction, argued that the long-term trends had to be reversed. The Party was too locked into a base that was shrinking, since it was based on the working-class, on trade unions, and on residents of subsidised council housing. The rapidly growing middle class was largely ignored, especially the more ambitious working-class families. They aspired to middle-class status, but accepted the Conservative argument that Labour was holding ambitious people back with its levelling down policies. They increasingly saw Labour in terms defined by the opposition, regarding higher taxes and higher interest rates. In order to present a fresh face and new policies to the elect, New Labour needed more than fresh leaders; it had to jettison outdated policies. The first step was procedural, but essential. Calling on the slogan, \"One member, one vote\" Blair (with some help from Smith) defeated the union element and ended the block voting by which leaders of labour unions cast hundreds of thousands of votes on behalf of their members, and had an outsize voice in the party. Blair and the modernizers called for radical adjustment of Party goals by repealing \"Clause IV,\" the historic commitment to nationalisation of industry. That was achieved in 1995. \n\nOpposition Leader\n\nJohn Smith died suddenly in 1994 of a heart attack. Blair beat John Prescott and Margaret Beckett in the subsequent leadership election and became Leader of the Opposition. As is customary for the holder of that office, Blair was appointed a Privy Councillor. \n\nLabour was seen by the The Guardian to be \"definitely socialistic\" since its first constitution was published in 1918, saying that support for the \"common ownership of the means of production and exchange\" in Clause IV of the party's constitution, was \"decisive\" in making Labour a socialist party. Blair announced at the end of his speech at the 1994 Labour Party conference that he intended to replace this clause of the party's constitution with a new statement of aims and values. This involved the deletion of the party's stated commitment to \"the common ownership of the means of production and exchange\", which was widely interpreted as referring to wholesale nationalisation. At a special conference in April 1995, the clause was replaced by a statement that the party is \"democratic socialist\", and Blair also claimed to be a \"democratic socialist\" himself in the same year. However, the move away from nationalisation in the old Clause IV made many on the left of the Labour Party feel that Labour was moving away from traditional socialist principles of nationalisation set out in 1918, and was seen by them as part of a shift of the party towards \"New Labour\". \n\nHe inherited the Labour leadership at a time when the party was ascendant over the Tories in the opinion polls since the Tory government's reputation for monetary excellence was left in tatters by the Black Wednesday economic disaster of September 1992. Blair's election as leader saw Labour support surge higher still in spite of the continuing economic recovery and fall in unemployment that the Conservative government (led by John Major) had overseen since the end of the 1990–92 recession. At the 1996 Labour Party conference, Blair stated that his three top priorities on coming to office were \"education, education, and education\". \n\nAided by the unpopularity of John Major's Conservative government (itself deeply divided over the European Union ), \"New Labour\" won a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, ending 18 years of Conservative Party government, with the heaviest Conservative defeat since 1906. \n\nAccording to diaries released by Paddy Ashdown, during Smith's leadership of the Labour Party, there were discussions with Ashdown about forming a coalition government if the next general election resulted in a hung parliament. Ashdown also claimed that Blair was a supporter of proportional representation (PR). In addition to Ashdown, Liberal Democrat MPs Menzies Campbell and Alan Beith were earmarked for places in the cabinet if the coalition was formed. Blair was forced to back down on these proposals because John Prescott and Gordon Brown opposed the PR system, and many members of the shadow cabinet were worried about concessions being made towards the Lib Dems. However, after Blair became leader, these talks continued – despite virtually every opinion poll since late 1992 having shown Labour with enough support to form a majority. However, the scale of the Labour victory meant that there was ultimately never any need for a coalition.\n\nPrime Minister\n\nBlair became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on 2 May 1997, serving concurrently as First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Labour Party. The 43-year-old Blair became the youngest person to become Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool became Prime Minister at the age of 42 in 1812. With victories in 1997, 2001, and 2005, Blair was the Labour Party's longest-serving prime minister, the only person to date to lead the party to three consecutive general election victories.\n\nNorthern Ireland\n\nHis contribution towards assisting the Northern Ireland peace process by helping to negotiate the Good Friday Agreement (after 30 years of conflict) was widely recognised. Following the Omagh bombing on 15 August 1998, by members of the Real IRA opposed to the peace process, which killed 29 people and wounded hundreds, Blair visited the County Tyrone town and met with victims at Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast. \n\nMilitary intervention and the War on Terror\n\nIn his first six years in office Blair ordered British troops into battle five times, more than any other prime minister in British history. This included Iraq in both 1998 and 2003, Kosovo (1999), Sierra Leone (2000) and Afghanistan (2001). \n\nThe Kosovo War, which Blair had advocated on moral grounds, was initially a failure when it relied solely on air strikes; the threat of a ground offensive convinced Serbia's Slobodan Milošević to withdraw. Blair had been a major advocate for a ground offensive, which Bill Clinton was reluctant to do, and ordered that 50,000 soldiers – most of the available British Army – should be made ready for action.Andrew Marr, A History of Modern Britain (2008 printing), p. 550 The following year, the limited Operation Palliser in Sierra Leone swiftly swung the tide against the rebel forces; before deployment, the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone had been on the verge of collapse.Gberie, Lansana (2005). A Dirty War in West Africa: the RUF and the Destruction of Sierra Leone, p. 176. Indiana UP. Palliser had been intended as an evacuation mission but Brigadier David Richards was able to convince Blair to allow him to expand the role; at the time, Richards' action was not known and Blair was assumed to be behind it. \n\nBlair ordered Operation Barras, a highly successful SAS/Parachute Regiment strike to rescue hostages from a Sierra Leone rebel group. Historian Andrew Marr has argued that the success of ground attacks, real and threatened, over air strikes alone was influential on how Blair planned the Iraq War, and that the success of the first three wars Blair fought \"played to his sense of himself as a moral war leader\".Andrew Marr, A History of Modern Britain (2008 printing); p. 551 When asked in 2010 if the success of Palliser may have \"embolden[ed] British politicians\" to think of military action as a policy option, General Sir David Richards admitted there \"might be something in that\".\n\nFrom the start of the War on Terror in 2001, Blair strongly supported the foreign policy of George W. Bush, participating in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and 2003 invasion of Iraq. The invasion of Iraq was particularly controversial, as it attracted widespread public opposition and 139 of Blair's MPs opposed it. \n\nAs a result, he faced criticism over the policy itself and the circumstances of the decision. Alastair Campbell described Blair's statement that the intelligence on WMDs was \"beyond doubt\" as his \"assessment of the assessment that was given to him.\" In 2009, Blair stated that he would have supported removing Saddam Hussein from power even in the face of proof that he had no such weapons. Playwright Harold Pinter and former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad accused Blair of war crimes. \n\nTestifying before the Iraq Inquiry on 29 January 2010, Blair said Saddam was a \"monster and I believe he threatened not just the region but the world.\" Blair said that British and American attitude towards Saddam Hussein had \"changed dramatically\" after 11 September attacks. Blair denied that he would have supported the invasion of Iraq even if he had thought Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. He said he believed the world was safer as a result of the invasion. He said there was \"no real difference between wanting regime change and wanting Iraq to disarm: regime change was US policy because Iraq was in breach of its UN obligations.\" In an October 2015 CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria, Blair apologised for his \"mistakes\" over Iraq War and admitted there were \"elements of truth\" to the view that the invasion helped promote the rise of ISIS. The Chilcot Inquiry report of 2016 gave a damning assessment of Blair's role in the Iraq War, though the former prime minister again refused to apologise for his decision to back the US-led invasion. \n\nRelationship with Parliament\n\nOne of his first acts as Prime Minister was to replace the then twice-weekly 15-minute sessions of Prime Minister's Questions held on Tuesdays and Thursdays with a single 30-minute session on Wednesdays. In addition to PMQs, Blair held monthly press conferences at which he fielded questions from journalists and – from 2002 – broke precedent by agreeing to give evidence twice yearly before the most senior Commons select committee, the Liaison Committee. Blair was sometimes perceived as paying insufficient attention both to the views of his own Cabinet colleagues and to those of the House of Commons. His style was sometimes criticised as not that of a prime minister and head of government, which he was, but of a president and head of state – which he was not. Blair was accused of excessive reliance on spin. He is the first British Prime Minister to have been formally questioned by police, though not under caution, while still in office. \n\nEvents before resignation\n\nAs the casualties of the Iraq War mounted, Blair was accused of misleading Parliament, and his popularity dropped dramatically. \n\nLabour's overall majority in the 2005 general election was reduced to 66. As a combined result of the Blair–Brown pact, Iraq war and low approval ratings, pressure built up within the Labour party for Blair to resign. Over the summer of 2006 many MPs, including usually supportive MPs, criticised Blair for his failure to call for a ceasefire in the 2006 Israel–Lebanon conflict. On 7 September 2006, Blair publicly stated he would step down as party leader by the time of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) conference held 10–13 September 2007, having promised to serve a full term during the previous general election campaign. On 10 May 2007, during a speech at the Trimdon Labour Club, Blair announced his intention to resign as Labour Party leader and Prime Minister.\n\nAt a special party conference in Manchester on 24 June 2007, he formally handed over the leadership of the Labour Party to Gordon Brown, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer. Blair tendered his resignation on 27 June 2007 and Brown assumed office the same afternoon. Blair resigned his seat in the House of Commons in the traditional form of accepting the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds, to which he was appointed by Gordon Brown in one of the latter's last acts as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The resulting Sedgefield by-election was won by Labour's candidate, Phil Wilson. Blair decided not to issue a list of Resignation Honours, making him the first Prime Minister of the modern era not to do so. \n\nPolicies\n\nSocial reforms\n\nIn 2001, Blair said, \"We are a left of centre party, pursuing economic prosperity and social justice as partners and not as opposites\". \n\nBlair rarely applies such labels to himself, but he promised before the 1997 election that New Labour would govern \"from the radical centre\", and according to one lifelong Labour Party member, has always described himself as a social democrat. However, at least one left-wing commentator has said that Blair is to the right of centre. A YouGov opinion poll in 2005 found that a small majority of British voters, including many New Labour supporters, place Blair on the right of the political spectrum. The Financial Times on the other hand has argued that Blair is not conservative, but instead a populist. \n\nCritics and admirers tend to agree that Blair's electoral success was based on his ability to occupy the centre ground and appeal to voters across the political spectrum, to the extent that he has been fundamentally at odds with traditional Labour Party values. Some left-wing critics have argued that Blair has overseen the final stage of a long term shift of the Labour Party to the right, and that very little now remains of a Labour Left. \n\nThere is some evidence that Blair's long term dominance of the centre forced his Conservative opponents to shift a long distance to the left to challenge his hegemony there. Leading Conservatives of the post-New Labour era hold Blair in high regard: George Osborne describes him as \"the master\"; Michael Gove once exclaimed, \"I can't hold it back any more—I love Tony\"; while David Cameron reportedly maintains Blair as an informal adviser. \n\nDuring his time as prime minister, Blair raised taxes; introduced a National Minimum Wage and some new employment rights (while keeping Margaret Thatcher's trade union reforms ); introduced significant constitutional reforms; promoted new rights for gay people in the Civil Partnership Act 2004; and signed treaties integrating Britain more closely with the EU. He introduced substantial market-based reforms in the education and health sectors; introduced student tuition fees; sought to reduce certain categories of welfare payments, and introduced tough anti-terrorism and identity card legislation. Under Blair's government the amount of new legislation increased which attracted criticism. \n\nBlair increased police powers by adding to the number of arrestable offences, compulsory DNA recording and the use of dispersal orders. He did not reverse the privatisation of the railways enacted by his predecessor John Major and instead strengthened regulation (by creating the Office of Rail Regulation) and limited fare rises to inflation +1%. \n\nEnvironmental record\n\nBlair has criticised other governments for not doing enough to solve global climate change. In a 1997 visit to the United States, he made a comment on \"great industrialised nations\" that fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Again in 2003, Blair went before the United States Congress and said that climate change \"cannot be ignored\", insisting \"we need to go beyond even Kyoto.\" Blair and his party promised a 20% reduction in carbon dioxide. The Labour Party also claimed that by 2010 10% of the energy would come from renewable resources; however, it only reached 7% by that point. \n\nIn 2000, Blair \"flagged up\" 100 million euros for green policies and urged environmentalists and businesses to work together. \n\nForeign policy\n\nBlair built his foreign policy on basic principles (close ties with US and EU) and added a new activist philosophy of \"interventionism\". In 2001 Britain joined the US in the global war on terror. \n\nBlair forged friendships with several European leaders, including Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, Angela Merkel of Germany and later Nicolas Sarkozy of France. \n\nAlong with enjoying a close relationship with Bill Clinton, Blair formed a strong political alliance with George W. Bush, particularly in the area of foreign policy. For his part, Bush lauded Blair and the UK. In his post-9/11 speech, for example, he stated that \"America has no truer friend than Great Britain\". \n\nThe alliance between Bush and Blair seriously damaged Blair's standing in the eyes of Britons angry at American influence. Blair argued it was in Britain's interest to \"protect and strengthen the bond\" with the United States regardless of who is in the White House. \n\nHowever, a perception of one-sided compromising personal and political closeness led to discussion of the term \"Poodle-ism\" in the UK media, to describe the \"Special Relationship\" of the UK government and Prime Minister with the US White House and President. A revealing conversation between Bush and Blair, with the former addressing the latter as \"Yo, Blair\|Yo [or Yeah], Blair\" was recorded when they did not know a microphone was live at the G8 summit in Saint Petersburg in 2006. \n\nMiddle East policy and Israel links\n\nBlair showed a deep feeling for Israel, born in part from his faith. Blair has been a longtime member of the pro-Israel lobby group Labour Friends of Israel. \n\nIn 1994, Blair forged close ties with Michael Levy, a leader of the Jewish Leadership Council. Levy ran the Labour Leader's Office Fund to finance Blair's campaign before the 1997 election and raised £12 million towards Labour's landslide victory, Levy was rewarded with a peerage, and in 2002, Blair appointed Lord Levy as his personal envoy to the Middle East. Levy praised Blair for his \"solid and committed support of the State of Israel\". Tam Dalyell, while Father of the House of Commons, suggested in 2003 that Blair's foreign policy decisions were unduly influenced by a \"cabal\" of Jewish advisers, including Levy, Peter Mandelson and Jack Straw (the last two are not Jewish but have some Jewish ancestry). \n\nBlair, on coming to office, had been \"cool towards the right-wing Netanyahu government\".Seldon, Blair, p. 506. During his first visit to Israel, Blair thought the Israelis bugged him in his car. After the election in 1999 of Ehud Barak, with whom Blair forged a close relationship, he became much more sympathetic to Israel. From 2001, Blair built up a relationship with Barak's successor, Ariel Sharon, and responded positively to Arafat, whom he had met thirteen times since becoming prime minister and regarded as essential to future negotiations. In 2004, 50 former diplomats, including ambassadors to Baghdad and Tel Aviv, stated they had \"watched with deepening concern\" at Britain following the US into war in Iraq in 2003. They criticised Blair's support for the road map for peace which included the retaining of Israeli settlements on the West Bank. \n\nIn 2006 Blair was criticised for his failure to immediately call for a ceasefire in the 2006 Lebanon War. The Observer newspaper claimed that at a cabinet meeting before Blair left for a summit with Bush on 28 July 2006, a significant number of ministers pressured Blair to publicly criticise Israel over the scale of deaths and destruction in Lebanon. Blair was criticised for his solid stance alongside US President George W. Bush on Middle East policy. \n\nSyria and Libya\n\nA Freedom of Information request by The Sunday Times in 2012 revealed that Blair's government considered knighting Syria's President Bashar al-Assad. The documents showed Blair was willing to appear alongside Assad at a joint press conference even though the Syrians would probably have settled for a farewell handshake for the cameras; British officials sought to manipulate the media to portray Assad in a favourable light; and Blair's aides tried to help Assad's \"photogenic\" wife boost her profile. The newspaper noted:\n\nBlair had been on friendly terms with Colonel Gaddafi, the leader of Libya, when sanctions imposed on the country were lifted by the USA and the UK. \n\nEven after the Libyan Civil War in 2011, he said he had no regrets about his close relationship with the late Libyan leader. During Blair's premiership, MI6 rendered Abdelhakim Belhadj to the Gaddafi regime in 2004, though Blair later claimed he had \"no recollection\" of the incident. \n\nRelationship with media\n\nRupert Murdoch\n\nBlair was reported by The Guardian in 2006 to have been supported politically by Rupert Murdoch, the founder of the News Corporation organisation. In 2011, Blair became Godfather to one of Rupert Murdoch's children with Wendi Deng, but he and Murdoch later ended their friendship, in 2014, after Murdoch suspected him of having an affair with Deng while they were still married, according to The Economist magazine. \n\nContacts with UK media proprietors\n\nA Cabinet Office freedom of information response, released the day after Blair handed over power to Gordon Brown, documents Blair having various official phone calls and meetings with Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation and Richard Desmond of Northern and Shell Media.\n\nThe response includes contacts \"clearly of an official nature\" in the specified period, but excludes contacts \"not clearly of an official nature.\" No details were given of the subjects discussed. In the period between September 2002 and April 2005, Blair and Murdoch are documented speaking 6 times; three times in the 9 days before the Iraq War, including the eve of 20 March US and UK invasion, and on 29 January 25 April and 3 October 2004. Between January 2003 and February 2004, Blair had three meetings with Richard Desmond; on 29 January and 3 September 2003 and 23 February 2004.\n\nThe information was disclosed after a three and a half-year battle by the Liberal Democrats' Lord Avebury. Lord Avebury's initial October 2003 information request was dismissed by then leader of the Lords, Baroness Amos. A following complaint was rejected, with Downing Street claiming the information compromised free and frank discussions, while Cabinet Office claimed releasing the timing of the PM's contacts with individuals is undesirable, as it might lead to the content of the discussions being disclosed. While awaiting a following appeal from Lord Avebury, the cabinet office announced that it would release the information. Lord Avebury said: \"The public can now scrutinise the timing of his (Murdoch's) contacts with the former Prime Minister, to see whether they can be linked to events in the outside world.\"\n\nBlair appeared before the Leveson Inquiry on Monday 28 May 2012. During his appearance, a protester, later named as David Lawley-Wakelin, got into the court-room and claimed he was guilty of war crimes before being dragged out. \n\nMedia portrayal\n\nBlair has been noted as a charismatic, articulate speaker with an informal style. Film and theatre director Richard Eyre opined that \"Blair had a very considerable skill as a performer\". A few months after becoming Prime Minister Blair gave a tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales, on the morning of her death in August 1997, in which he famously described her as \"the People's Princess\". \n\nAfter taking office in 1997, Blair gave particular prominence to his press secretary, who became known as the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (the two roles have since been separated). Blair's first PMOS was Alastair Campbell, who served in that role from May 1997 to 8 June 2001, after which he served as the Prime Minister's Director of Communications and Strategy until his resignation on 29 August 2003 in the aftermath of the Hutton Inquiry. \n\nBlair had close relationships with the Clinton family. The strong partnership with Bill Clinton was made into the film \"The Special Relationship\" in 2010. \n\nRelationship with Labour Party\n\nBlair's apparent refusal to set a date for his departure was criticised by the British press and Members of Parliament. It has been reported that a number of cabinet ministers believed that Blair's timely departure from office would be required to be able to win a fourth election. Some ministers viewed Blair's announcement of policy initiatives in September 2006 as an attempt to draw attention away from these issues.\n\nGordon Brown\n\nAfter the death of John Smith in 1994, Blair and his close colleague Gordon Brown (they shared an office at the House of Commons) were both seen as possible candidates for the party leadership. They agreed not to stand against each other, it is said, as part of a supposed Blair–Brown pact. Brown, who considered himself the senior of the two, understood that Blair would give way to him: opinion polls soon indicated, however, that Blair appeared to enjoy greater support among voters. Their relationship in power became so turbulent that (it was reported) the deputy prime minister, John Prescott, often had to act as \"marriage guidance counsellor\". \n\nDuring the 2010 election campaign Blair publicly endorsed Gordon Brown's leadership, praising the way he had handled the financial crisis. \n\nPost-premiership (since 2007)\n\nDiplomacy\n\nOn 27 June 2007, Blair officially resigned as Prime Minister after ten years in office, and he was officially confirmed as Middle East envoy for the United Nations, European Union, United States, and Russia. Blair originally indicated that he would retain his parliamentary seat after his resignation as Prime Minister came into effect; however, on being confirmed for the Middle East role he resigned from the Commons by taking up an office of profit. President George W. Bush had preliminary talks with Blair to ask him to take up the envoy role. White House sources stated that \"both Israel and the Palestinians had signed up to the proposal\". On 27 May 2015, Tony Blair wrote to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon to confirm his resignation as Middle East envoy.\n\nIn May 2008, Blair announced a new plan for peace and for Palestinian rights, based heavily on the ideas of the Peace Valley plan. \n\nPrivate sector\n\nIn January 2008, it was confirmed that Blair would be joining investment bank JPMorgan Chase in a \"senior advisory capacity\" and that he would advise Zurich Financial Services on climate change. His salary for this work is unknown, although it has been claimed it may be in excess of £500,000 per year. Blair also gives lectures, earning up to US$250,000 for a 90-minute speech, and in 2008 he was said to be the highest paid speaker in the world. \n\nYale University announced on 7 March 2008 that Blair will teach a course on issues of faith and globalisation at the Yale Schools of Management and Divinity as a Howland distinguished fellow during the 2008–09 academic year. In July 2009, this accomplishment was followed by the launching of the Faith and Globalisation Initiative with Yale University in the US, Durham University in the UK, and the National University of Singapore in Asia, to deliver a postgraduate programme in partnership with the Foundation. \n\nBlair's links with, and receipt of an undisclosed sum from, UI Energy Corporation, have also been subject to media comment in the UK. \n\nIn July 2010 it was reported that his personal security guards claimed £250,000 a year in expenses from the tax payer, Foreign Secretary William Hague said; \"we have to make sure that [Blair's security] is as cost-effective as possible, that it doesn't cost any more to the taxpayer than is absolutely necessary\". \n\nTony Blair Associates\n\nBlair has established Tony Blair Associates to \"allow him to provide, in partnership with others, strategic advice on a commercial and pro bono basis, on political and economic trends and governmental reform\". The profits from the firm go towards supporting Blair's \"work on faith, Africa and climate change\". \n\nBlair has been subject to criticism for potential conflicts of interest between his diplomatic role as a Middle East envoy, and his work with Tony Blair Associates, and a number of prominent critics have even called for him to be sacked. Blair has used his Quartet Tony Blair Associates works with the Khazakstan government, advising the regime on judicial, economic and political reforms, but has been subject to criticism after accusations of \"whitewashing\" the image and human rights record of the regime. \n\nBlair responded to such criticism by saying his choice to advise the country is an example of how he can \"nudge controversial figures on a progressive path of reform\", and has stated that he receives no personal profit from this advisory role. The Kazakhstan foreign minister said that the country was \"honoured and privileged\" to be receiving advice from Blair. A letter obtained by The Daily Telegraph in August 2014 revealed Blair had given damage-limitation advice to Nazarbayev after the December 2011 Zhanaozen massacre. Blair was reported to have accepted a business advisory role with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, a situation deemed incompatible with his role as Middle East envoy. Blair described the report as \"nonsense\". \n\nEuropean Council president speculation\n\nIn October 2007, there was speculation in the media that Blair was open to the idea of becoming the first President of the European Council, a post created in the Treaty of Lisbon that would come into force in 2009, if successfully ratified. Gordon Brown added his support, but noted that it was premature to discuss candidates before the treaty was approved. A spokesman for Blair did not rule out him accepting the post, but said that he was concentrating on his current role in the Middle East. Blair was later invited to speak on European issues at a rally of President Sarkozy's party, the Union for a Popular Movement, on 12 January 2008, which fuelled speculation further. \n\nThere was opposition to Blair's potential candidacy for the job. In the UK, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats both said they would oppose Blair. In Germany, the leader of the Free Democrats, Guido Westerwelle, said that he preferred a candidate from a smaller European country. \n\nIn November 2009, Belgian PM Herman Van Rompuy was named President of the European Council. \n\nCharity\n\nOn 14 November 2007, Blair launched the Tony Blair Sports Foundation, which aims to \"increase childhood participation in sports activities, especially in the North East of England, where a larger proportion of children are socially excluded, and to promote overall health and prevent childhood obesity.\" On 30 May 2008, Blair launched the Tony Blair Faith Foundation as a vehicle for encouraging different faiths to join together in promoting respect and understanding, as well as working to tackle poverty. Reflecting Blair's own faith but not dedicated to any particular religion, the Foundation aims to \"show how faith is a powerful force for good in the modern world\". \"The Foundation will use its profile and resources to encourage people of faith to work together more closely to tackle global poverty and conflict,\" says its mission statement. \n\nIn February 2009, he applied to set up a charity called the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative: the application was approved in November 2009. In October 2012 Blair's foundation hit controversy when it emerged they were taking on unpaid interns. \n\nMemoirs\n\nIn March 2010, it was reported that Blair's memoirs, titled The Journey, would be published in September 2010. In July 2010 it was announced the memoirs would be retitled A Journey. The memoirs were seen by many as controversial and a further attempt to profit from his office and from acts related to overseas wars that were widely seen as wrong, leading to anger and suspicion prior to launch.\n\nOn 16 August 2010 it was announced that Blair would give the £4.6 million advance and all royalties from his memoirs to a sports centre for badly injured soldiers – the charity's largest ever single donation. \n\nMedia analysis of the sudden announcement was wide-ranging, describing it as an act of \"desperation\" to obtain a better launch reception of a humiliating \"publishing flop\" that had languished in the ratings, \"blood money\" for the lives lost in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, an act with a \"hidden motive\" or an expression of \"guilt\", a \"genius move\" to address the problem that \"Tony Blair ha[d] one of the most toxic brands around\" from a PR perspective, and a \"cynical stunt to wipe the slate\", but also as an attempt to make amends. Friends had said that the act was partly motivated by the wish to \"repair his reputation\".\n\nThe book was published on 1 September and within hours of its launch had become the fastest-selling autobiography of all time. On 3 September Blair gave his first live interview since publication on The Late Late Show in Ireland, with protesters lying in wait there for him. On 4 September Blair was confronted by 200 anti-war and hardline Irish nationalist demonstrators before the first book signing of his memoirs at Eason's bookstore on O'Connell Street in Dublin, with angry activists chanting \"war criminal\" and that he had \"blood on his hands\", and clashing with Irish Police (Garda Síochána) as they tried to break through a security cordon outside the Eason's store. Blair was pelted with eggs and shoes, and encountered an attempted citizen's arrest for war crimes. \n\nAccusations of war crimes\n\nSince the Iraq War, Blair has been the subject of war crimes accusations. Critics of his actions, including Bishop Desmond Tutu, Harold Pinter and Arundhati Roy have called for his trial at the International Criminal Court.\n\nIn November 2011, a mock war-crimes tribunal created by the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission reached a unanimous conclusion that Blair and George W. Bush are guilty of crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and genocide as a result of their roles in the 2003 Iraq War. The mock trial, which lasted four days, consisting of five judges of judicial and academic backgrounds, a court-appointed defence team in lieu of the defendants or representatives, and a prosecution team including international law professor Francis Boyle. The mock tribunal's finding received mixed responses, being labelled a \"circus\" by former UN Special Rapporteur Param Cumaraswamy.\n\nIn September 2012, Desmond Tutu suggested that Blair should follow the path of former African leaders who had been brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The human rights lawyer Geoffrey Bindman, interviewed on BBC radio, concurred with Tutu's suggestion that there should be a war crimes trial. In a statement made in response to Tutu's comments, Blair defended his actions. He was supported by Lord Falconer, who stated that the war had been authorised by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441.\n\nResponse to the Iraq Inquiry\n\nThe Chilcot report after the conclusion of the Iraq Inquiry was issued on 6 July 2016 and it criticized Blair for joining the US in the war in Iraq in 2003. Afterwards, Blair issued a statement and held a two-hour press conference to apologize and to justify the decisions he had made in 2003 \"in good faith\" and denying allegations that the war had led to a significant increase in terrorism. He acknowledged that the report made \"real and material criticisms of preparation, planning, process and of the relationship with the United States\" but cited sections of the report that he said \"should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit\". He stated: \"whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein; I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country. ... I will take full responsibility for any mistakes without exception or excuse. I will at the same time say why, nonetheless, I believe that it was better to remove Saddam Hussein and why I do not believe this is the cause of the terrorism we see today whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world\". \n\nPersonal life\n\nFamily\n\nBlair married Cherie Booth, a Roman Catholic, who would later be named Queen's Counsel, on 29 March 1980. They have four children: Euan, Nicholas, Kathryn, and Leo. Leo, delivered by the Royal Surgeon/Gynaecologist Marcus Setchell, was the first legitimate child born to a serving Prime Minister in over 150 years – since Francis Russell was born to Lord John Russell on 11 July 1849. Blair was criticised when it was discovered that one child had received private tuition from staff at Westminster School. All four children have Irish passports, by virtue of Blair's mother, Hazel Elizabeth Rosaleen Corscaden (1923–1975). The family's primary residence is in Connaught Square; the Blairs own eight residences in total.\n\nWealth\n\nBlair's financial assets are structured in a complicated manner, and as such estimates of their extent vary widely. These include figures of up to £100 million; Blair has stated he is worth less than a \"fifth of that\". A 2015 assertion, by Francis Beckett, David Hencke and Nick Kochan, concluded that Blair had acquired $90 million and a property portfolio worth $37.5 million in the eight years since he had left office. \n\nReligious faith\n\nIn an interview with Michael Parkinson broadcast on ITV1 on 4 March 2006, Blair referred to the role of his Christian faith in his decision to go to war in Iraq, stating that he had prayed about the issue, and saying that God would judge him for his decision: \"I think if you have faith about these things, you realise that judgement is made by other people ... and if you believe in God, it's made by God as well.\" \n\nAccording to Alastair Campbell's diary, Blair often read the Bible before taking any important decisions. He states that Blair had a \"wobble\" and considered changing his mind on the eve of the bombing of Iraq in 1998. \n\nA longer exploration of his faith can be found in an interview with Third Way Magazine. There he says that \"I was brought up as [a Christian], but I was not in any real sense a practising one until I went to Oxford. There was an Australian priest at the same college as me who got me interested again. In a sense, it was a rediscovery of religion as something living, that was about the world around me rather than some sort of special one-to-one relationship with a remote Being on high. Suddenly I began to see its social relevance. I began to make sense of the world\". \n\nAt one point Alastair Campbell intervened in an interview, preventing the Prime Minister from answering a question about his Christianity, explaining, \"We don't do God.\" Campbell later explained that he had intervened only to end the interview because the journalist had been taking an excessive time, and that the comment had just been a throwaway line. \n\nCherie Blair's friend and \"spiritual guru\" Carole Caplin is credited with introducing her and her husband to various New Age symbols and beliefs, including \"magic pendants\" known as \"BioElectric Shields\". The most controversial of the Blairs' New Age practices occurred when on holiday in Mexico. The couple, wearing only bathing costumes, took part in a rebirthing procedure, which involved smearing mud and fruit over each other's bodies while sitting in a steam bath. \n\nLater on, Blair questioned the Pope's attitude towards homosexuality, arguing that religious leaders must start \"rethinking\" the issue. Blair was reprimanded by Cardinal Basil Hume in 1996 for receiving Holy Communion at Mass, while still an Anglican, in contravention of canon law. On 22 December 2007, it was disclosed that Blair had joined the Roman Catholic Church. The move was described as \"a private matter\". He had informed Pope Benedict XVI on 23 June 2007 that he wanted to become a Catholic. The Pope and his advisors criticised some of Blair's political actions, but followed up with a reportedly unprecedented red-carpet welcome, which included the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, who would be responsible for Blair's Catholic instruction. In 2010, The Tablet named him as one of Britain's most influential Roman Catholics. \n\nExtramarital affair allegations\n\nIn 2014, Vanity Fair and The Economist published allegations that Blair had had an extramarital affair with Wendi Deng, who was then married to Rupert Murdoch. Blair categorically denied the allegations.\n\nPortrayals and cameo appearances\n\nAppearances\n\nBlair made an animated cameo appearance as himself in The Simpsons episode, \"The Regina Monologues\" (2003). He has also appeared as himself at the end of the first episode of The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, a British television series about an unknown housewife becoming Prime Minister. On 14 March 2007, Blair appeared as a celebrity judge on Masterchef Goes Large after contestants had to prepare a three-course meal in the Downing Street kitchens for Blair and Bertie Ahern. On 16 March 2007, Blair featured in a comedy sketch with Catherine Tate, who appeared in the guise of her character Lauren Cooper from The Catherine Tate Show. The sketch was made for the BBC Red Nose Day fundraising programme of 2007. During the sketch, Blair used Lauren's catchphrase \"Am I bovvered?\" \n\nPortrayals\n\nMichael Sheen has portrayed Blair three times, in the films The Deal (2003), The Queen (2006), and The Special Relationship (2009). Robert Lindsay portrayed Blair in the TV programme A Very Social Secretary (2005), and reprised the role in The Trial of Tony Blair (2007). He was also portrayed by James Larkin in The Government Inspector (2005), and by Ioan Gruffudd in W. (2008). In the 2006 Channel 4 comedy drama documentary, Tony Blair: Rock Star, he was portrayed by Christian Brassington.\n\nBlair in fiction and satire\n\nWhen Blair resigned as Prime Minister, Robert Harris, a former Fleet Street political editor, dropped his other work to write The Ghost. The CIA-influenced British Prime Minister in the book is said to be a thinly disguised version of Blair. The novel was filmed as The Ghost Writer with Pierce Brosnan portraying the Blair character, Adam Lang. Stephen Mangan portrays Blair in The Hunt for Tony Blair (2011), a one-off The Comic Strip Presents... satire presented in the style of a 1950s film noir. In the film, he is wrongly implicated in the deaths of Robin Cook and John Smith and on the run from Inspector Hutton. In 2007, the scenario of a possible war crimes trial for the former British Prime Minister was satirised by the British broadcaster Channel 4, in a \"mockumentary\", The Trial of Tony Blair, with concluded with the fictional Blair being dispatched to the Hague.\n\nTitles and honours\n\nStyles since the 1983 election\n\n* Mr Anthony Charles Lynton Blair MP (1983–1994)\n* The Rt Hon Anthony Charles Lynton Blair MP (1994–2007)\n* The Rt Hon Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (2007–)\n\nAppointments\n\n* Privy Councillor (1994)\n\nHonours\n\n* Congressional Gold Medal (2003) \n* Honorary Doctor of Law (LL.D.) from Queen's University Belfast (2008)\n* Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009)\n* Dan David Prize (2009)\n* Liberty Medal (2010)\n\nIn May 2007, before his resignation, it was speculated that Blair would be offered a knighthood in the Order of the Thistle, owing to his Scottish connections (rather than the Order of the Garter, which is usually offered to former Prime Ministers). Blair reportedly indicated that he does not want the traditional knighthood or peerage bestowed on former prime ministers. \n\nOn 22 May 2008, Blair received an honorary law doctorate from Queen's University Belfast, alongside former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, for distinction in public service and roles in the Northern Ireland peace process. \n\nOn 13 January 2009, Blair was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush. Bush stated that Blair was given the award \"in recognition of exemplary achievement and to convey the utmost esteem of the American people\" and cited Blair's support for the War on Terror and his role in achieving peace in Northern Ireland as two reasons for justifying his being presented with the award. \n\nOn 16 February 2009, Blair was awarded the Dan David Prize by Tel Aviv University for \"exceptional leadership and steadfast determination in helping to engineer agreements and forge lasting solutions to areas in conflict\". He was awarded the prize in May 2009. \n\nOn 13 September 2010, Blair was awarded the Liberty Medal at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was presented by former President Bill Clinton, and is awarded annually to men and women of courage and conviction who strive to secure the blessings of liberty to people around the globe.\n\nOn 8 July 2010, Blair was awarded the Order of Freedom by the President of Kosovo, Fatmir Limaj. As Blair is credited as being instrumental in ending the conflict in Kosovo, some boys born in that country following the war have been given the name Toni or Tonibler. \n\nWorks\n\n* Blair, Tony (2010). A Journey. Random House; ISBN 0-09-192555-X OCLC Number 657172683 (London, UK)\n* Blair, Tony (2002). The Courage of Our Convictions. Fabian Society; ISBN 0-7163-0603-4 (London, UK)\n* Blair, Tony (2000). Superpower: Not Superstate? (Federal Trust European Essays). Federal Trust for Education & Research; ISBN 1-903403-25-1 (London, UK)\n* Blair, Tony (1998). The Third Way: New Politics for the New Century. Fabian Society; ISBN 0-7163-0588-7 (London, UK)\n* Blair, Tony (1998). Leading the Way: New Vision for Local Government. Institute for Public Policy Research; ISBN 1-86030-075-8 (London, UK)\n* Blair, Tony (1997). New Britain: My Vision of a Young Country. Basic Books, ISBN 0-8133-3338-5 (New York)\n* Blair, Tony (1995). [http://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:xet936goh Let Us Face the Future]. Fabian Society, ISBN 0-7163-0571-2 (London, UK)\n* Blair, Tony (1994). [http://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:saz916ris What Price a Safe Society?]. Fabian Society, ISBN 0-7163-0562-3 (London, UK)\n* Blair, Tony (1994). [http://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:tim417xoh Socialism]. Fabian Society, ISBN 0-7163-0565-8 (London, UK)", "William Jefferson \"Bill\" Clinton (born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who was the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Clinton was previously Governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992, and the Arkansas Attorney General from 1977 to 1979. A member of the Democratic Party, ideologically Clinton was a New Democrat, and many of his policies reflected a centrist \"Third Way\" political philosophy.\n\nClinton was born and raised in Arkansas, and is an alumnus of Georgetown University, where he was a member of Kappa Kappa Psi and Phi Beta Kappa and earned a Rhodes Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford. Clinton is married to Hillary Clinton, who served as United States Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, who was a Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009, and who is the Democratic nominee for president in 2016. Both Clintons earned law degrees from Yale Law School, where they met and began dating. As Governor of Arkansas, Clinton overhauled the state's education system, and served as chairman of the National Governors Association.\n\nClinton was elected President in 1992, defeating incumbent George H. W. Bush. At age 46, Clinton was the third-youngest president, and the first from the Baby Boomer Generation. Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history, and signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement. After failing to pass national health care reform, the Democratic House was ousted when the Republican Party won control of the Congress in 1994, for the first time in 40 years. Two years later, Clinton became the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to be elected President twice. Clinton passed Welfare Reform and the State Children's Health Insurance Program, providing health coverage for millions of children. He was reelected to a second term in 1996.\n\nIn 1998, Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives for perjury before a grand jury and obstruction of justice during a lawsuit against him, both related to a scandal involving White House (and later Department of Defense) employee Monica Lewinsky. Clinton was acquitted by the U.S. Senate in 1999, and served his complete term of office. The Congressional Budget Office reported a budget surplus between the years 1998 and 2000, the last three years of Clinton's presidency. In foreign policy, Clinton ordered U.S. military intervention in the Bosnia and Kosovo wars, signed the Iraq Liberation Act in opposition to Saddam Hussein, and participated in the 2000 Camp David Summit to advance the Israeli–Palestinian peace process.\n\nClinton left office with the highest end-of-office approval rating of any U.S. President since World War II. Since then, Clinton has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. Clinton created the William J. Clinton Foundation to address international causes, such as the prevention of AIDS and global warming. In 2004, Clinton published his autobiography My Life. Clinton has remained active in politics by campaigning for Democratic candidates, including his wife's campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 and 2016, and Barack Obama's presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012.\n\nIn 2009, Clinton was named the United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti, and after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Clinton teamed with George W. Bush to form the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. Since leaving office, Clinton has been rated highly in public opinion polls of U.S. Presidents.\n\nEarly life and career\n\nClinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas. Clinton's father, William Jefferson Blythe Jr. (1910–1946), was a traveling salesman who died in an automobile accident three months before Clinton was born. His mother, Virginia Dell ( Cassidy; 1923–1994), traveled to New Orleans to study nursing soon after he was born. She left Clinton in Hope with her parents Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, who owned and ran a small grocery store. At a time when the Southern United States was segregated racially, Clinton's grandparents sold goods on credit to people of all races. In 1950, Bill's mother returned from nursing school and married Roger Clinton Sr., who owned an automobile dealership in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with his brother and Earl T. Ricks. The family moved to Hot Springs in 1950.\n\nAlthough he immediately assumed use of his stepfather's surname, it was not until Clinton turned fifteen that he formally adopted the surname Clinton as a gesture toward his stepfather. Clinton says he remembers his stepfather as a gambler and an alcoholic who regularly abused his mother and half-brother, Roger Clinton Jr., to the point where he intervened multiple times with the threat of violence to protect them. \n\nIn Hot Springs, Clinton attended St. John's Catholic Elementary School, Ramble Elementary School, and Hot Springs High School—where he was an active student leader, avid reader, and musician. Clinton was in the chorus and played the tenor saxophone, winning first chair in the state band's saxophone section. He briefly considered dedicating his life to music, but as he noted in his autobiography My Life:\n\nClinton's interest in law also began in Hot Springs High, when in his Latin class he took up the challenge to argue the defense of the ancient Roman Senator Catiline in a mock trial. After a vigorous defense that made use of his \"budding rhetorical and political skills\", he told the Latin teacher Elizabeth Buck that it \"made him realize that someday he would study law.\" \n\nClinton has named two influential moments in his life that contributed to his decision to become a public figure, both occurring in 1963. One was his visit as a Boys Nation senator to the White House to meet President John F. Kennedy. The other was watching Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1963 I Have a Dream speech on TV, which impressed him enough that he later memorized it. \n\nCollege and law school years\n\nGeorgetown University\n\nWith the aid of scholarships, Clinton attended the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., receiving a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (B.S.) degree in 1968.\n\nIn 1964 and 1965, Clinton won elections for class president. From 1964 to 1967, he was an intern and then a clerk in the office of Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright. While in college, he became a brother of co-ed service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Clinton was also a member of the Order of DeMolay,[https://demolay.org/hall-of-fame/william-clinton/ DeMolay - Hall Of Fame » William Clinton], quote: \"Clinton was initiated into Hot Springs Chapter in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1961, where he served as Master Councilor. He received the Chevalier in 1964, and the Legion of Honor in 1979. Clinton was inducted into the DeMolay Hall of Fame on May 1, 1988.\" a youth group affiliated with Freemasonry, but he never became a Freemason. He is a member of Kappa Kappa Psi honorary band fraternity. \n\nRhodes Scholar\n\nUpon graduation, he won a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics, though because he had switched programs and had left early for Yale University, he did not receive a degree there. He developed an interest in rugby union, playing at Oxford and later for the Little Rock Rugby club in Arkansas.\n\nVietnam War opposition and draft controversy\n\nWhile at Oxford he also participated in Vietnam War protests and organized an October 1969 Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam event.\n\nClinton received Vietnam War draft deferments during 1968 and 1969 while he was in England. Planning to attend law school in the U.S, and aware that he might lose his draft deferment, he tried unsuccessfully to obtain positions in the National Guard or Air Force, and then made arrangements to join the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program at the University of Arkansas. \n\nHe subsequently decided not to join the ROTC, saying in a letter to the officer in charge of the program he had planned to join that he opposed the war, but did not think it was honorable to use ROTC, National Guard, or Reserve service to avoid serving in Vietnam. He further stated that because he opposed the war, he would not volunteer to serve in uniform, but would subject himself to the draft, and would serve if selected only as a way \"to maintain my political viability within the system.\" Clinton registered for the draft and received a high number (311), meaning that those whose birthdays had been drawn as numbers 1 to 310 would have to be drafted before him, making it unlikely that he would be drafted. (In fact, the highest number drafted was 195.) \n\nColonel Eugene Holmes, the Army officer who had been involved with Clinton's ROTC application, suspected that Clinton attempted to manipulate the situation to avoid the draft and avoid serving in uniform. He issued a notarized statement during the 1992 presidential campaign:\n\nDuring the 1992 campaign it was revealed that Clinton's uncle had attempted to secure him a position in the Navy Reserve, which would have kept him from going to Vietnam. This effort was unsuccessful and Clinton said in 1992 that he had been unaware of it until then. Although legal, Clinton's actions with respect to the draft and deciding whether to serve in the military were criticized by conservatives and some Vietnam veterans during his first presidential campaign, some of whom charged that he had used Fulbright's influence to avoid military service. Clinton's 1992 campaign manager, James Carville, successfully argued that Clinton's letter in which he declined to join the ROTC should be made public, insisting that voters, many of whom had also opposed the Vietnam War, would understand and appreciate his position. \n\nLaw school\n\nAfter Oxford, Clinton attended Yale Law School and earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1973. In the Yale Law Library in 1971 he met fellow law student Hillary Rodham, who was a year ahead of him. They began dating and soon were inseparable. After only about a month, Clinton postponed his plans to be a coordinator for the George McGovern campaign for the 1972 United States presidential election in order to move in with her in California. They married on October 11, 1975, and their only child, Chelsea, was born on February 27, 1980.\n\nClinton did eventually move to Texas with Rodham to take a job leading George McGovern's effort there in 1972. He spent considerable time in Dallas, at the campaign's local headquarters on Lemmon Avenue, where he had an office. Clinton worked with future two-term mayor of Dallas, Ron Kirk, future governor of Texas, Ann Richards, and then unknown television director (and future filmmaker) Steven Spielberg.\n\nEarly political career\n\nGovernor of Arkansas (1979–81 and 1983–92)\n\nAfter graduating from Yale Law School, Clinton returned to Arkansas and became a law professor at the University of Arkansas. In 1974 he ran for the House of Representatives. Running in a conservative district against incumbent Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt, Clinton's campaign was bolstered by the anti-Republican and anti-incumbent mood resulting from the Watergate scandal. Hammerschmidt, who had received 77 percent of the vote in 1972, defeated Clinton by only a 52 percent to 48 percent margin. In 1976 Clinton ran for Arkansas Attorney General. With only minor opposition in the primary and no opposition at all in the general election, Clinton was elected.\n\nClinton was elected Governor of Arkansas in 1978, having defeated the Republican candidate Lynn Lowe, a farmer from Texarkana. He became the youngest governor in the country at 32. Due to his youthful appearance, Clinton was often called the \"Boy Governor\". He worked on educational reform and Arkansas's roads, with wife Hillary leading a successful committee on urban health care reform. However, his term included an unpopular motor vehicle tax and citizens' anger over the escape of Cuban refugees (from the Mariel boatlift) detained in Fort Chaffee in 1980. Monroe Schwarzlose of Kingsland in Cleveland County, polled 31 percent of the vote against Clinton in the Democratic gubernatorial primary of 1980. Some suggested Schwarzlose's unexpected voter turnout foreshadowed Clinton's defeat in the general election that year by Republican challenger Frank D. White. As Clinton once joked, he was the youngest ex-governor in the nation's history.\n\nClinton joined friend Bruce Lindsey's Little Rock law firm of Wright, Lindsey and Jennings. In 1982, he was again elected governor and kept the office for ten years; beginning with the 1986 election, Arkansas had changed its gubernatorial term of office from two to four years. During his term he helped transform Arkansas's economy and improved the state's educational system. For senior citizens, he removed the sales tax from medications and increased the home property-tax exemption. He became a leading figure among the New Democrats, a group of Democrats who advocated welfare reform, smaller government, and other policies not supported by liberals. Formally organized as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the New Democrats argued that in light of President Ronald Reagan's landslide victory in 1984, the Democratic Party needed to adopt a more centrist political stance in order to succeed at the national level. Clinton delivered the Democratic response to President Reagan's 1985 State of the Union Address and served as Chair of the National Governors Association from 1986 to 1987, bringing him to an audience beyond Arkansas.\n\nIn the early 1980s, Clinton made reform of the Arkansas education system a top priority. Chaired by Clinton's wife Hillary Rodham Clinton, also an attorney and chair of the Legal Services Corporation, the Arkansas Education Standards Committee transformed Arkansas's education system from the worst in the United States to one of the best. Proposed reforms included more spending for schools (supported by a sales-tax increase), better opportunities for gifted children, vocational education, higher teachers' salaries, more course variety, and compulsory teacher competency exams. The reforms passed in September 1983 after Clinton called a special legislative session—the longest in Arkansas history. Many have considered this the greatest achievement of the Clinton governorship. He defeated four Republican candidates for governor: Lowe (1978), White (1982 and 1986), Jonesboro businessmen Woody Freeman (1984), and Sheffield Nelson of Little Rock (1990).\n\nThe Clintons' personal and business affairs in the 1980s included transactions that became the basis of the Whitewater controversy investigation that later dogged his presidential administration. After extensive investigation over several years, no indictments were made against the Clintons related to the years in Arkansas. \n\nAccording to some sources, Clinton was in his early years a death penalty opponent who switched positions. During Clinton's term, Arkansas performed its first executions since 1964 (the death penalty had been re-enacted on March 23, 1973). As Governor, he oversaw four executions: one by electric chair and three by lethal injection. Later, as president, Clinton was the first President to pardon a death-row inmate since the federal death penalty was reintroduced in 1988. \n\n1988 Democratic presidential primaries\n\nIn 1987, there was media speculation Clinton would enter the race after then-New York Governor Mario Cuomo declined to run and Democratic front-runner Gary Hart withdrew owing to revelations of marital infidelity. Clinton decided to remain as Arkansas governor (following consideration for the potential candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton for governor, initially favored—but ultimately vetoed—by the First Lady).David Maraniss, First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton (New York: Random House, 1996; ISBN 978-0-684-81890-0). For the nomination, Clinton endorsed Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. He gave the nationally televised opening night address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, but his speech, which was 33 minutes long and twice as long as it was expected to be, was criticized for being too long and poorly delivered. Presenting himself as a moderate and a member of the New Democrat wing of the Democratic Party, he headed the moderate Democratic Leadership Council in 1990 and 1991. \n\nPresidency (1993–2001)\n\nDuring his presidency, Clinton advocated for a wide variety of legislation and programs, much of which was enacted into law or was implemented by the executive branch. His policies, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement and welfare reform, have been attributed to a centrist Third Way philosophy of governance. On budgetary matters his policy of fiscal conservatism helped to reduce deficits. Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. The Congressional Budget Office reported budget surpluses of $69 billion in 1998, $126 billion in 1999, and $236 billion in 2000, during the last three years of Clinton's presidency. The U.S. treasury reported a debt of $5.413 trillion in 1997, and a debt of $5.656 trillion in 1999. At the end of his presidency, Clinton moved to New York and helped his wife win election to the U.S. Senate there.\n\n1992 presidential campaign\n\nIn the first primary contest, the Iowa Caucus, Clinton finished a distant third to Iowa Senator Tom Harkin. During the campaign for the New Hampshire primary, reports of an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers surfaced. As Clinton fell far behind former Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas in the New Hampshire polls, following Super Bowl XXVI, Clinton and his wife Hillary went on 60 Minutes to rebuff the charges. Their television appearance was a calculated risk, but Clinton regained several delegates. He finished second to Tsongas in the New Hampshire primary, but after trailing badly in the polls and coming within single digits of winning, the media viewed it as a victory. News outlets labeled him \"The Comeback Kid\" for earning a firm second-place finish. \n\nWinning the big prizes of Florida and Texas and many of the Southern primaries on Super Tuesday gave Clinton a sizable delegate lead. However, former California Governor Jerry Brown was scoring victories and Clinton had yet to win a significant contest outside his native South. With no major Southern state remaining, Clinton targeted New York, which had many delegates. He scored a resounding victory in New York City, shedding his image as a regional candidate. Having been transformed into the consensus candidate, he secured the Democratic Party nomination, finishing with a victory in Jerry Brown's home state of California.\n\nDuring the campaign, questions of conflict of interest regarding state business and the politically powerful Rose Law Firm, at which Hillary Rodham Clinton was a partner, arose. Clinton argued the questions were moot because all transactions with the state had been deducted before determining Hillary's firm pay. Further concern arose when Bill Clinton announced that, with Hillary, voters would be getting two presidents \"for the price of one\". \n\nWhile campaigning for U.S. President, the then-Governor Clinton returned to Arkansas to see that Ricky Ray Rector would be executed. After killing a police officer and a civilian, Rector shot himself in the head, leading to what his lawyers said was a state where he could still talk but did not understand the idea of death. According to Arkansas state and Federal law, a seriously mentally impaired inmate cannot be executed. The courts disagreed with the allegation of grave mental impairment and allowed the execution. Clinton's return to Arkansas for the execution was framed in a The New York Times article as a possible political move to counter \"soft on crime\" accusations. \n\nBecause Bush's approval ratings were around 80 percent during the Gulf War, he was described as unbeatable. However, when Bush compromised with Democrats to try to lower Federal deficits, he reneged on his promise not to raise taxes, hurting his approval rating. Clinton repeatedly condemned Bush for making a promise he failed to keep. By election time, the economy was souring and Bush saw his approval rating plummet to just slightly over 40 percent. Finally, conservatives were previously united by anti-communism, but with the end of the Cold War, the party lacked a uniting issue. When Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson addressed Christian themes at the Republican National Convention—with Bush criticizing Democrats for omitting God from their platform—many moderates were alienated. Clinton then pointed to his moderate, \"New Democrat\" record as governor of Arkansas, though some on the more liberal side of the party remained suspicious. Many Democrats who had supported Ronald Reagan and Bush in previous elections switched their support to Clinton. Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore, toured the country during the final weeks of the campaign, shoring up support and pledging a \"new beginning\".\n\nClinton won the 1992 presidential election (43.0 percent of the vote) against Republican incumbent George H. W. Bush (37.4 percent of the vote) and billionaire populist Ross Perot, who ran as an independent (18.9 percent of the vote) on a platform focusing on domestic issues; a significant part of Clinton's success was Bush's steep decline in public approval. Clinton's election ended twelve years of Republican rule of the White House and twenty of the previous twenty-four years. The election gave Democrats full control of the United States Congress, the first time one party controlled both the executive and legislative branches since Democrats held the 96th United States Congress during the presidency of Jimmy Carter. \n\nFirst term\n\nClinton was inaugurated as the 42nd President of the United States on January 20, 1993. Shortly after taking office, Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 on February 5, which required large employers to allow employees to take unpaid leave for pregnancy or a serious medical condition. This action had bipartisan support, and proved quite popular with the public. \n\nTwo days after taking office, on January 22, 1993—the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, Clinton reversed restrictions on domestic and international family planning programs that had been imposed by Clinton's predecessors, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Clinton said that abortion should be kept \"safe, legal, and rare\"—a slogan that had been suggested by University of California, San Diego political scientist Samuel L. Popkin and first used by Clinton in December 1991, while campaigning. During the eight years of the Clinton administration, the U.S. abortion rate declined by about 18.4 percent. \n\nOn February 15, 1993, Clinton made his first address to the nation, announcing his plan to raise taxes to cap the budget deficit. Two days later, in a nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress, Clinton unveiled his economic plan. The plan focused on reducing the deficit rather than on cutting taxes for the middle class, which had been high on his campaign agenda. Clinton's advisers pressured him to raise taxes on the theory that a smaller federal budget deficit would reduce bond interest rates. \n\nOn May 19, 1993, Clinton fired seven employees of the White House Travel Office, causing the White House travel office controversy even though the Travel Office staff served at the pleasure of the president and could be dismissed without cause. The White House responded to the controversy by claiming the firings were done because of financial improprieties that had been revealed by a brief FBI investigation. Critics contended the firings had been done to allow friends of the Clintons to take over the travel business and that the involvement of the FBI was unwarranted. \n\nClinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 in August of that year, which passed Congress without a Republican vote. It cut taxes for fifteen million low-income families, made tax cuts available to 90 percent of small businesses, and raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2 percent of taxpayers. Additionally, through the implementation of spending restraints, it mandated the budget be balanced over a number of years. \n\nClinton made a major speech to Congress regarding a health care reform plan on September 22, 1993, aimed at achieving universal coverage through a national health care plan. This was one of the most prominent items on Clinton's legislative agenda, and resulted from a task force headed by Hillary Clinton. Though at first well received in political circles, it was eventually doomed by well-organized opposition from conservatives, the American Medical Association, and the health insurance industry. However, John F. Harris, a biographer of Clinton's, states the program failed because of a lack of coordination within the White House. Despite the Democratic majority in Congress, the effort to create a national health care system ultimately died when compromise legislation by George J. Mitchell failed to gain a majority of support in August 1994. It was the first major legislative defeat of Clinton's administration.\n\nIn November 1993, David Hale, the source of criminal allegations against Bill Clinton in the Whitewater controversy, alleged that Clinton, while governor of Arkansas, pressured him to provide an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, the partner of the Clintons in the Whitewater land deal. A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation did result in convictions against the McDougals for their role in the Whitewater project, but the Clintons themselves were never charged, and Clinton maintains innocence in the affair.\n\nClinton signed the Brady Bill into law on November 30, 1993, which mandated federal background checks on firearm purchasers in the United States, and imposed a five-day waiting period on purchases, until the NICS system was implemented in 1998.. He also expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, a subsidy for low-income workers.\n\nIn December of that year, allegations by Arkansas state troopers Larry Patterson and Roger Perry were first reported by David Brock in the American Spectator. Later known as Troopergate, the allegations by these men were that they arranged sexual liaisons for Bill Clinton back when he was governor of Arkansas. The story mentioned a woman named Paula, a reference to Paula Jones. Brock later apologized to Clinton, saying the article was politically motivated \"bad journalism\" and that \"the troopers were greedy and had slimy motives.\" \n\nThat month, Clinton implemented a Department of Defense directive known as \"Don't Ask, Don't Tell\", which allowed gay men and women to serve in the armed services provided they kept their sexuality a secret, and forbade the military from inquiring about an individual's sexual orientation. The policy was developed as a compromise after Clinton's proposal to allow gays to serve openly in the military met staunch opposition from prominent Congressional Republicans and Democrats, including Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Sam Nunn (D-GA). According to David Mixner, Clinton's support for the compromise led to a heated dispute with Vice President Al Gore, who felt that \"the President should lift the ban ... even though [his executive order] was sure to be overridden by the Congress\". Some gay-rights advocates criticized Clinton for not going far enough and accused him of making his campaign promise to get votes and contributions. Their position was that Clinton should have integrated the military by executive order, noting that President Harry S. Truman used executive order to racially desegregate the armed forces. Clinton's defenders argue that an executive order might have prompted the Senate to write the exclusion of gays into law, potentially making it harder to integrate the military in the future. Later in his presidency, in 1999, Clinton criticized the way the policy was implemented, saying he did not think any serious person could say it was not \"out of whack\". The policy remained controversial, and was finally repealed in 2011, removing open sexual preference as a reason for dismissal from the armed forces. \n\nOn January 1, 1994, Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement into law. Throughout his first year in office, Clinton consistently supported ratification of the treaty by the U.S. Senate. Clinton and most of his allies in the Democratic Leadership Committee strongly supported free trade measures; there remained, however, strong disagreement within the party. Opposition came chiefly from anti-trade Republicans, protectionist Democrats and supporters of Ross Perot. The bill passed the house with 234 votes against 200 opposed (132 Republicans and 102 Democrats voting in favor; 156 Democrats, 43 Republicans, and 1 independent against). The treaty was then ratified by the Senate and signed into law by the President.\n\nThe Omnibus Crime Bill, which Clinton signed into law in September 1994, made many changes to U.S. crime and law enforcement legislation including the expansion of the death penalty to include crimes not resulting in death, such as running a large-scale drug enterprise. During Clinton's re-election campaign he said, \"My 1994 crime bill expanded the death penalty for drug kingpins, murderers of federal law enforcement officers, and nearly 60 additional categories of violent felons.\" It also included a subsection of assault weapons ban for a ten-year period.\n\nThe Clinton administration also launched the first official White House website, whitehouse.gov, on October 21, 1994. It was followed by three more versions, resulting in the final edition launched in 2000. The White House website was part of a wider movement of the Clinton administration toward web-based communication. According to Robert Longley, \"Clinton and Gore were responsible for pressing almost all federal agencies, the U.S. court system and the U.S. military onto the Internet, thus opening up America's government to more of America's citizens than ever before. On July 17, 1996, Clinton issued Executive Order 13011 – Federal Information Technology, ordering the heads of all federal agencies to utilize information technology fully to make the information of the agency easily accessible to the public.\" \n\nAfter two years of Democratic Party control, the Democrats lost control of Congress in the mid-term elections in 1994, for the first time in forty years. \n\nThe White House FBI files controversy of June 1996 arose concerning improper access by the White House to FBI security-clearance documents. Craig Livingstone, head of the White House Office of Personnel Security, improperly requested, and received from the FBI, background report files without asking permission of the subject individuals; many of these were employees of former Republican administrations. In March 2000, Independent Counsel Robert Ray determined that there was no credible evidence of any crime. Ray's report further stated, \"there was no substantial and credible evidence that any senior White House official was involved\" in seeking the files. \n\nOn September 21, 1996, Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage for federal purposes as the legal union of one man and one woman, allowing individual states to refuse to recognize gay marriages performed in other states. Paul Yandura, speaking for the White House gay and lesbian liaison office, said that Clinton's signing of DOMA \"was a political decision that they made at the time of a re-election.\" In defense of his actions, Clinton has said that DOMA was an attempt to \"head off an attempt to send a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to the states\", a possibility he described as highly likely in the context of a \"very reactionary Congress.\" Administration spokesman Richard Socarides said, \"... the alternatives we knew were going to be far worse, and it was time to move on and get the president re-elected.\" Clinton himself stated that DOMA was something \"which the Republicans put on the ballot to try to get the base vote for President Bush up, I think it's obvious that something had to be done to try to keep the Republican Congress from presenting that.\" Others were more critical. The veteran gay rights and gay marriage activist Evan Wolfson has called these claims \"historic revisionism\". In a July 2, 2011 editorial The New York Times opined, \"The Defense of Marriage Act was enacted in 1996 as an election-year wedge issue, signed by President Bill Clinton in one of his worst policy moments.\". Ultimately, in United States v. Windsor, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down DOMA in June 2013. \n\nDespite DOMA, Clinton was the first President to select openly gay persons for Administration positions, and is generally credited as the first President to publicly champion gay rights. During his Presidency, Clinton controversially issued two substantial executive orders on behalf of gay rights, the first lifting the ban on security clearances for LGBT federal employees and the second outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation in the federal civilian workforce. Under President Clinton's leadership, federal funding for HIV/AIDS research, prevention and treatment more than doubled. And Clinton also pushed for passing hate crimes laws for gays and for the private sector Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which, buoyed by his lobbying, failed to pass the Senate by a single vote in 1996. Advocacy for these issues, paired with the politically unpopular nature of the gay rights movement at the time, led to enthusiastic support for Clinton's election and reelection by the Human Rights Campaign. Clinton came out for gay marriage in July 2009 and urged the Supreme Court to overturn DOMA in 2013. He was later honored by GLAAD for his prior pro-gay stances and his reversal on DOMA. \n\nThe 1996 United States campaign finance controversy was an alleged effort by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to influence the domestic policies of the United States, before and during the Clinton administration, and involved the fundraising practices of the administration itself. The Chinese government denied all accusations.\n\nAs part of a 1996 initiative to curb illegal immigration, Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) on September 30, 1996. Appointed by Clinton, the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform recommended reducing legal immigration from about 800,000 people a year to about 550,000. \n\nKen Gormley, author of The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr, reveals in his book that President Clinton narrowly escaped possible assassination in the Philippines in November 1996. During his visit to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Manila, while he was on his way to meet with a senior member of the Philippine government, Clinton was saved from danger minutes before his motorcade was scheduled to drive over a bridge charged with a timed improvised explosive device (IED). According to officials, the IED was large enough to \"blow up the entire presidential motorcade\". Details of the plot were revealed to Gormley by Lewis C. Merletti, former member of the Presidential Protection Detail and Director of the Secret Service. Intelligence officers intercepted a radio transmission indicating that there was a wedding cake under a bridge. This alerted Merletti and others as Clinton's motorcade was scheduled to drive over a major bridge in downtown Manila. Once more, the word \"wedding\" was the code name used by a terrorist group for a past assassination attempt. Merletti wanted to reroute the motorcade, but the alternate route would add forty-five minutes to the drive time. Clinton was very angry, as he was already late for the meeting, but following the advice of the secret service possibly saved his life. Two other bombs had been discovered in Manila earlier in the week so the threat level that day was high. Security personnel at the Manila International Airport uncovered several grenades and a timing device in a travel bag. Officials also discovered a bomb near a major U.S. naval base. The President was scheduled to visit both of these locations later in the week. An intense investigation took place into the events in Manila and it was discovered that the group behind the bridge bomb was a Saudi terrorist group in Afghanistan known as al-Qaeda and the plot was masterminded by Osama bin Laden. Until recently, this thwarted assassination attempt was never made public and remained top secret. Only top members of the U.S. intelligence community were aware of these events.\n\n1996 presidential election\n\nIn the 1996 presidential election, Clinton was re-elected, receiving 49.2 percent of the popular vote over Republican Bob Dole (40.7 percent of the popular vote) and Reform candidate Ross Perot (8.4 percent of the popular vote), becoming the first Democratic incumbent since Lyndon Johnson to be elected to a second term and the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to be elected President more than once. The Republicans lost three seats in the House and gained two in the Senate, but retained control of both houses of the 105th United States Congress. Clinton received 379, or over 70 percent of the Electoral College votes, with Dole receiving 159 electoral votes.\n\nSecond term\n\nIn the January 1997 State of the Union address, Clinton proposed a new initiative to provide coverage to up to five million children. Senators Ted Kennedy—a Democrat—and Orrin Hatch—a Republican—teamed up with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her staff in 1997, and succeeded in passing legislation forming the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), the largest (successful) health care reform in the years of the Clinton Presidency. That year, Hillary Clinton shepherded through Congress the Adoption and Safe Families Act and two years later she succeeded in helping pass the Foster Care Independence Act. He negotiated the passage of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 by the Republican Congress. In October 1997, he announced he was getting hearing aids, due to hearing loss attributed to his age, and his time spent as a musician in his youth. In 1999 Clinton signed into law the Financial Services Modernization Act also known as the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, which repealed the part of the Glass–Steagall Act that had prohibited a bank from offering a full range of investment, commercial banking, and insurance services since its enactment in 1933. \n\nImpeachment and acquittal\n\nAfter the 1998 elections, the House impeached Clinton, alleging perjury and obstruction of justice related to the Lewinsky scandal. Clinton was only the second U.S. President to be impeached, after Andrew Johnson. Impeachment proceedings were based on allegations that Clinton had illegally lied about and covered up his relationship with 22-year-old White House (and later Department of Defense) employee Monica Lewinsky. After the Starr Report was submitted to the House providing what it termed \"substantial and credible information that President Clinton Committed Acts that May Constitute Grounds for an Impeachment\", the House began impeachment hearings against Clinton before the mid-term elections. To hold impeachment proceedings, the Republican leadership called a lame-duck session in December 1998.\n\nWhile the House Judiciary Committee hearings ended in a straight party-line vote, there was lively debate on the House floor. The two charges passed in the House (largely with Republican support, but with a handful of Democratic votes as well) were for perjury and obstruction of justice. The perjury charge arose from Clinton's testimony before a grand jury that had been convened to investigate perjury he may have committed in his sworn deposition during Paula Jones's sexual harassment lawsuit. The obstruction charge was based on his actions to conceal his relationship with Lewinsky before and after that deposition.\n\nThe Senate later acquitted Clinton on both charges. The Senate refused to meet to hold an impeachment trial before the end of the old term, so the trial was held over until the next Congress. Clinton was represented by Washington law firm Williams & Connolly. The Senate finished a twenty-one-day trial on February 12, 1999, with the vote of 55 Not Guilty/45 Guilty on the perjury charge and 50 Not Guilty/50 Guilty on the obstruction of justice charge. Both votes fell short of the Constitutional two-thirds majority requirement to convict and remove an officeholder. The final vote was generally along party lines, with no Democrats voting guilty, and only a handful of Republicans voting not guilty.\n\nOn January 19, 2001, Clinton's law license was suspended for five years after he acknowledged to an Arkansas circuit court that he had engaged in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice in the Jones case. \n\nPardons and commutations\n\nClinton controversially issued 141 pardons and 36 commutations on his last day in office on January 20, 2001. Most of the controversy surrounded Marc Rich and allegations that Hillary Clinton's brother, Hugh Rodham, accepted payments in return for influencing the president's decision-making regarding the pardons. Federal prosecutor Mary Jo White was appointed to investigate the pardon of Rich. She was later replaced by then-Republican James Comey, who found no wrongdoing on Clinton's part. Some of Clinton's pardons remain a point of controversy. \n\nMilitary and foreign events\n\nMany military events occurred during Clinton's presidency. The Battle of Mogadishu occurred in Somalia in 1993. During the operation, two U.S. helicopters were shot down by rocket-propelled grenade attacks to their tail rotors, trapping soldiers behind enemy lines. This resulted in an urban battle that killed 18 American soldiers, wounded 73 others, and one was taken prisoner. There were many more Somali casualties. Some of the American bodies were dragged through the streets—a spectacle broadcast on television news programs. In response, U.S. forces were withdrawn from Somalia and later conflicts were approached with fewer soldiers on the ground. In 1995, U.S. and NATO aircraft attacked Bosnian Serb targets to halt attacks on U.N. safe zones and to pressure them into a peace accord. Clinton deployed U.S. peacekeepers to Bosnia in late 1995, to uphold the subsequent Dayton Agreement.\n\nIn February 1996, the Clinton administration agreed to pay Iran US$131.8 million in settlement to discontinue a case brought by Iran in 1989 against the U.S. in the International Court of Justice after the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser. \n\nCapturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the U.S. government during the presidency of Bill Clinton (and continued to be until bin Laden's death in 2011). Despite claims by Mansoor Ijaz and Sudanese officials that the Sudanese government had offered to arrest and extradite bin Laden and that that U.S. authorities rejected each offer the 9/11 Commission Report stated that \"we have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim.\" \n\nIn response to a 1996 State Department warning about bin Laden and the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa by al-Qaeda (which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans), Clinton ordered several military missions to capture or kill bin Laden, both of which were unsuccessful. In August 1998, Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes on terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan, targeting the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, which was suspected of assisting bin Laden in making chemical weapons, and bin Laden's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. \n\nTo stop the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Albanians by anti-guerilla military units in the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's province of Kosovo, Clinton authorized the use of U.S. Armed Forces in a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, named Operation Allied Force. General Wesley Clark was Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and oversaw the mission. With United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, the bombing campaign ended on June 10, 1999. The resolution placed Kosovo under UN administration and authorized a peacekeeping force to be deployed to the region. NATO announced that its forces had suffered zero combat deaths, and two deaths from an Apache helicopter crash. Opinions in the popular press criticized pre-war genocide statements by the Clinton administration as greatly exaggerated. In 2001, the U.N.-supervised Supreme Court of Kosovo ruled that genocide did not take place, but recognized \"a systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments.\" The term \"ethnic cleansing\" was used as an alternative to \"genocide\" to denote not just ethnically motivated murder but also displacement, though critics charge there is no difference. Slobodan Milošević, the president of Yugoslavia at the time of the atrocities, was eventually brought to trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague on charges of crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes. Milošević died in 2006, before the completion of the trial. \n\nIn Clinton's 1998 State of the Union Address, he warned Congress that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was building an arsenal of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons:\n\nSeeking to weaken Hussein's grip on power, Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 into law on October 31, 1998, which instituted a policy of \"regime change\" against Iraq, though it explicitly stated it did not provide for direct intervention on the part of American military forces. The administration then launched a four-day bombing campaign named Operation Desert Fox, lasting from December 16 to 19, 1998. At the end of this operation Clinton announced that \"So long as Saddam remains in power, he will remain a threat to his people, his region, and the world. With our allies, we must pursue a strategy to contain him and to constrain his weapons of mass destruction program, while working toward the day Iraq has a government willing to live at peace with its people and with its neighbors.\" American and British aircraft in the Iraq no-fly zones attacked hostile Iraqi air defenses 166 times in 1999 and 78 times in 2000. \n\nClinton's November 2000 visit to Vietnam was the first by a U.S. president since the end of the Vietnam War. On October 10, 2000, Clinton signed into law the U.S.–China Relations Act of 2000, which granted permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) trade status to People's Republic of China. The president asserted that free trade would gradually open China to democratic reform. Clinton also oversaw a boom of the U.S. economy. Under Clinton, the United States had a projected federal budget surplus for the first time since 1969. \n\nAfter initial successes such as the Oslo Accords of the early 1990s, which also led to the Israel–Jordan peace treaty in 1994 and the Wye River Memorandum in October 1998, Clinton attempted an effort to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He brought Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat together at Camp David for the Camp David Summit in July 2000, which lasted 14 days. Following the failures of the peace talks, Clinton stated Arafat \"missed the opportunity\" to facilitate a \"just and lasting peace.\" In his autobiography, Clinton blames Arafat for the collapse of the summit. Following another attempt in December 2000 at Bolling Air Force Base, in which the President offered the Clinton Parameters, the situation broke down completely after the end of the Taba Summit and with the start of the Second Intifada.\n\nJudicial appointments\n\nClinton appointed two justices to the Supreme Court: Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993 and Stephen Breyer in 1994. \n\nAlong with his two Supreme Court appointments, Clinton appointed 66 judges to the United States courts of appeals and 305 judges to the United States district courts. His 373 judicial appointments are the second most in American history behind those of Ronald Reagan. Clinton also experienced a number of judicial appointment controversies, as 69 nominees to federal judgeships did not receive a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee. In all, 84 percent of his nominees were confirmed. \n\nAmong the judges appointed by Clinton to the courts of appeals was Sonia Sotomayor, who was nominated by Clinton in 1997 to the Second Circuit and confirmed in 1998, following a delay of more than a year caused by Republican opposition. \n\nClinton was the first president in history to appoint more women and minority judges than white male judges to the federal courts. In his eight years in office, 11.6% of Clinton's court of appeals nominees and 17.4% of his district court nominees were black; 32.8% of his court of appeals nominees and 28.5% of his district court nominees were women. Clinton appointed the first African American judges to the Fourth Circuit (Roger Gregory) and the Seventh Circuit (Ann Claire Williams). Clinton also appointed the nation's first openly gay or lesbian federal judge when he named Deborah Batts to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Batts was confirmed by the Senate in a voice vote in 1994. \n\nPublic opinion\n\nClinton's job approval rating fluctuated in the 40s and 50s throughout his first term. In his second term, his rating consistently ranged from the high-50s to the high-60s. After his impeachment proceedings in 1998 and 1999, Clinton's rating reached its highest point. According to a CBS News/New York Times poll, Clinton left office with an approval rating of 68 percent, which matched those of Ronald Reagan and Franklin D. Roosevelt as the highest ratings for departing presidents in the modern era. Clinton's average Gallup poll approval rating for his last quarter in office was 61%, the highest final quarter rating any president has received for fifty years. Forty-seven percent of the respondents identified themselves as being Clinton supporters.\n\nAs he was leaving office, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll revealed that 45 percent of Americans said they would miss him; 55 percent thought he \"would have something worthwhile to contribute and should remain active in public life\"; 68 percent thought he would be remembered more for his \"involvement in personal scandal\" than for \"his accomplishments\"; and 58 percent answered \"No\" to the question \"Do you generally think Bill Clinton is honest and trustworthy?\" The same percentage said he would be remembered as either \"outstanding\" or \"above average\" as a president, while 22 percent said he would be remembered as \"below average\" or \"poor.\" ABC News characterized public consensus on Clinton as, \"You can't trust him, he's got weak morals and ethics - and he's done a heck of a good job.\"\n\nIn May 2006, a CNN poll comparing Clinton's job performance with that of his successor, George W. Bush, found that a strong majority of respondents said Clinton outperformed Bush in six different areas questioned. Gallup polls in 2007 and 2011 showed that Clinton was regarded by 13% of Americans as the greatest president in U.S. history. \n\nIn 2014, 18% of respondents in a Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll of American voters regarded Clinton as the best president since World War II, making him the third most popular among postwar presidents, behind John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. The same poll showed that just 3% of American voters regarded Clinton as the worst president since World War II.\n\nA 2015 poll by The Washington Post asked 162 scholars of the American Political Science Association to rank all the U.S. presidents in order of greatness. According to their findings, Clinton ranked eighth overall, with a rating of 70 percent. \n\nPublic image\n\nAs the first baby boomer president, Clinton was the first president in more than half a century not to have been alive during World War II. Authors Martin Walker and Bob Woodward state Clinton's innovative use of sound bite-ready dialogue, personal charisma, and public perception-oriented campaigning was a major factor in his high public approval ratings. When Clinton played the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show, he was described by some religious conservatives as \"the MTV president.\" Opponents sometimes referred to him as \"Slick Willie\", a nickname which was first applied to him in 1980 by Pine Bluff Commercial journalist Paul Greenberg;[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/choice/bill/greenberg.html American Frontline:Stories of Bill] Accessed May 4, 2015 Greenberg believed that Clinton was abandoning the progressive policies of previous Arkansas Governors such as Winthrop Rockefeller, Dale Bumpers and David Pryor. The claim \"Slick Willie\" would last throughout his presidency. Standing at a height of (1.88 m), Clinton is tied with five others as the fourth-tallest president in the nation's history. His folksy manner led him to be nicknamed Bubba, especially in the South. Since 2000, he has frequently been referred to as \"The Big Dog\" or \"Big Dog.\" His prominent role in campaigning for President Obama during the 2012 presidential election and his widely publicized speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, where he officially nominated Obama and criticized Republican nominee Mitt Romney and Republican policies in detail, earned him the nickname \"Explainer-in-Chief.\" \n\nClinton drew strong support from the African American community and made improving race relations a major theme of his presidency. In 1998, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison called Clinton \"the first Black president\", saying, \"Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas\". Noting that Clinton's sex life was scrutinized more than his career accomplishments, Morrison compared this to the stereotyping and double standards that blacks typically endure.\n\nShortly after he took office, conservative newspaper owner Richard Mellon Scaife organized a fundraising campaign to smear Clinton's image in the media. Leading the Arkansas Project, Scaife and other associates sought to find sources in Clinton's home state of Arkansas who would be willing to dish out negative allegations against the President.\n\nIn 1994, Paula Jones brought a sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton, claiming he made unwanted advances in 1991, which he denied. In April 1998, the case was initially dismissed by Judge Susan Webber Wright as lacking legal merit. But Jones appealed Webber Wright's ruling, and her suit gained traction following Clinton's admission to having an affair with Monica Lewinsky in August 1998. In 1998, lawyers for Paula Jones released court documents contending a pattern of sexual harassment by Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas. Robert S. Bennett, Clinton's main lawyer for the case, called the filing \"a pack of lies\" and \"an organized campaign to smear the President of the United States\" funded by Clinton's political enemies. Clinton later agreed to an out-of-court settlement, paying $850,000. Bennett said that the President made the settlement only so he could end the lawsuit for good and move on with his life. During the deposition for the Jones lawsuit, which was held at the White House, Clinton denied having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky - a denial that became the basis for an impeachment charge of perjury. \n\nIn 1992, Gennifer Flowers stated that she had a relationship with Clinton that began in 1980. Flowers at first denied that she had an affair with Clinton, but later changed her story. After Clinton at first denied having a relationship with Flowers on 60 Minutes, he later admitted that he had a sexual encounter with Flowers.\n\nIn 1998, Kathleen Willey alleged that Clinton groped her in a hallway in 1993. An independent counsel determined Willey gave \"false information\" to the FBI, inconsistent with sworn testimony related to the Jones allegation. On March 19, 1998, Julie Hiatt Steele, a friend of Willey, released an affidavit, accusing the former White House aide of asking her to lie to corroborate Ms. Willey's account of being sexually groped by President Clinton in the Oval Office. An attempt by Kenneth Starr to prosecute Steele for making false statements and obstructing justice ended in a mistrial and Starr declined to seek a retrial after Steele sought an investigation against the former Independent Counsel for prosecutorial misconduct. Linda Tripp's grand jury testimony also differed from Willey's claims regarding inappropriate sexual advances. \n\nAlso in 1998, Juanita Broaddrick alleged that Clinton had raped her in the spring of 1978, although she stated she did not remember the exact date. In another 1998 event, Elizabeth Gracen recanted a six-year-old denial and stated she had a one-night stand with Clinton in 1982. Gracen later apologized to Hillary Clinton. Throughout the year, however, Gracen eluded a subpoena from Kenneth Starr to testify her claim in court. \n\nPost-presidency (since 2001)\n\nBill Clinton continues to be active in public life, giving speeches, fundraising, and founding charitable organizations. Clinton has spoken in prime time at every Democratic National Convention since 1988. Robert Reich has suggested that Clinton is in a state of \"permanent election\", due to the impeachment proceedings during his presidency and his continuing support in the campaigns of his wife Hillary Clinton. \n\nActivities until 2008 campaign\n\nIn 2002, Clinton warned that pre-emptive military action against Iraq would have unwelcome consequences, and later claimed to have opposed the Iraq War from the start (though some dispute this). In 2005, Clinton criticized the Bush administration for its handling of emissions control, while speaking at the United Nations Climate Change conference in Montreal. \n\nThe William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas was dedicated in 2004. Clinton released a best-selling autobiography, My Life in 2004. In 2007, he released Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World, which also became a The New York Times Best Seller and garnered positive reviews. \n\nIn the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Clinton to head a relief effort. After Hurricane Katrina, Clinton joined with fellow former President George H. W. Bush to establish the Bush-Clinton Tsunami Fund in January 2005, and the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund in October of that year. As part of the tsunami effort, these two ex-presidents appeared in a Super Bowl XXXIX pre-game show, and traveled to the affected areas. They also spoke together at the funeral of Boris Yeltsin in 2007. \n\nBased on his philanthropic worldview, Clinton created the William J. Clinton Foundation to address issues of global importance. This foundation includes the Clinton Foundation HIV and AIDS Initiative (CHAI), which strives to combat that disease, and has worked with the Australian government toward that end. The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), begun by the Clinton Foundation in 2005, attempts to address world problems such as global public health, poverty alleviation and religious and ethnic conflict. In 2005, Clinton announced through his foundation an agreement with manufacturers to stop selling sugared drinks in schools. Clinton's foundation joined with the Large Cities Climate Leadership Group in 2006 to improve cooperation among those cities, and he met with foreign leaders to promote this initiative. The foundation has received donations from a number of governments all over the world, including Asia and the Middle East. In 2008, Foundation director Inder Singh announced deals to reduce the price of anti-malaria drugs by 30 percent in developing nations. Clinton also spoke in favor of California Proposition 87 on alternative energy, which was voted down. \n\n2008 presidential election\n\nDuring the 2008 Democratic presidential primary campaign, Clinton vigorously advocated on behalf of his wife, Hillary Clinton. Through speaking engagements and fundraisers, he was able to raise $10 million toward her campaign. Some worried that as an ex-president, he was too active on the trail, too negative to Clinton rival Barack Obama, and alienating his supporters at home and abroad. Many were especially critical of him following his remarks in the South Carolina primary, which Obama won. Later in the 2008 primaries, there was some infighting between Bill and Hillary's staffs, especially in Pennsylvania. Considering Bill's remarks, many thought that he could not rally Hillary supporters behind Obama after Obama won the primary. Such remarks lead to apprehension that the party would be split to the detriment of Obama's election. Fears were allayed August 27, 2008, when Clinton enthusiastically endorsed Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, saying that all his experience as president assures him that Obama is \"ready to lead.\" After Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign was over, Bill Clinton continued to raise funds to help pay off her campaign debt. \n\nAfter the 2008 election\n\nIn 2009, Clinton travelled to North Korea on behalf of two American journalists imprisoned in North Korea. Euna Lee and Laura Ling had been imprisoned for illegally entering the country from China. Jimmy Carter had made a similar visit in 1994. After Clinton met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, Kim issued a pardon. \n\nSince then, Clinton has been assigned a number of other diplomatic missions. He was named United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti in 2009. In response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that Clinton and George W. Bush would coordinate efforts to raise funds for Haiti's recovery. Clinton continues to visit Haiti to witness the inauguration of refugee villages, and to raise funds for victims of the earthquake. In 2010, Clinton announced support of, and delivered the keynote address for, the inauguration of NTR, Ireland's first environmental foundation. At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, Clinton gave a widely praised speech nominating Barack Obama. \n\nPost-presidential health concerns\n\nIn September 2004, Clinton received a quadruple bypass surgery. In March 2005, he underwent surgery for a partially collapsed lung. On February 11, 2010, he was rushed to NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital in New York City after complaining of chest pains, and had two coronary stents implanted in his heart. After this experience, Clinton adopted the plant-based whole foods (vegan) diet recommended by doctors Dean Ornish and Caldwell Esselstyn. \n\nWealth\n\nThe Clintons accrued several million dollars in legal bills during his presidency; they were paid off four years after he left office. Both Bill and Hillary Clinton have received millions of dollars in book authorship fees. In February 2016, CNN reported that documents show the Clintons combined to receive more than $153 million in paid speeches from 2001 until spring 2015. In May 2015, The Hill reported that Bill and Hillary Clinton have made more than $25 million in speaking fees since the start of 2014, and that Hillary Clinton also made $5 million or more from her book, Hard Choices, during the same time period. In July 2014, The Wall Street Journal reported that at the end of 2012, the Clintons were worth between $5 million and $25.5 million, and that in 2012 (the last year they were required to disclose the information) the Clintons made between $16 and $17 million, mostly from speaking fees earned by the former president. Clinton earned more than $104 million from paid speeches between 2001 and 2012. In June 2014, ABC News and The Washington Post reported that Bill Clinton has made more than $100 million giving paid speeches since leaving public office, and in 2008, the New York Times reported that the Clintons' income tax returns show they have made $109 million in the 8 years from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2007, including almost $92 million from his speaking and book-writing.[http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-the-clintons-went-from-dead-broke-to-rich-bill-earned-1049-million-for-speeches/2014/06/26/8fa0b372-fd3a-11e3-8176-f2c941cf35f1_story.html How the Clintons went from 'dead broke' to rich: Bill earned $104.9 million for speeches] (June 26, 2014), The Washington Post[https://gma.yahoo.com/hillary-clinton-defends-high-dollar-speaking-fees-113922185--abc-news-topstories.html Hillary Clinton Defends High-Dollar Speaking Fees] (June 9, 2014), ABC News and Good Morning America \n\nBill Clinton has given dozens of paid speeches each year, mostly to corporations and philanthropic groups in North America and Europe, often earning $100,000 to $300,000 per speech. Hillary Clinton said that she and Bill came out of the White House financially \"broke\" and in debt, especially due to large legal fees incurred during their years in the White House. \"We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, for Chelsea's education.\" She added, \"Bill has worked really hard ... we had to pay off all our debts...he had to make double the money because of, obviously, taxes; and then pay off the debts, and get us houses, and take care of family members.\"\n\nHonors and recognition\n\nVarious colleges and universities have awarded Clinton honorary degrees, including Doctorate of Law degrees and Doctor of Humane Letters degrees. He is an Honorary Fellow of University College, Oxford, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. Schools have been named for Clinton, and statues have been built to pay him homage. U.S. states where he has been honored include Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, and New York. He was presented with the Medal for Distinguished Public Service by Secretary of Defense William Cohen in 2001. The Clinton Presidential Center was opened in Little Rock, Arkansas in his honor on December 5, 2001. \n\nHe has been honored in various other ways, in countries that include the Czech Republic, Papua New Guinea, Germany, and Kosovo. The Republic of Kosovo, in gratitude for his help during the Kosovo War, renamed a major street in the capital city of Pristina as Bill Clinton Boulevard and added a monumental Clinton statue. \n\nClinton was selected as Time \"Man of the Year\" in 1992, and again in 1998, along with Ken Starr. From a poll conducted of the American people in December 1999, Clinton was among eighteen included in Gallup's List of Widely Admired People of the 20th century. He was honored with a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children, a J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding, a TED Prize (named for the confluence of technology, entertainment and design), and was named as an Honorary GLAAD Media Award recipient for his work as an advocate for the LGBT community. \n\nIn 2011, President Michel Martelly of Haiti awarded Clinton with the National Order of Honour and Merit to the rank of Grand Cross \"for his various initiatives in Haiti and especially his high contribution to the reconstruction of the country after the earthquake of January 12, 2010.\" Clinton declared at the ceremony that \"...in the United States of America, I really don't believe former American presidents need awards anymore, but I am very honored by this one, I love Haiti, and I believe in its promise.\" \n\nU.S. President Barack Obama awarded Clinton the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 20, 2013. \n\nAuthored books\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRecordings\n\nBill Clinton is one of the narrators on a 2003 recording of Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, on Pentatone, together with Mikhail Gorbachev and Sophia Loren." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Oxford, england", "Oxeford", "Lion Brewery (U.K.)", "Oxford, UK", "Oxford astrophysics", "City of Dreaming Spires", "Oxford, England", "Oxford (England)", "Oxford", "Oxford, Oxfordshire", "The Dreaming Spires", "City of Oxford", "UN/LOCODE:GBOXF", "OXFORD", "City of dreaming spires", "Ford of the Oxen", "County Borough of Oxford", "The weather in Oxford", "Oxford, United Kingdom", "Morrells brewery", "The city of dreaming spires", "Oxenaforda" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "oxford united kingdom", "oxford", "city of oxford", "oxeford", "oxford astrophysics", "oxford england", "lion brewery u k", "city of dreaming spires", "weather in oxford", "oxenaforda", "un locode gboxf", "ford of oxen", "dreaming spires", "morrells brewery", "oxford oxfordshire", "county borough of oxford", "oxford uk" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "oxford", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Oxford" }
What is the name of Paul and Linda McCartney's only son?	tc_1274	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Linda_McCartney.txt" ], "title": [ "Linda McCartney" ], "wiki_context": [ "Linda Louise, Lady McCartney (née Eastman; formerly See; September 24, 1941 – April 17, 1998) was an American musician, photographer, animal rights activist, entrepreneur and publisher who was married to Paul McCartney of the Beatles. Prior to marrying Paul, she was a professional photographer of celebrities and contemporary musicians, with her work published in music industry magazines. Her photos were also published in the book, Linda McCartney's Sixties: Portrait of an Era, in 1992. \n\nLinda married McCartney in 1969 at St John's Wood Church in London. Her daughter, Heather Louise, from her first marriage to Melville See, was adopted by her new husband. Together, the McCartneys had three other children.\n\nIn 1971, after they married and following the break-up of the Beatles the previous year, Paul and Linda McCartney recorded the album Ram. Shortly afterwards, they formed the band Wings. She continued to be part of her husband's touring band following Wings' break-up in 1981 up until The New World Tour in 1993.\n\nShe was an animal rights activist and wrote and published several vegetarian cookbooks, and founded the Linda McCartney Foods company with her husband.\n\nIn 1995 she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and after a long battle, died in 1998 at the age of 56.\n\nEarly years\n\nMcCartney was born Linda Louise Eastman, the second-eldest of four children, in New York City. She had one older brother, John, born in 1939; and two younger sisters, Laura, born in 1947, and Louise Jr., born in 1950.\n\nHer father, Leopold Vail Epstein, was born in 1910 to Jewish Russian immigrants. He later changed his name to Lee Eastman. He practiced entertainment law in New York for well-known clients, including bandleader Tommy Dorsey, songwriters Harold Arlen and Jack Lawrence, and fine artists such as Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko.Sounes, Howard. Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney, Doubleday (2010) pp. 172-175 At her father's request, Lawrence wrote the song \"Linda\" when McCartney was four. The song was recorded by Buddy Clark in 1947 and went to number 1 on the charts. It was again recorded in 1963 by Jan and Dean.\n\nMcCartney's mother, Louise Sara (Lindner) Eastman, was from a German Jewish family and was the daughter of Max J. Lindner—founder of the Lindner Company clothing store in Cleveland, Ohio.\n\nMcCartney grew up in the affluent Scarsdale town of Westchester County, New York, graduating from Scarsdale High School in 1959. Following high school, McCartney attended Vermont College, receiving an Associate of Arts degree in 1961. \n\nWhile her brother John followed in his father's footsteps, also going to Harvard to study law, Linda was less ambitious and avoided such intellectual pursuits. She was considered the \"black sheep\" of the family, who lacked serious academic desires, preferring to spend her free time riding her horse or being with her dogs. Nature and animals were her primary interests. John later became Paul McCartney's attorney and manager. \n\nAfter graduating from Vermont College, she attended the University of Arizona, majoring in Fine Arts. While there, McCartney's mother died in the 1962 crash of American Airlines Flight 1 in Queens, New York. McCartney later said that because of her mother's death, she hated travelling by air. In Arizona she took up nature photography as a hobby.\n\nCareer\n\nPhotography\n\nAfter her mother died in 1962, and newly divorced from her husband, Melville See, she moved back to Manhattan, New York, with her daughter Heather. McCartney's mother left her money to live on along with a number of valuable paintings.\n\nShe found a job as a receptionist and editorial assistant for Town & Country magazine. During that time, in 1965, she became romantically involved with David Dalton, a professional photographer. She studied the way he worked during photo shoots, learning about how he set up shots and managed lighting and composition. When she began to do more of her own shoots, such as with music groups, he said he was \"astonished\" at how easily she was able to take control of unruly or uncooperative musicians. She was able to get her subjects to do exactly what she wanted without much fuss.Carlin, Peter Ames. Paul McCartney: A Life, Simon & Schuster (2009) pp. 169-170 Dalton said that shooting rock groups was \"a bloody pain in the neck. But with the lovely Linda, all this changed...Now their eyes were pinned on her.\"\n\nDalton was also impressed by the intelligence of McCartney's daughter. \"Linda and I would get high and Heather would say the most amazing things...I'd think, 'This is André Breton at six years old!'\" He adds that he found Linda's relationship with Heather a \"very charming aspect of her life with this wonderful child.\"\n\nOn one occasion, when the magazine received an invitation to photograph the Rolling Stones during a record promotion party on a yacht, she immediately volunteered to represent the publication as its photographer. The photo shoot marked a turning point in her life:\n\nHer father, however, was not impressed with her goal of becoming a photographer on her own. He wanted her to at least take some formal training with a professional. \"Well, I never had the patience for that,\" she said. \"I had to trust my feelings.\" Although she did study the photography of horses at college in Arizona under Hazel Larson Archer, along with becoming an avid nature hobbyist, using a high quality Leica camera. A few months after her Rolling Stones shoot, she was allowed back stage at Shea Stadium where the Beatles performed.Sandford, Christopher. McCartney, Random House (2005) p. 140\n\nHaving now gained some experience in celebrity photography, McCartney became an unofficial house photographer at Bill Graham's Fillmore East concert hall. Among the artists she photographed there were Todd Rundgren, Aretha Franklin, Grace Slick, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Eric Clapton, Simon & Garfunkel, the Who, the Doors, the Animals, John Lennon and Neil Young. Her photo of Young, taken in 1967, was used on the cover of Sugar Mountain – Live at Canterbury House 1968 in 2008.\n\nShe photographed Clapton for Rolling Stone magazine, becoming the first woman to have a photograph featured on the front cover (May 11, 1968). She and husband Paul also appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone on January 31, 1974, making her the only person to have taken a photograph, and to have been photographed, for the front cover of the magazine. Her photographs were later exhibited in more than 50 galleries internationally, as well as at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. A collection of photographs from that time, Linda McCartney's Sixties: Portrait of an Era, was published in 1993. She also took the photograph for the cover of Paul McCartney's and Michael Jackson's single, \"The Girl Is Mine\".\n\nMusic\n\nAfter the breakup of the Beatles in 1970, Paul taught Linda to play keyboards and recorded an album with her, Ram, as a duo. Afterwards, he included her in the lineup of his subsequent group, Wings. The group garnered several Grammy Awards, becoming one of the most successful British bands of the 1970s, but had to endure jibes regarding Linda's singing. She later admitted that the accusations about her singing out of tune in the early days with Wings were true.\n\nIn 1977, a reggae-inspired single entitled \"Seaside Woman\" was released by an obscure band called Suzy and the Red Stripes on Epic Records in the United States. In reality, Suzy and the Red Stripes were Wings, with Linda (who also wrote the song) on lead vocals. The song had been recorded by Wings in 1972, in response to a lawsuit by Northern Songs and Maclen Music alleging Paul violated an exclusive rights agreement by collaborating on the song \"Another Day\", which had the effect of transferring a 50% share of the publishing royalties to his own McCartney Music company. The lawsuit, which alleged that Linda's co-writing credits were inauthentic and that she was not a real songwriter, was \"amicably settled,\" according to an ATV spokesman, in June 1972. \n\nThe McCartneys shared an Oscar nomination for the co-composition of the song \"Live and Let Die\". Linda's album Wide Prairie, which included \"Seaside Woman,\" was released posthumously in 1998. Along with eight other British composers, Paul contributed to the choral album A Garland for Linda, and dedicated his classical album, Ecce Cor Meum, to his late wife. \n\nPersonal life\n\nMarriages\n\nMelville See Jr. (1962-1965)\n\nHer first marriage was to Melville See Jr., whom she had met in college. He was born in New York in 1938, making him three years older than McCartney. He studied geology at Princeton and after graduating enrolled in the University of Arizona in Tucson to earn a master's degree. McCartney followed him there, where she enrolled at the same college to study art history. She was studying there in March 1962 when her mother was killed in a commercial plane crash.\n\nShe married See in June 1962; their daughter Heather Louise was born on December 31, 1962. As their lifestyles were too dissimilar, they divorced three years later, in June 1965. He was an academic who spent much of his time studying or doing research, while she preferred a less intellectual home life. She loved the wide open spaces in Arizona and enjoyed riding horses through the desert landscape. The settings, with saguaro cacti, reminded her of scenery from western films, which inspired her to take up photography as a hobby.\n\nPaul McCartney (1969-1998)\n\nOn May 15, 1967, while on a photo assignment in London, Eastman met Paul McCartney at the Bag O'Nails club where Georgie Fame was performing. They met again four days later at the launch party for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band at Brian Epstein's house. When her assignment was completed, she flew back to New York City.Miles, Barry. Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Vintage-Random House (1997) \n\t\nThey got together again the following May in New York, while he and John Lennon were there to inaugurate Apple Records. A few weeks after he returned to London he invited her to spend some time with him there. When she arrived, they went to his home where they spent the evening. \"He must have been really happy that night,\" said one of the fans who often loitered outside his home. \"He sat on the windowsill with his acoustic guitar and sang 'Blackbird' to us\" from his upstairs room.Norman, Philip. Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation, Simon and Schuster (2005) e-book\n\nPaul was attracted to her for a number of reasons, he explained: \"I liked her as a woman, she was good-looking with a good figure, so physically I was attracted to her.\" But he also liked her sense of independence: \"Her mental attitude was quite rebellious...[growing up] she was the kind of kid who would hang out in the kitchen with the black maids\" to learn cooking. She disliked socializing. They both liked natural surroundings, he said, and they shared a love of nature, which became one of their most important emotional links. He knew that because of her \"very free spirit,\" she was considered a rebel and a black sheep by her family for avoiding excelling in education, unlike her father and brother. \"She was an artist,\" Paul said, \"and was not cut out to be an academic.\"\n\nIn addition, according to biographer Howard Sounes, Paul appreciated that having been raised in an affluent household, she didn’t seem all that interested in his wealth, but instead preferred a simple life. She had \"loads of American confidence and a congenial hippie-chick looseness,\" and wanted Paul to have the traditional masculine role in their relationship. Peter Brown, a Beatles manager, adds:\n\nLinda's daughter, Heather, created another strong bond between them, since he had always liked and wanted children of his own. When he first met Heather, who was then six, he insisted that she and Linda move to London to live with him. After they did, he devoted time to Heather, playing with her, reading her stories, and drawing cartoons with her. He sang her to sleep at bedtime.\n\nBiographer Philip Norman notes that Linda had some personality aspects which Paul admired. She seemed less concerned with clothing or her public appearance, preferring to dress casually, even in semi-formal settings. She typically held his arm when they were together, often \"gazing up at him in awe,\" and seeming to idolize him. However, Paul's friends claimed that his own appearance also became noticeably less formal, whether shaving less often or just wearing simpler clothes. \"He could go on the bus down to Apple,\" said his maid, \"and no one would recognize him.\"\n\nLinda's relaxed attitude about everyday things began to affect him in other ways. He recalls once feeling guilty because he was exhausted from work, and having trained himself to never appear tired, apologized to her. She simply replied, \"it's allowed,\" which amazed him. \"I remember thinking, Fucking hell! That was a mind-blower. I'd never been with anyone who thought like that...it was patently clear that it was allowed to be tired.\"\n\nAround this time, Paul fell into a deep depression due to the Beatles pending break-up. He would spend days in bed and drink excessively, not knowing what to do with his life. \"I nearly had a breakdown,\" he said. \"I was going crazy.\" Sounes writes that \"McCartney sank into whisky-soaked oblivion, [and] only Linda knew how to save him.\"Sounes, Howard. [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1303629/Strangers-said-abrasive-gauche-Paul-McCartney-sank-whisky-soaked-oblivion-Linda-knew-save-him.html \"Strangers said she was abrasive and gauche, but as Paul McCartney sank into whisky-soaked oblivion, only Linda knew how to save him\"], Daily Mail, 17 August 2010 McCartney later said that Linda helped him pull out of that emotional crisis by praising his work as a songwriter and convincing him to continue writing and recording:Weber, Erin Torkelson. The Beatles and the Historians: An Analysis of Writings About the Fab Four, McFarland & Co. (2016)\n\nAfter he got through that troubled phase of his career, he wrote \"Maybe I'm Amazed\" in Linda's honor. He explained during an interview that the song was written \"for me and Linda,\" and that with the Beatles breaking up, \"that was my feeling: Maybe I'm amazed at what's going on... Maybe I'm a man and maybe you're the only woman who could ever help me; Baby won't you help me understand... Maybe I'm amazed at the way you pulled me out of time, hung me on the line, Maybe I'm amazed at the way I really need you.\" He added that \"every love song I write is for Linda.\"[http://www.beatlesbible.com/people/paul-mccartney/songs/maybe-im-amazed/ \"Maybe I’m Amazed\"], The Beatles Bible \n\nThey were married in a small civil ceremony in the Marylebone area of London on March 12, 1969. The reaction to the marriage by British fans was mostly negative, partly because it ended McCartney's status as the last unattached Beatle. And along with John Lennon's new wife, Yoko Ono, whom Lennon married a week later, Linda was perceived as one of the causes of the group's break-up. Lennon at one point publicly criticized the way the press had treated Linda: \"She got the same kind of insults, hatred, absolute garbage thrown at her for no reason whatsoever other than she fell in love with Paul McCartney.\"\n\nDuring the 29 years of their marriage, they had four children: in addition to her daughter Heather from her first marriage (who Paul later formally adopted), Paul was the biological father of Mary (born in London August 28, 1969), Stella (born September 13, 1971) and James (born September 12, 1977 in London).\n\nThey sometimes went to his farmhouse retreat in western Scotland, which he purchased before they met, a hidden place he used to \"escape Beatlemania.\" They both liked and needed time away from the city, and were equally attracted to natural surroundings, writes biographer Barry Miles. \"We'd just enjoy sitting out in nature,\" Paul said. The song \"Two of Us\" on the Let it Be Album was written by Paul during one of their country drives. \"This song was about that: doing nothing, trying to get lost...[and] the wonderfully free attitude we were able to have. \n\nHe also began writing more of his songs away from the studio. \"I found that I was enjoying working alone,\" he said. He wrote the song, \"The Lovely Linda\", for his debut solo album while they were staying in Scotland. In 1971 they both recorded the album, Ram.\n\nShe became Lady McCartney when her husband was knighted in 1997. Her brother, entertainment lawyer John Eastman, has represented McCartney since the breakup of the Beatles. \n\nLifestyle\n\nVegetarianism\n\nMcCartney introduced her husband to vegetarianism in 1975, and promoted a vegetarian diet through her cookbooks: Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking (with author Peter Cox, 1989), Linda's Kitchen and Simple and Inspiring Recipes for Meatless Meals. She explained her change to vegetarianism by saying that she did not \"eat anything with a face... If slaughterhouses had glass walls the whole world would be vegetarian\". \n\nAnimal rights activist\n\nThe McCartneys became outspoken vegetarians and animal rights activists. In 1991, she introduced a line of frozen vegetarian meals under the Linda McCartney Foods name, which made her wealthy independently of her husband. The H. J. Heinz Company acquired the company in March 2000, and the Hain Celestial Group bought it in 2007.\n\nAs a strong advocate for animal rights, Linda lent her support to many organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Council for the Protection of Rural England and Friends of the Earth. She was also a patron of the League Against Cruel Sports. She narrated a TV advertisement for PETA, in which she said: \"Have you ever seen a fish gasping for breath when you take it out of the water? They’re saying, ‘Thanks a lot for killing me. It feels great, you know.’ No! It hurts!\" After her death, PETA created the Linda McCartney Memorial Award. \n\nMarijuana\n\nIn 1984, McCartney was arrested in Barbados for possession of marijuana; her husband had been arrested in Los Angeles on the same charge in 1975. After flying to Heathrow Airport, London, she was arrested on charges of possession. She later commented that, while hard drugs are \"disgusting\", marijuana is \"pretty lightweight\". \n\nDeath\n\nMcCartney was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995, and her condition soon grew worse as it spread to her liver. She died of the disease at the age of 56 on April 17, 1998, at the McCartney family ranch in Tucson, Arizona. Her family was with her when she died.[http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20125150,00.html Paul's Lovely Linda ]\n\nShe was cremated in Tucson, and her ashes were scattered at the McCartney farm in Sussex, England. Her husband later suggested fans remember her by donating to breast cancer research charities that do not support animal testing, \"or the best tribute – go veggie\". A memorial service was held for her at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, which was attended by George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Billy Joel, Elton John, David Gilmour, Peter Gabriel and other celebrities among a congregation of 700. A memorial service was also held at Riverside Church in Manhattan, two months after her death. \"She was my girlfriend,\" McCartney said at her funeral. \"I lost my girlfriend.\" \n\nShe left all her property to Paul, including royalties from books or records, and all rights to her photos. He has pledged to continue her line of vegetarian food, and to keep it free from genetically modified organisms. \n\nTributes and dedications\n\nA few months after her death, the Edinburgh International Film Festival premiered Wide Prairie, a six-minute cartoon fantasy film she made with director Oscar Grillo. \n\nIn April 1999, Paul McCartney performed at the \"Concert for Linda\" tribute at the Royal Albert Hall, which had been organized by two of their friends, Chrissie Hynde and Carla Lane. Among the artists that performed, besides Paul, were George Michael, the Pretenders, Elvis Costello and Tom Jones. Paul closed the concert by dedicating the event to Linda, whom he called his \"beautiful baby,\" and all their beautiful children. \n\nIn January 2000, Paul announced donations in excess of $2,000,000 for cancer research at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the Arizona Cancer Center in Tucson, where Linda received treatment. The donations, through the Garland Appeal, were made on the condition no animals would be used for testing purposes. Also in 2000, The Linda McCartney Centre, a cancer clinic, opened at The Royal Liverpool University Hospital. In November 2002, the Linda McCartney Kintyre Memorial Trust opened a memorial garden in Campbeltown, the main town in Kintyre, with a bronze statue of her made by her cousin, sculptor Jane Robbins. \n\nPortrayals on screen\n\nLinda McCartney and husband Paul appeared as themselves on an episode of Bread in 1988, and an episode of The Simpsons, called \"Lisa the Vegetarian\", in 1995. After her death, The Simpsons' 200th episode \"Trash of the Titans\", which aired on April 26, 1998, and Paul McCartney's Tuesday\" from 2000 (directed by Geoff Dunbar) were both dedicated to her memory. Simpsons executive producer Mike Scully said, \"It just seemed like the right thing to do. Everyone here was surprised and saddened by her death.\" \n\nElizabeth Mitchell and Gary Bakewell played the McCartneys in the 2000 TV movie The Linda McCartney Story. She was portrayed as \"Linda Eastman\" in the 1985 TV movie John and Yoko: A Love Story. \n\nDiscography\n\n;Solo albums\n* Wide Prairie (1998)\n\n;Solo singles \n\n;Paul and Linda McCartney\n* Ram (1971)\n\n;Session work\n* Paul McCartney – McCartney (1970)\n* Denny Laine – Holly Days (1977)\n* Denny Laine – Japanese Tears (1980)\n* Paul McCartney – McCartney II (1980)\n* Paul McCartney – Tug of War (1982)\n* Paul McCartney – Pipes of Peace (1983)\n* Paul McCartney – Give My Regards to Broad Street (1984)\n* Paul McCartney – Press to Play (1986)\n* Paul McCartney – Flowers in the Dirt (1989)\n* Paul McCartney – Off the Ground (1993)\n* Paul McCartney – Flaming Pie (1997)\n\nNotes" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "James (film)", "James", "James City", "James (disambiguation)" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "james film", "james", "james city", "james disambiguation" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "james", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "James" }
Who won the first men's US Tennis Open, in 1968?	tc_1275	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "Search" ], "filename": [ "US_Open_(tennis).txt", "1968_US_Open_(tennis).txt" ], "title": [ "US Open (tennis)", "1968 US Open (tennis)" ], "wiki_context": [ "The United States Open Tennis Championships is a hardcourt tennis tournament. The tournament is the modern version of one of the oldest tennis championships in the world, the U.S. National Championship, for which men's singles was first contested in 1881. Since 1987, the US Open has been chronologically the fourth and final tennis major comprising the Grand Slam each year; the other three, in chronological order, are the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon.\n\nThe US Open is held annually, starting on the last Monday in August, and lasting for two weeks into September, with the middle weekend coinciding with the Labor Day holiday. The main tournament consists of five event championships: men's and women's singles, men's and women's doubles, and mixed doubles, with additional tournaments for senior, junior, and wheelchair players. Since 1978, the tournament has been played on acrylic hard courts at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens, New York City. The US Open is owned and organized by the United States Tennis Association (USTA), a not-for-profit organization. Net proceeds from ticket sales, sponsorships, and television deals are used to promote the development of tennis in the United States.\n\nThe US Open is the only Grand Slam that employs tiebreakers in every set of a match. For the other three Grand Slam events, if a match goes to the last set (the third for women, fifth for men) and there is a 6–6 tie, the match continues until one player wins by two games (i.e. 8-6, 9-7, 10-8, etc.), while in all four Grand Slam events, the sets played before the last set always employ tiebreakers should a set reach 6-6.\n\nHistory\n\nNewport Casino\n\nThe tournament was first held in August 1881 on the grass courts at the Newport Casino, Newport, Rhode Island and in that first year only clubs that were members of the United States National Lawn Tennis Association (USNLTA) were permitted to enter. The first edition was won by Richard Sears, who went on to win seven consecutive singles titles. From 1884 through 1911, the tournament used a challenge system whereby the defending champion automatically qualified for the next year's final in which he would play the winner of the all-comers tournament. In 1915 the national championship was relocated from Newport, Rhode Island to the West Side Tennis Club at Forest Hills, New York; as early as 1911 an effort was made by a group of tennis players, headed by Karl Behr from New York, to relocate the tournament to New York. \n\nWest Side Tennis Club\n\nIn early 1915 the issue resurfaced when a group of about 100 tennis players signed a petition in favor of the move, arguing that most tennis clubs, players and fans were located in the New York area and that it would therefore be beneficial for the development of the sport to host the national championship there. This view was opposed by another group of players which included eight former national singles champions. The contentious issue was brought to a vote at the annual USNLTA meeting on February 5, 1915 and with 128 votes in favor and 119 against it was decided to relocate. \n\nFrom 1921 through 1923, the tournament was played at the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia. It returned to Forest Hills in 1924 following the completion of the newly constructed 14,000 seat concrete Forest Hills Stadium. Though regarded unofficially by many as a major championship beforehand, the tournament was officially designated as one of the major tournaments by the ILTF commencing in 1924.\n\nIn the first few years of the United States National Championship only men competed and the tournament was known as the US National Singles Championships for Men. Six years after the men's nationals were first held, the first official U.S. Women's National Singles Championship was held at the Philadelphia Cricket Club in 1887, won by 17-year-old Philadelphian Ellen Hansell, accompanied by the U.S. Women's National Doubles Championship (not held for the next two years) and U.S. Mixed Doubles Championship (not held in 1899). The women's tournament used a challenge system from 1888 through 1918, except in 1917. Between 1890 and 1906 sectional tournaments were held in the east and the west of the country to determine the best two doubles teams, which competed in a play-off to see who would play the defending champions in the challenge round.\n\nThe open era began in 1968 when all five events were merged into the US Open, held at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills. The 1968 combined tournament was open to professionals for the first time. That year, 96 men and 63 women entered the event, and prize money totaled $100,000.\n\nIn 1970, the US Open became the first Grand Slam tournament to use a tiebreak to decide a set that reached a 6–6 score in games and is the only major to use a tiebreak in the deciding set; the other three grand slams play out the deciding set until a two-game margin is achieved. From 1970 to 1974 the US Open used a best-of-nine point, sudden death tiebreaker before moving to the ITF best-of-twelve point system.\n\nIn 1973 the US Open became the first Grand Slam tournament to award equal prize money to men and women with that year's singles champions John Newcombe and Margaret Court both receiving $25,000. Another US Open innovation came in 1975 when floodlights enabled night play for the first time.\n\nUSTA National Tennis Center\n\nIn 1978 the tournament moved from the West Side Tennis Club, Forest Hills, Queens to the larger USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, Queens, three miles to the north. In the process, the tournament switched the court surface from clay, used in the last three years at Forest Hills, to hard courts. Jimmy Connors is the only individual to have won US Open singles titles on all three surfaces (grass, clay, hardcourt), while Chris Evert is the only woman to win on two surfaces (clay, hardcourt).\n\nThe US Open is the only Grand Slam tournament that has been played every year since its inception. \n\nFrom 1984 through 2015, the U.S. Open deviated from traditional scheduling practices for tennis tournaments with a concept that came to be known as \"Super Saturday\", in which the Women's final was held on Saturday, in between the two Men's semi-finals. The men's final was held the next day, on Sunday. While intended to help build a television audience, this scheduling pattern proved divisive, as the men's and women's semifinals were held on the day prior to their respective finals, thus only giving players less than a day's rest before the final. For five consecutive tournaments between 2007 through 2012, the Men's final had been postponed to Monday due to weather. The USTA decided to intentionally schedule the Men's final on Monday in 2013 and 2014, although this move drew the ire of the ATP for further deviating from the structure of the other Grand Slams.\n\nBeginning in 2015, the tournament has restored a traditional scheduling pattern, with the Men's final played on a Sunday; however, weather delays forced both sets of semi-finals to be held on Friday that year.\n\nPlayer challenges of line calls\n\nIn 2006, the US Open introduced instant replay reviews of calls, using the Hawk-Eye computer system sponsored by Chase. According to many experts, the system was implemented due to a highly controversial quarterfinal match at the 2004 US Open between Serena Williams and Jennifer Capriati, where many important line calls went against Williams. Each player is allowed three challenges per set plus one additional challenge during a tiebreak. The player keeps all existing challenges if the challenge is successful. If the challenge is unsuccessful and the original ruling is upheld, the player loses a challenge. Instant replay was initially available only on the stadium courts (Ashe and Armstrong), until 2009 when it became available on the Grandstand as well.\n\nOnce a challenge is made, the official review (a 3-D computer simulation based on multiple high-speed video cameras) is shown to the players, umpires, and audience on the stadium video boards and to the television audience at the same time. During the 2011 US Open, 29.78% of men's challenges and 30.2% of women's challenges were correct. \n\nIn 2007, JP Morgan Chase renewed its sponsorship of the US Open. As part of its sponsorship arrangement, Chase renamed the tournament's replay system the \"Chase Review\" on in-stadium video and television. \n\nGrounds\n\nThe DecoTurf surface at the US Open is a fast surface, having slightly less friction and producing a lower bounce compared to other hard courts (most notably the Rebound Ace surface formerly used at the Australian Open). For this reason, many serve-and-volley players have found success at the US Open.\n\nThe main court is the 22,547-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium, opened in 1997. It is named after Arthur Ashe, the African American tennis player who won the men's final of the inaugural US Open in 1968. The next largest court is the Louis Armstrong Stadium, opened in 1978, extensively renovated from the Singer Bowl, which was built for the 1964 New York World's Fair. It was the main stadium from 1978 to 1996. Its peak capacity neared 18,000 seats, but was reduced to 10,200 by the removal of the upper tiers of seating after the opening of Arthur Ashe Stadium. The third largest court is the 6,000-seat Grandstand, created when the rectangular Singer Bowl was transformed into the square Armstrong Stadium, leaving about a third of the Bowl available to become another venue.\n\nIn 2011, Court 17 was opened as a fourth show court, with large television screens and electronic line calling which allows player challenges. Sunken into the ground, it has been nicknamed \"The Pit\". It initially held 2,500 with temporary stands, but will allow over 3,000 fans after its completion in 2012. It is located in the southeast corner of the grounds. Sidecourts 4, 7, and 11 each have a seating capacity of over 1,000.\n\nAll the courts used by the US Open are illuminated, meaning that television coverage of the tournament can extend into prime time to attract higher ratings. This has recently been used to the advantage of USA Network—and now, ESPN2—on cable and especially for CBS, the American broadcast television outlet for the tournament for many years, which used its influence to move the women's singles final to Saturday night to draw better television ratings.\n\nIn 2005, all US Open and US Open Series, tennis courts were given blue inner courts to make it easier to see the ball on television; the outer courts remained green. \n\nDuring the 2006 US Open, the complex was renamed the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in honor of four-time tournament champion and women's tennis pioneer Billie Jean King.\n\nRecent attendances\n\nSources: US Open, City University of New York (CUNY) \n\nPrize money\n\nThe total prize money for the 2016 US Open championships is $46,300,000 (in US dollars). The prize money is divided as follows:\n\n* per team\n\nIn addition to the championship prize money an amount of $410,000 was available for the Champions Invitational and $1,272,000 for player per diem bringing the total player compensation to $25,526,000.\n\nThe US Open has made a five-year agreement to increase the total prize money to about $50,000,000 by 2017. As a result, the total base prize money for the 2013 tournament has been increased to $33.6 million which is a record $8.1 million increase from 2012. The champions of the 2013 Emirates Airline US Open Series will also have the opportunity to add $2.6 million in bonus prize money, potentially bringing the total 2013 US Open purse to more than $36 million. In 2014 the total base prize money was $38.3 million. In 2015 the prize money will be raised to $42.3 million. \n\nThe growth in prize money awarded to the participants has far outpaced inflation over the past forty years. For example, the singles champions in 1973 earned $25,000, which, in 2015 dollars, would equal approximately $133,000. However, in 2015, the singles champions each earned $3.3 million. In other words, in real dollars, today's champions are paid approximately forty times more than champions were in 1973.\n\nRanking points\n\nRanking points for the men (ATP) and women (WTA) have varied at the US Open through the years but presently singles players receive the following points:\n\nChampions\n\nPast champions\n\nMen's Singles\nWomen's Singles\nMen's Doubles\nWomen's Doubles\nMixed Doubles\n\nCurrent champions\n\nFile:Novak Djokovic Hopman Cup 2011 (cropped).jpg\|Novak Djokovic was the winner of the Men's Singles in 2015. It was his tenth Major Singles title and his second title at the US Open.\nFile:Flavia Pennetta at the 2010 US Open 01.jpg\|Flavia Pennetta was the winner of the Women's Singles in 2015. It was her first Major Singles title.\nFile:Herbert RG15 (29) (19120127518).jpg\|Pierre-Hugues Herbert was part of the winning Men's Doubles team in 2015. It was his first Major Men's Doubles title.\nFile:Nicolas Mahut at the 2008 Rogers Cup2.jpg\|Nicolas Mahut was part of the winning Men's Doubles team in 2015. It was his first Major Men's Doubles title.\nFile:Martina Hingis, 2006.jpg\|Martina Hingis was part of both the winning Women's Doubles and Mixed Doubles teams in 2015. These were her eleventh Major Women's Doubles title and her fourth Grand Slam Mixed Doubles titles, giving her second and third Doubles titles at the US Open.\nFile:Sania Mirza at the 2010 US Open 02.jpg\|Sania Mirza was part of the winning Women's Doubles team in 2015. It was her second Grand Slam Doubles title and her second Doubles title at the US Open.\nFile:Paes WM13-009 (9495560679).jpg\|Leander Paes was part of the winning Mixed Doubles team in 2015. It was his eighth Grand Slam Mixed Doubles title and his second Doubles title at the US Open.\n\nRecords\n\nMedia coverage\n\nThe US Open's website allows viewing of live streaming video, but unlike other major tournaments does not allow watching video on demand. The site also offers live radio coverage.\nUnited States: ESPN, and the Tennis Channel. In 2015, ESPN took full control of televising the event, ending CBS's 47-year span of coverage. \nBelgium: public broadcasters Eén, Canvas and commercial channel Eurosport\nBrazil: SporTV and ESPN\nCanada: TSN, RDS\nGermany: Eurosport 360 HD covers up to five multichannel feeds only available on SKY Germany\nMiddle East and North Africa: beIN Sports\nIndia and Pakistan: Ten Sports\nJapan: WOWOW since 1992\nSouth Korea: XTM since 2012\nMexico: Televisa Deportes cable network\nThe Netherlands and Germany: Eurosport and Eurosport 2\nPhilippines: ABS-CBN Sports+Action\nPortugal and Spain : Eurosport\nRussia: NTV Plus and Eurosport\n*United Kingdom: – Sky Sports with red button service of all six TV courts and Eurosport", "The 1968 US Open (formerly known as U.S. National Championships) was a tennis tournament that took place on the outdoor grass courts at the West Side Tennis Club, Forest Hills in New York, United States. The tournament ran from 29 August until 8 September. It was the 88th staging of the tournament, the fourth Grand Slam tennis event of 1968 and the first US Open of the Open Era. Arthur Ashe and Virginia Wade won the singles titles. Frank Parker, at the age of 52, lost to eventual champion Arthur Ashe in the second round, and still holds the record for the oldest man to compete in a Grand Slam singles tournament.\n\nChampions\n\nMen's singles\n\n Arthur Ashe defeated Tom Okker, 14–12, 5–7, 6–3, 3–6, 6–3\n• It was Ashe's 1st career Grand Slam singles title and his 1st and only at the US Open.\n\nWomen's singles\n\n Virginia Wade defeated Billie Jean King, 6–4, 6–2\n• It was Wade's 1st career Grand Slam singles title and her 1st and only at the US Open.\n\nMen's doubles\n\n Bob Lutz / Stan Smith defeated Arthur Ashe / Andrés Gimeno, 11–9, 6–1, 7–5\n• It was Lutz's 1st career Grand Slam doubles title.\n• It was Smith's 1st career Grand Slam doubles title.\n\nWomen's doubles\n\n Maria Bueno / Margaret Court defeated Rosemary Casals / Billie Jean King, 4–6, 9–7, 8–6\n• It was Bueno's 11th and last career Grand Slam doubles title and her 4th at the US Open.\n• It was Court's 10th career Grand Slam doubles title and her 2nd at the US Open.\n\nMixed doubles\n\nNo mixed doubles at the 1968 US Open. Results often seen are those of the 1968 US National Championships held a month earlier in Boston." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Arthur James Richard Ash", "Ash, Arthur", "Arthur Ash" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "ash arthur", "arthur james richard ash", "arthur ash" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "arthur ash", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Arthur Ash" }
Timothy McVeigh was convicted for which bombing?	tc_1276	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Timothy_McVeigh.txt", "Oklahoma_City_bombing.txt" ], "title": [ "Timothy McVeigh", "Oklahoma City bombing" ], "wiki_context": [ "Timothy James McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June 11, 2001) was an American domestic terrorist convicted and executed for the detonation of a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. Commonly referred to as the Oklahoma City bombing, the attack killed 168 people and injured over 600. According to the United States Government, it was the deadliest act of terrorism within the United States prior to the September 11 attacks, and remains the most significant act of domestic terrorism in United States history.\n\nMcVeigh, a Gulf War veteran, sought revenge against the federal government for its handling of the Waco siege, which ended in the deaths of 76 people exactly two years before the bombing, as well as for the Ruby Ridge incident in 1992. McVeigh hoped to inspire a revolt against the federal government. He was convicted of eleven federal offenses and sentenced to death. His execution was carried out in a considerably shorter amount of time than average after his trial, as most convicts on death row in the United States spend many more years waiting for their executions. Four years after his conviction, McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001, at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier were also convicted as conspirators in the plot. Terry Nichols was sentenced to 161 life terms without parole. Fortier was sentenced to 12 years and has since been released.\n\nChildhood\n\nMcVeigh was born in Lockport, New York, the only son and the second of three children of Mildred \"Mickey\" Noreen (née Hill) and William McVeigh. His Irish American parents divorced when he was ten years old, and he was raised by his father in Pendleton, New York. \n\nMcVeigh claimed to have been a target of bullying at school, and he took refuge in a fantasy world where he imagined retaliating against the bullies. At the end of his life, he stated his belief that the United States government is the ultimate bully. Most who knew McVeigh remember him as being very withdrawn and shy, with a few describing him as an outgoing and playful child who withdrew as an adolescent. McVeigh is said to have had only one girlfriend during his early childhood, later stating to journalists he did not have any idea how to impress girls. According to his authorized biography, \"his only sustaining relief from his unsatisfied sex drive was his even stronger desire to die.\" \n\nWhile in high school, McVeigh became interested in computers and hacked into government computer systems on his Commodore 64, under the handle \"The Wanderer\", borrowed from the song by Dion DiMucci. In his senior year, McVeigh was named Starpoint Central High School's \"most promising computer programmer,\" but he maintained relatively poor grades until his 1986 graduation.\n\nMcVeigh was introduced to firearms by his grandfather. He told people he wanted to be a gun shop owner and sometimes took firearms to school to impress his classmates. McVeigh became intensely interested in gun rights after he graduated from high school, as well as the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, and read magazines such as Soldier of Fortune. He briefly attended Bryant & Stratton College before dropping out. \n\nMilitary life\n\nIn May 1988, at the age of 20, McVeigh graduated from the U.S. Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia.Linder, Douglas O. [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mcveigh/mcveighaccount.html \"The Oklahoma City Bombing & The Trial of Timothy McVeigh,\"], online posting, University of Missouri–Kansas City, Law School faculty projects, 2006, accessed August 7, 2006 feb 17; cf. [http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0106/09/pitn.00.html People in the News: Timothy McVeigh: The Path to Death Row], transcript of program broadcast on CNN, June 9, 2001, 11:30 p.m. ET. While in the military, McVeigh used much of his spare time to read about firearms, sniper tactics, and explosives. McVeigh was reprimanded by the military for purchasing a \"White Power\" T-shirt at a Ku Klux Klan protest against black servicemen who wore \"Black Power\" T-shirts around the army base. \n\nMcVeigh was awarded a Bronze Star medal for his service as a vehicle crewman in the Persian Gulf War. He was a top-scoring gunner with the 25mm cannon of the Bradley Fighting Vehicles used by his 1st Infantry Division. He was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, before being deployed on Operation Desert Storm.\n\nSpeaking of his experience in Kuwait in an interview before his execution, documented in McVeigh's authorized biography American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh & the Tragedy at Oklahoma City, he stated he decapitated an Iraqi soldier with cannon fire on his first day in the war and celebrated. He said he later was shocked to be ordered to execute surrendering prisoners and to see carnage on the road leaving Kuwait City after U.S. troops routed the Iraqi army.\n\nMcVeigh aspired to join the United States Army Special Forces (SF). After returning from the Gulf War, he entered the selection program. However, because he had not had sufficient time to get himself into the superior physical condition required for the program, he had to drop out. Shortly after that, McVeigh decided to leave the Army. He was honorably discharged on December 31, 1991. \n\nMcVeigh received several service awards, including the Bronze Star Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Southwest Asia Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, and the Kuwaiti Liberation Medal.\n\nPost-military life \n\nAfter leaving the army in 1992, McVeigh grew increasingly transient. At first he worked briefly near his hometown of Pendleton as a security guard for Pinkerton Government Services at Calspan in Cheektowaga, where he spoke daily to his co-worker Carl Lebron, Jr. about his loathing for government. Deciding the Buffalo area was too liberal, he left his job and began driving around America, seeking out his old buddies from the Army. \n\nMcVeigh wrote letters to local newspapers complaining about taxes:\n\nMcVeigh also wrote to Representative John J. LaFalce ((D) New York), complaining about the arrest of a woman for carrying mace: \n\nIt is claimed that while visiting friends in Decker, Michigan, McVeigh complained that the Army had implanted a microchip into his buttocks so that the government could keep track of him.\n\nMcVeigh worked long hours in a dead-end job and felt that he did not have a home. He sought romance, but his advances were rejected by a coworker and he felt nervous around women. He believed that he brought too much pain to his loved ones. He grew angry and frustrated at his difficulties in finding a girlfriend and he took up obsessive gambling. Unable to pay back gambling debts, he took a cash advance and then defaulted on his repayments. He then began looking for a state without heavy government regulation or high taxes. He became enraged when the government told him that he had been overpaid $1,058 while in the Army and he had to pay back the money. He wrote an angry letter to the government inviting them to:\n\nMcVeigh introduced his sister to anti-government literature, but his father had little interest in these views. He moved out of his father's house and into an apartment that had no telephone, which had the advantage of making it impossible for his employer to contact him for overtime assignments. He also quit the NRA, viewing its stance on gun rights as too weak. \n\n1993 Waco siege and gun shows \n\nIn 1993, he drove to Waco, Texas during the Waco siege to show his support. At the scene, he distributed pro-gun rights literature and bumper stickers, such as \"When guns are outlawed, I will become an outlaw.\" He told a student reporter: \n\nFor the five months following the Waco Siege, McVeigh worked at gun shows and handed out free cards printed up with Lon Horiuchi's name and address, \"in the hope that somebody in the Patriot movement would assassinate the sharpshooter.\" (Horiuchi is an FBI sniper and some of his official actions have drawn controversy, specifically his shooting and killing of Randy Weaver's wife while she held an infant child.) He wrote hate mail to the sniper, suggesting that \"what goes around, comes around\". He later considered putting aside his plan to target the Murrah Building to target Horiuchi, or a member of his family instead. \n\nMcVeigh became a fixture on the gun show circuit, traveling to forty states and visiting about eighty gun shows. McVeigh found that the further west he went, the more anti-government sentiment he encountered, at least until he got to what he called \"The People's Socialist Republic of California.\" McVeigh sold survival items and copies of The Turner Diaries. One author said: \n\nArizona with Fortier \n\nMcVeigh had a road atlas with hand-drawn designations of the most likely places for nuclear attacks and considered buying property in Seligman, Arizona, which he determined to be in a \"nuclear-free zone.\" McVeigh lived with Michael Fortier in Kingman, Arizona, and they became so close that he served as best man at Fortier's wedding. McVeigh experimented with cannabis and methamphetamine, after first researching their effects in an encyclopedia. However, he was never as interested in drugs as was Fortier. One of the reasons they parted ways was McVeigh's boredom with Fortier's drug habits. \n\nWith Nichols, Waco siege, radicalization and first explosive devices \n\nIn April 1993, McVeigh headed for a farm in Michigan where co-conspirator Terry Nichols lived. In between watching coverage of the Waco siege on TV, Nichols and his brother began teaching McVeigh how to make explosives out of readily available materials; specifically, they combined household chemicals in plastic jugs. The destruction of the Waco compound enraged McVeigh and convinced him that it was time to take action. The government's use of CS gas on women and children angered McVeigh; he had been exposed to the gas as part of his military training and was familiar with its effects. The disappearance of certain evidence, such as the bullet-riddled steel-reinforced front door to the complex, led him to suspect a cover-up.\n\nMcVeigh's anti-government rhetoric became more radical. He began to sell Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) hats riddled with bullet holes and a flare gun, which, he said, could shoot down an \"ATF helicopter\". He produced videos detailing the government's actions at Waco and handed out pamphlets with titles like \"U.S. Government Initiates Open Warfare Against American People\" and \"Waco Shootout Evokes Memory of Warsaw '43.\" He began changing his answering machine greeting every couple of weeks to various quotes by Patrick Henry such as \"Give me liberty or give me death.\" He began experimenting with pipe bombs and other small explosive devices for the first time. The government also imposed new firearms restrictions in 1994 that McVeigh believed threatened his livelihood.\n\nMcVeigh dissociated himself from his boyhood friend, Steve Hodge, by sending a 23-page farewell letter to him. He proclaimed his devotion to the United States Declaration of Independence, explaining in detail what each sentence meant to him. McVeigh declared that: \n\nMcVeigh felt the need to personally reconnoiter sites of rumored conspiracies. He visited Area 51 in order to defy government restrictions on photography and went to Gulfport, Mississippi to determine the veracity of rumors about United Nations operations. These turned out to be false; the Russian vehicles on the site were being configured for use in U.N.-sponsored humanitarian aid efforts. Around this time, McVeigh and Nichols also began making bulk purchases of ammonium nitrate, an agricultural fertilizer, for resale to survivalists, since rumors were circulating that the government was preparing to ban it. \n\nPlan against federal building or individuals \n\nMcVeigh told Fortier of his plans to blow up a federal building, but Fortier declined to participate. Fortier also told his wife about the plans. McVeigh composed two letters to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the first titled \"Constitutional Defenders\" and the second \"ATF Read.\" He denounced government officials as \"fascist tyrants\" and \"storm troopers\" and warned: \n\nMcVeigh also wrote a letter of recruitment to a customer named Steve Colbern: \n\nMcVeigh began announcing that he had progressed from the \"propaganda\" phase to the \"action\" phase. He wrote to his Michigan friend Gwenda Strider, \"I have certain other 'militant' talents that are in short supply and greatly demanded.\" \n\nMcVeigh later said he considered \"a campaign of individual assassination,\" with \"eligible\" targets including Attorney-General Janet Reno, Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. of Federal District Court, who handled the Branch Davidian trial, and Lon Horiuchi, a member of the FBI hostage-rescue team who shot and killed Vicki Weaver in a standoff at a remote cabin at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992. He said he wanted Reno to accept \"full responsibility in deed, not just words.\" Such an assassination seemed too difficult, and he decided that since federal agents had become soldiers, it was necessary to strike against them at their command centers. According to McVeigh's authorized biography, he ultimately decided that he would make the loudest statement by bombing a federal building. After the bombing, he was ambivalent about his act, as expressed in letters to his hometown newspaper that he sometimes wished he had carried out a series of assassinations against police and government officials instead.\n\nOklahoma City bombing\n\nWorking at a lakeside campground near McVeigh's old Army post, he and Nichols constructed an ANNM explosive device mounted in the back of a rented Ryder truck. The bomb consisted of about 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) of ammonium nitrate and nitromethane.\n\nOn April 19, 1995, McVeigh drove the truck to the front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building just as its offices opened for the day. Before arriving, he stopped to light a two-minute fuse. At 09:02, a large explosion destroyed the north half of the building. It killed 168 people, including nineteen children in the day care center on the second floor, and injured 684 others. \n\nMcVeigh said that he had no knowledge that the federal offices also ran a daycare center on the second floor of the building, and that he might have chosen a different target if he had known about it. Nichols disputed this, saying they knew there was a daycare center in the building and that they did not care. \n\nMcVeigh's biographers, Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, quote McVeigh, with whom they spoke for 75 hours, on his attitude to the victims: \n\nDuring an interview with Ed Bradley for television news magazine 60 Minutes in 2000, Bradley asked McVeigh for his reaction to the deaths of the nineteen children. McVeigh stated: \n\nAccording to the Oklahoma City Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT), more than 300 buildings were damaged. More than 12,000 volunteers and rescue workers took part in the rescue, recovery and support operations following the bombing. In reference to theories that he had assistance from others, McVeigh quoted a well known line from the film A Few Good Men, \"You can't handle the truth!\" and added \"Because the truth is, I blew up the Murrah Building and isn't it kind of scary that one man could wreak this kind of hell?\" \n\nArrest, trial, conviction and sentencing\n\nBy tracing the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) of a rear axle found in the wreckage, the FBI identified the vehicle as a Ryder Rental box truck rented from Junction City, Kansas. Workers at the agency assisted an FBI artist in creating a sketch of the renter, who had used the alias \"Robert Kling\". The sketch was shown in the area. Lea McGown, manager of the local Dreamland Motel, identified the sketch as Timothy McVeigh. \n\nShortly after the bombing, while driving on I-35 in Noble County, near Perry, Oklahoma, McVeigh was stopped by Oklahoma State Trooper Charles J. Hanger. Hanger had passed McVeigh's yellow 1977 Mercury Marquis and noticed that it had no license plate. McVeigh admitted to the police officer (who noticed a bulge under his jacket) that he had a gun and McVeigh was subsequently arrested for having driven without plates and illegal firearm possession; McVeigh's concealed weapon permit was not legal in Oklahoma. McVeigh was wearing a T-shirt at that time with a picture of Abraham Lincoln and the motto: sic semper tyrannis ('Thus always to tyrants'), the state motto of Virginia and also the words shouted by John Wilkes Booth after he shot Lincoln. On the back, it had a tree with a picture of three blood droplets and the Thomas Jefferson quote, \"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.\" Three days later, while still in jail, McVeigh was identified as the subject of the nationwide manhunt.\n\nOn August 10, 1995, McVeigh was indicted on eleven federal counts, including conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, use of a weapon of mass destruction, destruction by explosives and eight counts of first-degree murder. \n\nOn February 20, 1996, the Court granted a change of venue and ordered that the case be transferred from Oklahoma City to the U.S. District Court in Denver, Colorado, to be presided over by U.S. District Judge Richard Paul Matsch. \n\nMcVeigh instructed his lawyers to use a necessity defense, but they ended up not doing so, because they would have had to prove that McVeigh was in \"imminent danger\" from the government. (McVeigh himself argued that \"imminent\" did not necessarily mean \"immediate.\") They would have argued that his bombing of the Murrah building was a justifiable response to what McVeigh believed were the crimes of the U.S. government at Waco, Texas. The 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian complex resulted in the deaths of 76 Branch Davidians. As part of the defense, McVeigh's lawyers showed the jury the controversial video Waco, the Big Lie. \n\nOn June 2, 1997, McVeigh was found guilty on all eleven counts of the federal indictment. After the verdict, McVeigh tried to calm his mother by saying, \"Think of it this way. When I was in the Army, you didn't see me for years. Think of me that way now, like I'm away in the Army again, on an assignment for the military.\" \n\nOn June 13, 1997, the jury recommended that McVeigh receive the death penalty. The U.S. Department of Justice brought federal charges against McVeigh for causing the deaths of eight federal officers leading to a possible death penalty for McVeigh; they could not bring charges against McVeigh for the remaining 160 murders in federal court because those deaths fell under the jurisdiction of the State of Oklahoma. Because McVeigh was convicted and sentenced to death, the State of Oklahoma did not file murder charges against McVeigh for the other 160 deaths. Before the sentence was formally pronounced by Judge Matsch, McVeigh addressed the court for the first time and said: \n\nIncarceration and execution\n\nWhile imprisoned, McVeigh had the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) register # 12076-064. McVeigh's death sentence was delayed pending an appeal. One of his appeals for certiorari, taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, was denied on March 8, 1999. McVeigh's request for a nationally televised execution was also denied. An Internet company also unsuccessfully sued for the right to broadcast it. At ADX Florence, McVeigh and Nichols were housed in \"Bomber's Row\", the same cell block as Ted Kaczynski, Luis Felipe and Ramzi Yousef. Yousef made frequent, unsuccessful attempts to convert McVeigh to Islam. \n\nMcVeigh said: \nHe said that if there turned out to be an afterlife, he would \"improvise, adapt and overcome\", noting: \nHe also said:\n\nThe BOP moved McVeigh from ADX Florence to the federal death row at United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1999. \n\nMcVeigh dropped his remaining appeals, saying that he would rather die than spend the rest of his life in prison. On January 16, 2001 the Federal Bureau of Prisons set May 16, 2001 as McVeigh's execution date. McVeigh stated that his only regret was not completely leveling the federal building. Six days prior to his scheduled execution, the FBI turned over thousands of documents of evidence it had previously withheld to McVeigh's attorneys. As a result, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced McVeigh's execution would be stayed for one month.\n\nThe execution date was reset for June 11, 2001. McVeigh invited California conductor/composer David Woodard to perform pre-requiem Mass music on the eve of his execution. He requested a Catholic chaplain. He requested two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream for his last meal. \n\nMcVeigh chose William Ernest Henley's poem \"Invictus\" as his final statement. Just before the execution, when he was asked if he had a final statement, he declined. Jay Sawyer, a relative of one of the victims, wrote, \"Without saying a word, he got the final word.\" Larry Whicher, whose brother died in the attack, described McVeigh as having \"a totally expressionless, blank stare. He had a look of defiance and that if he could, he'd do it all over again.\" \n\nMcVeigh was executed by lethal injection at 7:14 a.m. on June 11, 2001, at the U.S. Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, the first federal prisoner to be executed by the United States federal government since Victor Feguer was executed in Iowa on March 15, 1963.\n\nOn November 21, 1997, President Bill Clinton had signed S. 923, special legislation introduced by Senator Arlen Specter to bar McVeigh and other veterans convicted of capital crimes from being buried in any military cemetery. His body was cremated at Mattox Ryan Funeral Home in Terre Haute. His ashes were given to his lawyer, who \"said that the final destination of McVeigh's remains would remain privileged forever.\" McVeigh had written that he considered having them dropped at the site of the memorial where the building once stood, but decided that would be \"too vengeful, too raw, too cold.\" He had expressed willingness to donate organs, but was prohibited from doing so by prison regulations.\n\nPsychiatrist John Smith concluded that McVeigh was \"a decent person who had allowed rage to build up inside him to the point that he had lashed out in one terrible, violent act.\" McVeigh's IQ was assessed at 126. \n\nAssociations\n\nAccording to CNN, his only known associations were as a registered Republican while in Buffalo, New York in the 1980s, and a membership in the National Rifle Association while in the Army, and there is no evidence that he ever belonged to any extremist groups. \n\nReligious beliefs\n\nMcVeigh was raised Roman Catholic.Patrick Cole, [http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0,8816,109478,00.html \"A Look Back in TIME: Interview with Timothy McVeigh\",] March 30, 1996. Retrieved October 19, 2010. During his childhood, he and his father attended Mass regularly. McVeigh was confirmed at the Good Shepherd Church in Pendleton, New York, in 1985. In a 1996 interview, McVeigh professed belief in \"a God\", although he said he had \"sort of lost touch with\" Catholicism and \"I never really picked it up, however I do maintain core beliefs.\" In McVeigh's biography American Terrorist, released in 2002, he stated that he did not believe in a hell and that science is his religion. In June 2001, a day before the execution, McVeigh wrote a letter to the Buffalo News identifying himself as agnostic. However, he took the Last Rites, administered by a priest, just before his execution. \n\nMotivations for the bombing\n\nMcVeigh claimed that the bombing was revenge against the government for the sieges at Waco, Texas and Ruby Ridge. McVeigh visited Waco during the standoff. While there, he was interviewed by student reporter Michelle Rauch, a senior journalism major at Southern Methodist University who was writing for the school paper. McVeigh expressed his objections over what was happening there. \n\nMcVeigh frequently quoted and alluded to the white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries; he claimed to appreciate its interest in firearms. Photocopies of pages sixty-one and sixty-two of The Turner Diaries were found in an envelope inside McVeigh's car. These pages depicted a fictitious mortar attack upon the U.S. Capitol in Washington. \n\nIn a 1,200-word essay dated March 1998, from the federal maximum-security prison at Florence, Colorado, McVeigh claimed that the terrorist bombing was \"morally equivalent\" to U.S. military actions against Iraq and other foreign countries. The handwritten essay, submitted to and published by the alternative national news magazine Media Bypass, was distributed worldwide by The Associated Press on May 29, 1998. This was written in the midst of the 1998 Iraq disarmament crisis and a few months before Operation Desert Fox.\n\nThe essay, which marked the first time that McVeigh publicly discussed the Oklahoma City bombing, continued:\n\nMcVeigh included photocopies of a famous Vietnam War-era picture showing terrified children fleeing napalm bombs, and of nuclear devastation in Japan. He said in a preface that the essay was intended to \"provoke thought — and was not written with malevolent intent.\"\n\nOn April 26, 2001, McVeigh wrote a letter to Fox News, I Explain Herein Why I Bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which explicitly laid out his reasons for the attack. McVeigh read Unintended Consequences and said that if it had come out a few years earlier, he would have given serious consideration to using sniper attacks in a war of attrition against the government instead of bombing a federal building. \n\nAccomplices\n\nMcVeigh's accomplice, Terry Nichols, was convicted and sentenced in federal court to life in prison for his role in the crime. At Nichols' trial, evidence was presented indicating that others may have been involved. Several residents of central Kansas, including real estate agent Georgia Rucker and a retired Army NCO, testified at Terry Nichols' federal trial that they had seen two trucks at Geary Lake State Park, where prosecutors alleged the bomb was assembled. The retired NCO said he visited the lake on April 18, 1995, but left after a group of surly men looked at him aggressively. The operator of the Dreamland Motel testified that two Ryder trucks had been parked outside her Grandview Plaza motel where McVeigh stayed in Room 26 the weekend before the bombing. Terry Nichols is incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility—also known as the Federal Supermax Prison, or ADX Florence—in Florence, Colorado. \n\nAn ATF informant, Carol Howe, told reporters that shortly before the bombing she had warned her handlers that guests of Elohim City, Oklahoma were planning a major bombing attack. McVeigh was issued a speeding ticket there at the same time.[http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mcveigh/mcveighchrono.html] Other than this speeding ticket, there is no evidence of a connection between McVeigh and members of the Midwest Bank Robbers at Elohim City. \n\nIn February 2004, the FBI announced it would review its investigation after learning that agents in the investigation of the Midwest Bank Robbers (an alleged Aryan-oriented gang) had turned up explosive caps of the same type that were used to trigger the Oklahoma City bomb. Agents expressed surprise that bombing investigators had not been provided information from the Midwest Bank Robbers investigation. McVeigh declined further delays and maintained until his death that he had acted alone in the bombing.\n\nSome witnesses claimed to have seen a second suspect, and there was a search for a \"John Doe #2\", but none was ever found.", "The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, on April 19, 1995. Carried out by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, the bombing destroyed one-third of the building, killed 168 people, and injured more than 680 others. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 other buildings within a 16-block radius, shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings, and destroyed or burned 86 cars, causing an estimated $652 million worth of damage. Extensive rescue efforts were undertaken by local, state, federal, and worldwide agencies in the wake of the bombing, and substantial donations were received from across the country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) activated eleven of its Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces, consisting of 665 rescue workers who assisted in rescue and recovery operations. \n\nWithin 90 minutes of the explosion, McVeigh was stopped by Oklahoma State Trooper Charlie Hanger for driving without a license plate and arrested for illegal weapons possession. Forensic evidence quickly linked McVeigh and Nichols to the attack; Nichols was arrested, and within days both were charged. Michael and Lori Fortier were later identified as accomplices. McVeigh, a U.S. militia movement sympathizer who was a Gulf War veteran, had detonated a Ryder rental truck full of explosives parked in front of the building. McVeigh's co-conspirator, Nichols, had assisted in the bomb preparation. Motivated by his hatred of the U.S. federal government and angered by its handling of the 1993 Waco siege and the Ruby Ridge incident in 1992, McVeigh timed his attack to coincide with the second anniversary of the deadly fire that ended the siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. \n\nThe official investigation, known as \"OKBOMB\", saw FBI agents conduct 28,000 interviews, amass 3.5 short tons (3.2 tonnes) of evidence, and collect nearly one billion pieces of information. The bombers were tried and convicted in 1997. McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001, and Nichols was sentenced to life in prison in 2004. Michael and Lori Fortier testified against McVeigh and Nichols; Michael was sentenced to 12 years in prison for failing to warn the United States government, and Lori received immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony.\n\nAs a result of the bombing, the U.S. Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which tightened the standards for habeas corpus in the United States, as well as legislation designed to increase the protection around federal buildings to deter future terrorist attacks. On April 19, 2000, the Oklahoma City National Memorial was dedicated on the site of the Murrah Federal Building, commemorating the victims of the bombing. Annual remembrance services are held at the same time of day as the explosion occurred. It was the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil until the September 11 attacks and still remains the deadliest domestic terrorism incident in United States history.\n\nPlanning\n\nMotivation\n\nThe chief conspirators, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, met in 1988 at Fort Benning during basic training for the U.S. Army. Michael Fortier, McVeigh's accomplice, was his Army roommate. The three shared interests in survivalism. They expressed anger at the federal government's handling of the 1992 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) standoff with Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge as well as the Waco siege—a 1993 51-day standoff between the FBI and Branch Davidian members which began with a botched ATF attempt to execute a search warrant leading to a fire fight (it is unknown whether ATF agents or Branch Davidians fired the first shot) and ended with the burning and shooting deaths of David Koresh and 75 others. In March 1993, McVeigh visited the Waco site during the standoff, and then again after its conclusion. McVeigh later decided to bomb a federal building as a response to the raids. \n\nTarget selection\n\nMcVeigh later said that he had contemplated the assassinations of Attorney General Janet Reno, Lon Horiuchi, and others in preference to attacking a building, and after the bombing he said that he sometimes wished he had carried out a series of assassinations instead. He initially intended only to destroy a federal building, but he later decided that his message would be better received if many people were killed in the bombing. McVeigh's criterion for potential attack sites was that the target should house at least two of three federal law enforcement agencies: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), or the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He regarded the presence of additional law enforcement agencies, such as the Secret Service or the U.S. Marshals Service, as a bonus. \n\nMcVeigh, a resident of Kingman, Arizona, considered targets in Missouri, Arizona, Texas, and Arkansas. McVeigh stated in his authorized biography that he wanted to minimize non-governmental casualties, so he ruled out a 40-story government building in Little Rock, Arkansas, because of the presence of a florist's shop on the ground floor. In December 1994, McVeigh and Fortier visited Oklahoma City to inspect McVeigh's target: the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The Murrah building had been previously targeted in October 1983 by white supremacist group The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, including founder James Ellison and Richard Snell. The group had plotted to park \"a van or trailer in front of the Federal Building and blow it up with rockets detonated by a timer.\" After Snell's appeal for murdering two people in unrelated cases was denied, he was executed the same day as the Murrah bombing. \n\nThe nine-story building, built in 1977, was named for a federal judge and housed fourteen federal agencies including the DEA, ATF, Social Security Administration, and recruiting offices for the Army and Marine Corps. The Murrah building was chosen for its glass front—which was expected to shatter under the impact of the blast—and its adjacent large, open parking lot across the street, which might absorb and dissipate some of the force, and protect the occupants of nearby non-federal buildings. In addition, McVeigh believed that the open space around the building would provide better photo opportunities for propaganda purposes. The attack was planned to take place on April 19, 1995, to coincide with the anniversary of the Waco siege and the 220th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. \n\nGathering materials\n\nMcVeigh and Nichols purchased or stole the materials they needed to manufacture the bomb, which they stored in rented sheds. In August 1994, McVeigh obtained nine Kinestiks from gun collector Roger E. Moore, and ignited the devices with Nichols outside Nichols' home in Herington, Kansas. On September 30, 1994, Nichols bought forty 50 lb bags of ammonium nitrate from Mid-Kansas Coop in McPherson, Kansas; this would be enough to fertilize 4.25 acres of farmland at a rate of 160 pounds of nitrogen per acre, an amount commonly used for corn. Nichols bought an additional 50 lb bag on October 18, 1994. McVeigh approached Fortier and asked him to assist with the bombing project, but he refused. \n\nThey robbed gun collector Roger E. Moore in his home of $60,000 worth of guns, gold, silver, and jewels, transporting the property in the victim's own van. McVeigh wrote a letter to Moore in which he claimed that the robbery had been committed by government agents. Items that were stolen from Moore were later found in Nichols' home and in a storage shed that he had rented. \n\nIn October 1994, McVeigh showed Michael Fortier and his wife, Lori, a diagram he had drawn of the bomb he wanted to build. McVeigh planned to construct a bomb containing more than 5000 lb of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, mixed with about 1200 lb of liquid nitromethane and 350 lb of Tovex. Including the weight of the sixteen 55-U.S.-gallon drums in which the explosive mixture was to be packed, the bomb would have a combined weight of about 7000 lb. McVeigh had originally intended to use hydrazine rocket fuel, but it proved to be too expensive. In October 1994, posing as a motorcycle racer, McVeigh obtained three 55 U.S.gal drums of nitromethane on the pretense that he and some fellow bikers needed the fuel for racing. \n\nMcVeigh rented a storage space, in which he stockpiled seven crates of 18 in Tovex sausages, 80 spools of shock tube, and 500 electric blasting caps, which he and Nichols had stolen from a Martin Marietta Aggregates quarry in Marion, Kansas. He decided not to steal any of the 40000 lb of ANFO (ammonium nitrate/fuel oil) he found at the scene, as he did not believe it to be powerful enough (although he did obtain seventeen bags of ANFO from another source for use in the bomb). McVeigh made a prototype bomb using a plastic Gatorade jug containing ammonium nitrate prills, liquid nitromethane, a piece of Tovex sausage, and a blasting cap. The prototype was detonated in the desert to avoid detection.\n\nLater, speaking about the military mindset with which he went about the preparations, he said, \"You learn how to handle killing in the military. I face the consequences, but you learn to accept it.\" He compared his actions to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, rather than the attack on Pearl Harbor, reasoning it was necessary to prevent more lives from being lost. Plus, 1995 also marked the 50th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings.\n\nOn April 14, 1995, McVeigh paid for a motel room at the Dreamland Motel in Junction City, Kansas. The following day he rented a 1993 Ford F-700 truck from Ryder under the name Robert D. Kling, an alias he adopted because he knew an Army soldier named Kling with whom he shared physical characteristics, and because it reminded him of the Klingon warriors of Star Trek. On April 16, 1995, he drove to Oklahoma City with fellow conspirator Terry Nichols where he parked a getaway car several blocks away from the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The nearby Regency Towers Apartments' lobby security camera recorded images of Nichols' pickup truck as it drove to the federal building. After removing the license plate from the car, he left a note covering the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) plate that read, \"Not abandoned. Please do not tow. Will move by April 23. (Needs battery & cable).\" Both men then returned to Kansas.\n\nBuilding the bomb\n\nOn April 17–18, 1995, McVeigh and Nichols removed their supplies from their storage unit in Herington, Kansas, where Nichols lived. They loaded their bomb supplies into a Ryder rental truck. The two then drove to Geary Lake State Park, where they nailed boards onto the floor of the truck to hold the 13 barrels in place and mixed the chemicals using plastic buckets and a bathroom scale. Each filled barrel weighed nearly 500 lb. McVeigh added more explosives to the driver's side of the cargo bay, which he could ignite (killing himself in the process) at close range with his Glock 21 pistol in case the primary fuses failed. During McVeigh's trial, Lori Fortier (the wife of Michael Fortier) stated that McVeigh claimed to have arranged the barrels in order to form a shaped charge. This was achieved by tamping the aluminum side panel of the truck with bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer to direct the blast laterally towards the building. Specifically, McVeigh arranged the barrels in the shape of a backwards J; he later said that for pure destructive power, he would have put the barrels on the side of the cargo bay closest to the Murrah Building; however, such an unevenly distributed 7000 lb load might have broken an axle, flipped the truck over, or at least caused it to lean to one side, which could have drawn attention. All or most of the barrels of ANNM contained metal cylinders of acetylene intended to increase the fireball and the brisance of the explosion. \n\nMcVeigh then added a dual-fuse ignition system accessible from the truck's front cab. He drilled two holes in the cab of the truck under the seat, while two holes were also drilled in the body of the truck. One green cannon fuse was run through each hole into the cab. These time-delayed fuses led from the cab of the truck, through plastic fish-tank tubing conduit, to two sets of non-electric blasting caps which would ignite around 350 lb of high-grade explosives that McVeigh stole from a rock quarry. The tubing was painted yellow to blend in with the truck's livery, and duct-taped in place to the wall to make it harder to disable by yanking from the outside. The fuses were set up to initiate, through shock tubes, the 350 lb of Tovex Blastrite Gel \"sausages\", which would in turn set off the configuration of barrels. Of the 13 filled barrels, nine contained ammonium nitrate and nitromethane, and four contained a mixture of the fertilizer and about 4 U.S.gal of diesel fuel. Additional materials and tools used for manufacturing the bomb were left in the truck to be destroyed in the blast. After finishing the truck bomb, the two men separated; Nichols returned home to Herington and McVeigh with the truck to Junction City.\n\nBombing\n\nMcVeigh's original plan had been to detonate the bomb at 11:00 am, but at dawn on April 19, 1995, he decided instead to destroy the building at 9:00 am. As he drove toward the Murrah Federal Building in the Ryder truck, McVeigh carried with him an envelope containing pages from The Turner Diaries—a fictional account of white supremacists who ignite a revolution by blowing up the FBI headquarters at 9:15 one morning using a truck bomb. McVeigh wore a printed T-shirt with the motto of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Sic semper tyrannis (\"Thus always to tyrants\", according to legend what Brutus said as he assassinated Julius Caesar, also shouted by John Wilkes Booth immediately after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln) and \"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants\" (from Thomas Jefferson). He also carried an envelope of anti-government materials that included a bumper sticker with the Thomas Jefferson slogan, \"When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.\" Underneath, McVeigh had written, \"Maybe now, there will be liberty!\" with a hand-copied quote by John Locke asserting that a man has a right to kill someone who takes away his liberty. \n\nMcVeigh entered Oklahoma City at 8:50 am. At 8:57 am, the Regency Towers Apartments' lobby security camera that had recorded Nichols' pickup truck three days earlier recorded the Ryder truck heading towards the Murrah Federal Building. At the same moment, McVeigh lit the five-minute fuse. Three minutes later, still a block away, he lit the two-minute fuse. He parked the Ryder truck in a drop-off zone situated under the building's day-care center, exited and locked the truck, and as he headed to his getaway vehicle, dropped the keys to the truck a few blocks away. \n\nAt 9:02 am (14:02 UTC), the Ryder truck, containing in excess of 4800 lb of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, nitromethane, and diesel fuel mixture, detonated in front of the north side of the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Hundreds of people were killed or injured. One third of the building was destroyed by the explosion, which created a 30 ft, 8 ft crater on NW 5th Street next to the building. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 buildings within a 16-block radius, and shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings. The broken glass alone accounted for 5% of the death total and 69% of the injuries outside the Murrah Federal Building. The blast destroyed or burned 86 cars around the site. The destruction of the buildings left several hundred people homeless and shut down a number of offices in downtown Oklahoma City. The explosion was estimated to have caused at least $652 million worth of damage.\n\nThe effects of the blast were equivalent to over 5000 lb of TNT, and could be heard and felt up to 55 mi away. Seismometers at Science Museum Oklahoma in Oklahoma City, away, and in Norman, Oklahoma, away, recorded the blast as measuring approximately 3.0 on the Richter scale. \n\nArrests\n\nInitially, the FBI had three hypotheses regarding who might have been responsible for the bombing. The first was international terrorists, possibly the same group that had carried out the World Trade Center bombing two years earlier. The FBI also thought that a drug cartel might have been carrying out an act of vengeance against DEA agents as the building held a DEA office. The last hypothesis was that the bombing was done by anti-government right-wing radicals attempting to start a rebellion against the federal government. \n\nMcVeigh was arrested within 90 minutes of the explosion, as he was traveling north on Interstate 35 near Perry in Noble County, Oklahoma. Oklahoma State Trooper Charlie Hanger stopped McVeigh for driving his yellow 1977 Mercury Marquis without a license plate, and arrested him for having a concealed weapon. For his home address, McVeigh falsely claimed he resided at Terry Nichols' brother James' house in Michigan. After booking McVeigh into jail, Hanger searched his police car and found a business card McVeigh had hidden while he was handcuffed. Written on the back of the card, which was from a Wisconsin military surplus store, were the words \"TNT at $5 a stick. Need more.\" The card was later used as evidence during McVeigh's trial.\n\nWhile investigating the VIN from an axle of the truck used in the explosion and the remnants of the license plate, federal agents were able to link the truck to a specific Ryder rental agency in Junction City, Kansas. Using a sketch created with the assistance of Eldon Elliot, owner of the agency, the agents were able to implicate McVeigh in the bombing. McVeigh was also identified by Lea McGown of the Dreamland Motel, who remembered him parking a large yellow Ryder truck in the lot; McVeigh had signed in under his real name at the motel, using an address that matched the one on his forged license and the charge sheet at the Perry Police Station. Before signing his real name at the motel, McVeigh had used false names for his transactions. However, McGown noted, \"People are so used to signing their own name that when they go to sign a phony name, they almost always go to write, and then look up for a moment as if to remember the new name they want to use. That's what [McVeigh] did, and when he looked up I started talking to him, and it threw him.\"\n\nAfter an April 21, 1995, court hearing on the gun charges, but before McVeigh's release, federal agents took him into custody as they continued their investigation into the bombing. Rather than talk to investigators about the bombing, McVeigh demanded an attorney. Having been tipped off by the arrival of police and helicopters that a bombing suspect was inside, a restless crowd began to gather outside the jail. While McVeigh's requests for a bulletproof vest or transport by helicopter were denied, authorities did use a helicopter to transport him from Perry to Oklahoma City. \n\nFederal agents obtained a warrant to search the house of McVeigh's father, Bill, after which they broke down the door and wired the house and telephone with listening devices. FBI investigators used the resulting information gained, along with the fake address McVeigh had been using, to begin their search for the Nichols brothers, Terry and James. On April 21, 1995, Terry learned that he was being hunted, and turned himself in. Investigators discovered incriminating evidence at his home: ammonium nitrate and blasting caps, the electric drill used to drill out the locks at the quarry, books on bomb-making, a copy of Hunter (a 1989 novel by William Luther Pierce, the founder and chairman of the white nationalist National Alliance) and a hand-drawn map of downtown Oklahoma City, on which the Murrah Building and the spot where McVeigh's getaway car was hidden were marked. After a nine-hour interrogation, Terry Nichols was formally held in federal custody until his trial. On April 25, 1995, James Nichols was also arrested, but he was released after 32 days due to lack of evidence. McVeigh's sister Jennifer was accused of illegally mailing bullets to McVeigh, but she was granted immunity in exchange for testifying against him. \n\nIbrahim Ahmad, a Jordanian-American traveling from his home in Oklahoma City to visit family in Jordan on April 19, 1995, was also arrested in what was described as an \"initial dragnet\". There was concern that Middle Eastern terrorists could have been behind the attack. Further investigation cleared Ahmad of any involvement in the bombing. \n\nCasualties\n\nAn estimated 646 people were inside the building when the bomb exploded. By the end of the day, 14 adults and 6 children were confirmed dead, and over 100 injured. The toll eventually reached 168 confirmed dead, not including an unmatched left leg that could have belonged to an unidentified 169th victim or the leg could have belonged to any one of eight victims who had been buried without a left leg. Most of the deaths resulted from the collapse of the building, rather than the bomb blast itself. Those killed included 163 who were in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, one person in the Athenian Building, one woman in a parking lot across the street, a man and woman in the Oklahoma Water Resources building, and a rescue worker struck on the head by debris. \n\nThe victims, including three pregnant women, ranged in age from 3 months to 73 years. Of the dead, 99 worked for the federal government. Eight of the victims were federal law enforcement agents. Of those law enforcement agents four were members of the U.S. Secret Service, two were members of the U.S. Customs Service, one was a member of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and one was a member of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Six of the victims were U.S. military personnel; two members of the U.S. Army, two members of the U.S. Air Force, and two members of the U.S. Marine Corps. The rest of the victims were civilians, including 19 children, of whom 15 were in the America's Kids Day Care Center. The bodies of the 168 victims were identified at a temporary morgue set up at the scene. A team of 24 identified the victims using full-body X-rays, dental examinations, fingerprinting, blood tests, and DNA testing. More than 680 people were injured. The majority of the injuries were abrasions, severe burns, and bone fractures.\n\nMcVeigh's later response to the range of casualties was: \"I didn't define the rules of engagement in this conflict. The rules, if not written down, are defined by the aggressor. It was brutal, no holds barred. Women and kids were killed at Waco and Ruby Ridge. You put back in [the government's] faces exactly what they're giving out.\" \n\nResponse and relief\n\nRescue efforts\n\nAt 9:03:25 am, the first of over 1,800 9-1-1 calls related to the bombing was received by Emergency Medical Services Authority (EMSA). By that time, EMSA ambulances, police, and firefighters were already headed to the scene, having heard the blast. Nearby civilians, who had also witnessed or heard the blast, arrived to assist the victims and emergency workers. Within 23 minutes of the bombing, the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) was set up, consisting of representatives from the state departments of public safety, human services, military, health, and education. Assisting the SEOC were agencies such as the National Weather Service, the Air Force, the Civil Air Patrol, and the American Red Cross. Immediate assistance also came from 465 members of the Oklahoma National Guard, who arrived within the hour to provide security, and from members of the Department of Civil Emergency Management.\n\nThe EMS command post was set up almost immediately following the attack and oversaw triage, treatment, transportation, and decontamination. A simple plan/objective was established: treatment and transportation of the injured was to be done as quickly as possible, supplies and personnel to handle a large amount of patients was needed immediately, the dead needed to be moved to a temporary morgue until they could be transferred to the coroner's office, and measures for a long-term medical operation needed to be established. The triage center was set up near the Murrah Building and all the wounded were directed there. Treatment and transport of the injured was done at a furious pace. Two-hundred and ten patients were transported from the primary triage center to nearby hospitals within the first couple hours following the bombing.\n\nWithin the first hour, 50 people were rescued from the Murrah Federal Building. Victims were sent to every hospital in the area. At the end of the first day of rescue efforts, 153 had been treated at St. Anthony Hospital, eight blocks from the blast, over 70 at Presbyterian, 41 at University, and 18 at Children's. Temporary silences were observed so that sensitive listening devices capable of detecting human heartbeats could be used to locate survivors. In some cases, limbs had to be amputated without anesthetics (avoided because of its potential to cause a deadly coma) in order to free those trapped under rubble. Periodically the scene had to be evacuated after police received tips claiming that other bombs had been planted in the building. Local television media reported two other explosive devices were found in the building that were not denoted, and both were larger than the bomb that exploded. \n\nAt 10:28 am, rescuers found what they believed to be a second bomb. Some rescue workers refused to leave until police ordered the mandatory evacuation of a four-block area around the site. The device was determined to be a three-foot (.9-m) long TOW missile used in the training of federal agents and bomb-sniffing dogs; although actually inert, it had been marked \"live\" in order to mislead arms traffickers in a planned law enforcement sting. On examination the missile was determined to be inert, and relief efforts resumed 45 minutes later. The last survivor, a fifteen-year-old girl found under the base of the collapsed building, was rescued at around 7:00 pm. \n\nIn the days following the blast, over 12,000 people participated in relief and rescue operations. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) activated 11 of its Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces, which consisted of a team of 665 rescue workers. One nurse was killed in the rescue attempt after she was hit on the head by debris, and 26 other rescuers were hospitalized because of various injuries. Twenty-four K-9 units and out-of-state dogs were brought in to search for survivors and bodies in the building debris. In an effort to recover additional bodies, 100 to of rubble were removed from the site each day from April 24 to 29, 1995. \n\nRescue and recovery efforts were concluded at 12:05 am on May 5, by which time the bodies of all but three of the victims had been recovered. For safety reasons, the building was initially slated to be demolished shortly afterward. McVeigh's attorney, Stephen Jones, filed a motion to delay the demolition until the defense team could examine the site in preparation for the trial. At 7:02 am on May 23, more than a month after the bombing, the Murrah Federal building was demolished. The EMS Command Center remained active until the demolition of the Federal Murrah Building and was staffed 24 hours a day. The final three bodies, those of two credit union employees and a customer, were recovered. For several days after the building's demolition, trucks hauled 800 ST of debris a day away from the site. Some of the debris was used as evidence in the conspirators' trials, incorporated into memorials, donated to local schools, or sold to raise funds for relief efforts. \n\nHumanitarian aid\n\nThe national humanitarian response was immediate, and in some cases even overwhelming. Large numbers of items such as wheelbarrows, bottled water, helmet lights, knee pads, rain gear, and even football helmets were donated. The sheer quantity of such donations caused logistical and inventory control problems until drop-off centers were set up to accept and sort the goods. The Oklahoma Restaurant Association, which was holding a trade show in the city, assisted rescue workers by providing 15,000 to 20,000 meals over a ten-day period. \n\nThe Salvation Army served over 100,000 meals and provided over 100,000 ponchos, gloves, hard hats, and knee pads to rescue workers. Local residents and those from further afield responded to the requests for blood donations. Of the over 9,000 units of blood donated 131 units were used, the rest were stored in blood banks. \n\nFederal and state government aid\n\nAt 9:45 am, Governor Frank Keating declared a state of emergency and ordered all non-essential workers in the Oklahoma City area to be released from their duties for their safety. President Bill Clinton learned about the bombing at around 9:30 am while he was meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Çiller at the White House. Before addressing the nation, President Clinton considered grounding all planes in the Oklahoma City area to prevent the bombers from escaping by air, but decided against it. At 4:00 pm, President Clinton declared a federal emergency in Oklahoma City and spoke to the nation: \nHe ordered that flags for all federal buildings be flown at half-staff for 30 days in remembrance of the victims. Four days later, on April 23, 1995, Clinton spoke from Oklahoma City. \n\nNo major federal financial assistance was made available to the survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing, but the Murrah Fund set up in the wake of the bombing attracted over $300,000 in federal grants. Over $40 million was donated to the city to aid disaster relief and to compensate the victims. Funds were initially distributed to families who needed it to get back on their feet, and the rest was held in trust for longer-term medical and psychological needs. By 2005, $18 million of the donations remained, some of which was earmarked to provide a college education for each of the 219 children who lost one or both parents in the bombing. A committee chaired by Daniel Kurtenbach of Goodwill Industries provided financial assistance to the survivors. \n\nInternational reaction\n\nInternational reactions to the bombing varied. President Clinton received many messages of sympathy, including those from Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Narasimha Rao of India. Iran condemned the bombing as an attack on innocent people, but also blamed U.S. policy for inciting it. Other condolences came from Russia, Canada, Australia, the United Nations, and the European Union, among other nations and organizations. \n\nSeveral countries offered to assist in the rescue efforts and investigation. France offered a special rescue unit, and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin offered to send agents with anti-terrorist expertise to help in the investigation. President Clinton declined Israel's offer, believing that to accept it would increase anti-Muslim sentiments and endanger Muslim-Americans. \n\nChildren affected\n\nIn the wake of the bombing, the national media seized upon the fact that 19 of the victims had been babies and children, many in the day-care center. At the time of the bombing, there were 100 day-care centers in the United States in 7,900 federal buildings. McVeigh later stated that he was unaware of the day-care center when choosing the building as a target, and if he had known \"... it might have given me pause to switch targets. That's a large amount of collateral damage.\" The FBI stated that McVeigh scouted the interior of the building in December 1994 and likely knew of the day-care center before the bombing. In April 2010, Joseph Hartzler, the prosecutor at McVeigh's trial, questioned how he could have decided to pass over a prior target building because of an included florist shop but at the Murrah building not \"... notice that there's a child day-care center there, that there was a credit union there and a Social Security office?\" \n\nSchools across the country were dismissed early and ordered closed. A photograph of firefighter Chris Fields emerging from the rubble with infant Baylee Almon, who later died in a nearby hospital, was reprinted worldwide and became a symbol of the attack. The photo, taken by bank employee Charles H. Porter IV, won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography. The images and media reports of children dying terrorized many children who, as demonstrated by later research, showed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Children became a primary focus of concern in the mental health response to bombing and many bomb related services were delivered to the community, young and old alike. These services were delivered to public schools of Oklahoma and reached approximately 40,000 students. One of the first organized mental health activities in Oklahoma City was a clinical study of middle and high school students conducted 7 weeks after the bombing. The study focused on middle and high school students that had no connection or relation to the victims of the bombing. This study showed that these students, although deeply moved by the event and showing a sense of vulnerability on the matter, had no difficulty with the demands of school or home life, contrasting those who were connected to the bombing and its victims, who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. \n\nChildren were also affected through the loss of parents in the bombing. Many children lost one or more parents in the blast, with a reported seven children that lost their only remaining parent. Children of the disaster have been raised by single parents, foster parents, and other family members. Adjusting to the loss has made these children suffer psychologically and emotionally. One interview revealed the sleepless nights and obsession with death of one of the at least ten orphaned children. \n\nPresident Clinton stated that after seeing images of babies being pulled from the wreckage, he was \"beyond angry\" and wanted to \"put [his] fist through the television\". Clinton and his wife Hillary requested that aides talk to child care specialists about how to communicate with the children regarding the bombing. President Clinton spoke to the nation three days after the bombing, saying: \"I don't want our children to believe something terrible about life and the future and grownups in general because of this awful thing ... most adults are good people who want to protect our children in their childhood and we are going to get through this\". On April 22, 1995, the Clintons spoke in the White House with over 40 federal agency employees and their children, and in a live nationwide television and radio broadcast, addressed their concerns. \n\nMedia coverage\n\nHundreds of news trucks and members of the press arrived at the site to cover the story. The press immediately noticed that the bombing took place on the second anniversary of the Waco incident. Many initial news stories hypothesized the attack had been undertaken by Islamic terrorists, such as those who had masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Some responded to these reports by attacking Muslims and people of Arab descent. \n\nBefore any evidence could be introduced to say otherwise, the media presented stories to the public that accused individuals within Middle Eastern groups. At this time in America, stereotypes that focused on the Arab race had affected many American Arabs within the United States. These stereotypes may have impacted how individuals acted after the bombing, and can explain why the media assumed that Middle Eastern groups were responsible. In the case of the Oklahoma City Bombing, Hamzi Moghrabi, chairman of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, blamed the media for the attacks on Muslims and Arabs that took place just days after the bombing.\n\nAs the rescue effort wound down, the media interest shifted to the investigation, arrests, and trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, and on the search for an additional suspect named \"John Doe Number Two.\" Several witnesses claimed to have seen a second suspect, who did not resemble Nichols, with McVeigh. \n\nThose who expressed sympathy for McVeigh typically described his deed as an act of war, as in the case of Gore Vidal's essay The Meaning of Timothy McVeigh. \n\nTrials and sentencing of the conspirators\n\nThe Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) led the official investigation, known as OKBOMB, with Weldon L. Kennedy acting as Special Agent in charge. Kennedy oversaw 900 federal, state, and local law enforcement personnel including 300 FBI agents, 200 officers from the Oklahoma City Police Department, 125 members of the Oklahoma National Guard, and 55 officers from the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety. The crime task force was deemed the largest since the investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy. OKBOMB was the largest criminal case in America's history, with FBI agents conducting 28,000 interviews, amassing of evidence, and collecting nearly one billion pieces of information. Federal judge Richard Paul Matsch ordered that the venue for the trial be moved from Oklahoma City to Denver, Colorado, citing that the defendants would be unable to receive a fair trial in Oklahoma. The investigation led to the separate trials and convictions of McVeigh, Nichols, and Fortier.\n\nTimothy McVeigh\n\nOpening arguments in McVeigh's trial began on April 24, 1997. The United States was represented by a team of prosecutors led by Joseph Hartzler. In his opening statement Hartzler outlined McVeigh's motivations, and the evidence against him. McVeigh, he said, had developed a hatred of the government during his time in the army, after reading The Turner Diaries. His beliefs were supported by what he saw as the militia's ideological opposition to increases in taxes and the passage of the Brady Bill, and were further reinforced by the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents. The prosecution called 137 witnesses, including Michael Fortier and his wife Lori, and McVeigh's sister, Jennifer McVeigh, all of whom testified to confirm McVeigh's hatred of the government and his desire to take militant action against it. Both Fortiers testified that McVeigh had told them of his plans to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Michael revealed that McVeigh had chosen the date, and Lori testified that she created the false identification card McVeigh used to rent the Ryder truck. \n\nMcVeigh was represented by a defense counsel team of six principal attorneys led by Stephen Jones. According to law professor Douglas O. Linder, McVeigh wanted Jones to present a \"necessity defense\"—which would argue that he was in \"imminent danger\" from the government (that his bombing was intended to prevent future crimes by the government, such as the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents). McVeigh argued that \"imminent\" does not mean \"immediate\": \"If a comet is hurtling toward the earth, and it's out past the orbit of Pluto, it's not an immediate threat to Earth, but it is an imminent threat.\" Despite McVeigh's wishes, Jones attempted to discredit the prosecution's case in an attempt to instill reasonable doubt. Jones also believed that McVeigh was part of a larger conspiracy, and sought to present him as \"the designated patsy\", but McVeigh disagreed with Jones arguing that rationale for his defense. After a hearing, Judge Matsch independently ruled the evidence concerning a larger conspiracy to be too insubstantial to be admissible. In addition to arguing that the bombing could not have been carried out by two men alone, Jones also attempted to create reasonable doubt by arguing that no one had seen McVeigh near the scene of the crime, and that the investigation into the bombing had lasted only two weeks. Jones presented 25 witnesses over a one-week period, including Dr. Frederic Whitehurst. Although Whitehurst described the FBI's sloppy investigation of the bombing site and its handling of other key evidence, he was unable to point to any direct evidence that he knew to be contaminated.\n\nA key point of contention in the case was the unmatched left leg found after the bombing. Although it was initially believed to be from a male, it was later determined to be that of Lakesha Levy, a female member of the Air Force who was killed in the bombing. Levy's coffin had to be re-opened so that her leg could replace another unmatched leg that had previously been buried with her remains. The unmatched leg had been embalmed, which prevented authorities from being able to extract DNA to determine the leg's owner. Jones argued that the leg could have belonged to another bomber, possibly John Doe #2. The prosecution disputed the claim, saying that the leg could have belonged to any one of eight victims who had been buried without a left leg.\n\nNumerous damaging leaks, which appeared to originate from conversations between McVeigh and his defense attorneys, emerged. They included a confession said to have been inadvertently included on a computer disk that was given to the press, which McVeigh believed seriously compromised his chances of getting a fair trial. A gag order was imposed during the trial, prohibiting attorneys on either side from commenting to the press on the evidence, proceedings, or opinions regarding the trial proceedings. The defense was allowed to enter into evidence six pages of a 517-page Justice Department report criticizing the FBI crime laboratory and David Williams, one of the agency's explosives experts, for reaching unscientific and biased conclusions. The report claimed that Williams had worked backward in the investigation rather than basing his determinations on forensic evidence. \n\nThe jury deliberated for 23 hours. On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was found guilty on 11 counts of murder and conspiracy. Although the defense argued for a reduced sentence of life imprisonment, McVeigh was sentenced to death. In May 2001, the Justice Department announced that the FBI had mistakenly failed to provide over 3,000 documents to McVeigh's defense counsel. The Justice Department also announced that the execution would be postponed for one month for the defense to review the documents. On June 6, federal judge Richard Paul Matsch ruled the documents would not prove McVeigh innocent and ordered the execution to proceed. After President George W. Bush approved the execution (McVeigh was a federal inmate and federal law dictates that the President must approve the execution of federal prisoners), he was executed by lethal injection at the Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute in Terre Haute, Indiana, on June 11. The execution was transmitted on closed-circuit television so that the relatives of the victims could witness his death. McVeigh's execution was the first federal execution in 38 years. \n\nTerry Nichols\n\nNichols stood trial twice. He was first tried by the federal government in 1997 and found guilty of conspiring to build a weapon of mass destruction and of eight counts of involuntary manslaughter of federal officers. After he was sentenced on June 4, 1998 to life without parole, the State of Oklahoma in 2000 sought a death-penalty conviction on 161 counts of first-degree murder (160 non-federal agent victims and one fetus). On May 26, 2004 the jury found him guilty on all charges, but deadlocked on the issue of sentencing him to death. Presiding Judge Steven W. Taylor then determined the sentence of 161 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. In March 2005, FBI investigators, acting on a tip, searched a buried crawl space in Nichols' former house and found additional explosives missed in the preliminary search after Nichols was arrested. In 2009 Nichols was being held in the ADX Florence Federal Prison. \n\nMichael Fortier\n\nMichael and Lori Fortier were considered accomplices for their foreknowledge of the planning of the bombing. In addition to Michael assisting McVeigh in scouting the federal building, Lori had helped McVeigh laminate a fake driver's license which was later used to rent the Ryder truck. Fortier agreed to testify against McVeigh and Nichols in exchange for a reduced sentence and immunity for his wife. He was sentenced on May 27, 1998 to twelve years in prison and fined $75,000 for failing to warn authorities about the attack. On January 20, 2006, after serving ten and a half years of his sentence, including time already served, Fortier was released for good behavior into the Witness Protection Program and given a new identity. \n\nOthers\n\nNo \"John Doe #2\" was ever identified, nothing conclusive was ever reported regarding the owner of the unmatched leg, and the government never openly investigated anyone else in conjunction with the bombing. Although the defense teams in both McVeigh's and Nichols trials suggested that others were involved, Judge Steven W. Taylor found no credible, relevant, or legally admissible evidence, of anyone other than McVeigh and Nichols having directly participated in the bombing. When McVeigh was asked if there were other conspirators in the bombing, he replied: \"Because the truth is, I blew up the Murrah Building, and isn't it kind of scary that one man could wreak this kind of hell?\" On the morning of McVeigh's execution a letter was released in which he had written \"For those die-hard conspiracy theorists who will refuse to believe this, I turn the tables and say: Show me where I needed anyone else. Financing? Logistics? Specialized tech skills? Brainpower? Strategy? ... Show me where I needed a dark, mysterious 'Mr. X'!\" \n\nAftermath\n\nIt has been estimated that about 387,000 people in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area (a third of the population) knew someone who was directly affected by the bombing. \n\nWithin 48 hours of the attack, and with the assistance of the General Services Administration (GSA), the targeted federal offices were able to resume operations in other parts of the city. According to Mark Potok, director of Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, his organization tracked another 60 domestic smaller-scale terrorism plots from 1995 to 2005. Several of the plots were uncovered and prevented while others caused various infrastructure damage, deaths, or other destruction. Potok revealed that in 1996 there were approximately 858 domestic militias and other antigovernment groups but the number had dropped to 152 by 2004. Shortly after the bombing, the FBI hired an additional 500 agents to investigate potential domestic terrorist attacks. \n\nLegislation\n\nIn the wake of the bombing the U.S. government enacted several pieces of legislation, notably the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. In response to the trials of the conspirators being moved out-of-state, the Victim Allocution Clarification Act of 1997 was signed on March 20, 1997 by President Clinton to allow the victims of the bombing (and the victims of any other future acts of violence) the right to observe trials and to offer impact testimony in sentencing hearings. In response to passing the legislation, Clinton stated that \"when someone is a victim, he or she should be at the center of the criminal justice process, not on the outside looking in.\" \n\nIn the years since the bombing, scientists, security experts, and the ATF have called on Congress to develop legislation that would require customers to produce identification when purchasing ammonium nitrate fertilizer, and for sellers to maintain records of its sale. Critics argue that farmers lawfully use large quantities of the fertilizer, and as of 2009, only Nevada and South Carolina require identification from purchasers. In June 1995, Congress enacted legislation requiring chemical taggants to be incorporated into dynamite and other explosives so that a bomb could be traced to its manufacturer. In 2008, Honeywell announced that it had developed a nitrogen-based fertilizer that would not detonate when mixed with fuel oil. The company got assistance from the Department of Homeland Security to develop the fertilizer (Sulf-N 26) for commercial use. It uses ammonium sulfate to make the fertilizer less explosive. \n\nOklahoma School Curriculum\n\nIn the decade following the bombing, there was criticism of Oklahoma public schools for not requiring the bombing to be covered in the curriculum of mandatory Oklahoma history classes. Oklahoma History is a one-semester course required by state law for graduation from high school; however, the bombing was only covered for one to two pages at most in textbooks. The state's PASS standards (Priority Academic Student Skills) did not require that a student learn about the bombing, and focused more on other subjects such as corruption and the Dust Bowl. On April 6, 2010, \"House Bill 2750\" was signed by Governor Brad Henry, requiring the bombing to be entered into the school curriculum for Oklahoma, U.S. and world history classes. \n\nOn the signing, Governor Henry said “Although the events of April 19, 1995 may be etched in our minds and in the minds of Oklahomans who remember that day, we have a generation of Oklahomans that has little to no memory of the events of that day,”... “We owe it to the victims, the survivors and all of the people touched by this tragic event to remember April 19, 1995 and understand what it meant and still means to this state and this nation.”\n\nBuilding security and construction\n\nIn the weeks following the bombing the federal government ordered that all federal buildings in all major cities be surrounded with prefabricated Jersey barriers to prevent similar attacks. As part of a longer-term plan for United States federal building security most of those temporary barriers have since been replaced with permanent and more aesthetically considerate security barriers, which are driven deep into the ground for sturdiness. Furthermore, all new federal buildings must now be constructed with truck-resistant barriers and with deep setbacks from surrounding streets to minimize their vulnerability to truck bombs. FBI buildings, for instance, must be set back 100 ft from traffic. The total cost of improving security in federal buildings across the country in response to the bombing reached over $600 million. \n\nThe Murrah Federal Building had been considered so safe that it only employed one security guard. In June 1995, the DOJ issued Vulnerability Assessment of Federal Facilities, also known as The Marshals Report, the findings of which resulted in a thorough evaluation of security at all federal buildings and a system for classifying risks at over 1,300 federal facilities owned or leased by the federal government. Federal sites were divided into five security levels ranging from Level 1 (minimum security needs) to Level 5 (maximum). The Alfred P. Murrah Building was deemed a Level 4 building. Among the 52 security improvements were physical barriers, closed-circuit television monitoring, site planning and access, hardening of building exteriors to increase blast resistance, glazing systems to reduce flying glass shards and fatalities, and structural engineering design to prevent progressive collapse. \n\nThe attack led to engineering improvements allowing buildings to better withstand tremendous forces, improvements which were incorporated into the design of Oklahoma City's new federal building. The National Geographic Channel documentary series Seconds From Disaster suggested that the Murrah Federal Building would probably have survived the blast had it been built according to California's earthquake design codes. \n\nImpact according to McVeigh\n\nMcVeigh believed that the bomb attack had a positive impact on government policy. In evidence he cited the peaceful resolution of the Montana Freemen standoff in 1996, the government's $3.1 million settlement with Randy Weaver and his surviving children four months after the bombing, and April 2000 statements by Bill Clinton regretting his decision to storm the Branch Davidian compound. McVeigh stated, \"Once you bloody the bully's nose, and he knows he's going to be punched again, he's not coming back around.\" \n\nConspiracy theories\n\nA variety of conspiracy theories have been proposed about the events surrounding the bombing. Some theories allege that individuals in the government, including President Bill Clinton, knew of the impending bombing and intentionally failed to act on that knowledge. Other theories focus on initial reports by local news stations of multiple other unexploded bombs within the building itself as evidence of remnants of a controlled demolition; following the attack, search and rescue operations at the site were delayed until the area had been declared safe by the Oklahoma City bomb squad and federal authorities. According to both a situation report compiled by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and a memo issued by the United States Atlantic Command the day following the attack, a second bomb located within the building was disarmed while a third was evacuated. Further theories focus on additional conspirators involved with the bombing. Additional theories claim the bombing was done by the government to frame the militia movement or to provide the impetus for new antiterrorism legislation while using McVeigh as a scapegoat. Other conspiracy theories suggest that foreign agents, particularly Islamic terrorists but also the Japanese government or German Neo-Nazis, were involved in the bombing. Experts have disputed the theories and government investigations have been opened at various times to look into the theories. \n\nEvacuation issues\n\nOnce the explosion took place at the Alfred P. Murrah building, chaotic response filled the surrounding streets. Those who were able to flee the Murrah building did so, while others, stuck in the rubble, awaited the assistance of rescue workers and volunteers. As reported on CNN, other federal buildings in the downtown area were not fully evacuated, but those who were able to leave the city were encouraged to do so. This traffic, along with the people leaving places around the Murrah Building clogged streets, delaying the arrival of rescue crews and relief agencies. \nSeveral agencies, including the Federal Highway Administration and the City of Oklahoma City have evaluated the emergency response actions to the bombing, and have proposed plans for a better response in addition to addressing issues that hindered a smooth rescue effort. Because of the crowded streets, and the number of response agencies sent to the location, communication between government branches and rescue workers was muddled. Groups were unaware of the operations others were conducting, thus creating strife and delays in the search and rescue process. The City of Oklahoma City, in their After Action Report, declared that better communication and single bases for agencies would better the aid of those in disastrous situations.\nFollowing the events of September 11, 2001, with consideration of other events including the Oklahoma City Bombing, the Federal Highway Administration proposed the idea that major metropolitan areas create evacuation routes for civilians. These highlighted routes would allow paths for emergency crews and government agencies to enter the disaster area more quickly. By helping civilians out, and rescue workers in, the number of casualties will hopefully be decreased. \n\nMemorial observances\n\nOklahoma City National Memorial\n\nFor two years after the bombing the only memorials to the victims were plush toys, crucifixes, letters, and other personal items left by thousands of people at a security fence surrounding the site of the building. Many suggestions for suitable memorials were sent to Oklahoma City, but an official memorial planning committee was not set up until early 1996, when the Murrah Federal Building Memorial Task Force, composed of 350 members, was set up to formulate plans for a memorial to commemorate the victims of the bombing. On July 1, 1997 the winning design was chosen unanimously by a 15-member panel from 624 submissions. The memorial was designed at a cost of $29 million, which was raised by public and private funds. The memorial is part of the National Park Service and was designed by Oklahoma City architects Hans and Torrey Butzer and Sven Berg. It was dedicated by President Clinton on April 19, 2000, exactly five years after the bombing. Within the first year, it had 700,000 visitors.\n\nThe memorial includes a reflecting pool flanked by two large gates, one inscribed with the time 9:01, the other with 9:03, the pool representing the moment of the blast. On the south end of the memorial is a field of symbolic bronze and stone chairs—one for each person lost, arranged according to what floor of the building they were on. The chairs represent the empty chairs at the dinner tables of the victims' families. The seats of the children killed are smaller than those of the adults lost. On the opposite side is the \"survivor tree\", part of the building's original landscaping that survived the blast and fires that followed it. The memorial left part of the foundation of the building intact, allowing visitors to see the scale of the destruction. Part of the chain link fence put in place around the site of the blast, which had attracted over 800,000 personal items of commemoration later collected by the Oklahoma City Memorial Foundation, is now on the western edge of the memorial. North of the memorial is the Journal Record Building, which now houses the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum, an affiliate of the National Park Service. The building also contains the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, a law enforcement training center.\n\nSt. Joseph's Old Cathedral\n\nOn a corner adjacent to the memorial is a sculpture titled \"And Jesus Wept\", erected by St. Joseph's Old Cathedral. St. Joseph's, one of the first brick and mortar churches in the city, was almost completely destroyed by the blast. The statue is not part of the memorial itself. \n\nRemembrance observance\n\nAn observance is held each year to remember the victims of the bombing. An annual marathon draws thousands, and allows runners to sponsor a victim of the bombing. For the tenth anniversary of the bombing, the city held 24 days of activities, including a week-long series of events known as the National Week of Hope from April 17 to 24, 2005. As in previous years, the tenth anniversary of the bombing observances began with a service at 9:02 am, marking the moment the bomb went off, with the traditional 168 seconds of silence—one second for each person who was killed as a result of the blast. The service also included the traditional reading of the names, read by children to symbolize the future of Oklahoma City. \n\nVice President Dick Cheney, former President Clinton, Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry, Frank Keating, Governor of Oklahoma at the time of the bombing, and other political dignitaries attended the service and gave speeches in which they emphasized that \"goodness overcame evil\". The relatives of the victims and the survivors of the blast also made note of it during the service at First United Methodist Church in Oklahoma City. \n\nPresident George W. Bush made note of the anniversary in a written statement, part of which echoed his remarks on the execution of Timothy McVeigh in 2001: \"For the survivors of the crime and for the families of the dead the pain goes on.\" Bush was invited but did not attend the service because he was en route to Springfield, Illinois, to dedicate the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Cheney attended the service in his place." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Okla.", "Oklahoma", "Oklahoma, United States", "Sooner State", "Forty-Sixth State", "Religion in Oklahoma", "Culture of Oklahoma", "46th State", "Oklahoma (U.S. state)", "Oklahoma, USA", "State of Oklahoma", "List of Oklahoma State Symbols", "Oaklahoma", "Oklaholma", "Transportation in Oklahoma", "US-OK", "Sports in Oklahoma", "Okla", "Oklahoman", "Oclahoma", "Education in Oklahoma", "Energy in Oklahoma", "Transport in Oklahoma", "Forty-sixth State", "Oklahoma (state)", "The Sooner State" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "sooner state", "religion in oklahoma", "oklahoma", "us ok", "oklahoma u s state", "46th state", "oklahoma united states", "oklahoma state", "transportation in oklahoma", "forty sixth state", "energy in oklahoma", "education in oklahoma", "oclahoma", "sports in oklahoma", "oklaholma", "oklahoma usa", "oaklahoma", "transport in oklahoma", "culture of oklahoma", "okla", "oklahoman", "list of oklahoma state symbols", "state of oklahoma" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "oklahoma", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Oklahoma" }
Who was Oliver North's secretary during the Irangate scandal?	tc_1279	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Oliver_North.txt", "Iran–Contra_affair.txt" ], "title": [ "Oliver North", "Iran–Contra affair" ], "wiki_context": [ "Oliver Laurence North (born October 7, 1943) is an American political commentator and television host, military historian, New York Times best-selling author, and former United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel. \n\nNorth is primarily remembered for his term as a National Security Council staff member during the Iran–Contra affair, a political scandal of the late 1980s. The scandal involved the illegal sale of weapons to Iran, supposedly to encourage the release of U.S. hostages then held in Lebanon. North formulated the second part of the plan, which was to divert proceeds from the arms sales to support the Contra rebel groups in Nicaragua, which had been specifically prohibited under the Boland Amendment. \n\nFrom 2001 to 2016, North hosted War Stories with Oliver North on Fox News Channel. \n\nEarly life\n\nNorth was born in San Antonio, Texas, on October 7, 1943. He is the son of Ann Theresa (née Clancy) and Oliver Clay North, a U.S. Army major. He grew up in Philmont, New York, and graduated from Ockawamick Central High School in 1961. He attended the State University of New York at Brockport for two years. \n\nWhile at Brockport, North spent a summer at the United States Marine Corps Platoon Leaders Class at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, and gained an appointment to the United States Naval Academy in 1963. He received his commission as second lieutenant in 1968 (he missed a year due to injuries from an auto accident). One of North's classmates at the Academy was future secretary of the Navy and U.S. senator Jim Webb, whom he beat in a championship boxing match at Annapolis. Their graduating class included Dennis C. Blair, Michael Mullen, Charles Bolden and Michael Hagee.\n\nU.S. Marine Corps career\n\nNorth served as a platoon commander during the Vietnam War, where during his combat service, he was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star Medal, and two Purple Heart medals. At the time of his Silver Star, Second Lieutenant North was a Platoon Commander leading his Marines in Operation Virginia Ridge. North led a counter assault against the North Vietnamese Army, as his platoon took on heavy machine gun fire and rocket propelled grenades. Throughout the battle, North displayed \"courage, dynamic leadership and unwavering devotion to duty in the face of grave personal danger\". He then became an instructor at The Basic School in Quantico, Virginia.\n\nIn 1970, North returned to South Vietnam to testify at the trial of LCpl Randy Herrod, a U.S. Marine formerly under his command who had been charged with the mass killing of Vietnamese civilians. North was promoted to captain in 1971 and served as the commanding officer of the U.S. Marine Corps' Northern Training Area in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan.\n\nAfter his duty in Okinawa, North was assigned for four years to Marine Corps Headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. He was then promoted to major and served two years as the operations officer of 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, commanded by then Lt. Col. John Southy Grinalds, 2nd Marine Division in Camp Lejeune at Jacksonville, North Carolina. He attended the Command and Staff Course at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and graduated in 1981.\n\nNorth began his assignment to the National Security Council (NSC) in Washington, D.C., where he served as the deputy director for political–military affairs from 1981 until his reassignment in 1986. In 1983, North received his promotion to lieutenant colonel, which would be his last.\n\nDuring his tenure at the NSC, North managed a number of missions. This included leading the hunt for those responsible for the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 299 American and French military personnel, an effort that saw North arranging a midair interception of an EgyptAir jet carrying those responsible for the Achille Lauro hijacking. While also at the NSC, he helped plan the U.S. invasion of Grenada and the 1986 Bombing of Libya.\n\nDuring his trial, North spent his last two years on active duty assigned to Headquarters Marine Corps in Arlington, Virginia. He resigned his Marine Corps commission in 1990 following his indictment for conspiring to defraud the United States by channeling the profits from US arms sales to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. \n\nMilitary awards and decorations \n\nIran–Contra affair\n\nNorth came into the public spotlight as a result of his participation in the Iran–Contra affair, a political scandal during the Reagan administration, in which he claimed partial responsibility for the sale of weapons through intermediaries to Iran, with the profits being channeled to the Contras in Nicaragua. It was alleged that he was responsible for the establishment of a covert network which subsequently funneled those funds to the Contras. Congress passed the Boland Amendment (to the House Appropriations Bill of 1982 and following years), which prohibited the appropriation of U.S. funds by intelligence agencies for the support of the Contras. The money was passed through a shell organization, the National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty, to the Palmer National Bank of Washington, D.C., and then to the Contras.\n\nIn an August 23, 1986, e-mail to National Security Advisor John Poindexter, North described a meeting with a representative of Panamanian General Manuel Noriega: \"You will recall that over the years Manuel Noriega in Panama and I have developed a fairly good relationship,\" North writes before explaining Noriega's proposal. If U.S. officials can \"help clean up his image\" and lift the ban on arms sales to the Panamanian Defense Force, Noriega will \"'take care of' the Sandinista leadership for us.\" \n\nNorth told Poindexter that General Noriega could assist with sabotage against the ruling party of Nicaragua, the Sandinista National Liberation Front. North supposedly suggested that Noriega be paid one million dollars in cash, from Project Democracy funds raised from the sale of U.S. arms to Iran—for the Panamanian leader's help in destroying Nicaraguan economic installations. \n\nIn November 1986, as the sale of weapons was made public, North was dismissed by President Ronald Reagan. On February 11, 1987, the FBI detected an attack on North's family from the Peoples Committee for Libyan Students, a sleeper cell for the Islamic Jihad, with an order to kill North. His family was moved to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and lived with federal agents until North retired from the Marine Corps the following year. \n\nIn July 1987, North was summoned to testify before televised hearings of a joint congressional committee that was formed to investigate Iran–Contra. During the hearings, North admitted that he had lied to Congress previously, for which and other actions he was later charged. He defended his actions by stating that he believed in the goal of aiding the Contras, whom he saw as freedom fighters, against the Sandinistas and said that he viewed the Iran–Contra scheme as a \"neat idea.\" North admitted shredding government documents related to his Contra and Iranian activities, at William Casey's suggestion, when the Iran–Contra scandal became public. He also testified that Robert McFarlane had asked him to alter official records to delete references to direct assistance to the Contras and that he had helped. \n\nNorth was tried in 1988. He was indicted on 16 felony counts, and on May 4, 1989, he was initially convicted of three: accepting an illegal gratuity, aiding and abetting in the obstruction of a congressional inquiry, and ordering the destruction of documents through his secretary, Fawn Hall. He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Gerhard Gesell on July 5, 1989, to a three-year suspended prison term, two years probation, $150,000 in fines, and 1,200 hours of community service. North performed some of his community service within Potomac Gardens, a public housing project in Southeast Washington, D.C. However, on July 20, 1990, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), North's convictions were vacated, after the appeals court found that witnesses in his trial might have been impermissibly affected by his immunized congressional testimony. \n\nAs North had been granted limited immunity for his congressional testimony, the law prohibited a prosecutor from using that testimony as part of a criminal case against him. To prepare for the expected defense challenge that North's testimony had been used, the prosecution team had—before North's congressional testimony had been given—listed and isolated all of its evidence. \n\nFurther, the individual members of the prosecution team had isolated themselves from news reports and discussion of North's testimony. While the defense could show no specific instance in which North's congressional testimony was used in his trial, the Court of Appeals ruled that the trial judge had made an insufficient examination of the issue. Consequently, North's convictions were reversed. After further hearings on the immunity issue, Judge Gesell dismissed all charges against North on September 16, 1991.\n\nAllegations of involvement with drug traffickers\n\nAllegations were made, most notably by the Kerry subcommittee, that North and other senior officials created a privatized Contra network that attracted drug traffickers looking for cover for their operations, then turned a blind eye to repeated reports of drug smuggling related to the Contras, and actively worked with known drug smugglers such as Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega to assist the Contras. Journalist Gary Webb asserted in his journalistic series and book Dark Alliance, that North developed the idea of using drug money to support the resistance movement. \n\nOrganizations and individuals involved in the supply chain under investigation for trafficking included the company SETCO (operated by large-scale trafficker Juan Matta-Ballesteros), the fruit company Frigorificos de Puntarenas, rancher John Hull, and several Cuban exiles; North and other U.S. government officials were criticized by the Kerry Report for their practice of \"ticket punching\" for these parties, whereby people under active investigation for drug trafficking were given cover and pay by joining in the Contra supply chain. Notably, cocaine trafficker and Contra Oscar Danilo Blandón was granted political asylum in the U.S. despite knowledge of his running a drug ring. \n\nThe Costa Rican government of Óscar Arias conducted an investigation of Contra-related drug trafficking, and as a result of this investigation, North and several other U.S. government officials were permanently banned from entering Costa Rica.\n\nLater life and career\n\nPolitics\n\nIn the 1994 election, North unsuccessfully ran for the United States Senate as the Republican Party candidate in Virginia. Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia endorsed Marshall Coleman, a Republican who ran as an independent, instead of North. North lost, garnering 43 percent of votes, while incumbent Democrat Charles Robb, a son-in-law of President Lyndon B. Johnson, won reelection with only 46 percent. Coleman received 11 percent. North's candidacy was documented in the 1996 film A Perfect Candidate.\n\nIn his failed bid to unseat Robb, North raised $20.3 million in a single year through nationwide direct-mail solicitations, telemarketing, fundraising events, and contributions from major donors. About $16 million of that amount was from direct mail alone. This was the biggest accumulation of direct-mail funds for a statewide campaign to that date, and it made North the top direct-mail political fundraiser in the country in 1994. \n\nBooks and media\n\nNorth was lampooned as \"The Mute Marine\" during the 1986 season of Saturday Night Live. \n\nNorth has written several best-selling books including Under Fire, One More Mission, War Stories—Operation Iraqi Freedom, Mission Compromised, The Jericho Sanction, and The Assassins.\n\nHis book American Heroes was released nationally in the United States on May 6, 2008. In the book, \"North addresses issues of defense against global terrorism, Jihad, and radical Islam from his firsthand perspective as a military officer and national security advisor and current Middle East war correspondent.\" He writes a nationally syndicated newspaper column through Creators Syndicate. \n\nOn November 5, 2013, North's American Heroes on the Homefront, was released. This is a nonfiction book that gives a firsthand account of the American volunteers who have volunteered to join the United States Army. The book was a collection from the dozen years North and the Fox News Channel have traveled the frontlines of the War on Terror. During those years North and his team have profiled hundreds of soldiers and chronicles what it means to be a hero. In the book he continues the journey by following these soldiers from the battlefield back to the home front. \n\nIn 1991 North appeared on the first season of The Jerry Springer Show. From 1995 to 2003, he was host of his own nationally syndicated radio program known as the Oliver North Radio Show or Common Sense Radio. He also served as co-host of Equal Time on MSNBC for a couple of years starting in 1999. North is currently the host of the television show War Stories with Oliver North and a regular commentator on Hannity, both on the Fox News Channel. North appeared as himself on many television shows including the sitcom Wings in 1991, and three episodes of the TV military drama JAG in 1995, 1996, and 2002 as \"Ollie\", a close friend of the deceased father of Tracey Needham's character Meg Austin. \n\nIn addition, he regularly speaks at both public and private events. North appears in an episode of Auction Kings to have his Marine Corps sword returned after it was lost and presumably stolen in 1980. North was credited as a military consultant in the 2012 video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II and voiced himself in one level of the game. In 2014 he received story credit for an episode of the TV series The Americans where the protagonist Soviet spies infiltrate a Contra training base in the United States. \n\nFreedom Alliance\n\nIn 1990, North founded the Freedom Alliance, a 501(c)(3) foundation \"to advance the American heritage of freedom by honoring and encouraging military service, defending the sovereignty of the United States, and promoting a strong national defense.\" The foundation's primary activities include providing support for wounded combat soldiers and providing scholarships for the sons and the daughters of service members killed in action. \n\nBeginning in 2003, Sean Hannity has raised over $10 million for the Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund through Freedom Concerts and donations from The Sean Hannity Show and its listeners. The charity has been criticized by far-right-leaning blogger Debbie Schlussel for distributing too little of its funds for charitable purposes. Hannity, North, and other charity spokespersons say that all of the net proceeds from the Freedom Concerts are donated to the fund. \n\nPersonal life\n\nIn 1967, North married Betsy Stuart and they have four children. Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith of his mother, North has long attended Protestant or evangelical services with his wife and children. \n\nNorth is a board member in the NRA and appeared at NRA national conventions in 2007 and 2008. \n\nTrivia\n\nThe second episode of the 1988 Disney television movie Earth Star Voyager features an excerpt of Oliver North's congressional testimony that is played over the PA system on the bridge of the Earth Star Voyager space ship. It is explained that the radio waves containing North's statement have been traveling from Earth into space and that the space ship Earth Star Voyager has traveled so far from Earth that it is detecting radio transmissions from the past.\n\nLou Reed's 1989 album New York contains the song \"Sick of You\" which references the Iran-Contra affair with the lyric \"And Oliver North married William Secord (sic) and gave birth to a little Teheran.\"\n\nIn Season 1 Episode 4 of JAG - \"Desert Son\", North makes a guest appearance.\n\nIn season 3 episode 17 of Wings, North is seen in the beginning of the episode speaking with Brian about a new book he released and a pen he stole from a hotel.\n\nNorth was referenced in the episode \"Bart Gets Famous\" in the fifth season of The Simpsons.\n\nIn season 3 episode 15 of American Dad!, North is mentioned in a song that Stan sings about left over gold from the Iran-Contra affair and the rest of the episode centers around Stan trying to find the gold to have a legacy.\n\nIn season 2 episode 13 of Malcolm in the Middle, North is mentioned to be a guest speaker at Marlin Academy by Commandant Edwin Spangler.\n\nIn season 1 episode 5 of Sliders, North is President of the United States in an alternate universe.", "The Iran–Contra affair (, ), also referred to as Irangate, Contragate or the Iran–Contra scandal, was a political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan Administration. Senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo. They hoped thereby to secure the release of several U.S. hostages and to fund the Contras in Nicaragua. Under the Boland Amendment, further funding of the Contras by the government had been prohibited by Congress.\n\nThe scandal began as an operation to free the seven American hostages being held in Lebanon by Hezbollah, a paramilitary group with Iranian ties connected to the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. It was planned that Israel would ship weapons to Iran, and then the United States would resupply Israel and receive the Israeli payment. The Iranian recipients promised to do everything in their power to achieve the release of the U.S. hostages. Large modifications to the plan were devised by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council in late 1985, in which a portion of the proceeds from the weapon sales was diverted to fund anti-Sandinista and anti-communist rebels, or Contras, in Nicaragua.\n\nWhile President Ronald Reagan was a supporter of the Contra cause, the evidence is disputed as to whether he authorized the diversion of the money raised by the Iranian arms sales to the Contras. Handwritten notes taken by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger on December 7, 1985, indicate that Reagan was aware of potential hostage transfers with Iran, as well as the sale of Hawk and TOW missiles to \"moderate elements\" within that country. Weinberger wrote that Reagan said \"he could answer to charges of illegality but couldn't answer to the charge that 'big strong President Reagan passed up a chance to free the hostages'\". After the weapon sales were revealed in November 1986, Reagan appeared on national television and stated that the weapons transfers had indeed occurred, but that the United States did not trade arms for hostages. The investigation was impeded when large volumes of documents relating to the scandal were destroyed or withheld from investigators by Reagan administration officials. On March 4, 1987, Reagan returned to the airwaves in a nationally televised address, taking full responsibility for any actions that he was unaware of, and admitting that \"what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages\".\n\nSeveral investigations ensued, including those by the U.S. Congress and the three-person, Reagan-appointed Tower Commission. Neither found any evidence that President Reagan himself knew of the extent of the multiple programs. Ultimately the sale of weapons to Iran was not deemed a criminal offense but charges were brought against five individuals for their support of the Contras. Those charges, however, were later dropped because the administration refused to declassify certain documents. The indicted conspirators faced various lesser charges instead. In the end, fourteen administration officials were indicted, including then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Eleven convictions resulted, some of which were vacated on appeal. The rest of those indicted or convicted were all pardoned in the final days of the presidency of George H. W. Bush, who had been vice-president at the time of the affair. \n\nBackground\n\nContra militants based in Honduras waged a guerrilla war to topple the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) revolutionary government of Nicaragua. Direct U.S. funding of the Contras insurgency was made illegal through the Boland Amendment, the name given to three U.S. legislative amendments between 1982 and 1984 aimed at limiting U.S. government assistance to the Contra's militants. Funding ran out for the Contras by July 1984 and in October a total ban was placed in effect. In violation of the Boland Amendment, senior officials of the Reagan administration continued to secretly arm and train the Contras and provide arms to Iran, an operation they called \"the Enterprise\". \nIronically, military aid to the Contras was reinstated with Congressional consent in October 1986, a month before the scandal broke. \n\nArms sales to Iran\n\nMichael Ledeen, a consultant of National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, requested assistance from Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres for help in the sale of arms to Iran. Having been designated a State Sponsor of Terrorism since January 1984, Iran was in the midst of the Iran–Iraq War and could find few Western nations willing to supply it with weapons. The idea behind the plan was for Israel to ship weapons through an intermediary (identified as Manucher Ghorbanifar) to the Islamic republic as a way of aiding a supposedly moderate, politically influential faction within the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini who was believed to be seeking a rapprochement with the United States; after the transaction, the United States would reimburse Israel with the same weapons, while receiving monetary benefits. The Israeli government required that the sale of arms meet high level approval from the United States government, and when McFarlane convinced them that the U.S. government approved the sale, Israel obliged by agreeing to sell the arms. \n\nIn 1985, President Reagan entered Bethesda Naval Hospital for colon cancer surgery. While the President was recovering in the hospital, McFarlane met with him and told him that representatives from Israel had contacted the National Security Agency to pass on confidential information from what Reagan later described as the \"moderate\" Iranian faction opposed to the Ayatollah's hardline anti-American policies. According to Reagan, these Iranians sought to establish a quiet relationship with the United States, before establishing formal relationships upon the death of the aging Ayatollah. In Reagan's account, McFarlane told Reagan that the Iranians, to demonstrate their seriousness, offered to persuade the Hezbollah militants to release the seven U.S. hostages. McFarlane met with the Israeli intermediaries;[https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_24.htm Walsh Iran / Contra Report - Chapter 24 The Investigation of State Department Officials: Shultz, Hill and Platt]. Retrieved 7 June 2008. Reagan claimed that he allowed this because he believed that establishing relations with a strategically located country, and preventing the Soviet Union from doing the same, was a beneficial move. Although Reagan claims that the arms sales were to a \"moderate\" faction of Iranians, the Walsh Iran/Contra Report states that the arms sales were \"to Iran\" itself, which was under the control of the Ayatollah.\n\nFollowing the Israeli–U.S. meeting, Israel requested permission from the United States to sell a small number of BGM-71 TOW antitank missiles to Iran, claiming that this would aid the \"moderate\" Iranian faction, by demonstrating that the group actually had high-level connections to the U.S. government. Reagan initially rejected the plan, until Israel sent information to the United States showing that the \"moderate\" Iranians were opposed to terrorism and had fought against it. Now having a reason to trust the \"moderates\", Reagan approved the transaction, which was meant to be between Israel and the \"moderates\" in Iran, with the United States reimbursing Israel. In his 1990 autobiography An American Life, Reagan claimed that he was deeply committed to securing the release of the hostages; it was this compassion that supposedly motivated his support for the arms initiatives. The president requested that the \"moderate\" Iranians do everything in their capability to free the hostages held by Hezbollah. \n\nThe following arms were supplied to Iran: \nAugust 20, 1985 – 96 TOW anti-tank missiles\nSeptember 14, 1985 – 408 more TOWs\nNovember 24, 1985 – 18 Hawk anti-aircraft missiles\nFebruary 17, 1986 – 500 TOWs\nFebruary 27, 1986 – 500 TOWs\nMay 24, 1986 – 508 TOWs, 240 Hawk spare parts\nAugust 4, 1986 – More Hawk spares\nOctober 28, 1986 – 500 TOWs\n\nFirst arms sale\n\nOn August 20, 1985, Israel sent 100 American-made TOW missiles to Iran through an arms dealer named Manucher Ghorbanifar. Subsequently, on September 14, 1985, 408 more TOW missiles were delivered. On September 15, 1985, following the second delivery, Reverend Benjamin Weir was released by his captors, the Islamic Jihad Organization. \n\nModifications in plans\n\nRobert McFarlane resigned on December 4, 1985, citing that he wanted to spend more time with his family. He was replaced by Admiral John Poindexter. \n\nTwo days later, Reagan met with his advisors at the White House, where a new plan was introduced. This one called for a slight change in the arms transactions: instead of the weapons going to the \"moderate\" Iranian group, they would go to \"moderate\" Iranian army leaders. As the weapons were delivered from Israel by air, the hostages held by Hezbollah would be released. Israel would continue to be reimbursed by the United States for the weapons. Though staunchly opposed by Secretary of State George Shultz and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, the plan was authorized by Reagan, who stated that, \"We were not trading arms for hostages, nor were we negotiating with terrorists\". Now retired National Security Advisor McFarlane flew to London to meet with Israelis and Ghorbanifar in an attempt to persuade the Iranian to use his influence to release the hostages before any arms transactions occurred; this plan was rejected by Ghorbanifar.\n\nOn the day of McFarlane's resignation, Oliver North, a military aide to the United States National Security Council (NSC), proposed a new plan for selling arms to Iran, which included two major adjustments: instead of selling arms through Israel, the sale was to be direct, and a portion of the proceeds would go to Contras, or Nicaraguan paramilitary fighters waging guerrilla warfare against the democratically-elected Sandinista government, at a markup. North proposed a $15 million markup, while contracted arms broker Ghorbanifar added a 41% markup of his own. Other members of the NSC were in favor of North's plan; with large support, Poindexter authorized it without notifying President Reagan, and it went into effect. At first, the Iranians refused to buy the arms at the inflated price because of the excessive markup imposed by North and Ghorbanifar. They eventually relented, and in February 1986, 1,000 TOW missiles were shipped to the country. From May to November 1986, there were additional shipments of miscellaneous weapons and parts.\n\nBoth the sale of weapons to Iran, and the funding of the Contras, attempted to circumvent not only stated administration policy, but also the Boland Amendment. Administration officials argued that regardless of the Congress restricting the funds for the Contras, or any affair, the President (or in this case the administration) could carry on by seeking alternative means of funding such as private entities and foreign governments. Funding from one foreign country, Brunei, was botched when North's secretary, Fawn Hall, transposed the numbers of North's Swiss bank account number. A Swiss businessman, suddenly $10 million richer, alerted the authorities of the mistake. The money was eventually returned to the Sultan of Brunei, with interest. \n\nOn January 7, 1986, John Poindexter proposed to the president a modification of the approved plan: instead of negotiating with the \"moderate\" Iranian political group, the United States would negotiate with \"moderate\" members of the Iranian government. Poindexter told Reagan that Ghorbanifar had important connections within the Iranian government, so with the hope of the release of the hostages, Reagan approved this plan as well. Throughout February 1986, weapons were shipped directly to Iran by the United States (as part of Oliver North's plan, without the knowledge of President Reagan) and none of the hostages were released. Retired National Security Advisor McFarlane conducted another international voyage, this one to Tehran; bringing with him a gift of a bible having a handwritten inscription by Ronald Reagan; and, according to George Cave a cake baked in the shape of a key. Howard Teicher described the cake as a joke between North and Ghorbanifar. He met directly with the \"moderate\" Iranian political group that sought to establish U.S.-Iranian relations in an attempt to free the four remaining hostages. This meeting also failed. The members requested concessions such as Israel's withdrawal from the Golan Heights, which the United States rejected.\n\nSubsequent dealings\n\nIn late July 1986, Hezbollah released another hostage, Father Lawrence Jenco, former head of Catholic Relief Services in Lebanon. Following this, William Casey, head of the CIA, requested that the United States authorize sending a shipment of small missile parts to Iranian military forces as a way of expressing gratitude. Casey also justified this request by stating that the contact in the Iranian government might otherwise lose face or be executed, and hostages might be killed. Reagan authorized the shipment to ensure that those potential events would not occur. \n\nIn September and October 1986 three more Americans—Frank Reed, Joseph Cicippio, and Edward Tracy—were abducted in Lebanon by a separate terrorist group, who referred to them simply as \"G.I. Joe,\" after the popular American toy. The reasons for their abduction are unknown, although it is speculated that they were kidnapped to replace the freed Americans. One more original hostage, David Jacobsen, was later released. The captors promised to release the remaining two, but the release never happened. \n\nDiscovery and scandal\n\nAfter a leak by Mehdi Hashemi, a senior official in the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, the Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa exposed the arrangement on November 3, 1986. This was the first public reporting of the weapons-for-hostages deal. The operation was discovered only after an airlift of guns (Corporate Air Services HPF821) was downed over Nicaragua. Eugene Hasenfus, who was captured by Nicaraguan authorities after surviving the plane crash, initially alleged in a press conference on Nicaraguan soil that two of his coworkers, Max Gomez and Ramon Medina, worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. He later said he did not know whether they did or not. The Iranian government confirmed the Ash-Shiraa story, and ten days after the story was first published, President Reagan appeared on national television from the Oval Office on November 13, stating:\n\nMy purpose was... to send a signal that the United States was prepared to replace the animosity between [the U.S. and Iran] with a new relationship... At the same time we undertook this initiative, we made clear that Iran must oppose all forms of international terrorism as a condition of progress in our relationship. The most significant step which Iran could take, we indicated, would be to use its influence in Lebanon to secure the release of all hostages held there.\n\nThe scandal was compounded when Oliver North destroyed or hid pertinent documents between November 21 and November 25, 1986. During North's trial in 1989, his secretary, Fawn Hall, testified extensively about helping North alter, shred, and remove official United States National Security Council (NSC) documents from the White House. According to the New York Times, enough documents were put into a government shredder to jam it. North's explanation for destroying some documents was to protect the lives of individuals involved in Iran and Contra operations. It was not until 1993, years after the trial, that North's notebooks were made public, and only after the National Security Archive and Public Citizen sued the Office of the Independent Counsel under the Freedom of Information Act. \n\nDuring the trial, North testified that on November 21, 22, or 24, he witnessed Poindexter destroy what may have been the only signed copy of a presidential covert-action finding that sought to authorize CIA participation in the November 1985 Hawk missile shipment to Iran. U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese admitted on November 25 that profits from weapons sales to Iran were made available to assist the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. On the same day, John Poindexter resigned, and President Reagan fired Oliver North. Poindexter was replaced by Frank Carlucci on December 2, 1986. \n\nIn his exposé Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981–1987, journalist Bob Woodward chronicles the role of the CIA in facilitating the transfer of funds from the Iran arms sales to the Nicaraguan Contras spearheaded by Oliver North. According to Woodward, then Director of the CIA, William J. Casey, admitted to him February 1987 that he was aware of the diversion of funds to the contras. The controversial admission occurred while Casey was hospitalized for a stroke, and, according to his wife, was unable to communicate. On May 6, 1987, William Casey died the day after Congress began its public hearings on Iran–Contra. Independent Counsel, Lawrence Walsh later wrote: \"Independent Counsel obtained no documentary evidence showing Casey knew about or approved the diversion. The only direct testimony linking Casey to early knowledge of the diversion came from [Oliver] North.\" \n\nTower Commission\n\nOn November 25, 1986, President Reagan announced the creation of a Special Review Board to look into the matter; the following day, he appointed former Senator John Tower, former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft to serve as members. This Presidential Commission took effect on December 1 and became known as the Tower Commission. The main objectives of the commission were to inquire into \"the circumstances surrounding the Iran-Contra matter, other case studies that might reveal strengths and weaknesses in the operation of the National Security Council system under stress, and the manner in which that system has served eight different presidents since its inception in 1947\". The Tower Commission was the first presidential commission to review and evaluate the National Security Council.\n\nPresident Reagan appeared before the Tower Commission on December 2, 1986, to answer questions regarding his involvement in the affair. When asked about his role in authorizing the arms deals, he first stated that he had; later, he appeared to contradict himself by stating that he had no recollection of doing so. In his 1990 autobiography, An American Life, Reagan acknowledges authorizing the shipments to Israel. \n\nThe report published by the Tower Commission was delivered to the president on February 26, 1987. The Commission had interviewed 80 witnesses to the scheme, including Reagan, and two of the arms trade middlemen: Manucher Ghorbanifar and Adnan Khashoggi. The 200-page report was the most comprehensive of any released, criticizing the actions of Oliver North, John Poindexter, Caspar Weinberger, and others. It determined that President Reagan did not have knowledge of the extent of the program, especially about the diversion of funds to the Contras, although it argued that the president ought to have had better control of the National Security Council staff. The report heavily criticized Reagan for not properly supervising his subordinates or being aware of their actions. A major result of the Tower Commission was the consensus that Reagan should have listened to his National Security Advisor more, thereby placing more power in the hands of that chair.\n\nCongressional committees investigating the Iran–Contra affair\n\nThe Democratic-controlled United States Congress issued its own report on November 18, 1987, stating that \"If the president did not know what his national security advisers were doing, he should have\". The congressional report wrote that the president bore \"ultimate responsibility\" for wrongdoing by his aides, and his administration exhibited \"secrecy, deception and disdain for the law\". It also read that \"the central remaining question is the role of the President in the Iran–Contra affair. On this critical point, the shredding of documents by Poindexter, North and others, and the death of Casey, leave the record incomplete\".\n\nAftermath\n\nReagan expressed regret regarding the situation during a nationally televised address from the Oval Office on March 4, 1987, and two other speeches; Reagan had not spoken to the American people directly for three months amidst the scandal. President Reagan told the American people the reason he did not update them on the scandal:\n\nThe reason I haven't spoken to you before now is this: You deserve the truth. And as frustrating as the waiting has been, I felt it was improper to come to you with sketchy reports, or possibly even erroneous statements, which would then have to be corrected, creating even more doubt and confusion. There's been enough of that.\n\nHe then took full responsibility for the acts committed:\nFirst, let me say I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration. As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities. As disappointed as I may be in some who served me, I'm still the one who must answer to the American people for this behavior.\n\nFinally, the president stated that his previous assertions that the U.S. did not trade arms for hostages were incorrect:\nA few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages. This runs counter to my own beliefs, to administration policy, and to the original strategy we had in mind.\n\nTo this day, Reagan's role in the transactions is not definitively known; it is unclear exactly what Reagan knew and when, and whether the arms sales were motivated by his desire to save the U.S. hostages. Oliver North wrote that \"Ronald Reagan knew of and approved a great deal of what went on with both the Iranian initiative and private efforts on behalf of the contras and he received regular, detailed briefings on both...I have no doubt that he was told about the use of residuals for the Contras, and that he approved it. Enthusiastically.\" Handwritten notes by Defense Secretary Weinberger indicate that the President was aware of potential hostages transfers with Iran, as well as the sale of Hawk and TOW missiles to what he was told were \"moderate elements\" within Iran. Notes taken on December 7, 1985, by Weinberger record that Reagan said that \"he could answer charges of illegality but he couldn't answer charge that 'big strong President Reagan passed up a chance to free hostages'\". The Republican-written \"Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair\" concluded, that There is some question and dispute about precisely the level at which he chose to follow the operation details. There is no doubt, however, ... [that] the President set the US policy towards Nicaragua, with few if any ambiguities, and then left subordinates more or less free to implement it. \n\nDomestically, the scandal precipitated a drop in President Reagan's popularity as his approval ratings saw \"the largest single drop for any U.S. president in history\", from 67% to 46% in November 1986, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll. The \"Teflon President\", as Reagan was nicknamed by critics, survived the scandal, however, and by January 1989 a Gallup poll was \"recording a 64% approval rating\", the highest ever recorded for a departing President at that time. \n\nInternationally, the damage was more severe. Magnus Ranstorp wrote, \"U.S. willingness to engage in concessions with Iran and the Hezbollah not only signaled to its adversaries that hostage-taking was an extremely useful instrument in extracting political and financial concessions for the West but also undermined any credibility of U.S. criticism of other states' deviation from the principles of no-negotiation and no concession to terrorists and their demands\". \n\nIn Iran, Mehdi Hashemi, the leaker of the scandal, was executed in 1987, allegedly for activities unrelated to the scandal. Though Hashemi made a full video confession to numerous serious charges, some observers find the coincidence of his leak and the subsequent prosecution highly suspicious. \n\nIndictments\n\n* Caspar Weinberger, Secretary of Defense, was indicted on two counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice on June 16, 1992. Weinberger received a pardon from George H. W. Bush on December 24, 1992, before he was tried. \n* Robert C. McFarlane, National Security Adviser, convicted of withholding evidence, but after a plea bargain was given only two years of probation. Later pardoned by President George H. W. Bush. \n* Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State, convicted of withholding evidence, but after a plea bargain was given only two years probation. Later pardoned by President George H. W. Bush. \n* Alan D. Fiers, Chief of the CIA's Central American Task Force, convicted of withholding evidence and sentenced to one year probation. Later pardoned by President George H. W. Bush.\n* Clair George, Chief of Covert Ops-CIA, convicted on two charges of perjury, but pardoned by President George H. W. Bush before sentencing. \n* Oliver North, member of the National Security Council convicted of accepting an illegal gratuity, obstruction of a congressional inquiry, and destruction of documents, but the ruling was overturned since he had been granted immunity. \n* Fawn Hall, Oliver North's secretary, was given immunity from prosecution on charges of conspiracy and destroying documents in exchange for her testimony. \n* Jonathan Scott Royster, Liaison to Oliver North, was given immunity from prosecution on charges of conspiracy and destroying documents in exchange for his testimony. \n* National Security Advisor John Poindexter was convicted of five counts of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, perjury, defrauding the government, and the alteration and destruction of evidence. A panel of the D.C. Circuit overturned the convictions on November 15, 1991 by a vote of 2 to 1 and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. \n* Duane Clarridge. An ex-CIA senior official, he was indicted in November 1991 on seven counts of perjury and false statements relating to a November 1985 shipment to Iran. Pardoned before trial by President George H. W. Bush. \n* Richard V. Secord. Former Air Force major general, who was involved in arms transfers to Iran and diversion of funds to Contras, he pleaded guilty in November 1989 to making false statements to Congress and was sentenced to two years of probation. As part of his plea bargain, Secord agreed to provide further truthful testimony in exchange for the dismissal of remaining criminal charges against him. \n* Albert Hakim. A businessman, he pleaded guilty in November 1989 to supplementing the salary of North by buying a $13,800 fence for North with money from \"the Enterprise,\" which was a set of foreign companies Hakim used in Iran-Contra. In addition, Swiss company Lake Resources Inc., used for storing money from arms sales to Iran to give to the Contras, plead guilty to stealing government property. Hakim was given two years of probation and a $5,000 fine, while Lake Resources Inc. was ordered to dissolve.\n\nOliver North and John Poindexter were indicted on multiple charges on March 16, 1988. North, indicted on 16 counts, was found guilty by a jury of three felony counts. The convictions were vacated on appeal on the grounds that North's Fifth Amendment rights may have been violated by the indirect use of his testimony to Congress, which had been given under a grant of immunity. In 1990, Poindexter was convicted on several felony counts of conspiracy, lying to Congress, obstruction of justice, and altering and destroying documents pertinent to the investigation. His convictions were also overturned on appeal on similar grounds. Arthur L. Liman served as chief counsel for the Senate during the Iran–Contra Scandal. \n\nThe Independent Counsel, Lawrence E. Walsh, chose not to re-try North or Poindexter. In total, several dozen people were investigated by Walsh's office. \n\nDuring his election campaign in 1988, Vice President Bush denied any knowledge of the Iran–Contra affair by saying he was \"out of the loop\". Though his diaries included that he was \"one of the few people that know fully the details\", he repeatedly refused to discuss the incident and won the election. However, a book published in 2008 by Israeli journalist and terrorism expert Ronen Bergman asserts that Bush was personally and secretly briefed on the affair by Amiram Nir, counterterrorism adviser to the then Israeli Prime Minister, when Bush was on a visit to Israel. \"Nir could have incriminated the incoming President. The fact that Nir was killed in a mysterious chartered airplane crash in Mexico in December 1988 has given rise to numerous conspiracy theories\", writes Bergman. On December 24, 1992, nearing the end of his term in office after being defeated by Bill Clinton the previous month, Bush pardoned six administration officials, namely Elliott Abrams, Duane Clarridge, Alan Fiers, Clair George, Robert McFarlane, and Caspar Weinberger. \n\nIn Poindexter's hometown of Odon, Indiana, a street was renamed to John Poindexter Street. Bill Breeden, a former minister, stole the street's sign in protest of the Iran–Contra affair. He claimed that he was holding it for a ransom of $30 million, in reference to the amount of money given to Iran to transfer to the Contras. He was later arrested and confined to prison, making him, as satirically noted by Howard Zinn, \"the only person to be imprisoned as a result of the Iran–Contra Scandal\". \n\nReports and documents\n\nThe 100th Congress formed a joint committee (Congressional Committees Investigating The Iran-Contra Affair) and held hearings in mid-1987. Transcripts were published as: Iran-Contra Investigation: Joint Hearings Before the Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition and the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran (U.S. GPO 1987-88). A closed Executive Session heard classified testimony from North and Poindexter; this transcript was published in a redacted format. The joint committee's final report was Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair With Supplemental, Minority, and Additional Views (U.S. GPO November 17, 1987). The records of the committee are at the National Archives, but many are still non-public. \n\nTestimony was also heard before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and can be found in the Congressional Record for those bodies. The Senate Intelligence Committee produced two reports: Preliminary Inquiry into the Sale of Arms to Iran and Possible Diversion of Funds to the Nicaraguan Resistance (February 2, 1987) and Were Relevant Documents Withheld from the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair? (June 1989). \n\nThe Tower Commission Report was published as the Report of the President's Special Review Board. U.S. GPO February 26, 1987. It was also published as The Tower Commission Report, Bantam Books, 1987, ISBN 0-553-26968-2 \n\nThe Office of Independent Counsel/Walsh investigation produced four interim reports to Congress. Its final report was published as the Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters. Walsh's records are available at the National Archives." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Fawn Hall" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "fawn hall" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "fawn hall", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Fawn Hall" }
Which singer married director Blake Edwards?	tc_1280	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Blake_Edwards.txt" ], "title": [ "Blake Edwards" ], "wiki_context": [ "Blake Edwards (born William Blake Crump; July 26, 1922 – December 15, 2010) was an American film director, screenwriter and producer.\n\nEdwards began his career in the 1940s as an actor, but he soon began writing screenplays and radio scripts before turning to producing and directing in film and television. His best-known films include Breakfast at Tiffany's, Days of Wine and Roses, 10, Victor/Victoria and the hugely successful Pink Panther film series with British comedian Peter Sellers. Often thought of as primarily a director of comedies, he also directed dramas and detective films. Late in his career, he transitioned to writing, producing and directing for theater.\n\nIn 2004, he received an Honorary Academy Award in recognition of his writing, directing and producing an extraordinary body of work for the screen. \n\nEarly life\n\nBorn William Blake Crump in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he was the son of Donald (c.1890-????) and Lillian (Grommett) Crump (1897-1992). His father reportedly left the family before he was born. His mother married again, to Jack McEdwards, who became his stepfather. McEdwards was the son of J. Gordon Edwards, a director of silent movies, and in 1925 he moved the family to Los Angeles and became a film production manager.Wakeman, John (Ed.) World Film Directors Vol. 2. H.W. Wilson Co. (1988) pp. 302–310 In an interview with the Village Voice in 1971, Blake Edwards said that he had \"always felt alienated, estranged from my own father, Jack McEdwards\".Village Voice, [https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid1299&dat\n19710805&idVclHAAAAIBAJ&sjid\n7YsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6592,2244716 \"Confessions of a Cult Figure\"], Stuart Byron, August 5, 1971 p56 After attending grammar and high school in Los Angeles, Blake began taking jobs as an actor during World War II.\n\nEdwards describes this period:\nI worked with the best directors – Ford, Wyler, Preminger – and learned a lot from them. But I wasn't a very cooperative actor. I was a spunky, smart-assed kid. Maybe even then I was indicating that I wanted to give, not take, direction.\n\nEdwards served in the United States Coast Guard during World War II, where he suffered a severe back injury, which left him in pain for years afterwards.\n\nCareer\n\nEdwards' debut as a director came in 1952 on the television program Four Star Playhouse. \n\nIn the 1954–1955 television season, Edwards joined with Richard Quine to create Mickey Rooney's first television series, The Mickey Rooney Show: Hey, Mulligan, a sitcom about a young studio page trying to become a serious actor. Edwards's hard-boiled private detective scripts for Richard Diamond, Private Detective became NBC's answer to Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, reflecting Edwards's unique humor. Edwards also created, wrote and directed the 1959 TV series Peter Gunn, which starred Craig Stevens, with music by Henry Mancini. In the same year Edwards produced, with Mancini's musical theme, Mr. Lucky, an adventure series on CBS starring John Vivyan and Ross Martin. Mancini's association with Edwards continued in his film work, significantly contributing to their success.\n\n;Operation Petticoat (1959)\nOperation Petticoat was Edwards's first big-budget movie as a director. The film, which starred Tony Curtis and Cary Grant, became the \"greatest box-office success of the decade for Universal [Studios],\" and made Edwards a recognized director.\n\n;Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)\nBreakfast at Tiffany's, based on the novel by Truman Capote, is credited with establishing him as a \"cult figure\" with many critics. Andrew Sarris called it the \"directorial surprise of 1961\", and it became a \"romantic touchstone\" for college students in the early 1960s.\n\n;Days of Wine and Roses (1962)\nDays of Wine And Roses, a dark psychological film about the effects of alcoholism on a previously happy marriage, starred Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick. It has been described as \"perhaps the most unsparing tract against drink that Hollywood has yet produced, more pessimistic than Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend\". The film gave another major boost to Edwards's reputation as an important director.\n\nEdwards's most popular films were comedies, the melodrama Days of Wine and Roses being a notable exception. His most dynamic and successful collaboration was with Peter Sellers in six of the movies in the Pink Panther series. Five of the those involved Edwards and Sellers in original material, while Trail of the Pink Panther, made after Sellers died in 1980, was made up of unused material from The Pink Panther Strikes Again. He also worked with Sellers on the film The Party. Edwards later directed the comedy film 10 with Dudley Moore and Bo Derek.\n\n;Darling Lili (1970)\nDarling Lili, whose star, Julie Andrews, Edwards later married, is considered by many followers of Edwards's films as \"the director's masterpiece\". According to critic George Morris, \"it synthesizes every major Edwards theme: the disappearance of gallantry and honor, the tension between appearances and reality and the emotional, spiritual, moral, and psychological disorder\" in such a world. Edwards used difficult cinematography techniques, including long-shot zooms, tracking, and focus distortion, to great effect.\n\nThe film failed badly, however, at the box-office. At a cost of $17 million to make, few people went to see it, and the few who did were unimpressed. It brought Paramount Pictures to \"the verge of financial collapse,\" and became an example of \"self-indulgent extravagance\" in filmmaking \"that was ruining Hollywood.\"\n\n;Pink Panther film series\nEdwards is best known for directing most of the comedy film series The Pink Panther, all of those starring Peter Sellers as the inept Inspector Clouseau. It was considered a fruitful, yet complicated, relationship between the director and the lead actor, with many disagreements during production. At various times in their film relationship, \"he more than once swore off Sellers\" as too hard to direct. However, in his later years, he admitted that working with Sellers was often irresistible:\n \"We clicked on comedy, and we were lucky we found each other, because we both had so much respect for it. We also had an ability to come up with funny things and great situations that had to be explored. But in that exploration there would oftentimes be disagreement. But I couldn't resist those moments when we jelled. And if you ask me who contributed most to those things, it couldn't have happened unless both of us were involved, even though it wasn't always happy.\"[http://www.dgaquarterly.org/BACKISSUES/Summer2009/FeaturesBlakeEdwards.aspx \"Blake Edwards:Old School\"] Directors Guild of America Quarterly, Summer 2009.\n\nThe films were all highly profitable. The Return of the Pink Panther (1975), for example, cost just $2.5 million to make, but grossed $100 million, while The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), did even better.\n\n;Honorary Academy Award\nIn 2003, Edwards received an Honorary Academy Award for cumulative achievements over the course of his film career. \n\nSilent-film style\n\nHaving grown up in Hollywood, the step-son of a studio production manager and step-grandson of a silent-film director, Edwards had watched the films of the great silent-era comedians, including Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Laurel and Hardy. Both he and Sellers appreciated and understood the comedy styles in silent-films and tried to recreate it in their work together. After their immense success with the first two Pink Panther films, The Pink Panther (1963) and A Shot in the Dark (1964), which adapted many silent-film aspects, including slapstick, they attempted to go even further in The Party (1968). Although the film is relatively unknown, some have considered it a \"masterpiece in this vein\" of silent comedy, even though it included minimal dialogue.Kehr, Dave. International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers – 2: Directors 3rd Ed. St. James Press (1997)pp. 291–294 \n\nPersonal life\n\nEdwards married his first wife, actress Patricia Walker, in 1953. They had two children, and divorced in 1967. She appeared in the comedy All Ashore (1953), for which Edwards was one of the screenwriters.\n\nEdwards' second marriage from 1969 until his death was to Julie Andrews. Andrews had a daughter, Emma, from her previous marriage, and the couple adopted two orphans from Vietnam in the early 1970s, Amelia Leigh and Joanna Lynne. Andrews appeared in a number of his films, including Darling Lili, 10, Victor Victoria and the autobiographical satire S.O.B., in which Andrews played a character who was a caricature of herself. In 1995, he wrote the book for the stage musical adaptation of Victor/Victoria, also starring Andrews.\n\nEdwards described his struggle with the illness chronic fatigue syndrome for 15 years in the documentary I Remember Me (2000). \n\nDeath\n\nOn December 15, 2010, Edwards died of complications of pneumonia at the Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California. His wife and children were at his side. His death came after 15 years of suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome and depression. \n\nLegacy\n\nEdwards was greatly admired as well as criticized as a filmmaker during his career. On the negative side, general critique included this by American film author George Morris:\nIt has been difficult for many critics to accept Blake Edwards as anything more than a popular entertainer. Edwards' detractors acknowledge his formal skill but deplore the absence of profundity in his movies. Edwards' movies are slick and glossy, but their shiny surfaces reflect all too accurately the disposable values of contemporary life.\n\nOthers, however, recognized him more for his significant achievements at different periods of his career. British film critic Peter Lloyd, for example, described Edwards, in 1971, as \"the finest director working in the American commercial cinema at the present time.\" Edwards' biographers, William Luhr and Peter Lehman, in an interview in 1974, called him \"the finest American director working at this time.\" They refer especially to the Pink Panthers Clouseau, developed with the comedic skills of Peter Sellers, as a character \"perfectly consistent\" with his \"absurdist view of the world, because he has no faith in anything and constantly adapts.\" Critic Stuart Byron calls his early Pink Panther films \"two of the best comedies an American has ever made.\" Polls taken at the time showed that his name, as a director, was a rare \"marketable commodity\" in Hollywood.\n\nEdwards himself described one of the secrets to success in the film industry:\nFor someone who wants to practice his art in this business, all you can hope to do, as S.O.B. says, is stick to your guns, make the compromises you must, and hope that somewhere along the way you acquire a few good friends who understand. And keep half a conscience.\"\n\nFilmography\n\nPanhandle (1948) [writer/producer]\nStampede (1949) [writer/producer]\nSound Off (1952) [writer]\nRainbow 'Round My Shoulder (1952) [writer]\nAll Ashore (1953) [writer]\nCruisin' Down the River (1953) [writer]\nDrive a Crooked Road (1954) [writer]\nThe Atomic Kid (1954) [writer]\nBring Your Smile Along (1955) [writer/director]\nMy Sister Eileen (1955) [writer]\nHe Laughed Last (1956) [writer/director]\nMister Cory (1957) [writer/director]\nOperation Mad Ball (1957) [writer]\nThis Happy Feeling (1958) [writer/director]\nThe Perfect Furlough (1958) [director]\nOperation Petticoat (1959) [director]\nHigh Time (1960) [director]\nBreakfast at Tiffany's (1961) [director]\nThe Couch (1962) [writer]\nExperiment in Terror (1962) [producer/director]\nThe Notorious Landlady (1962) [writer]\nDays of Wine and Roses (1962) [director]\nSoldier in the Rain (1963) [writer/producer]\nThe Pink Panther (1963) [writer/producer/director]\nA Shot in the Dark (1964) [writer/producer/director]\nThe Great Race (1965) [writer/producer/director]\nWhat Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966) [writer/producer/director]\nGunn (1967) [writer/producer/director]\nWaterhole No. 3 (1967) [executive producer]\nThe Party (1968) [writer/producer/director]\nInspector Clouseau (1968) [writer]\nDarling Lili (1970) [writer/producer/director]\nWild Rovers (1971) [writer/producer/director]\nThe Carey Treatment (1972) [director]\nThe Tamarind Seed (1974) [writer/producer/director]\nThe Return of the Pink Panther (1975) [writer/producer/director]\nThe Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976) [writer/producer/director]\nRevenge of the Pink Panther (1978) [writer/producer/director]\n10 (1979) [writer/producer/director]\nS.O.B. (1981) [writer/producer/director]\nVictor Victoria (1982) [writer/producer/director]\nTrail of the Pink Panther (1982) [writer/producer/director]\nCurse of the Pink Panther (1983) [writer/producer/director]\nThe Man Who Loved Women (1983) [writer/producer/director]\nCity Heat (1984) [writer] (he replaced his name with the credit alias \"Sam O. Brown,\" after his own previous film S.O.B.--see above--when denied permission to direct as well; Richard Benjamin directed instead)\nMicki + Maude (1984) [producer/director]\nA Fine Mess (1986) [writer/producer/director]\nThat's Life (1986) [writer/producer/director]\nBlind Date (1987) [producer/director]\nSunset (1988) [writer/producer/director]\nSkin Deep (1989) [writer/producer/director]\nSwitch (1991) [writer/producer/director]\nSon of the Pink Panther (1993) [writer/producer/director]\nThe Pink Panther (2006) [creator acknowledgement]\nThe Pink Panther 2 (2009) [creator acknowledgement]\n\nTelevision credits\n\nInvitation Playhouse: Mind Over Murder (1952 TV anthology series) [writer – episode #2]\nFour Star Playhouse (1952–1956 TV anthology series) [writer/director – multiple episodes]\nCity Detective (1953–1955 TV series) [associate producer; director - episode #38]\nThe Mickey Rooney Show: Hey, Mulligan (1954–1955 TV series) [creator]\nMickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (1954 series pilot) [writer/director]\nThe Pepsi-Cola Playhouse (1954 episode) [writer/director - episode #3] (unsold pilot for Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator)\nThe Lineup (1954 episode) [writer – episode 8]\nThe Star and the Story (1955 episode) [director - episode 5]\nFireside Theatre (1955 episode) [writer - episode 9], [director - episode 18] \nChevron Hall of Stars (1956 episode) [writer - episode #12] (pilot for Richard Diamond, Private Detective)\nFord Television Theatre (1956 episode) [writer - episode #31] [unsold pilot for proposed \"Johnny Abel\" detective series]\nRichard Diamond, Private Detective (1957–1960 TV series) [creator]\nMeet McGraw (1957 episode) [writer – episode 4]\nStudio 57 (1957 episode) [writer - episode 28]\nPeter Gunn (1958–1961 TV series) [creator/producer; writer/director – multiple episodes]\nMr. Lucky (1959–1960 TV series) [creator/producer; writer/director – episode #1]\nDante (1960–1961 TV series) [creator] (spin-off of Four Star Playhouse)\nThe Dick Powell Show (1962 episode) [writer/director - episode #28] [first of two unsold pilots for \"The Boston Terrier\" detective series]\nJohnny Dollar (1962 unsold series pilot) [writer/producer/director]\nHouse of Seven (1962 unsold series pilot) [creator/producer]\nThe Boston Terrier (1963 unsold series pilot) [creator/producer]\nThe Monk (1969 TV movie) [writer] \nCasino (1980 TV movie) [executive consultant]\nThe Ferret (1984 unsold series pilot) [creator/producer]\nJustin Case (1988 TV movie) [writer/producer/director] \nPeter Gunn (1989 TV movie) [writer/producer/director] \nJulie (1992 TV series) [executive producer/director] \nMortal Sins (1992 TV movie) [executive producer]\nVictor/Victoria (1995 live TV production) [writer/producer/director]\n\nRadio drama credits\n\nRichard Diamond, Private Detective (1949–1953) [creator/writer/director]\nBroadway Is My Beat (1950) [writer - episode #14]\nThe Lineup (1950–1952) [writer – multiple episodes]\nYours Truly, Johnny Dollar (1951–1953) [writer – multiple episodes]\nSuspense (1951) [writer – multiple episodes]\n\nTheater credits\n\nVictor/Victoria (1995–1999 Broadway production and tour) [writer/producer/director]\nMinor Demons (1997 off-Broadway production) [producer] \nBig Rosemary (1999 off-Broadway production) [writer/producer/director] (adaptation of He Laughed Last)" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Julia Elizabeth Wells", "Julie Elizabeth Andrews, DBE", "Julie Andrews Edwards", "Julie Wells", "Julie Elizabeth Wells", "Julie Elizabeth Andrews", "Dame Julie Andrews", "Julie Elizabeth Andrews DBE", "Julie andrews", "Julie Andrews" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "julie elizabeth wells", "julie elizabeth andrews dbe", "julie elizabeth andrews", "julia elizabeth wells", "julie andrews", "julie wells", "dame julie andrews", "julie andrews edwards" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "julie andrews", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Julie Andrews" }
For which movie did Meryl Streep win her first Oscar?	tc_1286	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Meryl_Streep.txt" ], "title": [ "Meryl Streep" ], "wiki_context": [ "Mary Louise \"Meryl\" Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. Cited in the media as the \"best actress of her generation\", Streep is particularly known for her versatility in her roles, transformation into the characters she plays, and her accent adaptation. She made her professional stage debut in The Playboy of Seville in 1971, and went on to receive a 1976 Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for A Memory of Two Mondays/27 Wagons Full of Cotton. She made her screen debut in the 1977 television film The Deadliest Season, and made her film debut later that same year in Julia. In 1978, she won an Emmy Award for her role in the miniseries Holocaust, and received her first Academy Award nomination for The Deer Hunter. Nominated for 19 Academy Awards in total, Streep has more nominations than any other actor or actress in history; she won Best Supporting Actress for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), and Best Actress for Sophie's Choice (1982) and for The Iron Lady (2011).\n\nStreep is one of only six actors to have won three or more competitive Academy Awards for acting. Her other nominated roles are The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), Silkwood (1983), Out of Africa (1985), Ironweed (1987), Evil Angels (1988), Postcards from the Edge (1990), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), One True Thing (1998), Music of the Heart (1999), Adaptation (2002), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Doubt (2008), Julie & Julia (2009), August: Osage County (2013), and Into the Woods (2014). She returned to the stage for the first time in over 20 years in The Public Theater's 2001 revival of The Seagull, won a second Emmy Award in 2004 for the HBO miniseries Angels in America (2003), and starred in the Public Theater's 2006 production of Mother Courage and Her Children.\n\nStreep has also received 29 Golden Globe nominations, winning eight—more nominations, and more competitive (non-honorary) wins than any other actor (male or female) in the history of the award. Her work has also earned her two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Cannes Film Festival award, five New York Film Critics Circle Awards, two BAFTA awards, two Australian Film Institute awards, five Grammy Award nominations, and five Drama Desk Award nominations, among several others. She was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2004 and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2011 for her contribution to American culture through performing arts. President Barack Obama awarded her the 2010 National Medal of Arts and in 2014 the Presidential Medal of Freedom. \nIn 2003, the government of France made her a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters. \n\nEarly life\n\nMary Louise Streep was born on June 22, 1949 in Summit, New Jersey, to Mary Wolf Wilkinson (1915–2001), a commercial artist and art editor; and Harry William Streep Jr. (1910–2003), a pharmaceutical executive. The eldest child, she has two younger brothers, Dana David and Harry William III.\n\nStreep's father was of German and Swiss ancestry. Her father's lineage traces back to Loffenau, Germany, from where her second great-grandfather, Gottfried Streeb, emigrated to the United States, and where one of her ancestors served as mayor (the surname was later changed to \"Streep\"). Another line of her father's family was from Giswil, Switzerland. Her mother had English, German, and Irish ancestry. Some of Streep's maternal ancestors lived in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island and were descended from 17th-century immigrants from England. Her eighth great-grandfather, Lawrence Wilkinson, was one of the first Europeans to settle in Rhode Island. Streep is also a distant relative of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania; records show that her family is among the first purchasers of land in the state. Streep's maternal great-great-grandparents, Manus McFadden and Grace Strain, the namesake of Streep's second daughter, were natives of the Horn Head district of Dunfanaghy, Ireland. \n\nStreep's mother, whom she has compared in both appearance and manner to Dame Judi Dench, strongly encouraged her daughter and instilled confidence in her from a very young age. Streep has said: \"She was a mentor because she said to me, 'Meryl, you're capable. You're so great.' She was saying, 'You can do whatever you put your mind to. If you're lazy, you're not going to get it done. But if you put your mind to it, you can do anything.' And I believed her.\" Although Streep was naturally more introverted than her mother, at times when she later needed an injection of confidence in adulthood she would consult her mother, asking her for advice. Streep was raised as a Presbyterian in Bernardsville, New Jersey, where she attended Bernards High School. Author Karina Longworth described her as a \"gawky kid with glasses and frizzy hair\", yet noted that she liked to show off in front of the camera in family home videos from a young age. At the age of 12, Streep was selected to sing at a school recital, which led to her having opera lessons from Estelle Liebling. However, despite her talent, she remarked that \"I was singing something I didn't feel and understand. That was an important lesson—not to do that. To find the thing that I could feel through\". She quit after four years. Streep had many Catholic school friends, and regularly attended mass. \n\nAlthough in high school Streep appeared in numerous school plays, she was uninterested in serious theatre until acting in the play Miss Julie at Vassar College in 1969, in which she gained attention across the campus. Vassar drama professor Clinton J Atkinson noted, \"I don't think anyone ever taught Meryl acting. She really taught herself\". Streep demonstrated an early ability to mimic accents and to quickly memorize her lines. She received her BA cum laude from the college in 1971, before applying for an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. At Yale she supplemented her course fees by waitressing and typing, and appeared in over a dozen stage productions a year, to the point that she became overworked, developing ulcers. She contemplated quitting acting and switching to study law. Streep played a variety of roles onstage, from Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream to an 80-year-old woman in a wheelchair in a comedy written by then-unknown playwrights Christopher Durang and Albert Innaurato. One of her teachers was Robert Lewis, one of the co-founders of the Actors Studio. Streep disapproved of some of the acting exercises she was asked to do, remarking that the professors \"delved into personal lives in a way I find obnoxious\". She received her MFA from Yale in 1975. Streep also enrolled as a visiting student at Dartmouth College in the fall of 1970, and received an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree from the college in 1981.\n\nCareer\n\n1970s\n\nTheater and film debut\n\nStreep moved to New York City in 1975, and was cast by Joseph Papp in a production of Trelawny of the Wells at the Public Theater, opposite Mandy Patinkin and John Lithgow. She went on to appear in five more roles in her first year in New York, including in Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival productions of Henry V, The Taming of the Shrew with Raúl Juliá, and Measure for Measure opposite Sam Waterston and John Cazale. She entered into a relationship with Cazale at this time, and resided with him until his death three years later. She starred in the musical Happy End on Broadway, and won an Obie for her performance in the off-Broadway play Alice at the Palace.\n\nAlthough she had not set out for a film career, Robert De Niro's performance in Taxi Driver (1976) had a profound impact on young Streep, who said to herself, \"that's the kind of actor I want to be when I grow up\". Streep began auditioning for film roles, and underwent an unsuccessful audition for the lead role in Dino De Laurentiis's King Kong. Laurentiis stated in Italian to his son: \"This is so ugly. Why did you bring me this\". Unknown to Laurentiis, Streep understood Italian and she remarked, \"I'm very sorry that I'm not as beautiful as I should be but, you know—this is it. This is what you get\". She continued to work on Broadway, appearing in the 1976 double bill of Tennessee Williams' 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Arthur Miller's A Memory of Two Mondays. For the former, she received a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play nomination. Streep's other Broadway credits include Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard and the Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill musical Happy End, in which she had originally appeared off-Broadway at the Chelsea Theater Center. She received Drama Desk Award nominations for both productions.\n\nStreep's first feature film role came opposite Jane Fonda in the 1977 film Julia, in which she had a small role during a flashback sequence. Most of her scenes were edited out, but the brief time on screen horrified the actress: \"I had a bad wig and they took the words from the scene I shot with Jane and put them in my mouth in a different scene. I thought, I've made a terrible mistake, no more movies. I hate this business\". However, Streep cites Fonda as having a lasting influence on her as an actress, and has credited her as \"open[ing] probably more doors than I probably even know about\".\n\nBreakthrough\n\nRobert De Niro, who had spotted Streep in her stage production of The Cherry Orchard, suggested that she play the role of his girlfriend in the war film The Deer Hunter (1978). Cazale, who had been diagnosed with lung cancer, was also cast in the film, and Streep took on the role of a \"vague, stock girlfriend\" to remain with Cazale for the duration of filming. Longworth notes that Streep \"made a case for female empowerment by playing a woman to whom empowerment was a foreign concept—a normal lady from an average American small town, for whom subservience was the only thing she knew\". Pauline Kael, who would later become a strong critic of Streep's, remarked that Streep was a \"real beauty\" who brought much freshness to the film with her performance. The film's success exposed Streep to a wider audience and earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. \n\nIn the 1978 miniseries Holocaust, Streep played the leading role of a German woman married to a Jewish artist in Nazi era Germany. She found the material to be \"unrelentingly noble\" and professed to have taken on the role for financial gain. Streep travelled to Germany and Austria for filming while Cazale remained in New York. Upon her return, Streep found that Cazale's illness had progressed, and she nursed him until his death on March 12, 1978. With an estimated audience of 109 million, Holocaust brought a wider degree of public recognition to Streep, who found herself \"on the verge of national visibility\". She won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for her performance. Despite the awards success, Streep was still not enthusiastic towards her film career and preferred acting on stage.\n\nHoping to divert herself from the grief of Cazale's death, Streep accepted a role in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979) as the chirpy love interest of Alan Alda, later commenting that she played it on \"automatic pilot\". She performed the role of Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew for Shakespeare in the Park, and also played a supporting role in Manhattan (1979) for Woody Allen. Streep later said that Allen did not provide her with a complete script, giving her only the six pages of her own scenes, and did not permit her to improvise a word of her dialogue. In the drama Kramer vs. Kramer, Streep was cast opposite Dustin Hoffman as an unhappily married woman who abandons her husband and child. Streep thought that the script portrayed the female character as \"too evil\" and insisted that it was not representative of real women who faced marriage breakdown and child custody battles. The makers agreed with her, and the script was revised. In preparing for the part, Streep spoke to her own mother about her life as a wife with a career, and frequented the Upper East Side neighborhood in which the film was set, watching the interactions between parents and children. The director Robert Benton allowed Streep to write her own dialogue in two key scenes, despite some objection from Hoffman, who \"hated her guts\". Jaffee and Hoffman later spoke of Streep's tirelessness, with Hoffman commenting, \"She's extraordinarily hardworking, to the extent that she's obsessive. I think that she thinks about nothing else but what she's doing.\" The film was controversial among feminists, but it was a role which film critic Stephen Farber believed displayed Streep's \"own emotional intensity\", writing that she was one of the \"rare performers who can imbue the most routine moments with a hint of mystery\".\n\nFor Kramer vs. Kramer, Streep won both the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. She was also awarded the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress, National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress and National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress for her collective work in her three film releases of 1979. Both The Deer Hunter and Kramer vs. Kramer were major commercial successes and were the consecutive winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture. \n\n1980s\n\nRise to stardom\n\nIn 1979, Streep began workshopping Alice in Concert, a musical version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, with writer and composer Elizabeth Swados and director Joseph Papp; the show was put on at New York's Public Theater from December 1980. Frank Rich of The New York Times referred to Streep as the \"one wonder\" of the production, but questioned why she had devoted so much energy to it. By 1980, Streep had progressed to leading roles in films. She was featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine with the headline \"A Star for the 80s\", with Jack Kroll commenting, \"There's a sense of mystery in her acting; she doesn't simply imitate (although she's a great mimic in private). She transmits a sense of danger, a primal unease lying just below the surface of normal behavior\". Streep denounced the fervent media coverage of her at this time as \"excessive hype\".\n\nThe story within a story drama The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) was Streep's first leading role. The film paired Streep with Jeremy Irons as contemporary actors, telling their modern story, as well as the Victorian era drama they were performing. Streep perfected an English accent for the part, but considered herself a misfit for the role: \" I couldn't help wishing that I was more beautiful\". A New York Magazine article commented that, while many female stars of the past had cultivated a singular identity in their films, Streep was a \"chameleon\", willing to play any type of role. Streep was awarded a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work. The following year, she reunited with Robert Benton for the psychological thriller, Still of the Night (1982), co-starring Roy Scheider and Jessica Tandy. Vincent Canby, writing for The New York Times, noted that the film was an homage to the works of Alfred Hitchcock, but that one of its main weaknesses was a lack of chemistry between Streep and Scheider, concluding that Streep \"is stunning, but she's not on screen anywhere near long enough\". \n\nGreater success came later in 1982, when Streep starred in the drama Sophie's Choice (1982), portraying a Polish holocaust survivor caught in a love triangle between a young naive writer (Peter MacNicol) and a Jewish intellectual (Kevin Kline). Streep's emotional dramatic performance and her apparent mastery of a Polish accent drew praise. William Styron wrote the novel with Ursula Andress in mind for the role of Sophie, but Streep was determined to get the role. She obtained a bootlegged copy of the script, and threw herself on the ground begging the director Alan J. Pakula to give her the role. Streep filmed the \"choice\" scene in one take and refused to do it again, finding it extremely painful and emotionally exhausting. Emma Brockes of The Guardian believes the scene in which Streep is ordered by an SS guard at Auschwitz to choose which one of her two children would be gassed and which would proceed to the labor camp, is her most famous scene, remarking: \"It's classic Streep, the kind of scene that makes your scalp tighten, but defter in a way is her handling of smaller, harder-to-grasp emotions\". Among several notable acting awards, Streep won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance, and her characterization was voted the third greatest movie performance of all time by Premiere magazine. Roger Ebert said of her delivery, \"Streep plays the Brooklyn scenes with an enchanting Polish-American accent (she has the first accent I've ever wanted to hug), and she plays the flashbacks in subtitled German and Polish. There is hardly an emotion that Streep doesn't touch in this movie, and yet we're never aware of her straining. This is one of the most astonishing and yet one of the most unaffected and natural performances I can imagine.\" Pauline Kael on the contrary called the film an \"infuriatingly bad movie\" and thought that Streep \"decorporealizes\" herself, which she believed explained why her movie heroines \"don't seem to be full characters, and why there are no incidental joys to be had from watching her\".\n\nThe year 1983 saw Streep play her first non-fictional character, the nuclear whistleblower and labor union activist Karen Silkwood who died in a suspicious car accident while investigating alleged wrongdoing at the Kerr-McGee plutonium plant, in Mike Nichols's biographical film Silkwood. Streep felt a personal connection to Silkwood, and in preparation she met with people close to the woman, and in doing so realized that each person saw a different aspect of her personality. She said, \"I didn't try to turn myself into Karen. I just tried to look at what she did. I put together every piece of information I could find about her... What I finally did was look at the events in her life, and try to understand her from the inside.\" Jack Kroll of Newsweek considered Streep's characterization to have been \"brilliant\", while Silkwood's boyfriend Drew Stephens expressed approval in that Streep had played Karen as a human being rather than a myth, despite Karen's father Bill thinking that Streep and the film had dumbed his daughter down. Pauline Kael believed that Streep had been miscast. Streep next played opposite Robert De Niro in the romance Falling in Love (1984), which was poorly-received, and portrayed a fighter for the French Resistance during World War II in the British drama Plenty (1985). For the latter, Roger Ebert wrote that she conveyed \"great subtlety; it is hard to play an unbalanced, neurotic, self-destructive woman, and do it with such gentleness and charm... Streep creates a whole character around a woman who could have simply been a catalogue of symptoms.\" In 2008, Molly Haskell praised Streep's performance in Plenty, believing it to be \"one of Streep's most difficult and ambiguous\" films and \"most feminist\" role.\n\nOut of Africa and backlash\n\nLongworth considers Streep's next release, Out of Africa (1985), to have established her as a Hollywood superstar. In the film, Streep starred as the Danish writer Karen Blixen opposite Robert Redford's Denys Finch Hatton. Director Sydney Pollack was initially dubious about Streep in the role as he did not think she was sexy enough, and had considered Jane Seymour for the part. Pollack recalls that Streep impressed him in a different way: \"She was so direct, so honest, so without bullshit. There was no shielding between her and me.\" Streep and Pollack often clashed during the 101-day shoot in Kenya, particularly over Blixen's voice. Streep had spent much time listening to tapes of Blixen and began speaking in an old-fashioned and aristocratic fashion, which Pollack thought excessive. A significant commercial and critical success, the film earned Streep another Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, also winning Best Picture. Critic Stanley Kaufmann wrote, \"Meryl Streep is back in top form. This means her performance in Out of Africa is at the highest level of acting in film today\".\n\nLongworth notes that the dramatic success of Out of Africa led to a backlash of critical opinion against Streep in the years that followed, especially as she was now demanding $4 million a picture. Unlike other stars at the time such as Sylvester Stallone and Tom Cruise, Streep \"never seemed to play herself\", and certain critics felt her technical finesse led people to literally see her acting. Her next films did not appeal to a wide audience; she co-starred with Jack Nicholson in the dramas Heartburn (1986) and Ironweed (1987), in which she sang onscreen for the first time since the television movie, Secret Service (1977). In Evil Angels (1988), she played Lindy Chamberlain, an Australian woman who had been convicted of the murder of her infant daughter despite claiming that the baby had been taken by a dingo. Filmed in Australia, Streep won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, a Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. Streep has said of perfecting the Australian accent in the film: \"I had to study a little bit for Australian because it's not dissimilar [to American], so it's like coming from Italian to Spanish. You get a little mixed up\". Vincent Canby of The New York Times referred it to her performance as \"another stunning performance\", played with \"the kind of virtuosity that seems to redefine the possibilities of screen acting\". \n\nIn 1989, Streep lobbied to play the lead role in Oliver Stone's adaption of the play Evita, but two months before filming was due to commence she dropped out, citing \"exhaustion\" initially, although it was later revealed that there was a dispute over her salary. By the end of the decade, Streep actively looked to star in a comedy. She found the role in She-Devil (1989), a satire that parodied Hollywood's obsession with beauty and cosmetic surgery, in which she played a glamorous writer. Though not a success, Richard Corliss of Time wrote that Streep was the \"one reason\" to see the film and observed that it marked a departure from the dramatic roles she was known to play. Reacting to her string of poorly received films, Streep said: \"Audiences are shrinking; as the marketing strategy defines more and more narrowly who they want to reach—males from 16 to 25—it's become a chicken-and-egg syndrome. Which came first? First they release all these summer movies, then do a demographic survey of who's going to see them\".\n\n1990s\n\nUnsuccessful comedies and The Bridges of Madison County\n\nBiographer Karen Hollinger described the early 1990s as a downturn in the popularity of Streep's films, attributing this partly to a critical perception that her comedies had been an attempt to convey a lighter image following several serious but commercially unsuccessful dramas, and more significantly to the lack of options available to an actress in her forties. Streep commented that she had limited her options by her preference to work in Los Angeles, close to her family, a situation that she had anticipated in a 1981 interview when she commented, \"By the time an actress hits her mid-forties, no one's interested in her anymore. And if you want to fit a couple of babies into that schedule as well, you've got to pick your parts with great care.\" At the Screen Actor's Guild National Women's Conference in 1990, Streep keynoted the first national event, emphasizing the decline in women's work opportunities, pay parity, and role models within the film industry. She criticized the film industry for downplaying the importance of women both on screen and off.\n\nAfter roles in the comedy-drama Postcards from the Edge (1990) and the comedy-fantasy Defending Your Life (1991), Streep starred with Goldie Hawn in farcical black comedy, Death Becomes Her (1992), with Bruce Willis as their co-star. Streep persuaded writer David Koepp to rewrite several of the scenes, particularly the one in which her character has an affair with a younger man, which she believed was \"unrealistically male\" in its conception. The seven-month shoot was the longest of Streep's career, during which she got into character by \"thinking about being slightly pissed off all of the time\". Due to Streep's allergies to numerous cosmetics, special prosthetics had to be designed to age her by ten years to look 54, although Streep believed that they made her look nearer 70. Longworth considers Death Becomes Her to have been \"the most physical performance Streep had yet committed to screen, all broad weeping, smirking, and eye-rolling\". Although it was a commercial success, earning $15.1 million in just five days, Streep's contribution to comedy was generally not taken well by critics. Times Richard Corliss wrote approvingly of Streep's \"wicked-witch routine\" but dismissed the film as \"She-Devil with a make-over\" and one which \"hates women\". \n\nIn 1993, Streep appeared with Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close and Winona Ryder in The House of the Spirits, set during the military dictatorship of Chile. The film was not well received by critics. Anthony Lane of The New Yorker wrote: \"This is really quite an achievement. It brings together Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Winona Ryder, Antonio Banderas, and Vanessa Redgrave and insures that, without exception, they all give their worst performances ever\". The following year, Streep featured in The River Wild, as the mother of children on a whitewater rafting trip who encounter two violent criminals (Kevin Bacon and John C. Reilly) in the wilderness. Though critical reaction was generally mixed, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone found her to be \"strong, sassy and looser than she has ever been onscreen\". \n\nStreep's most successful film of the decade came in the 1995 romance The Bridges of Madison County from director Clint Eastwood, who adapted the film from Robert James Waller's novel of the same name. It relates the story of Robert Kincaid (Eastwood), a photographer working for National Geographic, who has a love affair with a middle-aged Italian farm wife in Iowa named Francesca (Streep). Though Streep disliked the novel it was based on, she found the script to be a special opportunity for an actress her age. She gained weight for the part, and dressed differently from the character in the book to emulate voluptuous Italian film stars such as Sophia Loren. Both Loren and Anna Magnani were an influence in her portrayal, and Streep viewed Pier Paolo Passolini's Mamma Roma (1962) prior to filming. The film was a box office hit and grossed over $70 million in the United States. The film, unlike the novel, was warmly received by critics. Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that Eastwood had managed to create \"a moving, elegiac love story at the heart of Mr. Waller's self-congratulatory overkill\", while Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal described it as \"one of the most pleasurable films in recent memory\". Longworth believes that Streep's performance was \"crucial to transforming what could have been a weak soap opera into a vibrant work of historical fiction implicitly critiquing postwar America's stifling culture of domesticity\". She considers it to have been the role in which Streep became \"arguably the first middle-aged actress to be taken seriously by Hollywood as a romantic heroine\".\n\nLate 1990s\n\nIn 1996, Streep played the estranged sister of Bessie (Diane Keaton), a woman battling leukemia, in Marvin's Room, an adaptation of the play by Scott McPherson. Streep recommended Keaton for the role. The film also starred a young Leonardo DiCaprio as Streep's character's rebellious son. Roger Ebert stated that \"Streep and Keaton, in their different styles, find ways to make Lee and Bessie into much more than the expression of their problems.\" The film was critically acclaimed, and Streep earned another Golden Globe nomination for her performance.\n\nIn 1998, Streep played an Irishwoman opposite Michael Gambon and Catherine McCormack in Pat O'Connor's Dancing at Lughnasa, which was entered into the Venice Film Festival of 1998. Janet Maslin of The New York Times remarked that \"Meryl Streep has made many a grand acting gesture in her career, but the way she simply peers out a window in Dancing at Lughnasa ranks with the best. Everything the viewer need know about Kate Mundy, the woman she plays here, is written on that prim, lonely face and its flabbergasted gaze\". Later that year, Streep played a cancer sufferer caught in a difficult family situation, playing the mother of Renée Zellweger and wife of William Hurt in One True Thing. The film was well received by critics. Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle declared, \"After 'One True Thing', critics who persist in the fiction that Streep is a cold and technical actress will need to get their heads examined. She is so instinctive and natural – so thoroughly in the moment and operating on flights of inspiration – that she's able to give us a woman who's at once wildly idiosyncratic and utterly believable.\" Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan noted that Streep's role \"is one of the least self-consciously dramatic and surface showy of her career, but that she \"adds a level of honesty and reality that makes [her performance] one of her most moving.\" \n\nIn 1999, Streep portrayed Roberta Guaspari, a real-life New Yorker who found passion and enlightenment teaching violin to the inner-city kids of East Harlem, in the music drama Music of the Heart. A departure from director Wes Craven's previous work on films like A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Scream series, Streep replaced singer Madonna who left the project before filming began due to creative differences with Craven. Required to perform on the violin, Streep went through two months of intense training, five to six hours a day. Streep received nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance. Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four and wrote that \"Meryl Streep is known for her mastery of accents; she may be the most versatile speaker in the movies. Here you might think she has no accent, unless you've heard her real speaking voice; then you realize that Guaspari's speaking style is no less a particular achievement than Streep's other accents. This is not Streep's voice, but someone else's – with a certain flat quality, as if later education and refinement came after a somewhat unsophisticated childhood.\" \n\n2000s\n\n2000–05\n\nStreep entered the 2000s with an uncredited voice cameo in Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence, a science fiction film about a childlike android, played by Haley Joel Osment. The same year, Streep co-hosted the annual Nobel Peace Prize Concert concert with Liam Neeson which was held in Oslo, Norway, on December 11, 2001, in honour of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the United Nations and Kofi Annan. \n\nIn 2001, Streep returned to the stage for the first time in more than twenty years, playing Arkadina in The Public Theater's revival of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, directed by Mike Nichols and co-starring Kevin Kline, Natalie Portman, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The same year, she began work on Spike Jonze's comedy-drama Adaptation (2002), in which she portrayed real-life journalist Susan Orlean. Lauded by critics and viewers alike, the film won Streep her fourth Golden Globe in the Best Supporting Actress category. A. O. Scott considered Streep's portrayal of Orlean to have been \"played with impish composure\", noting the contrast in her \"wittily realized\" character with love interest Chris Cooper's \"lank-haired, toothless charisma\" as the autodidact arrested for poaching rare orchids. In 2002 Streep appeared alongside Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore in Stephen Daldry's The Hours, based on the 1999 novel by Michael Cunningham. Focusing on three women of different generations whose lives are interconnected by the novel Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, the film was generally well received and won all three leading actresses a Silver Bear for Best Actress. \n\nIn 2003, Streep had a cameo as herself in the Farrelly brothers comedy Stuck on You (2003) and reunited with Mike Nichols to star with Al Pacino and Emma Thompson in the HBO adaptation of Tony Kushner's six-hour play Angels in America, the story of two couples whose relationships dissolve amidst the backdrop of Reagan Era politics. Streep, who was cast in four roles in the mini-series, received her second Emmy Award and fifth Golden Globe for her performance. In 2004, Streep was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award by the board of directors of the American Film Institute. She appeared in Jonathan Demme's moderately successful remake of The Manchurian Candidate, co-starring Denzel Washington, playing the role of a woman who is both a U.S. senator and the manipulative, ruthless mother of a vice-presidential candidate. The same year, she played the supporting role of Aunt Josephine in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events alongside Jim Carrey, based on the first three novels in Snicket's book series. The black comedy received generally favorable reviews from critics, and won the Academy Award for Best Makeup. Inspired by her love of Giverny in France and Claude Monet, Streep did the narration for the film Monet's Palate, with Alice Waters, Steve Wynn, Daniel Boulud and Helen Rappel Bordman. \n\nStreep was next cast in the 2005 comedy film Prime, directed by Ben Younger. In the film, she played Lisa Metzger, the Jewish psychoanalyst of a divorced and lonesome business-woman, played by Uma Thurman, who enters a relationship with Metzger's 23-year-old son (Bryan Greenberg). A modest mainstream success, it eventually grossed US$67.9 million internationally. Roger Ebert noted how Streep had \"that ability to cut through the solemnity of a scene with a zinger that reveals how all human effort is\". \n\n2006–09\n\nIn August and September 2006, Streep starred onstage at The Public Theater's production of Mother Courage and Her Children at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. The Public Theater production was a new translation by playwright Tony Kushner (Angels in America), with songs in the Weill/Brecht style written by composer Jeanine Tesori (Caroline, or Change); veteran director George C. Wolfe was at the helm. Streep starred alongside Kevin Kline and Austin Pendleton in this three-and-a-half-hour play. Also in 2006, Streep, along with Lily Tomlin, portrayed the last two members of what was once a popular family country music act in Robert Altman's final film A Prairie Home Companion. A comedic ensemble piece featuring Lindsay Lohan, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Kline and Woody Harrelson, the film revolves around the behind-the-scenes activities at the long-running public radio show of the same name. The film grossed more than US$26 million, the majority of which came from domestic markets. \n\nCommercially, Streep fared better with a role in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), a loose screen adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's 2003 novel of the same name. Streep portrayed the powerful and demanding Miranda Priestly, fashion magazine editor (and boss of a recent college graduate played by Anne Hathaway). Though the overall film received mixed reviews, her portrayal, of what Ebert calls the \"poised and imperious Miranda\", drew rave reviews from critics and earned her many award nominations, including her record-setting 14th Oscar bid, as well as another Golden Globe. Upon its commercial release, the film became Streep's biggest commercial success yet, grossing more than US$326.5 million worldwide. \n\nIn 2007, Streep was cast in four films. She portrayed a wealthy university patron in Chen Shi-zheng's much-delayed feature drama Dark Matter, a film about a Chinese science graduate student who becomes violent after dealing with academic politics at a U.S. university. Inspired by the events of the 1991 University of Iowa shooting, and initially scheduled for a 2007 release, producers and investors decided to shelve Dark Matter out of respect for the Virginia Tech massacre in April 2007. The drama received negative to mixed reviews upon its limited 2008 release. Streep played a U.S. government official who investigates an Egyptian foreign national suspected of terrorism in the political thriller Rendition (2007), directed by Gavin Hood. Keen to get involved in a thriller film, Streep welcomed the opportunity to star in a film genre for which she was not usually offered scripts and immediately signed on to the project. Upon its release, Rendition was less commercially successful, and received mixed reviews. \n\nAlso in 2007, Streep had a short role alongside Vanessa Redgrave, Glenn Close and her eldest daughter Mamie Gummer in Lajos Koltai's drama film Evening, based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Susan Minot. Switching between the present and the past, it tells the story of a bedridden woman, who remembers her tumultuous life in the mid-1950s. The film was released to a lukewarm reaction from critics, who called it \"beautifully filmed, but decidedly dull [and] a colossal waste of a talented cast.\" Streep's last film of 2007 was Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs, a film about the connection between a platoon of United States soldiers in Afghanistan, a U.S. senator, a reporter, and a California college professor. Like Evening, critics felt that the talent of the cast was wasted and that it suffered from slow pacing, although one critic announced that Streep positively stood out, being \"natural, unforced, quietly powerful\", in comparison to Redford's forced performance. \n\nIn 2008, Streep found major commercial success when she starred in Phyllida Lloyd's Mamma Mia!, a film adaptation of the musical of the same name, based on the songs of Swedish pop group ABBA. Co-starring Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård and Colin Firth, Streep played a single mother and a former girl-group singer, whose daughter (Seyfried), a bride-to-be who never met her father, invites three likely paternal candidates to her wedding on an idyllic Greek island. An instant box office success, Mamma Mia! became Streep's highest-grossing film to date, with box office receipts of US$602.6 million, also ranking it first among the highest-grossing musical films for now. Nominated for another Golden Globe, Streep's performance was generally well received by critics, with Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe commenting \"the greatest actor in American movies has finally become a movie star.\" \n\nStreep's other film of 2008 was Doubt featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis. A drama revolving around the stern principal nun (Streep) of a Bronx Catholic school in 1964 who brings charges of pedophilia against a popular priest (Hoffman), the film became a moderate box office success, but was hailed by many critics as one of the best of 2008. The film received five Academy Awards nominations, for its four lead actors and for Shanley's script. Ebert, who awarded the film the full four stars, highlighted Streep's caricature of a nun, who \"hates all inroads of the modern world\", while Kelly Vance of The East Bay Express remarked: \"It's thrilling to see a pro like Streep step into an already wildly exaggerated role and then ramp it up a few notches just for the sheer hell of it. Grim, red-eyed, deathly pale Sister Aloysius may be the scariest nun of all time.\" \n\nIn 2009, Streep played chef Julia Child in Nora Ephron's Julie & Julia, co-starring Amy Adams and Stanley Tucci. (Tucci and Streep had worked together earlier in Devil Wears Prada.) The first major motion picture based on a blog, Julie and Julia contrasts the life of Child in the early years of her culinary career with the life of young New Yorker Julie Powell (Adams), who aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Child's cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Longworth believes her caricature of Julia Child was \"quite possibly the biggest performance of her career while also drawing on her own experience to bring lived-in truth the story of a late bloomer\". The same year, Streep starred in Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy It's Complicated, with Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. She received nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for both Julie & Julia and It's Complicated; she won the award for Julie & Julia and later received her 16th Oscar nomination for it. She also lent her voice to Mrs. Felicity Fox in the stop-motion film Fantastic Mr. Fox.\n\n2010s\n\nStreep's first film of the 2010s was Phyllida Lloyd's The Iron Lady (2011), a British biographical film about Margaret Thatcher, which takes a look at the Prime Minister during the Falklands War and her years in retirement. Streep, who sat through a session at the House of Commons to observe British MPs in action in preparation for her role, called her casting \"a daunting and exciting challenge.\" While the film had a mixed reception, Streep's performance got rave reviews, earning her Best Actress awards at the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs as well as her third win at the 84th Academy Awards. Former advisers, friends and family of Thatcher criticized Streep's portrayal of her as inaccurate and biased. The following year, after Thatcher's death, Streep issued a formal statement describing Thatcher's \"hard-nosed fiscal measures\" and \"hands-off approach to financial regulation,\" while praising her \"personal strength and grit.\" \n\n In 2012, Streep reunited with Prada director David Frankel on the set of the comedy-drama film Hope Springs, co-starring Tommy Lee Jones and Steve Carell. Streep and Jones play a middle-aged couple, who attend a week of intensive marriage counseling to try to bring back the intimacy missing in their relationship. Reviews for the film were mostly positive, with critics praising the \"mesmerizing performances [...] which offer filmgoers some grown-up laughs – and a thoughtful look at mature relationships\". \n\nIn 2013, Streep starred alongside Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper, and others in the black comedy drama August: Osage County about a dysfunctional family that reunites into the familial house when their patriarch suddenly disappears. Based on Tracy Letts's Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name, Streep received positive reviews for her portrayal of the family's strong-willed and contentious matriarch, who is suffering from oral cancer and an addiction to narcotics, and was subsequently nominated for another Golden Globe, SAG, and Academy Award. At the National Board of Review Awards in 2013, Streep labeled Walt Disney as \"anti-semitic\" and a \"gender bigot.\" Former actors, employees and animators who knew Disney during his lifetime rebuffed the comments as misinformed and selective. The Walt Disney Family Museum issued a statement rebuking Streep's allegations indirectly, citing, among others, Disney's contributions to Jewish charities and his published letters stating that women \"have the right to expect the same chances for advancement as men.\" However, Disney's grandniece, Abigail Disney, wholeheartedly agreed with Streep's statements, stating that he was an \"anti-Semite,\" and \"racist\" who was also an exemplary filmmaker whose work \"made billions of people happy.\" \n\nStreep's first film of 2014 was the motion picture adaptation of the young adult novel The Giver. Set in 2048, the social science fiction film tells the story of a post-apocalyptic community without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, where a young boy is chosen to learn the real world. Streep, who plays the community's leader, was aware of the book before being offered the role by co-star and producer Jeff Bridges. Upon its release, The Giver was met with generally mixed to negative reviews from critics. The same year, she also had a small role in the period drama film The Homesman. Set in the 1850s midwest, the film stars Hilary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones as an unusual pair who help three women driven to madness by the frontier to get back East. Streep appears not until the end of the film, playing a preacher's wife, who takes the women into care. The Homesman premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival where it garnered largely positive reviews from critics. \n\nHer final film of 2014 was the Disney film adaptation of the Broadway musical Into the Woods, directed by Rob Marshall. A fantasy genre crossover inspired by the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales, it centers on a childless couple, who sets out to end a curse placed on them by a vengeful witch, played by Streep. Though the film was dismissed by some critics such as Mark Kermode as \"irritating naffness\", Streep's performance earned her Academy Award, Golden Globe, SAG, and Critic's Choice Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress. In July 2014, it was announced that Streep would portray Maria Callas in Master Class, but the project was pulled after director Mike Nichols's death in November of the same year. \n\n In 2015, Streep starred in Jonathan Demme's Ricki and the Flash, playing a grocery store checkout worker by day who is a rock musician at night, and who has one last chance to reconnect with her estranged family. Streep learned to play the guitar for the semi-autobiographical dramedy film, which reunited her with her eldest daughter Mamie Gummer. Reviews of the film were generally mixed. Streep's other film of the year was director Sarah Gavron's period drama Suffragette, co-starring Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter. In the film, she played the small but pivotal role of Emmeline Pankhurst, a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement who helped women win the right to vote. The film received mostly positive reviews, particularly for the performances of the cast, though its distributor earned criticism that Streep's prominent position within the marketing was misleading. \n\nIn February 2016, Streep served in her first appearance as president of the main competition jury at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival. Streep will next be seen in the Stephen Frears-directed comedy Florence Foster Jenkins, a biopic about the eponymous opera singer. Other cast members include Hugh Grant, and Simon Helberg. \n\nActing style and legacy\n\n Such is Streep's contemporary position in world cinema that Vanity Fair has commented that \"it's hard to imagine that there was a time before Meryl Streep was the greatest-living actress\". Emma Brockes of The Guardian notes that despite Streep's being \"one of the most famous actresses in the world\", it is \"strangely hard to pin an image on Streep\", in a career where she has \"laboured to establish herself as an actor whose roots lie in ordinary life\". Despite her success, Streep has always been modest about her own acting and achievements in cinema. She has stated that she has no particular method when it comes to acting, learning from the days of her early studies that she can't be articulate. She said in 1987, \"I have a smattering of things I've learned from different teachers, but nothing I can put into a valise and open it up and say 'Now which one would you like'? Nothing I can count on and that makes it more dangerous. But then the danger makes it more exciting.\" She has stated that her ideal director is one who gives her complete artistic control, and allowing a degree of improvization and her to learn from her own mistakes.\n\nKarina Longworth notes how \"external\" Streep's performances are, \"chameleonic\" in her impersonation of characters, \"subsuming herself into them, rather than personifying them\". In her early roles such as Manhattan and Kramer vs. Kramer, she was compared to both Diane Keaton and Jill Clayburgh, in that her characters were unsympathetic, which Streep has attributed to the tendency to be drawn to playing women who are difficult to like and are devoid of a mutual emotional understanding with others. Streep has stated that many consider her to be a technical actor, but she professed that it comes down to her love of reading the initial script, adding, \"I come ready and I don't want to screw around and waste the first 10 takes on adjusting lighting and everybody else getting comfortable\".\n\nMike Nichols, who directed Streep in Silkwood, Heartburn and Postcards from the Edge, praised Streep's ability to transform herself into her characters, remarking that \"in every role she becomes a totally new human being. As she becomes the person she is portraying, the other performers begin to react to her as if she were that person\". He said that directing her is \"so much like falling in love that it has the characteristics of a time which you remember as magical but which is shrouded in mystery\". He also noted that Streep's acting ability had a profound impact on her co-stars and that \"one could improve by 1000% purely by watching her.\"\nLongworth believes that in nearly every film, Streep has \"sly infused\" a feminist point of view in her portrayals. However, film critic Molly Haskell has stated, \"None of her heroines are feminist, strictly speaking. Yet they uncannily embody various crosscurrents of experience in the last twenty years, as women have redefined themselves against the background of the women's movement\".\n\nStreep is well known for her ability to imitate a wide range of accents, from Danish in Out of Africa (1985) to English received pronunciation in Plenty (1985), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), and The Iron Lady (2011); Italian in The Bridges of Madison County (1995); a Minnesota accent in A Prairie Home Companion (2006); Irish-American in Ironweed; and a heavy Bronx accent in Doubt.\nStreep has stated that she grew up listening to artists such as Barbra Streisand, The Beatles and Bob Dylan, and she learned a lot about how to use her voice, her \"instrument,\" by listening to Barbra Streisand's albums. In the 1988 film Evil Angels, in which she portrays a New Zealand transplant to Australia, Streep perfected a hybrid of Australian & New Zealand English. Her performance received the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, as well as Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress.\n\nFor her role in the film Sophie's Choice (1982), Streep spoke both English and German with a Polish accent, as well as Polish itself. In The Iron Lady, she reproduced the vocal style of Margaret Thatcher from the time before Thatcher became Britain's Prime Minister, and after she had taken elocution lessons to change her pitch, pronunciation, and delivery. Streep has commented that using accents as part of her acting is a technique she views as an obvious requirement in her portrayal of a character.\nWhen questioned in Belfast as to how she reproduces different accents, Streep replied in a perfect Belfast accent: \"I listen.\" \n\nOther work\n\nAfter Streep appeared in Mamma Mia!, her rendition of the song \"Mamma Mia\" rose to popularity in the Portuguese music charts, where it peaked at No. 8 in October 2008. At the 35th People's Choice Awards, her version of \"Mamma Mia\" won an award for \"Favorite Song From A Soundtrack\". In 2008, Streep was nominated for a Grammy Award (her fifth nomination) for her work on the Mamma Mia! soundtrack. Throughout her career, Streep has narrated numerous audio books, including three by children's book author William Steig: Brae Irene, Spinky Sulks, and The One and Only Shrek!. \n\nStreep is the spokesperson for the National Women's History Museum, to which she has donated a significant amount of money (including her fee for The Iron Lady, which was $1 million) and hosted numerous events. On October 4, 2012, Streep donated $1 million to The Public Theater in honor of both its late founder, Joseph Papp, and her friend, the author Nora Ephron. She also supports Gucci's \"Chime For Change\" campaign that aims to spread female empowerment. Streep, when asked in a 2015 interview by Time Out magazine if she was a feminist, answered, \"I am a humanist, I am for nice easy balance.\" \n\nIn 2014, Streep established two scholarships for students at the University of Massachusetts Lowell – the Meryl Streep Endowed Scholarship for English majors, and the Joan Hertzberg Endowed Scholarship (named for Streep's former classmate at Vassar College) for math majors. In April 2015, it was announced that Streep had funded a screenwriters lab for female screenwriters over forty years old, called the Writers Lab, to be run by New York Women in Film & Television and the collective IRIS. As of the announcement, the Writers Lab is the only initiative in the world for female screenwriters over forty years old.\n\nIn 2015, Streep signed an open letter for which the ONE Campaign had been collecting signatures; the letter was addressed to Angela Merkel and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, urging them to focus on women as they served as the head of the G7 in Germany and the AU in South Africa respectively, which was set to set the priorities in development funding before a main UN summit in September 2015 to establish new development goals for the generation. Also in 2015, Streep sent each member of the U.S. Congress a letter supporting the Equal Rights Amendment. Each of her letters was sent with a copy of the book Equal Means Equal: Why the Time for the ERA is Now by Jessica Neuwirth, president of the ERA Coalition. In March 2016 Streep, among others, signed a letter asking for gender equality throughout the world, in observance of International Women's Day; this was also organized by the ONE Campaign. \n\nStreep gave a speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. \n\nPersonal life\n\nAuthor Karina Longworth notes that despite her \"high level of stardom\" for decades, Streep has managed to maintain a relatively normal personal life. Streep lived with actor John Cazale for three years until his death from lung cancer in March 1978. Al Pacino remarked that \"I've hardly ever seen a person so devoted to someone who is falling away like John was. To see her in that act of love for this man was overwhelming.\" Streep said of his death, \"I didn't get over it. I don't want to get over it. No matter what you do, the pain is always there in some recess of your mind, and it affects everything that happens afterwards. I think you can assimilate the pain and go on without making an obsession of it\".\n\nStreep married sculptor Don Gummer six months after Cazale's death. They have four children: musician Henry (born 1979), actresses Mamie (born 1983) and Grace (born 1986), and model Louisa (born 1991). In August 1985, the family moved into a $1.8-million private estate in Connecticut, with an extensive art studio to facilitate Streep's husband's work, and lived there until they bought a $3-million mansion in Brentwood, Los Angeles, in 1990. They eventually moved back to Connecticut. \n\nWhen asked if religion plays a part in her life in 2009, Streep replied: \"I follow no doctrine. I don't belong to a church or a temple or a synagogue or an ashram.\" In an interview in December 2008, she also alluded to her lack of religious belief when she said: \"So I've always been really, deeply interested, because I think I can understand the solace that's available in the whole construct of religion. But I really don't believe in the power of prayer, or things would have been avoided that have happened, that are awful. So it's a horrible position as an intelligent, emotional, yearning human being to sit outside of the available comfort there. But I just can't go there.\"\n\nWhen asked from where she draws consolation in the face of aging and death, Streep responded: \"Consolation? I'm not sure I have it. I have a belief, I guess, in the power of the aggregate human attempt – the best of ourselves. In love and hope and optimism – you know, the magic things that seem inexplicable. Why we are the way we are. I do have a sense of trying to make things better. Where does that come from?\" \n\nCredits \n\nAwards and nominations" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Kramer v kramer", "Kramer versus Kramer", "Ted Kramer", "Kramer v Kramer", "Joanna Kramer", "Kramer v. kramer", "Kramer vs. Kramer", "Kramer vs Kramer", "Kramer vs kramer", "Kramer Vs. Kramer", "Kramer v. Kramer", "Kramer vs. kramer" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "ted kramer", "kramer versus kramer", "kramer vs kramer", "kramer v kramer", "joanna kramer" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "kramer v kramer", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Kramer v Kramer" }
In the 1990s Babrak Karmal and Sultan Ali Keshtmond have been Prime Minister in which country?	tc_1289	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe", "Search", "Search" ], "filename": [ "Babrak_Karmal.txt", "1979.txt", "Afghanistan.txt" ], "title": [ "Babrak Karmal", "1979", "Afghanistan" ], "wiki_context": [ "Babrak Karmal (, born Sultan Hussein; 6 January 1929 – 1 or 3 December 1996) was an Afghan politician who was installed as president of Afghanistan by the USSR when they invaded in 1979. Karmal was born in Kamari and educated at Kabul University. When the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) was formed, Karmal became one of its leading members, having been introduced to Marxism by Mir Akbar Khyber during his imprisonment for activities deemed too radical by the government. He eventually became the leader of the Parcham faction. When the PDPA split in 1967, the Parcham-faction established a Parcham PDPA, while their ideological nemesis, the Khalqs, established a Khalqist PDPA. Under Karmal's leadership, the Parchamite PDPA participated in Mohammad Daoud Khan's rise to power, and his subsequent regime. While relations were good at the beginning, Daoud began a major purge of leftist influence in the mid-1970s. This in turn led to the reformation of the PDPA in 1977. The PDPA took power in the 1978 Saur Revolution.\n\nKarmal was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Council, synonymous with vice head of state, in the communist government. The Parchamite faction found itself under significant pressure by the Khalqists soon after taking power. In June 1978, a PDPA Central Committee meeting voted in favor of giving the Khalqist faction exclusive control over PDPA policy. This decision was followed by a failed Parchamite coup, after which Hafizullah Amin, a Khalqist, initiated a purge against the Parchamites. Karmal survived this purge but was exiled to Prague. Karmal remained in exile until December 1979, when the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan (with the consent of the Afghan government) to stabilize the country.\n\nKarmal was promoted to Chairman of the Revolutionary Council and Chairman of the Council of Ministers on 27 December 1979. He remained in office until 1981, when he was succeeded by Sultan Ali Keshtmand. Throughout his term, Karmal worked to establish a support base for the PDPA by introducing several reforms. Among these were the Fundamental Principles of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, introducing a general amnesty for those people imprisoned during Nur Mohammad Taraki's and Amin's rule. He also replaced the Khalqist flag with a more traditional one. These policies failed to increase the PDPA's legitimacy in the eyes of the Afghan people.\n\nThese policy failures, and the stalemate that ensued after the Soviet intervention, led the Soviet leadership to become highly critical of Karmal's leadership. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union deposed Karmal and replaced him with Mohammad Najibullah. Following his loss of power, he was again exiled, this time to Moscow. He was allowed to return to Afghanistan in 1991 by the Najibullah government. Back in Afghanistan he became an associate of Abdul Rashid Dostum, and helped remove the Najibullah government from power. Not long after, in 1996, Karmal died from liver cancer.\n\nEarly life and career\n\nKarmal was born Sultan Hussein on 6 January 1929, was the son of Muhammad Hussein Hashem, a Major General in the Afghan Army and former governor of the province of Paktia, and was the second of five siblings. His family was one of the wealthier families in Kabul. His ethnic background is disputed, some claim that he was Tajik who represented himself as a Ghilzai Pashtun but others claim that he descended from Hindu ancestors of Kashmir. In 1986, Karmal announced that he, and his brother Mahmud Baryalay, were Pashtun because their mother came from the Mullakhel branch of the Pashtuns. However, this was controversial, considering that lineage in Afghanistan is supposed to be traced through the father, not the mother. The accusation that he was of Indian Muslim ancestry comes from the fact that his birthname, Sultan Hussein, is a common Indian Muslim name. In addition, Karmal's own father denied his own ethnicity; Karmal's father was a Tajik. To further confuse the matter, Karmal spoke Dari (Persian) and not Pashto.\n\nKarmal was born in Kamari, a village close to Kabul. He attended Nejat High School, a German-speaking school, and graduated from it in 1948, and applied to enter the Faculty of Law and Political Science of Kabul University. Karmal's application was turned down because of his student union activities. He studied at the College of Law and Political Science at Kabul University from 1951 to 1953. In 1953 Karmal was arrested because of his student union activities, but was released three years later in 1956 in an amnesty by Muhammad Daoud Khan. Shortly after, in 1957, Karmal found work as an English and German translator, before quitting and leaving for military training. Karmal graduated from the College of Law and Political Science in 1960, and in 1961, he found work as an employee in the Compilation and Translation Department of the Ministry of Education. From 1961 to 1963 he worked in the Ministry of Planning. When his mother died, Karmal left with his maternal aunt to live somewhere else. His father disowned him because of his leftist views. Karmal was involved in much debauchery, which was controversial in the mostly conservative Afghan society.\n\nCommunist politics\n\nImprisoned from 1953 to 1956, Karmal befriended fellow inmate Mir Akbar Khyber, who introduced Karmal to Marxism. Karmal changed his name from Sultan Hussein to Babrak Karmal, which means \"Comrade of the Workers'\" in Pashtun, to disassociate himself from his bourgeoisie background. When he was released from prison, he continued his activities in the student union, and began to promote Marxism. Karmal spent the rest of the 1950s and the early 1960s becoming involved with Marxist organizations, of which there were at least four in Afghanistan at the time; two of the four were established by Karmal. When the 1964 Afghan Provisional Constitution, which legalised the establishment of new political entities, was introduced several prominent Marxists agreed to establish a communist political party. The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA, the Communist Party) was established in January 1965 in Nur Muhammad Taraki's home. Factionalism within the PDPA quickly became a problem; the party split into the Khalq led by Taraki alongside Hafizullah Amin, and the Parcham led by Karmal.\n\nDuring the 1965 parliamentary election Karmal was one of four PDPA members elected to the lower house of parliament; the three others were Anahita Ratebzad, Nur Ahmed Nur and Fezanul Haq Fezan. No Khalqists were elected; however, Amin was 50 votes short of being elected. The Parchamite victory may be explained by the simple fact that Karmal could contribute financially to the PDPA electoral campaign. Karmal became a leading figure within the student movement in the 1960s, electing Mohammad Hashim Maiwandwal as Prime Minister after a student demonstration (called for by Karmal) concluded with three deaths under the former leadership.\n\nIn 1967, the PDPA unofficially split into two formal parties, one Khalqist and one Parchamist. The dissolution of the PDPA was initiated by the closing down of the Khalqist newspaper, Khalq. Karmal criticised the Khalq for being too communist, and believed that its leadership should have hidden its Marxist orientation instead of promoting it. According to the official version of events, the majority of the PDPA Central Committee rejected Karmal's criticism. The vote was a close one, and it is reported that Taraki expanded the Central Committee to win the vote; this plan resulted in eight of the new members becoming politically unaligned with and one switching to the Parchamite side. Karmal and half the PDPA Central Committee left the PDPA to establish a Parchamite-led PDPA. Officially the split was caused by ideological differences, but the party may have divided between the different leadership styles and plans of Taraki versus Karmal. Taraki wanted to model the party after Leninist norms while Karmal wanted to establish a democratic front. Other differences were socioeconomic. The majority of Khalqists came from rural areas; hence they were poorer, and were of Pashtun origin. The Parchamites were urban, richer, and spoke Dari more often than not. The Khalqists accused the Parchamites of having a connection with the monarchy, and because of it, referred to the Parchamite PDPA as the \"Royal Communist Party\". Both Karmal and Amin retained their seats in the lower house of parliament in the 1969 parliamentary election.\n\nThe Daoud era\n\nMohammed Daoud Khan, in collaboration with the Parchamite PDPA and radical military officers, overthrew the monarchy and instituted the Afghan Republic in 1973. After Daoud's seizure of power, an American embassy cable stated that the new government had established a Soviet-style Central Committee, in which Karmal and Mir Akbar Khyber were given leading positions. Most ministries were given to Parchamites; Hassan Sharq became Deputy Prime Minister, Major Faiz Mohammad became Minister of Internal Affairs and Nematullah Pazhwak became Minister of Education. The Parchamites took control over the ministries of finance, agriculture, communications and border affairs. The new government quickly suppressed the opposition, and secured their power base. At first, the National Front government between Daoud and the Parchamites seemed to work. By 1975, Daoud had strengthened his position by enhancing the executive, legislative and judicial powers of the Presidency. To the dismay of the Parchamites, all parties other than the National Revolutionary Party (NRP, established by Daoud) were made illegal.\n\nShortly after the ban on opposition to the NRP, Daoud began a massive purge of Parchamites in government. Mohammad lost his position as interior minister, Abdul Qadir was demoted, and Karmal was put under government surveillance. To mitigate Daoud's suddenly anti-communist directives, the Soviet Union reestablished the PDPA; Taraki was elected its General Secretary and Karmal, Second Secretary. While the Saur Revolution (literally the April Revolution) was planned for August, the assassination of Khyber led to a chain of events which ended with the communists seizing power. Karmal, when taking power in 1979, accused Amin of ordering the assassination of Khyber.\n\nTaraki–Amin rule\n\nTaraki was appointed Chairman of the Presidium of the Revolutionary Council and Chairman of the Council of Ministers, retaining his post as PDPA general secretary. Taraki initially formed a government which consisted of both Khalqists and Parchamites; Karmal became Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Council, while Amin became Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers.Mohammad Aslam Watanjar became Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers. The two Parchamites Abdul Qadir and Mohammad Rafi, became Minister of Defence and Minister of Public Works, respectively. The appointment of Amin, Karmal and Watanjar led to splits within the Council of Ministers: the Khalqists answered to Amin; Karmal led the civilian Parchamites; and the military officers (who were Parchamites) were answerable to Watanjar (a Khalqist). The first conflict arose when the Khalqists wanted to give PDPA Central Committee membership to military officers who had participated in the Saur Revolution; Karmal opposed such a move but was overruled. A PDPA Politburo meeting voted in favour of giving Central Committee membership to the officers.\n\nOn 27 June, three months after the Saur Revolution, Amin outmaneuvered the Parchamites at a Central Committee meeting, giving the Khalqists exclusive right over formulating and deciding policy. A purge against the Parchamites was initiated by Amin and supported by Taraki on 1 July 1979. Karmal, fearing for his safety, went into hiding in one of his Soviet friends' homes. Karmal tried to contact Alexander Puzanov, the Soviet ambassador to Afghanistan, to talk about the situation. Puzanov refused, and revealed Karmal's location to Amin. It should be noted that the Soviets probably saved Karmal's life by sending him to the Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia. In exile, Karmal established a network with the remaining Parchamites in government. A coup to overthrow Amin was planned for 4 September 1979. Its leading members in Afghanistan were Qadir and the Army Chief of Staff General Shahpur Ahmedzai. The coup was planned for the Festival of Eid, in anticipation of relaxed military vigilance. The conspiracy failed when the Afghan ambassador to India told the Afghan leadership about the plan. Another purge was initiated, and Parchamite ambassadors were recalled. Few returned to Afghanistan; Karmal and Mohammad Najibullah stayed in their respective countries.\n\nAmin was informed of the Soviet decision to intervene in Afghanistan and was initially supportive, but was assassinated. Under the command of the Soviets, Karmal ascended to power. On 27 December 1979 Radio Kabul broadcast Karmal's pre-recorded speech to the Afghan people, saying: \"Today the torture machine of Amin has been smashed, his accomplices – the primitive executioners, usurpers and murderers of tens of thousand of our fellow countrymen – fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters, children and old people ...\" Karmal was not in Kabul when the speech was broadcast; he was in Bagram, protected by the KGB.\n\nThat evening Yuri Andropov, the Chairman of the KGB, congratulated Karmal on his rise to the Chairmanship of the Presidium of the Revolutionary Council, some time before Karmal received an official appointment. Karmal returned to Kabul on 28 December. He travelled alongside a Soviet military column. For the next few days Karmal lived in a villa on the outskirts of Kabul under the protection of the KGB. On 1 January 1980 Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and Alexei Kosygin, the Soviet Chairman of the Council of Ministers, congratulated Karmal on his \"election\" as leader.\n\nPresidency\n\nDomestic policies\n\nThe \"Fundamental Principles\" and amnesty\n\nWhen he came to power, Karmal promised an end to executions, the establishment of democratic institutions and free elections, the creation of a constitution, and legalization of alternative political parties. Prisoners incarcerated under the two previous governments would be freed in a general amnesty. He promised the creation of a coalition government which would not espouse socialism. At the same time, he told the Afghan people that he had negotiated with the Soviet Union to give economic, military and political assistance. The mistrust most Afghans felt towards the government was a problem for Karmal. Many still remembered he had said he would protect private capital in 1978—a promise later proven to be a lie.\n\nKarmal's three most important promises were the general amnesty of prisoners, the promulgation of the Fundamental Principles of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the adoption of a new flag containing the traditional black, red and green (the flag of Taraki and Amin was red). His government granted concessions to religious leaders and the restoration of confiscated property. Some property, which was confiscated during earlier land reforms, was also partially restored. All these measures, with the exception of the general amnesty of prisoners, were introduced gradually. Of 2,700 prisoners, 2,600 were released from prison; 600 of these were Parchamites. The general amnesty was greatly publicized by the government. While the event was hailed with enthusiasm by some, many others greeted the event with disdain, since their loved ones or associates had died during earlier purges. Amin had planned to introduce a general amnesty on 1 January 1980, to coincide with the PDPA's sixteenth anniversary.\n\nWork on the Fundamental Principles had started under Amin: it guaranteed democratic rights such as freedom of speech, the right to security and life, the right to peaceful association, the right to demonstrate and the right that \"no one would be accused of crime but in accord with the provisions of law\" and that the accused had the right to a fair trial. The Fundamental Principles envisaged a democratic state led by the PDPA, the only party then permitted by law. The Revolutionary Council, the organ of supreme power, would convene twice every year. The Revolutionary Council in turn elected a Presidium which would take decisions on behalf of the Revolutionary Council when it was not in session. The Presidium consisted mostly of PDPA Politburo members. The state would safeguard three kinds of property: state, cooperative and private property. The Fundamental Principles said that the state had the right to change the Afghan economy from an economy where man was exploited to an economy were man was free. Another clause stated that the state had the right to take \"families, both parents and children, under its supervision.\" While it looked democratic at the outset, the Fundamental Principles was based on contradictions.\n\nThe Fundamental Principles led to the establishment of two important state organs: the Special Revolutionary Court, a specialized court for crimes against national security and territorial integrity, and the Institute for Legal and Scientific Research and Legislative Affairs, the supreme legislative organ of state, This body could amend and draft laws, and introduce regulations and decrees on behalf of the government. The introduction of more Soviet-style institutions led the Afghan people to distrust the communist government even more.\n\nSeparation of power: Khalq–Parcham\n\nWith Karmal's ascension to power, Parchamites began to \"settle old scores\". Revolutionary Troikas were created to arrest, sentence and execute people. Amin's guard were the first victims of the terror which ensued. Those commanders who had stayed loyal to Amin were arrested, filling the prisons. The Soviets protested, and Karmal replied, \"As long as you keep my hands bound and do not let me deal with the Khalq faction there will be no unity in the PDPA and the government cannot become strong ... They tortured and killed us. They still hate us! They are the enemies of the party ...\" Amin's daughter, along with her baby, was imprisoned for twelve years, until Mohammad Najibullah, then leader of the PDPA, released her. When Karmal took power, leading posts in the Party and Government bureaucracy were taken over by Parchamites. The Khalq faction was removed from power, and only technocrats, opportunists and individuals which the Soviets trusted would be appointed to the higher echelons of government. Khalqists remained in control of the Ministry of Interior, but Parchamites were given control over KHAD and the secret police. The Parchamites and the Khalqists controlled an equal share of the military. Two out of Karmal's three Council of Ministers deputy chairmen were Khalqists. Khalqists controlled the Ministry of Communications and the interior ministry. Parchamites, on the other hand, controlled the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defence. In addition to the changes in government, the Parchamites held clear majority in the PDPA Central Committee. Only one Khalqi, Saleh Mohammad Zeary, was a member of the PDPA Secretariat during Karmal's rule.\n\nOver 14 and 15 March 1982 the PDPA held a party conference at the Kabul Polytechnic Institute instead of a party congress, since a party congress would have given the Khalq faction a majority and could have led to a Khalqist takeover of the PDPA. The rules of holding a party conference were different, and the Parchamites had a three-fifths majority. This infuriated several Khalqists; the threat of expulsion did not lessen their anger. The conference was not successful, but it was portrayed as such by the official media. The conference broke up after one and a half days of a 3-day long program, because of the inter-party struggle for power between the Khalqists and the Parchamites. A \"program of action\" was introduced, and party rules were given minor changes. As an explanation of the low party membership, the official media also made it seem hard to become a member of the party.\n\nPDPA base\n\nWhen Karmal took power, he began expanding the support base of the PDPA. Karmal tried to persuade certain groups, which had been referred to class enemies of the revolution during Taraki and Amin's rule, to support the PDPA. Karmal appointed several non-communists to top positions. Between March and May 1980, 78 out of the 191 people appointed to government posts were not members of the PDPA. Karmal reintroduced the old Afghan custom of having an Islamic invocation every time the government issued a proclamation. In his first live speech to the Afghan people, Karmal called for the establishment of the National Fatherland Front (NFF); the NFF's founding congress was held in June 1981. Unfortunately for Karmal, his policies did not lead to a notable increase in support for his regime, and it did not help Karmal that most Afghans saw the Soviet intervention as an invasion.\n\nBy 1981, the government gave up on political solutions to the conflict. At the fifth PDPA Central Committee plenum in June, Karmal resigned from his Council of Ministers chairmanship and was replaced by Sultan Ali Keshtmand, while Nur Ahmad Nur was given a bigger role in the Revolutionary Council. This was seen as \"base broadening\". The previous weight given to non-PDPA members in top positions ceased to be an important matter in the media by June 1981. This was significant, considering that up to five members of the Revolutionary Council were non-PDPA members. By the end of 1981, the previous contenders, who had been heavily presented in the media, were all gone; two were given ambassadorships, two ceased to be active in politics, and one continued as an advisor to the government. The other three changed sides, and began to work for the opposition.\n\nThe national policy of reconciliation continued: in January 1984 the land reform introduced by Taraki and Amin was drastically modified, the limits of landholdings were increased to win the support of middle class peasants, the literacy programme was continued, and concessions to women were made. In 1985 the Loya Jirga was reconvened. The 1985 Loya Jirga was followed by a tribal jirga in September. In 1986 Abdul Rahim Hatef, a non-PDPA member, was elected to the NFF chairmanship. During the 1985–86 elections it was said that 60 percent of the elected officials were non-PDPA members. By the end of Karmal's rule, several non-PDPA members had high-level government positions.\n\nCivil war and military\n\nIn March 1979, the military budget was 6.4 million US$, which was 8.3 percent of the government budget, but only 2.2 of gross national product. After the Soviet intervention, the defence budget increased to 208 million US$ in 1980, and 325 million US$ by 1981. In 1982 it was reported that the government spent around 22 percent of total expenditure.\n\nWhen the political solution failed (see \"PDPA base\" section), the Afghan government and the Soviet military decided to solve the conflict militarily. The change from a political to a military solution did not come suddenly. It began in January 1981, as Karmal doubled wages for military personnel, issued several promotions, and decorated one general and thirteen colonels. The draft age was lowered, the obligatory length of arms duty was extended and the age for reservists was increased to thirty-five years of age. In June 1981, Assadullah Sarwari lost his seat in the PDPA Politburo, replaced by Mohammad Aslam Watanjar, a former tank commander and Minister of Communications, Major General Mohammad Rafi was madeMinister of Defence and Mohammad Najibullah appointed KHAD Chairman.\n\nThese measures were introduced due to the collapse of the army during the Soviet intervention. Before the invasion the army could field 100,000 troops, after the invasion only 25,000. Desertions were pandemic, and the recruitment campaigns for young people often drove them to the opposition. To better organize the military, seven military zones were established, each with its own Defence Council. The Defence Councils were established at the national, provincial and district level to empower the local PDPA. It is estimated that the Afghan government spent as much as 40 percent of government revenue on defense.\n\nEconomy\n\nDuring the civil war and the ensuing Soviet war in Afghanistan, most of the country's infrastructure was destroyed. Normal patterns of economic activity were disrupted. The Gross national product (GNP) fell substantially during Karmal's rule because of the conflict; trade and transport was disrupted with loss of labor and capital. In 1981 the Afghan GDP stood at 154.3 billion Afghan afghanis, a drop from 159.7 billion in 1978. GNP per capita decreased from 7,370 in 1978 to 6,852 in 1981. The dominant form of economic activity was in the agricultural sector. Agriculture accounted for 63 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1981; 56 percent of the labor force was working in agriculture in 1982. Industry accounted for 21 percent of GDP in 1982, and employed 10 percent of the labor force. All industrial enterprises were government-owned. The service sector, the smallest of the three, accounted for 10 percent of GDP in 1981, and employed an estimated one-third of the labour force. The balance of payments, which had grown in the pre-communist administration of Muhammad Daoud Khan, decreased, turning negative by 1982 at 70.3 million $US. The only economic activity which grew substantially during Karmal's rule was export and import. \n\nForeign policy\n\nKarmal observed in the spring of 1983 that without Soviet intervention, \"It is unknown what the destiny of the Afghan Revolution would be ... We are realists and we clearly realize that in store for us yet lie trials and deprivations, losses and difficulties.\" Two weeks before this statement Sultan Ali Keshtmand, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, lamented the fact that half the schools and three-quarters of communications had been destroyed since 1979. The Soviet Union rejected several Western-made peace plans, such as the Carrington Plan, since they did not take into consideration the PDPA government. Most Western peace plans had been made in collaboration with the Afghan opposition forces. At the 26th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, stated;\n\nThe stance of the Pakistani government was clear, demanding complete Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and the establishment of a non-PDPA government. Karmal, summarizing his discussions with Iran and Pakistan, said \"Iran and Pakistan have so far not opted for concrete and constructive positions.\" During Karmal's rule Afghan–Pakistani relations remained hostile; the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was the catalyst for the hostile relationship. The increasing numbers of Afghan refugees in Pakistan challenged the PDPA's legitimacy to rule.\n\nThe Soviet Union threatened in 1985 that it would support the Baloch separatist movement in Pakistan if the Pakistani government continued to aid the mujahideen in Afghanistan. Karmal, problematically for the Soviets, did not want a Soviet withdrawal, and he hampered attempts to improve relations with Pakistan since the Pakistani government had refused to recognise the PDPA government.\n\nFall from power and succession\n\nMikhail Gorbachev, then General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, said, \"The main reason that there has been no national consolidation so far is that Comrade Karmal is hoping to continue sitting in Kabul with our help.\" Karmal's position became less secure when the Soviet leadership began blaming him for the failures in Afghanistan. Gorbachev, worried over the situation, told the Soviet Politburo \"If we don't change approaches [to evacuate Afghanistan], we will be fighting there for another 20 or 30 years.\" It is not clear when the Soviet leadership began to campaign for Karmal's dismissal, but Andrei Gromyko discussed the possibility of Karmal's resignation with Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, the Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1982. While it was Gorbachev who would dismiss Karmal, there may have been a consensus within the Soviet leadership in 1983 that Karmal should resign. Gorbachev's own plan was to replace Karmal with Mohammad Najibullah, who had joined the PDPA at its creation. Najibullah was thought highly of by Yuri Andropov, Boris Ponomarev and Dmitriy Ustinov, and negotiations for his succession may have started in 1983. Najibullah was not the Soviet leadership's only choice for Karmal's succession; a GRU report noted that the majority of the PDPA leadership would support Assadullah Sarwari's ascension to leadership. According to the GRU, Sarwari was a better candidate as he could balance between the Pashtuns, Tajiks and Uzbeks; Najibullah was a Pashtun nationalist. Another viable candidate was Abdul Qadir, who had been a participant in the Saur Revolution.\n\nNajibullah was appointed to the PDPA Secretariat in November 1985. During Karmal's March 1986 visit to the Soviet Union, the Soviets tried to persuade Karmal that he was too ill to govern, and that he should resign. This backfired, as a Soviet doctor attending to Karmal told him he was in good health. Karmal asked to return home to Kabul, and said that he understood and would listen to the Soviet recommendations. Before leaving, Karmal promised he would step down as PDPA General Secretary. The Soviets did not trust him and sent Vladimir Kryuchkov, the head of intelligence in the KGB, into Afghanistan. At a meeting in Kabul, Karmal confessed his undying love for the Soviet Union, comparing his ardor to his Muslim faith. Kryuchkov, concluding that he could not persuade Karmal to resign, left the meeting. After Kryuchkov left the room, the Afghan defence minister and the state security minister visited Karmal's office, telling him that he had to resign from one of his posts. Understanding that his Soviet support had been eliminated, Karmal resigned from the office of the General Secretary at the 18th PDPA Central Committee plenum. He was succeeded in his post by Najibullah.\n\nKarmal still had support within the party, and used his base to curb Najibullah's powers. He began spreading rumors that he would be reappointed General Secretary. Najibullah's power base was in the KHAD, the Afghan equivalent to the KGB, and not the party. Considering the fact that the Soviet Union had supported Karmal for over six years, the Soviet leadership wanted to ease him out of power gradually. Yuli Vorontsov, the Soviet ambassador to Afghanistan, told Najibullah to begin undermining Karmal's power slowly. Najibullah complained to the Soviet leadership that Karmal used most of his spare time looking for errors and \"speaking against the National Reconciliation [programme]\". At a meeting of the Soviet Politburo on 13 November 1986 it was decided that Najibullah should remove Karmal; this motion was supported by Gromyko, Vorontsov, Eduard Shevardnadze, Anatoly Dobrynin and Viktor Chebrikov. A PDPA meeting in November relieved Karmal of his Revolutionary Council chairmanship, and exiled him to Moscow where he was given a state-owned apartment and a dacha. Karmal was succeeded as Revolutionary Council chairman by Haji Mohammad Chamkani, who was not a member of the PDPA.\n\nLater life and death\n\nFor unknown reasons, Karmal was invited back to Kabul by Najibullah, and \"for equally obscure reasons Karmal accepted.\" If Najibullah's plan was to strengthen his position within the Homeland Watan Party (the renamed PDPA) by appeasing the pro-Karmal Parchamites, he failed. Karmal's apartment became a center for opposition to Najibullah's government. When Najibullah was toppled in 1992, Karmal became the most powerful politician in Kabul through leadership of the Parcham. However, his negotiations with the rebels collapsed quickly, and on 16 April 1992 the rebels, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, took Kabul. After the fall of Najibullah's government, Karmal was based in Hairatan. There, it is alleged, Karmal used most of his time either trying to establish a new party, or advising people to join the National Islamic Movement (NIM). Abdul Rashid Dostum, the leader of NIM, was a supporter of Karmal during his rule. It is unknown how much control Karmal had over Dostum, but there is little evidence that Karmal was in any commanding position. Karmal's influence over Dostum appeared indirect – some of his former associates supported Dostum. Those who spoke with Karmal during this period noted his lack of interest in politics. In June 1992 it was reported that he had died in a plane crash along with Dostum, although these reports later proved to be false. In early December 1996, Karmal died in Moscow's Central Clinical Hospital from liver cancer. The date of his death was reported by some sources as 1 December and by others as 3 December. The Taliban summed up his rule as follows:\n\"[he] committed all kinds of crimes during his illegitimate rule ... God inflicted on him various kinds of hardship and pain. Eventually he died of cancer in a hospital belonging to his paymasters, the Russians.\" \n\nNotes", "Events \n\nJanuary \n\n* January 1\n United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the International Year of the Child. Many musicians donate to the Music for UNICEF Concert fund including ABBA, who wrote the song \"Chiquitita\" to commemorate the event.\n The United States and the People's Republic of China establish full diplomatic relations.\n The Canton of Jura comes into existence as the 26th canton of Switzerland, being formed from the predominantly French-speaking Catholic part of the Canton of Bern.\n Following a deal agreed during 1978, French carmaker Peugeot completes a takeover of American manufacturer Chrysler's European operations, which are based in Britain's former Rootes Group factories as well as the former Simca factories in France.\n* January 4 – The State of Ohio agrees to pay $675,000 to families of the dead and injured in the Kent State shootings.\n* January 5 – Queen releases \"Don't Stop Me Now\". It becomes one of their most popular singles.\n* January 7 – Vietnam and Vietnam-backed Cambodian insurgents announce the fall of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and the collapse of the Pol Pot regime. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge retreat west to an area along the Thai border.\n* January 8 – Whiddy Island Disaster: The French tanker Betelgeuse explodes at the Gulf Oil terminal at Bantry, Ireland; 50 are killed.\n* January 9 – The Music for UNICEF Concert is held at the United Nations General Assembly to raise money for UNICEF and promote the Year of the Child. It is broadcast the following day in the United States and around the world. Hosted by the Bee Gees, other performers include Donna Summer, ABBA, Rod Stewart and Earth, Wind & Fire. A soundtrack album is later released.\n* January 16 – Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi flees Iran with his family, relocating to Egypt after a year of turmoil.\n* January 19 – Former U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell is released on parole after 19 months at a federal prison in Alabama.\n* January 25 – Pope John Paul II arrives in Mexico City for his first visit to Mexico, mainly for 1979's Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM) or Conference of Puebla.\n* January 26 – The Dukes of Hazzard debuts on CBS.\n* January 29 – Brenda Ann Spencer opens fire at a school in San Diego, killing 2 faculty members and wounding 8 students and a police officer. Her justification for the action, \"I don't like Mondays\", inspires the Boomtown Rats to make a song of the same name.\n\nFebruary \n\n* February 1 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Tehran, Iran after nearly 15 years of exile.\n* February 2\n** Former Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious is found dead, aged 21, of a heroin overdose in New York City, the day after being released from a 55-day sentence at Rikers Island prison on bail.\n* February 3 – Ayatollah Khomeini creates the Council of the Islamic Revolution.\n* February 7\n Iranian Revolution: Supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini take over the Iranian law enforcement, courts and government administration; the final session of the Iranian National Consultative Assembly is held.\n Pluto moves inside Neptune's orbit for the first time since either was known to science.\n** Nazi criminal Josef Mengele suffers a stroke and drowns while swimming in Bertioga, Brazil. His remains are found in 1985.\n* February 10–11 – Iranian Revolution: The Iranian army withdraws to its barracks leaving power in the hands of Ayatollah Khomeini, ending the Pahlavi dynasty.\n* February 12 – Prime Minister Hissène Habré starts the Battle of N'Djamena in an attempt to overthrow Chad's President Félix Malloum.\n* February 13 – The intense February 13, 1979 windstorm strikes western Washington and sinks a 1/2-mile-long section of the Hood Canal Bridge.\n* February 14\n In Kabul, Muslim extremists kidnap the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs, who is later killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police.\n Following her 1972 sex reassignment surgery, musician Wendy Carlos legally changes her name from Walter. She reveals this information in an interview in the May 1979 issue of Playboy magazine.\n* February 15 – A suspected gas explosion in a Warsaw bank kills 49.\n* February 17 – The People's Republic of China invades northern Vietnam, launching the Sino-Vietnamese War.\n* February 18 – The Sahara Desert experiences snow for 30 minutes.\n* February 22 – Saint Lucia becomes independent of the United Kingdom.\n* February 24 – Ethiopia recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).\n* February 26 – A total solar eclipse, the last visible from the continental United States until 2017, arcs over northern coterminous USA and southeastern Canada ending in Greenland. A partial solar eclipse is visible over almost all of North America and Central America including the eastern half of AK and the western half of UK. \n* February 27 – The annual Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans is cancelled due to a strike called by the New Orleans Police Department.\n\nMarch \n\n* March 1\n Scottish devolution referendum: Scotland votes in favour for a Scottish Assembly, which is not implemented due to failing a condition that at least 40% of the electorate must support the proposal; in a Welsh devolution referendum, Wales votes against devolution.\n Philips publicly demonstrate a prototype of an optical digital audio disc at a press conference in Eindhoven, Netherlands.\n* March 4 – The U.S. Voyager 1 spaceprobe photos reveal Jupiter's rings.\n* March 5 – Voyager 1 makes its closest approach to Jupiter at 172,000 miles.\n* March 7 – The largest Magnetar (Soft gamma repeater) event is recorded.\n* March 8 – Philips demonstrates the compact disc publicly for the first time.\n* March 13 – Maurice Bishop leads a successful coup in Grenada. His government will be crushed by American intervention in 1983.\n* March 14 – In China, a Hawker Siddeley Trident crashes into a factory near Beijing, killing at least 200.\n* March 16 – End of major hostilities in the Sino-Vietnamese War.\n* March 17 – The Penmanshiel Tunnel in the U.K. collapses, killing 2 workers.\n* March 18 – Ten miners die in a methane gas explosion at Golborne Colliery near Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. \n* March 25 – The first fully functional Space Shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the Kennedy Space Center, to be prepared for its first launch.\n* March 26 – In a ceremony at the White House, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel sign an Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty.\n* March 28\n In Britain, James Callaghan's minority Labour government loses a motion of confidence by 1 vote, forcing a general election which is to be held on 3 May. \n America's most serious nuclear power plant accident occurs, at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania.\n* March 29 – Sultan Yahya Petra of Kelantan, the 6th Yang di-Pertuan Agong (Head of State) of Malaysia, dies in office. He is replaced by Sultan Ahmad Shah of Pahang.\n* March 30 – Airey Neave, World War II veteran and Conservative Northern Ireland spokesman, is killed by an Irish National Liberation Army bomb in the British House of Commons car park.\n* March 31\n The last British soldier (belonging to the Royal Navy) leaves the Maltese Islands, after 179 years of presence. Malta declares its Freedom Day (Jum il-Helsien).\n Gali Atari and Milk and Honey win the Eurovision Song Contest 1979 for Israel, with the song \"Hallelujah\".\n\nApril \n\n* April 1\n Iran's government becomes an Islamic Republic by a 98% vote, overthrowing the Shah officially.\n The Pinwheel Network changes its name to Nickelodeon and begins airing on various Warner Cable systems beginning in Buffalo, New York, expanding its audience reach.\n* April 1 – April 18 – Police lock Andreas Mihavecz in a holding cell in Bregenz, Austria and forget about him, leaving him there without food or drink.\n* April 2 – Sverdlovsk anthrax leak: A Soviet biowarfare laboratory at Sverdlovsk accidentally releases airborne anthrax spores, killing 66 plus an unknown amount of livestock. It is a violation of the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972.\n* April 6 – Student protests break out in Nepal.\nApril 7 – In Japan, Yoshiyuki Tomino directed Mobile Suit Gundam, the first series of the metaseries of the same name.\n April 10\n A tornado hits Wichita Falls, Texas, killing 42 people (the most notable of 26 tornadoes that day).\n Cambodia recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).\n* April 11 – Tanzanian troops take Kampala, the capital of Uganda; Idi Amin flees.\n* April 13 – The La Soufrière volcano erupts in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.\n* April 15 – 1979 Montenegro earthquake: A major earthquake (7.0 on the Richter scale) strikes Montenegro (then part of Yugoslavia) and parts of Albania, causing extensive damage to coastal areas and taking 136 lives; the old town of Budva is devastated.\n* April 17 – Schoolchildren in the Central African Republic are arrested (and around 100 killed) for protesting against compulsory school uniforms. An African judicial commission later determines that Emperor Jean-Bédel Bokassa \"almost certainly\" took part in the massacre.\n* April 20 – President Jimmy Carter is attacked by a swamp rabbit while fishing in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, USA.\n* April 22 – The Albert Einstein Memorial is unveiled at The National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.\n* April 23 – Fighting breaks out in London between the Anti-Nazi League and the Metropolitan Police's Special Patrol Group; protester Blair Peach receives fatal injuries during the incident, now officially attributed to the SPG.\n\nMay \n\n* May 1 – Greenland is granted limited autonomy from Denmark, with its own Parliament sitting in Nuuk.\n* May 4 – Counting in the previous day's British general election shows that the Conservatives have won and Margaret Thatcher becomes the country's first female prime minister, ending the rule of James Callaghan's Labour government. \n* May 8 – The Woolworth's store in Manchester city centre in England is seriously damaged by fire; 10 shoppers die.\n* May 9\n The Salvadoran Civil War begins.\n A Unabomber bomb injures Northwestern University graduate student John Harris.\n** Laos recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).\n* May 10 – The Federated States of Micronesia becomes self-governing.\n* May 21\n** Dan White receives a light sentence for killing San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, gay men in the city riot.\n* May 23 – Afghanistan recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).\n* May 25\n American Airlines Flight 191: In Chicago, a DC-10 crashes during takeoff at O'Hare International Airport, killing all 271 on board and 2 people on the ground in the deadliest aviation accident in U. S. history.\n John Spenkelink is executed in Florida, in the first use of the electric chair in America after the reintroduction of the death penalty in 1976.\n** Etan Patz, 6 years old, is kidnapped in New York. He is often referred to as the \"Boy on the Milk Carton\" and the investigation later sprouts into one of the most prolific child abduction cases of all time. This is a cold case until 2010 when it is re-opened.\n* May 27 – Indianapolis 500: Rick Mears wins the race for the first time, and car owner Roger Penske for the second time.\n\nJune \n\n* June – McDonald's introduces the Happy Meal.\n* June 1\n The Vizianagaram district is formed in Andhra Pradesh, India.\n The first black-led government of Rhodesia in 90 years takes power, in succession to Ian Smith and under his power-sharing deal.\n** The Seattle SuperSonics win the NBA Championship against the Washington Bullets.\n* June 2\n Pope John Paul II arrives in his native Poland on his first official, nine-day stay, becoming the first Pope to visit a Communist country. This visit, known as nine days that changed the world, brings about the solidarity of the Polish people against Communism, ultimately leading to the rise of the Solidarity movement.\n Los Angeles' city council passes the city's first homosexual rights bill signed without fanfare by mayor Thomas Bradley.\n* June 3\n A blowout at the Ixtoc I oil well in the southern Gulf of Mexico causes at least 600,000 tons (176,400,000 gallons) of oil to be spilled into the waters, the worst oil spill to date. Some estimate the spill to be 428 million gallons, making it the largest unintentional oil spill until it was surpassed by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.\n General elections are held in Italy.\n* June 4\n Joe Clark becomes Canada's 16th and youngest Prime Minister.\n Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings takes power in Ghana after a military coup in which General Fred Akuffo is overthrown.\n* June 7 – The first direct elections to the European Parliament begin, allowing citizens from across all then-9 European Community member states to elect 410 MEPs. It is also the first international election in history.\n* June 12 – Bryan Allen flies the man-powered Gossamer Albatross across the English Channel.\n* June 18 – Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT II agreement in Vienna.\n* June 20 – A Nicaraguan National Guard soldier kills ABC TV news correspondent Bill Stewart and his interpreter Juan Espinosa. Other members of the news crew capture the killing on tape.\n* June 23 – Sydney: New South Wales Premier Neville Wran officially opens the Eastern Suburbs Railway. It operates as a shuttle between Central & Bondi Junction until full integration with the Illawarra Line in 1980. \n* June 24 – Bologna: The Permanent Peoples' Tribunal, an international opinion tribunal, is founded at the initiative of Senator Lelio Basso.\n* June 25 – Belgium: NATO Supreme Allied Commander Alexander Haig escapes an assassination attempt by the Baader-Meinhof terrorist organization.\n\nJuly \n\n* July 1\n Sweden outlaws corporal punishment in the home.\n The Sony Walkman goes on sale for the first time in Japan.\n* July 3 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter signs the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.\n* July 4 – Cape Verde recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.\n* July 5 – Queen Elizabeth II attends the millennium celebrations of the Isle of Man's Parliament, Tynwald.\n* July 8 – Los Angeles passes its gay and lesbian civil rights bill.\n* July 9 – A car bomb destroys a Renault owned by Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld at their home in France. A note purportedly from ODESSA claims responsibility.\n* July 11 – NASA's first orbiting space station Skylab begins its return to Earth, after being in orbit for 6 years and 2 months.\n* July 12\n The Gilbert Islands become fully independent of the United Kingdom as Kiribati.\n A Disco Demolition Night publicity stunt goes awry at Comiskey Park, forcing the Chicago White Sox to forfeit their game against the Detroit Tigers.\n Carmine Galante, boss of the Bonanno crime family, is assassinated in Brooklyn.\n A fire at a hotel in Zaragoza, Spain, leaves 72 dead, the worst hotel fire in Europe in decades.\n* July 16 – Iraqi President Hasan al-Bakr resigns and Vice President Saddam al-Tikriti replaces him.\n* July 17 – Nicaraguan dictator General Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigns and flees to Miami.\n* July 21\n The Sandinista National Liberation Front concludes a successful revolutionary campaign against the U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship and assumes power in Nicaragua.\n Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo becomes prime minister of Portugal.\n Maritza Sayalero of Venezuela wins the Miss Universe pageant; the stage collapses after contestants and news photographers rush to her throne.\n The Disco music genre dominates and peaks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, with the first six spots (beginning with Donna Summer's Bad Girls), and seven of the chart's top ten songs ending that week.\n\nAugust \n\n* August 3 – Dictator Francisco Macías Nguema of Equatorial Guinea is overthrown in a bloody coup d'état led by Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.\n* August 4 – Opening game of the American Football Bundesliga played between Frankfurter Löwen and Düsseldorf Panther, first-ever league game of American football in Germany.[http://books.google.com.au/books?id\nQ__8CmcZBZMC&pgPA224&lpg\nPA224&dqFrankfurter+L%C3%B6wen+American+football&source\nbl&ots7rL1LJ4igs&sig\nlIzYV5fdtiVJ2ojH0MboAADDt28&hlen&ei\niZktTZqQPIHEvQOWyemOCQ&saX&oi\nbook_result&ctresult&resnum\n8&ved0CEUQ6AEwBw#v\nonepage&q&f=false Google book review: Turnen and sport: transatlantic transfers] author: Annette R. Hofmann, accessed: 12 January 2010\n* August 5 – The Polisario Front signs a peace treaty with Mauritania. Mauritania withdraws from the Western Sahara territory it had occupied, and cedes it to the SADR.\n* August 8 – Two American commercial divers, Richard Walker and Victor Guiel, die of hypothermia after their diving bell becomes stranded at a depth of over in the East Shetland Basin. The legal repercussions of the accident will lead to important safety changes in the diving industry. \n* August 9\n A nudist beach is established in Brighton.\n Raymond Washington, co-founder of the Crips, today one of the largest, most notorious gangs in the United States, is killed in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles (his killers have not yet been identified).\n* August 10 – Michael Jackson releases his breakthrough album Off the Wall. It sells 7 million copies in the United States alone, making it a 7x platinum album.\n* August 11 – The former Mauritanian province of Tiris al-Gharbiyya in Western Sahara is annexed by Morocco.\n* August 14 – A freak storm during the Fastnet Race results in the deaths of 15 sailors.\n* August 20 – Grenada recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).\n* August 24 – Ghana recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).\n* August 27 – Lord Mountbatten of Burma and 3 others are assassinated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army. He was a British admiral, statesman and an uncle of The Duke of Edinburgh. On the same day, the Warrenpoint ambush occurs, killing 18 British soldiers.\n* August 28 – The death toll of the previous day's IRA bombing reaches 5 when Doreen Knatchbull, Baroness Brabourne, 83, dies in a hospital as a result of her injuries.\n* August 29 – A national referendum is held in which Somali voters approve a new liberal constitution, promulgated by President Siad Barre to placate the United States.\n\nSeptember \n\n* September 1\n The U.S. Pioneer 11 becomes the first spacecraft to visit Saturn, when it passes the planet at a distance of 21,000 km.\n Dominica, Guyana & St. Lucia recognize the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).\n** Sri Lanka Army Women's Corps is formed.\n* September 4 – Jamaica recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).\n* September 6 – Nicaragua and Uganda recognize the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).\n* September 7 – The first cable sports channel, ESPN, known as the Entertainment Sports Programming Network, is launched.\n* September 8 – Mexico recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).\n* September 9 – The long-running comic strip For Better or For Worse begins its run.\n* September 12 – Hurricane Frederic makes landfall at 10:00 p.m. on Alabama's Gulf Coast.\n* September 16 – Two families flee from East Germany by balloon.\n* September 20 – French paratroopers help David Dacko to overthrow Bokassa in the Central African Republic.\n* September 22 – The South Atlantic Flash is observed near the Prince Edward Islands, thought to be a nuclear weapons test conducted by South Africa and Israel.\n* September 30 – The Hong Kong MTR begins service with the opening of its Modified Initial System (aka Kwun Tong Line).\n\nOctober \n\n* October 1 – Nigeria terminates military rule, and the Second Nigerian Republic is established.\n* October 1 – October 6 – Pope John Paul II visits the United States.\n* October 1 – The MTR, the rapid transit railway system in Hong Kong, opens.\n* October 3 – An EF4 Tornado hits Windsor Locks, Connecticut, causing extensive damage to the town.\n* October 6 – Federal Reserve System changes from an interest rate target policy to a money supply target policy.\n* October 9\n Peter Brock wins the Bathurst 1000 by a record 6 laps, with a lap record on the last lap.\n Lesotho recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).\n* October 12\n Zambia recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).\n Near Guam, Typhoon Tip reaches a record intensity of 870 millibars, the lowest pressure recorded at sea level. This makes Tip the most powerful tropical cyclone in known world history.\n*Thorbjörn Fälldin returns as Prime Minister of Sweden , replacing Ola Ullsten who becomes Foreign Minister of Sweden .\n October 14 – A major gay rights march in the United States takes place in Washington, D.C., involving tens of thousands of people.\n* October 15 – Black Monday events, in which members of a political group sack a newspaper office, unfold in Malta.\n* October 16 – A tsunami in Nice, France kills 23 people.\n* October 19 – 13 U.S. Marines die in a fire at Camp Fuji, Japan as a result of Typhoon Tip. \n* October 20 – The first McDonald's in Singapore opens at Liat Towers in Orchard Road. \n* October 26 – Park Chung-hee, the President of South Korea, is assassinated by KCIA director Kim Jae-gyu.\n* October 27 – Saint Vincent and the Grenadines gains independence from the United Kingdom.\n\nNovember \n\n* November 1 – Iran hostage crisis: Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini urges his people to demonstrate on November 4 and to expand attacks on United States and Israeli interests.\n* November 2\n French police shoot gangster Jacques Mesrine in Paris.\n Assata Shakur (née Joanne Chesimard), a former member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, escapes from a New York prison to Cuba, where she remains under political asylum.\n* November 3 – In Greensboro, North Carolina, 5 members of the Communist Workers Party are shot to death and 7 are wounded by a group of Klansmen and neo-Nazis, during a \"Death to the Klan\" rally.\n* November 4 – Iran hostage crisis begins: 3,000 Iranian radicals, mostly students, invade the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and take 90 hostages (53 of whom are American). They demand that the United States send the former Shah of Iran back to stand trial.\n* November 5 – The radio news program Morning Edition premieres on National Public Radio in the United States.\n* November 6 – At Montevideo, Uruguay, the International Olympic Committee adopts a resolution, whereby Taiwan Olympic and sports teams will participate with the name Chinese Taipei in future Olympic Games and international sports tournaments and championships.\n* November 7 – U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy announces that he will challenge President Jimmy Carter for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination.\n* November 9\n The Carl Bridgewater murder trial ends in England with all 4 men found guilty. James Robinson, 45, and 25-year-old Vincent Hickey are sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommended 25-year minimum for murder. 18-year-old Michael Hickey is also found guilty of murder and sentenced to indefinite detention. Patrick Molloy, 53, is found guilty on a lesser charge of manslaughter and sentenced to 12 years in prison. \n Nuclear false alarm: the NORAD computers and the Alternate National Military Command Center in Fort Ritchie, Maryland, detect an apparent massive Soviet nuclear strike. After reviewing the raw data from satellites and checking the early-warning radars, the alert is cancelled. \n* November 10 – 1979 Mississauga train derailment: A 106-car Canadian Pacific freight train carrying explosive and poisonous chemicals from Windsor, Ontario, Canada derails in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada just west of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, causing a massive explosion and the largest peacetime evacuation in Canadian history and one of the largest in North American history.\n* November 12\n Iran hostage crisis: In response to the hostage situation in Tehran, U.S. President Jimmy Carter orders a halt to all oil imports into the United States from Iran.\n Süleyman Demirel, of the Justice Party (AP) forms the new government of Turkey (43rd government, a minority government).\n* November 14 – Iran hostage crisis: U.S. President Jimmy Carter issues Executive Order 12170, freezing all Iranian assets in the United States and U.S. banks in response to the hostage crisis.\n* November 15 – British art historian and former Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures Anthony Blunt's role as the \"fourth man\" of the 'Cambridge Five' double agents for the Soviet NKVD during World War II is revealed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom; she gives further details on November 21. \n* November 16 – Bucharest Metro Line One is opened, in Bucharest, Romania (from Timpuri Noi to Semanatoarea stations, 8.63 km).\n* November 17 – Iran hostage crisis: Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini orders the release of 13 female and African American hostages being held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.\n* November 20 – Grand Mosque seizure: A group of 200 Juhayman al-Otaybi militants occupy Mecca's Masjid al-Haram, the holiest place in Islam. They are driven out by French commandos (allowed into the city under these special circumstances despite their being non-Muslims) after bloody fighting that leaves 250 people dead and 600 wounded.\n* November 21 – After false radio reports from the Ayatollah Khomeini that the Americans had occupied the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan is attacked by a mob and set afire, killing 4, and disturbing Pakistan–United States relations.\n* November 23 – In Dublin, Ireland, Provisional Irish Republican Army member Thomas McMahon is sentenced to life in prison for the assassination of Lord Mountbatten of Burma.\n* November 25 – Last cargo of phosphate shipped from Banaba Island.\n* November 28 – Air New Zealand Flight 901: an Air New Zealand DC-10 crashes into Mount Erebus in Antarctica on a sightseeing trip, killing all 257 people on board.\n\nDecember \n\n* December 3\n Eleven fans are killed during a crowd crush for unreserved seats before The Who rock concert at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati.\n The United States dollar exchange rate with the Deutsche Mark falls to 1.7079 DM, the all-time low so far; this record is not broken until November 5, 1987.\n* December 4 – The Hastie fire in Kingston upon Hull, England, leads to the deaths of 3 boys and begins the hunt for Bruce George Peter Lee, the UK's most prolific killer.\n* December 5 – Jack Lynch resigns as Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland; he is succeeded by Charles Haughey.\n* December 6 – The world premiere of Star Trek: The Motion Picture is held at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.\n* December 9 – The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first of only two human diseases that have been driven to extinction.\n* December 12\n The 8.2 Mw Tumaco earthquake shakes Colombia and Ecuador with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), killing 300–600, and generating a large tsunami.\n Coup d'état of December Twelfth: South Korean Army Major General Chun Doo-hwan orders the arrest of Army Chief of Staff General Jeong Seung-hwa without authorization from President Choi Kyu-hah, alleging involvement in the assassination of ex-President Park Chung-hee.\n** The unrecognised state of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia returns to British control and resumes using the name Southern Rhodesia.\n* December 15 – The directorial debut of Hayao Miyazaki, The Castle of Cagliostro based on the manga series Lupin III is released in Japan.\n* December 21 – A ceasefire for Rhodesia is signed at London.\n* December 23 – The highest aerial tramway in Europe, the Klein Matterhorn, opens.\n* December 24\n The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan, and Babrak Karmal replaces overthrown and executed President Hafizullah Amin, which begins the war.\n The first European Ariane rocket is launched.\n* December 26 – In Rhodesia, 96 Patriotic Front guerrillas enter the capital Salisbury to monitor a ceasefire that begins December 28.\n\nDate unknown \n\n* The One-child policy is introduced in China - it has contributed to Missing women of China. It is later loosened in 2013.\n* VisiCalc becomes the first commercial spreadsheet program.\n* The first usenet experiments are conducted by Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis of Duke University.\n* Worldwide per capita oil production reaches a historic peak.\n* Chrysler receives government loan guarantees upon the request of CEO Lee Iacocca.\n* The remains of Tsar Nicholas II and some of the Romanovs are discovered and exhumed near Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg).\n\nBirths \n\nJanuary \n\n* January 1\n Brody Dalle, Australian singer\n Gisela, Spanish pop singer and a Spanish dub actress\n** Koichi Domoto, Japanese entertainer (KinKi Kids)\n* January 2\n Morena Baccarin, Italo-Brazilian actress\n Erica Hubbard, American actress\n* January 3\n Francesco Bellissimo, Italian Chef\n Koit Toome, Estonian singer and musical actor\n** Rie Tanaka, Japanese voice actress\n* January 4 – Charity Rahmer, American actress\n* January 6\n Christina Chanée, Danish-Thai pop singer\n Bernice Liu, Hong Kong actress\n* January 7 \nBipasha Basu, Indian actress and model\nChristian Lindner, German politician\n* January 8 – Stipe Pletikosa, Croatian football goalkeeper\n* January 9\n Jake Shields, UFC fighter\n Tomiko Van, Japanese singer (Do As Infinity)\n* January 10\n Chris Smith, African-American rapper (Kris Kross)\n James Lloyd, British actor\n* January 11 – Siti Nurhaliza, Malaysian singer\n* January 12\n Marián Hossa, Slovak ice hockey player\n Lee Bo-young, South Korean actress and model\n** Grzegorz Rasiak, Polish footballer\n* January 14 – Angela Lindvall, American model\n* January 15\n Drew Brees, American football player\n Martin Petrov, Bulgarian footballer\n* January 16 – Aaliyah, African-American R&B singer and actress (d. 2001)\n* January 17 – Sharon Chan, Hong Kong actress\n* January 18\n Jay Chou, Taiwanese singer, song producer and actor\n Paulo Ferreira, Portuguese footballer\n* January 20\n Asaka Kubo, Japanese gravure idol\n Will Young, English singer\n* January 21 – Brian O'Driscoll, Irish rugby union player\n* January 23 – Larry Hughes, American basketball player\n* January 24 – Tatyana Ali, African-American actress\n* January 27\n Daniel Vettori, New Zealand cricketer\n Rosamund Pike, British actress\n* January 29 – B. J. Flores, American boxer\n* January 31 – Jenny Wolf, German speed skater\n\nFebruary \n\n* February 1\nJulie Augustyniak, American footballer\nPeter Fulton, New Zealand cricketer\n* February 2\n Yuichi Tsuchiya, Japanese actor\n Fani Chalkia, Greek athlete\nMayer Hawthorne, American soul singer\n Shamita Shetty, Indian actress and an interior designer\n* February 5 – Katie Brambley, Canadian distance freestyle swimmer\n* February 6 – David Dolníček, Czech ice hockey player\n* February 7 – Michał Karwan, Polish footballer\n* February 8 – Martin Rowlands, Irish footballer\n* February 9\n Zhang Ziyi, Chinese actress and model\n Irina Slutskaya, Russian figure skater\n* February 10 – Daryl Palumbo, American musician; who fronted bands, such as (Glassjaw)\n* February 11 – Brandy Norwood, African-American singer and actress\n* February 12\n Antonio Chatman, American football player\n Jesse Spencer, Australian actor\n* February 13\n Anders Behring Breivik, Norwegian right-wing militant\n Mena Suvari, American actress\n** Rafael Márquez, Mexican footballer\n* February 14 – Jocelyn Quivrin, French actor (d. 2009)\n* February 15 – Gordon Shedden, Scottish race car driver\n* February 16\n Valentino Rossi, Italian motorcycle racer\n Eric Mun, leader of Korean boy-band Shinhwa\n* February 18 – Tyrone Burton, American actor\n* February 19 \nMariana Ochoa, Mexican singer and actress\nVitas, Ukrainian Singer, Model, and Fashion Designer.\n* February 21\n Carly Colón, Puerto Rican professional wrestler\n Christopher Hayes, American Journalist\n** Jennifer Love Hewitt, American actress and singer\n* February 22\n Patrick Merrill, Canadian lacrosse player\n Maryke Hendrikse, Canadian voice actress\n* February 25 – László Bodnár, Hungarian footballer\n* February 26\n Corinne Bailey Rae, British singer-songwriter and guitarist\n Susana Diazayas, Mexican actress\n* February 28\n Sébastien Bourdais, French racing driver\n Sander van Doorn, Dutch DJ and electronic music producer\n\nMarch \n\n* March 4\n Ben Fouhy, New Zealand flatwater canoeist\n Geoff Huegill, Australian swimmer\n** Jon Fratelli, Scottish singer (The Fratellis)\n* March 5 – Tang Gonghong, Chinese weightlifter\n* March 6 – Érik Bédard, Canadian pitcher\n* March 7 – Stephanie Anne Mills, Canadian voice actress \n* March 8 \n Tom Chaplin, British singer (Keane)\n Jessica Jaymes, American porn actress \n* March 9\nMelina Perez, American professional wrestler\nOscar Isaac, American actor\n* March 11 – Benji Madden and Joel Madden, American musicians (Good Charlotte)\n* March 12 – Pete Doherty, British singer and guitarist (The Libertines, Babyshambles)\n* March 14\n Nicolas Anelka, French footballer\n Gao Ling, Chinese badminton player\n** Chris Klein, American actor\n* March 15 – Kevin Youkilis, American baseball player\n* March 17 – Samoa Joe, American wrestler\n* March 18\n Shola Ama, English singer\n Adam Levine, American singer (Maroon 5)\n* March 19 \n Emil Dimitriev, Macedonian politician, Prime Minister\n Hedo Türkoğlu, Turkish basketball player\n* March 20\n Freema Agyeman, British actress\n Molly Jenson, American musician\n** Bianca Lawson, American actress\n* March 21 – Jimenez Lai, American architect\n* March 23 – Bryan Fletcher, American football player\n* March 25\n Lee Pace, American actor\n Traxamillion, American producer rapper\n** Gorilla Zoe, American rapper\n* March 29 – Estela Giménez, Spanish gymnast\n* March 30\n Norah Jones, American musician\n Simon Webbe, English singer (Blue)\n\nApril \n\n* April 1 – Mikko Franck, Finnish conductor\n* April 2 – Jesse Carmichael, American musician (Maroon 5)\n* April 3\n Grégoire, French singer-songwriter\n Živilė Balčiūnaitė, Lithuanian long-distance runner\n* April 4 \n Heath Ledger, Australian actor (d. 2008)\n Roberto Luongo, Canadian ice hockey goaltender\n* April 8\nTom Kurzanski, American comic artist\nAlexi Laiho, Finnish rock guitarist (Children of Bodom)\n* April 9\n Keshia Knight Pulliam, African-American actress\n Mario Matt, Austrian alpine skier\n** Ben Silverstone, British actor\n* April 10\n Rachel Corrie, American activist (d. 2003)\n Tsuyoshi Domoto, Japanese entertainer (KinKi Kids)\n** Sophie Ellis-Bextor, British singer\n* April 11\n Michel Riesen, Swiss ice hockey player\n Sebastien Grainger, Canadian singer and musician\n* April 12\n Claire Danes, American actress\n Jennifer Morrison, American actress\n* April 13\n Baron Davis, American basketball player\n Tony Lundon, Irish singer (Liberty X)\n* April 14\n Pierre Roland, Indonesian actor\n Rebecca DiPietro, American model\nApril 15 – Luke Evans, Welsh actor and singer\n April 16 – Christijan Albers, Dutch racing driver\n* April 17 – Sung Si-kyung, South Korean pop/ballad singer\n* April 18\n Kourtney Kardashian, American reality television star\n Michael Bradley, American basketball player\n Yusuke Kamiji, Japanese actor\n Anthony Davidson, English racing driver\n* April 19\n Kate Hudson, American actress\n Antoaneta Stefanova, Bulgarian chess player\n* April 21 – James McAvoy, Scottish actor\n* April 22 – Daniel Johns, Australian musician (Silverchair)\n* April 23\n Lauri Ylönen, Finnish singer (The Rasmus)\n Jaime King, American actress\n** Yana Gupta, Indian actress of Czech origin\n* April 24 – Laurentia Tan, Singaporean Paralympic equestrienne\n* April 25\n Andreas Küttel, Swiss ski jumper\n Andrea Osvárt, Hungarian actress\n* April 26 – Janne Wirman, Finnish keyboardist (Children of Bodom)\n* April 27 – Travis Meeks, American musician (Days of the New)\n* April 28 – Bahram Radan, Iranian actor\n* April 29\n Jo O'Meara, English singer (S Club 7)\n Matt Tong, drummer (Bloc Party)\n* April 30 – Shelley Calene-Black, American voice actress\n\nMay \n\n* May 1 – Mauro Bergamasco, Italian rugby union player\n* May 2 – Jason Chimera, Canadian ice hockey player\n* May 3 – Danny Foster, English singer (Hear'Say)\n* May 4\n Wes Butters, English broadcaster\n Lance Bass, American singer ('N Sync)\n* May 5 – Vincent Kartheiser, American actor\n* May 6\n Mark Burrier, American cartoonist\n Kerry Ellis, English stage actress/singer\n Gerd Kanter, Estonian discus thrower\n Jon Montgomery, Canadian former skeleton racer and television personality; host of The Amazing Race Canada\n* May 9\n Rosario Dawson, African-American actress\n Pierre Bouvier, Canadian musician\n* May 10 – Lee Hyori, South Korean entertainer\n* May 12 – Adrian Serioux, Canadian soccer player\n* May 13\n Mickey Madden, American musician (Maroon 5)\n Carl Philip, Prince of Sweden\n* May 14 – Urijah Faber, WEC Featherweight Champion\n* May 15 – Ryan Max Riley, humorist and national champion skier\n* May 16 – Jessica Morris, American actress\n* May 18 – Mariusz Lewandowski, Polish footballer\n* May 19\n Andrea Pirlo, Italian footballer\n Diego Forlán, Uruguayan football player\n* May 22 – Maggie Q, American actress\n* May 23 – Matt Flynn, drummer for the alternative band, Maroon 5\n* May 24\n Frank Mir, American mixed martial artist\n Tracy McGrady, American basketball player\n* May 25 – Jonny Wilkinson, English rugby union player\n* May 26 – Ashley Massaro, American wrestler and model\n* May 27 – Michael Buonauro, American comic creator\n* May 28 – Jesse Bradford, American actor\n* May 29 – Brian Kendrick, American wrestler\n* May 30\n Mike Bishai, Canadian ice hockey player\n Clint Bowyer, American race car driver\n** Rie Kugimiya, Japanese voice actress and singer\n\nJune \n\n* June 4 – Christopher Dorner, American soldier, policeman and multiple murderer (d. 2013)\n* June 5 – Pete Wentz, American musician, lyricist, and bassist (Fall Out Boy)\n* June 8 – Pete Orr, Canadian baseball player\n* June 9 – Émilie Loit, French tennis player\n* June 10 – Lee Brice, American country music singer-songwriter\n* June 12\n Amandine Bourgeois, French singer\n Dallas Clark, American football player\n Diego Milito, Argentine football player\n Jodie Prenger, British actress\n** Robyn, Swedish singer-songwriter\n* June 13 \n Nila Håkedal, Norwegian beach volleyball player\n Ágnes Csomor, Hungarian actress\n* June 14 – Paradorn Srichaphan, Thai tennis player\n* June 15 – Yulia Nestsiarenka, Belarusian athlete\n* June 16 – Ari Hest, American singer-songwriter\n* June 18\n Yumiko Kobayashi, Japanese voice actress\n Chris Neil, Canadian ice hockey player\n** Ivana Wong, Hong Kong singer-songwriter\n* June 19\n John Duddy, Irish boxer\n Kate Tsui, Hong Kong actress\n* June 21 – Chris Pratt, American actor\n* June 22 – Sandra Klösel, German tennis player\n* June 23 – LaDainian Tomlinson, American football player\n* June 24\n Petra Němcová, Czech model\n Craig Shergold, British cancer patient\n* June 25 – Busy Philipps, American film actress\n* June 26 – Ryan Tedder, American singer (OneRepublic), songwriter and producer\n* June 28\n Felicia Day, American actress, writer, director, violinist, and singer\n Randy McMichael, American football player\n* June 29\n Abz Love, English singer (5ive)\n Marleen Veldhuis, Dutch swimmer\n* June 30\n Rick Gonzalez, American actor\n Faisal Shahzad, Pakistani-American bomber\n\nJuly \n\n* July 1 – Forrest Griffin, American mixed martial arts fighter\n* July 2\n Diana Gurtskaya, Georgian singer\n Sam Hornish, Jr., American race car driver\n** Ayiesha Woods, American singer\n* July 3\n Sayuri Katayama, Japanese actress, singer and lyricist\n Ludivine Sagnier, French model and actress\n* July 5\n Shane Filan, Irish singer (Westlife)\n Amélie Mauresmo, French tennis player\nJuly 6 – Kevin Hart, American actor, comedian, writer and producer\n July 9\n Gary Chaw, Malaysian Chinese singer\n Ella Koon, Hong Kong actress\n* July 14 – Axel Teichmann, German cross-country skier\n* July 15 – Travis Fimmel, Australian fashion model and actor\n* July 16 – Kinya Kotani, Japanese singer\n* July 17 – Mike Vogel, American actor\n* July 18\nRick Baxter, American politician\nJaska Raatikainen, Finnish drummer (Children of Bodom)\n* July 20\n Milan Nikolić, Serbian accordionist\n Amr Shabana, Egyptian squash player\n* July 21 – David Carr, American football player\n* July 24\n Rose Byrne, Australian actress\n Lee Si-yeon, South Korean actress\n** Stat Quo, American rapper\n* July 25 – Allister Carter, English snooker player\n* July 26\n Johnson Beharry, British recipient of the Victoria Cross\n Tamyra Gray, American singer\n Derek Paravicini, British pianist\n Peter Sarno, Canadian ice hockey player\n** Mageina Tovah, American actress\n* July 27\n Jorge Arce, Mexican boxer\n Shannon Moore, American professional wrestler\n* July 30\n Show Luo, Taiwanese singer\n Graeme McDowell, Northern Irish professional golfer\n** Maya Nasser, Syrian journalist (d. 2012)\n\nAugust \n\n* August 1\n Jason Momoa, American actor\n Honeysuckle Weeks, British actress\n* August 3\n Evangeline Lilly, Canadian actress\n Maria Haukaas Mittet, Norwegian recording artist\n* August 5 – David Healy, Northern Irish footballer\n* August 4 – Patryk Dominik Sztyber, Polish metal musician\n* August 7\n Wendy van der Plank, English actress\n Miguel Llera, Spanish footballer\n* August 8 – Azumi Kawashima, Japanese idol and AV idol\n* August 10\n Joanna García, American actress\n Ted Geoghegan, American screenwriter\n* August 11\n Drew Nelson, Canadian actor and voice actor\n Bubba Crosby, American baseball player\n* August 12 – Cindy Klassen, Canadian speed skater\n* August 13 – Taizō Sugimura, Japanese politician\n* August 15\n Carl Edwards, American race car driver\n Dan Marshall, Canadian hockey player\n** Peter Shukoff, American comedian, musician and personality\n* August 16 – Sarah Balabagan, Filipina prisoner and singer\n* August 19 – Oumar Kondé, Swiss footballer\n* August 20 – Jamie Cullum, English jazz pianist and singer\n* August 22 – Matt Walters, American football player\n* August 23 – Ritchie Neville, English singer (5ive)\n* August 24 – Elva Hsiao, Taiwanese singer\n* August 25 – Andrew Hussie, American artist.\n* August 26\n Jamal Lewis, American football player\n Cristian Mora, Ecuadorian footballer\n* August 27\n Giovanni Capitello, American filmmaker/actor\n Tian Liang, Chinese diver\n** Aaron Paul, American actor\n* August 28\n Robert Hoyzer, German football referee\n Yuki Maeda, Japanese singer\n* August 29 – Justine Pasek, Miss Universe 2002\n* August 30\n Tavia Yeung, Hong Kong actress\n Niki Chow, Hong Kong actress\n* August 31\n Mickie James, American professional wrestler\n Simon Neil, Scottish musician (vocalist, guitarist, songwriter), Biffy Clyro Marmaduke Duke\n** Yuvan Shankar Raja, Indian film composer\n\nSeptember \n\n* September 1 – Neg Dupree, British comedian\n* September 2\n Ron Ng, Hong Kong actor\n Łukasz Żygadło, Polish volleyball player\n* September 3 – Júlio César, Brazilian football goalkeeper\n* September 4 – Maxim Afinogenov, Russian ice hockey player\n* September 5\n John Carew, Norwegian footballer\n Stacey Dales, Canadian basketball player and sportscaster\n* September 6 – Ned Collette, Australian singer and musician\n* September 8 – Pink, American singer\n* September 10 – Mustis, Norwegian pianist\n* September 11\n Ariana Richards, American actress\n Éric Abidal, French footballer\n* September 12 \n Jay McGraw, American author, son of TV psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw\n Peter Browngardt, American cartoonist\n* September 13 – Ivan Miljković, Serbian volleyball player\n* September 14\n Stuart Fielden, English rugby league player\n Kamya Panjabi, Indian television actress\n* September 15\n Amy Davidson, American actress\n Edna Ngeringway Kiplagat, Kenyan long-distance runner\n* September 16\n Fanny, French singer\n Flo Rida, African-American rapper\n* September 17 – Akin Ayodele, American football player\n** Chuck Comeau, Canadian drummer \n* September 18 – Alison Lohman, American actress\n* September 19 – Noémie Lenoir, French supermodel\n* September 20 – David Long, New Zealand musician\n* September 22 – Jericho Rosales, Filipino actor\n* September 23 – Lote Tuqiri, Australian rugby union player\n* September 24\n Justin Bruening, American actor and model\n Erin Chambers, American actress\n* September 25 – Rashad Evans, a fighter in the MMA sport UFC\n* September 26\n Naomichi Marufuji, Japanese professional wrestler\n Taavi Rõivas, Prime Minister of Estonia\n* September 27 – Shinji Ono, Japanese football player\n* September 28\n Bam Margera, American skateboarder\n Dane Boedigheimer (Daneboe), American YouTuber and animator\n* September 29\n Gaitana, Ukrainian singer and songwriter of Ukrainian and Congolese descent\n Artika Sari Devi, Putri Indonesia 2004\n* September 30 – Vince Chong, Malaysian singer\n\nOctober \n\n* October 1\n Rudi Johnson, American football player\n Senit, Italian singer of Eritrean descent\n** Marko Stanojevic, English-born Italian rugby union player\n* October 2 – Brianna Brown, American actress\n* October 3\n Matt Davis, American stand-up comedian\n John Hennigan, American professional wrestler\n** Danny O'Donoghue, Irish singer-songwriter (The Script)\n* October 4 – Rachael Leigh Cook, American actress\n* October 5 – Gao Yuanyuan, Chinese actress\n* October 7\n Susan Eldridge, American supermodel\n Tang Wei, Chinese actress\n* October 9\n Csézy, Hungarian singer\n Vernon Fox, American football player\n Alex Greenwald, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor (Phantom Planet and JJAMZ)\n Todd Kelly, Australian race car driver\n Chris O'Dowd, Irish actor and comedian\n DJ Rashad, Chicago-based electronic musician, producer and DJ (d. 2014)\n Hendrik Odendaal, South African swimmer\n Brandon Routh, American actor\n** Gonzalo Sorondo, Uruguayan footballer\n* October 10\n Wu Chun, Bruneian actor, model, and singer\n Nicolás Massú, Chilean tennis player\n** Mýa, American singer and actress\n* October 11\n Bae Doona, South Korean actress\n Gabe Saporta, Uruguayan singer (Cobra Starship)\n* October 13\n Ryan Malcolm, Canadian singer\n Mamadou Niang, Senegalese footballer\n* October 14 – Stacy Keibler, American actress and model\n* October 15 – Jaci Velasquez, American Christian singer\n* October 16 – Erin Brown, American actress\n* October 17 – Kimi Räikkönen, Finnish race car driver\n* October 18 – Ne-Yo, African-American singer and songwriter\n* October 19 – Marc Elliott, British actor\n* October 20\n John Krasinski, American actor\n Paul O'Connell, Irish rugby union player\n* October 23 – Jorge Solís, Mexican professional boxer\n* October 28_ Jawed Karim; Co-founder of Youtube\n Brett Dennen, American folk/pop singer and songwriter\n Martin Škoula, Czech ice hockey player\n* October 30 – Yukie Nakama, Japanese actress\n\nNovember \n\n* November 1\n Coco Crisp, American baseball player\n Atsuko Enomoto, Japanese voice actress\n** Milan Dudić, Serbian footballer\n* November 3\n Pablo Aimar, Argentine footballer\n Tim McIlrath, American rock singer, songwriter (Rise Against)\n* November 4 – Audrey Hollander, American pornographic actress\n* November 6\n Lamar Odom, African-American retired basketball player\n Myolie Wu, Hong Kong actress\n* November 7 – Jon Peter Lewis, American singer and songwriter\n* November 8\n Aaron Hughes, Northern Irish footballer\n Salvatore Cascio, Italian actor (Cinema Paradiso)\n* November 9 – Dania Ramirez, Dominican-American actress\n* November 12\n Cote de Pablo, Chilean actress\n Matt Stevic, Australian rules football umpire\n* November 13 – Metta World Peace, American basketball player\n* November 14\n Mavie Hörbiger, German actress\n Olga Kurylenko, Ukrainian model and actress\n** Mpule Kwelagobe, Miss Universe 1999\n* November 17 – Matthew Spring, English footballer\n* November 19 – Larry Johnson, American football player\n* November 20 – Ericson Alexander Molano, Colombian gospel singer\n* November 21 – Kim Dong-wan, South Korean singer and actor\n* November 22\n Chris Doran, Irish singer\n Scott Robinson, English singer (5ive)\n* November 23\n Ivica Kostelić, Croatian alpine skier\n Kelly Brook, English actress/model\n* November 25 – Joel Kinnaman, Swedish-American actor\n* November 27\n Ricky Carmichael, American motorcycle and stock car racer\n Hilary Hahn, American violinist\n* November 28\n Dane Bowers, English singer-songwriter (Another Level)\n Jamie Korab, Canadian curler\n** Hakeem Seriki, African-American rapper (Chamillionaire)\n* November 29 – Jayceon Taylor, American rapper (The Game)\n\nDecember \n\n* December 2 \n Sabina Babayeva, Azerbaijani singer\n Yvonne Catterfeld, German singer\n* December 3\n Daniel Bedingfield, English pop singer and songwriter\n Rock Cartwright, American football player\n** Rainbow Sun Francks, Canadian actor and singer\n* December 5 – Evonne Hsu, Taiwanese singer\n* December 7\nJennifer Carpenter, American actress\nEric Bauza, Canadian comedian and voice actor\nSara Bareilles, American singer, songwriter and pianist\n Ayako Fujitani, Japanese actress\n* December 8 – Ingrid Michaelson, American indie pop singer-songwriter\n* December 9 – Olivia Lufkin, English-Japanese singer, songwriter\n* December 11 – Rider Strong, American actor\n* December 12 – Emin, Azerbaijani-Russian singer-songwriter and businessman\n* December 14 – Michael Owen, English footballer\n* December 15 – Adam Brody, American actor\n* December 16 \n Mihai Trăistariu, Romanian singer and musician\n Trevor Immelman, South African golfer\n* December 17\n William Green, American football player\n Matt Murley, American hockey player\n* December 18 – Amy Grabow, American actress\n* December 19\n Kevin Devine, American songwriter and musician\n Paola Rey, Colombian actress and model\n* December 22\n Petra Majdič, Slovene cross-country skier\n Amanda Baker, American actress\n* December 23\n Summer Altice, American model and actress\n Kenny Miller, Scottish football player\n* December 25 – Ferman Akgül, vocalist of Turkish nu-metal band maNga\n* December 26\n Chris Daughtry, American singer and guitarist\n Dimitry Vassiliev, Russian ski jumper\n* December 27 – Carson Palmer, American football player\n* December 28\n James Blake, American tennis pro\n Diego Luna, Mexican actor\n** Robert Edward Davis, German-American rapper\n* December 30\n Milana Terloeva, Chechen journalist and author\n Yelawolf, American rapper\n* December 31\n Bob Bryar, American drummer (My Chemical Romance)\n Elaine Cassidy, Irish actress\n\nDeaths \n\nJanuary \n\n* January 3 – Conrad Hilton, American hotelier (b. 1887)\n* January 4 – Vincent Korda, Hungarian art director (b. 1897)\n* January 4 – Peter Frankenfeld, German comedian, radio and television personality (b. 1913)\n* January 5\n Billy Bletcher, American actor (b. 1894)\n Charles Mingus, American musician (b. 1922)\n* January 7 – Wallace Townsend, Iowa-born lawyer who was from 1928 to 1961 the Republican national committeeman (b. 1882)\n* January 8 – Sara Carter, American bluegrass and country singer (b. 1898)\n* January 11 – Jack Soo, Japanese-American actor (b. 1917)\n* January 13 – Donny Hathaway, African-American musician (b. 1945)\n* January 16\n Peter Butterworth, English actor (b. 1919)\n Ted Cassidy, American actor (b. 1932)\n* January 19 – Tuffy Leemans, American football player (New York Giants) and a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame (b. 1912)\n* January 22 – Elvin C. Stakman, American plant pathologist (b. 1885)\n* January 25 – Robertson Hare, English actor (b. 1891)\n* January 26 – Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York, Vice President of the United States (b. 1908)\n* January 27 – Qalandar Baba Auliya, Pakistani founder of the Azeemiyya Order of the Sufis (b. 1898)\n* January 28 – Glen Flanagan, American featherweight boxer (b. 1926)\n* January 29 \n Alf Ahlberg, Swedish writer, humanist, and philosopher (b. 1892)\n Andy Harrington (pinch hitter), American professional baseball player (b. 1903)\n* January 30 – Charles Watts (cricketer, born 1894), English cricketer (b. 1894)\n\nFebruary \n\n* February 1 – Daniel Starch, American psychologist and marketing researcher (b. 1883)\n* February 2\n Issa Pliyev, Soviet general (b. 1903)\n Sid Vicious, English musician (Sex Pistols) (drug overdose) (b. 1957)\n* February 3 – Aaron Douglas, American painter (b. 1899)\n* February 4 – Claude Massop, Jamaican gang leader of the Shower Posse Gang (b. c. 1949)\n* February 5 – Reidar Waaler, Norwegian-born, American soldier for the United States Army (b. 1894)\n* February 6 – Mary Bell (aviator), Australian aviatrix (b. 1903)\n* February 7\n Warren Giles, Major League Baseball executive and commissioner from 1951 to 1969; National Baseball Hall of Fame inductee in 1979 (b. 1896)\n Josef Mengele, German Nazi war criminal (b. 1911)\n** Elizabeth O'Neill Verner, artist, author and lecturer from Charleston, South Carolina (b. 1883)\n* February 8 – Art Williams (umpire), African-American baseball umpire (b. 1934)\n* February 9 – Dennis Gabor, Hungarian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1900)\n* February 10 – Edvard Kardelj, Yugoslav communist political leader, economist, partisan and publicist (b. 1910)\n* February 12 – Jean Renoir, French film director (b. 1894)\n* February 14 – Reginald Maudling, British politician (b. 1917)\n* February 15 – George Dunning, cartoon director and animator (b. 1920)\n* February 17 – William Gargan, American actor (b. 1905)\n* February 22 – Sigrid Schauman, Finnish painter (b. 1877)\n* February 23 – W. A. C. Bennett, Canadian politician (b. 1900)\n* February 24 – Joseph Rudderham, English prelate of the Roman Catholic Church (b. 1899)\n* February 25 – Henrich Focke, German aviation pioneer (b. 1890)\n* February 26 – Devendra Goel, Indian film director and producer of Bollywood films (b. 1919)\n* February 27\n John F. Seitz, American Academy Award-nominated cinematographer (b. 1892)\n Hanns-Horst von Necker, German Nazi Generalmajor in the Luftwaffe; highly decorated (b. 1903)\n* February 28 – Ethel Remey, American actress (b. 1895)\n\nMarch \n\n* March 1\n Mustafa Barzani, Iraqi Kurdish politician (b. 1903)\n Dolores Costello, American actress (b. 1903)\n* March 6 – Link Wasem, American baseball player (b. 1911)\n* March 10 – William Boyd (pathologist), Scottish-Canadian physician, pathologist, academic, and author (b. 1885)\n* March 11 – Victor Kilian, American actor (b. 1891)\n* March 14 – Robert William Wood, American landscape painter (b. 1889)\n* March 15 – Léonide Massine, Russian dancer and choreographer (b. 1896)\n* March 16 – Jean Monnet, French political economist and diplomat (b. 1888)\n* March 16 – Carmen de Icaza, Spanish writer (b. 1899)\n* March 17 – Alfred Brotherston Emden, Oxford University historian and Principal of St Edmund Hall from 1929 to 1951.(b. 1888)\n* March 19 – Richard Beckinsale, British actor (b. 1947)\n* March 22 – Ben Lyon, American actor (b. 1901)\n* March 23 – Ted Anderson, English footballer (b. 1911)\n* March 24 – Yvonne Mitchell, English actress (b. 1915)\n* March 26 – Jean Stafford, American writer (b. 1915)\n* March 28 – Emmett Kelly, American clown (b. 1898)\n* March 29 – Sultan Yahya Petra ibni Almarhum Sultan Ibrahim Petra, King of Malaysia (b. 1917)\n* March 30\n Airey Neave, British politician (assassinated) (b. 1916)\n José María Velasco Ibarra, former President of Ecuador (b. 1893)\n\nApril \n\n* April 1 – Barbara Luddy, American actress (b. 1908)\n* April 2 – Grace Fortescue, New York socialite (b. 1883)\n* April 4\n Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, President and Prime Minister of Pakistan (executed) (b. 1928)\n Edgar Buchanan, American actor (b. 1903)\n* April 6 – Ivan Vasilyov, Bulgarian architect (b. 1893)\n* April 7\n Frank J. Donahue, American politician (b. 1881)\n Charles W. Sawyer, United States Secretary of Commerce (b. 1887)\n* April 10 – Nino Rota, Italian composer (b. 1911)\n* April 11 – Hassan Pakravan, Iranian diplomat (b. 1911)\n* April 13 – Frankie Kelleher, American baseball player (b. 1916)\n* April 14 – Clarence Dillon, American financier (b.1882)\n* April 15 – David Brand, Australian politician (b. 1912)\n* April 17 – Chuck Osborne, American basketball player with Syracuse Nationals (b. 1939)\n* April 18 – Jullan Kindahl, Swedish actress (b. 1885)\n* April 19 – Wilhelm Bittrich, German Waffen SS general (b. 1894)\n* April 20 – Peter Donald, British-born, American actor (b. 1918)\n* April 22 – Leslie Phillips (cricketer), English cricketer (b. 1899)\n* April 23 – Blair Peach, New Zealand-born, British teacher (b. 1946) \n* April 24 – John Carroll, American actor (b. 1906)\n* April 26 – Julia Bell, English human geneticist (b. 1879)\n* April 27 – Phan Huy Quát, Vietnamese physician, acting Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam, and Prime Minister of the Republic of Vietnam (b. c. 1909)\n* April 28 – Norman Kilner, English cricketer (b. 1895)\n* April 30 – Pan Halippa, Bessarabian and later Romanian journalist and politician (b. 1883)\n\nMay \n\n* May 1 – Morteza Motahhari, Iranian cleric & politician (b. 1919)\n* May 2 – Giulio Natta, Italian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1903)\n* May 3\n John Field (American football), American football player and corset & lingerie manufacturer (b. 1886)\n Gordon Luce, British manuscript, book, and photograph collector (b. 1889)\n* May 4 – John Bentley Stringer, British computer scientist (b. 1928)\n* May 6 – Milton Ager, American songwriter (b. 1893)\n* May 7 – Ralph Huffman, American college football coach for the Fort Hays State University Tigers (b. 1915)\n* May 8 – Victor Saville, American film director and producer (b. 1895)\n* May 9 – Cyrus S. Eaton, Canadian-born American investment banker, businessman and philanthropist (b. 1883)\n* May 10 – Ita Rina, Slovenian film actress & beauty queen (b. 1907) \n* May 11\n Joan Chandler, American actress (b. 1923)\n Lester Flatt, American bluegrass and folk singer (b. 1914)\n** Barbara Hutton, American socialite (b. 1912)\n* May 12\n Rosario María Gutiérrez Eskildsen, Méxican lexicographer (b. 1899)\n Clyde Kluttz, American baseball player, scout, and executive (b. 1917)\n* May 13\n Predrag Đajić, Bosnian Serb and Yugoslav footballer (b. 1922)\n Iris Hoey, British actress (b. 1885)\n* May 14 – Jean Rhys, mid-20th-century novelist from Dominica.(b. 1890)\n* May 16\n Robert Florey, French-American film director and screenwriter,(b. 1900)\n Margaret Harwood, American astronomer and the first Director of the Maria Mitchell Observatory in Nantucket, Massachusetts (b. 1885)\n** A. Philip Randolph, African-American civil rights leader (b. 1889)\n* May 17 – Donyale Luna, First African-American model who appeared on the cover of Vogue in March 1966 (b. 1945)\n* May 18\n Volodymyr Ivasyuk, Ukrainian songwriter, composer, and poet (b. 1949)\n Paul Southwell, Premier and First Minister of Saint Kitts and Nevis (b. 1913)\n* May 19 – Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, Hindi novelist (b. 1907)\n* May 20 – Helen Smith (nurse), British nurse (b. 1956)\n* May 22 – Kurt Jooss, German dancer and choreographer (b. 1901)\n* May 23 – Hiroshi Ohshita, Japanese professional baseball player (b. 1922)\n* May 24 – Albert W. Cretella, U. S. Representative from Connecticut (b. 1897)\n* May 25 – John Spenkelink, American convicted murderer (b. 1949)\n* May 25 – American Airlines Flight 191 Casualties\n Itzhak Bentov, Czech-born, Israeli-American scientist, inventor, and author (b. 1923)\n* Other notable deaths: Sheila Charisse; daughter-in-law of Cyd Charisse, Leonard Stogel - a band manager, promoter, & executive for such band as: The Cowsills & Tommy James & The Shondells, Victoria Haider - Playboy magazine editor, Judith & Sheldon Wax - Judith; an editor contributor and Sheldon; a managing editor for Playboy, Robert Walton Vaughan - Professor of Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology.\n* May 26 – George Brent, Irish actor (b. 1899)\n* May 27 \n Margot Benary-Isbert, German writer (b. 1889)\n Ahmed Ould Bouceif, Mauritanian military leader (b. 1934)\n* May 28 – Frank Frederickson, Canadian NHL hockey player (b. 1895) \n* May 29 – Mary Pickford, Canadian Academy Award-winning actress and studio founder (b. 1892)\n* May 31\n Marcel Merminod, Swiss film actor (b. 1893)\n Scott Vincent, American radio & television announcer and news anchor (b. 1922)\n\nJune \n\n* June 1\n Werner Forssmann, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1904)\n Ján Kadár, Czechoslovakian film director (b. 1918)\n** Jack Mulhall, American actor (b. 1887)\n* June 2 – Jim Hutton, American actor (b. 1934)\n* June 3 – Arno Schmidt, German writer (b. 1914)\n* June 4 \n Lazar Lagin, Soviet satirical and children's writer (b.1903)\n Neville Alexander Odartey-Wellington, Ghanaian army officer (b. 1934)\n* June 5 – Heinz Erhardt, German comedian, musician, entertainer, actor, and poet (b. 1909)\n* June 6 – Jack Haley, American actor (b. 1898)\n* June 7 – Asa Earl Carter, American novellist (b. 1925)\n* June 8 – Muriel Coben, Canadian baseball and curling player (b. 1921)\n* June 9 \n Scott Garland (ice hockey), Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1952)\n Cyclone Taylor, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1884)\n* June 10 – Winifred Mary Ward, the sister of Francis Kingdon Ward.(b. 1884)\n* June 11\nEdward Almond, American general (b. 1892)\nJohn Wayne, American Academy Award-winning actor (The Searchers; True Grit) (b. 1907)\n* June 12 \n Bill Brenzel, American Major League Baseball catcher (b. 1910)\n Constant Joacim, Belgian footballer (b. 1908)\n* June 13\n George Cisar, American actor (b. 1912)\n Darla Hood, American actress (b. 1931)\n* June 14 – Ahmad Zahir, Afghan singer and composer (b. 1946)\n* June 15 – Laurie Bird, American actress (b. 1952)\n* June 16 – Nicholas Ray, American film director (b. 1911)\n* June 17 – Duffy Lewis, American baseball player (b. 1888)\n* June 18 – Hal Trosky, American baseball player (b 1912)\n* June 19 – Paul Popenoe, American eugenicist (b. 1888)\n* June 21 – Angus MacLise, American rock percussionist (The Velvet Underground) (b. 1938)\n* June 22\n Louis Chiron, Monacan Grand Prix driver (b. 1899)\n Hope Summers, American actress (b. 1896)\n* June 23 – Cremilda de Oliveira, Portuguese actress (b. 1887)\n* June 25 – Dave Fleischer, American animator (b. 1894)\n* June 26 – George Boakye, Ghanaian Military airman and politician (b. 1937)\n* June 27 \n Ludovico Arroyo Bañas, Philippines Telecommications official (b. 1901)\n Pat Maloney, American baseball plyar (b. 1887)\n* June 28 – Philippe Cousteau, French oceanographer, and documentary filmmaker (b. 1940)\n* June 29 – Lowell George, American rock musician (Little Feat) (b. 1945)\n* June 30 – William B. Franke, American United States Secretary of the Navy from (1959-1961) (b.1894)\n\nJuly \n\n* July 1 \n Douglas McKenzie, Australian cricketer (b. 1906)\n Richard Ward (actor), gravely-voiced, African-American actor (b. 1915)\n* July 2 – Carlyle Smith Beals, Canadian astronomer (b. 1899)\n* July 3 – Louis Durey, French composer (b. 1888)\n* July 4 \n Frank H. Ellis, Canadian aviator and Member of the Early Birds (b. 1896)\n Theodora Kroeber, American writer and anthropologist (b. 1897)\n Marjorie Rhodes, British actress (b. 1897)\n Mendy Rudolph, American baseketball referee of the NBA (b. 1926)\n* July 6 – Van McCoy, African-American accomplished musician; noted for his 1975 hit The Hustle (b. 1940)\n* July 7 – Billy Dean Anderson, Notorious American criminal on \"America's 10 Most Wanted\" (b. 1934)\n* July 8\n Elizabeth Ryan, American 30 Grand Slam (tennis) Tennis Champion (b. 1892)\n Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Japanese physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1906)\n Michael Wilding, English actor (b. 1912)\n Robert B. Woodward, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1917)\n* July 9 – Roddy McMillan, Scottish actor (b. 1923)\n* July 10 – Arthur Fiedler, American conductor (Boston Pops) (b. 1894)\n* July 11\n Giorgio Ambrosoli, Italian lawyer (b. 1933)\n Else Højgaard, Danish ballerina (b. 1906)\n** Claude Wagner, French-Canadian judge and Progressive Conservative senator appointed in 1978 (b. 1925)\n* July 12 – Minnie Riperton, American R&B singer (Lovin' You) (b. 1947)\n* July 13\n Corinne Griffith, American actress (b. 1894)\n Ludwig Merwart, Austrian painter and graphic artist (1913)\n* July 14 – McGuire Twins; One of the heaviest recorded twins by Guinness World Records, Billy died. (b. 1946) \n* July 15\n Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, Mexican President (b. 1911)\n Juana de Ibarbourou, Uruguayan poet (b. 1892)\n* July 16 – Alfred Deller, English countertenor (b. 1912)\n* July 18 – Pavel Prokkonen, Karelian Soviet politician (b. 1909)\n* July 19 – Helen Bradley, English artist whose works depicted the Edwardian era (b. 1900)\n* July 20 – Volney Davis, American Depression era outlaw (b. 1902)\n* July 21 – Juan Guzmán Cruchaga, Chilean poet & diplomat (b. 1895)\n* July 22 \n Tony Galento, American boxer (b. 1910)\n Sándor Kocsis, Hungarian footballer (b. 1929)\n* July 23 – Lefty West, American Major League Baseball player (b. 1915)\n* July 25 – Erich Pohlmann, Austrian character actor (b. 1913)\n* July 26 – Stefan Wiechecki, Polish journalist (b. 1896)\n* July 27 – Gustavo Cochet, Argentine painter and engraver (b. 1894)\n* July 28 – George Seaton, American screenwriter and director (b. 1911)\n* July 29\n Bill Todman, American game show producer (b. 1916)\n Herbert Marcuse, German American philosopher, sociologist, and political theorist (b. 1898)\n* July 30 – Lew Kowarski, Russian-born, French physicist (b. 1907)\n* July 31 – Beatrix Lehmann, British actress, theatre director, and author (b. 1903)\n\nAugust\n\n* August 1 – Wayne Brenkert, American football player-coach (b. 1895)\n* August 2\n Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, Peruvian politician, founder of the APRA Party (b. 1895)\n Thurman Munson, American baseball player (b. 1947)\n* August 3 – Bertil Ohlin, Swedish economist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1899)\n* August 4\n Reynold C. Fuson, American chemist (b. 1895)\n Roger Lambrecht, Belgian road bicycle rider (b. 1916)\n* August 5 – Homero Hidrobo, Ecudorian classical musician (b. 1939)\n* August 6 – Feodor Felix Konrad Lynen, German biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1911)\n* August 7 – Margery Maude, English stage actress (b. 1889)\n* August 8\n Lionel Cooper (mathematician), South African mathematician (b. 1915) \n George Rider, American basketball coach (b. 1890)\n* August 9 – Walter O'Malley, American baseball executive (b. 1903)\n* August 10\n Dick Foran, American actor (b. 1910)\n Mohammad Nur Ahmad Etemadi, Afghan politician, former Prime Minister (b. 1921)\n* August 11\n Alim Ashirov, Soviet footballer (b. 1955)\n J. G. Farrell, Liverpool-born, Irish novelist (b. 1935)\n* August 12 – Ernst Boris Chain, German-born biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1906)\n* August 13 – Andrew Dasburg, American modernist painter (b. 1887)\n* August 15 \n Zygmunt Witymir Bieńkowski, Polish pilot and writer (b. 1913)\n Asa Martin, American old time musician (b. 1900)\n* August 16 – John Diefenbaker, 13th Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1895)\n* August 17 – Vivian Vance, American actress (b. 1909)\n* August 18 – Draper Kauffman, American Naval pioneering underwater demolition expert (b. 1911) \n* August 19\n Mary Millington, British porn star (b. 1945)\n Joel Teitelbaum, Hungarian Rebbe (b. 1887)\n* August 20 – Christian Dotremont, Belgian painter and writer (b. 1922)\n* August 21 – Stuart Heisler, American film and television director (b. 1896)\n* August 22 – James T. Farrell, American novelist (b. 1904)\n* August 23 – Richard Hearne, English comedic actor (b. 1908)\n* August 24 – Hanna Reitsch, German aviator (b. 1912)\n* August 25 – Stan Kenton, American jazz pianist (b. 1911)\n* August 26 – Alvin Karpis, last of America's depression era criminals (b. 1907)\n* August 27 – Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, British Viceroy of India (assassinated) (b. 1900)\n* August 28 – Princess Tatiana Constantinovna of Russia, Former Russian royal princess (b. 1890)\n* August 29 – Samuel Irving Newhouse, Sr., American media entrepreneur and publisher (b. 1895)\n* August 30 (body found on September 8) – Jean Seberg, American actress (b. 1938)\n* August 31 – Sally Rand, American dancer (b. 1904)\n\nSeptember \n\n* September 1 \n Doris Kenyon, American actress (b. 1897)\n Stanley R. Mullard, English industrialist (b. 1883)\n* September 2 – Felix Aylmer, British actor (b. 1889)\n* September 3\n Lim Cheng Hoe, Chinese-born, Singaporean watercolorist (b. 1912)\n Wincenty Okołowicz, Polish geographer & climatologist (b. 1906)\n** Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso, Venezuelan politician (b. 1903)\n* September 4 – Canuplin, Filipino magician and bodabil entertainer (b. 1904)\n* September 5 – Alberto di Jorio, Italian Roman Catholic cardinal (b. 1884)\n* September 6 – Guy Bolton, British playwright (b. 1884)\n* September 7 – Alan Browning, English actor (b. 1926)\n* September 8\n Princess Hilda of Luxembourg (1897–1979), Luxembourgian princess (b. 1897)\n Rick Joseph, Dominican baseball player (b. 1939)\n* September 9 – Norrie Paramor, British music producer (b. 1914)\n* September 10 – Agostinho Neto, Angolan nationalist (b. 1922)\n* September 11 – Laurie Banfield, English footballer (b. 1889)\n* September 13 – Hap Ward, American baseball player (b. 1885)\n* September 14 – Nur Muhammad Taraki, President of Afghanistan (b. 1917)\n* September 15 – Tommy Leonetti, American singer-songwriter & actor (b. 1929)\n* September 16 \n Giò Ponti, Italian architect, industrial designer, furniture designer and artist (b. 1891)\n Rob Slotemaker, Indonesian-born, Dutch Formula 1 racing car driver (b. 1929) \n* September 17 – Paul Maze, Anglo-French painter (b. 1887)\n* September 18 – André Zeller, French army general (b. 1898)\n* September 19\n Lou Busch, American record producer, singer, and songwriter (b. 1910)\n Mary Ann Nyberg, American costumer designer (b. 1923)\n* September 20\n Sultan Ismail Nasiruddin Shah, King of Malaysia (b. 1907)\n Ludvík Svoboda, president of Czechoslovakia (b. 1895)\n* September 21\n Edmund Morgan (bishop), the seventh Suffragan Bishop of Southampton (b. 1888)\n Bernard L. Austin, American admiral (b. 1902)\n* September 22 \n Abul A'la Maududi, Pakistani journalist and philosopher (b. 1903)\n Otto Robert Frisch, Austrian-British physicist (b. 1904)\n* September 23 – Steve Brooks (jockey), American jockey (b. 1922)\n* September 24 – Carl Laemmle, Jr., American film studio executive (b. 1908)\n* September 25\n Yury Kovalyov, Soviet footballer (b. 1934)\n Karl Schnörrer, German Nazi \"ace\" for the Luftwaffe; nicknamed \"Quax\" (b. 1919)\n* September 26\n John Cromwell, American film director and actor (b. 1887)\n Arthur Hunnicutt, American actor (b. 1910)\n* September 27\n Gracie Fields, British actress (b. 1898)\n Jimmy McCulloch, Scottish guitarist (Paul McCartney & Wings) (b. 1953)\n* September 28 – John Herbert Chapman, Canadian physicist (b. 1921)\n* September 29 – Francisco Macías Nguema, first president of Equatorial Guinea (executed) (b. 1924)\n* September 30 – Charles North (politician), Australian attorney and politician (b. 1887)\n\nOctober \n\n* October 1\n Dorothy Arzner, American film director (b. 1897)\n Roy Harris, American composer (b. 1898)\n* October 2\n Ray Genet, American mountain climber (b. 1931)\n Hannelore Schmatz, German mountaineer (b. 1940)\n* October 3\n Claudia Jennings, American model (b. 1949)\n Dorothy Peterson, American film and television actress (b. 1897)\n** Nicos Poulantzas, Greek sociologist (b. 1936)\n* October 4 – Natwarsinhji Bhavsinhji, The Maharaja of Porbandar in India from (1908-1948), and cricketer (b. 1901)\n* October 5 – Ken Strong, American football player (New York Giants) and a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame (b. 1906)\n* October 6 – Elizabeth Bishop, American poet (b. 1911)\n* October 7 – Jerzy Petersburski, Polish pianist & composer (b. 1895)\n* October 8 – Emmaline Henry, American actress (b. 1928)\n* October 9 – Ignatius Bedros XVI Batanian, Armenian Catholic Church patriarch (b. 1899)\n* October 10 – Dr. Christopher Evans, British psychologist and computer scientist (b. 1931)\n* October 12\n Katharine Blodgett, American inventor (b. 1898)\n Rene Gagnon, U.S. Marine flag raiser on Iwo Jima (b. 1925)\n** Celia Lovsky, Austrian-American actress (b. 1897)\n* October 13\n Rebecca Helferich Clarke, English composer and violist (b. 1886)\n Clarence Muse, American actor (b. 1889)\n** Archibald Roosevelt, American conservative political activist, son of President Theodore Roosevelt (b. 1894)\n* October 14 – Onorato Damen, Italian communist revolutionary (b. 1893)\n* October 15 – Jacob L. Devers, American general (b. 1887)\n* October 16 – Johan Borgen, Norwegian author (b. 1903)\n* October 17 – S. J. Perelman, American humorist (b. 1904)\n* October 18\n Joe Coomer (American football), American football player (b. 1917)\n Virgilio Piñera, Cuban author, playwright, & poet (b. 1912)\n* October 19 – Fritz Diez, German actor (b. 1901)\n* October 22 – Nadia Boulanger, French composer and composition teacher (b. 1887)\n* October 23\n Antonio Caggiano, Argentine cardinal (b. 1889)\n Johann Sinnhuber, German general in the Wehrmacht (b. 1887)\n* October 24 – Julio Porter, Argentine screenwriter (b. 1916)\n* October 25\n Eva Puck, American vaudeville headliner actress (b. 1892)\n Gerald Templer, British Army Field Marshal in World War I and World War II (b. 1898) \n* October 26\n Park Chung-hee, President of South Korea (assassinated) (b. 1917)\n Charles P. Thompson, American actor (b. 1891)\n* October 27 – Charles Coughlin, American radio host and Catholic Priest, (b. 1891)\n* October 28 – Joseph-Henri Guiguet, French World War I flying ace (b. 1891)\n* October 30\n Barnes Wallis, British aeronautical engineer (b. 1887)\n Rachele Mussolini, Italian, wife of Benito Mussolini (b. 1890)\n** \"Orange Socks\", unidentified murder victim (b. 1949-1964)\n* October 31 – Edvin Adolphson, Swedish film actor/director (b. 1893)\n\nNovember \n\n* November 1 \n Bob Clayton, American television game show host & announcer (b. 1922)\n Mamie Eisenhower, First Lady of the United States (b. 1896)\n* November 2\nErnst Kals, German submarine commander (b. 1905)\nJacques Mesrine, French criminal; known as the \"French Robin Hood\" (b. 1936)\n* November 3 – Hugh P. Harris, United States Army general (b. 1909)\n* November 4\n Morris Chalfen, American sports entertainment promoter (b. 1907)\n Yank Terry, American baseball player (b. 1911)\n* November 5 – Al Capp, American cartoonist (b. 1909)\n* November 6 – Chick Evans, American golf champion (b. 1890)\n* November 7 – Gyula Germanus, professor of oriental studies, a Hungarian writer and Islamologist of Jewish origin (b. 1884)\n* November 8 – Yvonne de Gaulle, French political wife of former President of France Charles de Gaulle (b. 1900)\n* November 9 – Louise Thaden, American aviatrix (b. 1905)\n* November 9 – Tammy Jo Alexander, former unidentified murder victim (b. 1963)\n* November 10 – Mahmud Al-Nashaf, Israeli-Arab politician (b. 1906)\n* November 11 – Dimitri Tiomkin, Russian film composer (b. 1894)\n* November 12 – Gavriil Veresov, Soviet chess player (b. 1912)\n* November 13\nFreda Betti, French opera singer (b.1924)\nErnest N. Harmon, American general (b. 1894)\n* November 14\n Amelia Best, Australian politician from Tasmania (b. 1900)\n Grahame Budge, Canadian-born rugby player representing Scotland (b. 1920)\n* November 15 – Ed Klieman, American baseball player; nicknamed, \"Specs\" (b. 1918)\n* November 16 – Joseph Iglehart, American financier (b. 1891)\n* November 17 – Immanuel Velikovsky, Russian author and psychiatrist (b. 1895)\n* November 18\n Freddie Fitzsimmons, American baseball player, manager, and coach (b. 1901)\n Ade Schwammel, American football offensive tackle (b. 1908)\n* November 19 – Dewey Jackson Short, Republican U. S. Representative from Missouri (b. 1898)\n* November 21\n Marie Byles, Australian conservationist (b. 1900)\n Paul Wexler, American actor (b. 1929)\n* November 22\n Harry Jackman, Canadian politician and entrepreneur (b. 1900)\n Irina Saburova, Russian poet, writer, and translator (b. 1907)\n* November 23 \n Merle Oberon, British actress (b. 1911)\n Judee Sill, American singer and cartoonist (b. 1944)\n* November 24 – Georg Pinkepank, German Nazi Korvettenkapitän with the Kriegsmarine during World War II (b. 1907)\n* November 25 – John S. Crawford, American politician for the Wisconsin State Assembly (b. 1923)\n* November 26 – Marcel L'Herbier, French movie-maker (b. 1888)\n* November 27 – Jerome Cavanagh, American civic politician; Mayor of Detroit, Michigan from (1962-1970), especially what doomed his administration was the July, 1967 race riots (b. 1928)\n* November 28 – Peter Mulgrew, New Zealander mountaineer, yachtsman, and businessman (aircraft crash - Air New Zealand Flight 901 (b. 1927)\n* November 29 – Zeppo Marx, American actor and comedian (b. 1901)\n* November 30\n Laura Gilpin, American photographer (b. 1891)\n Joyce Grenfell, British actress and comedian (b. 1910)\n** Gabrielle Dorziat, fashion trend setter in Paris and helped popularize the designs of Coco Chanel (b. 1880)\n\nDecember \n\n* December 1\n Noel Estrada, Puerto Rican composer (b. 1918)\n Muhammad Abdel Moneim, Egyptian prince and former heir apparent (b. 1899)\n* December 2 – Helen Fraser, Scottish born suffragist, feminist, educationalist (b. 1881)\n* December 3 – Dhyan Chand, Indian hockey player (b. 1905)\n* December 4\n Dumitru Dan, Romanian geographer (b. 1889)\n Petya Dubarova, Bulgarian poet (b. 1962)\n* December 5\n Sonia Delaunay, Russian-French artist (b. 1885)\n Jesse Pearson, American actor (b. 1930)\n* December 7 – Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, British-American astronomer and astrophysicist (b. 1900)\n* December 8 – Nikolai Gritsenko, Soviet actor of Russian-Ukrainian background (b. 1912)\n* December 9\n Freeman Harrison Owens, American cinematographer (b. 1890)\n Fulton J. Sheen, American Roman Catholic bishop (b. 1895) \n* December 10 – Ann Dvorak, American actress (b. 1911)\n* December 12 – Alan Shipman, English cricketer (b. 1901)\n* December 13 – Jon Hall, American actor (b. 1915)\n* December 14 – Ken Leishman, Canadian criminal (b. 1931)\n* December 15 – Ethel Lackie, American Olympic swimmer (b. 1907)\n* December 16 – Vagif Mustafazadeh, Azerbaijani jazz musician (b. 1940)\n* December 17 – A. J. Iversen, Danish cabinetmaker (b. 1888)\n* December 18 \n Mohammad Mofatteh, Iranian philosopher (b. 1928)\n Franz Suchomel, Sudeten German Nazi Unterscharführer (b. 1907)\n* December 19 – Donald Creighton, Canadian historian (b. 1902)\n* December 21 – Ermindo Onega, Argentine footballer (b. 1940)\n* December 22 – Darryl F. Zanuck, American film producer (b. 1902)\n* December 23 – Peggy Guggenheim, American art collector (b. 1898)\n* December 24 – Armand Massonet, Belgian painter (b. 1892)\n* December 25\n Joan Blondell, American actress (b. 1906)\n Jordi Bonet, Canadian artist (b. 1932)\n** Lee Bowman, American actor (b. 1914)\n* December 26 – Karl Hubbuch, German painter, printmaker, and draftsman (b. 1891)\n* December 27 \n Hafizullah Amin, General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, President of Afghanistan (b. 1929)\n William H. Wilbur, United States Army officer (b. 1888)\n* December 28 – Karl George (American football), American football player (b. 1894)\n* December 29 \n Felix Becker, German Oberst for the Nazi's in World War II (b. 1893)\n Richard Tecwyn Williams, Welsh biochemist (b. 1909) \n* December 30 – Richard Rodgers, American composer (b. 1902)\n* December 31 – John A. Powers, American public affairs officer for NASA (b. 1922)\n\nDate unknown \n\n* Dave Line, British author\n\nNobel Prizes \n\n* Physics – Sheldon Lee Glashow, Abdus Salam, Steven Weinberg\n* Chemistry – Herbert C. Brown, Georg Wittig\n* Medicine – Allan M. Cormack, Godfrey N. Hounsfield\n* Literature – Odysseas Elytis\n* Peace – Mother Teresa\n* Economics – Theodore Schultz, Arthur Lewis\n\nMedia \n\n* The Doctor Who story City of Death is set in 1979, its year of broadcast.\n* The events of the 2011 fictional movie Super 8 take place during the winter and summer of 1979.", "Afghanistan (Pashto/Dari: , Afġānistān), officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located within South Asia and Central Asia. It has a population of approximately 32 million, making it the 42nd most populous country in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east; Iran in the west; Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north; and China in the far northeast. Its territory covers , making it the 41st largest country in the world.\n\nHuman habitation in Afghanistan dates back to the Middle Paleolithic Era, and the country's strategic location along the Silk Road connected it to the cultures of the Middle East and other parts of Asia. Through the ages the land has been home to various peoples and witnessed numerous military campaigns; notably by Alexander the Great, Mauryas, Muslim Arabs, Mongols, British, Soviet Russians, and in the modern-era by Western powers. The land also served as the source from which the Kushans, Hephthalites, Samanids, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Khiljis, Mughals, Hotaks, Durranis, and others have risen to form major empires. \n\nThe political history of the modern state of Afghanistan began with the Hotak and Durrani dynasties in the 18th century. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a buffer state in the \"Great Game\" between British India and the Russian Empire. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, King Amanullah unsuccessfully attempted to modernize the country. It remained peaceful during Zahir Shah's forty years of monarchy. A series of coups in the 1970s was followed by a series of civil wars that devastated much of Afghanistan and continues to this day. \n\nEtymology \n\nThe name Afghānistān (Pashto \|افغانستان) is believed to be as old as the ethnonym Afghan, which is documented in the 10th-century geography book Hudud ul-'alam. The root name \"Afghan\" was used historically in reference to a member of the ethnic Pashtuns, and the suffix \"-stan\" means \"place of\" in Persian. Therefore, Afghanistan translates to land of the Afghans or, more specifically in a historical sense, to land of the Pashtuns. However, the modern Constitution of Afghanistan states that \"[t]he word Afghan shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan.\" \n\nHistory \n\nExcavations of prehistoric sites by Louis Dupree and others suggest that humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities in the area were among the earliest in the world. An important site of early historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites. \n\nThe country sits at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and often fought. It has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points, the land has been incorporated within large regional empires, among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, and the Islamic Empire. \n\nMany empires and kingdoms have also risen to power in Afghanistan, such as the Greco-Bactrians, Kushans, Hephthalites, Kabul Shahis, Saffarids, Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Khiljis, Kartids, Timurids, Mughals, and finally the Hotak and Durrani dynasties that marked the political origins of the modern state. \n\nPre-Islamic period \n\nArchaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the geographical area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west, and north. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages have been found in Afghanistan. Urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar in the south of the country) may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilisation stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan, making the ancient civilisation today part of Pakistan, Afghanistan and India. In more detail, it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well.\n\nAfter 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan; among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, and toward Europe via the area north of the Caspian Sea. The region at the time was referred to as Ariana. \n\nThe religion Zoroastrianism is believed by some to have originated in what is now Afghanistan between 1800 and 800 BCE, as its founder Zoroaster is thought to have lived and died in Balkh. Ancient Eastern Iranian languages may have been spoken in the region around the time of the rise of Zoroastrianism. By the middle of the 6th century BCE, the Achaemenids overthrew the Medes and incorporated Arachosia, Aria, and Bactria within its eastern boundaries. An inscription on the tombstone of Darius I of Persia mentions the Kabul Valley in a list of the 29 countries that he had conquered. \n\nAlexander the Great and his Macedonian forces arrived to Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier in the Battle of Gaugamela. Following Alexander's brief occupation, the successor state of the Seleucid Empire controlled the region until 305 BCE, when they gave much of it to the Maurya Empire as part of an alliance treaty. The Mauryans controlled the area south of the Hindu Kush until they were overthrown in about 185 BCE. Their decline began 60 years after Ashoka's rule ended, leading to the Hellenistic reconquest by the Greco-Bactrians. Much of it soon broke away from them and became part of the Indo-Greek Kingdom. They were defeated and expelled by the Indo-Scythians in the late 2nd century BCE. \n\nDuring the first century BCE, the Parthian Empire subjugated the region, but lost it to their Indo-Parthian vassals. In the mid-to-late first century CE the vast Kushan Empire, centered in Afghanistan, became great patrons of Buddhist culture, making Buddhism flourish throughout the region. The Kushans were overthrown by the Sassanids in the 3rd century CE, though the Indo-Sassanids continued to rule at least parts of the region. They were followed by the Kidarite who, in turn, were replaced by the Hephthalites. By the 6th century CE, the successors to the Kushans and Hepthalites established a small dynasty called Kabul Shahi. Much of the northeastern and southern areas of the country remained dominated by Buddhist culture. \n\nIslamization and Mongol invasion \n\nArab Muslims brought Islam to Herat and Zaranj in 642 CE and began spreading eastward; some of the native inhabitants they encountered accepted it while others revolted. The land was collectively recognized by the Arabs as al-Hind due to its cultural connection with Greater India. Before Islam was introduced, people of the region were mostly Buddhists and Zoroastrians, but there were also Surya and Nana worshipers, Jews, and others. The Zunbils and Kabul Shahi were first conquered in 870 CE by the Saffarid Muslims of Zaranj. Later, the Samanids extended their Islamic influence south of the Hindu Kush. It is reported that Muslims and non-Muslims still lived side by side in Kabul before the Ghaznavids rose to power in the 10th century. \n\nBy the 11th century, Mahmud of Ghazni defeated the remaining Hindu rulers and effectively Islamized the wider region, with the exception of Kafiristan. Afghanistan became one of the main centers in the Muslim world during this Islamic Golden Age. The Ghaznavid dynasty was overthrown by the Ghurids, who expanded and advanced the already powerful Islamic empire.\n\nIn 1219 AD, Genghis Khan and his Mongol army overran the region. His troops are said to have annihilated the Khorasanian cities of Herat and Balkh as well as Bamyan. The destruction caused by the Mongols forced many locals to return to an agrarian rural society. Mongol rule continued with the Ilkhanate in the northwest while the Khilji dynasty administered the Afghan tribal areas south of the Hindu Kush until the invasion of Timur, who established the Timurid Empire in 1370.\n\nIn the early 16th century, Babur arrived from Fergana and captured Kabul from the Arghun dynasty. In 1526, he invaded Delhi in India to replace the Lodi dynasty with the Mughal Empire. Between the 16th and 18th century, the Khanate of Bukhara, Safavids, and Mughals ruled parts of the territory. Before the 19th century, the northwestern area of Afghanistan was referred to by the regional name Khorasan. Two of the four capitals of Khorasan (Herat and Balkh) are now located in Afghanistan, while the regions of Kandahar, Zabulistan, Ghazni, Kabulistan, and Afghanistan formed the frontier between Khorasan and Hindustan. \n\nHotak dynasty and Durrani Empire \n\nIn 1709, Mirwais Hotak, a local Ghilzai tribal leader, successfully rebelled against the Safavids. He defeated Gurgin Khan and made Afghanistan independent. Mirwais died of a natural cause in 1715 and was succeeded by his brother Abdul Aziz, who was soon killed by Mirwais' son Mahmud for treason. Mahmud led the Afghan army in 1722 to the Persian capital of Isfahan, captured the city after the Battle of Gulnabad and proclaimed himself King of Persia. The Afghan dynasty was ousted from Persia by Nader Shah after the 1729 Battle of Damghan.\n\nIn 1738, Nader Shah and his forces captured Kandahar, the last Hotak stronghold, from Shah Hussain Hotak, at which point the incarcerated 16-year-old Ahmad Shah Durrani was freed and made the commander of an Afghan regiment. Soon after the Persian and Afghan forces invaded India. By 1747, the Afghans chose Durrani as their head of state. Durrani and his Afghan army conquered much of present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Khorasan and Kohistan provinces of Iran, and Delhi in India. He defeated the Indian Maratha Empire, and one of his biggest victories was the 1761 Battle of Panipat.\n\nIn October 1772, Durrani died of a natural cause and was buried at a site now adjacent to the Shrine of the Cloak in Kandahar. He was succeeded by his son, Timur Shah, who transferred the capital of Afghanistan from Kandahar to Kabul in 1776. After Timur's death in 1793, the Durrani throne passed down to his son Zaman Shah, followed by Mahmud Shah, Shuja Shah and others. \n\nThe Afghan Empire was under threat in the early 19th century by the Persians in the west and the Sikh Empire in the east. Fateh Khan, leader of the Barakzai tribe, had installed 21 of his brothers in positions of power throughout the empire. After his death, they rebelled and divided up the provinces of the empire between themselves. During this turbulent period, Afghanistan had many temporary rulers until Dost Mohammad Khan declared himself emir in 1826. The Punjab region was lost to Ranjit Singh, who invaded Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and in 1834 captured the city of Peshawar. In 1837, during the Battle of Jamrud near the Khyber Pass, Akbar Khan and the Afghan army failed to capture the Jamrud fort from the Sikh Khalsa Army, but killed Sikh Commander Hari Singh Nalwa, thus ending the Afghan-Sikh Wars. By this time the British were advancing from the east and the first major conflict during the \"Great Game\" was initiated. \n\nWestern influence \n\nFollowing the 1842 defeat of the British-Indian forces and victory of the Afghans, the British established diplomatic relations with the Afghan government and withdrew all forces from the country. They returned during the Second Anglo-Afghan War in the late 1870s for about two years to assist Abdur Rahman Khan defeat Ayub Khan. The United Kingdom began to exercise a great deal of influence after this and even controlled the state's foreign policy. In 1893, Mortimer Durand made Amir Abdur Rahman Khan sign a controversial agreement in which the ethnic Pashtun and Baloch territories were divided by the Durand Line. This was a standard divide and rule policy of the British and would lead to strained relations, especially with the later new state of Pakistan.\n\nAfter the Third Anglo-Afghan War and the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi in 1919, King Amanullah Khan declared Afghanistan a sovereign and fully independent state. He moved to end his country's traditional isolation by establishing diplomatic relations with the international community and, following a 1927–28 tour of Europe and Turkey, introduced several reforms intended to modernize his nation. A key force behind these reforms was Mahmud Tarzi, an ardent supporter of the education of women. He fought for Article 68 of Afghanistan's 1923 constitution, which made elementary education compulsory. The institution of slavery was abolished in 1923. \n\nSome of the reforms that were actually put in place, such as the abolition of the traditional burqa for women and the opening of a number of co-educational schools, quickly alienated many tribal and religious leaders. Faced with overwhelming armed opposition, Amanullah Khan was forced to abdicate in January 1929 after Kabul fell to rebel forces led by Habibullah Kalakani. Prince Mohammed Nadir Shah, Amanullah's cousin, in turn defeated and killed Kalakani in November 1929, and was declared King Nadir Shah. He abandoned the reforms of Amanullah Khan in favor of a more gradual approach to modernisation but was assassinated in 1933 by Abdul Khaliq, a Hazara school student.\n\nMohammed Zahir Shah, Nadir Shah's 19-year-old son, succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973. Until 1946, Zahir Shah ruled with the assistance of his uncle, who held the post of Prime Minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah. Another of Zahir Shah's uncles, Shah Mahmud Khan, became Prime Minister in 1946 and began an experiment allowing greater political freedom, but reversed the policy when it went further than he expected. He was replaced in 1953 by Mohammed Daoud Khan, the king's cousin and brother-in-law. Daoud Khan sought a closer relationship with the Soviet Union and a more distant one towards Pakistan. Afghanistan remained neutral and was neither a participant in World War II nor aligned with either power bloc in the Cold War. However, it was a beneficiary of the latter rivalry as both the Soviet Union and the United States vied for influence by building Afghanistan's main highways, airports, and other vital infrastructure. On per capita basis, Afghanistan received more Soviet development aid than any other country. In 1973, while King Zahir Shah was on an official overseas visit, Daoud Khan launched a bloodless coup and became the first President of Afghanistan. In the meantime, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto got neighboring Pakistan involved in Afghanistan. Some experts suggest that Bhutto paved the way for the April 1978 Saur Revolution. \n\nMarxist revolution and Soviet war\n\nIn April 1978, the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in Afghanistan in the Saur Revolution. Within months, opponents of the communist government launched an uprising in eastern Afghanistan that quickly expanded into a civil war waged by guerrilla mujahideen against government forces countrywide. The Pakistani government provided these rebels with covert training centers, while the Soviet Union sent thousands of military advisers to support the PDPA government. Meanwhile, increasing friction between the competing factions of the PDPA — the dominant Khalq and the more moderate Parcham — resulted in the dismissal of Parchami cabinet members and the arrest of Parchami military officers under the pretext of a Parchami coup.\n\nIn September 1979, Nur Muhammad Taraki was assassinated in a coup within the PDPA orchestrated by fellow Khalq member Hafizullah Amin, who assumed the presidency. Distrusted by the Soviets, Amin was assassinated by Soviet special forces in December 1979. A Soviet-organized government, led by Parcham's Babrak Karmal but inclusive of both factions, filled the vacuum. Soviet troops were deployed to stabilize Afghanistan under Karmal in more substantial numbers, although the Soviet government did not expect to do most of the fighting in Afghanistan. As a result, however, the Soviets were now directly involved in what had been a domestic war in Afghanistan. The PDPA prohibited usury, declared equality of the sexes, and introduced women to political life. \n\nThe United States had been supporting anti-Soviet Afghan mujahideen and foreign \"Afghan Arab\" fighters through Pakistan's ISI as early as mid-1979 (see CIA activities in Afghanistan). Billions in cash and weapons, which included over two thousand FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles, were provided by the United States and Saudi Arabia to Pakistan. \n\nThe Soviet war in Afghanistan resulted in the deaths of over 1 million Afghans, mostly civilians, and the creation of about 6million refugees who fled Afghanistan, mainly to Pakistan and Iran. Faced with mounting international pressure and numerous casualties, the Soviets withdrew in 1989 but continued to support Afghan President Mohammad Najibullah until 1992. \n\nCivil war\n\nFrom 1989 until 1992, Najibullah's government tried to solve the ongoing civil war with economic and military aid, but without Soviet troops on the ground. Najibullah tried to build support for his government by portraying his government as Islamic, and in the 1990 constitution the country officially became an Islamic state and all references of communism were removed. Nevertheless, Najibullah did not win any significant support, and with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, he was left without foreign aid. This, coupled with the internal collapse of his government, led to his ousting from power in April 1992. After the fall of Najibullah's government in 1992, the post-communist Islamic State of Afghanistan was established by the Peshawar Accord, a peace and power-sharing agreement under which all the Afghan parties were united in April 1992, except for the Pakistani supported Hezb-e Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar started a bombardment campaign against the capital city Kabul, which marked the beginning of a new phase in the war. \n\nSaudi Arabia and Iran supported different Afghan militias and instability quickly developed. The conflict between the two militias soon escalated into a full-scale war.\n\nDue to the sudden initiation of the war, working government departments, police units, and a system of justice and accountability for the newly created Islamic State of Afghanistan did not have time to form. Atrocities were committed by individuals of the different armed factions while Kabul descended into lawlessness and chaos. Because of the chaos, some leaders increasingly had only nominal control over their (sub-)commanders. For civilians there was little security from murder, rape, and extortion. An estimated 25,000 people died during the most intense period of bombardment by Hekmatyar's Hezb-i Islami and the Junbish-i Milli forces of Abdul Rashid Dostum, who had created an alliance with Hekmatyar in 1994. Half a million people fled Afghanistan.\n\nSouthern and eastern Afghanistan were under the control of local commanders such as Gul Agha Sherzai and others. In 1994, the Taliban (a movement originating from Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-run religious schools for Afghan refugees in Pakistan) also developed in Afghanistan as a political-religious force. The Taliban first took control of southern Afghanistan in 1994 and forced the surrender of dozens of local Pashtun leaders.\n\nIn late 1994, forces of Ahmad Shah Massoud held on to Kabul. Rabbani's government took steps to reopen courts, restore law and order, and initiate a nationwide political process with the goal of national consolidation and democratic elections. Massoud invited Taliban leaders to join the process but they refused. \n\nTaliban Emirate and Northern Alliance\n\nThe Taliban's early victories in late 1994 were followed by a series of defeats that resulted in heavy losses. The Taliban attempted to capture Kabul in early 1995 but were repelled by forces under Massoud. In September 1996, as the Taliban, with military support from Pakistan and financial support from Saudi Arabia, prepared for another major offensive, Massoud ordered a full retreat from Kabul. The Taliban seized Kabul in the same month and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. They imposed a strict form of Sharia, similar to that found in Saudi Arabia. According to Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), \"no other regime in the world has methodically and violently forced half of its population into virtual house arrest, prohibiting them on pain of physical punishment from showing their faces, seeking medical care without a male escort, or attending school.\" \n\nAfter the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, Massoud and Dostum formed the Northern Alliance. The Taliban defeated Dostum's forces during the Battles of Mazar-i-Sharif (1997–98). Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, Pervez Musharraf, began sending thousands of Pakistanis to help the Taliban defeat the Northern Alliance. From 1996 to 2001, the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri was also operating inside Afghanistan. This and the fact that around one million Afghans were internally displaced made the United States worry. From 1990 to September 2001, around 400,000 Afghans died in the internal mini-wars. \n\nOn 9 September 2001, Massoud was assassinated by two Arab suicide attackers in Panjshir province of Afghanistan. Two days later, the September 11 attacks were carried out in the United States. The US government suspected Osama bin Laden as the perpetrator of the attacks, and demanded that the Taliban hand him over. After refusing to comply, the October 2001 Operation Enduring Freedom was launched. During the initial invasion, US and UK forces bombed al-Qaeda training camps. The United States began working with the Northern Alliance to remove the Taliban from power. \n\nRecent history (2002–present)\n\nIn December 2001, after the Taliban government was overthrown and the new Afghan government under President Hamid Karzai was formed, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established by the UN Security Council to help assist the Karzai administration and provide basic security. Taliban forces also began regrouping inside Pakistan, while more coalition troops entered Afghanistan and began rebuilding the war-torn country. \n\nShortly after their fall from power, the Taliban began an insurgency to regain control of Afghanistan. Over the next decade, ISAF and Afghan troops led many offensives against the Taliban but failed to fully defeat them. Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world due to a lack of foreign investment, government corruption, and the Taliban insurgency. \n\nMeanwhile, the Afghan government was able to build some democratic structures, and the country changed its name to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Attempts were made, often with the support of foreign donor countries, to improve the country's economy, healthcare, education, transport, and agriculture. ISAF forces also began to train the Afghan National Security Forces. In the decade following 2002, over five million Afghans were repatriated, including some who were forcefully deported from Western countries. \n\nBy 2009, a Taliban-led shadow government began to form in parts of the country. In 2010, President Karzai attempted to hold peace negotiations with the Taliban leaders, but the rebel group refused to attend until mid-2015 when the Taliban supreme leader finally decided to back the peace talks. \n\nAfter the May 2011 death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, many prominent Afghan figures were assassinated. Afghanistan–Pakistan border skirmishes intensified and many large scale attacks by the Pakistan-based Haqqani Network also took place across Afghanistan. The United States blamed rogue elements within the Pakistani government for the increased attacks. The U.S. government spent tens of billions of dollars on development aid over 15 years and over a trillion dollars on military expenses during the same period. Corruption by Western defense and development contractors and associated Afghans reached unprecedented levels in a country where the national GDP was often only a small fraction of the U.S. government's annual budget for the conflict. \n\nFollowing the 2014 presidential election President Karzai left power and Ashraf Ghani became President in September 2014. The US war in Afghanistan (America's longest war) officially ended on December 28, 2014. However, thousands of US-led NATO troops have remained in the country to train and advise Afghan government forces. The 2001–present war has resulted in over 90,000 direct war-related deaths, which includes insurgents, Afghan civilians and government forces. Over 100,000 have been injured. \n\nGeography \n\nA landlocked mountainous country with plains in the north and southwest, Afghanistan is located within South Asia and Central Asia. It is part of the US-coined Greater Middle East Muslim world, which lies between latitudes 29th parallel north\| and 39th parallel north\|, and longitudes 60th meridian east\| and 75th meridian east\|. The country's highest point is Noshaq, at 7492 m above sea level. It has a continental climate with harsh winters in the central highlands, the glaciated northeast (around Nuristan), and the Wakhan Corridor, where the average temperature in January is below , and hot summers in the low-lying areas of the Sistan Basin of the southwest, the Jalalabad basin in the east, and the Turkestan plains along the Amu River in the north, where temperatures average over 35 C in July.\n\nDespite having numerous rivers and reservoirs, large parts of the country are dry. The endorheic Sistan Basin is one of the driest regions in the world. Aside from the usual rainfall, Afghanistan receives snow during the winter in the Hindu Kush and Pamir Mountains, and the melting snow in the spring season enters the rivers, lakes, and streams. However, two-thirds of the country's water flows into the neighboring countries of Iran, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan. The state needs more than to rehabilitate its irrigation systems so that the water is properly managed.\n\nThe northeastern Hindu Kush mountain range, in and around the Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan, is in a geologically active area where earthquakes may occur almost every year. They can be deadly and destructive sometimes, causing landslides in some parts or avalanches during the winter. The last strong earthquakes were in 1998, which killed about 6,000 people in Badakhshan near Tajikistan. This was followed by the 2002 Hindu Kush earthquakes in which over 150 people were killed and over 1,000 injured. A 2010 earthquake left 11 Afghans dead, over 70 injured, and more than 2,000 houses destroyed.\n\nThe country's natural resources include: coal, copper, iron ore, lithium, uranium, rare earth elements, chromite, gold, zinc, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, marble, precious and semi-precious stones, natural gas, and petroleum, among other things. In 2010, US and Afghan government officials estimated that untapped mineral deposits located in 2007 by the US Geological Survey are worth between and . \n\nAt 652230 km2, Afghanistan is the world's 41st largest country, slightly bigger than France and smaller than Burma, about the size of Texas in the United States. It borders Pakistan in the south and east; Iran in the west; Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north; and China in the far east.\n\nDemographics \n\n, the population of Afghanistan is around 32,564,342, which includes the roughly 2.7 million Afghan refugees still living in Pakistan and Iran. As of 2013 46% of Afghanistan's population are under 15 years of age and 74% of the population live in rural areas. The average woman gave birth to five children during her life and 6.8% of all babies died in child-birth or infancy. Life expectancy in 2013 was 60 years and only .1% of the population between ages 15 and 49 had HIV. \n\nLike many of its neighboring countries, Afghanistan has an ethnically, linguistically and religiously diverse population. According to cartographer Michael Izady there \"is precious little correspondence between language and ethnic or group identity in Afghanistan. Connections such as tribe (e.g. Pashtuns, Aimaqs), religion (e.g. the Shia Hazaras, Sayyids, Kizilbash), group memory (e.g. Arabs and Monghols/Mongols) or life style (e.g. Parsiwans) are far more important markers of group identity than language has ever been. Only Turkmens (totally) and Uzbeks (mostly) are to be identified with languages that they speak. This has been so since the inception of the state in AD 1747.\" \n\nAfghanistan has experienced a gradual urbanization since the late 1990s but the country remains one of the world's least urban societies. In 1999 around 79% of the country's population lived in rural areas compared to around 74% in 2014. The only city with over a million residents is its capital, Kabul. Other large cities in the country are, in order of population size, Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, Jalalabad, Lashkar Gah, Taloqan, Khost, Sheberghan, and Ghazni. According to the Population Reference Bureau, the Afghan population is estimated to increase to 82 million by 2050. \n\nEthnic groups \n\nAfghanistan is a multiethnic society, and its historical status as a crossroads has contributed significantly to its diverse ethnic makeup. The population of the country is divided into a wide variety of ethnolinguistic groups. Because a systematic census has not been held in the nation in decades, exact figures about the size and composition of the various ethnic groups are unavailable. An approximate distribution of the ethnic groups is shown in the chart below:\n\nLanguages \n\nPashto and Dari are the official languages of Afghanistan; bilingualism is very common. Both are Indo-European languages from the Iranian languages sub-family. Dari (Afghan Persian) has long been the prestige language and a lingua franca for inter-ethnic communication. It is the native tongue of the Tajiks, Hazaras, Aimaks, and Kizilbash. Pashto is the native tongue of the Pashtuns, although many Pashtuns often use Dari and some non-Pashtuns are fluent in Pashto.\n\nOther languages, including Uzbek, Arabic, Turkmen, Balochi, Pashayi, and Nuristani languages (Ashkunu, Kamkata-viri, Vasi-vari, Tregami, and Kalasha-ala), are the native tongues of minority groups across the country and have official status in the regions where they are widely spoken. Minor languages also include Pamiri (Shughni, Munji, Ishkashimi, and Wakhi), Brahui, Hindko, and Kyrgyz. A small percentage of Afghans are also fluent in Urdu, English, and other languages.\n\nReligions \n\nOver 99% of the Afghan population is Muslim; up to 90% are from the Sunni branch, 7–19% are Shia. \n\nUntil the 1890s, the region around Nuristan was known as Kafiristan (land of the kafirs (unbelievers)) because of its non-Muslim inhabitants, the Nuristanis, an ethnically distinct people whose religious practices included animism, polytheism, and shamanism. Thousands of Afghan Sikhs and Hindus are also found in the major cities. There was a small Jewish community in Afghanistan who had emigrated to Israel and the United States by the end of the twentieth century; only one Jew, Zablon Simintov, remained by 2005. \n\nGovernance \n\nAfghanistan is an Islamic republic consisting of three branches, the executive, legislative, and judicial. The nation is led by President Ashraf Ghani with Abdul Rashid Dostum and Sarwar Danish as vice presidents. Abdullah Abdullah serves as the chief executive officer (CEO). The National Assembly is the legislature, a bicameral body having two chambers, the House of the People and the House of Elders. The Supreme Court is led by Chief Justice Said Yusuf Halem, the former Deputy Minister of Justice for Legal Affairs. \n\nA January 2010 report published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime revealed that bribery consumed an amount equal to 23% of the GDP of the nation. A number of government ministries are believed to be rife with corruption, and while President Karzai vowed to tackle the problem in late 2009 by stating that \"individuals who are involved in corruption will have no place in the government\", top government officials were stealing and misusing hundreds of millions of dollars through the Kabul Bank. According to Transparency International's 2014 corruption perceptions index results, Afghanistan was ranked as the fourth most corrupt country in the world. \n\nElections and parties \n\nThe 2004 Afghan presidential election was relatively peaceful, in which Hamid Karzai won in the first round with 55.4% of the votes. However, the 2009 presidential election was characterized by lack of security, low voter turnout, and widespread electoral fraud. The vote, along with elections for 420 provincial council seats, took place in August 2009, but remained unresolved during a lengthy period of vote counting and fraud investigation.\n\nTwo months later, under international pressure, a second round run-off vote between Karzai and remaining challenger Abdullah was announced, but a few days later Abdullah announced that he would not participate in the 7 November run-off because his demands for changes in the electoral commission had not been met. The next day, officials of the election commission cancelled the run-off and declared Hamid Karzai as President for another five-year term.\n\nIn the 2005 parliamentary election, among the elected officials were former mujahideen, Islamic fundamentalists, warlords, communists, reformists, and several Taliban associates. In the same period, Afghanistan reached to the 30th highest nation in terms of female representation in parliament. The last parliamentary election was held in September 2010, but due to disputes and investigation of fraud, the swearing-in ceremony took place in late January 2011. The 2014 presidential election ended with Ashraf Ghani winning by 56.44% votes.\n\nAdministrative divisions \n\nAfghanistan is administratively divided into 34 provinces (wilayats), with each province having its own capital and a provincial administration. The provinces are further divided into about 398 smaller provincial districts, each of which normally covers a city or a number of villages. Each district is represented by a district governor.\n\nThe provincial governors are appointed by the President of Afghanistan and the district governors are selected by the provincial governors. The provincial governors are representatives of the central government in Kabul and are responsible for all administrative and formal issues within their provinces. There are also provincial councils that are elected through direct and general elections for a period of four years. The functions of provincial councils are to take part in provincial development planning and to participate in the monitoring and appraisal of other provincial governance institutions.\n\nAccording to article 140 of the constitution and the presidential decree on electoral law, mayors of cities should be elected through free and direct elections for a four-year term. However, due to huge election costs, mayoral and municipal elections have never been held. Instead, mayors have been appointed by the government. In the capital city of Kabul, the mayor is appointed by the President of Afghanistan.\n\nThe following is a list of all the 34 provinces in alphabetical order:\n\n# Badakhshan\n# Badghis\n# Baghlan\n# Balkh\n# Bamyan\n# Daykundi\n# Farah\n# Faryab\n# Ghazni\n# Ghor\n# Helmand\n# Herat\n# Jowzjan\n# Kabul\n# Kandahar\n# Kapisa\n# Khost\n# Kunar\n# Kunduz\n# Laghman\n# Logar\n# Nangarhar\n# Nimruz\n# Nuristan\n# Oruzgan\n# Paktia\n# Paktika\n# Panjshir\n# Parwan\n# Samangan\n# Sar-e Pol\n# Takhar\n# Wardak\n# Zabul\n\nForeign relations and military \n\nThe Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs is in charge of maintaining the foreign relations of Afghanistan. The state has been a member of the United Nations since 1946. It enjoys strong economic relations with a number of NATO and allied states, particularly the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Turkey. In 2012, the United States designated Afghanistan as a major non-NATO ally and created the U.S.–Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement. Afghanistan also has friendly diplomatic relations with neighboring Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and China, and with regional states such as India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Kazakhstan, Russia, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Japan, and South Korea. It continues to develop diplomatic relations with other countries around the world.\n\nUnited Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) was established in 2002 under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1401 in order to help the country recover from decades of war. Today, a number of NATO member states deploy about 38,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Its main purpose is to train the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). The Afghan Armed Forces are under the Ministry of Defense, which includes the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Afghan Air Force (AAF). The ANA is divided into 7 major Corps, with the 201st Selab (\"Flood\") in Kabul followed by the 203rd in Gardez, 205th Atul (\"Hero\") in Kandahar, 207th in Herat, 209th in Mazar-i-Sharif, and the 215th in Lashkar Gah. The ANA also has a commando brigade, which was established in 2007. The Afghan Defense University (ADU) houses various educational establishments for the Afghan Armed Forces, including the National Military Academy of Afghanistan.\n\nLaw enforcement \n\nThe National Directorate of Security (NDS) is the nation's domestic intelligence agency, which operates similar to that of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and has between 15,000 and 30,000 employees. The nation also has about 126,000 national police officers, with plans to recruit more so that the total number can reach 160,000. The Afghan National Police (ANP) is under the Ministry of the Interior and serves as a single law enforcement agency all across the country. The Afghan National Civil Order Police is the main branch of the ANP, which is divided into five Brigades, each commanded by a Brigadier General. These brigades are stationed in Kabul, Gardez, Kandahar, Herat, and Mazar-i-Sharif. Every province has an appointed provincial Chief of Police who is responsible for law enforcement throughout the province.\n\nThe police receive most of their training from Western forces under the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan. According to a 2009 news report, a large proportion of police officers were illiterate and accused of demanding bribes. Jack Kem, deputy to the commander of NATO Training Mission Afghanistan and Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan, stated that the literacy rate in the ANP would rise to over 50% by January 2012. What began as a voluntary literacy program became mandatory for basic police training in early 2011. Approximately 17% of them tested positive for illegal drug use. In 2009, President Karzai created two anti-corruption units within the Interior Ministry. Former Interior Minister Hanif Atmar said that security officials from the US (FBI), Britain (Scotland Yard), and the European Union will train prosecutors in the unit.\n\nAll parts of Afghanistan are considered dangerous due to militant activities. Hundreds of Afghan police are killed in the line of duty each year. Kidnapping and robberies are also reported. The Afghan Border Police (ABP) are responsible for protecting the nation's airports and borders, especially the disputed Durand Line border, which is often used by members of criminal organizations and terrorists for their illegal activities. A report in 2011 suggested that up to 3 million people were involved in the illegal drug business in Afghanistan. Attacks on government employees may be ordered by powerful mafia groups who reside inside and outside the country. Drugs from Afghanistan are exported to neighboring countries and then to other countries. The Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics is tasked to deal with these issues by bringing to justice major drug traffickers. \n\nEconomy \n\nAfghanistan is an impoverished least developed country, one of the world's poorest because of decades of war and lack of foreign investment. , the nation's GDP stands at about $60.58 billion with an exchange rate of $20.31 billion, and the GDP per capita is $1,900. The country's exports totaled $2.7 billion in 2012. Its unemployment rate was reported in 2008 at about 35%. According to a 2009 report, about 42% of the population lives on less than $1 a day. The nation has less than $1.5 billion in external debt.\n\nThe Afghan economy has been growing at about 10% per year in the last decade, which is due to the infusion of over $50 billion in international aid and remittances from Afghan expats. It is also due to improvements made to the transportation system and agricultural production, which is the backbone of the nation's economy. The country is known for producing some of the finest pomegranates, grapes, apricots, melons, and several other fresh and dry fruits, including nuts. Many sources indicate that as much as 11% or more of Afghanistan's economy is derived from the cultivation and sale of opium, and Afghanistan is widely considered the world's largest producer of opium despite Afghan government and international efforts to eradicate the crop. \n\nWhile the nation's current account deficit is largely financed with donor money, only a small portion is provided directly to the government budget. The rest is provided to non-budgetary expenditure and donor-designated projects through the United Nations system and non-governmental organizations. The Afghan Ministry of Finance is focusing on improved revenue collection and public sector expenditure discipline. For example, government revenues increased 31% to $1.7 billion from March 2010 to March 2011.\n\nDa Afghanistan Bank serves as the central bank of the nation and the \"Afghani\" (AFN) is the national currency, with an exchange rate of about 47 Afghanis to 1 US dollar. Since 2003, over 16 new banks have opened in the country, including Afghanistan International Bank, Kabul Bank, Azizi Bank, Pashtany Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, and First Micro Finance Bank.\n\nOne of the main drivers for the current economic recovery is the return of over 5 million expatriates, who brought with them fresh energy, entrepreneurship and wealth-creating skills as well as much needed funds to start up businesses. For the first time since the 1970s, Afghans have involved themselves in construction, one of the largest industries in the country. Some of the major national construction projects include New Kabul City next to the capital, Ghazi Amanullah Khan City near Jalalabad, and Aino Mena in Kandahar. Similar development projects have also begun in Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, and other cities. \n\nIn addition, a number of companies and small factories began operating in different parts of the country, which not only provide revenues to the government but also create new jobs. Improvements to the business environment have resulted in more than $1.5 billion in telecom investment and created more than 100,000 jobs since 2003. Afghan rugs are becoming popular again, allowing many carpet dealers around the country to hire more workers.\n\nAfghanistan is a member of WTO, SAARC, ECO, and OIC. It holds an observer status in SCO. Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul told the media in 2011 that his nation's \"goal is to achieve an Afghan economy whose growth is based on trade, private enterprise and investment\". Experts believe that this will revolutionize the economy of the region. Opium production in Afghanistan soared to a record in 2007 with about 3 million people reported to be involved in the business, but then declined significantly in the years following. The government started programs to help reduce poppy cultivation, and by 2010 it was reported that 24 out of the 34 provinces were free from poppy growing. In June 2012, India advocated for private investments in the resource rich country and the creation of a suitable environment therefor. \n\nMining \n\nMichael E. O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution estimated that if Afghanistan generates about $10 bn per year from its mineral deposits, its gross national product would double and provide long-term funding for Afghan security forces and other critical needs. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimated in 2006 that northern Afghanistan has an average (bbl) of crude oil, 15.7 trillion cubic feet (15700 ft3 bn m3) of natural gas, and of natural gas liquids. In 2011, Afghanistan signed an oil exploration contract with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) for the development of three oil fields along the Amu Darya river in the north. \n\nThe country has significant amounts of lithium, copper, gold, coal, iron ore, and other minerals. The Khanashin carbonatite in Helmand Province contains 1000000 MT of rare earth elements. In 2007, a 30-year lease was granted for the Aynak copper mine to the China Metallurgical Group for $3 billion, making it the biggest foreign investment and private business venture in Afghanistan's history. The state-run Steel Authority of India won the mining rights to develop the huge Hajigak iron ore deposit in central Afghanistan. Government officials estimate that 30% of the country's untapped mineral deposits are worth between and . One official asserted that \"this will become the backbone of the Afghan economy\" and a Pentagon memo stated that Afghanistan could become the \"Saudi Arabia of lithium\". In a 2011 news story, the CSM reported, \"The United States and other Western nations that have borne the brunt of the cost of the Afghan war have been conspicuously absent from the bidding process on Afghanistan's mineral deposits, leaving it mostly to regional powers.\" \n\nTransport \n\nAir \n\nAir transport in Afghanistan is provided by the national carrier, Ariana Afghan Airlines (AAA), and by private companies such as Afghan Jet International, East Horizon Airlines, Kam Air, Pamir Airways, and Safi Airways. Airlines from a number of countries also provide flights in and out of the country. These include Air India, Emirates, Gulf Air, Iran Aseman Airlines, Pakistan International Airlines, and Turkish Airlines.\n\nThe country has four international airports: Herat International Airport, Hamid Karzai International Airport (formerly Kabul International Airport), Kandahar International Airport, and Mazar-e Sharif International Airport. There are also around a dozen domestic airports with flights to Kabul or Herat.\n\nRail \n\n, the country has only two rail links, one a 75 km line from Kheyrabad to the Uzbekistan border and the other a 10 km long line from Toraghundi to the Turkmenistan border. Both lines are used for freight only and there is no passenger service as of yet. There are various proposals for the construction of additional rail lines in the country. In 2013, the presidents of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan attended the groundbreaking ceremony for a 225 km line between Turkmenistan-Andkhvoy-Mazar-i-Sharif-Kheyrabad. The line will link at Kheyrabad with the existing line to the Uzbekistan border. Plans exist for a rail line from Kabul to the eastern border town of Torkham, where it will connect with Pakistan Railways. There are also plans to finish a rail line between Khaf, Iran and Herat, Afghanistan. \n\nRoads \n\nTraveling by bus in Afghanistan remains dangerous due to careless and intoxicated bus drivers as well as militant activities. The buses are usually older model Mercedes-Benz and owned by private companies. Serious traffic accidents are common on Afghan roads and highways, particularly on the Kabul–Kandahar and the Kabul–Jalalabad Road. \n\nNewer automobiles have recently become more widely available after the rebuilding of roads and highways. They are imported from the United Arab Emirates through Pakistan and Iran. , vehicles more than 10 years old are banned from being imported into the country. The development of the nation's road network is a major boost for the economy due to trade with neighboring countries. Postal services in Afghanistan are provided by the publicly owned Afghan Post and private companies such as FedEx, DHL, and others.\n\nCommunication \n\nTelecommunication services in the country are provided by Afghan Wireless, Etisalat, Roshan, MTN Group, and Afghan Telecom. In 2006, the Afghan Ministry of Communications signed a $64.5 million agreement with ZTE for the establishment of a countrywide optical fiber cable network. , Afghanistan had around 17 million GSM phone subscribers and over 1 million internet users, but only had about 75,000 fixed telephone lines and a little over 190,000 CDMA subscribers. 3G services are provided by Etisalat and MTN Group. In 2014, Afghanistan leased a space satellite from Eutelsat, called AFGHANSAT 1. \n\nHealth \n\nAccording to the Human Development Index, Afghanistan is the 15th least developed country in the world. The average life expectancy is estimated to be around 60 years for both sexes. The country has one of the highest maternal mortality rate in the world as well as the highest infant mortality rate in the world (deaths of babies under one year), estimated in 2015 to be 115.08 deaths/1,000 live births. The Ministry of Public Health plans to cut the infant mortality rate to 400 for every 100,000 live births before 2020. The country currently has more than 3,000 midwives, with an additional 300 to 400 being trained each year. \n\nA number of hospitals and clinics have been built over the last decade, with the most advanced treatments being available in Kabul. The French Medical Institute for Children and Indira Gandhi Childrens Hospital in Kabul are the leading children's hospitals in the country. Some of the other main hospitals in Kabul include the 350-bed Jamhuriat Hospital and the Jinnah Hospital, which is still under construction. There are also a number of well-equipped military-controlled hospitals in different regions of the country.\n\nIt was reported in 2006 that nearly 60% of the population lives within a two-hour walk of the nearest health facility, up from 9% in 2002. The latest surveys show that 57% of Afghans say they have good or very good access to clinics or hospitals. The nation has one of the highest incidences of people with disabilities, with around a million people affected. About 80,000 people are missing limbs; most of these were injured by landmines. Non-governmental charities such as Save the Children and Mahboba's Promise assist orphans in association with governmental structures. Demographic and Health Surveys is working with the Indian Institute of Health Management Research and others to conduct a survey in Afghanistan focusing on maternal death, among other things. \n\nEducation \n\nEducation in the country includes K–12 and higher education, which is supervised by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education. The nation's education system was destroyed due to the decades of war, but it began reviving after the Karzai administration came to power in late 2001. More than 5,000 schools were built or renovated in the last decade, with more than 100,000 teachers being trained and recruited. More than seven million male and female students are enrolled in schools, with about 100,000 being enrolled in different universities around the country; at least 35% of these students are female. , there are 16,000 schools across Afghanistan. Education Minister Ghulam Farooq Wardak stated that another 8,000 schools are required to be constructed for the remaining 3 million children who are deprived of education. \n\nKabul University reopened in 2002 to both male and female students. In 2006, the American University of Afghanistan was established in Kabul, with the aim of providing a world-class, English-language, co-educational learning environment in Afghanistan. The capital of Kabul serves as the learning center of Afghanistan, with many of the best educational institutions being based there. Major universities outside of Kabul include Kandahar University in the south, Herat University in the northwest, Balkh University in the north, Nangarhar University and Khost University in the east. The National Military Academy of Afghanistan, modeled after the United States Military Academy at West Point, is a four-year military development institution dedicated to graduating officers for the Afghan Armed Forces. The $200 million Afghan Defense University is under construction near Qargha in Kabul. The United States is building six faculties of education and five provincial teacher training colleges around the country, two large secondary schools in Kabul, and one school in Jalalabad.\n\nThe literacy rate of the entire population has been very low but is now rising because more students go to schools. In 2010, the United States began establishing a number of Lincoln learning centers in Afghanistan. They are set up to serve as programming platforms offering English language classes, library facilities, programming venues, Internet connectivity, and educational and other counseling services. A goal of the program is to reach at least 4,000 Afghan citizens per month per location. The Afghan National Security Forces are provided with mandatory literacy courses. In addition to this, Baghch-e-Simsim (based on the American Sesame Street) was launched in late 2011 to help young Afghan children learn.\n\nIn 2009 and 2010, a 5,000 OLPC – One Laptop Per Child schools deployment took place in Kandahar with funding from an anonymous foundation. The OLPC team seeks local support to undertake larger deployment. \n\nCulture \n\nThe Afghan culture has been around for over two millennia, tracing back to at least the time of the Achaemenid Empire in 500 BCE. It is mostly a nomadic and tribal society, with different regions of the country having their own traditions, reflecting the multi-cultural and multi-lingual character of the nation. In the southern and eastern region the people live according to the Pashtun culture by following Pashtunwali, which is an ancient way of life that is still preserved. The remainder of the country is culturally Persian and Turkic. Some non-Pashtuns who live in proximity with Pashtuns have adopted Pashtunwali in a process called Pashtunization (or Afghanization), while some Pashtuns have been Persianized. Millions of Afghans who have been living in Pakistan and Iran over the last 30 years have been influenced by the cultures of those neighboring nations.\n\nAfghans display pride in their culture, nation, ancestry, and above all, their religion and independence. Like other highlanders, they are regarded with mingled apprehension and condescension, for their high regard for personal honor, for their tribe loyalty and for their readiness to use force to settle disputes. As tribal warfare and internecine feuding has been one of their chief occupations since time immemorial, this individualistic trait has made it difficult for foreigners to conquer them. Tony Heathcote considers the tribal system to be the best way of organizing large groups of people in a country that is geographically difficult, and in a society that, from a materialistic point of view, has an uncomplicated lifestyle. There are an estimated 60 major Pashtun tribes, and the Afghan nomads are estimated at about 2–3 million. \n\nThe nation has a complex history that has survived either in its current cultures or in the form of various languages and monuments. However, many of its historic monuments have been damaged in recent wars. The two famous Buddhas of Bamiyan were destroyed by the Taliban, who regarded them as idolatrous. Despite that, archaeologists are still finding Buddhist relics in different parts of the country, some of them dating back to the 2nd century. This indicates that Buddhism was widespread in Afghanistan. Other historical places include the cities of Herat, Kandahar, Ghazni, Mazar-i-Sharif, and Zarang. The Minaret of Jam in the Hari River valley is a UNESCO World Heritage site. A cloak reputedly worn by Islam's prophet Muhammad is kept inside the Shrine of the Cloak in Kandahar, a city founded by Alexander and the first capital of Afghanistan. The citadel of Alexander in the western city of Herat has been renovated in recent years and is a popular attraction for tourists. In the north of the country is the Shrine of Hazrat Ali, believed by many to be the location where Ali was buried. The Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture is renovating 42 historic sites in Ghazni until 2013, when the province will be declared as the capital of Islamic civilization. The National Museum of Afghanistan is located in Kabul.\n\nAlthough literacy is low, classic Persian and Pashto poetry plays an important role in the Afghan culture. Poetry has always been one of the major educational pillars in the region, to the level that it has integrated itself into culture. Some notable poets include Rumi, Rabi'a Balkhi, Sanai, Jami, Khushal Khan Khattak, Rahman Baba, Khalilullah Khalili, and Parween Pazhwak. \n\nMedia and entertainment \n\nThe Afghan mass media began in the early 20th century, with the first newspaper published in 1906. By the 1920s, Radio Kabul was broadcasting local radio services. Afghanistan National Television was launched in 1974 but was closed in 1996 when the media was tightly controlled by the Taliban. Since 2002, press restrictions have been gradually relaxed and private media diversified. Freedom of expression and the press is promoted in the 2004 constitution and censorship is banned, although defaming individuals or producing material contrary to the principles of Islam is prohibited. In 2008, Reporters Without Borders ranked the media environment as 156 out of 173 countries, with the 1st being the most free. Around 400 publications were registered, at least 15 local Afghan television channels, and 60 radio stations. Foreign radio stations, such as Voice of America, BBC World Service, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) broadcast into the country.\n\nThe city of Kabul has been home to many musicians who were masters of both traditional and modern Afghan music. Traditional music is especially popular during the Nowruz (New Year) and National Independence Day celebrations. Ahmad Zahir, Nashenas, Ustad Sarahang, Sarban, Ubaidullah Jan, Farhad Darya, and Naghma are some of the notable Afghan musicians, but there are many others. Most Afghans are accustomed to watching Indian Bollywood films and listening to its filmi hit songs. Many major Bollywood film stars have roots in Afghanistan, including Salman Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Shah Rukh Khan (SRK), Aamir Khan, Feroz Khan, Kader Khan, Naseeruddin Shah, Zarine Khan and Celina Jaitly. In addition, several Bollywood films, such as Dharmatma, Khuda Gawah, Escape from Taliban, and Kabul Express have been shot inside Afghanistan.\n\nSports \n\nIn recent years, Afghan sports teams have increasingly celebrated titles at international events. Afghanistan's basketball team won the first team sports title at the 2010 South Asian Games. Later that year, the country's cricket team followed as it won the 2010 ICC Intercontinental Cup. In 2012, the country's 3x3 basketball team won the gold medal at the 2012 Asian Beach Games, in 2013, Afghanistan's football team followed as it won the SAFF Championship.\n\nCricket is the country's most popular sport, followed by association football. The Afghan national cricket team, which was formed in the last decade, participated in the 2009 ICC World Cup Qualifier, 2010 ICC World Cricket League Division One and the 2010 ICC World Twenty20. It won the ACC Twenty20 Cup in 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013. The team eventually made it to play in the 2015 Cricket World Cup. The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) is the official governing body of the sport and is headquartered in Kabul. The Ghazi Amanullah Khan International Cricket Stadium serves as the nation's main cricket stadium, followed by the Kabul National Cricket Stadium. Several other stadiums are under construction. Domestically, cricket is played between teams from different provinces.\n\nThe Afghanistan national football team has been competing in international football since 1941. The national team plays its home games at the Ghazi Stadium in Kabul, while football in Afghanistan is governed by the Afghanistan Football Federation. The national team has never competed or qualified for the FIFA World Cup, but has recently won an international football trophy in 2013. The country also has a national team in the sport of futsal, a 5-a-side variation of football.\n\nOther popular sports in Afghanistan include basketball, volleyball, taekwondo, and bodybuilding. Buzkashi is a traditional sport, mainly among the northern Afghans. It is similar to polo, played by horsemen in two teams, each trying to grab and hold a goat carcass. The Afghan Hound (a type of running dog) originated in Afghanistan and was originally used in hunting." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Afghanistan", "Avghanistaun", "Soviet-occupied Afghanistan", "Afganhistan", "Afghanestan", "Jomhūrī-ye Eslāmī-ye Afġānestān", "Afghanastan", "Afeganistao", "Afgjanistan", "Afghanistan/Article from the 1911 Encyclopedia", "AfghanistaN", "Afghanistan, Rep. of.", "Afganistan", "Afghanistan-Central Asia", "Afghanistan (1911 Encyclopedia)", "Afghansitan", "Afgahanistan", "IROA", "Kinetic action", "A-Stan", "Afghanstan", "Afğānistān", "AFGHANISTAN", "Afghānistān", "I.R.O.A.", "Islamic Republic of Afghanistan", "Dowlat-e Eslami-ye Afghanestan", "افغانستان", "Afghinastan", "The Graveyard of Empires", "Affghanistan", "Afghanistan, I.S. of", "Etymology of Afghanistan", "The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan", "Islamic Transitional Government of Afghanistan", "ISO 3166-1:AF", "Afghnistan", "د افغانستان اسلامي دولت دولت اسلامی افغانستان", "Da Afġānistān Islāmī Jomhoriyat", "Da Afghanistan Islami Dawlat Dawlat-e Eslami-e Afghanestan" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "stan", "afghanistan 1911 encyclopedia", "afghansitan", "graveyard of empires", "afganistan", "dowlat e eslami ye afghanestan", "afğānistān", "afgahanistan", "afghanastan", "afghanstan", "soviet occupied afghanistan", "afgjanistan", "affghanistan", "islamic republic of afghanistan", "i r o", "iroa", "afghanistan rep of", "afghanistan central asia", "jomhūrī ye eslāmī ye afġānestān", "afeganistao", "islamic transitional government of afghanistan", "afghānistān", "da afghanistan islami dawlat dawlat e eslami e afghanestan", "afghanistan", "afghanistan article from 1911 encyclopedia", "iso 3166 1 af", "د افغانستان اسلامي دولت دولت اسلامی افغانستان", "afganhistan", "kinetic action", "afghinastan", "etymology of afghanistan", "avghanistaun", "afghnistan", "افغانستان", "afghanistan i s of", "afghanestan", "da afġānistān islāmī jomhoriyat" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "afghanistan", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Afghanistan" }
Which 60s pop band made an unsuccessful movie called Head?	tc_1291	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "Search" ], "filename": [ "Head_(film).txt" ], "title": [ "Head (film)" ], "wiki_context": [ "Head is a 1968 American adventure musical satirical film written by Jack Nicholson and Bob Rafelson, directed by Rafelson, starring television rock group The Monkees (Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith), and distributed by Columbia Pictures.\n\nDuring production, one of the working titles for the film was Changes, which was later the name of an unrelated album by the Monkees. Another working title was Untitled. A rough cut of the film was previewed for audiences in Los Angeles in the summer of 1968 under the name Movee Untitled.\n\nThe film featured Victor Mature as \"The Big Victor\" and cameo appearances by Nicholson, Teri Garr, Carol Doda, Annette Funicello, Frank Zappa, Sonny Liston, Timothy Carey, Percy Helton, and Ray Nitschke. Also appearing on screen in brief non-speaking parts are Dennis Hopper and film choreographer Toni Basil.\n\nPlot\n\nHead begins at the dedication of a bridge. A politician, the mayor, is trying to offer a dedicatory speech but is impeded by recurring barrages of microphone feedback. As he is about to cut the red ribbon and open the bridge, the Monkees interrupt the ceremony by running, as if in a panic, through the assembled officials as horns and sirens blare. The rest of the film consists of a series of non-linear vignettes highlighting the unpleasant aspects of being public figures. The film offers conflict and resolution, but is essentially plotless; as a chant by the Monkees early in the film relates: \"We hope you like our story/Although there isn't one/That is to say, there's many/That way, there is more fun!\" Head is a stream of consciousness stringing-together of musical numbers, satires of film genres, psychedelic cinematography, and references to then-topical issues such as the Vietnam War and drugs. The action includes recurring scenes, such as the group being trapped in a black box, a desert location, and a gigantic Victor Mature.\n\nCast\n\n* Peter Tork – Peter\n* David Jones – Davy\n* Micky Dolenz – Micky\n* Michael Nesmith – Mike\n* Annette Funicello – Teresa/Minnie\n* Timothy Carey – Lord High 'n' Low\n* Logan Ramsey – Officer Faye Lapid\n* Abraham Sofaer – Swami\n* Vito Scotti – I. Vitteloni\n* Charles Macaulay – Inspector Shrink\n* T. C. Jones – Mr. and Mrs. Ace\n* Charles Irving – Mayor Feedback\n* William Bagdad – Black Sheik\n* Percy Helton – Heraldic Messenger\n* Sonny Liston – Extra\n* Ray Nitschke – Private One\n* Carol Doda – Sally Silicone\n* Frank Zappa – The Critic\n* June Fairchild – The Jumper\n* Teri Garr – Testy True\n* I. J. Jefferson – Lady Pleasure\n* Victor Mature – The Big Victor\n* Toni Basil – 'Daddy's Song' Dancer\n* Lee Kolima – guard \n* Terry Chambers – Hero\n* Mike Burns – Nothing\n* Esther Shepard – Mother\n* Kristine Helstoski – Girl Friend\n* John Hoffman – The Sexfiend\n* Linda Weaver – Lover Secretary\n* Jim Hanley – Frodis\n* Dennis Hopper – Himself\n* Bob Rafelson – Himself\n* Jack Nicholson – Movie director in restaurant\nKolima's role is sometimes attributed to Tor Johnson, who does not appear in the film.\n\nMarketing\n\nTrailers summarized it as a \"most extraordinary adventure, western, comedy, love story, mystery, drama, musical, documentary satire ever made (And that's putting it mildly).\" There were no pictures of the Monkees on the original poster; only a picture of John Brockman, who did the PR for the film. \n\nProduction\n\nThe storylines and peak moments of the film came from a weekend visit to an Ojai, California resort where the Monkees, Rafelson, and Nicholson brainstormed into a tape recorder, reportedly with the aid of a quantity of marijuana. Jack Nicholson then took the tapes and used them as the basis for his screenplay which (according to Rafelson) he structured while under the influence of LSD. When the band learned that they would not be allowed to direct themselves or to receive screenwriting credit, Dolenz, Jones, and Nesmith staged a one-day walkout, leaving Tork the only Monkee on the set the first day. The strike ended after the first day when, to mollify the Monkees, the studio agreed to a larger percentage share of the film's net for the group. But the incident damaged the Monkees' relationship with Rafelson and Bert Schneider, and would effectively end their professional relationship together.\n\nFilmed February 15-May 17, 1968 at Columbia Pictures/Screen Gems Studios in Culver City and at the Columbia Ranch in Burbank, as well as on various locations in California:\nribbon cutting ceremony – Gerald Desmond Bridge, Long Beach\nWAR chant cheerleader sequence – Pasadena Rose Bowl, Pasadena\nfactory sequence – Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant, Playa Del Rey\nwar sequence – Bronson Canyon; some sequences at San Francisco\ndesert sequence – Palm Springs, Utah\nconcert sequence – Valley Music Hall, Salt Lake City\nMicky's underwater sequence – The Bahamas\n\nThe song \"Ditty Diego – War Chant\" was written by Jack Nicholson and is a parody of the band's original Boyce and Hart written TV theme song; its lyrics illustrate the tone of self-parody evident in parts of the film:\n\nHey, hey, we are The Monkees\nYou know we love to please\nA manufactured image\nWith no philosophies.\n[...]\nYou say we're manufactured.\nTo that we all agree.\nSo make your choice and we'll rejoice\nin never being free!\nHey, hey, we are The Monkees\nWe've said it all before\nThe money's in, we're made of tin\nWe're here to give you more!\nThe money's in, we're made of tin\nWe're here to give you...\n\nThe final \"We're here to give you...\" is interrupted by a gunshot, with footage of the execution of Viet Cong operative (q.v.) Nguyễn Văn Lém, by Brigadier General and then Chief of National Police Nguyễn Ngọc Loan.\n\nAnother part of the promotional campaign was placing Head stickers in random places. Rafelson commented that he and Nicholson were arrested at the New York City premiere on October 6 for trying to affix a sticker to a police officer's helmet as he mounted his horse.\n\nReception\n\nA poor audience response at an August 1968 screening in Los Angeles eventually forced the producers to edit the picture down from its original 110-minute length. The 86-minute Head premiered in New York City on November 6, 1968; the film later debuted in Hollywood on November 20. It was not a commercial success. This was in part because Head, being an antithesis of The Monkees sitcom, comprehensively demolished the group's carefully groomed public image, while the older, hipper counterculture audience they had been reaching for rejected the Monkees' efforts out of hand.\n\nThe film's release was also delayed (partly because of the use of solarisation, a then-new technique both laborious and expensive) and badly under-promoted. The sole television commercial was a confusing minimalist close-up shot of a man's head (John Brockman); after 30 seconds the man smiled and the name HEAD appeared on his forehead. This ad was a parody of Andy Warhol's 1963 film Blow Job, which only showed a close-up of a man's face for an extended period, supposedly receiving 'head'.\n\nReceiving mixed critical reviews and virtually non-existent box office receipts, the film succeeded in alienating the band's teenage fanbase while failing to attract the more adult audience for which they had strived. Heads abysmal reception instantly halted studio plans for any further films with the Monkees. It also corresponded with a steep drop in the group's popularity as recording artists; the Head soundtrack peaked at No. 45 on the U.S. chart, the first time any Monkees album had not risen to the Top 5. \"Porpoise Song (Theme from Head)\" was also the first single to not make the Top 40.\n\nIn her scathing review, Renata Adler of The New York Times commented: Head \"might be a film to see if you have been smoking grass, or if you like to scream at The Monkees, or if you are interested in what interests drifting heads and hysterical high-school girls.\" She added that the group \"are most interesting for their lack of similarity to The Beatles. Going through ersatz Beatle songs, and jokes and motions, their complete lack of distinction of any kind...makes their performance modest and almost brave.\"\n\nDaily Variety was also harsh, stating that \"Head is an extension of the ridiculous nonsense served up on the Screen Gems vidseries that manufactured The Monkees and lasted two full seasons following the same format and, ostensibly, appealing to the same kind of audience.\" But the review applauded Rafelson and Nicholson, saying that they \"were wise not to attempt a firm storyline as The Monkees have established themselves in the art of the non-sequitur and outrageous action. Giving them material they can handle is good thinking; asking them to achieve something more might have been a disaster.\"\n\nLegacy\n\nHead has developed a cult following. Leonard Maltin describes it as \"delightfully plotless\" and \"well worth seeing\", giving the film 3 out of 4 stars, while Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 75% rating. Head premiered on television across-the-board as a CBS Late Movie on December 30, 1974; the network rebroadcast the film on July 7, 1975. Cable TV took hold in 1981, when Head began periodic showings on Spotlight; Cinemax began airing the film in 1984. In the UK, Channel 4 also aired on British TV in 1986 and 1991. It was later shown regularly on Starz Cinema, and in 2007, Turner Classic Movies featured the film as part of TCM Underground, showing the film unedited and in its original aspect ratio. It was released on video and Laserdisc by RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video in September 1986 taking advantage of the group's 20th Anniversary, again on VHS and DVD by Rhino Entertainment in January 1995, and a third time on Blu-ray and DVD in November and December 2010, respectively, by The Criterion Collection, in a box set with other films from Rafelson.\n\nWhen asked by Rolling Stone magazine in March 2012 if he thought making Head was a mistake, Nesmith responded by saying that \"by the time Head came out the Monkees were a pariah. There was no confusion about this. We were on the cosine of the line of approbation, from acceptance to rejection . . . and it was basically over. Head was a swan song. We wrote it with Jack and Bob . . .and we liked it. It was an authentic representation of a phenomenon we were a part of that was winding down. It was very far from suicide—even though it may have looked like that. There were some people in power, and not a few critics, who thought there was another decision that could have been made. But I believe the movie was an inevitability—there was no other movie to be made that would not have been ghastly under the circumstances.\" A decade earlier, in his commentary for the television series episode \"Fairy Tale,\" Nesmith called the film the \"murder\" of the Monkees, an intentional move by Schneider and Rafelson, who had their eyes on bigger goals and felt the Monkees project was holding them back.\n\nIn \"Straight Outta Cullompton\" author Adam Foley wrote more glowingly, \"Julian [Hewings]: 'I was watching \"Head\", the Monkees film, and there's a bit at the beginning when Mickey Dolenz falls from Golden Gate bridge and he's got a pair of slightly flared boot cut jean cords on with a pair of (Adidas) Gazelles, probably the first ones that ever came out and this stripy t-shirt and I thought \"Wow, that's what I remember when I was a kid - that's what everyone used to wear when they went to school.\" I just thought \"Wow. Yeah. That's really speaking to me there and I got the others together\" and went \"Have a look at this, we're going to go out and find these clothes and that's what we're going to wear\". The look came first before the music'\". \n\nOn November 19, 2014, the film was screened in the UK for the first time outside London, as part of the Leeds International Film Festival, and introduced by Dr. Peter Mills of Leeds Beckett University, author of a book about The Monkees in which the film features strongly.\n\nMusic\n\nWhile the film's music disappointed fans of the band's more traditional pop sound, it features what some critics considered to be some of the Monkees' best recorded work, including contributions by Carole King and Harry Nilsson. Jack Nicholson compiled the soundtrack album, which approximates the flow of the movie and includes large portions of the dialogue. The film's incidental music was composed and conducted by Ken Thorne, who also composed and conducted the incidental music to the Beatles' second film, Help! The film's most famous song, \"Porpoise Song (Theme from Head)\", appeared at the film's start and finish and left viewers feeling they were watching something dreamlike: even the editing of the bridge scene and the slow motion was almost meant to feel like a dream. Bright color filters heighten the visual effect and dreamlike touch of the passages, which include mermaids rescuing member Micky Dolenz in the film's start. It was a psychedelic touch — recalling some visual and musical elements used for the Beatles' television film Magical Mystery Tour and their animated feature film Yellow Submarine — and was directed by George Dunning.\n\nAndrew Sandoval, author of The Monkees: The Day-By-Day Story of the 60s TV Pop Sensation, commented that, \"It has some of their best songs on it and . . . the movie's musical performances are some of the most cohesive moments in the film.\"\n\nThe music of The Monkees often featured rather dark subject matter beneath a superficially bright, uplifting sound. The music of the film takes the darkness and occasional satirical elements of the Monkees' earlier tunes and makes it far more overt, as in \"Ditty Diego – War Chant\", or \"Daddy's Song\", which has Jones singing an upbeat, Broadway-style number about a boy abandoned by his father. In his 2012 essay on the soundtrack album, academic Peter Mills noted that 'on this album the songs are only part of the story, as they were with The Monkees project as a whole : signals, sounds, and ideas interfere with each other throughout.'\n\nThe soundtrack includes:\n \"Porpoise Song (Theme from Head)\" – Gerry Goffin, Carole King\n* \"Ditty Diego – War Chant\" – Bob Rafelson, Jack Nicholson\n* \"Circle Sky\" – Michael Nesmith\n* \"Can You Dig It\" – Peter Tork\n* \"As We Go Along\" – Carole King, Toni Stern\n* \"Daddy's Song\" – Harry Nilsson\n* \"Long Title: Do I Have to Do This All Over Again?\" – Peter Tork\n* Excerpts from the film, spliced in random order that is not consecutive to the movie itself\n\nHome media history\n\n* September 18, 1986: VHS, Beta, Laserdisc\n* January 25, 1995: VHS\n* June 12, 2000: DVD\n* November 23, 2010: Criterion Blu-ray, \n* December 14, 2010: Criterion DVD,[http://monkeesfilmtv.tripod.com/movie.html monkeesfilmtv.tripod.com/movie] as part of the America Lost and Found: The BBS Story box set\n*April 29, 2016: The Monkees – Complete TV Series Blu-ray http://monkeesstore.warnermusic.com/" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Monkees, The", "The Monkies", "The monkeys", "The Monkeys", "Monkees (band)", "Monkees", "The Monkees", "Monkee" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "monkees", "monkies", "monkeys", "monkee", "monkees band" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "monkees", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "The Monkees" }
Who was Anne Sullivan's most famous pupil?	tc_1292	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Anne_Sullivan.txt" ], "title": [ "Anne Sullivan" ], "wiki_context": [ "Johanna \"Anne\" Mansfield Sullivan Macy (April 14, 1866 – October 20, 1936), better known as Anne Sullivan, was an American teacher, best known for being the instructor and lifelong companion of Helen Keller.Herrmann, Dorothy. Helen Keller: A Life, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1998, p. 35; ISBN 0-679-44354-1 At the age of five, she contracted trachoma, a highly contagious eye disease, which left her blind and without reading or writing skills. She received her education as a student of the Perkins School for the Blind where upon graduation she became a teacher to Keller when she was 20.\n\nChildhood\n\nSullivan was born on April 14, 1866, in Feeding Hills, Agawam, Massachusetts. According to her baptismal certificate, her name at birth was Johanna Mansfield Sullivan; however, she was called Anne or Annie from birth. She was the oldest child of Thomas and Alice (Cloesy) Sullivan. Her parents were illiterate, unskilled, and impoverished immigrants who came to the United States from County Limerick, Ireland, during the Great Famine. When she was only five years old she contracted a bacterial eye disease known as trachoma, which created painful infections and over time made her nearly blind. When she was eight, her mother died and her father abandoned the children two years later for fear he could not raise them on his own.\nShe and her younger brother, James (\"Jimmie\"), were sent to an overcrowded almshouse in Tewksbury, Massachusetts (today part of Tewksbury Hospital). Jimmie suffered from a weak hip ailment and died two to three months into their stay. Sullivan remained at the Tewksbury house for four years after his death, where she had eye operations that offered some short-term relief for her eye pain but ultimately proved ineffective.\n\nEducation\n\nSullivan lost her sight at a young age and therefore had no skills in reading, writing, or sewing and the only work she could find was as a housemaid; however, this position was unsuccessful. Another blind resident staying at the Tewksbury almshouse told her of schools for the blind. During an 1880 inspection of the almshouse, she convinced inspector Franklin Benjamin Sanborn to allow her to leave and enroll in the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston, where she began her studies on October 7, 1880. Although her rough manners made her first years at Perkins humiliating for her, she managed to connect with a few teachers and made progress with her learning. While there, she befriended and learned the manual alphabet from Laura Bridgman, a graduate of Perkins and the first blind and deaf person to be educated there. Also while there, she had a series of eye operations that significantly improved her vision. In June 1886, she graduated from there at age 20 as the valedictorian of her class. She stated \"Fellow-graduates: duty bids us go forth into active life. Let us go cheerfully, hopefully, and earnestly, and set ourselves to find our especial part. When we have found it, willingly and faithfully perform it.\"\n\nCareer\n\nThe summer following Sullivan's graduation, the director of the Perkins Institution, Michael Anagnos, was contacted by Arthur Keller, who was in search of a teacher for his 7-year-old blind and deaf daughter, Helen. Anagnos immediately recommended Sullivan for this position and she began her work on March 3, 1887 at the Kellers' home in Tuscumbia, Alabama. As soon as she arrived there, she argued with Helen's parents about the Civil War and over the fact that they used to own slaves. However she also quickly connected with Helen. It was the beginning of a 49-year relationship: Sullivan evolved from teacher to governess and finally to companion and friend. \n\nSullivan's curriculum involved a strict schedule with constant introduction of new vocabulary words; however, Sullivan quickly changed her teachings after seeing they did not suit Keller. Instead, she began to teach her vocabulary based on her own interests, where she spelled each word out into Keller's palm; within six months this method proved to be working when Keller had learned 575 words, some multiplication tables, as well as the Braille system. Sullivan strongly encouraged Helen's parents to send her to the Perkins School where she could have an appropriate education. When they agreed, Sullivan took Keller to Boston in 1888 and stayed with her there. Sullivan continued to teach her bright protégée, who soon became famous for her remarkable progress. With the help of Anagnos, Keller became a public symbol for the school, helping to increase its funding and donations and making it the most famous and sought-after school for the blind in the country. However, an accusation of plagiarism against Keller greatly upset Sullivan: she left and never returned, but did remain influential to the school. Sullivan remained a close companion to Keller and continued to assist in her education, which ultimately included a degree from Radcliffe College.\n\nPersonal life\n\nOn May 3, 1905, Sullivan married Harvard University instructor and literary critic, John Albert Macy (1877–1932), who had helped Keller with her publications. He moved in with them, and they lived together. However, within a few years, the marriage began to disintegrate. By 1914 they separated, though he is listed as living as a \"lodger\" with them in the 1920 U.S. Census.In the 1920 census, Keller was 38 years old and listed as head of her household in Queens, New York. Sullivan, age 52, is listed as living with her as a private teacher. John, age 44, is also listed as living with them, as a \"lodger\", with the occupation of writer/author. They never officially divorced. As the years progressed after their separation, he appears to have faded from her life. She never remarried.\n\nAwards\n\nIn 1932 Keller and Sullivan were each awarded honorary fellowships from the Educational Institute of Scotland. They also were awarded honorary degrees from Temple University. In 1955 Sullivan was awarded an honorary degree from Harvard University,\nand in 1956 the director's cottage at the Perkins School was named the Keller-Macy Cottage.\n\nDeath\n\nSullivan had been seriously visually impaired for almost all of her life, but by 1935 she was completely blind in both eyes. On October 15, 1936, she suffered a coronary thrombosis, fell into a coma, and died five days later on October 20 at age 70, in Forest Hills, Queens, New York. She died with Keller holding her hand. Keller described Sullivan's last month as being very agitated, but during the last week was said to return to her normal generous self. Sullivan was cremated and her ashes were interred in a memorial at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. She was the first woman to be recognized for her achievements in this way. When Keller died in 1968, her ashes were placed in the Washington National Cathedral next to those of Sullivan.\n\nMedia representation\n\nSullivan is the main character in The Miracle Worker, by William Gibson, originally produced for television, where she was portrayed by Teresa Wright. It then moved to Broadway, and was later produced as a 1962 feature film. Both the play and film featured Anne Bancroft as Sullivan. Patty Duke, who played Keller on Broadway and in the 1962 film version, later played Sullivan in a 1979 television remake. Alison Elliott portrayed her in a 2000 television movie. Alison Pill played her on Broadway in the short-lived 2010 revival, with Abigail Breslin as Keller.\n\nAnne Bancroft and Patty Duke won Academy Awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively, for their roles as Sullivan and Keller in the 1962 film version." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Helen Keller", "Helen Keller Day", "Hellen Keller", "Hellen Cellar", "Hellen Kellar", "Hellen Celler", "Helen Adams Keller", "Helen keller", "Hellan Keller", "Hellen keller", "Polly Thompson", "Captain Arthur H. Keller", "Keller, Helen Adams" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "hellen cellar", "helen keller day", "hellan keller", "hellen keller", "hellen celler", "hellen kellar", "keller helen adams", "helen adams keller", "helen keller", "polly thompson", "captain arthur h keller" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "helen keller", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Helen Keller" }
Which state did Amelia Earhart land in on her first solo Pacific flight?	tc_1294	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Amelia_Earhart.txt" ], "title": [ "Amelia Earhart" ], "wiki_context": [ "Amelia Mary Earhart (; July 24, 1897 – disappeared July 2, 1937) was an American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She received the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross for this record. She set many other records, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots. Earhart joined the faculty of the Purdue University aviation department in 1935 as a visiting faculty member to counsel women on careers and help inspire others with her love for aviation. She was also a member of the National Woman's Party, and an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment. \n\nDuring an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937 in a Purdue-funded Lockheed Model 10 Electra, Earhart disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island. Fascination with her life, career and disappearance continues to this day.\n\nEarly life\n\nChildhood\n\nAmelia Mary Earhart, daughter of Samuel \"Edwin\" Stanton Earhart (1867-1930) and Amelia \"Amy\" (nee Otis) (1869–1962), was born in Atchison, Kansas, in the home of her maternal grandfather, Alfred Gideon Otis (1827–1912), a former federal judge, president of the Atchison Savings Bank and a leading citizen in the town. Amelia was the second child of the marriage, after an infant stillborn in August 1896. She was of part German descent. Alfred Otis had not initially favored the marriage and was not satisfied with Edwin's progress as a lawyer.\n\nEarhart was named, according to family custom, after her two grandmothers (Amelia Josephine Harres and Mary Wells Patton). From an early age Earhart, nicknamed \"Meeley\" (sometimes \"Millie\") was the ringleader while her younger sister (two years her junior), Grace Muriel Earhart (1899–1998), nicknamed \"Pidge\", acted the dutiful follower. Both girls continued to answer to their childhood nicknames well into adulthood. Their upbringing was unconventional since Amy Earhart did not believe in molding her children into \"nice little girls.\" Meanwhile their maternal grandmother disapproved of the \"bloomers\" worn by Amy's children and although Earhart liked the freedom they provided, she was aware other girls in the neighborhood did not wear them.\n\nEarly influence\n\nA spirit of adventure seemed to abide in the Earhart children with the pair setting off daily to explore their neighborhood. As a child, Earhart spent long hours playing with Pidge, climbing trees, hunting rats with a rifle and \"belly-slamming\" her sled downhill. Although this love of the outdoors and \"rough-and-tumble\" play was common to many youngsters, some biographers have characterized the young Earhart as a tomboy. The girls kept \"worms, moths, katydids and a tree toad\" in a growing collection gathered in their outings. In 1904, with the help of her uncle, she cobbled together a home-made ramp fashioned after a roller coaster she had seen on a trip to St. Louis and secured the ramp to the roof of the family toolshed. Earhart's well-documented first flight ended dramatically. She emerged from the broken wooden box that had served as a sled with a bruised lip, torn dress and a \"sensation of exhilaration.\" She exclaimed, \"Oh, Pidge, it's just like flying!\" \n\nAlthough there had been some missteps in his career up to that point, in 1907 Edwin Earhart's job as a claims officer for the Rock Island Railroad led to a transfer to Des Moines, Iowa. The next year, at the age of 10, Earhart saw her first aircraft at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines. Her father tried to interest her and her sister in taking a flight. One look at the rickety \"flivver\" was enough for Earhart, who promptly asked if they could go back to the merry-go-round. She later described the biplane as \"a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting.\" \n\nEducation\n\nThe two sisters, Amelia and Muriel (she went by her middle name from her teens on), remained with their grandparents in Atchison, while their parents moved into new, smaller quarters in Des Moines. During this period, Earhart received a form of home-schooling together with her sister, from her mother and a governess. She later recounted that she was \"exceedingly fond of reading\" and spent countless hours in the large family library. In 1909, when the family was finally reunited in Des Moines, the Earhart children were enrolled in public school for the first time with Amelia Earhart entering the seventh grade at the age of 12 years.\n\nFamily fortunes\n\nWhile the family's finances seemingly improved with the acquisition of a new house and even the hiring of two servants, it soon became apparent Edwin was an alcoholic. Five years later (in 1914), he was forced to retire and although he attempted to rehabilitate himself through treatment, he was never reinstated at the Rock Island Railroad. At about this time, Earhart's grandmother Amelia Otis died suddenly, leaving a substantial estate that placed her daughter's share in trust, fearing that Edwin's drinking would drain the funds. The Otis house, and all of its contents, was auctioned; Earhart was heartbroken and later described it as the end of her childhood. \n\nIn 1915, after a long search, Earhart's father found work as a clerk at the Great Northern Railway in St. Paul, Minnesota, where Earhart entered Central High School as a junior. Edwin applied for a transfer to Springfield, Missouri, in 1915 but the current claims officer reconsidered his retirement and demanded his job back, leaving the elder Earhart with nowhere to go. Facing another calamitous move, Amy Earhart took her children to Chicago, where they lived with friends. Earhart made an unusual condition in the choice of her next schooling; she canvassed nearby high schools in Chicago to find the best science program. She rejected the high school nearest her home when she complained that the chemistry lab was \"just like a kitchen sink.\" She eventually was enrolled in Hyde Park High School but spent a miserable semester where a yearbook caption captured the essence of her unhappiness, \"A.E. – the girl in brown who walks alone.\" \n\nEarhart graduated from Hyde Park High School in 1916. Throughout her troubled childhood, she had continued to aspire to a future career; she kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in predominantly male-oriented fields, including film direction and production, law, advertising, management and mechanical engineering. She began junior college at Ogontz School in Rydal, Pennsylvania but did not complete her program. \n\nDuring Christmas vacation in 1917, Earhart visited her sister in Toronto. World War I had been raging and Earhart saw the returning wounded soldiers. After receiving training as a nurse's aide from the Red Cross, she began work with the Volunteer Aid Detachment at Spadina Military Hospital. Her duties included preparing food in the kitchen for patients with special diets and handing out prescribed medication in the hospital's dispensary. \n\n1918 Spanish flu pandemic\n\nWhen the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic reached Toronto, Earhart was engaged in arduous nursing duties including night shifts at the Spadina Military Hospital. Earhart 1932, p. 21. She became a patient herself, suffering from pneumonia and maxillary sinusitis. She was hospitalized in early November 1918 owing to pneumonia and discharged in December 1918, about two months after the illness had started. Her sinus-related symptoms were pain and pressure around one eye and copious mucus drainage via the nostrils and throat. In the hospital, in the pre-antibiotic era, she had painful minor operations to wash out the affected maxillary sinus, but these procedures were not successful and Earhart subsequently suffered from worsening headache attacks. Her convalescence lasted nearly a year, which she spent at her sister's home in Northampton, Massachusetts. She passed the time by reading poetry, learning to play the banjo and studying mechanics. Chronic sinusitis was to significantly affect Earhart's flying and activities in later life, and sometimes even on the airfield she was forced to wear a bandage on her cheek to cover a small drainage tube. \n\nEarly flying experiences\n\nAt about that time, with a young woman friend, Earhart visited an air fair held in conjunction with the Canadian National Exposition in Toronto. One of the highlights of the day was a flying exhibition put on by a World War I ace. The pilot overhead spotted Earhart and her friend, who were watching from an isolated clearing, and dived at them. \"I am sure he said to himself, 'Watch me make them scamper,'\" she said. Earhart stood her ground as the aircraft came close. \"I did not understand it at the time,\" she said, \"but I believe that little red airplane said something to me as it swished by.\" \n\nBy 1919 Earhart prepared to enter Smith College but changed her mind and enrolled at Columbia University, in a course in medical studies among other programs. She quit a year later to be with her parents, who had reunited in California.\n\nIn Long Beach, on December 28, 1920, Earhart and her father visited an airfield where Frank Hawks (who later gained fame as an air racer) gave her a ride that would forever change Earhart's life. \"By the time I had got two or three hundred feet [60–90 m] off the ground,\" she said, \"I knew I had to fly.\" After that 10-minute flight (that cost her father $10), she immediately became determined to learn to fly. Working at a variety of jobs, including photographer, truck driver, and stenographer at the local telephone company, she managed to save $1,000 for flying lessons. Earhart had her first lessons, beginning on January 3, 1921, at Kinner Field, near Long Beach. In order to reach the airfield, Earhart had to take a bus to the end of the line, then walk four miles (6 km). Earhart's mother also provided part of the $1,000 \"stake\" against her \"better judgement.\" Her teacher was Anita \"Neta\" Snook, a pioneer female aviator who used a surplus Curtiss JN-4 \"Canuck\" for training. Earhart arrived with her father and a singular request, \"I want to fly. Will you teach me?\" \n\nEarhart's commitment to flying required her to accept the frequently hard work and rudimentary conditions that accompanied early aviation training. She chose a leather jacket, but aware that other aviators would be judging her, she slept in it for three nights to give the jacket a \"worn\" look. To complete her image transformation, she also cropped her hair short in the style of other female flyers. Six months later, Earhart purchased a secondhand bright yellow Kinner Airster biplane which she nicknamed \"The Canary.\" On October 22, 1922, Earhart flew the Airster to an altitude of 14000 ft, setting a world record for female pilots. On May 15, 1923, Earhart became the 16th woman to be issued a pilot's license (#6017) by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI). \n\nAviation career and marriage\n\nBoston\n\nThroughout this period, her grandmother's inheritance, which was now administered by her mother, was constantly depleted until it finally ran out following a disastrous investment in a failed gypsum mine. Consequently, with no immediate prospects for recouping her investment in flying, Earhart sold the \"Canary\" as well as a second Kinner and bought a yellow Kissel \"Speedster\" two-passenger automobile, which she named the \"Yellow Peril.\" Simultaneously, Earhart experienced an exacerbation of her old sinus problem as her pain worsened and in early 1924, she was hospitalized for another sinus operation, which was again unsuccessful. After trying her hand at a number of unusual ventures including setting up a photography company, Earhart set out in a new direction. Following her parents' divorce in 1924, she drove her mother in the \"Yellow Peril\" on a transcontinental trip from California with stops throughout the West and even a jaunt up to Calgary, Alberta. The meandering tour eventually brought the pair to Boston, Massachusetts, where Earhart underwent another sinus procedure, this operation being more successful. After recuperation, she returned for several months to Columbia University but was forced to abandon her studies and any further plans for enrolling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology because her mother could no longer afford the tuition fees and associated costs. Soon after, she found employment first as a teacher, then as a social worker in 1925 at Denison House, living in Medford, Massachusetts. \n\nWhen Earhart lived in Medford, she maintained her interest in aviation, becoming a member of the American Aeronautical Society's Boston chapter and was eventually elected its vice president. She flew out of Dennison Airport (later the Naval Air Station Squantum) in Quincy, Massachusetts, and helped finance its operation by investing a small sum of money. Earhart also flew the first official flight out of Dennison Airport in 1927. As well as acting as a sales representative for Kinner aircraft in the Boston area, Earhart wrote local newspaper columns promoting flying and as her local celebrity grew, she laid out the plans for an organization devoted to female flyers. \n\n1928 transatlantic flight\n\nAfter Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, Amy Phipps Guest (1873–1959) expressed interest in being the first woman to fly (or be flown) across the Atlantic Ocean. After deciding the trip was too perilous for her to undertake, she offered to sponsor the project, suggesting they find \"another girl with the right image.\" While at work one afternoon in April 1928, Earhart got a phone call from Capt. Hilton H. Railey, who asked her, \"Would you like to fly the Atlantic?\"\n\nThe project coordinators (including book publisher and publicist George P. Putnam) interviewed Earhart and asked her to accompany pilot Wilmer Stultz and copilot/mechanic Louis Gordon on the flight, nominally as a passenger, but with the added duty of keeping the flight log. The team departed Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland in a Fokker F.VIIb/3m on June 17, 1928, landing at Pwll near Burry Port, South Wales, exactly 20 hours and 40 minutes later. There is a commemorative blue plaque at the site. Since most of the flight was on \"instruments\" and Earhart had no training for this type of flying, she did not pilot the aircraft. When interviewed after landing, she said, \"Stultz did all the flying—had to. I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes.\" She added, \"...maybe someday I'll try it alone.\" \n\nWhile in England, Earhart is reported as receiving a rousing welcome on June 19, 1928, when landing at Woolston in Southampton, England. She flew the Avro Avian 594 Avian III, SN: R3/AV/101 owned by Lady Mary Heath and later purchased the aircraft and had it shipped back to the United States (where it was assigned \"unlicensed aircraft identification mark\" 7083). \n\nWhen the Stultz, Gordon and Earhart flight crew returned to the United States, they were greeted with a ticker-tape parade along the Canyon of Heroes in Manhattan, followed by a reception with President Calvin Coolidge at the White House.\n\nCelebrity image\n\nTrading on her physical resemblance to Lindbergh, whom the press had dubbed \"Lucky Lindy,\" some newspapers and magazines began referring to Earhart as \"Lady Lindy.\" The United Press was more grandiloquent; to them, Earhart was the reigning \"Queen of the Air.\" Immediately after her return to the United States, she undertook an exhausting lecture tour (1928–1929). Meanwhile, Putnam had undertaken to heavily promote her in a campaign including publishing a book she authored, a series of new lecture tours and using pictures of her in mass market endorsements for products including luggage, Lucky Strike cigarettes (this caused image problems for her, with McCall's magazine retracting an offer) and women's clothing and sportswear. The money that she made with \"Lucky Strike\" had been earmarked for a $1,500 donation to Commander Richard Byrd's imminent South Pole expedition.\n\nThe marketing campaign by both Earhart and Putnam was successful in establishing the Earhart mystique in the public psyche. Rather than simply endorsing the products, Earhart actively became involved in the promotions, especially in women's fashions. For a number of years she had sewn her own clothes, but the \"active living\" lines that were sold in 50 stores such as Macy's in metropolitan areas were an expression of a new Earhart image. Her concept of simple, natural lines matched with wrinkle-proof, washable materials was the embodiment of a sleek, purposeful but feminine \"A.E.\" (the familiar name she went by with family and friends). The luggage line that she promoted (marketed as Modernaire Earhart Luggage) also bore her unmistakable stamp.\n\nA wide range of promotional items appeared bearing the Earhart name.\n\nPromoting aviation\n\nThe celebrity endorsements helped Earhart finance her flying. Accepting a position as associate editor at Cosmopolitan magazine, she turned this forum into an opportunity to campaign for greater public acceptance of aviation, especially focusing on the role of women entering the field. In 1929, Earhart was among the first aviators to promote commercial air travel through the development of a passenger airline service; along with Charles Lindbergh, she represented Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT, later TWA) and invested time and money in setting up the first regional shuttle service between New York and Washington, DC., the Ludington Airline. She was a Vice President of National Airways, which conducted the flying operations of the Boston-Maine Airways and several other airlines in the northeast. By 1940, it had become Northeast Airlines.\n\nCompetitive flying\n\nAlthough Earhart had gained fame for her transatlantic flight, she endeavored to set an \"untarnished\" record of her own. Shortly after her return, piloting Avian 7083, she set off on her first long solo flight which occurred just as her name was coming into the national spotlight. By making the trip in August 1928, Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the North American continent and back. Gradually her piloting skills and professionalism grew, as acknowledged by experienced professional pilots who flew with her. General Leigh Wade flew with Earhart in 1929: \"She was a born flier, with a delicate touch on the stick.\" \n\nEarhart subsequently made her first attempt at competitive air racing in 1929 during the first Santa Monica-to-Cleveland Women's Air Derby (nicknamed the \"Powder Puff Derby\" by Will Rogers), which left Santa Monica on August 18 and arrived at Cleveland on August 26. During the race, she settled into fourth place in the \"heavy planes\" division. At the second last stop at Columbus, her friend Ruth Nichols, who was coming third, had an accident while on a test flight before the race recommenced. Nichols' aircraft hit a tractor at the start of the runway and flipped over, forcing her out of the race. At Cleveland, Earhart was placed third in the heavy division. \n\nIn 1930, Earhart became an official of the National Aeronautic Association where she actively promoted the establishment of separate women's records and was instrumental in the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) accepting a similar international standard. In 1931, flying a Pitcairn PCA-2 autogyro, she set a world altitude record of 18,415 feet (5,613 m) in a borrowed company machine. While to a reader today it might seem that Earhart was engaged in flying \"stunts,\" she was, with other female flyers, crucial to making the American public \"air minded\" and convincing them that \"aviation was no longer just for daredevils and supermen.\" \n\nDuring this period, Earhart became involved with The Ninety-Nines, an organization of female pilots providing moral support and advancing the cause of women in aviation. She had called a meeting of female pilots in 1929 following the Women's Air Derby. She suggested the name based on the number of the charter members; she later became the organization's first president in 1930. Earhart was a vigorous advocate for female pilots and when the 1934 Bendix Trophy Race banned women, she openly refused to fly screen actress Mary Pickford to Cleveland to open the races. \n\nMarriage\n\nFor a while Earhart was engaged to Samuel Chapman, a chemical engineer from Boston, breaking off her engagement on November 23, 1928. During the same period, Earhart and George Putnam had spent a great deal of time together, leading to intimacy. Putnam, who was known as GP, was divorced in 1929 and sought out Earhart, proposing to her six times before she finally agreed. After substantial hesitation on her part, they married on February 7, 1931, in Putnam's mother's house in Noank, Connecticut. Earhart referred to her marriage as a \"partnership\" with \"dual control.\" In a letter written to Putnam and hand delivered to him on the day of the wedding, she wrote, \"I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any midaevil code of faithfulness to me nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly.\" \n\nEarhart's ideas on marriage were liberal for the time as she believed in equal responsibilities for both \"breadwinners\" and pointedly kept her own name rather than being referred to as Mrs. Putnam. When The New York Times, per the rules of its stylebook, insisted on referring to her as Mrs. Putnam, she laughed it off. GP also learned quite soon that he would be called \"Mr. Earhart.\" There was no honeymoon for the newlyweds as Earhart was involved in a nine-day cross-country tour promoting autogyros and the tour sponsor, Beech-Nut chewing gum. Although Earhart and Putnam had no children, he had two sons by his previous marriage to Dorothy Binney (1888–1982), a chemical heiress whose father's company, Binney & Smith, invented Crayola crayons: the explorer and writer David Binney Putnam (1913–1992) and George Palmer Putnam, Jr. (1921–2013). Earhart was especially fond of David who frequently visited his father at their family home in Rye, New York. George had contracted polio shortly after his parents' separation and was unable to visit as often.\n\n1932 transatlantic solo flight\n\nAt the age of 34, on the morning of May 20, 1932, Earhart set off from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland with a copy of the Telegraph-Journal, given to her by journalist Stuart Trueman,\"Eighty years since famed flight; Anniversary Amelia Earhart's stop in Saint John may have been brief but pivotal in record-breaking feat\". The Telegraph-Journal, May 19, 2012. intended to confirm the date of the flight. She intended to fly to Paris in her single engine Lockheed Vega 5B to emulate Charles Lindbergh's solo flight. Her technical advisor for the flight was famed Norwegian American aviator Bernt Balchen who helped prepare her aircraft. He also played the role of \"decoy\" for the press as he was ostensibly preparing Earhart's Vega for his own Arctic flight. After a flight lasting 14 hours, 56 minutes during which she contended with strong northerly winds, icy conditions and mechanical problems, Earhart landed in a pasture at Culmore, north of Derry, Northern Ireland. The landing was witnessed by Cecil King and T. Sawyer. When a farm hand asked, \"Have you flown far?\" Earhart replied, \"From America.\" The site now is the home of a small museum, the Amelia Earhart Centre. \n\nAs the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic, Earhart received the Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress, the Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honor from the French Government and the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society from President Herbert Hoover. As her fame grew, she developed friendships with many people in high offices, most notably Eleanor Roosevelt, the First Lady from 1933 to 1945. Roosevelt shared many of Earhart's interests and passions, especially women's causes. After flying with Earhart, Roosevelt obtained a student permit but did not pursue her plans to learn to fly. The two friends communicated frequently throughout their lives. Another famous flyer, Jacqueline Cochran, considered Earhart's greatest rival by both media and the public, also became a confidante and friend during this period. \n\nOther solo flights\n\nOn January 11, 1935, Earhart became the first person to fly solo from Honolulu, Hawaii to Oakland, California. Although this transoceanic flight had been attempted by many others, notably by the unfortunate participants in the 1927 Dole Air Race which had reversed the route, her trailblazing flight had been mainly routine, with no mechanical breakdowns. In her final hours, she even relaxed and listened to \"the broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera from New York.\"\n\nThat year, once more flying her faithful Vega which Earhart had tagged \"old Bessie, the fire horse,\" she soloed from Los Angeles to Mexico City on April 19. The next record attempt was a nonstop flight from Mexico City to New York. Setting off on May 8, her flight was uneventful although the large crowds that greeted her at Newark, New Jersey, were a concern as she had to be careful not to taxi into the throng.\n\nEarhart again participated in long-distance air racing, placing fifth in the 1935 Bendix Trophy Race, the best result she could manage considering that her stock Lockheed Vega topping out at 195 mi/h was outclassed by purpose-built air racers which reached more than 300 mi/h. The race had been a particularly difficult one as one competitor, Cecil Allen, died in a fiery takeoff mishap and rival Jacqueline Cochran was forced to retire due to mechanical problems, the \"blinding fog\", and violent thunderstorms that plagued the race.\n\nBetween 1930 and 1935, Earhart had set seven women's speed and distance aviation records in a variety of aircraft including the Kinner Airster, Lockheed Vega, and Pitcairn Autogiro. By 1935, recognizing the limitations of her \"lovely red Vega\" in long, transoceanic flights, Earhart contemplated, in her own words, a new \"prize... one flight which I most wanted to attempt – a circumnavigation of the globe as near its waistline as could be.\" For the new venture, she would need a new aircraft.\n\nMove to California\n\nWhile Earhart was away on a speaking tour in late November 1934, a fire broke out at the Putnam residence in Rye destroying many family treasures and Earhart's personal mementos. As Putnam had already sold his interest in the New York based publishing company to his cousin, Palmer, following the fire the couple decided to move to the West Coast where Putnam took up his new position as head of the editorial board of Paramount Pictures in North Hollywood. While speaking in California in late 1934, Earhart had contacted Hollywood \"stunt\" pilot Paul Mantz in order to improve her flying, focusing especially on long-distance flying in her Vega and wanted to move closer to him.\n\nAt Earhart's urging, Putnam purchased a small house in June 1935 adjacent to the clubhouse of the Lakeside Golf Club in Toluca Lake, a San Fernando Valley celebrity enclave community nestled between the Warner Brothers and Universal Pictures studio complexes where they had earlier rented a temporary residence. Earhart and Putnam would not move in immediately, however, as they decided to very considerably remodel and enlarge the existing small structure to meet their needs, thus delaying their occupation of their new home for some months. \n\nIn September 1935, Earhart and Mantz formally established a business partnership they had been considering since late 1934 by creating the short-lived Earhart-Mantz Flying School which Mantz controlled and operated through his aviation company, United Air Services, located at the Burbank Airport about five miles from Earhart's Toluca Lake home. Putnam handled publicity for the school which primarily taught instrument flying using Link Trainers. \n\n1937 world flight\n\nPlanning\n\nEarhart joined the faculty of Purdue University in 1935 as a visiting faculty member to counsel women on careers and as a technical advisor to the Department of Aeronautics. Early in 1936, Earhart started to plan a round-the-world flight. Not the first to circle the globe, it would be the longest at 29,000 miles (47,000 km), following a grueling equatorial route. With financing from Purdue, in July 1936, a Lockheed Electra 10E was built at Lockheed Aircraft Company to her specifications which included extensive modifications to the fuselage to incorporate a large fuel tank. Earhart dubbed the twin engine monoplane airliner her \"flying laboratory\" and hangared it at Mantz's United Air Services located just across the airfield from Lockheed's Burbank, California plant in which it had been built. \n\nAlthough the Electra was publicized as a \"flying laboratory\", little useful science was planned and the flight was arranged around Earhart's intention to circumnavigate the globe along with gathering raw material and public attention for her next book. Her first choice as navigator was Captain Harry Manning, who had been the captain of the , the ship that had brought Earhart back from Europe in 1928. \n\nThrough contacts in the Los Angeles aviation community, Fred Noonan was subsequently chosen as a second navigator because there were significant additional factors which had to be dealt with while using celestial navigation for aircraft. He had vast experience in both marine (he was a licensed ship's captain) and flight navigation. Noonan had recently left Pan Am, where he established most of the company's China Clipper seaplane routes across the Pacific. Noonan had also been responsible for training Pan American's navigators for the route between San Francisco and Manila. The original plans were for Noonan to navigate from Hawaii to Howland Island, a particularly difficult portion of the flight; then Manning would continue with Earhart to Australia and she would proceed on her own for the remainder of the project.\n\nFirst attempt\n\nOn March 17, 1937, Earhart and her crew flew the first leg from Oakland, California to Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to Earhart and Noonan, Harry Manning and Mantz (who was acting as Earhart's technical advisor) were on board. Due to lubrication and galling problems with the propeller hubs' variable pitch mechanisms, the aircraft needed servicing in Hawaii. Ultimately, the Electra ended up at the United States Navy's Luke Field on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor. The flight resumed three days later from Luke Field with Earhart, Noonan and Manning on board. During the takeoff run, Earhart ground-looped, circumstances of which remain controversial. Some witnesses at Luke Field including the Associated Press journalist on the scene said they saw a tire blow. Earhart thought either the Electra's right tire had blown and/or the right landing gear had collapsed. Some sources, including Mantz, cited pilot error.\n\nWith the aircraft severely damaged, the flight was called off and the aircraft was shipped by sea to the Lockheed Burbank facility for repairs. \n\nSecond attempt\n\nWhile the Electra was being repaired Earhart and Putnam secured additional funds and prepared for a second attempt. This time flying west to east, the second attempt began with an unpublicized flight from Oakland to Miami, Florida, and after arriving there Earhart publicly announced her plans to circumnavigate the globe. The flight's opposite direction was partly the result of changes in global wind and weather patterns along the planned route since the earlier attempt. On this second flight, Fred Noonan was Earhart's only crew member. The pair departed Miami on June 1 and after numerous stops in South America, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, arrived at Lae, New Guinea, on June 29, 1937. At this stage about 22,000 miles (35,000 km) of the journey had been completed. The remaining 7,000 miles (11,000 km) would be over the Pacific.\n\nDeparture from Lae\n\nOn July 2, 1937, midnight GMT, Earhart and Noonan took off from Lae Airfield in the heavily loaded Electra. Their intended destination was Howland Island, a flat sliver of land 6,500 ft (2,000 m) long and 1,600 ft (500 m) wide, 10 ft (3 m) high and 2,556 miles (4,113 km) away. Their last known position report was near the Nukumanu Islands, about 800 miles (1,300 km) into the flight. The USCGC Itasca was on station at Howland, assigned to communicate with Earhart's Electra and guide them to the island once they arrived in the vicinity.\n\nFinal approach to Howland Island\n\nThrough a series of misunderstandings or errors (the details of which are still controversial), the final approach to Howland Island using radio navigation was not successful. Fred Noonan had earlier written about problems affecting the accuracy of radio direction finding in navigation. Another cited cause of possible confusion was that the Itasca and Earhart planned their communication schedule using time systems set a half-hour apart, with Earhart using Greenwich Civil Time (GCT) and the Itasca under a Naval time zone designation system. \n\nSome sources have noted Earhart's apparent lack of understanding of her direction-finding system, which had been fitted to the aircraft just prior to the flight. The system was equipped with a new receiver from Bendix that operated on five wavelength \"bands\", marked 1 to 5. The loop antenna was equipped with a tuneable loading coil that changed the effective length of the antenna to allow it to work efficiently at different wavelengths. The tuner on the antenna was also marked with five settings, 1 to 5, but, critically, these were not the same frequency bands as the corresponding bands on the radio. The two were close enough for settings 1, 2 and 3, but the higher frequency settings, 4 and 5, were entirely different. Earhart's only training on the system was a brief introduction by Joe Gurr at the Lockheed factory, and the topic had not come up. A card displaying the band settings of the antenna was mounted so it was not visible. Gurr explained that higher frequency bands would offer better accuracy and longer range. \n\nMotion picture evidence from Lae suggests that an antenna mounted underneath the fuselage may have been torn off from the fuel-heavy Electra during taxi or takeoff from Lae's turf runway, though no antenna was reported found at Lae. Don Dwiggins, in his biography of Paul Mantz (who assisted Earhart and Noonan in their flight planning), noted that the aviators had cut off their long-wire antenna, due to the annoyance of having to crank it back into the aircraft after each use.\n\nRadio signals\n\nDuring Earhart and Noonan's approach to Howland Island the Itasca received strong and clear voice transmissions from Earhart identifying as KHAQQ but she apparently was unable to hear voice transmissions from the ship. Signals from the ship would also be used for direction finding, implying that the aircraft's direction finder was also not functional.\n\nThe first calls, routine reports stating the weather as cloudy and overcast, were received at 2:45 and just before 5 am on July 2. These calls were broken up by static, but at this point the aircraft would still be a long distance from Howland. \n\nAt 6:14 am another call was received stating the aircraft was within 200 miles, and requested that the ship use its direction finder to provide a bearing for the aircraft. Earhart began whistling into the microphone to provide a continual signal for them to home in on. It was at this point that the radio operators on the Itasca realized that their RDF system could not tune in the aircraft's 3015 kHz frequency; radioman Leo Bellarts later commented that he \"was sitting there sweating blood because I couldn't do a darn thing about it.\" A similar call asking for a bearing was received at 6:45 am, when Earhart estimated they were 100 miles out. \n\nAt 7:42 am Earhart radioed \"We must be on you, but cannot see you—but gas is running low. Have been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet.\" Her 7:58 am transmission said she couldn't hear the Itasca and asked them to send voice signals so she could try to take a radio bearing. This transmission was reported by the Itasca as the loudest possible signal, indicating Earhart and Noonan were in the immediate area. They couldn't send voice at the frequency she asked for, so Morse code signals were sent instead. Earhart acknowledged receiving these but said she was unable to determine their direction. \n\nIn her last known transmission at 8:43 am Earhart broadcast \"We are on the line 157 337. We will repeat this message. We will repeat this on 6210 kilocycles. Wait.\" However, a few moments later she was back on the same frequency (3105 kHz) with a transmission which was logged as a \"questionable\": \"We are running on line north and south.\" Earhart's transmissions seemed to indicate she and Noonan believed they had reached Howland's charted position, which was incorrect by about five nautical miles (10 km). The Itasca used her oil-fired boilers to generate smoke for a period of time but the fliers apparently did not see it. The many scattered clouds in the area around Howland Island have also been cited as a problem: their dark shadows on the ocean surface may have been almost indistinguishable from the island's subdued and very flat profile.\n\nWhether any post-loss radio signals were received from Earhart and Noonan remains unclear. If transmissions were received from the Electra, most if not all were weak and hopelessly garbled. Earhart's voice transmissions to Howland were on 3105 kHz, a frequency restricted to aviation use in the United States by the FCC. This frequency was not thought to be fit for broadcasts over great distances. When Earhart was at cruising altitude and midway between Lae and Howland (over 1000 mi from each) neither station heard her scheduled transmission at 0815 GCT. Moreover, the 50-watt transmitter used by Earhart was attached to a less-than-optimum-length V-type antenna. \n\nThe last voice transmission received on Howland Island from Earhart indicated she and Noonan were flying along a line of position (taken from a \"sun line\" running on 157–337 degrees) which Noonan would have calculated and drawn on a chart as passing through Howland. After all contact was lost with Howland Island, attempts were made to reach the flyers with both voice and Morse code transmissions. Operators across the Pacific and the United States may have heard signals from the downed Electra but these were unintelligible or weak. \n\nSome of these reports of transmissions were later determined to be hoaxes but others were deemed authentic. Bearings taken by Pan American Airways stations suggested signals originating from several locations, including Gardner Island (Nikumaroro), 360 miles to the SSE. It was noted at the time that if these signals were from Earhart and Noonan, they must have been on land with the aircraft since water would have otherwise shorted out the Electra's electrical system. Sporadic signals were reported for four or five days after the disappearance but none yielded any understandable information. The captain of the USS later said \"There was no doubt many stations were calling the Earhart plane on the plane's frequency, some by voice and others by signals. All of these added to the confusion and doubtfulness of the authenticity of the reports.\" \n\nSearch efforts\n\nBeginning approximately one hour after Earhart's last recorded message, the USCGC Itasca undertook an ultimately unsuccessful search north and west of Howland Island based on initial assumptions about transmissions from the aircraft. The United States Navy soon joined the search and over a period of about three days sent available resources to the search area in the vicinity of Howland Island. The initial search by the Itasca involved running up the 157/337 line of position to the NNW from Howland Island. The Itasca then searched the area to the immediate NE of the island, corresponding to the area, yet wider than the area searched to the NW. Based on bearings of several supposed Earhart radio transmissions, some of the search efforts were directed to a specific position on a line of 281 degrees (approximately northwest) from Howland Island without evidence of the flyers. Four days after Earhart's last verified radio transmission, on July 6, 1937, the captain of the battleship Colorado received orders from the Commandant, Fourteenth Naval District to take over all naval and coast guard units to coordinate search efforts.\n\nLater search efforts were directed to the Phoenix Islands south of Howland Island. A week after the disappearance, naval aircraft from the Colorado flew over several islands in the group including Gardner Island (now called Nikumaroro), which had been uninhabited for over 40 years. The subsequent report on Gardner read: \"Here signs of recent habitation were clearly visible but repeated circling and zooming failed to elicit any answering wave from possible inhabitants and it was finally taken for granted that none were there... At the western end of the island a tramp steamer (of about 4000 tons)... lay high and almost dry head onto the coral beach with her back broken in two places. The lagoon at Gardner looked sufficiently deep and certainly large enough so that a seaplane or even an airboat could have landed or takenoff in any direction with little if any difficulty. Given a chance, it is believed that Miss Earhart could have landed her aircraft in this lagoon and swum or waded ashore.\" They also found that Gardner's shape and size as recorded on charts were wholly inaccurate. Other Navy search efforts were again directed north, west and southwest of Howland Island, based on a possibility the Electra had ditched in the ocean, was afloat, or that the aviators were in an emergency raft. \n\nThe official search efforts lasted until July 19, 1937. At $4 million, the air and sea search by the Navy and Coast Guard was the most costly and intensive in U.S. history up to that time but search and rescue techniques during the era were rudimentary and some of the search was based on erroneous assumptions and flawed information. Official reporting of the search effort was influenced by individuals wary about how their roles in looking for an American hero might be reported by the press. Despite an unprecedented search by the United States Navy and Coast Guard no physical evidence of Earhart, Noonan or the Electra 10E was found. The aircraft carrier USS , the Colorado, and the Itasca (and even two Japanese ships, the oceanographic survey vessel Koshu and auxiliary seaplane tender Kamoi) searched for six–seven days each, covering 150000 sqmi. \n\nImmediately after the end of the official search, Putnam financed a private search by local authorities of nearby Pacific islands and waters, concentrating on the Gilberts. In late July 1937, Putnam chartered two small boats and while he remained in the United States, directed a search of the Phoenix Islands, Christmas (Kiritimati) Island, Fanning (Tabuaeran) Island, the Gilbert Islands and the Marshall Islands, but no trace of the Electra or its occupants was found. \n\nBack in the United States, Putnam acted to become the trustee of Earhart's estate so that he could pay for the searches and related bills. In probate court in Los Angeles, Putnam requested to have the \"declared death in absentia\" seven-year waiting period waived so that he could manage Earhart's finances. As a result, Earhart was declared legally dead on January 5, 1939. \n\nSpeculation on disappearance\n\nMany ideas emerged after the disappearance of Earhart and Noonan. Two possibilities concerning the flyers' fate have prevailed among researchers and historians.\n\nCrash and sink theory\n\nMany researchers believe the Electra ran out of fuel and that Earhart and Noonan ditched at sea. Navigator and aeronautical engineer Elgen Long and his wife Marie K. Long devoted 35 years of exhaustive research to the \"crash and sink\" theory, which is the most widely accepted explanation for the disappearance. United States Navy Captain Laurance Safford (retired) who was responsible for the interwar Mid-Pacific Strategic Direction Finding Net, and the decoding of the Japanese Purple cipher messages for the attack on Pearl Harbor, began a lengthy analysis of the Earhart flight during the 1970s. His research included the intricate radio transmission documentation. Safford came to the conclusion, \"poor planning, worse execution\". Rear Admiral Richard R. Black, USN, who was in administrative charge of the Howland Island airstrip and was present in the radio room on the Itasca, asserted in 1982 that \"the Electra went into the sea about 10 am, July 2, 1937 not far from Howland\". British aviation historian Roy Nesbit interpreted evidence in contemporary accounts and Putnam's correspondence and concluded Earhart's Electra was not fully fueled at Lae. William L. Polhemous, the navigator on Ann Pellegreno's 1967 flight which followed Earhart and Noonan's original flight path, studied navigational tables for July 2, 1937, and thought Noonan may have miscalculated the \"single line approach\" intended to \"hit\" Howland. \n\nDavid Jourdan, a former Navy submariner and ocean engineer specializing in deep-sea recoveries, has claimed any transmissions attributed to Gardner Island were false. Through his company Nauticos he extensively searched a 1200 sqmi quadrant north and west of Howland Island during two deep-sea sonar expeditions (2002 and 2006, total cost $4.5 million) and found nothing. The search locations were derived from the line of position (157–337) broadcast by Earhart on July 2, 1937. Nevertheless, Elgen Long's interpretations have led Jourdan to conclude, \"The analysis of all the data we have – the fuel analysis, the radio calls, other things – tells me she went into the water off Howland.\" Earhart's stepson George Palmer Putnam Jr. has been quoted as saying he believes \"the plane just ran out of gas\". Susan Butler, author of the \"definitive\" Earhart biography East to the Dawn, says she thinks the aircraft went into the ocean out of sight of Howland Island and rests on the seafloor at a depth of 17000 ft. Tom D. Crouch, Senior Curator of the National Air and Space Museum, has said the Earhart/Noonan Electra is \"18,000 ft. down\" and may even yield a range of artifacts that could rival the finds of the Titanic, adding that \"the mystery is part of what keeps us interested. In part, we remember her because she's our favorite missing person.\"\n\nGardner Island hypothesis\n\nImmediately after Earhart and Noonan's disappearance, the U.S. Navy, Paul Mantz, and Earhart's mother (who convinced G.P. Putnam to undertake a search in the Phoenix Group) all expressed belief the flight had ended in the Phoenix Islands, now part of the Republic of Kiribati, some 350 mi southeast of Howland Island. Ultimately, Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro), larger than Howland and much more visible from the air, was identified as a viable location for landing an aircraft running out of fuel.\n\nIn 1988, The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) began an investigation of the Earhart/Noonan disappearance and since then has sent ten research expeditions to Gardner Island/Nikumaroro. They have suggested Earhart and Noonan may have flown without further radio transmissions for two and a half hours along the line of position Earhart noted in her last transmission received at Howland, then found the then uninhabited Gardner Island, landed the Electra on an extensive reef flat near the wreck of a large freighter (the ) on the northwest side of the atoll, and ultimately perished. In 2012, a photograph made in October 1937 of the reef at Nikumaroro after her disappearance was enhanced and showed what the experts said was 'a blurry object sticking out of the water in the lower left corner of the black-and-white photo is consistent with a strut and wheel of a Lockheed Electra landing gear.' \n\nDuring World War II, US Coast Guard LORAN Unit 92, a radio navigation station built in the summer and fall of 1944, and operational from mid-November 1944 until mid-May 1945, was located on Gardner Island's southeast end. Dozens of U.S. Coast Guard personnel were involved in its construction and operation, but were mostly forbidden from leaving the small base or having contact with the Gilbertese colonists then on the island, and found no artifacts known to relate to Earhart. \n\nNevertheless, in July 2007, an editor at Avionews in Rome compared the Gardner Island hypothesis to other non-crash-and-sink theories and called it the \"most confirmed\" of them. \n\nTIGHAR's research has produced a range of documented archaeological and anecdotal evidence supporting this hypothesis. For example, in 1940, Gerald Gallagher, a British colonial officer and licensed pilot, radioed his superiors to inform them that he had found a \"skeleton ... possibly that of a woman,\" along with an old-fashioned sextant box, under a tree on the island's southeast corner. He was ordered to send the remains to Fiji, where in 1941, British colonial authorities took detailed measurements of the bones and concluded they were from a male about 5 ft 5 in tall. In 1998, however, an analysis of the measurement data by forensic anthropologists did not confirm the original findings, concluding instead, that the skeleton had belonged to a \"tall white female of northern European ancestry.\" The bones themselves were misplaced in Fiji long ago and have not been found. \n\nIn 2007, a TIGHAR expedition visited Nikumaroro searching for unambiguously identifiable aircraft artifacts and DNA. The group included engineers, technical experts, archaeologists, anthropologists, and researchers. They found artifacts of uncertain origin on the weather-ravaged atoll, including bronze bearings which may have belonged to Earhart's aircraft and a zipper pull which might have come from her flight suit. In 2010, the research group said it had found bones that appeared to be part of a human finger. Subsequent DNA testing at the University of Oklahoma proved inconclusive as to whether the bone fragments were from a human or from a sea turtle. \n\nIn July 2012, TIGHAR conducted an underwater expedition off the northwest reef of Nikumaroro, using sonar mapping. Some of the sonar images suggested a possible wreckage site, although Ric Gillespie, executive director of TIGHAR, cautioned that most of the Electra's parts would likely have disintegrated after 75 years in sea water. Nevertheless, in May 2013, TIGHAR announced that professional analysis of a 32 ft anomaly in the sonar images showed what could possibly be the aircraft. \n\nArtifacts discovered by TIGHAR on Nikumaroro have included improvised tools; an aluminum panel, possibly from an Electra, made using 1930s manufacturing specifications; an oddly cut piece of clear Plexiglas the same thickness and curvature of an Electra window; and a size 9 Cat's Paw heel dating from the 1930s which resembles Earhart's footwear in world flight photos. Recently rediscovered photos of Earhart's Electra just before departure in Miami shows an aluminum panel over a window on the right side. Ric Gillespie, head of TIGHAR, claimed the found aluminum panel artifact has the same dimensions and rivet pattern as the one shown in the photo \"to a high degree of certainty\". Based on this new evidence, Gillespie returned to the atoll in June 2015, but operations of a Remotely operated underwater vehicle to investigate a sonar detection of a possible wreckage was hampered by technical problems. Further, a review of sonar data concluded it was most like a coral ridge. The evidence remains circumstantial, but Earhart's surviving stepson, George Putnam Jr., has expressed support for TIGHAR's research. \n\nJapanese capture theory \n\nAnother theory purports that Amelia Earhart was captured by Japanese forces. This theory came about as a result of the similarities of Earhart's Lockheed Electra's components to the Mitsubishi A6M Zero. In 1966, CBS Correspondent Fred Goerner published a book claiming Earhart and Noonan were captured and executed when their aircraft crashed on the island of Saipan, part of the Mariana Islands archipelago, while it was under Japanese occupation. In 2009, an Earhart relative stated that the pair died in Japanese custody, citing unnamed witnesses including Japanese troops and Saipan natives. He said that the Japanese cut the valuable Lockheed aircraft into scrap and threw the pieces into the ocean.\n\nIn 1993 a former PAN AM pilot named Henri Keyzer-Andre published an autobiography called Age Of Heroes: Incredible Adventures of a PAN AM Pilot and his Greatest Triumph, Unravelling the Mystery of Amelia Earhart. This autobiography is about himself and his flying experiences during the early period of commercial air travel. In this action-packed memoir, he vividly describes trips to Siberia and China, as well as WW II missions transporting refugees across war zones. He subsequently spent 28 years with the State Department's Federal Aviation Authority, participating in diplomatic and, occasionally, covert assignments. While in Japan to assist in reviving its aviation industry, Keyzer-Andre uncovered information, documented in this book, that led him to conclude that Amelia Earhart, whose plane vanished somewhere in the Pacific in 1937, was shot down by the Japanese. \n\nIn 1990, the NBC-TV series Unsolved Mysteries broadcast an interview with a Saipanese woman who claimed to have witnessed Earhart and Noonan's execution by Japanese soldiers. No independent confirmation or support has ever emerged for any of these claims. Purported photographs of Earhart during her captivity have been identified as either fraudulent or having been taken before her final flight. \n\nSince the end of World War II, a location on Tinian, which is five miles (eight km) southwest of Saipan, had been rumoured to be the grave of the two aviators. In 2004, a scientifically supported archaeological dig at the site failed to turn up any bones. \n\nMyths, legends, and claims\n\nThe unresolved circumstances of Earhart's disappearance, along with her fame, attracted a great body of other claims relating to her last flight, all of which have been generally dismissed for lack of verifiable evidence. Several unsupported theories have become well known in popular culture.\n\nSpies for FDR\n\nA World War II-era movie called Flight for Freedom (1943) starring Rosalind Russell and Fred MacMurray furthered a myth that Earhart was spying on the Japanese in the Pacific at the request of the Franklin Roosevelt administration. By 1949, both the United Press and U.S. Army Intelligence had concluded this rumor was groundless. Jackie Cochran, another pioneering aviator and one of Earhart's friends, made a postwar search of numerous files in Japan and was convinced the Japanese were not involved in Earhart's disappearance. \n\nTokyo Rose rumor\n\nA rumor which claimed that Earhart had made propaganda radio broadcasts as one of the many women compelled to serve as Tokyo Rose was investigated closely by George Putnam. According to several biographies of Earhart, Putnam investigated this rumor personally but after listening to many recordings of numerous Tokyo Roses, he did not recognize her voice among them. \n\nNew Britain\n\nThe theory that Earhart may have turned back mid-flight has been posited. She would then have tried to reach the airfield at Rabaul, New Britain (northeast of mainland Papua New Guinea), approximately 2200 mi from Howland. \n\nIn 1990, Donald Angwin, a veteran of the Australian Army's World War II campaign in New Britain, contacted researchers to suggest that a wrecked aircraft he had witnessed in jungle about 40 mi southwest of Rabaul, on April 17, 1945, may have been Earhart's Electra. Angwin, who was a corporal in the 11th Battalion at the time, reported that he and other members of a forward patrol on Japanese-occupied New Britain had found a wrecked twin-engined, unpainted all-metal aircraft. The soldiers recorded a rough position on a map, along with serial numbers seen on the wreckage. While the map was located in the possession of another veteran in 1993, subsequent searches of the area indicated failed to find a wreck.\n\nWhile Angwin died in 2001, David Billings, an Australian aircraft engineer, has continued to investigate his theory. Billings claims that the serial numbers written on the map, \"600H/P S3HI C/N1055\", represent:\n* a 600 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1340-S3H1 model engine and;\n* \"Constructor's Number 1055\", an airframe identifier.\nThese would be consistent with a Lockheed Electra 10E, such as that flown by Earhart, although they do not contain enough information to identify the wreck in question as NR16020.\n\nPacific Wrecks, a website that documents World War II-era aircraft crash sites, notes that no Electra has been reported lost in or around Papua New Guinea. Gillespie wrote that the 2000 mi distance from Earhart's last known position to New Britain was impossible for the aircraft to fly, requiring more than 13 hours of flight when there were only 4 hours of fuel remaining. \n\nAssuming another identity\n\nIn November 2006, the National Geographic Channel aired episode two of the Undiscovered History series about a claim that Earhart survived the world flight, moved to New Jersey, changed her name, remarried and became Irene Craigmile Bolam. This claim had originally been raised in the book Amelia Earhart Lives (1970) by author Joe Klaas, based on the research of Major Joseph Gervais. Irene Bolam, who had been a banker in New York during the 1940s, denied being Earhart, filed a lawsuit requesting $1.5 million in damages and submitted a lengthy affidavit in which she refuted the claims. The book's publisher, McGraw-Hill, withdrew the book from the market shortly after it was released and court records indicate that they made an out-of-court settlement with her. Subsequently, Bolam's personal life history was thoroughly documented by researchers, eliminating any possibility she was Earhart. Kevin Richlin, a professional criminal forensic expert hired by National Geographic, studied photographs of both women and cited many measurable facial differences between Earhart and Bolam. \n\nLegacy\n\nEarhart was a widely known international celebrity during her lifetime. Her shyly charismatic appeal, independence, persistence, coolness under pressure, courage and goal-oriented career along with the circumstances of her disappearance at a comparatively early age have driven her lasting fame in popular culture. Hundreds of articles and scores of books have been written about her life which is often cited as a motivational tale, especially for girls. Earhart is generally regarded as a feminist icon. \n\nEarhart's accomplishments in aviation inspired a generation of female aviators, including the more than 1,000 women pilots of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) who ferried military aircraft, towed gliders, flew target practice aircraft, and served as transport pilots during World War II. \n\nThe home where Earhart was born is now the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum and is maintained by The Ninety-Nines, an international group of female pilots of whom Earhart was the first elected president. \n\nA small section of Earhart's Lockheed Electra starboard engine nacelle recovered in the aftermath of the Hawaii crash has been confirmed as authentic and is now regarded as a control piece that will help to authenticate possible future discoveries. The evaluation of the scrap of metal was featured on an episode of History Detectives on Season 7 in 2009. \n\nMemorial flights\n\nTwo notable memorial flights by female aviators subsequently followed Earhart's original circumnavigational route.\nIn 1967, Ann Dearing Holtgren Pellegreno and a crew of three successfully flew a similar aircraft (a Lockheed 10A Electra) to complete a world flight that closely mirrored Earhart's flight plan. On the 30th anniversary of her disappearance, Pellegreno dropped a wreath in Earhart's honor over tiny Howland Island and returned to Oakland, completing the 28000 mi commemorative flight on July 7, 1967.\nIn 1997, on the 60th anniversary of Earhart's world flight, San Antonio businesswoman Linda Finch retraced the final flight path flying the same make and model of aircraft as Earhart, a restored 1935 Lockheed Electra 10E. Finch touched down in 18 countries before finishing the trip two and a half months later when she arrived back at Oakland Airport on May 28, 1997.\n\nIn 2001, another commemorative flight retraced the route undertaken by Earhart in her August 1928 transcontinental record flight. Dr. Carlene Mendieta flew an original Avro Avian, the same type that was used in 1928.\n\nIn 2013, Amelia Rose Earhart, a pilot and reporter from Denver Colorado, announced that she would be recreating the 1937 flight during the Summer of 2014 in a single engine Pilatus PC-12NG. She completed the flight without incident on July 11, 2014. \n\nOther honors\n\nCountless other tributes and memorials have been made in Amelia Earhart's name, including a 2012 tribute from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking at a State Department event celebrating the ties of Earhart and the United States to its Pacific neighbors, noting: \"Earhart ... created a legacy that resonates today for anyone, girls and boys, who dreams of the stars.\" In 2013, Flying magazine ranked Earhart No. 9 on their list of the \"51 Heroes of Aviation\". The following list is not considered definitive, but serves also to give significant examples of tributes and honors.\n\nAmelia Earhart Centre And Wildlife Sanctuary was established at the site of her 1932 landing in Northern Ireland, Ballyarnet Country Park, Derry.\nThe \"Earhart Tree\" on Banyan Drive in Hilo, Hawaii, was planted by Earhart in 1935.\nThe Zonta International Amelia Earhart Fellowship Awards were established in 1938.\n\nEarhart Light (also known as the Amelia Earhart Light), a navigational day beacon on Howland Island (has not been maintained and is crumbling).\nThe Amelia Earhart Memorial Scholarships (established in 1939 by The Ninety-Nines), provides scholarships to women for advanced pilot certificates and ratings, jet type ratings, college degrees and technical training.\nThe Purdue University Amelia Earhart Scholarship, first awarded in 1940, is based on academic merit and leadership and is open to juniors and seniors enrolled in any school at the West Lafayette campus. After being discontinued in the 1970s, a donor resurrected the award in 1999.\nIn 1942, a United States Liberty ship named was launched. It was wrecked in 1948.\nAmelia Earhart Field (1947), formerly Masters Field and Miami Municipal Airport, after closure in 1959, Amelia Earhart Park was dedicated in an area of undeveloped federal government land located north and west of the former Miami Municipal Airport and immediately south of Opa-locka Airport.\nAmelia Earhart Airport (1958), located in Atchison, Kansas.\nAmelia Earhart Commemorative Stamp (8¢ airmail postage) was issued in 1963 by the United States Postmaster-General.\nThe Civil Air Patrol Amelia Earhart Award (since 1964) is awarded to cadets who have completed the first 11 achievements of the cadet program along with receipt of the General Billy Mitchell Award.\nAmelia Earhart Residence Hall opened in 1964 as a residence hall for women at Purdue University and became coed in 2002. An eight-foot sculpture of Earhart, by Ernest Shelton, was placed in front of the Earhart Hall Dining Court in 2009. \nMember of National Aviation Hall of Fame (1968). \nMember of National Women's Hall of Fame (1973).\nCrittenton Women's Union (Boston) Amelia Earhart Award recognizes a woman who continues Earhart's pioneering spirit and who has significantly contributed to the expansion of opportunities for women. (since 1982)\nEarhart Corona, a corona on Venus was named by the IAU in 1982. \nThe Amelia Earhart Birthplace, Atchison, Kansas (a museum and historic site, owned and maintained by The Ninety-Nines since 1984).\nUCI Irvine Amelia Earhart Award (since 1990).\nMember of Motorsports Hall of Fame of America (1992).\n3895 Earhart, a minor planet discovered in 1987, was named in 1995 after her, by its discoverer, Carolyn S. Shoemaker.\nEarhart Foundation, located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Established in 1995, the foundation funds research and scholarship through a network of 50 \"Earhart professors\" across the United States.\nAmelia Earhart Festival (annual event since 1996), located in Atchison, Kansas.\nAmelia Earhart Pioneering Achievement Award, Atchison, Kansas: Since 1996, the Cloud L. Cray Foundation provides a $10,000 women's scholarship to the educational institution of the honoree's choice.\nAmelia Earhart Earthwork in Warnock Lake Park, Atchison, Kansas. Stan Herd created the 1 acre landscape mural in 1997 from permanent plantings and stone to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Earhart's birth. Located at and best viewed from the air.\nAmelia Earhart Bridge (1997), located in Atchison, Kansas.\nGreater Miami Aviation Association Amelia Earhart Award for outstanding achievement (2006); first recipient: noted flyer Patricia \"Patty\" Wagstaff.\nOn December 6, 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Earhart into the California Hall of Fame located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.\nUSNS Amelia Earhart (T-AKE-6) was named in her honor in May 2007.\nAmelia Earhart full size bronze statue was placed at the Spirit of Flight Center located in Lafayette, Colorado in 2008.\n\nThe Amelia Earhart General Aviation Terminal, a satellite terminal at Boston's Logan Airport (formerly used by American Eagle, now unused)\nAmelia Earhart Dam on the Mystic River in eastern Massachusetts.\nSchools named after Earhart are found throughout the United States including the Amelia Earhart Elementary School, in Alameda, California, Amelia Earhart Elementary School, in Hialeah, Florida, Amelia Earhart Middle School, Riverside, California and Amelia Earhart International Baccalaureate World School, in Indio, California.\nAmelia Earhart Hotel, located in Wiesbaden, Germany, originally used as a hotel for women, then as temporary military housing is now operated as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Europe District Headquarters with offices for the Army Contracting Agency and the Defense Contract Management Agency.\nAmelia Earhart Road, located in Oklahoma City (headquarters of The Ninety-Nines), Oklahoma.\nEarhart Road, located next to the Oakland International Airport North Field in Oakland, California.\nAmelia Earhart Playhouse, at Wiesbaden Army Airfield. \n* Tio commemorate her first transatlantic flight, on the Millennium Coastal Path at Pwll, Burry Port, South Wales is a blue plaque sponsored by Llanelli Community Heritage. \n* In 2015, a newly discovered Lunar Crater was provisionally named after Amelia Earhart. \n\nPopular culture\n\nEarhart's life has spurred the imaginations of many writers and others; the following examples are given although many other mentions have also occurred in contemporary or current media:\n* \"Amelia Earhart's Last Flight\", by \"Yodelling Cowboy\" Red River Dave McEnery, is thought to be the first song ever performed on commercial television (at the 1939 World's Fair). He recorded it in 1941 and it was subsequently covered by artists including Kinky Friedman and the Country Gentlemen.\n* The 1943 Rosalind Russell film Flight for Freedom derived from a treatment, \"Stand by to Die\", was a fictionalized treatment of Earhart's life.\n* Possibly the first tribute album dedicated to the legend of Earhart was by Plainsong, In Search of Amelia Earhart, Elektra K42120, released in 1972. Both the album and the Press Pak released by Elektra are highly prized by collectors and have reached cult status. \n* Patti Smith published two poems dedicated to Earhart: \"Amelia Earhart I\" and \"Amelia Earhart II\" in her 1972 poetry collection Seventh Heaven.\n* Singer Joni Mitchell's song \"Amelia\" appears on her 1976 album Hejira and also features in the video of her 1980 live album Shadows and Light (1980) with clips of Earhart. Commenting on the origins of the song, which interweaves the story of a desert journey with aspects of Earhart's disappearance, Mitchell said: \"I was thinking of Amelia Earhart and addressing it from one solo pilot to another ... sort of reflecting on the cost of being a woman and having something you must do.\" \n* In the \"Rare Objects\" episode of \"Rod Serling's Night Gallery\" in 1972, Amelia Earhart is seen among a set of missing persons who are assembled by a unique collector of human beings played by Raymond Massey.\n* \"In Search of: Amelia Earhart,\" (1976) was episode 16 of the 1976–1982 In Search Of series; this episode spurred a number of popular documentaries that followed.\n* A 1976 television bio production titled Amelia Earhart starring Susan Clark and John Forsythe included flying by Hollywood stunt pilot Frank Tallman whose late partner in Tallmantz Aviation, Paul Mantz, had tutored Earhart in the 1930s.\n* In the 1978 novel \"Wings\" by Robert J. Serling, Earhart appears as an acquaintance and romantic interest of the novel's protagonist, Barney Burton. \n* William Katz's 1980 novel Ghostflight features Amelia Earhart's reappearance after being captured by nazis, and subjected to age-prolonging treatment.\n* Clive Cussler's 1992 novel Sahara mentions that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were executed on Saipan and their remains returned and hidden near Washington DC.\n* The documentary Amelia Earhart: The Price of Courage (1993) from American Experience. \nAmelia Earhart: The Final Flight (1994) starring Diane Keaton, Rutger Hauer and Bruce Dern was initially released as TV movie and subsequently released as a theatrical feature. \n I Was Amelia Earhart (1996) is a faux autobiography by Jane Mendelsohn in which \"Earhart\" tells the story of what happened to her in 1937, complete with heavy doses of romance with her navigator.\n* Amelia And Eleanor Go For A Ride (1999) is a children's picture book written by Pam Munoz Ryan and illustrated by Brian Selznick. It tells the story of the impromptu flight taken by Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt in 1933.\n* Amelia Earhart is quoted in a verse of New Radicals 1999 hit single \"Someday We'll Know.\"\n* In the Star Trek: Voyager episode \"The 37's\" (first aired 1995), Earhart, portrayed by Sharon Lawrence, was one of many humans abducted by an alien race in 1937, only to be found in cryo-stasis on a planet on the other side of the galaxy.\n* Academy Award nominee Amy Adams portrayed Earhart in Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009).\n* In Amelia (2009), Earhart is portrayed by Hilary Swank, who also served as co-executive producer of the biopic. \n* In 2011, the Great Canadian Theatre Company hosted a musical play titled Amelia: The Girl Who Wants To Fly. \n* Antje Duvekot penned the \"Ballot of Fred Noonan\" for her 2012 album \"New Siberia\" as a view of Earhart from her collaborator's perspective.\nGoogle honored Earhart on her 115th birthday anniversary by putting up a doodle on its site on July 24, 2012.\n\nRecords and achievements\n\n Woman's world altitude record: 14,000 ft (1922)\n* First woman to fly the Atlantic Ocean (1928)\n* Speed records for 100 km (and with 500 lb cargo) (1931)\n* First woman to fly an autogyro (1931)\n* Altitude record for autogyros: 18,415 ft (1931)\n* First person to cross the USA in an autogyro (1932)\n* First woman to fly the Atlantic solo (1932)\n* First person to fly the Atlantic twice (1932)\n* First woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross (1932)\n* First woman to fly nonstop, coast-to-coast across the U.S. (1933)\n* Woman's speed transcontinental record (1933)\n* First person to fly solo between Honolulu, Hawaii and Oakland, California (1935)\n* First person to fly solo from Los Angeles, California to Mexico City, Mexico (1935)\n* First person to fly solo nonstop from Mexico City, Mexico to Newark, New Jersey (1935)\n* Speed record for east-to-west flight from Oakland, California to Honolulu, Hawaii (1937) \n* First person to fly solo from the Red Sea to Karachi (1937)\n\nBooks by Earhart\n\nEarhart was a successful and heavily promoted writer who served as aviation editor for Cosmopolitan magazine from 1928 to 1930. She wrote magazine articles, newspaper columns, essays and published two books based upon her experiences as a flyer during her lifetime:\n* 20 Hrs., 40 Min. (1928) was a journal of her experiences as the first woman passenger on a transatlantic flight.\nThe Fun of It (1932) was a memoir of her flying experiences and an essay on women in aviation.\nLast Flight (1937) featured the periodic journal entries she sent back to the United States during her world flight attempt, published in newspapers in the weeks prior to her final departure from New Guinea. Compiled by her husband GP Putnam after she disappeared over the Pacific, many historians consider this book to be only partially Earhart's original work." ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Taxifornia", "Califronia", "State of California", "California, USA", "California, United States of America", "Charlie Alpha", "California (state)", "31st State", "California, usa", "Calif.", "CA (state)", "Kalifòni", "California, United States America", "Thirty-first State", "Kalifornija", "California, United States", "State of California, United States", "Califórnia", "California State", "California", "California (State)", "Kalifoni", "California, US", "City (California)", "Californiay", "Christianity in California", "Thirty-First State", "California(U.S. state)", "Kalifornía", "Calfornia", "California, U.S.A.", "California’s", "The State of California", "Californny", "California (province)", "California (U.S. state)", "CA, US", "State of california", "California's", "Califnornia", "The golden state", "US-CA", "California Chronic", "California, united states of america", "CA state" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "california state", "califnornia", "christianity in california", "kalifoni", "california united states", "state of california", "california united states of america", "california s", "california us", "califórnia", "taxifornia", "californny", "california province", "california u s state", "california u s", "kalifornija", "calif", "charlie alpha", "californiay", "kalifornía", "state of california united states", "california chronic", "california usa", "ca state", "california united states america", "calfornia", "golden state", "31st state", "city california", "ca us", "califronia", "us ca", "thirty first state", "kalifòni", "california" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "california", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "California" }
What is Billy Ocean's real name?	tc_1295	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "Billy_Ocean.txt" ], "title": [ "Billy Ocean" ], "wiki_context": [ "Billy Ocean (born Leslie Sebastian Charles; 21 January 1950) is a Trinidadian-born English recording artist who had a string of R&B international pop hits in the 1970s and 1980s. He was the most popular British R&B singer-songwriter of the early to mid-1980s. After scoring his first four UK Top 20 successes, seven years passed before he accumulated a series of transatlantic successes, including three U.S. number ones. In 1985, Ocean won the Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for his worldwide hit, \"Caribbean Queen\", and in 1987 was nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Male Artist. \n\nIn 2002, the University of Westminster, London, awarded Ocean an honorary doctorate of music. In 2010, Ocean was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the MOBO Awards. On 29 July 2011, Ocean became a Companion of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, presented to him by Sir Paul McCartney. He is a member of the Rastafari movement. \n\nBiography\n\nEarly life and stardom\n\nOcean was born as Leslie Charles in Fyzabad, Trinidad and Tobago, to Hainsley Charles, a Grenadian musician and his wife Violet. He moved to Romford, Essex, England, with his family at the age of ten. He was exposed to music at an early age from his musician father, and, growing up, Ocean realized he was in line to follow his father's ambitions. During his teenage years, he sang regularly in London clubs while also working as a tailor in London's Savile Row. He was discovered by his first manager, John Morphew, who recorded a double A side single at Pye Studios in London with a full orchestra, However, the ballad singing style of Les was going out of fashion and Morphew was unable to get any major label to release it. It remains unreleased. Les's father, who countersigned the management contract as Les was younger than 18 asked Morphew to release him from contract, which he did without penalty. In 1969 he joined a local band \"The Shades of Midnight\" playing in the Shoreditch area of London. He recorded his first single, \"Nashville Rain\" backed with \"Sun In The Morning\", in 1971 for Spark Records as Les Charles and for two years fronted a studio band called Scorched Earth, with whom he released \"On The Run\" backed with \"Let's Put Our Emotions in Motion\" in 1974.\n\nFollowing his time with Scorched Earth, a routine doctor's appointment discovered an extra pulmonary node central to his (Billy's) albeit medically normal lungs. This extra lung has been attributed with the longevity of Billy's singing career. \n\nOcean took his stage name from the Ocean Estate, Stepney in London's East End, where he was living at the time. In 1976, he recorded his first album, Billy Ocean, with its first single release, \"Love Really Hurts Without You\", charting at No. 2 in the UK Singles Chart and No. 22 in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. He enjoyed club success from the songs \"Are You Ready\" and \"Stay The Night\" from the album City Limit – both of which were later covered by La Toya Jackson. More successes ensued, including \"L.O.D. (Love on Delivery)\". He also wrote and composed songs for other artists. In 1981, he scored the US R&B chart with \"Nights (Feel Like Getting Down).\"\n\nThe prime of his international success\n\nOcean's period of greatest success began with the releases, during 1984, of the album Suddenly and its main single, \"Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run)\". The song's title and lyrics were changed for different regions, such that the song is also known as \"African Queen\" or \"European Queen\". The song won Ocean the Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance at the 1985 Grammy Awards. The album's title track also became a success, peaking at No. 4 in both the U.S. and the UK and the song \"Loverboy\", while also being a No. 2 U.S. success in 1985 was also featured in the first scene of the popular UK BBC One TV series Casualty, in 1986.\n\nOcean appeared at Live Aid in 1985, singing \"Caribbean Queen\" and \"Loverboy\", from the JFK Stadium in Philadelphia.\n\nHis 1986 album Love Zone also sold well. It included the successful singles \"When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going\", the theme from the film The Jewel of the Nile; this was a No. 1 success in the UK and a No. 2 in the United States; and \"There'll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)\" (a U.S. No. 1, and also a major UK success). Also included were the title track and \"Love Is Forever\", which were No. 10 and No. 16 U.S. successes for Ocean, respectively.\n\nIn February 1986, Ocean's video of \"When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going\" was banned by the BBC, owing to such non-union members as the American actors Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito, all three of whom were cast members of Romancing The Stone and The Jewel of the Nile, miming to the backing vocals. At the 1987 BRIT Awards, Ocean was nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Male.\n\nOcean's next album, Tear Down These Walls (1988), featured another No. 1 single, \"Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car\", while the album was certified platinum.\n\nLater career\n\nHis 1993 album Time to Move On failed to produce any major successes, but his 1989 Greatest Hits collection has been a steady seller over the years, and his 1997 compilation Love Is For Ever made No. 7 on the UK album chart. Ocean's last studio album for Jive Records was Time to Move On, which he recorded in Chicago with R&B star R. Kelly. R. Kelly had been a longtime admirer of the way Ocean was able to mix the more emotive soul style with a crossover popular style.\n\nIn 2002, the University of Westminster in London awarded Ocean an honorary doctorate of music. The awards ceremony took place in the Barbican Centre, in London. He continues to tour and record in Europe. He lives in Sunningdale, Berkshire with his wife, Judy; and their three children Cherie, Antony and Rachel. Antony played rugby sevens at the 2014 Commonwealth Games for Barbados. Ocean is now a patron for Tech Music Schools in London, made up of Drumtech, Vocaltech, Guitar-X and Keyboardtech. He regularly visits to hold clinics and seminars for the students.\n\nIn 2004, \"Caribbean Queen\" was re-released as a digital single for its 20th anniversary, shooting up to No. 25 on the Billboard digital singles chart and garnering radio play across the United States and UK. A remix of the single by will.i.am was released in 2005.\n\nIn October 2007, Ocean commenced his first UK tour in more than 15 years. In February and March 2008 he toured Australia and the Far East. His album Because I Love You was released on 2 February 2009. To coincide with this tour and album launch, Ocean worked with Adoseof Design on a revision of Ocean's website.\n\nIn April 2010, an 18-track compilation album was released in the UK by Sony Music titled The Very Best of Billy Ocean to tie in with a 30-date tour of the UK and Ireland. Featuring Ocean's biggest hits, the album debuted in the UK Albums Chart at No. 17. \n\nOn 20 October 2010, Ocean was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the MOBO Awards. \n\nOn 29 July 2011, Ocean became a Companion of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. His title was presented by Sir Paul McCartney.\n\nIn 2012, Ocean made a cameo appearance in the British comedy movie Keith Lemon: The Film as Lemon's father.\n\nIn January 2016, Ocean appeared on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to perform some of his classic hits as part of a promo tour for his new album.\n\nOcean has announced a Spring Tour 2017 in the UK during March and April 2017.\n\nDiscography\n\nPersonal life\n\nOcean has been married to Judy Bayne since 1978. They have three children.\n\nOcean-penned songs recorded by other artists\n\n\"Are You Ready?\" – La Toya Jackson\n\"Stay the Night\" – La Toya Jackson\n\"Love Is a Dangerous Game\" – Millie Jackson\n\"Love Is\" – Randy Crawford\n\"Love Really Hurts Without You\" – Bad Boys Blue\n\"Taking Chances\" – Ray, Goodman & Brown\n\"Waiting For You\" – Boyzone\n\"Whatever Turns You On\" – The Dells\n\"Who's Gonna Rock You\" – The Nolans\n\"Red Light Spells Danger\" – Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May as the \"Top Gear Band\" on Top Gear of the Pops\n\"Suddenly\" – Marti Pellow\n\"Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car\" – GWAR \n*\"When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going\" – Boyzone" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "Leslie Charles", "Pressure (Billy Ocean song)", "Billy ocean", "Billy Ocean", "Calypso Crazy (Billy Ocean song)", "Les Sebastian Charles", "Leslie Sebastian Charles", "Bittersweet (Billy Ocean song)", "Licence To Chill (Billy Ocean song)", "Red Light Spells Danger", "The Colour Of Love (Billy Ocean song)" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "calypso crazy billy ocean song", "leslie charles", "licence to chill billy ocean song", "red light spells danger", "billy ocean", "leslie sebastian charles", "les sebastian charles", "pressure billy ocean song", "colour of love billy ocean song", "bittersweet billy ocean song" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "leslie charles", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "Leslie Charles" }
How was writer William Sydney Porter better known?	tc_1296	http://www.triviacountry.com/	{ "doc_source": [ "TagMe" ], "filename": [ "O._Henry.txt" ], "title": [ "O. Henry" ], "wiki_context": [ "William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910), known by his pen name O. Henry, was an American short story writer. O. Henry's short stories are known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization, and surprise endings. \n\nBiography\n\nEarly life\n\nWilliam Sidney Porter was born on September 11, 1862, in Greensboro, North Carolina. He changed the spelling of his middle name to Sydney in 1898. His parents were Dr. Algernon Sidney Porter (1825–88), a physician, and Mary Jane Virginia Swaim Porter (1833–65). William's parents had married on April 20, 1858. When William was three, his mother died from tuberculosis, and he and his father moved into the home of his paternal grandmother. As a child, Porter was always reading, everything from classics to dime novels; his favorite works were Lane's translation of One Thousand and One Nights, and Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. \n\nPorter graduated from his aunt Evelina Maria Porter's elementary school in 1876. He then enrolled at the Lindsey Street High School. His aunt continued to tutor him until he was fifteen. In 1879, he started working in his uncle's drugstore and in 1881, at the age of nineteen, he was licensed as a pharmacist. At the drugstore, he also showed off his natural artistic talents by sketching the townsfolk.\n\nMove to Texas\n\nPorter traveled with Dr. James K. Hall to Texas in March 1882, hoping that a change of air would help alleviate a persistent cough he had developed. He took up residence on the sheep ranch of Richard Hall, James' son, in La Salle County and helped out as a shepherd, ranch hand, cook and baby-sitter. While on the ranch, he learned bits of Spanish and German from the mix of immigrant ranch hands. He also spent time reading classic literature. Porter's health did improve and he traveled with Richard to Austin in 1884, where he decided to remain and was welcomed into the home of the Harrells, who were friends of Richard's. Porter took a number of different jobs over the next several years, first as pharmacist then as a draftsman, bank teller and journalist. He also began writing as a sideline.\n\nPorter led an active social life in Austin, including membership in singing and drama groups. He was a good singer and musician. He played both the guitar and mandolin. He became a member of the \"Hill City Quartet\", a group of young men who sang at gatherings and serenaded young women of the town. Porter met and began courting Athol Estes, then seventeen years old and from a wealthy family. Her mother objected to the match because Athol was ill, suffering from tuberculosis. On July 1, 1887, Porter eloped with Athol to the home of Reverend R. K. Smoot, where they were married.\n\nThe couple continued to participate in musical and theater groups, and Athol encouraged her husband to pursue his writing. Athol gave birth to a son in 1888, who died hours after birth, and then a daughter, Margaret Worth Porter, in September 1889. Porter's friend Richard Hall became Texas Land Commissioner and offered Porter a job. Porter started as a draftsman at the Texas General Land Office (GLO) in 1887 at a salary of $100 a month, drawing maps from surveys and field notes. The salary was enough to support his family, but he continued his contributions to magazines and newspapers.\n\nIn the GLO building, he began developing characters and plots for such stories as \"Georgia's Ruling\" (1900), and \"Buried Treasure\" (1908). The castle-like building he worked in was even woven into some of his tales such as \"Bexar Scrip No. 2692\" (1894).\n\nHis job at the GLO was a political appointment by Hall. Hall ran for governor in the election of 1890 but lost. Porter resigned in early 1891 when the new governor, Jim Hogg, was sworn in.\n\nThe same year, Porter began working at the First National Bank of Austin as a teller and bookkeeper at the same salary he had made at the GLO. The bank was operated informally and Porter was apparently careless in keeping his books and may have embezzled funds. In 1894, he was accused by the bank of embezzlement and lost his job but was not indicted.\n\nHe then worked full-time on his humorous weekly called The Rolling Stone, which he started while working at the bank. The Rolling Stone featured satire on life, people and politics and included Porter's short stories and sketches. Although eventually reaching a top circulation of 1500, The Rolling Stone failed in April 1895 since the paper never provided an adequate income. However, his writing and drawings had caught the attention of the editor at the Houston Post.\n\nPorter and his family moved to Houston in 1895, where he started writing for the Post. His salary was only $25 a month, but it rose steadily as his popularity increased. Porter gathered ideas for his column by loitering in hotel lobbies and observing and talking to people there. This was a technique he used throughout his writing career.\n\nWhile he was in Houston, federal auditors audited the First National Bank of Austin and found the embezzlement shortages that led to his firing. A federal indictment followed and he was arrested on charges of embezzlement.\n\nFlight and return\n\nPorter's father-in-law posted bail to keep him out of jail. He was due to stand trial on July 7, 1896, but the day before, as he was changing trains to get to the courthouse, an impulse hit him. He fled, first to New Orleans and later to Honduras, with which the United States had no extradition treaty at that time. In Honduras, William became friends with Al Jennings, a notorious train robber, who later wrote a book about their friendship. He holed up in a Trujillo hotel for several months, where he wrote Cabbages and Kings, in which he coined the term \"banana republic\" to describe the country, a phrase subsequently used widely to describe a small, unstable tropical nation in Latin America with a narrowly focused, agrarian economy. Porter had sent Athol and Margaret back to Austin to live with Athol's parents. Unfortunately, Athol became too ill to meet Porter in Honduras as he had planned. When he learned that his wife was dying, Porter returned to Austin in February 1897 and surrendered to the court, pending an appeal. Once again, Porter's father-in-law posted bail so that he could stay with Athol and Margaret.\n\nAthol Estes Porter died from tuberculosis (then known as consumption) on July 25, 1897. Porter had little to say in his own defense, and was found guilty of embezzlement in February 1898, sentenced to five years in prison, and imprisoned on March 25, 1898 at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. Porter was a licensed pharmacist and was able to work in the prison hospital as the night druggist. He was given his own room in the hospital wing, and there is no record that he actually spent time in the cell block of the prison. He had fourteen stories published under various pseudonyms while he was in prison, but was becoming best known as \"O. Henry\", a pseudonym that first appeared over the story \"Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking\" in the December 1899 issue of McClure's Magazine. A friend of his in New Orleans would forward his stories to publishers so that they had no idea that the writer was imprisoned.\n\nPorter was released on July 24, 1901 for good behavior after serving three years. He reunited with his daughter Margaret, now age 11, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Athol's parents had moved after Porter's conviction. Margaret was never told that her father had been in prison—just that he had been away on business.\n\nLater life\n\nPorter's most prolific writing period started in 1902, when he moved to New York City to be near his publishers. While there, he wrote 381 short stories. He wrote a story a week for over a year for the New York World Sunday Magazine. His wit, characterization, and plot twists were adored by his readers, but often panned by critics.\n\nPorter married again in 1907 to childhood sweetheart Sarah (Sallie) Lindsey Coleman, whom he met again after revisiting his native state of North Carolina. Sarah Lindsey Coleman was herself a writer and wrote a romanticized and fictionalized version of their correspondence and courtship in her novella Wind of Destiny. \n\nPorter was a heavy drinker, and his health deteriorated markedly in 1908, which affected his writing. In 1909, Sarah left him, and he died on June 5, 1910, of cirrhosis of the liver, complications of diabetes, and an enlarged heart. After funeral services in New York City, he was buried in the Riverside Cemetery in Asheville, North Carolina. His daughter, Margaret Worth Porter, had a short writing career from 1913 to 1916. She married cartoonist Oscar Cesare of New York in 1916; they were divorced four years later. She died of tuberculosis in 1927 and is buried next to her father.\n\nWorks\n\nCabbages and Kings (1904)\n\nA series of stories which explore aspects of life in a paralytically sleepy Central American town, each advancing some aspect of the larger plot and relating back one to another in a complex structure. The larger, overriding plot slowly explicates its own background, even as it creates a town which is one of the most detailed literary creations of the period.\n\nIn this book, O. Henry coined the term \"banana republic\".\n\nRoads of Destiny (1909)\n\nA collection of 22 short stories:\n\n\"Roads of Destiny\", \"The Guardian of the Accolade\", \"The Discounters of Money\", \"The Enchanted Profile\", \"Next to Reading Matter\", \"Art and the Bronco\", \"Phœbe\", \"A Double-dyed Deceiver\", \"The Passing of Black Eagle\", \"A Retrieved Reformation\", \"Cherchez la Femme\", \"Friends in San Rosario\", \"The Fourth in Salvador\", \"The Emancipation of Billy\", \"The Enchanted Kiss\", \"A Departmental Case\", \"The Renaissance at Charleroi\", \"On Behalf of the Management\", \"Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking\", \"The Halberdier of the Little Rheinschloss\", \"Two Renegades\" and \"The Lonesome Road\"\n\nWhirligigs (1910)\n\nA collection of 24 short stories: \"The World and the Door\", \"The Theory and the Hound\", \"The Hypotheses of Failure\", \"Calloway's Code\", \"A Matter of Mean Elevation\", \"Girl\", \"Sociology in Serge and Straw\", \"The Ransom of Red Chief\", \"The Marry Month of May\", \"A Technical Error\", \"Suite Homes and Their Romance\", \"The Whirligig of Life\", \"A Sacrifice Hit\", \"The Roads We Take\", \"A Blackjack Bargainer, \"The Song and the Sergeant\", \"One Dollar's Worth\", \"A Newspaper Story\", \"Tommy's Burglar\", \"A Chaparral Christmas Gift\", \"A Little Local Colour\", \"Georgia's Ruling\", \"Blind Man's Holiday\", and \"Madame Bo Peep of the Ranches\".\n\nStories\n\nO. Henry's stories frequently have surprise endings. In his day, he was called the American answer to Guy de Maupassant. While both authors wrote plot twist endings, O. Henry stories were considerably more playful. His stories are also known for witty narration.\n\nMost of O. Henry's stories are set in his own time, the early 20th century. Many take place in New York City and deal for the most part with ordinary people: clerks, policemen, waitresses, etc.\n\nO. Henry's work is wide-ranging, and his characters can be found roaming the cattle-lands of Texas, exploring the art of the con-man, or investigating the tensions of class and wealth in turn-of-the-century New York. O. Henry had an inimitable hand for isolating some element of society and describing it with an incredible economy and grace of language. Some of his best and least-known work is contained in Cabbages and Kings, a series of stories each of which explores some individual aspect of life in a paralytically sleepy Central American town, while advancing some aspect of the larger plot and relating back one to another.\n\nCabbages and Kings was his first collection of stories, followed by The Four Million. The second collection opens with a reference to Ward McAllister's \"assertion that there were only 'Four Hundred' people in New York City who were really worth noticing. But a wiser man has arisen—the census taker—and his larger estimate of human interest has been preferred in marking out the field of these little stories of the 'Four Million.'\" To O. Henry, everyone in New York counted.\n\nHe had an obvious affection for the city, which he called \"Bagdad-on-the-Subway\", and many of his stories are set there—while others are set in small towns or in other cities.\n\nHis final work was \"Dream\", a short story intended for the magazine The Cosmopolitan but left incomplete at the time of his death. \n\nAmong his most famous stories are:\n* \"The Gift of the Magi\" about a young couple who are short of money but desperately want to buy each other Christmas gifts. Unbeknownst to Jim, Della sells her most valuable possession, her beautiful hair, in order to buy a platinum fob chain for Jim's watch; while unbeknownst to Della, Jim sells his own most valuable possession, his watch, to buy jeweled combs for Della's hair. The essential premise of this story has been copied, re-worked, parodied, and otherwise re-told countless times in the century since it was written.\n* \"The Ransom of Red Chief\", in which two men kidnap a boy of ten. The boy turns out to be so bratty and obnoxious that the desperate men ultimately pay the boy's father $250 to take him back.\n* \"The Cop and the Anthem\" about a New York City hobo named Soapy, who sets out to get arrested so that he can be a guest of the city jail instead of sleeping out in the cold winter. Despite efforts at petty theft, vandalism, disorderly conduct, and \"mashing\" with a young prostitute, Soapy fails to draw the attention of the police. Disconsolate, he pauses in front of a church, where an organ anthem inspires him to clean up his life—and is ironically charged for loitering and sentenced to three months in prison.\n* \"A Retrieved Reformation\", which tells the tale of safecracker Jimmy Valentine, recently freed from prison. He goes to a town bank to case it before he robs it. As he walks to the door, he catches the eye of the banker's beautiful daughter. They immediately fall in love and Valentine decides to give up his criminal career. He moves into the town, taking up the identity of Ralph Spencer, a shoemaker. Just as he is about to leave to deliver his specialized tools to an old associate, a lawman who recognizes him arrives at the bank. Jimmy and his fiancée and her family are at the bank, inspecting a new safe, when a child accidentally gets locked inside the airtight vault. Knowing it will seal his fate, Valentine opens the safe to rescue the child. However, much to Valentine's surprise, the lawman denies recognizing him and lets him go.\n* \"The Duplicity of Hargraves\". A short story about a nearly destitute father and daughter's trip to Washington, D.C.\n* \"The Caballero's Way\", in which Porter's most famous character, the Cisco Kid, is introduced. It was first published in 1907 in the July issue of Everybody's Magazine and collected in the book Heart of the West that same year. In later film and TV depictions, the Kid would be portrayed as a dashing adventurer, perhaps skirting the edges of the law, but primarily on the side of the angels. In the original short story, the only story by Porter to feature the character, the Kid is a murderous, ruthless border desperado, whose trail is dogged by a heroic Texas Ranger. The twist ending is, unusually for Porter, tragic.\n\nPen name\n\nPorter used a number of pen names (including \"O. Henry\" or \"Olivier Henry\") in the early part of his writing career; other names included S.H. Peters, James L. Bliss, T.B. Dowd, and Howard Clark. Nevertheless, the name \"O. Henry\" seemed to garner the most attention from editors and the public, and was used exclusively by Porter for his writing by about 1902. He gave various explanations for the origin of his pen name. In 1909 he gave an interview to The New York Times, in which he gave an account of it:\n\nWilliam Trevor writes in the introduction to The World of O. Henry: Roads of Destiny and Other Stories (Hodder & Stoughton, 1973) that \"there was a prison guard named Orrin Henry\" in the Ohio State Penitentiary \"whom William Sydney Porter ... immortalised as O. Henry\".\n\nAccording to J. F. Clarke it is from the name of the French pharmacist Etienne Ossian Henry, whose name is in the U. S. Dispensary which Porter used working in the prison pharmacy. \n\nWriter and scholar Guy Davenport offers his own hypothesis: \"The pseudonym that he began to write under in prison is constructed from the first two letters of Ohio and the second and last two of penitentiary.\"\n\nLegacy \n\nThe O. Henry Award is a prestigious annual prize named after Porter and given to outstanding short stories.\n\nA film was made in 1952 featuring five stories, called O. Henry's Full House. The episode garnering the most critical acclaim was \"The Cop and the Anthem\" starring Charles Laughton and Marilyn Monroe. The other stories are \"The Clarion Call\", \"The Last Leaf\", \"The Ransom of Red Chief\" (starring Fred Allen and Oscar Levant), and \"The Gift of the Magi\".\n\nThe O. Henry House and O. Henry Hall, both in Austin, Texas, are named for him. O. Henry Hall, now owned by the University of Texas, previously served as the federal courthouse in which O. Henry was convicted of embezzlement.\n\nPorter has elementary schools named for him in Greensboro, North Carolina (William Sydney Porter Elementary) and Garland, Texas (O. Henry Elementary), as well as a middle school in Austin, Texas (O. Henry Middle School). The O. Henry Hotel in Greensboro is also named for Porter.\n\nIn 1962, the Soviet Postal Service issued a stamp commemorating O'Henry's 100th birthday. On September 11, 2012, the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp commemorating the 150th anniversary of O. Henry's birth. \n\nOn November 23, 2011, Barack Obama quoted O. Henry while granting pardons to two turkeys named \"Liberty\" and \"Peace\". In response, political science professor P. S. Ruckman, Jr., and Texas attorney Scott Henson filed a formal application for a posthumous pardon in September 2012, the same month that the U.S. Postal Service issued its O. Henry stamp.Jim Schlosser, \"[http://www.ohenrymag.com/?page_id\n51 Please Mr. President, Pardon O. Henry]\", O. Henry Magazine, October 2013. Retrieved September 26, 2013. Previous attempts were made to obtain such a pardon for Porter in the administrations of Woodrow Wilson, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan, but no one had ever bothered to file a formal application. Ruckman and Henson argued that Porter deserved a pardon because (1) he was a law-abiding citizen prior to his conviction; (2) his offense was minor; (3) he had an exemplary prison record; (4) his post-prison life clearly indicated rehabilitation; (5) he would have been an excellent candidate for clemency in his time, had he but applied for pardon; (6) by today's standards, he remains an excellent candidate for clemency; and (7) his pardon would be a well-deserved symbolic gesture and more.\n\nNotes" ] }	{ "description": [], "filename": [], "rank": [], "title": [], "url": [], "search_context": [] }	{ "aliases": [ "O.henry books", "William Sidney Porter", "O. Henry", "Henry, O.", "Oliver Henry", "O.Henry", "O Henry", "William Sydeny Porter", "William Sydney Porter", "William S. Porter", "Heart of the West (O. Henry story)", "Sidney Porter", "O'Henry", "Sydney Porter" ], "normalized_aliases": [ "heart of west o henry story", "o henry", "henry o", "william sydney porter", "william s porter", "oliver henry", "sidney porter", "william sidney porter", "o henry books", "william sydeny porter", "sydney porter" ], "matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_matched_wiki_entity_name": "", "normalized_value": "o henry", "type": "WikipediaEntity", "value": "O Henry" }

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